05-14-25 - *FULL SHOW* Pete Rose Unbanned; Leland Vittert; Wow That's A Big Loss

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I got to the building here about an hour earlier
than usual because my kid needed to get to his
school about an hour earlier than usual.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
And that's the route I take.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
I take the kid to school and then I come
and then I come straight to the radio station, to
the iHeart Building here, and so I got here real early,
and I thought, you know, it'd be fun to go
down to the floor below us is where most of
our music stations are. And you know, here in the
iHeart Building, we've got you know, we've got the Fox,
and we've got KBPI, and we've got KTCL, and we've

(00:35):
got KBCO, and we've got I don't know the name
of the current top forty station because the name has
changed the time or two. We've got the Bull, the
country music station. So we've got just some of the
best music in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Here in the building. And I just thought i'd go down.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
And even though I've been in radio a long time,
I haven't been around a lot of the rock and
roll shows, the FM morning shows, stuff like that. So
I went down to the Fox and and just hang
out for a little bit with Rick Lewis and Kathy
Lee on their fabulous morning show on the Fox and
they said, Ross, you want to go on the air
with us?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I said, okay, why not? And and and.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
They said, all right, well, what we need to ask
you is question those big topic on the show yesterday,
which was would you prefer to have diarrhea or constipation?
And I am not going to elaborate on this on
my show here on KAA. I'm just going to tell
you that's been my morning so far talking about that

(01:32):
particular question. And it turned out that my buddy, doctor
David Opperman, the brilliant voice doctor from Colorado Voice Clinic,
happened to be listening and texted me to say, that's
a great topic, Ross. And then I mentioned it to
a couple people around here, and everybody's got an opinion,

(01:54):
everybody's gotten and I'm not going to elaborate.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I'm just going to stop there.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'm just just gonna stop.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Oh gosh, But that's been my morning so far. All right.
We got a lot, we got a lot of stuff
to do today.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
We had some really interesting guests. Actually, in about half
an hour, we're gonna have Jack Corgan on the show.
We just had him recently, but we're gonna have Jack
back on the show because of this move by the
commissioner of Major League Baseball to change the rules about
perpetual bands on people like Pete Rose, like shoeless Joe
Jackson from the nineteen nineteen Chicago Black Sox, who was

(02:32):
accused and incredibly so I don't never really proven, but
credibly accused of throwing the world throwing the World Series.
And anyway, Baseball commissioner changed a rule and I won't
even go into.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
The details of it right now.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
We'll talk about it with Jack Corrigan in about half
an hour, so that's gonna be an interesting thing. We
got Leland Viddert near the end of the show, and
just a ton of stuff to talk about. In between
all that, I just wanted to mention something. I won't
say it's an important story, but it's it's kind of
fun and it's.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
This is up on my blog. Actually, if you want
to go find it easily, you just go.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
To Rosskominski dot com and click on the Wednesday blogcast.
But there's this thing that I think last year was
the first year of it, called Project Rattlecam like Rattlesnake,
but Rattlecam. And somebody somewhere in Colorado and They have
not disclosed the location because they don't want tourists or

(03:29):
whatever to.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Go there and mess this up.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
But they found what they call a mega den where
and I'm quoting from Axios. Now, hundreds and possibly thousands
of prairie rattlesnakes are currently emerging from their winter slumber.
And what you've got on my blog and I put
it right at the top of my blog. What you've

(03:52):
what they've got is a live stream on YouTube and
I actually actually put it on last night.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I actually put it on last.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
And it's in black and white at night, and there
was actually a snake moving around. They don't tend to
be too active at night, but it was a warm
day and anyway, so I've got the link on my
blog and you can you.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Can go check it out and just you.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Know, do a live watch of these rattlesnakes in this
megazin And most of the time they're not moving around.
But I think it's super cool. I think it's super cool.
And uh, Lasagna. They named some of these snakes Lasagna,
or they have named and tracked two dozen of them.
Lasagna is known for folding her body like a big

(04:39):
pan of lasagna. Alongside her pal ramen noodles, hang with noodles,
her bio reads. Stubby is missing a tail but remains
brave and resilient.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
You get the idea. Anyway, And I guess these You can.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Watch these snakes moving around, cuddling up with each other.
On rare occasion, you can even catch a snake giving
giving birth. Actually I don't know with some snakes lay
eggs and some snakes have live babies, and I don't
know which these do. But anyway, I just think it's
fun because I'm a nerd. So that's up at Ross
Kaminski dot com the Rattle Camps.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
You want to check it out. All right, Now, let's
do something else.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yesterday we spent much of the show most of the
second hour talking about analyzing President Trump's appearance in his
speech at the US Saudi Investment Forum in Riad. And
this is Donald Trump's first how do I want to
put this first major international trip, his first planned international trip.

(05:39):
He had one that was essentially very short notice, unplanned
trip to go to the funeral of Pope Francis. But
this is the first trip. It's second time, second term
in a row, where he made his first trip to
Saudi Arabia, right and not to Europe, which is an
interesting and intentional signal. And we spent a lot of
time talking about what he did in Saudi Arabia yesterday,

(06:01):
and I won't revisit it right now, but one of
the things that he did outside of the view of
the cameras and after my show was he met with
the current president of Syria. I guess they're technically calling
him the interim president because he kind of took over
but hasn't had an election yet. And the guy's name

(06:22):
is Ahmad al Shahrah And I forget what his battle
name was. You know, a lot of these guys have
these nom de guerre, and but he he is a
former Jihattist and yeah, okay, it was Abu Mohammed al Golani.
That was his name as a Jihatist, and he was
affiliated with a group that had connections with al Qaeda,

(06:45):
and it was it.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Was bad group.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Now they've taken over Siria, they don't have full control
of everything. There are still some remnants of the Assad
regime there. But most of what's come out of this
guy's mouth has been pretty hopeful. He's been saying he
doesn't want to implement Sharia. He doesn't want to go,
you know, kill everybody who's of a different sect or
even even Christians. He seems to be wanting to be

(07:11):
tolerant of this stuff. And look, I don't know whether
I believe him, but he seems pretty sincere and he
seems like he's acting that way.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Now.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
The US has had sanctions on Syria for twenty five
years something like that, and no American president has met
with the leader of Syria for twenty five years, for sure.
And yesterday, kind of on the sidelines of that meeting
in Riod, Trump met with the Syrian president and Trump
called him a young, attractive guy, tough guy, strong past,

(07:46):
very strong past.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Fighter.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
So these are the things Trump cares about, Right, is
somebody strong, is he a fighter? And is he good looking?
These are the things things Trump cares about. In any case,
Trump is announced that he is lifting US imposed sanctions
on Syria.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
There's even a former.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Obiden Obiden that there's an unintentional Freudian slip Obama national
security official named Tommy Vitor, who I don't like very much,
but he said this is right, and it's not without risk.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
And it's politically.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Courageous of Trump, but it's the right thing to do
to lift these sanctions. I think it's the right thing
to do also. And Trump is leaning on the guy
a little bit to like, okay, try to we want
you to normalize relations with Israel.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
This, that and the other thing.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And there were there were literally literally people dancing and
celebrating in the streets in Syria yesterday thinking, you know what,
maybe we'll get back to having a normal life here.
I sure hope they do. I think it's a good
move by Trump. We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Thanks. Thanks for any listening you give me. I really
do value your time.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
So, on one hand, you don't necessarily want people to
get in a lot of Trump for for what some
might see as a minor infraction, or maybe a little
more than minor, but maybe in the you know, offender's
own odd way was was well intentioned and they're trying

(09:13):
to do something good, and you don't necessarily want to
see someone punish too much for that kind of thing.
And on the other hand, sometimes you just have to
make a lesson of somebody so that other people don't
go do that same thing, even if in their mind
it was well intended, and probably the best idea as

(09:36):
a way to live your life is to not do
something that will put you in the position of being
a lesson. So I share with you from Nationalreview dot com.
Although lots and lots of outlets have this story, federal
grand jury indicts Wisconstant judge for allegedly helping illegal immigrants

(09:58):
avoid arrest.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
I think we've I've all heard the story.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
It was a rather egregious thing, and I think she's
in a lot of trouble. And if I were that judge,
if they offer her a plea that involves no prison time,
I would take it. I do wonder if she can
still be a judge if she takes it.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
If not, she can't still be a judge.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
If she takes it, then she might fight it because
it might be so important to her to try to
remain a judge that she's willing to risk time in
prison and in order to have the possibility of being
found not guilty.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's my guess. I don't know now. I did hear
a really interesting thing this morning.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
There was a dude I didn't catch his name, don't
know where he's from. I think a reporter who was
talking with Dana Perino on Fox News about this story,
and he said, what happened was there was a public
defender who was in the buildings, is in the courthouse,
and by way, this illegal alien is in court. He
had been he had been deported after facing some criminal

(11:03):
charges a little over a decade ago, snuck back in
at some point was in court facing battery and domestic
violence charges. And what this guy told Dana is that
there was a public defender there in the building who
saw ICE agents in uniform. And I loved how this

(11:28):
reporter put it to Dana. He said, this guy decided
to do like a reverse, Like no, not reverse. I
awoke Paul Revere.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Ice is coming. ICE is coming.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
He goes to the judge and says ICE is here
and trying to get the judge to protect these illegal aliens.
This And I actually, I actually don't think that what
that person did was legally wrong.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
It was morally wrong.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
But I don't think it's a crime to just say
to somebody else, Ice is here, even if your intent
was to get that person.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
To go do something.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
So so then, as the guy related this story on
Fox this morning, so the judge hears, and she shuffles
this illegal alien, alleged criminal, probably a criminal in this case,
and maybe his lawyer too, out the side door that's

(12:26):
not for public use, it's for the use of court
employees basically, and some other stuff out that door to
try to get him out in the back. And apparently
the woke public defender didn't realize that. In addition to
those uniformed ice guys there and maybe gals two, I
don't know, there were also some who weren't in uniform

(12:49):
who ended up seeing the guy sneaking out of the
back and they they eventually caught him, and then they
got the judge, and on and on and on. In
any case, yesterday a federal grand jury indicted this judge
for allegedly helping an illegal immigrant evade federal authorities.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
And you know that.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Of course, her attorney says, you know, she's going to
prove her innocence and be vindicated in court.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
But I think she's in big trouble.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
I think she's in big trouble, and I think she
deserves to be in big trouble. And look, I'm not
saying this is something where you you know, hang.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Them, you know, I don't. I don't think it's a
I don't think it's.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
A death penalty offense, but I do think that, and
I think she is probably well intended, like she wants
to help somebody, but she not only did she break
the law, she broke the law to help somebody who
was in her courtroom for being charged with domestic violence
and is an illegal immigrant. And she's a judge who'd taken.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
An oath to uphold the law.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
So if there's anybody who could have taken a well
intended thing and done it worse, I can't think of it.
This is about as you know. This is bad. And
like I said, if I were this judge, I would
take a play if they offer it. That said, it
wouldn't surprise me if Pam Bondy in the Department of
Justice don't offer a play, they might want to make

(14:13):
an example of her, and I wouldn't blame him for
doing so. I don't know a lot about baseball. I
know a little bit, not enough to be helpful, maybe
not even enough to be dangerous. But luckily I have
a friend who knows a lot, and that's Jack Corrigan.
He was on the show the other just the other day,
and most people don't get invited back twice in such
short succession.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
But when you know as much as Jack knows about
something that I know.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
So little about, I really have very little option other
than to call him Hi, Jack, good morning Ross.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
I feel privileged to be a multi guest in the
same week.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
So I grew up watching Pete Rose, and I did
not grow up watching Shoeless. Joe Jackson a little before
my time, and you're old, but he's a little even
before your time.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
And I love these conversations. I do.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, of course, I'm.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Glad we're friends.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Otherwise you've be hanging up on me right now, and
and and yesterday we had a decision from the Commission
of Major League Baseball that affects these guys and another
dozen and a half other guys. So before we get
into the nitty gritty of what we think about it
or what you think about it, can you tell us
what the decision was.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Well, essentially, Rob Manfred interpreted the rules in terms of
the Hall of Fame from Major League Baseball's perspective that
a person who has been suspended slash banned from from

(15:54):
the game has that suspension banning eliminated upon their death.
So obviously, for people like Joe Jackson and the other
members of the infamous Chicago Black Sox, they're all deceased,

(16:15):
so they are no longer considered suspended by Major League Baseball,
and the same with Pete Rose. So that's the first
part of it. People then immediately assume Ross that, well,
now these guys are going to get into the Hall
of Fame, and how are they chainting baseball if you will,

(16:41):
by doing so. But it's more layered than that, and
that's really kind of the next step is this discussion goes.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
On, all right, and I assume there are some people
on this permanently banned list who are still alive right now.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
I'm just guessing, though.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Yeah, I mean you have people I don't know if
they're permanently banned, but the the Peed group, you know,
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGuire, rape L
Palmerow there there's an interesting list. So, I mean those

(17:27):
that are you know, where does the Hall consider those things?
But the big issue here, Ross is that most people
don't realize that, well, major League Baseball is obviously very involved.
They don't have the final say on who does or

(17:47):
doesn't get into the Hall of Fame. That's really the
baseball writers around the country. And you know, in the
case of people like Rose and others, it's a Veterans Committee,
which is a group of writers, former players who are

(18:10):
in the Hall, and other retired baseball executives.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Does that?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
So are you suggesting or stating that theoretically Pete Rose
could have been inducted into the Hall of Fame no
matter what MLB said about him.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Know what Rob Manfred did is he removed in a sense,
the automatic prohibition, if you will, because they were suspended
slash band, they couldn't be considered but now that they're deceased,
they could be considered it. And really the under one

(18:58):
of the underlying motives there was Rob Manfred or Bud
Selig before him. Their fear a lot of layers, but
their fear and in my judgment about Rose being selected
at some point would be that he would use his

(19:18):
speech at the induction to absolutely oviscerate Major League Baseball
and that they weren't going to give him a platform.
Is kind of the bottom line out of all of it.
Nobody disputes his baseball qualifications, but it's more than baggage.

(19:43):
It's the back of the truck in terms of the
extras that Pete Rose carried.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
So all right, again, obviously you're one of the true
experts on this, and.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
I know I know almost nothing right. I know watching
the Reds when.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
I when I as a kid, as I think about
these different groups that we're talking about here now, and
there's lots of different reasons, but let's talk about Pete
Rose's one category. The Chicago Black Socks is another category,
and the performance enhancing drug groups is another category. So
I understand that there is a very hard and fast

(20:23):
rule in Major League Baseball about gambling on games if
you're part of the league in any way, even if
you're betting on your own team. And I haven't seen
evidence that Pete Rose ever bet against his team.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
You can tell me if I have that wrong.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
But he didn't throw a game, and he didn't cheat,
whereas the other groups did those things. And in my mind,
just again as a spectator and not an expert, I
feel like Rose deserves a little bit less harsh treatment

(20:59):
than people who I feel like corrupted the game more
than a lot more than Rose did. But maybe you
think what Rose did was close to or equally corrupting
to the game as the other stuff.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Well, to take it to another layer, oss which makes
it so interesting, All of the evidence against the Black
Sox players in throwing the nineteen nineteen World Series, at
least in the court of law, was disproven. I mean,

(21:36):
they were all found innocent in the court of law.
And Kennesaw Mountain Landis who was a judge himself at
one point, who was made the commissioner, he was the
one that found them guilty in the laws of baseball.
But technically from a criminal legal perspective of uh, they

(22:01):
were never found guilty much in the same way. We
don't know or didn't have the evidence to prove that
Rose uh against uh the Reds, Well, he was a manager,
but there was plenty of speculation and pretty good witness

(22:27):
evidence that he was a heavy gambler. And and he
had other issues, uh you know, spend time in prison
for tax evasion, had an issue with an underage girl
for a while.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
You know. It's it ultimately gets down to is it
a hall of fame or is it a hall of morality?
As I've heard some people describe and you know, they
want uh Rose and some of the others to be
judged strictly on how they performed as a player. But

(23:06):
as we know, I mean that baggage, if you will.
The other stuff always enters into things when people are
voting on something.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Do Jack, do you vote on this? Are you a voter?

Speaker 3 (23:22):
You've just stuck me with a needle, Ross, because one
of the frustrations for a lot of us is that
that voting is controlled by the Baseball Writers Association of
America and they alone vote on the Hall of Fame
Veterans Committee has some different people, but they alone vote

(23:45):
on it. And the basic problem is nobody watches games
as closely as baseball broadcasters do because we have to.
I mean, especially on the radio side. You're you're the
eyes and ears for your audience. And you know, you
think about it. Vince Scully broadcast baseball for sixty seven

(24:09):
years and never had a vote on who belonged in
the Hall of Fame. And he's saw more baseball than anybody.
Yeah so, and you'll have times where guys got in
or didn't get in based more on the capricious feelings
of some sports calumnist, a writer who buy experience or

(24:36):
just reputation, decided that you know, hey, that Roth Kaminski.
I don't care if he hit four hundred or nine years.
He's a piece of work and treated you know, so
and so badly. So heck with him. Go vote for him,
and you know that happens in lots of voting. But
the baseball side of it's frustrating for that fact, for

(25:01):
my fraternity, if you will, the people who watched the
game as closely as anybody.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
I didn't mean to raise a sore subject with you.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
No, well, you know I'll keep waving that play. Yeah,
nobody's gonna look at it.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Right there, you go. We're talking with Jack car again.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
He is, of course, with his broadcast partner Jerry Shammel,
the voice of the Colorado Rockies. And and uh, Jack,
for how many years in total have you been broadcasting
baseball if.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
You include your time in Cleveland for forty year seasons? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:34):
I see a quote from Marcus Giamatti, who was the
son of the commissioner who signed the original band that
I guess was really in agreement with Rose.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
And he said the Suns because because was his name, Bart?
Was Bart the dad? Correct? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
So Bart I think died like just maybe days after
doing this thing with with Rose. Marcus the son says
he's incredibly disappointed in decision, and I'm quoting here, I'm
also disappointed that my family wasn't consulted. The commissioner's decision
makes this a dark day for baseball, the country, and
the fans. My father's mission by banning Rose was to

(26:15):
uphold the integrity of the game. Therefore, reinstating Rose in
this manner puts that integrity Rule twenty one and everything
that my father fought to uphold in peril. So let
me just make this a little bit more of a
personal question for you, Jack, and again not to stick
you with a needle, but if you, if you were

(26:35):
a voter, would you be willing to consider voting for
Pete Rose?

Speaker 2 (26:42):
And yeah, let's do. Let's start there.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
I probably would say no in terms of voting for Rose,
because enough consideration of what he tarnished with the game.
I think part of the the motivation of Rob Manfred

(27:09):
and baseball right now is the the contradictory nature of
the fact that you're keeping people out for gambling and
yet one of the big advertisers or advertising groups for

(27:30):
baseball now is sports betting, you know. I mean, that's
that's a pretty pretty large contradiction. I totally respect or
appreciate a Rose's contribution as a player just on the field,

(27:51):
but even even then, Pete Wood play to the edge
or cross the line. And no, it's not necessarily a
hall of morality. But I think people that you do honor,
you would hope, for the most part, are at least

(28:12):
somewhat exemplary in terms of their character. I think for
Pete it was always was to his grave about Pete
and not about the game, or his teammates or anything else.
And probably that's why if I had a vote, I

(28:32):
would not vote him into the Hall.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
You know, what it reminds me of a little bit
is a phrase you hear in lots of other contexts,
you know, for example, when the Hunter Biden stuff was
going on during the Biden administration, or there's a lot
of other context But nobody's above the law, and maybe
the right lesson here, And this is what I think
you're pointing at is that you could be the greatest

(28:58):
player of all time. And I don't know if Rose
is the greatest player of all time. But he's on
that list for sure. You could be among the greatest
players of all time, but if you break the rules,
you're gonna be punished just like anybody else would be.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
And maybe that's maybe that's.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
The right lesson, not just for baseball, but for you know,
my kids.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, I think that's a I congratulations for us. There's
one of your good analogies.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah. No, yeah, it is true. I mean put it
another way, just from a personal perspective for me. In
nineteen ninety five, Albert Bell had one of the greatest
individual seasons in baseball history. Strike strike short in the
year he was remarkable for Cleveland. He didn't win the

(29:49):
MVP Award. Mow Vaughn or the Red Sox did because
Albert was, you know, a contrarian. Very few people liked them,
you know, gotten fights with uh sports writers, fans, media,
so he didn't win the award. He was the best
player that year in the American League, but he didn't

(30:11):
win the award because a lot of people said, I
don't care how good he is for all of this stuff,
I'm not voting for him.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Jack Carrigan, voice of the Colorado Rockies. Thanks for your
time as always, Jack, I wish you and the team
lots of luck.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Thank you, Ross, appreciate a good talking to you, my friend.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
You too, you too. All Right, that was fabulous conversation.
I said, I don't know. I don't know much about baseball,
but I think this particular story is fascinating from so
many ways that go that go beyond baseball. So I
hope you, I hope you found that interesting. A listener

(30:49):
just asked me, is uh his Ty Cobb in the
Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, he's been in He's been in.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
The Hall of Fame for like less than a century,
but not a lot less than a century.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think ty Cobb got into the.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Baseball Hall of Fame like before World War Two. Maybe
someone can correct me, but I'm pretty sure Ty Cobb
has been in there for a long long time. All right,
let me switch gears with you. I've had this concept
in mind for many years that one of the signals,

(31:24):
not necessarily a foolproof signal, but one of the signals
that the United States of America might be a little
bit on the right track when it comes to the
federal government is if real estate values in and around Washington, DC.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Start declining.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
And just to be kind of precise with this, I
mean you could be in a situation where real estate
values across the country would be declining, so declining more
than other metro areas. And I saw this story over
at Axios and it reminded me of my little theorem,
and that is this from Axio. Signs of a doze

(32:12):
recession are flashing in DC, rising unemployment, less credit cards, spending,
and jitters about more federal cuts. A local mild recession
they're calling it is expected as the Trump administration downsizes
the capital city's big factory. The federal government employers seventeen
percent of the region's workforce. And I'm going to skip

(32:33):
ahead just any interest of time. Spending at big stores
in the region drop two percent last month. DC home
listings are soaring. Unemployment is up a little bit in
the area. Now, unemployment in that area is almost always
very very low. So unemployment in Fairfax County, Virginia, which

(32:54):
is where you have a lot of big office buildings
and headquarters for giant defense contractors, for example, that jobless
rate rose to three point two percent, which is a
very low number, but it's much higher than it was
just several months.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Earlier in any case. In any case, look, I.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Don't root for any individual person to lose a job,
but I do root for our federal government to be
much smaller, much smaller, much.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Less expensive, much less everything.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
And because so many of those people who make their
livings by taking our tax dollars live in and around Washington, DC,
it's always seemed to me that a DC residential real
estate indicator would be a good one. And the fact
that it looks like DC real estate is some of
the weakest in the country that makes me a little

(33:44):
bit happy. Win a pair of twenty twenty five Broncos
home game tickets of your choice, meaning you get to
pick which home game on theoin koa Instagram page right now.
And if a Rod were here, he would say it's
Instagram dot com slash koa Colorado. But he's not here,
so I'll say it's Instagram dot com slash koa Colorado.

(34:04):
And you will have another chance from six pm to
seven pm UH Wednesday, which would be today during the
Broncos schedule release show, and that's airing on our sister
station six point thirty k how and there's gonna be
a live KOA cast video stream of that on Facebook
because the Rockies are going to be.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Here on KOA.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
But if you if you listen to Dave Logan over
there on k HOW six to seven this evening, that'll
be another chance to win a pair of Broncos tickets.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
That thing about where I.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Said you, yes, you, and then you said me and
I said no when you said damn, that was like,
that was so smooth. It almost sounded like it was
a rehearsed like an Abbott and Costello, right, It was
like it was that was really smooth.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
That was very well done.

Speaker 5 (34:51):
Well you you you set the ball on the tee
and I say, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Well we've been. We've been. We're like a freaking old
married couple by now.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Uh so let's see listener text Ross, thank you for
doing a baseball story. I'd like to hear more on
KOA on baseball. It was refreshing to hear a nice
baseball story. I understand the Rockies aren't very good, so
not so interesting to talk.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
About, but we do have baseball.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
And I responded to this listener by saying, one of
the things that I love so much about this particular
radio job because I've had others, is that on this
station because of what KOA is, right, it's really a
news station, and it's really a sports station, and it's
not just it's not just a talk station, and it's

(35:39):
definitely not just a political talk station. So what I
love about being here on KOA and about my interactions
with you with all the listeners is the range of
interests of listeners to this station is infinitely wide.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
And you just never know. I could be talking about
something that I think is' super nerdy and in the weeds,
and I'll get a dozen.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Texts from people who have something to say about it, right,
And that is just part of part of my great
enjoyment of this particular of this particular job. A couple
of different listeners texted in. Ty Cobb was in the
very very first Hall of Fame induction Hall of Fame
Class and Class of nineteen thirty six.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Let me see what else I've got here.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
The inaugural Hall of Fame election results were announced in
the media on February second, nineteen thirty six.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Listen to this group. Listen.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
I'm not a big baseball fan, but I know every
one of these names. Okay, the very first Hall of
Fame class Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Matthewson, Babe Ruth,
and Honus Wagner. I don't know whether it's still true.
It used to be true. It used to be true
that the I think it was a Honus Wagner baseball
card was the most valuable baseball card of all time.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
I don't know if that's still true, but I think
I remember that story.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
In nineteen thirty six, Ty Cobb received the most votes
of any player on the inaugural ballot for the National
Baseball Hall of Fame, two hundred and twenty two out
of a possible two hundred and.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Twenty six votes.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
No other player received a higher percentage of votes until
Tom Sever in nineteen ninety two. Tom Sever, I want
to say, a New York Mets pitcher, does that sound
about right?

Speaker 2 (37:22):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
I'm going way out on a limb when I say
something like that. So can somebody please text me and
tell me if Tom Sever was a pitcher for the
Mets or if I'm a moron. But if I'm a
moron when it comes to baseball, I don't feel that bad.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
About it, because I fully admit it.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Ty Cobb played twenty four seasons in Major League baseball.
Born in eighteen eighty six, men in eighteen eighty six,
died in nineteen sixty one at the age of seventy four.
All right, that's probably enough baseball right now. Let me
do a bit of a political slash legal thing. A
very interesting court ruling yesterday, federal court ruling one of

(37:59):
the few victories for Donald Trump in federal court on
his ongoing immigration stuff. A federal judge who was a
Trump appointee, a federal judge in Pennsylvania named Stephanie Haynes.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
H ai Nes said that.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
The Trump administration is probably on and I'll quote from
the Washington Times, solid legal footing, and using the Alien
Enemies Act to try to deport some unauthorized immigrant that's
their word, I'll say illegal alien gang members. Though the
court said that the administration does need to give the
targets of deportation better notice. So what she said was,

(38:45):
the administration can use this law. I'll get back to
that in a second, but it has to give the
people they are aiming to deport twenty one days to
challenge their deportation.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Now, other courts have.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Said that the Trump administration cannot use the Alien Enemies
Act for use against Trendy Aragua. Here's the really interesting
case the issue here. The Alien Enemies Act allows the
president to remove people from the country who are part
of an incursion or invasion by another country. And so

(39:26):
the hook to be able to use this for Agua
gang members is that the administration is arguing that the
gang is at least somewhat controlled by or affiliated with
the government of Venezuela, and therefore, for these purposes, they

(39:46):
are close enough to being an invading army or an
invading militia that we can use this law that really
is about deporting people who are actually, you know, nationals
acting on behalf of another nation against the United States.

(40:06):
The judge said that the Trump administration made a valid
case that TDA is being directed by an adversary nation,
in this case, Venezuela, and that it is engaged in
quote predatory incursion. And she writes, and I quote the
case implicates significant issues, and resolving those issues, the court's

(40:28):
unflagging obligation is to apply the law as written. When
the Court does so, it finds that the proclamation now
at issue complies with the Alien Enemies Act, and she
also adds, and I do think this is right that
courts oh, the executive branch substantial deference those are her
words in matters of foreign affairs and national security, and

(40:50):
using that standard, Trump made a sufficient case that TDA
is controlled by an adversary nation, and therefore you could
count this as part of an incursion by an adversary
nation that allows the triggering of the Alien Enemies Act. Now,
I think the judge is wrong, but I wouldn't bet
my life on it.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
And it's a.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Close call where the administration may have a little bit
of a problem. And clearly somebody who doesn't like the
Trump administration, or at least doesn't like this policy linked
to this information. But apparently the intelligence community here in
the United States did their own research and said they
don't think TDA is controlled by or even really affiliated

(41:30):
with the Venezuelan government. So you've got some part of
the Trump administration arguing against the other part of the
Trump administration.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
In any case, I wanted to share this with you.
I think it's a.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Very interesting ruling. I again, I think the judge is
probably wrong, but her very strong point is that the
executive branch does get a lot of deference when it
comes to foreign policy. Obviously, this is going to go
to a higher court and maybe the Supreme Court, and
then we'll learn once and for all. Usual you are

(42:01):
able to shame me into doing the next topic on
my show sheet, no.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Show sheet that you put together.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
Yeah, but this time I'm not going to When was
the last time you did follow your own show sheet?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Don't call HR though, well, Dragon is HR. I'm only
here at his what do they call it? Like you
serve at the pleasure of the president when you're in government.
That's how it is. That's how it is here, producer
Dragon Right. I sent an email the day before yesterday. Yeah,

(42:34):
I think to Denver City council Member Sarah Parody. Uh
And And I don't know Sarah. I don't know if
I've ever agreed with her on anything. She's a socialist
and I we disagree a lot. But I saw this
story and I wanted to share with you. And you

(42:54):
actually heard us, not me, but you heard the news
team talk about it here on k Away. The headline
from Axios Denver BET's seventy million dollars on Women's Pro
soccer stadium site, and I'll get back to Sarah parody
for a second in a second but quoting from Axios,
Denver city leaders approved a seventy million dollar plan on

(43:14):
Monday to buy and prepare land for a women's professional
soccer stadium site, a high stakes bet celebrated as visionary
and criticized as risky. Supporters, including Mayor Mike Johnston, call
the mega project a transformational opportunity that would generate billions
or could generate billions in economic activity and make Denver
one of the world's only cities with the stadium built

(43:35):
specifically for women's sports. Preliminary city study projects a two
point two billion dollar economic impact over thirty years, okay,
over thirty years, and the creation of eleven hundred jobs. Yes,
but critics say that while the stadium while stadium deals
off and promise big returns, they can fall short and

(43:57):
shift the cost cost burden to taxpayers. The council approved
a deal to acquire a forty acre site at I
twenty five in Santa Fe, the home of the former
Gates Rubber factory, which has been a development dead zone
for decades due to environmental issues and rail line complications.
The city will spend fifty million to buy the land

(44:18):
and twenty million on infrastructure upgrades like roads, bridges, and parks.
Most of that funding will come from Denver's capital budget.
The city will retain ownership of the land, meaning it
could be repurposed if the team leaves now.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
The reason that I emailed.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Sarah Parody about it is that she was the only
member of the City Council to vote no on this stadium,
and I've got to say, I think I'd have voted
no also, and it might be the first time that
I've ever agreed with ms Parody on anything. But I

(45:01):
did invite her to come on to the show to
talk about it. I have not gotten a response, so
I guess maybe somebody told her that I'm you know,
that I'm not very nice or something, even.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Though I actually think i'm I'm.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Quite a bit nicer to my Democratic politician guests than
to republic I try to be nice to everybody. I
want him to come back. I want to have a
real conversation, So I don't know. I mean, she could
go ask other Democrats, including Democrats on the City Council
will have been on the show. But I guess she's
afraid of me or something, or maybe she's maybe she's
on vacation and busy and hasn't read her email yet,

(45:34):
so maybe maybe that's not fair, and maybe she'll get
back to me. But in any case, let me just
stick to the main point. I think I would have
voted no on this. I mean, Denver's budget problems already.
Colorado has budget problems already, seventy million dollars. That's just
to buy and prepare the land, right, so we don't
know what other costs will be involved. The Axios article

(45:54):
quotes a guy who is a professor at d NO
at SU Denver at CU Denver who studies sports economics.
His name is Jeffrey Profeter p r O p h
E t e R. But you gotta say a last name.
Profter is a fabulous last name for somebody who studies economics.

(46:16):
But he told the Denver Post these are money pits.
The vast majority of the burden ends up being on taxpayers.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
I just I understand that Denver was.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Announced as a home for a new team in the
National Women's Soccer League. And I don't have anything against
the National Women's Soccer I wish everybody well I want
every sports league to do well if there's demand for it.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
And would I go to a professional women's soccer game.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
I actually might. I might. I wouldn't rule that out.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
And you know what, in the Olympics, I actually think
women soccer.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Is pretty enjoyable sport.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
I lived in Europe for a while, so maybe I
like soccer a little better than the average American does.
But soccer is catching on here, and it's been caught
on here for decades as a kid's sport. So but
I just think, man, this is a huge bet, and
and it's a bet that many other places have made

(47:25):
and wish they hadn't. And I realized that these people
see these stars and they say, oh, point to that thing.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Oh I made that happen. I voted for that. Look,
but by the time we learn for sure that.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
This thing is a boondoggle that's just gonna burden taxpayers
for however many more years, these people.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Will all be gone and we'll be stuck with it.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
And I hope it doesn't work out that way, but
I think the odds of it working out that way
are high enough that I also would have voted now
gonna do a.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Couple other things.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Until then, I don't spend and probably as much time
as I should, or definitely not as much as I
could talking about legislation and Congress, tax legislation, Medicaid reform,
all this stuff, because it changes a lot, and I
don't know, but at some point these stories have advanced

(48:18):
to a place where we where we have to talk
about it. And actually, you know what, I think it
looks like we're gonna have the guest right now. So
rather than going further down the road on on what's
going on with tax legislation, I'm just gonna I'm just
gonna wait. Hold less, Dragon's talking to somebody. He's got
an interesting expression on his face. This is live radio.
I should do this like a like a golf reporter.

(48:40):
But Dragon's better at it than I am. So we'll we'll,
we'll soon find out. We can all wait together. We're
all friends here, all right.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
So I saw a.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Story the other day, and I am aware that it
was covered at least at least a little bit on
on our morning news, on Colorado's Morning.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
News a couple of days ago.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
But I just wanted to make sure to get this
information of my listeners for listeners who may be, you know,
different from the folks listening to CM and so joining
me right now for a few minutes to talk about
the new facility they've opened up is Paul Roberts. Paul
is the interim director of the Eastern Colorado Healthcare System
for the VA, and if you live here in Denver

(49:25):
or around Denver, you might not think of this as
Eastern in Colorado, but it's definitely not Western Colorado.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
So Paul, welcome to Kaaway. It's good to have you here.

Speaker 6 (49:35):
Hey, Ross, how you doing. It's great to be with
you today. Thanks so much for inviting me.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah, very very glad to So just tell us a
little bit about the Newcastle Rock location.

Speaker 6 (49:47):
Yeah, well, you know it's right there in Castle Roge,
just about a mile or so from those that nice
outlet mall setup that you guys have, and you know,
it's a beautiful new facility, state of the art, which
is what you're seeing as new facilities are built in
the VA, and it's nestled right there in that community

(50:11):
that's been looking for you know, on site community support
for some time and so this new clinic is actually
designed to deliver just that.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
And you know, when you take a look at the.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
Building itself, you know, it's modeled after some clinics that
we built over the last couple of years right along
the High twenty five corridor. I'm typically the director out
in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and we have the.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Northern Colorado market.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
It falls under us. We opened the Northern Colorado VIA
clinic in twenty twenty two, and the same builder, architect
modeling was used, you know, just two months ago to
open up the mostly clinic here in Aurora, and then
of course this one here in Castle. So it's this
it's the same look, it's the same design, uh.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
And it's really you know.

Speaker 6 (51:06):
The modern clinic, uh, fit for for veterans and for
healthcare today. It's pretty it's pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
I want to run a question by it.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
I remember not that long ago, I was hearing a
story about somebody complaining about the lack of services at
a new VA clinic and the answer, and it might
even have been you giving you I don't remember who
gave the answer. The answer was that often with new
VA healthcare clinics that it they get opened kind of

(51:38):
in stages, so maybe not every department is opened the
very first day.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
But we've got X rays and primary care today and.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Then we've got you know, orthopedics two weeks later open.
And so is how is the rollout for this thing
or is it just everything all at once is good
to go already?

Speaker 6 (51:58):
Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, that's what's actually proven
to work, you know pretty well. Is it is kind
of what we call a soft opening.

Speaker 7 (52:08):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (52:08):
We did that in Northern Colorado. UH did it uh
in Mosley and then here as well. And what it
does it gives it gives veterans and staff a chance
to adapt, you know, to to the UH, to the
service and the operation. You know, I'm a veteran myself,
and you know, believe it or not, in the military,
sometimes we would crawl walk run. Not everything was full

(52:31):
throttle all the time. And sometimes crawl walk run helps,
you know, assimilate the operations and the veteran together. And
so that's what we're going to be doing here in
Castle Rocks. So for example, we're going to open up
with one initially with one primary care team, UH, and
then with the with UH you know, the options to
grow that incrementally over time to where we get to

(52:54):
you know, our goal is to get to eight uh
primary care teams out there at that location. That's what
it was ultimately designed for for the growing population. So
we'll start off with one team and UH and of
course radiology pharmacy will be coordinated as well.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
UH.

Speaker 6 (53:13):
And then vet Express that's another service that we got
our foot in the door just a month ago out
at the Lindstrom Clinic. And that is a a you know,
walk in service where you don't need an appointment, uh,
you just walk in same day and be seen.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
UH.

Speaker 6 (53:29):
And we're doing that two days a week out at
Lenstrom once again, Crawl walk run. We we we know
the demand is going to increase, and so as as
we can get some more assets and more more people
you know, on staff, and we can grow these services.
So vet Express back to Castle Rock, we're going to
start vet Express as well, probably a month down the road,

(53:51):
months from now. Uh and and and offer that same
service that Express. That will probably only be one to
two days a week until we can get our sea
legs under ourselves and uh and then we'll expand it.
But I'll tell you that Express, which is for veterans
out there. You know, it's a sick call. It's when
we were on active duty. It's uh, it's going a
sick call and being seen right away.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
We've been doing it for three years.

Speaker 6 (54:14):
In Cheyenne and then it being two years in Northern Colorado,
and I got to tell you it is a it
is a well received service and veterans, uh, veterans know
what it is because we dealt with it when we
were on active duty and it helped us out, helped
us get back in the saddle. So h So, anyway,
that's a little bit all right that you can expect.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
So just give me quick quick answers on two more questions.
So do you have enough staff already? I don't mean
are there enough people on site to do to have
eight primary cares? You explained that within the system. Do
you have enough people to staff that up to eight
or do you need to hire people to staff that up?

Speaker 6 (54:58):
Yeah, we we have enough staff probably the seventy five
percent solution right now. We we do need to add
some more staff in primary care and some medical support
assistants to really round out uh, not not just Castle Rock,
but also all of our you know, uh sites outside

(55:18):
of the Denver metro area. And and that doesn't have
anything to do really with the current climate or environment.
It's it's uh we've been working you know, uh to
get these uh the staff positions, you know, over the
course of years.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Yeah, you know, so right, No, we.

Speaker 6 (55:38):
Have what we need.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Last quick question for you, So for folks who live
in or near Douglas County who are veterans and might
like to make this their their at sort of home clinic,
how do people get about go about getting connected.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
With the Newcastle Rock location?

Speaker 6 (55:57):
Yeah, well, a couple of methods. One we'll we'll have
up posted on our on our media sites that that
can can you know, point people in the right direction.
The other recommendation I have if you happen to be
you know, seeing your primary care providers and teams now
and you want to transition, they are probably the great
great source right there human connection to ask them how

(56:20):
how they get transferred over We can make those connections
for them, uh, you know, to ease that transition so
we can do it from the current primary care setting.
And then probably lastly is uh, you know, we have
a pretty strong patient advocate team here at Denver you know,
regional right here in Denver metro and uh, give us

(56:41):
a call and we can source you through and do
those transfers for you over the phone and get the
paperwork square it away.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Paul Roberts, the interim director of the Eastern Colorado Healthcare
System for the Veterans Administration.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Thanks for being here, Paul, and thanks for your service.

Speaker 6 (56:56):
Hey, thanks so much. Ross. You all have a great
day and I'll see you on the high grid.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
You got it. Thank you all right, That dude's from Wyoming.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
I had a chance to very briefly say hello to
and then listen to some comments about oil and gas
and mineral development and so on from the Governor of
Wyoming who was here yesterday at the Common Sense Institute,
and they did this. The Common Sense Institute is expanding
their research areas, and they did a whole thing about

(57:26):
oil and gas in Colorado. And then the governor of Wyoming,
who was in the oil and gas business.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Very interesting.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
I was actually very impressed, did I say Colorado Governor
of Wyoming. I was very impressed with him. Very smart
on top of the facts. You know, people would ask
him questions and he'd have detailed answers about all kinds
of stuff, and not just oil and gas. Lots of
stuff I was really impressed with the dude. I think
Mark Gordon, I think is his name, And it was

(57:56):
cool to have the Governor of Wyoming down here. And
it was also it did my heart good to be
reminded not just by the governor, but by all the
people in the room at Common Sense Institute that there
actually are people out there who don't just spend their
days bleeping all over oil and gas, like the things

(58:16):
that we need to live a good life.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Oil.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
There's nothing, there is nothing that has improved the quality
of human life more than somebody figuring out that you
can turn this sticky, black.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Otherwise useless stuff.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Into into hitting a piece of plastic on your wall
and the lights come on, or into turning a knob
on your stove and cooking your food, or hitting a
button on your thermostad and heating your house, or putting
a piece of metal in your car and being able
to go to a job.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
And it is, it is.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
It's not just scientifically wrong, it's morally wrong.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
It's evil.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
All of these people who spend their time campaigning against
fossil fuels, they're evil, they're bad, They're not just wrong.
And I complain a lot or I say frequently that
when you disagree with somebody on the left, they don't
just think you're wrong, they think you're bad. But that's
all the time, that's any issue in this issue. The
people who can't I'm not talking about people who say

(59:23):
all of the above, or we should add solar, we
should add when they're wrong. Those people are wrong, but
they're not bad. The people who are bad are the
people who are suing to put oil and gas companies
out of business, like going.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
On in Boulder right now.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
In fact, the state Supreme Court in Colorado, which remember
is one of the very worst supreme courts in the country.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
It's not quite as bad as it used to be.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Right, Carlos Somemoor in particular, pretty decent judge. Right, I
don't agree with them on everything, but a pretty decent judge.
But they just voted i've seven to two or five.
I forget even how many judges are on that court.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
I don't care because I already I.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Always know gonna get it wrong, so it doesn't matter
how many people there are. But it was something to too,
and they ruled that an insane lawsuit against oil and
gas companies in Boulder can continue ahead, and federal courts
have repeatedly thrown out these cases.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
And I have a.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Feeling that if if a federal court gets their hands
on it, they'll throw out this one too. But these
are like Boulder lunatics using children as human shields, effectively saying, oh,
you're destroying the planet for the kids, And how did
I get on this dragon, And the and the State
Supreme Court said yes, this case can continue.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
And it's such nonsense.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
And I think, I really do think there is an
obvious proper.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Punishment for this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Turn off all sources of fossil fuels to Boulder, right,
turn them off. No more natural gas to your house,
no more natural gas to the power plant that's providing
your electricity, no more gasoline to the gas stations, no

(01:01:06):
more electricity to your house except for the electricity that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Comes from wind and solar.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
That would actually be the best of it, because then
these fools would learn how you absolutely cannot rely on
wind and solar. You can only rely right now on
fossil fuels and nuclear. In some places, you can rely
on hydro as well, at least.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Until there's a huge drought.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
But there's a lot of places where hydro is a
very very good, consistent source of energy for a long time,
but that's not really a big thing here in Colorado.
So anyway, I don't even know how I got how
I got onto that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Do you dragon? Do you have any recollection of how
I got onto that at all? Something about something I
don't even know if it was that, I have no idea.
I have no.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
If my brain weren't stuck to my head.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
All right, let's do some other things.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I had this story for a couple of days, and
actually both these stories for a couple of days, and
I want to talk about odds and betting odds and
things like that. So if you closely follow the NBA,
you may have heard that the Dallas Mavericks won the
lottery to get the first pick in the NBA draft.

(01:02:28):
And what they do is they basically it's a very
complex system. And I was going to read to you
how it works, but I'm not going to, but going
to but it's really crazy. It's like it's it's like
the lottery with the balls and the thing and pull
them out and then and then whoever you know, bingo
or whatever. But they do it in such a way

(01:02:48):
that the teams that have the worst records have more
possible winning numbers, right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
I mean, imagine if imagine if.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
It were a power ball and the worst teams are
each given a bunch. Are the teams that are Actually,
I think it's every team. Maybe I don't recall. I
think maybe the twenty five worst teams or something. I
don't know, but they all get they all get a
lot of they all get Powerball tickets. But the worse
your team is, the more tickets you get, so you

(01:03:18):
have a higher.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Chance of winning, and unlike Powerball, somebody's guaranteed to win. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
So that's my bad analogy. That was really bad, except
exceedingly bad. Thank you, you're welcome. So the Dallas Mavericks
are not that bad a team, although they're worse than
they should be because they made that insane trade sending
Luka Doncic to the Lakers. I think Anyway, the Dallas

(01:03:44):
Mavericks won the top pick in the NBA draft with
a one point eight percent chance based on the number
of tickets out there, you know, winning combinations available. They
had a one point eight percent chance and they and
they got it. So that's all I'm gonna say on
and that now I want.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
To switch to another odds thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
So we talked a little bit, and I know some
people didn't dig it very much, talking about betting on
who would the next pope would be?

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
And some people, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
Guessing in primarily Catholics, didn't like the idea of people
betting on who the next pope would be. I don't, actually,
I have to say, I do not understand the objection
to that. It's an interesting thing with an interesting wide
range of outcomes, as we know now, wide potential range
of outcomes, and betting on it cannot influence the outcome
of it. So I really didn't understand the objection why

(01:04:30):
people would say you shouldn't bet on that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
But that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
If you don't want to bet on it, then I
have a suggestion for you. And you know what the
suggestion is, and I'm not even going to say it.
So this is what I wanted to share with you.
The dude who won. Can we call him a dude?
His name's Bob, but now his name's Leo. His name
before was Bob, and his friend I'm not kidding his
friends call him Bob Bob Prevost. He's now Leo the fourteenth.

(01:04:57):
He was basically one hundred to one odds. If you
made a bad bet, you got fifty to one odds. Right,
But he was basically one hundred to one odds to
be the next pope, and he became the next Pope.
And I just want to share a little bit with
you here from CNBC because I love this from the
perspective of statistics and gambling and all this and all

(01:05:20):
this stuff. Betters betors, right, people betting poured more than
forty million dollars into betting on who the next Pope
would be on just two market platforms, thirty million on
Polymarket and about ten and a half million on Calshie.

(01:05:41):
Going into the conclave, the new dude, formerly Cardinal Robert
Prevost but we'll call him Bob, had odds of less
than one percent. Okay, so now they're saying less than
one percent according to Calshie.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Now check this out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Of the over thirty three thousand and trades placed on
Kelshie Ka Lshi. We talked about them a year and
a half ago or so when they won a lawsuit.
Maybe it was at the Supreme Court that said they
can operate. I forget which court it was, but they
were in the news because they won the lawsuit. Of
the over thirty three thousand trades, You and I might

(01:06:20):
call them bets, only four hundred and sixteen out of
thirty three thousand, right, So what less than a percent
and a half of the bets were bet on Bob.
The amount of the bets on Bob totaled about four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Okay, stick with me here,

(01:06:43):
about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The biggest bet
or the biggest payout at least, was one hundred to
one on a five hundred and twenty six dollars bet.
So the dude who bet on Bob won fifty two
and six hundred change. Now here's what's interesting to me.

(01:07:08):
They say that there were four hundred and fifty thousand
dollars bet just on Calshie.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
On Bob. If the average odds were.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Let's say, somewhere between fifty to one and one hundred
to one, even though it's probably much more at one
hundred to one than anything else. If it was all
at one hundred to one and there was let's say
four hundred and forty.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Thousand dollars bet.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Then Calshi would have had to pay out forty four
million dollars. At fifty to one, it would be twenty
two million dollars. In the middle, it's thirty three million dollars. Now,
I actually think it's probably closer, like I said, to
being one hundred to one the whole time, because this
article said it was actually less than one percent. But
let's just give the benefit of the doubt and say

(01:08:01):
they did it it more like.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
One and a half percent.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
They would have they would have had to pay out
thirty three million dollars just based on the math in
the article.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
And yet the same article.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Says that only ten and a half ten point six
million dollars was wagered there. So it sounds to me
like Calshi lost twenty or thirty million dollars or maybe even.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
More taking these bets.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
And this is what happens to a casino, to a
sports book, to with it, whatever you want to call this,
when a massive, massive long shot wins and you didn't
collect enough money from people betting on the favorites to
offset that loss.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
Anyway, I think it's an interesting story.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Do you get an email that's pretending to be a
receipt for something that you didn't buy, or I'm just
getting bombarded, or or we need you to sign this docuse,
or your subscription to some anti virus is about to
expire and we're going to renew it for six hundred dollars,

(01:09:09):
And like, is it just me?

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
I'm getting just peppered with this stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:09:13):
I have an email account to where I don't really
care about. So when I sign up for something and
it's I don't really care about use.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
That email, that one gets tone.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
But you know, my regular one or my work one,
I don't really get him at work, right, So I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
I don't, and I don't know. It might be that
it might be that iHeart has a more sophisticated filter
system in the back end that kind of keeps this
stuff from getting.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
In more inboxes. I don't know. It's annoying, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
So earlier in the show, Dragon tried to make me
do a particular topic.

Speaker 5 (01:09:46):
That you put on your show sheet at that specific time,
and I.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Didn't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
But I feel it great peril for my future employment
if I, you know, keep not doing the topic he
told me to do.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I'm going to come back to it now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
And this is something I actually I've talked about one
or two times on the show before, and we have
a final ruling on it now from a court.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
This is actually in Israel, not the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
But I think as a matter of philosophy of ethics,
I think it's a really interesting case and I want
to get your opinion on it as well. So I'll
tell you that what's going on, but I'll just tell
you text me at five sixty six nine zero at
any point here and tell me what you think of
the ruling and what you think you would have done
if you had been on the court. So here's here's

(01:10:31):
what happened. A couple of families were trying to have
kids using artificial insemination. They couldn't have kids, you know,
the old fashioned ways, so that they're doing this stuff
with the in vitro and all that, and then they
implant the embryos and this woman is pregnant now and

(01:10:52):
there's some issue with the fetus while it's still in
uter row, and the medical team does some tests and
you know, you can get fetal blood and you can
do all that anyway, So they're doing the the these
this kind of check up because the fetus seems to
have some kind of issue, and as part of that,
they determine that the fetus does not have any of

(01:11:18):
the genetic material, any of the genes from either parent,
either parent, And what it turns out is that they
accidentally implanted an embryo from a different couple. And they
know who the couple is, right, you know, this mix

(01:11:40):
up happened, and they know they know who the other
couple is, so they know who the couple is that
provided the egg and that provided the genetic material for
this for this baby. This baby is then born, and
then the thing goes to court after the after this
child is I think, uh three years old or something

(01:12:01):
like that, and the parents that provided the genetic material,
the genetic parents as opposed to the birth parents.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
The mother who gave birth to the baby.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
The genetic parents is saying, that's ours, and the birth
parents are saying, well, you know, the moms like, no.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
I gave birth to where she's mine.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
And one court ruled one way, and then another court
ruled the other way, and then it went to the
Supreme Court in Israel, and the Supreme court ruled that
the legal parents of this girl her name is Sophia
are the birth mother, the woman who carried the baby
and gave birth to her, and not her genetic parents.

(01:12:47):
And it was a four to one decision. This has
been in the courts for three years. The Supreme Court
in Israel did, and I'm quoting from the Times of
Israe com the Supreme Court did approve the lower court's
determination that a special framework must be established to enable

(01:13:08):
Sophia's genetic parents to keep in close contact with her. Now,
I will say that seems like that was already being done.
I think the birth parents were cooperating as best they
could with the genetic parents to allow some kind of
ongoing relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
So I got a couple of thoughts on this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
So first, when I read the Supreme Court ruling, the
very first thought into my head was, of course, that's
the right answer.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
I didn't even think it was a very difficult question.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
Now, a friend of mine, the first a friend of
mine named Rich who's an Orthodox Jew, who brought this
story to me the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
He said he actually thought it was a rather difficult question.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
So I'd like to know what you thinked at five
six six nine zero, I'm going to ask you a
few questions, and you can answer any of them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Or all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
If you were a judge, would you have said that
the child belongs to the couple where the woman carried
the baby and gave birth to the baby, Or would
you say that the child belongs to the couple that
gave the genetic material and it was their egg and
so on? Who would you say that child should? I

(01:14:24):
hate to use the word belong, but you get my point.
I also would like to know do you think it's
a difficult question or does the answer come to you
pretty quickly? And the last thing I would like to
know is what about this provision that a special framework
must be established to enable the genetic parents to keep

(01:14:46):
in close contact with her? And the reason that I
question that is it's not obvious to me that that's
in the best interest of the child. It seems to
me that that could be a very confusing thing. I
have two sets of parents. Who's my real mom? Who
do I like better? Who do I you know? Or
how about this if you're a you know, a manipulative
thirteen year old, I want to be with my real parents.

(01:15:10):
I don't want to be with you. I want to
be with my real parents. I think all of this
is really interesting. Uh, that part I think is a
harder question.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Again, like I said, for me, and I could be wrong, but.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
For me, I thought, it's not just It's not just
that the baby goes to the birth parents because they're
the birth parents. It's actually more complicated than that. It's
that the baby goes to the birth parents because the
baby is several years old now and has grown up
with these parents and knows these parents. I actually think
it would have been a much harder question if it

(01:15:44):
had to be decided when the baby was a week old.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
For me, it's a little bit easier now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
But I want to know your take, So text me
at five sixty six nine zero and let me know
what you think. We'll share some listener answers right after this.
If you're just joining. By the way, thanks for thanks
for hanging out. I'm Ross and this is Koa And
what we talked about in the last segment of the
show was a case in Israel that was just decided
by the Supreme Court there where there was a mix

(01:16:10):
up at an IVF clinic and actually what seems like happened,
so these two couples went in and each were doing
you know, IVF to have an embryo implanted so that
the woman could be pregnant and they could have a kid.
And what appears happened is that these two women had
an appointment for the implantation the same day. And they

(01:16:33):
think they went in in the reverse order, like one
had an appointment at two fifteen and one had an
appointment at two thirty, and the two thirty one went
in at two fifteen. That's what they think happened. And
then I guess nobody checked the name. Are you this person?
Have you okay? Have you been to a hospital at
any time, like a patient in a hospital at any
time in recent years, you've probably had an experience like this. Right,

(01:16:58):
you get a wristband on, it's got your name, it's
got your date.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Of birth, it's got that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
And then every time or at least almost every time
that somebody comes in to do something to you, to
give you a shot, sometimes even to ask you questions,
but especially give you a shot, do some kind of procedure,
they ask you what's your name and birthday? They every
single time they know who you are, but they don't

(01:17:24):
want to make that mistake. So anyway, then one of
the couples had one of the couples during pregnancy, the
fetus was found to have some medical issues. They did
this testing and they found during pregnancy that neither of
these this couple, neither one of them was the genetic
parent of that of that fetus, and they figured out

(01:17:46):
the switch. So my question to you is, would you,
if you were a court, would you give that child
who is now a few years old by the time
they're making the decision, Okay, so not a newborn, a
few years old and has some experience with the birth parents,
would you will have that child stay with the birth
parents or would you have that child go to the

(01:18:08):
genetic parents. And what I think is quite interesting is
that the listeners are probably close to fifty to fifty,
somewhere around.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Fifty to fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
And I think I think that's really interesting because and
to me, I immediately said the birth parents and to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
Me a big factor.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
So in my mind, it's what's best for the kid,
and to me, it's obviously best for the kid. And
of course, not knowing anything else about the parents, Okay,
assuming both parents are equally fit parents, let's say, but.

Speaker 4 (01:18:49):
To me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
The fact that the kid was a few years old
made it an easy call. But you, and I mean
you plural. Now listeners are saying something very different, and
I think it's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Listener says, I didn't hear the part about the kid being.

Speaker 1 (01:19:06):
Three years old until after I sent the previous text.
But I still think the biological parents should win. When
you started the story, I thought it was going to
go to the opposite direction that they found out the
kid had severe problems and then realized it wasn't theirs
and trying to get the biological parents to take it,
and the biological parents were telling to keep it. But no,
that's not what happened. And yeah, I think it's fascinating.

Speaker 6 (01:19:29):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Let's see, Ross, if I knew before the child was
born that it wasn't mine, I would have handed the
baby over.

Speaker 2 (01:19:36):
It's not my kid, and I know whose it is.
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
I don't want that kid. Then I see the clinic
for damages and start all over again.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Now all of that's too late. Keep the child interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
That is an interesting question because they did find out
that this wasn't their child while the child was still
in utero, while the woman was pregnant and it but
it took a long time for it to get through
the court system. And I do think so you're raising
two different questions. You know, one is well, what should

(01:20:08):
happen by now? But the interesting question that you and
others have raised is what happens if you since you
found out about it while you were still pregnant at
that point, should it have just been you know, we
don't the courts give it to the genetic parents. And
I'll just stick with this for one more minute and

(01:20:29):
then we'll do different. Actually we got Leland vind in
the next segment of the show. The judge who ruled
this way did it based on a law about.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
Surrogacy in Israel that said where.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
If a surrogate mother decides to withdraw from the surrogacy
agreement with the genetic parents with the agreement of a court,
then the birthing mother is the legal mother and the
guardian of the baby. Anyway, it's very in the weeds
legal stuff, and it's not even American. Probably shouldn't take
more time on it, but I do just want to
say thank you for participating and sending me your thoughts,

(01:21:09):
and I find it very very interesting that this is
fifty to fifty. I do not know the answer to
the question of whether the other couple already had a child.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
And then multiple multiple people said, of course, do the
King Solomon answer and cut the baby in half.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
And you know that's some clever. I've got the cleverest
listeners in the world. When we come back, the fabulous
Leland Vitter joins the show.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
He hosts on Balance on NewsNation weeknights at seven pm
Mountain time, and it plays again at ten pm Mountain time.
And everybody should subscribe to his free almost daily daily
when he's got a show weekday's email called war Notes.
You can just go to Warnoes dot com. It's basically
Leland's show prep and you can see what's in his

(01:21:55):
brain and as he says, and I think it's true,
it'll make you smart. And then also, by way of
a little bit more free advertising, if you go to
Born luckybook.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Dot com, you can pre order.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Leland's book that's gonna be coming out.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
Kind of sort of soon, not too soon, but pretty soon.
So it's it's great to have you back. Leland's good
to see you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:18):
The pleasure is all mine. Ross with an introduction like
that in free advertising, I will come back as a question.
Maybe sometimes we don't want to have me.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
So Leland, among other things, was Middle East correspondent for
another network UH for four years living in Israel, and
Leland has a better understanding of Middle East politics than
anybody anybody else I know actually, and certainly anybody in media.

(01:22:48):
So first I want to say, you did the best
job of anybody in television news yesterday covering Trump's trip
to Saudi Arabia, and I would just want you to
take a moment and kind of highlight what you thought
was most interesting and important yesterday.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
Well, Ross, now I have to go back and remember
what I said.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
Number one.

Speaker 8 (01:23:12):
If I'm the most informed of your friends, then you
need better friends. But I think what is most important
here is that Donald Trump turned the past eighty years of.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
American foreign policy on its head.

Speaker 8 (01:23:27):
And that needed to happen because the world has changed,
an American foreign policy has not. And Donald Trump went
over to the Middle East, to the Gulf rulers right
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and finally
gave them what they've always wanted. Which is legitimacy. The
Europeans especially, and to a certain extent, a lot of

(01:23:50):
American presidents treated them as and i'll be pejorative here,
but goat heterers with oil is how the ure Europe
at all looked at them, and European leaders and a
lot of American leaders did too. And Trump went over
and said, no, I don't view you as go to droil.
I view you as people who have built your own countries,

(01:24:11):
albeit sometimes with some unsavory tactics. That's what the Middle
East requires, and I will treat you as an equal.
And in return, they said, wow, no one's ever treated
this like this, And here's a trillion dollars worth of
investment into America.

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
Now.

Speaker 8 (01:24:30):
I don't know about you, but when you treat people well,
sometimes they're nice to you. And in that case, if
they're nice with the trillion dollars, that's a pretty good
return on investment.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
One thing that really jumped out at me, kind of
extending what you're talking about here, is when they were
talking about the Abraham Accords. And I do think the
Abraham Accords were a remarkable achievement. They didn't go as
far as Trump had wanted because his term ended, and
he probably could have gotten Saudi Arabia to sign if

(01:25:03):
his term had been a little longer. He's been trying
to get him back. But the Israel Gaza thing is
a problem. And it was very interesting yesterday where he said,
you know, like right to the crown prince, you would
honor me by signing the Abraham Accords. And this is
a culture, as you well know, where honor is a

(01:25:24):
real thing.

Speaker 8 (01:25:26):
Sure, And this is Trump at his best right. Trump
loves being treated like a king. He loves being around royalty.
He loves the ingratiation of ingratiating himself to others and
others ingratiating themselves to him. This is Donald Trump, you know,
in his element, and you can watch it. You can

(01:25:50):
see how much funny's happen. The Abraham Accords are the
peace agreements between the Arab States and Israel. And what
Donald Trump understood, and this was a unique understanding, it
remarkably unique understanding, is that the cruxt of conflict in

(01:26:12):
the Middle East was not the Israel Palestinian conflict. The
cruxt of problems in the Middle East was the Arab.

Speaker 4 (01:26:20):
Persian or the Iran versus the.

Speaker 8 (01:26:23):
Rest of the Middle East problem, and once he understood
that dynamic and operated with that dynamic in mind, look
at how much has changed in what he's been able
to do.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
All right, So I think you and I agree that
this stuff we're talking about is basically Trump at his best.
Let's talk for a second, still Middle East related, but
Trump not is not at his best. Why do you
think the dude seems so committed to taking a four
hundred million dollar airplane from Cutter and I realized, not

(01:26:56):
the biggest thing in the world, but it's a political
own goal.

Speaker 4 (01:27:01):
The amount of flack.

Speaker 8 (01:27:03):
He is taking from it versus the return I don't
quite understand.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
And there's a lot of ways around this.

Speaker 8 (01:27:12):
Look, I'm gonna borrow the plane to be fair, Okay,
it's gonna cost a bunch of money to fix the
plane and to retrofit it to be what Air Force
one would need to be.

Speaker 4 (01:27:23):
By the way, the person.

Speaker 8 (01:27:25):
Who the organization that's gonna do that, or the company
that's gonna retrofit it is probably the same one that's
currently retrofitting the other seven forty sevens to be air
Force one.

Speaker 4 (01:27:36):
It's kind of this silly thing.

Speaker 8 (01:27:40):
But what I think you're seeing is when Donald Trump
is attacked or criticized in the American media for something,
he reflexively doubles down on it. And what he's learned,
and I think this is fair, is that he's gonna
get attacked by stuff no matter what.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
So therefore he might as well fight.

Speaker 8 (01:28:06):
On every issue because there's no point in showing weakness
because the more you show weakness.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
The more it is provocative.

Speaker 8 (01:28:16):
So that's my best analysis of what's happening. You know,
somehow Donald Trump more or less beholden to the government
of Cutter because of this plane. No, anybody who knows
Trump knows he does what he wants to do, whether
you were nice to him twenty four hours ago or not.
So I don't I don't quite understand the hair on

(01:28:38):
fire hysteria. I mean, you know, there was no hysteria
when Cutter was giving billions of dollars to American universities.

Speaker 4 (01:28:46):
Or spending all this money on lobbying in DC.

Speaker 8 (01:28:49):
But suddenly, now if it's a plane to the Pentagon,
it's a national security threat.

Speaker 4 (01:28:56):
I just don't see it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
We're talking with Leland vinnerd.

Speaker 1 (01:28:59):
His show is on Balance on News Nation seven pm
Mountain Time, repeats ten pm Mountain Time about how many
people will be at your wedding? About seventy okay, very
similar size to my wedding, which I think was was

(01:29:20):
around well she turned out, I don't know. I don't
know what my wife would say about that. And when
when is the wedding?

Speaker 4 (01:29:30):
The wedding is in a few weeks. Ross.

Speaker 8 (01:29:32):
Let me just let me just say your invitation didn't
get lost in the mail.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
I understand I wasn't waiting for one. But are you nervous?
Are you? How are you feeling?

Speaker 8 (01:29:45):
You're you're you're awfully nice to ask no one ever.
This is the thing that's starting to get to me. Okay,
Everybody when they see my fiance says to me congratulations
and tells her there's still time.

Speaker 4 (01:30:01):
Oh you're getting married when June.

Speaker 8 (01:30:03):
Congratulations And they look at her and they go, it's
still a month away.

Speaker 4 (01:30:06):
You've still got some time. So I've stopped taking it personally.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
But are you Are you nervous or not? Really?

Speaker 4 (01:30:15):
Am I supposed to be? Do you know something I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:30:18):
No, no, no, no, I didn't mean I didn't mean
it that way. Actually, I didn't mean nervous, like, oh,
it might not happen. I just getting married is a
big deal. I don't think you've done it before, and
I just you know, so, Uh, I just.

Speaker 8 (01:30:29):
Go and after and after this process, I don't intend
to do it again.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
That's that's good. That's how I feel too. That's how
I feel too. Uh. I wasn't fishing for an invitation.
Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
But we will get a beer or something after the
next time. I the next time I see it, we'll
we'll we'll celebrate. Uh, all right, So I don't I
don't spend a ton of time looking backwards. I don't
like talking about Biden or first try or all that stuff.
But it's very interesting to see, especially from the media
types who you would normally consider democrat friendly, the formerly

(01:31:02):
mainstream media who are not really mainstream anymore, but like
Jake Tapper's book, getting a lot of attention and the
fact that it's him means that liberals are going to
be hearing stories that they might not otherwise hear this
stuff about Biden, did he need a wheelchair?

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
And I'm a little surprised how.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Much attention this stuff is getting given how backwards looking
it is. And I don't know, do you feel like
this is distracting Democrats in a way that's even more
stupid than what usually distracts political people.

Speaker 4 (01:31:41):
Well, it's kind of funny.

Speaker 8 (01:31:42):
And I'll give you a preview to warn notes tonight,
which is Democrats are realizing that their friends in the
media care about themselves, meaning the media, more than they
do Democrats. And what democrats with the people in the
media have realized. I say that this goes from Jake
Tapper at CNN all the way through Lester Holt at

(01:32:04):
NBC that they're realizing that their own credibility is on
the line.

Speaker 4 (01:32:12):
So what are they doing. They're attacking Democrats for hiding
Joe Biden's health. Okay, well it was I watched.

Speaker 8 (01:32:21):
I can't remember who was I think it was Chuck Schumer,
it was Michael Bennett get grilled and other Democratic senators.

Speaker 4 (01:32:29):
It was Elizabeth Warren getting grilled. How could you hide
Biden's health?

Speaker 8 (01:32:34):
This is terrible, says anchor, who two years ago was
talking about how Biden was great, his accomplishments were list
was long, and Republicans are just feeding on conspiracy theories.
So it is, it is laughable, and you can see
these Democrats going, wait a second, Wait a second.

Speaker 4 (01:32:53):
I thought you were my friend.

Speaker 8 (01:32:55):
You are the ones who were saying the same thing
I was two years ago about Biden's health, and now
you've turned on me.

Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
What's happened? It's just really really rich to watch.

Speaker 8 (01:33:06):
And I think finally the traditional legacy whatever you want
to call the media is realizing, I would say too late,
their credibility crisis and now trying to do everything to
fix it. But you know, to watch Chuck Todd be
a gas at Chuck Schumer's not wanting to discuss Biden's

(01:33:29):
health is really farcical.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
So you went to where my follow up would be,
and I guess where my follow up still will be.

Speaker 2 (01:33:38):
How much of this stuff do.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
You think is the media that part of the media
attempting to regain some credibility and how much do you
think is trying to make a few bucks selling books?

Speaker 4 (01:33:53):
Well, for Jake.

Speaker 8 (01:33:54):
Tapper, it's one and the same, right, And you know,
Mark Alprin did a great job going back and looking
at actually the clips of Jake Tapper quote unquote questioning
Biden's health the Tapper book. The real story to that
is Alex Thompson, who co wrote it and did most
of the reporting, is a good friend of mine, was

(01:34:14):
the only reporter really digging into Joe Biden's health. And
he was very easy to book on cable news. We
used to book them all the time, but you couldn't.
But it was easy to book because no one else
was booking him to talk about using the short stairs
on Air Force one, having the staff walk out with him,
different kinds of shoes, limiting his schedule, limiting who he

(01:34:37):
was interacting with, prepping him dirt like, there was a
whole list of things that Thompson broke that just nobody
cared about. Now all of a sudden, these are being
treated as you know, Watergate like scoops. It's again transparent,
but it's it's a it's a rehabilitation.

Speaker 4 (01:34:54):
It's sure for Tapper making a few bucks, but.

Speaker 8 (01:34:58):
It's it's it is is naked as Washington will ever
be in in not even being ashamed of it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
So you mentioned, you know, Tapper Todd that that kind
of crew of people are are these are these your friends?
And if they're if they're not, And I don't mean
colleagues and so on. I mean, are they your friends?
And if they're not their friends, if they're not your friends,
is any of that because of this kind of thing

(01:35:27):
that you're talking about where it sounds like you think
and I certainly think that they're in a job that
requires honesty and they don't deliver on on that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
Does that bother you? Does that? You get my question?

Speaker 8 (01:35:41):
You know it's a good question, Ross And I write
about it in my book Born Lucky, the story of
my father and I and his monumental efforts and love
to help me overcome an autism diagnosis. And one of
the things you used to tell me when I was
having a hard time high school is that the currency

(01:36:02):
of high school is not what matters in real life.
And I've kind of more fat into saying I never
liked anyone who liked high school because the values in
high school are so screwed up that if you're popular
in high school you enjoy high school, that that doesn't
say great things about you. And I would say the

(01:36:23):
same thing applies to Washington, because the values in Washington
are equally screwed up, and if you like Washington, you're
probably not a good person.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
That's why you and I are friends.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
All Right, I'm gonna turn the camera a little bit
because my good friend and colleague Mandy Connell.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
Just walked in and she wants to ask you something.

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
First of all, Leeland, Hi, there.

Speaker 7 (01:36:42):
I loved high school. I make no excuses, but I
did not peque in high school. So I feel like
there's a difference there, you know what I.

Speaker 8 (01:36:47):
Mean, Like it's there, and I think, Mandy, this, this
is a little person.

Speaker 4 (01:36:52):
I think it's different for men than for women.

Speaker 7 (01:36:54):
Yeah, it was easier. It was just easier because I
was taller than everybody, so I think everybody was a
little afraid.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
But that's what I wanted to ask you about.

Speaker 7 (01:37:01):
So I have been in the past forty eight hours
consuming a lot of stuff about the Katari pr push
that we have been seeing in the last decade or so.
And at the same time, I'm going back and looking
at some of the reforms that Cutter has passed in
the last decade as well, some things that when it
comes to women's rights, some things that have dealt with corruption,

(01:37:23):
things that seem to me that Cutter is moving in
the right direction, but at the same time they're dropping
three hundred billion dollars in the United States to essentially
shine their image.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
Where's the truth? How do I figure out?

Speaker 7 (01:37:38):
Because there are a lot of very high profile people
who have made a lot of money from Cutter.

Speaker 8 (01:37:45):
Sure, absolutely, I would say a lot of things can
be true at once, which is that Cutter is trying
to become an indispensable nation. And are they perfect? No,
no country is. I would argue the only perfect country
is America because we're formed on perfect ideas. But we

(01:38:07):
are still in the in the pursuit of these ideals,
we have not fully recognized them.

Speaker 4 (01:38:13):
That's that's the idea of the Constitution in order to
perform a form a more perfect union. That's not Cutter.

Speaker 8 (01:38:20):
But at some point, and I think what people in
the foreign policy world missing, you know, I'll use quote
Joe Biden. Don't compare me to the almighty, Compare me
to the alternative. Don't compare a guitar to the almighty.
Compare them to the alternative. The alternatives are on. So

(01:38:40):
we've seen through time, right, Franklin Roosevelt cozied up to
Joseph Stalin because we.

Speaker 4 (01:38:46):
Had to to defeat the Nazis UH and then you
had America turn and take on the same thing. I
would say, what.

Speaker 8 (01:38:53):
Happened Ronald Reagan armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan? Why because
they were taking on.

Speaker 7 (01:39:00):
The Soviet The enemy of the enemy is my friend.
I understand that part of it, but I also think
I mean, I read yesterday that Iran still has a
significant energy interaction with Cutter, like they are energy partners.
So it's very difficult for me to parse out like
where am I Where am I supposed to get legit

(01:39:20):
information on Cutter's intentions, not just for the near term.
And I think you're absolutely right about them wanting to
be recognized and be a major player. But if it's
just pr and in the background they're still funding terror,
that's disconcerting.

Speaker 4 (01:39:36):
I think it is.

Speaker 8 (01:39:37):
I have seen them make a major shift from where
they were to where they are now, and I would
encourage anyone who is upset about Guitar funding Hamas, which
people should be, to go ahead and read the New
York Times reporting on it, hardly a pro Cutter outlet,
which noted that they were funding Hamas at the behest

(01:39:58):
often of Israel. So the Middle East is a very
complicated playground.

Speaker 4 (01:40:04):
Very but and I learned when I was there, nothing
is as it seems.

Speaker 8 (01:40:10):
What you hope to do is make sure that there
is sticks and carrots of aligned interests.

Speaker 4 (01:40:17):
And I think what Trump has done, I would say masterfully.

Speaker 8 (01:40:22):
Is offer legitimacy to these Gulf countries, especially the Saudis
and the Kataris and the Amadis, who already had it
to a certain.

Speaker 4 (01:40:29):
Extent, but then require them to deliver.

Speaker 8 (01:40:35):
And so far there's been some pretty serious sticks and carrots,
and he's gotten deliverables out of the Amadis.

Speaker 4 (01:40:42):
He got the Abraham Accords right when Trump was elected.

Speaker 8 (01:40:46):
The Kataris kicked to moss out, So there's some deliverables here.

Speaker 4 (01:40:52):
And I would say, again, are they perfect?

Speaker 1 (01:40:56):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:40:57):
Would you rather them as our friends than enemies?

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:41:00):
Yeah, it's you know.

Speaker 8 (01:41:01):
Look, sometimes in high school you get invited somebody to
a party, not because you loved him, but because you
prefer them to be there than not.

Speaker 7 (01:41:09):
Thank you, Leland, nice chatting with you. Thanks for letting
me take over the last part.

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
Of your show. Happy to do it all right?

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
Leland Vindert's show on Balance seven pm weeknights on NewsNation.
Go to War Notoes Dot com and sign up for
that fantastic email. It shows up at five oh five
pm Mountain time every day, Leland, thanks so much for
your time.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
As always, I'll go digging dig through my mailbox to
look for the invitation and i'll and I'll talk with
you soon.

Speaker 4 (01:41:35):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
All right, So I would be remiss and maybe even
in trouble if I don't mention. You can win a
pair of twenty twenty five Broncos home game tickets to
your choice of home game on the KOA Instagram page,
Instagram dot com slash KOA Colorado right now and then
again six pm to seven pm this evening during the
Broncos schedule release show that Dave Logan is doing that's

(01:41:57):
actually airing on k HOW from six to seven pm.
And then we're gonna have a live KOA Cast video
stream on Koa's Facebook page because the Rockies are going
to be here on KOA anyway, you can win a
pair of Broncos.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
Home game tickets. I don't want to make you too late, Mandy.

Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
You want to tell us anything, I have Cliff make
of it on to talk about Indian Pakistan, something that
I've been flying under my radar. A little bit and
something that needs me on everybody's radar. Plus, we're going
to talk more about this Katari stuff. I've been down
a rabbit hole ross for todays now, all right, and
at this point I.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
Don't know who to believe.

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
You saw that free press thing, Yes, but that's like,
that's just the tip of the Iceberg game and.

Speaker 4 (01:42:33):
The best job of it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:34):
But there's so much there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
If you have time, do me a favor and ask
Cliff what he thinks about Trump lifting sanctions on Syria.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
I'm going to because I think that's a big deal.

Speaker 7 (01:42:44):
And luckily Cliff can talk about anything, so I can.

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
Throw them a curveball. Yeah, very good.

Speaker 1 (01:42:48):
All right, everybody stick around for Mandy's fabulous show.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday.