05-30-25 - *FULL SHOW* 'Ethical IVF'; Jared's Bridge; Rabbi Leban on Shavuot

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm going on vacation after today, and sometimes it's hard
to not get into vacation mode a day early, but
I'm not. I'm here to work. I am here to work. Yeah,
I'll be away next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I'm going to
New York City where my nieces bought Mitzvah, and.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Then I'm going to do some other things when i'm there.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'll go to a taping of The Gutfeld Show on
Monday night, and I see some friends and stuff like that,
and just kind of give myself a.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Very short vacation. Especially my mother.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
In law is here from Australia, Christen's mom, and I
actually I really liked my mother in law.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
She's great.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
But I also don't mind having a little time to myself.
Christian can hang out with her mom. My kids are
busy doing things, so it's almost it almost feels like freedom.
It's weird, you know, you know, two kids are old
enough to be hanging out with friends, doing this, doing that,
going places in their own cars and staying at friend's houses.

(00:55):
And Kristen's got her mom and I'm just like free for.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
A few days. It's a weird, weird feeling what else.
I will let me follow.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Up for a second on something Pat Word was talking
about there with the spelling Bee. So I was a
good speller, but not good enough. I was our I
guess County. Maybe I don't know. I was some very
very low level, you know, spelling champ in seventh grade or.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Some dumb thing like that.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
But I felt a lot of empathy for the kid
in that newscast you just heard from Pat where this kid,
who you know, at the age of twelve or whatever
he is, is an infinitely better speller than I ever
will have been. By the time that I die, and
you look back at my life and you look at
the day when Ross was at the absolute peak of

(01:45):
his spelling acumen, it will have been a very small,
almost immeasurably small percentage of the spelling acumen of this
young kid who just won the Scripts Spelling Bee championship.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
All of them, you should go.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I put this stuff up on the blog, including the
words they had to spell. These kids, like the first
word they have to spell is a word that might
have been one of the last words, because they tend
to go up in difficulty from when I was a kid.
It's nuts how smart how much. It's just amazing. And

(02:22):
this kid was given a word you just heard it
in the newscast, was given a word, started spelling it,
knew he had it wrong, said wait and started again.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
But you can't. And this is what happened to me.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
When I was a kid, we went to I don't
remember if it was county championship. Either stayed or said,
I don't remember. It's a long time ago, but it
was some It wasn't Nationals. I'm not I was not
good enough to get to Nationals, but it was it
was something in my county or my state, and I
was I was given the word incredulous, which is not

(02:57):
a difficult word to spell, but I was real nervous
and I had never done this before and.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I'm thirteen years old or something.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
And the first thing out of my mouth for the
word incredulous was, and I quote quoting myself from however
many years ago, I are no, I n And that
was it. I was done, can't correct yourself, and I
was out. And I think it was my first word.
I think it was my first word in that in

(03:26):
that competition, and I felt like I let everybody down.
And I'm sure I did, actually, and I look at
these kids with such amazement, such wonder at what they're
capable of. I've got a substack note that's going to
be published tomorrow on some thoughts about that, and maybe

(03:48):
I'll mention it just a little bit here.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
By the way, please do go to Ross.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Kominski kam I n Sky Rosskominski dot substack dot com
and subscribe to my substack. It's absolutely free and probably
worth a little bit more than that. And I just write,
you know, medium length little essays, just what's on the
top of my mind, and hopefully you'll find them interesting
and it doesn't cost you anything. I probably I'm just

(04:14):
kind of settling into it. I'm probably gonna write more
or less every other day, although I've been writing a
little bit more frequently than that.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
May I regale you with a quick story, sure, please do.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
I was the u one of the parents driving a
group of kids to a spelling bee. My daughter included
some point in elementary school, and maybe four or five
kids under my care, and I brought the kids together
in a small group before the spelling bee. I said,
if you kids hurry up and throw this bee and
misspell everything, I will take you to a cold stone.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Cream rie producer Shannon did they?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Oh yeah, really it worked? Seriously, how many CA kids
intentionally misspelled something to go get ice cream?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Probably all of them. I think one kid made it
one further round and we.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
All, dude, come on, that's unbelievable. Unbelievable. You're I'm not
going to say anything more, folks.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
If you go to substack, go to Roskaminsky dot substack
dot com, hit subscribe, cost you nothing, and tomorrow you'll
get my essay about the thoughts that came into my
mind when I was thinking about that spelling bee championship.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
All right, So, if you have ever over the past.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Ten or twenty years or however long, yeah, almost twenty years,
driven up Highway thirty six between Denver and Boulder, you
will have noticed on the west side of the highway
in I guess it's Broomfield, the First Bank Center, right,
medium size arena for sports and concerts, and I think

(06:00):
I saw a minor league hockey game there one time.
I saw what's that music? Sam Smith? I saw Sam
Smith there. One time I saw Jeff Dunham, the really
funny comedian with the with the with the marionettes, No,
not marionettes.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
What do you call them? Puppets? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Ahmed the dead terrorist, and I mean that guy's just fabulous, right,
And in the old dude, what's the old dude's name,
Shannon's what does it serve with a W? Yeah, Walter,
It's Walter, that's right. So anyway, so that's what that
place was. But here's the thing. They were never able

(06:40):
to book enough act there, whether it's sports or concerts
or comedy or anything. They were never able to book
enough stuff there to take make it a financial success.
And the upkeep of the building was expensive, and so
they decided to get rid of it and they demolished

(07:01):
this building.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
It was nineteen years old.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
They demolished it a few months ago and it cost
a few million dollars to demolish it.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
But it's dirt now. And this is from CBS News.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
To redevelop the land, the city opened up the lot
to bids from developers in February. However, now three months later,
not a single developer has submitted a proposal.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Isn't that remarkable?

Speaker 1 (07:25):
I mean, near between Denver and Boulder, right near the highway.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
This this is an area that.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
You would think would be pretty valuable, pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
And there are a lot of businesses and some residences.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
But there are a lot of businesses, especially restaurants and
stuff like that that open their specifically, pardon me, to
get the traffic from the first Bank center, which now
they are not getting.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
And some of these restaurants are really struggling.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
I do not have an answer as to why nobody
wants to develop this place. I will say generally what
happens with real estate, including when you're selling a house.
The longer it takes to sell, the harder it gets
to sell, because people who see it know how long
it's been for sale and say there must be something
wrong with that. I sure hope they figure it out.
I just found it an interesting story. We'll be right back.

(08:11):
Thanks for spending a little time with me. Yeah, Shannon
looked at his watch one hundred already. So there was
a very interesting Supreme Court ruling yesterday, And on the
one hand, I'm not entirely surprised at how it came out.
On the other hand, I am very surprised that it
came out unanimously. And this is a case about a

(08:38):
train an eighty eight mile train in Utah going into
western Colorado near the Colorado River for.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
The u Winta. Am I pronouncing that right? Ui Nta?
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
I always have trouble with that one. But you went
to Basin Railway and this is supposed to be something
that's supposed to move oil from oil production that's going
to be developed, and so here's what happened. So they
did this. Whenever you're going to do something like a

(09:15):
new railroad, you have to go through these insane levels
of getting permission from the government, and one of the
things you have to do is some kind of environmental
impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act called NEPA
an EPA, which I mentioned maybe a week and a
half ago on the show, because the Trump administration recently

(09:36):
put out an executive order aiming to make it easier
for companies to comply with NEPA and making it harder
for the government to slow projects down and harder for
radical environmentalist groups to use NEPA to slow projects down,
which is what they've done. There are these groups out
there who are against everything, and what they do when
somebody gets a permit for something is they sue, saying

(09:57):
you violated NEPA. And even if even if the company
that's trying to do the thing ends up winning, right,
they it will have taken two years or five years
or ten years and cost millions or tens of millions
of dollars to fight in court. And so it keeps
people from wanting to even get started because they're not

(10:17):
going to want to be buried in that. And just
to give you a sense, you know, this particular went
railway was under review for I don't know how many years,
four or five years, Shannon, take you guess how long
their environmental impact statement was that they did UNDERNEAPA for
this particular railway. What's your guess as to how many
pages the environmental.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Impact statement was?

Speaker 4 (10:40):
Four hundred? A little higher? Try higher? Six hundred, No higher,
eight hundred, no higher. How many trees are we cutting
down from a stupid thing? Eleven hundred, all of them?

Speaker 2 (10:54):
No higher? Keep going? Was this single space fifteen hundred?
You're not really that close.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Cannon's laughing so hard right now, You're not really that
Keep going, just for fun, keep going, I'm just telling
you're not really close.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
A thirty thousand.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Page red Now, okay, now you're too high, but it
took a while, three thousand, six hundred pages, three thousand,
six hundred pages. And then what happened was some groups
and they got the permit.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
The railway got the permit, and.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Then some groups said, ah, you didn't properly consider everything
you were supposed to consider. And what they said was
what the environmentalist groups, who I really despise, what they
argued was, you can't only look at potential environmental damage
from the railroad. What you have to also look at

(11:49):
is the potential environmental damage from what other people might
be doing in some other project that happens to be
associated with but not part of the railroad, you know,
upstream and then downstream if they're transporting oil, let's say,
and then the oil gets to wherever it's going and
then gets used and creates greenhouse gases because you're producing oil,

(12:13):
even though that also has nothing to do with the railway,
except the railway is just transporting the oil that got used,
you also have to consider that, and therefore.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
They shouldn't get a permit. And on an eight.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Nothing decision, and I'm not sure which Supreme Court justice
didn't participate, but an eight nothing decision, the Supreme Court
overturned the appeals court and said, no, they don't have
to go consider all that's tough, and there's just there's
a limited amount of stuff you have to do under NEPA,
and yes, you have to do that stuff, but NEPA

(12:47):
is not intended to be a piece of law that
is to be used to prevent growth and development.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
And it was eight nothing. And as I read in
the Colorado Sun.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Environmental groups quickly lamented the eight zero decision, saying it
severely limits the scope of NIPA. Thank goodness, Thank goodness,
this is exactly what we need when environmental groups lament.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
A court decision.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
You know, the court got it right, because these are
bad people who claim to have good intentions, but I
actually don't believe them. I think it's a giant grift
and they just got stomped, including by the liberals on
the Supreme Court.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
By the way, one.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Of the defendants who just lost is Eagle County, Colorado,
and Phil Wiser, the Attorney General of the state of Colorado,
was also on the losing side of this case.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
I do not expect them to give up, though.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
I don't expect the bad guys.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
To give up.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
They will probably try to thwart the project using some
other method when we come back. I just watched a
Netflix video called American Manhunt Osama Bin It is about
all the stuff that went into getting Osama Bin Lauden.
And as I started watching it, I think maybe the
first voice I heard, like, oh, I know that, dude.

(14:10):
It's Michael Morrell, former deputy director of CIA, who was
one of the people most intimately involved with planning the
raid to get Ben Lauden, he joins us.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Next, I had.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Netflix on the other day and just flipping around looking
for something I would I would like to watch. It's
amazing how they have many thousands of things, but only
a handful of them are things I want to watch.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And then something popped up that I thought I'd.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Definitely want to watch this, and it's called let me
get the name exactly right, American Man Hunt Colon Osama
Bin Laden. And so I start watching this thing, and
of course it should have occurred to me as as
I was starting to watch it, it should have occurred to
me like who might be in this thing? A documentary
about getting Ben Lauden? And then I think it maybe

(14:54):
was the first voice that I heard in the documentary,
and I had my face away turned away from the
screen a minute, so I just heard it, and I
heard the voice.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I'm like, wait, I know that, dude.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
And and so again, I think the very first voice
was former CIA Deputy director and twice acting director Michael Morrell.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
And Mike and I actually.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
First met when he wrote his still very timely book
called The Great War of Our Time, the CIA's Fight
against Terrorism from al Qaeda to ISIS, And we've kept
in touch and been friends since then, and I asked him,
since seeing that remarkable documentary, if he could join us

(15:37):
this morning and talk about a little bit.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
So, Hi, Mike, thanks for doing this.

Speaker 5 (15:41):
You're welcome, Ross, It's really good to be with you
and your listeners.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm curious how much of the that, the whole saga
of what you guys did to get bin Laden, and
we'll get into the saga in a minute, how much
of that is just so deeply etched into your memory
that you will never forget it. And how much was
something that, let's see, when people making the movie asked
you about it, that you had to look it up

(16:07):
or ask a friend or ponder for a while.

Speaker 5 (16:13):
So for the two the two big moments, you know,
in terms of my role being with President Bush on
nine to eleven itself and then being part of President
Obama's national security team when we found him and when
we killed him, those are etched in my mind as

(16:36):
if they were yesterday. Some of the other details about,
you know, all of our work prior to nine to
eleven and then some of the work in the immediate
aftermath of nine to eleven that that the documentary covers
were things I had to go back and refresh myself on.
It's been a while, right.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, you know, And it's funny.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
You know, you and I have been friends for quite
a while now, and even when we talk, I've rarely
asked you about this, except maybe when I was interviewing
you for the book.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
And I think, in my mind, I think part of
it was the dude.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Gets asked these questions all the time, and I'm just
not going to put him through that again. But now
you're on now, you're on TV about it, so I
figure we might as well talk.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
About it a little bit.

Speaker 5 (17:22):
Fair game.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, fair game, So tell us a little bit about
your day on nine to eleven.

Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yeah, So I was the President's daily intelligence briefer that
whole year, the whole year of two thousand and one,
and I went wherever he went, you know, whether it
was in the Oval office or Camp David, or his
ranch in Texas, or traveling domestically or traveling internationally. I
was with him all the time. So I was with

(17:53):
him on September eleventh, I briefed him that morning and
then we got, you know, in the motorcade to go
to the school where he did the education event with
the kids, right and that's where we learned, you know,
what what had happened that morning and what was happening
right in real time for me. For me Ross, it

(18:14):
was a day of the intensity of doing my job,
you know, with a surreal So give you one example
of each so intensity of doing my job. It was
him looking at me in the eye and saying, Michael,
who did this? And you know, we didn't know for sure.

(18:36):
And when you watch the doc, it's a little mixed
up from a time sequence point of view, but we
didn't know for sure when he asked me that question,
and I said, miss President, you know, I think when
we get to the end of the trail, we're going
to find al Qaeda, and we're going to find Bin
Laden And I told him I'd bet my children's future
on that. So that's an example of the intensity of
doing my job. The surreal the best example. There were

(18:58):
menu that day. But you know, as we were flying back,
and the documentary covers this. As we were flying back
to Andrews Air Force Base that night, the President's military aid, right,
the guy who carries the nuclear football. He and I
had become friends. He was looking out the left side
of the aircraft as we were approaching Andrews, and he
waved me over and I went over and I looked

(19:19):
out the window and there was an F sixteen on
that wingtip, and he said, as an F sixteen DC
Air National Guard. There's another one on the other wingtip.
And it was so close you could see right, you
could see the pilot in the plane, and in the
distance you could steal you could see the still smoldering Pentagon.

(19:40):
And then he said something to me Ross that still
sends shivers up my spine. He said, do you know
why they're there? I had no idea. Not a military guy, right,
he said, they're there to put themselves in between the
president and a surface to air missile if somebody fired
one at us on final approach, it's like whoa wow, whoa.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
I remember hearing you say that in the documentary. That
sent shivers up my spine too. You did, did you
was there? How was the level of fear of that
on that plane ride or were you just so busy
thinking about what just happened to the country that you
guys even really weren't thinking about yourselves.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
You know, I wasn't thinking about myself. I was actually
thinking about the president, sure, and they were kind of
there were kind of there were kind of three moments
right where where there was some concern. The first is is,
you know, we were standing in the school. This event
had been on his calendar for weeks, you know, and

(20:50):
the two towers had already been hit. So I'm standing
there thinking, you know, is somebody going to fly a
plane into the school? Was one moment, right and I
looked over the Secret Service and I could tell by
the look on their eye that they were thinking the
same thing on your right. Wanted to get out of there.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (21:11):
The second was when the White House Chief of Staff
Andy Card took me aside on Air Force One after
we'd left Sarasota, and he told me that the White
House had received a threatening call that there was a
bomb on Air Force one. And he said, you know,
they get these kind of phone calls all the time,

(21:33):
but you know we're paying attention to this one because
the person who called used Air Force one's code name,
which at that point was Angel, so that you know,
it's like wow.

Speaker 6 (21:47):
Right.

Speaker 5 (21:49):
And then the last time is when the when the
military aid said to me, right, we're afraid somebody might
shoot as surface to air missile at us. But one
of the great things about the military, right is they
prepare for everything, and so they were prepared for everything
even though they're low.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, I'm gonna skip way ahead. Actually no, I'm gonna
only skip a little bit ahead. I'm going to ask
you to compress an immense amount of work into a
fairly short answer, but paint a picture for us of
what two things actually getting a sense like, maybe bin

(22:32):
Laden is in this place in about a bad how
did you figure out he might be there? And then
the second, how did you get to a high enough
level of confidence, which I don't ever think was at
its highest, But how did you get to a high
enough level of confidence that President Obama could give the go.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
Two great questions. The first one is that way back
in two thousand and two, and I'm going to be
quick here, way back in two thousand and two, we
heard about a guy who supposedly worked for Bin Laden
prior to nine to eleven, supposedly was a courier between
Bin Laden and colleague Saik Muhammad, the mastermind of nine

(23:17):
to eleven. And so we got really interested in this guy,
but we didn't have his true name, didn't know where
he was right, didn't have any of that kind of information.
So it literally took us seven eight years to figure
out who he was, what his nationality was, what his
phone number was, you know, and another year to pinpoint

(23:39):
him on the planet. But once we did find him,
we followed him back to this a big Abadabad compound, right,
and that compound, you know, just just yelled out, right,
there's somebody special here, just because of the way it looked, right,
twelve to eighteen foot walls topped with barbed wire and
a lot of other stuff. So that's how we found him,

(24:02):
you know. In terms of confidence, you know, we had
big debates about that in the sit room, a situation
room with President Obama, and you know, it turned out
that people had varying levels of confidence. Right, the analyst
who did the work, she said she was ninety five
percent confident. Her boss, the senior analyst in the counter

(24:25):
terrorism centers, that he was eighty percent. I said I
was only sixty. So we had these big discussions about
why right people were all over the map. President Obama
will tell you that he was fifty to fifty at
the end of the day, but you know, he felt
that he had a responsibility to go look and see
if he was there, and I couldn't agree more with him.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
We're talking with Michael Morell, former Deputy director twice acting
director of the CIA, and he was President Bush's daily
intelligence briefer during that faithful year of two thousand and one,
and we're talking about a new Netflix documentary, American Manhunt.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Osama bin Laden.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Did did Obama ask your opinion whether you thought he
should give a green light to the mission?

Speaker 5 (25:15):
Yeah, when we were when we were talking about the probabilities,
and I told him I was only sixty percent. And
I told him the reason I was only sixty percent
was because this was only a circumstantial case. We had
no direct evidence bin Laden was there. And I lived

(25:35):
through Iraq WMD, right, I lived through the CIA saying
that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we
were wrong. So I was looking at it in that context,
and then I said, you know, mister President, you actually
need to know. This is a sit room full of people, right,
you need to know that the case that bin Laden

(25:57):
is that Abadabad is is weaker than the case that
Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Wow, you could hear
a pin drop in the room. And he immediately said
He immediately said to me, Michael, does that mean you
wouldn't do this? And I said, no, mister President, I
absolutely would do this because this is the best lead

(26:19):
we've ever had, and sixty percent is good enough.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
I don't I don't want to spend too long on
this because it's going to sound like I'm trying to
be political, and I'm really I'm really not. But it's
it seemed from the stuff that I read, and maybe
from stuff I read from you. I don't remember that
near the end, basically everybody was a yes, except for
Bob Gates and Joe Biden and then Bob Gates changed
his mind and turned to yes, this, and you can

(26:46):
tell me if that's wrong. But I might have gotten
that from you or your book or something. And it
seems like at the end only Biden was a no.
Is that true? And what do you think of any
of that? Again, I'm not trying to drag you into politics.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Yeah, yeah, sure, the it's only two people who said no.
So the last meeting, in a few days before the raid,
Obama has this big, big meeting in the sit room
all of the cabinet members and then all of their deputies. Right,
So I was a deputy and we're all in the

(27:22):
room and he he pulls all of the cabinet members
and a couple of the deputies, right, what's your view?
What should I do here? And at that meeting two
people said. Two people said I don't think you should
do this, and one was Bob Gates. And Bob Gates
didn't think the intelligence case was good enough and he

(27:42):
was really concerned about the risk to the seals because
he remembered Desert One, right when when President Carter sent in,
you know, sent in helicopters to try to sit you know,
rescue the hostages in Tehran at the embassy in Tehran,
and the helicopters crashed, another plane blew up and a

(28:06):
bunch of guys died, and that was his concern. And
then Joe Biden said, you know, I don't think the
intelligence case is good enough either, miss President, and I'm
worried about US Pakistani relations. So Bob Gates changed his
mind the next day and said he was a yes.
I don't know whether Joe Biden never did he has

(28:28):
He has later said that he wanted to give the
presidents some decision making space. I have no idea whether
that's true or not interesting.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
And I don't know how many people remember this. And
it does come up in the documentary in an almost
funny way, and you can we can talk about it
as if it's almost funny since we know how the
mission ended up.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
But where somebody mentioned the.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Desert one helicopter crash as a risk in this mission,
and I and the story in the in the documentary,
I don't think it was Bob Gates.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
I think it was a junior person who said it.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
And uh, they're like, oh my god, don't even say that,
And then why.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Don't you tell us what actually happened.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Yeah, So there were two moments, right, one I knew
about and when I didn't until I watched the documentary.
The first was was when Bob Gates said, you know
I was there for Desert one. Guys, right, that's a
risk here. Military operations never go like they're supposed to.
So Bob Gates did it once, and I knew that
because I was in the room when he said it.

(29:30):
And one of the one of President Obama's aids in
the documentary says, WHOA, I don't believe you just said that. Right,
If we actually do this, then something bad happens. You know,
people are going to leak leak that you said that,
and President's going to look stupid, right. But the other
was one of the seals, right, one of the young
seals said, right, what if the helicopters crash and somebody,

(29:54):
you know, one of the seals, I don't believe you
just said that, you jinx.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Right, And then one did.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
But but it was already close to the ground, and
it was more like a very bad landing than what
you might think of as a crash, like what happened
in Desert One. And they did get out of the
helicopter and participate in the mission, and then.

Speaker 5 (30:14):
It just lost a lift about ten feet above the ground.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah, And they ended up explaining that it was like
it's all in.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
The documentary, I won't even I won't bother with it.
And then we blew up that helicopter on the way
out so that whoever was couldn't couldn't get information.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
And equipment out of it.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Let's see, give me a quick answer to a listener question,
did the government have images of Osama bin Ladden's shadow?

Speaker 5 (30:42):
So documentary didn't quite get this right. But there was
a guy right who came out every day and walked.
We called him the Pacer. Turned out it was Bin Laden,
but we couldn't get a clear enough viewers of his
face to actually tell it was him. But we were
interested in how tall this guy was. Now, in the documentary,

(31:05):
somebody says that when we looked at the shadow and
the day of the time of day and all that
kind of stuff, that we determined that it was a
person about the height of Bin Laden. That's not right.
What we determined was that the height was somewhere between
five feet and seven feet, which wasn't particularly helpful. They
should have put that in there.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
It was funny. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
We're talking with Michael Morell, former Deputy Director and Acting
director of the CIA, about a new documentary that he
features prominently in American Manhunt, Osama bin Laden. So all right,
I wanted to save this question for a last question,
and I'm not quite gonna say it's the most important question,
but it's one that for me because I know you,

(31:52):
I find important. You talked in this documentary in a
very emotional way about the stress on your marriage.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Did you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 6 (32:04):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (32:06):
You know, even before we were working this particular lead,
it started in August of twenty ten. The raid was
in May of twenty eleven. Even before that, being the
deputy director Acting director CIA, you know, is a seven
day a week job. I probably worked sixteen hours a
day Monday through Friday, and I worked, you know, maybe

(32:27):
eight hours on Saturday, and I was lucky if I
could take Sunday off. So it was already a stress
on my marriage, right and then and then the bin
Laden hunt starts, you know, in August, and I'm working
even more, and I'm working all day Saturday. Now I'm
working all day Sunday now, and I can't tell her

(32:49):
right what's going on. And then the whole thing bubbles
over on the day of the raid, where you know,
I go to work before she's up in the morning,
so you know, I leave it like at six am
on that Sunday when we did the raid, and you know,
she calls me about nine am and she said, I

(33:10):
just wanted to I don't believe her work already, and
I'm just you know, I'm calling you to make sure
you're coming to our daughter's last quarrel concert in high school. Yeah,
And it was at one o'clock. It was right in
the middle of the raid. Uh, And so I said,
you know I can't. I'm really sorry, and she said,
she said, one hour, you know, her last concert. And

(33:35):
I said, no, sorry, and I gotta go, and I
just hung out. It's probably the wrong thing to do,
but she tells the story that later and she didn't
hear from me from that moment until about ten o'clock
at night when I called her and told her to
turn on the TV. She didn't hear from me. And
she tells the story that after she put the kids
to bed that night, she was she was sitting on

(33:57):
the sofa wondering how this divorce thing works. Wow, so
thank god we got him. Yeah, and god President Obama
decided to announce it publicly that night or I would
have had, you know, haveter gone home to you know,
difficult situation.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Do you think last quick question were just about out
of time?

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Do you think and I'm talking about a big picture now,
do you think your wife would say that all those
years of not having her husband around very much, even
more than just those few months of hardly having you
around at all, but just it's like being a military spouse.
Do you think your wife would save the life of
you know, senior Cia spouse is was worth it for her?

Speaker 6 (34:42):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (34:43):
Wow, we should get her on here. You know, when
I did call her that night to tell her to
turn on the television, you know the president is going
to be speaking. He's got something important to say, she
immediately said, you got him, didn't you?

Speaker 4 (35:00):
M hm?

Speaker 5 (35:01):
So you know that was incredibly important to her too.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:06):
You know, she was in a sense part of the hunt,
but in a very different way, right than somebody who
worked at the agency at the time, And so you
know she might jokingly tell you no, right it wasn't
worth it. But I think, you know, in a super
candid moment, I think she would say yes.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
And I do think there are major parallels there to military.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Spouses as well.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
I mean, Mike, you've been just part of some of
the most important modern American history. It's it's really quite
incredible actually what you've done and what you've seen and
what you've heard. And I'm sure that there's an immense
amount of stuff that you will, you know, take to
your grave or only ever discussed with other people who

(35:54):
have the very top security clearances. So I think what
you've done and seen and heard is probably we probably
only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and nobody's going
to see the rest of it. But I'm so grateful
for everything that you've done, and I'm honored to be
your friend, and thank you for giving us some time
today here.

Speaker 5 (36:12):
Welcome Ross, and I'm honored to be your friend as well.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Have a great day.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Mike Morrell's new documentary is not just his Netflix new
documentary is called American Manhunt Osama Bin Ludden.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Let's do this So.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Governor Poulos has an idea for a bridge to go
from somewhere around the State Capitol to some other place,
and he had some out of town designer.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
You know, do this thing.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
And I guess it's supposed to look a little bit
like a river, and it's not a terrible looking bridge,
but it sure is not attracting a lot of positive
attention so far or positive response so far. The Denver
Gazette says Historic Denver and that's both capitalized. It's the
organization name Historic Denver opposes proposed Lincoln Street pedestrian walkway, joining.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Us to talk about it.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
John Deffenbaugh is and CEO of Historic Denver.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Hey, John, thanks for being here.

Speaker 7 (37:04):
Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
So don't you just.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Love a new bridge to get people from here to there?
What could be wrong?

Speaker 7 (37:12):
Well, I think the question we all need to ask
ourselves is where is here and where is there? This
doesn't take pedestrians for me to be in a way
that works for them. It takes them on a huge detail.
And also, I'm not quite sure how many pedestrians want
to get from the corner of Broadway and Lincoln to
the front door of the State Capitol in the first place.
People are still going to use the crosswalks, people are

(37:33):
still going to be concerned the traffic. This bridge doesn't
really solve any particular problem.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, but at least it's expensive.

Speaker 7 (37:42):
There is I believe they're working through and approved one
point five million in design fees just now and then
I think it's like eighteen to twenty million four construction
that's been floated of potentially a mixture of public and
private money.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
So I feel like I want to be a little sarcastic,
but I mean, it sounds like you're saying, not only
is the bridge, you know, too big to this to that,
but it sounds like you're also saying it's not solving
an actual problem that needs to be solved.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Is that what you're saying.

Speaker 7 (38:19):
Yeah, that's totally true. It's the way I understand it
from the state is that this is intended to take
school kids from the corner of Lincoln Broadway and now
a call fact, to the front door of the state Capitol.
And that's a totally admirable goal. But is the number
of school kids and is that benefit worth the intrusion

(38:39):
into a really historic built environment. Civic Center is one
of the most historic public spaces in Denver, if not
the state. It's continuously evolved for over one hundred years,
there's design guidelines to ensure it evolves thoughtfully and maintains
its historic characteristics. And this bridge just flies in the
face of those design guidelines and alien presence into the space.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
You know, I was just doing some math.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
If it's twenty million dollars, and if one hundred thousand
people walk that bridge, or if you want one hundred
thousand school kids, that that's still two hundred dollars a person,
which is a lot. And that's really if they were
to get it done at at twenty million dollars. But Okay,
I think I think we made it. I've made enough

(39:26):
of the of the monetary point. I would like you
to explain a little bit more from your perspective representing
historic Denver. Elaborate on what you just said about the
design aspect. Well, that design isn't exactly right, the kind
of the macro, how this does or doesn't fit in place.

Speaker 7 (39:46):
Sure, Civic center across this land ownership. Part of it's
done by the state, part of it's owned by the city.
But nevertheless it's involved really consistently with a lot of
cohesion over the past one hundred and twenty years. It's
one of the most examples of the city beautiful movement
in the US, and key characteristics of that are immetary

(40:07):
elegance restraints, and it's those characteristics that are made it
worthy of becoming a National Historic Landmark. In twenty twelve,
there is only twenty six hundred National Historic Landmarks in
the entire US, which is really a handful compared to
the size of the country. So that makes this one
of the key spaces to the story of the entire country,

(40:28):
and the key things that make it relevant to that
is the city beautiful movement and the symmetry, the restrain,
the elegance, and the consistency across the entire park. Inserting
a bridge in the part of the park that is
Kirby Worthy is asymmetric, is very counter to the characteristics

(40:49):
that make the park special. Starts to undermine the historic
value and historic integrity of the overall park. And that's
not to mention the opportunity for unfortunately those without permanent
shelter potentially gathering around the bridge for projectiles or banners
to be hung from the bridge or thrown from the bridge.

(41:11):
There's a lot of practical considerations as well to take
into account.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
So other than that, what don't you like about I'm
just about out of time, but I just wanted to
mention something.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
You know. So you're president and CEO of Historic Denver.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
I am president of the Bad Analogy Club, and yeah,
and you know.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
As I as I as I.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Think about this, it reminds me a bit of if
you had some very lovely could be Renaissance, but could
be a little bit later than the Renaissance landscape painting,
and then you drew into it a surrealistic rename a
Greed or Salvat or dolly Well bridge. Let's say, it

(41:54):
would just feel a little a little odd. And I
don't know, maybe that's not that bad an analogy, but
I'll give you a last seventeen seconds to wrap up.

Speaker 7 (42:05):
Yeah, I think your analogy of Adali is justified. Now, look,
it's it's a good looking bridge. Yeah, it's just in
the wrong location. In another location, this could fit in
really well. It's Kirby, it's very interesting, but it's just
in an inappropriate location. It doesn't fit in with historic
characteristics that make this part one of the most special

(42:27):
public spaces in the state.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
It would be sorry, give me a very quick answer
to this. Do you guys have any authority to stop it?

Speaker 7 (42:36):
I think you know the public opinion and trying to
rally public opinion, mobilize the debates. Thank you for being
curious and talking about it, because the more we talk
about it, the more we can all come to a
public consensus about what is and is not appropriate in
one of our very own public spaces.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
John Defenballs, President and CEO of Historic Denver, the website
Historicdnver dot org.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Thanks for your time, John. We'll keep in touch on
this issue.

Speaker 7 (43:03):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
All right, we'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
I've got a few days of vacation planned coming up
next week. And then Dragon, you are going away. Based
on your wife's count, I think it was yesterday, but
you're still here. So you're going on the Mandy trip
to Japan and Korea.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
And what day are you leaving?

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Thursday? Are you working Thursday? No, you're not working Thursday.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
It like six so.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
And and I'm not working until Thursday, so and and
that's a long trip you're going on. It's like a
fifteen day trip or something. So I won't see you
for close to three weeks.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
Which is why I made a name that tune for today.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, and so did I, so did I. So we
will each do and name that tune that will be.
That will be a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
All right. I want to mention this story.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
I just I'm sort of yeah, that was a black
Betty for Greig for.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Greg, all right?

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Was it was gregs sending it out to anyone else where?

Speaker 4 (44:03):
You just said, okay, Greg black Betty.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
So yeah, that's that's one of those one hit wonder yes,
ram jam or something good song. Of course, like the
song well done, Greg. I wonder which Greg that is.
I wonder if that's my friend Greg, who loves heavy
metal music.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
That's a little bit light for him. Yeah, I was
thinking that. So all right, So we're keeping.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
A half an eye on or a half an ear
or some other some fraction of some sense difficult to
smell on what's going on in Palmer Lake with regarding
regarding the potential annexation of BUCkies or the annexation of
land that BUCkies wants to build on at the corner
of I guess it's county line road, the county line

(44:48):
between I guess Doug Co and Jeff Co. Not the
County Line Road that you see between a rapa Hoe
and Douglas. That's actually an exit off the highway called
County Line Road.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
This one I don't think has an exit with that.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
But yesterday the city council or whatever they're called in
Palmer Lake voted six to one.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Now it's not approving everything yet they voted.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
They voted six to one to say that BUCkies is
legally eligible to nex the land. It's not the same
thing as saying that they will permit it, but with
a six to one vote, you have to think they
kind of want to.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
And there's a lot of.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Opposition, but it's difficult for me to tell whether the
opposition is really large or just really loud. It's and
I don't live there, so I don't know. We have
had a guest on the show who is against it,
and again, as I said, opposition to it is somewhat
well organized and boisterous. I'm guessing that there are residents

(45:55):
who are in favor of it, but that they are
maybe a little bit afraid to come out publicly and
say they're in favor of it because they don't want to,
you know, face the wrath of the people who are
against it. I don't have much of an opinion. I
don't live there. It's not going to affect me. I
understand the arguments. BUCkies are enormous, and they're in a

(46:16):
place that's basically rural, you know, has dark skies, doesn't
have much traffic, and a lot.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Of folks don't want all the lights and don't want.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
The traffic, even though the traffic should be pretty much
right next to the highway. There's also some question about
how much water BUCkies is gonna need. Colorado Sun says.
Several longtime Palmer Lake residents raised concerns about the town's
unsustainable water supply, which relies heavily on the depleting Denver
groundwater basin, but were cut off after trustees told speakers

(46:46):
the board was strictly evaluating the legal eligibility of annexation
and would consider water and other concerns at a future meeting.
There were actually a bunch of people, so they also
sit here in the Colorado Sun. Of the more than
thirty people who spoke yesterday to were in favor, so

(47:07):
you get a sense there there were also because you
can only fit, however many people into the building, there
were I think thirty people. I think there were around
one hundred people inside, and there were a few dozen
more people outside, you know, standing there under umbrellas and
the raincoats and the relatively cold weather holding signs, mostly
opposing it, like our town, not as tourist trap and

(47:29):
don't pave paradise.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
So that's what's going on in Palmer Lake.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
I will leave it, you know, as I said, to
the folks who are against it and to the folks
who are for it. When it gets to the appropriate time,
I'll be happy to have another guest back on the
show on either side or on both sides, to talk
about the merits or de merits of all that. I
want to give a quick shout out and congratulations to

(47:53):
the twenty twenty five class of the United States Air
Force Academy. They graduated yesterday morning, but I forgot to
mention it yesterday, So a big shout out to the
former cadets who are now Air Force officers. And the
thunderbirds didn't fly because the weather, but congratulations. I always
have so much admiration for these young people who are

(48:14):
able to get into and then graduate from any of
the United States military academies that.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Is a very very difficult thing to do.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Getting in is very difficult, and finishing is very difficult.
If I were going to have one small complaint, it
would be this news story from the Denver Gazette. Transgender
Air Force Academy cadets graduate but not commissioned a mid
Trump's ban. Three transgender senior cadets earned their diplomas from

(48:41):
the Air Force Academy on Thursday, but did not commission
as officers.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
With their peers.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Hunter Marquez is among the three earned degrees and aeronautical
engineering and applied math, and met the Air Force physical
standards for men. In fact, as I read in this article,
all three of these folks and you know, transgender.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
I don't know which direction.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
All three of them are, but all three of them
met the physical requirements for both men and women.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
The men's will be tougher.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
They all met the physical requirements for men and they
and they have all graduated from a military academy, and
yet they are not being allowed to commission. And I
think that's terrible on the on the part of the
Trump administration. I think it is I understand the arguments

(49:33):
that some people make. It's bad for this and bad
for that. I think there there's a nearly unlimited number
of roles in the military where the fact that someone
is transgender would be irrelevant.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
And I think the fact that they want.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
To serve is enough, and they've proven it by going
through the Air Force Academy. And I think most of
the push to get and keep transgender people out of
the military is pure bigotry. So I very much congratulate
everybody who graduated. I do not congratulate the Trump administration
for keeping these young people who have proven their merit

(50:08):
and their metal out of the Air Force. All Right,
thank you, that's pretty funny. I think I've heard clips
of that song before. All Right, we're going to do
something very different right now. And I guess everybody just
heard me welcome him before we were Yeah. So it's
been way too long since Rabbi Rafael li Ban has
been on the show, and he's back with us today.
He is the executive director. He's the big macher at

(50:32):
the Jewish Experience THEJE dot com. If you want to
learn more about opportunities.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
To learn more or express more of your.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Own Judaism in DENVERTHJE dot com. Rabbi, thanks so much
for spending time with us, appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (50:51):
Always a pleasure to be with you us.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
So I want to do two things with you today,
one of which I already emailed you about, and the
other I figure as long as I have you here,
and one's going to be more then the other. So
let's start with the one that's less fun. A few
days ago, a lunatic murdered two people in Washington, DC
because he thought they were Jewish. In fact, only one
of them was Jewish, but he thought they were Jewish.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
And I've been.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
Slightly but only slightly, surprised and more than slightly disappointed
at how fast this story has gone out.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Of the news.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
And I'm very curious as a rabbi, as a teacher,
as somebody who your congregation would look to for not
just information but wisdom and support. I'm very curious if
you have talked about this at synagogue or outside of

(51:51):
synagogue with the community, and what's going through your mind
about it as an American, As an American Jew, You've
always known there's little bits of simmering anti Semitism here
and there, but it just feels like it has gotten
so much worse in the past couple of years, and
I want to know your thoughts.

Speaker 6 (52:11):
It is a really painful event to have to comment on.

Speaker 8 (52:16):
And there's really two things to say.

Speaker 6 (52:20):
One is that we are.

Speaker 8 (52:24):
I don't think this is news, certainly not to you,
not to any of the listeners. We are entering what
seems to be a shockingly shocking uptick in incidents of
anti Semitism, of the anti Jewish, you know, both attacks vitriol,

(52:45):
and it's coming to us and it is perhaps one
could even go back as far as Pittsburgh where there
was a lunatic shooting in the synagogue there in Three
of Life Synagogue many years ago, and that was a
kind of an eye opener for many of the Jewish
people in the in America that we hadn't experienced things

(53:06):
like that, and suddenly we were thrust into a very
very very uh, frightening and defensive posture. And and and
nothing has changed in and it's only gotten much much worse.
And on the one hand, it's it's uh, it's within
the context of I would say, in general in America,
even putting anti Semitism just to the side for a second,

(53:29):
shootings and crazies and mass shootings became have become more
and more and more common, to the degree to which
they don't even make the front page news. They just
they just there's just a string of them, and they
just they've become everyday occurrences to us. We somehow absorbed
that into the norm, which is unbelievable in in and

(53:52):
of itself. And within that, the the there's the there's
this upswell of of of uh aggression, of of derision,
of criticism, and and you know that's to take it lightly,
of the of the Jewish, of the Jewish people internationally
and nationally, that is that is, it is just shocking,

(54:14):
and all of that is as I would say, that's
on the one hand. On the other hand, ross the
truth is that as a member of the Jewish people,
you know, for thousands of years, going back really two
thousand years, really this is not the exception. This is
not a shocker. This is actually the norm.

Speaker 6 (54:35):
This is part of what we have experienced and being
in exile.

Speaker 8 (54:41):
And and being guests, sometimes more welcome guests than other
times in nations around the world, that whether it's a pugrom,
or it's a Holocaust, or whether it's a just an
uptick and anti Semitism. This is actually what we've experienced
more rather more typically and and in some in some
in some way it's it shocks us here in America

(55:03):
because maybe we mistakenly thought that we were in some
sort of a bubble where this was not to happen.

Speaker 6 (55:08):
But I'll tell you something.

Speaker 8 (55:10):
They also thought that that was the case in Germany
in the early part of the of the twentieth century.
They also thought they were the most safe, welcoming society
that they'd ever been in. That obviously was in retrospect
turn out very much not to be the case. And
I and I hate to make any kind of a comparison,
but here we thought we're in an American safe space,

(55:31):
and uh and when that turns out not to be
the case, it may be shocking, but it's also typical,
too typical.

Speaker 6 (55:38):
Maybe we were mistaken.

Speaker 8 (55:39):
We thought that America was going to somehow be the
one exception of all the countries we've lived in two
thousand years, that America was not going to ever turn
on us. And I hope that I hope that we're
that that that will will will turn out to be
the case, that America will will rise up and and
and and this and this uptick.

Speaker 6 (55:57):
Will will will come.

Speaker 8 (55:59):
But the more likely and just in terms of statistically
and in terms of our history, does what we know
to be the case is that we've been nation that's
been by and large subject to all kinds of you know,
ill treatment, to put it nicely, Yeah, yeah, it is
for a long long time.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Not right.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
And I'm I'm not going to drag you into politics.
I'm just going to make a comment. I have found
President Trump to be the most pro Israel president, probably
of my lifetime, and certainly recently. It was American policy
for decades to move the embassy to Jerusalem, and nobody

(56:40):
did it until Trump. And I'm very grateful for Trump's
strong support of Israel.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
He's not always perfect.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
I think I think he should give Bbe the green
light to take.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Out Iran's nuclear stuff. But anyway, Trump's been very, very good.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
But he hasn't, I think, said enough in the United
States about the United States. I didn't really I don't
know if he said anything about that terrible killing, and.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
I wish he would. I wish he would say a
little more.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
Although it seems like most of the people who are
doing this, like we Okay, one more thing, and then
you can comment on it or not. You and I
have long thought Jews have long thought of people who
are usually described as being on the far right as
being the primary enemy in modern history, going back to

(57:38):
Hitler right, even though Hitler was actually a socialist, but
he's thought of as being on the right. And in
the US, we think of neo Nazis and skinheads and
so on, even though we don't have that many of them,
but we tend to think of them as the enemy.
But these days it seemed to me that the primary
enemy of Jews, and not just in America.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Is the left.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
And so maybe maybe it wouldn't even matter if President
Trump said anything, because the people on the far left
hate him as much as they hate us. And and
you know, I'm not defending neo Nazis.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
They're bad, and I wish there weren't any of them.
It just doesn't feel to me.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
And they and they are a risk, but I don't
think there's the biggest risk right now.

Speaker 8 (58:23):
I would common to say that I do, I do
agree with you, and that that were we're even maybe
more shocked to find such a sense of aggression against
the Jewish people and you know, partly couched and as
anti Israel. But but it's really boils down to the
same thing we've just we're shocked to find that from

(58:46):
the left also it was and again just not not
to lean into this comparison too much, but but the
you know, in Germany in the early part of the
twentieth century, the the or petrators of the of the
you know, the Nazi Holocaust were themselves the the elite,

(59:06):
the educated, the you know, these were professors and and
they weren't you know, they weren't sort of like low class,
blue collar you know, skinheads and uh.

Speaker 6 (59:19):
And here today we're shocked to find that we would.

Speaker 8 (59:23):
Have thought that in you know, in what what purports
to be the the realm of of academia and uh,
you know, intellectualism and liberalism, we would have thought that
there that there would be utter support for the most
uh liberally you know, permissive culture and community and country

(59:45):
in the Middle East.

Speaker 6 (59:46):
We would have thought that that that.

Speaker 8 (59:47):
The academic world of the college campus in America would
have rallied behind Israel and without any without exception. And
when we see the we saw the utter opposite of that,
which is something that has very clearly been the case
where we were shocked to see. Uh and and I
you know, story after story after story of my friends
who sent kids to colleges who you know, who can't
believe what you know, how how terrified their their their

(01:00:10):
children are on the college campus over the past you know,
number of months. It's it's that that is a shock,
and that is new and and and it is a
type of maybe if it's an anti semitism we weren't
concerned about in America previously, maybe it's something we need
to be more alerted and more aware, more alerted to
and more aware of more you know, we.

Speaker 6 (01:00:29):
Need to recognize it.

Speaker 8 (01:00:30):
And I do think that, you know, I appreciate some
things about the President.

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
I appreciate that what he's done in that regard, I.

Speaker 8 (01:00:38):
Think he's he's uh, you know, striking at some funding
and major universities and things and the like, and it
put them on the defensive on this note where they
think they should be things should be they should be
called on, should be called out.

Speaker 6 (01:00:52):
And I do think he's doing that, so I think
he should be credited for that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
All right, let's switch gears now and talk about the
thing that I asked you to come on to talk
about I'm gonna you tell me if I'm wrong, But
I think the Jewish holiday that we are about to
embark on, which is early next week, but I'm having
you on today because I'm on vacation the first few
days of next week.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
So it is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Probably the least well known and understood major Jewish holiday.
I think you can tell me if that's If that's wrong,
So what's the holiday and what's it about?

Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
I think again, I quite agree with you.

Speaker 8 (01:01:32):
Shavuos is very much the least known and least celebrated
major holiday of the Jewish calendar. And it's very shocking
that that's the case. I have my theories why, but
it is surprising because that, as my Monoties famously wrote
that really the basis.

Speaker 6 (01:01:51):
Of Judaism, as our faith is.

Speaker 8 (01:01:55):
It stems from the events that we celebrate in the
holiday of shows.

Speaker 6 (01:01:58):
I'll just tell you briefly what that is, and I'll
give you my theory.

Speaker 8 (01:02:04):
Probably many of you listeners are familiar with the idea
of this is how they've pass over, being a celebration
of the exodus. The Jewish people were an enslaved nation
in Egypt, and through a series of incredible miracles, God
drew the Jewish people out, rescued them from that Egyptian
bondage ten plagues well known to many Christians and Jews alike,

(01:02:26):
as well as splitting the sea.

Speaker 6 (01:02:28):
And then the Jewish.

Speaker 8 (01:02:28):
People marched out of Egypt into the desert, and a
short period later, seven weeks they arrived at Mount Sinai.
And then and there was this incredible event for us,
which was the Jewish people, every man, woman and child,
a raid arranged around Mount Sinai, had the opportunity to

(01:02:52):
hear God speak the Ten Commandments to us, an incredible
event of public mass prophecy, the likes of which have
never been even claimed, certainly never occurred in human history before.
Since it was an incredible event, it is the basis
upon which all communication of God to manned to mankind relies,

(01:03:13):
All prophecy relies on that, and that is therefore the
basis of Judaism, and frankly, I'm sure any monotheistic religion,
the Christian Christianity and Islam that also fundamentally trace their
their own roots.

Speaker 6 (01:03:26):
To communication between God and man. They have the.

Speaker 8 (01:03:31):
Revelation of God now Sinai as their foundation as well.
The word shubuos that the holidays named is called weeks,
which primarily is the date seven weeks exactly from the
Exodus is when we stood a Mount Sinai, and it's
the name for that.

Speaker 6 (01:03:49):
It's called Pentecost.

Speaker 8 (01:03:50):
Interestingly, in Christianity, Pentecost means the fiftieth day, the day
after seventy after seven weeks, forty nine days, it's the
holidays of the fiftieth And my Monodie says that really
it all boils down to that. That's that's how we
know there's a God in the world. That's when we
all experienced it. It wasn't just one person's prophecy. Someone
didn't just come out of the forest and say, hey,

(01:04:12):
God spoke to me and I have what to share
with you. God spoke to all of us, every single
one of us en mass, and we were all present,
and we all experienced something simultaneously, which is which is
really not an event that could be falsified or that
could be made up. It has its own internal, absolute

(01:04:37):
sort of clarity.

Speaker 6 (01:04:38):
It's proof. It's an entire nation doesn't.

Speaker 8 (01:04:43):
Experience God's speaking to them all in one shot. And
get it wrong. There's no way that if that hadn't happened,
someone could later on come to you and tell you, hey,
you know what happened to your your ancestors that they
they had this. If that weren't true, you would never
buy it because it's such a powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
So we're we're experienced.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Just about out of time here. When does Chivuos start?
An end?

Speaker 8 (01:05:09):
This year Stunday night at sundown and it's one day
in Israel, two days in the Diasterus it goes through
Tuesday nights, So you're off for Chubus.

Speaker 6 (01:05:17):
It sounds like you will be uh off the air
for the holiday. Yes, and and.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
It's uh it is you know, well, what can people
do to celebrate it? There's a there's events in in
in Jewish ennagogues, I'm sure. And I always tell people
that being being Jewish, the people of the book and
anyone who cares about the Bible, the Tora is a
sweet thing.

Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
It's a it's a source of sweetness.

Speaker 8 (01:05:41):
And we celebrate it with with cheesecake and blintzes and
and sweet dairy foods and the like, and uh, you know,
we we should relate to it with even though as
as a teva one said in The Fiddler on the Roof.
You know, being the being chosen to receive the toa
is not always easy, And as we spoke out in
the beginning of our of our conversation there there, it's

(01:06:03):
not always easy, but it's still sweet and in a.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Nutshell, and you'll you'll be pleased to hear that the
reason I'm going to New York is for my nieces.
Bot mitzvah tomorrow, Rabbi Yes, Rabbi Rafael Liban runs the
Jewish Experience in Denver the je dot Com. Thanks as always, Rabbi,
have a wonderful chivos and we'll talk soon.

Speaker 6 (01:06:26):
Thank you, and you two all right?

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Uh okay? I wanted to look. It's actually a holiday
I didn't even know all that much about.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
And it's one of the major Jewish holidays, and even
among Jews, you barely talk about it. You don't know
that much about it more often than not, so I
thought I would share that with you, even if you're
not Jewish. All right, let me do something, let me
do something completely different. So this is a wacky story,
right it It's not wacky, isn't the right word? This
is a story that just reminds you of the age

(01:06:54):
in which we are living. Here's the headline from the
Associated Press. Ford the car come recalls more than a
million vehicles for a software glitch. Now, okay, that's fine.
We know the cars are very computerized these days. Do
you know what the software glitch is causing to not

(01:07:16):
function properly? This is the part that's like, okay, this
is peak, you know. Twenty twenty five. It's the rear
view mirror. Well, it's not really a mirror anymore. It's
a little displat screen that looks like a mirror but
is actually showing you images from a camera, and it
could be in front of your car, behind your car,

(01:07:37):
or what or whatever. The Associated process Ford is recalling
more than a million vehicles due to a software issue
that can cause the rear view camera at a malfunction,
increasing the chance of an accident.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
The government autoregulators said.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
And there are way too many lists of vehicles included
in the recall based on year and model and all
this stuff for me to name them all, but I'll
do a few. And these are mostly actually twenty twenty
one and later, because that's when this technology came into
place anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
So these are the Ford vehicles.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Bronco Edge Escape F one fifty and then more recent
f all the other fifties Expedition, Transit, Machi Ranger, Mustang,
and then a link in Nautilus, Navigator and cores are
So that's actually all of them. So we've got any
of those twenty twenty one or later basically for most
of them, get in touch with your dealer and they'll

(01:08:33):
be able to update that by some kind of wireless
software update, I believe. But how about that for just
what a world we live in. They're recalling vehicles for
a software update. So not very long ago that itself
would have been crazy, but now they're recalling it for
a software update because without it you could have a
problem with your rear view mirror, which isn't even a

(01:08:55):
mirror anymore. You didn't say FC, he said FC, he said,
So it could be football club, right, it could be
almost anything, almost anything, all right, Nothing wrong with that,
Nothing wrong with a little Pink Floyd Dark Side of
the Moon. You can keep your requests coming at five
sixty six nine zero. Send them to attention Producer Dragon.
Please include your name if you have a request and

(01:09:17):
if you would like to dedicate it to somebody. Old school,
that's what we do here as KOA.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
What do we do now? We turn one hundred mm. Okay,
world enough. We can do what we want.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
We can do whatever we want. I got a bunch
of random stories. I'm just going to work through them
in no particular order. So President Trump was asked a
question by a reporter yesterday that really annoyed him, and
I'm not going to play it for you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
I'm just gonna tell you about it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
So there was a term that was apparently made up
by a guy named Robert Armstrong, who is a writer
for the Financial Times. The Financial Times, by the way,
is basically the British version of the Wall Street Journal.
They're not the same company, they're different, but that kind
of function. It's basically a British a British newspaper that

(01:10:06):
is liked the Wall Street Journal. Now, before I tell
you about this term that the guy invented, let me
just take you back a few days on the show,
and I get actually, I think it was Monday Tuesday
because we didn't work Monday, right because I had to
put the trash out a day late for National Hamburger Day.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
But then a day early because of put your pillow
on your Refrigerator.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Day, which is such a dumb holiday that it counts
negative and you have to put your trash out a
day early. Okay, But then there was that other holiday whatever,
that was on Monday. So there was two moving forward
and one moving back. So that today is my trash day,
I think. Okay, anyway, we hope how did we get
how do we get onto that?

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
I have talked about something on one of those days.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Yeah, So what I was talking about on Tuesday was
that the previous week President Trump and bnounced fifty percent
tariffs on the European Union, and he announced tariffs on Apple,
which he later explained would be tariffs on any cell
phone maker, any smartphone maker. By the way, all those
tariffs are illegal. A court put them on hold, put

(01:11:15):
a court ruled they were illegal, and then another court
put that ruling on hold.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
So for right now, the tarroifts are staying in place.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
But that doesn't mean that Trump administration is going to
win the appeal.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
And just as a little side note, I see that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
Donald Trump is commenting on the ruling as being political
and as being by judges who hate Trump, and that's
all wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
That's just Trump spouting off.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
It's always been obvious, if you read the law that
he chose to say gave him the authority for the tariffs,
that the law did not give him that authority.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
It's always been obvious to me, at.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Least, and to some of these attorneys brought the cases
that the tariffs are illegal, which is a different question
from whether you like them or not.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
They're clearly illegal, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
And one of the judges in the unanimous ruling against
Trump yesterday the day before was appointed by Trump. I
doubt he hates Trump anyway, anyway, So what I noted
was Trump announced those tariffs, the stock market went down
pretty hard, and then Trump announced the pause until July

(01:12:16):
on those tariffs. And then the next market day, which
was this past Tuesday, the market went back up.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
And I said, this is happening over and over right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Trump is announcing stuff and then backing down so fast
that at some point the people who are trading the
stock market on that and selling it when he announces
tariffs are making a mistake. And I will tell you
I mentioned to you a couple months ago now at
least that I was selling stocks. Now, this was in
advance of Trump announcing any trade wars, because I thought

(01:12:47):
he was going to announce trade wars, and he did,
and the stock market got crushed for a while. But
where I got it wrong is I didn't think Trump
would cave in so fast. I didn't think he would
back down so fast. I thought he would stick with it.
And except for the ten percent on everything, which he's
probably gonna be forced to remove anyway, except for the

(01:13:09):
ten percent on everything, and except for dealing with China,
which really is a special case, he's backing down on
almost everything else. Right, we still have some wacky stuff
with metals, with China Mexico stuff, and that's that's a
special Those are his dumbest tariffs or the China and Mexico.
They're all dumb, but the China, I'm sorry, the Canada,
the Kinda.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
And Mexico terrifts are the dumbest.

Speaker 1 (01:13:30):
So my point, the stock markets started going up once
people started figuring out that Trump was gonna cave in,
and it's been happening over and over. He announces a thing,
and then a day later, two days later, three days later,
he says, Oh, we had a great conversation. They came
in and they licked my boot, and we're gonna, you know,
put a pause on this, and then the market goes up.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Well, how many times do you have to see this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Movie before you realize that he's gonna cave in? And
maybe you shouldn't go panicking and selling stocks. Now. Maybe
one day he won't cave in, and then you wish
you will had.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Sold the stocks. But it doesn't seem like that's the
thing right now. So back to this.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Financial Times writer Robert Armstrong, and he coined this new
term for, you know, the trade the way you know,
fancy professional traders are thinking about this stuff. It's the
taco trade. Taco. It's the taco trade. And what that
trade is, what taco stands for. Is you ready for this?

(01:14:30):
Trump always chickens out, okay, And so what this really
is now, I'm talking about professional traders. I'm not sitting
here saying this to make fun of Trump, Okay, I'm
talking about what professional financial.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Market traders are actually doing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
And what they're doing is when now at this point,
what they're doing is when Trump is making an announcement
about new tariffs, and some and people get real panicky
and go sell stocks. These people are buying the stocks
with the under their understanding. They're pre add that Trump
always chickens out, and that a few days later he'll
find an excuse to announce some kind of pause on

(01:15:08):
the tariffs because he wants to make it look like
he's a great deal maker even though he hasn't really
done anything yet. And the stocks you go up and
then you sell them. It's the taco trade. So yesterday
a reporter asked Donald Trump. He said, you know about
this new thing and the financial press where the and
financial markets traders, uh, this thing where they say you

(01:15:31):
always chicken out. And Trump got really mad and he
went on this long, rambling answer and then he said,
you know something like, you know, you should get out
of here. He said to the reporter something along the
lines of you should get out of here. He really, really,
really hated the question. Here's what I wonder. If Trump

(01:15:56):
gets the sense that people are seeing him as chickening out,
will that cause him to not back down? Will it
go to his ego rather than whatever game it is
he thinks he's playing right now, And he'll say, I
can't you know people are seeing me as weak. I
can't have that. And so maybe the next one, maybe

(01:16:19):
the taco trade won't work right. And maybe because markets
never they don't, they'll do the same thing over and
over for a little while until people figure it out
and try to front run it and do something different
in game.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
And so maybe the next trade will be.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Okay, everybody knows about the taco trade. Now, you don't
want to make that mistake again. You don't want to
be one of the suckers who goes and sells the
stocks when Trump announces the tariffs because he's gonna back down.
And maybe those people who have been playing that game,
not the taco game, but the people the taco people
are reacting to, are gonna not sell stocks the next
time that Trump announces it because they don't want to

(01:16:56):
be the suckers again. And then Trump, knowing that people
are thinking he's chickening out all the time, will not
back down, and it will turn out that the actual
good trade will have been to sell them.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
I am not making I'm not trading any of this.
I'm not predicting anything.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
I'm just sharing with you because both the politics and
the economics are really interesting and to give you a
little mindset into the mind of a professional trader, which
I used to be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
Oh that reminds me, and I don't know why it
reminds me, but it reminds me that I haven't copied
the audio over yet for our mind Name that tune,
So I'm gonna have to do that in the next
in the next break, so we can play name that
tune in the break after that. Dragon and I each
have a song today. So all right, I saw this
headline and actually, Dragon, did you I'll I'll just share

(01:17:49):
the headline first, sexual activity before bed improves objective sleep
quality study. Fine, did you send me that? Yep, that's
one of my Yeah, okay, So so here's the thing.
When I got that, I saw the headline. I saw
the headline and I'll read it again, sexual activity before
bed improves sleep quality. I've left out a couple words,

(01:18:11):
but that's basically what it says, and I thought to myself,
this is freaking awesome. I am gonna print this. I'm
gonna give it to Kristen, and I'm gonna have a
lot more than I used to because Kristin wants me
to sleep well, right, my wife wants she care, Yeah,
she probably wants to sleep well.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Also good point. And again let me just.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
Share the headline, sexual activity before bed improves sleep quality.
And then once you get into the article, it's so disappointing.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
It is so disappointing and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:51):
Absolutely positively not something I am going to share with
my wife. Did you read the article or only the headline?
I really only read the headline like that. That's perfect,
I know it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
That's all we.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
That's all every guy listening right now needs print that
give it to whoever, your wife, your girlfriend, whatever. Well,
actually it's not only I shouldn't say it's only for guys.
This applies to women too, right, It's.

Speaker 4 (01:19:18):
Just it's not a gender specific it's not a.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
Gender No, it's not a gender specific headline. And even
this next stuff is not gender specific. I just I
put it that way because I think as guys, we
are trained from the moment we know what a girl
is to know that we want it. I won't define
what it is well, that we want it more than
a do.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
We've were always taught that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
And then when when you eventually meet the love of
your life and you get married and you're spending a
life together and you truly love each other. You realize
that that concept that you thought you knew that guys
want it more than girls? Do you realize that that

(01:20:01):
concept was absolutely right all the way along? Show a
hands who agrees with me? Everybody, even the women. So
I love the ability to tell my wife, Hey, if
we do this, we'll both sleep better. And I thought,

(01:20:26):
Dragon from the headline, I thought, this is my ammunition,
this is my secret weapon. Sexual activity before bed improves
sleep quality, study finds Can I just now read to
you dragon, the first actual sentence of the article?

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Sure, what do you think it's gonna say? Please?

Speaker 4 (01:20:47):
Don't be the exact opposite of what the headline says.
It's not the opposite, close enough.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Engaging in sexual activity, whether solo or with a partner,
can lead to better sleep, according to a new study
published in the journal Sleep Health. The research found that
both partnered sex and solo reduced the amount of time

(01:21:13):
people spent a week during the night and improved overall
sleep efficiency. Gosh, so close, so close to a secret weapon.
And then they just had to put all that solo
stuff in there. I guess you could go through and
edit it to take that part out, you can just.

Speaker 4 (01:21:34):
Keep it handy and then hopefully that she won't read everything.
Is that a keeping it handy pun? There was a
pun in there. There was a pun. I would never.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Oh, man, that's just so disappointing.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
Let's just tell all of our.

Speaker 1 (01:21:55):
Spouses out there or whoever else we're with, we need
a better night's sleep, and we won't tell them about
the solo part. Listener text ross I'm a woman, and
I prefer sex before bed. It's just my husband is
tired from hard labor work.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
And I said, well, I bet you could get him started.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
And she said, she said, I try, you can, she said,
she said, I try?

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
What else? She said?

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
She said, today is our thirty third anniversary, so for
sure today congratulations, happy anniversary, Good for you, Good for you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Well, way to go, way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
All right, let's see, I got a bunch of little stories.
I want to just try to try to get through
with you. And then Dragon and I each have a
name that tune song. If you are listening on the podcast,
you will not.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
Hear the name that tune song because lawyers.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
And and it's a benefit of listening to us live
on the air, So give it a try, which is
pretty easy to do.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
It is where can they find us?

Speaker 4 (01:22:56):
You can find it on the radio eight fifty am
or ninety four to one FM New and Improved, iHeart
app right. You can even favorite the Ross Kaminski Show
or the or KOA that's a little presets, right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
And also if you're listening to us live on the stream,
which of course the app is part of the stream,
but also like on a desktop computer, if you were
to go to Koacolorado dot com, you can click and
listen right there. So any of that stuff you'd be
able to hear name that tune live live, well not
just live you because podcasts they can't even hear it,

(01:23:30):
not live, they can't hear it at all, right, right,
And in fact, a lot of times what happens. And
I'm not saying this to make the podcast people feel bad.
I just want you to kind of know what you're missing.
There's a lot of upside to listening to the podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:23:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Maybe you have a job that doesn't allow you to
listen right now, as an example, time constraints and that
sort of thing. And I appreciate every podcast listener.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Very very much.

Speaker 4 (01:23:52):
There are people that listen to the podcast at the.

Speaker 6 (01:24:01):
Speedoint.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
So this will sound.

Speaker 4 (01:24:08):
Agonizingly slow, or maybe it's gonna be really annoying me.
You can't even listen to it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Anyway. So here's the other thing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Dragon is doing all these musical requests and bumping in
with whatever songs people want, because here on KOA, we
definitely rock the Rockies.

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
And to the person who said.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
We should be an all nineties station, no, the nineties
were a musical wasteland full of stuff like Green Day
that nobody should ever want to listen to.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
It's the nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
The nineties were probably even more worthless than the two
thousands when it comes to music. Oh, speaking of what,
speaking of music? Okay, I just found this story. Hold on,
let me see if I can find this story. No,
it was a it's a Taylor Swift story. Oh but
it's it's a very interesting business story. Actually, hang on, Taylor.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
Let me see it should be.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
There were New York Times Taylor Swift buys the rights
to her first six albums back from a hedge fund
that owned them. She there was some I didn't really
follow it all, but you know a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
Of times when these people get into music and they'll
sign anything, right. You'll sign anything.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
To get into to get into this job. You want
to get into artist. You're a starving artist. You will
sign any contract right. And it doesn't it doesn't matter
how good or not so good. It is right, You'll
just sign it like, oh, here's my chance, and it'll
work out later. But a lot of times what happens
is they actually don't end up with the ownership rights
to their own music. And that happened to Taylor Swift
and her stuff, like her first six albums ended up

(01:25:44):
being owned by a guy named Scooter Braun back in
twenty nineteen, and then a group called Shamrock Capital that
was actually founded by Walt Disney's nephew bought that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
Part of Taylor Swift's catalog.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
So she was she was actually gonna go, and she
started on already re recording her songs and so she
could put him out again. And I don't know all
the legalities of it, but she didn't own all her
her old music. And it was thought that that Scooter
Braun sold this stuff to Shamrock Capital for something like

(01:26:24):
three hundred million dollars. I don't know if that number
is right. I don't know, you know, if Shamrock Capital
was looking to make.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
A big return or a small return or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
But and I don't know if we'll ever hear how
much Taylor Swift paid for this. But basically, she owns
her music again, and good for her. She's the headline
that I saw, and I don't have it in front
of me now. It might have been on Fox News,
I know, but she was saying something like, I just
keep breaking out in tears of happiness. I can't believe

(01:26:57):
this is really happening. So taylor'swis owns her old music again.
Good for her again. I have no idea how much
she paid. Her net worth is estimated, I think in
the area of a billion and a half somewhere around there.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
Now, if you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Imagine that maybe she spent a quarter of that or
something around there to buy her catalog back, that's it.
On the one hand, it's an immense amount of money.
But on the other hand, if that lets her earn
all the royalties for all of that music, I mean,
there's a reason that other people are buying the catalogs

(01:27:35):
of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones and all these
other people who have sold their catalogs because the companies
that buy the catalogs think of it like a bond. Right,
you're gonna buy this thing. Yeah, you're gonna spend a lot,
but you're just gonna keep getting returns forever and ever
and ever, as long as people want to keep listening
to that music, keep downloading that music. And I'm sure

(01:27:55):
that was the original thing that Shamrock had in mind
when they bought it. But now Taylor Swift has twift
Head as herself, and if she's going to earn those things,
and it could be just as good as you know,
and this is going to sound like sarcasm, but it isn't.
It could be just as good as buying four hundred
million dollars of any other investment, or maybe better.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
Yes, you look like you want to say something ross.

Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
My childhood just started crying with your comments about the nineties.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Yeah, I know, I listen.

Speaker 4 (01:28:21):
I know you at two times the podcast, but I
can't do machine Gun Mandy at more than one and
a half.

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
So, first of all, Mandy and I both talk kind
of fast, but she talks faster. And second, my voice
is lower than hers, and you know I I do
most of my podcast listening at one in three quarters speed.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
Every once in a while.

Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
If there is a speaker with a high pitched voice,
which is the more common thing, or a speaker who
speaks very fast, which is the less common thing, I'll
slow it down to one and a half I know,
usually go below one and a half half speed.

Speaker 4 (01:29:00):
Yes, thank you. Green Day sucks. Pearl Jam also sucks.
It's a fact that very little decent music was released
in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
Sing it hallelujah, brother, whoever that, whoever you are, you
got it right. And you know what, it's gonna be
sacrilege to dragon. I'm gonna put Nirvana right in there
with those guys.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Now, look, if you're gonna do a bad genre of music,
then you might as well be good at that genre.
And I suppose Nirvana was good at that genre. But
the nineties is just a freaking wasteland the best of
being bad, you know. I Okay, So I was reading
Nelly Bowles. So Nelly Bowles is married to Barry Weiss,

(01:29:45):
who owns and runs the.

Speaker 2 (01:29:47):
Free Press website.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
And Nelly writes this incredible TGIF thing every Friday.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
It's very long.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
And okay, so I'll just recount the story that I
just read this morning. So you know, Springsteen was travel
in Europe in recent days and.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
Made some very anti Trump comments.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
And there was a band in Tom's River, New Jersey
that's like a Springsteen cover band. Tom's River is in
a very red, very republican part of New Jersey. They're
gonna have a Springsteen cover band on and they canceled
that cover band because they didn't want the band to
get hurt or the people in the bar to get mad.
And it's not Springsteen, it's not Springsteen's band. It's just

(01:30:27):
a band that springs sings Springsteen songs. But they canceled
it because they're like two pissed at Springsteen. And they said,
look the bar owner, and this is all quoted in
Nelly Bowls's Thing today. The bar owner said something like,
let me tell you about my clientele. When they're in
the bar drinking and a sporting event comes on and

(01:30:49):
the national anthem comes on, they're singing at the sporting event,
everybody in my bar stands up and is quiet for
the national anthem. That's the kind of place we are,
that's kind of placed this town is. And and we
don't really want anything to do with Springsteen, not even
a cover band. So the reason I bring that up,
Dragon is that Nellie Bowles was talking about how much

(01:31:14):
she likes Springsteen, but in particular she mentioned the song
Tunnel of Love, and the song Tunnel of Love it's
not a nineties song, but it's close enough for Springsteen.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
It's from the late eighties, eighty seven maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
And to me, that's like new mut that's new Springsteen. Right,
nineteen eighty seven is new Springsteen. And I don't have
very much use for anything for Springsteen that new right.
Give me, give me Born to Run, give me the River,
give me Asbury Park, whatever, the whole the whole album

(01:31:53):
name is there. I'm blanking on it right now, and
you know, give me that, give me that, and yeah.
Then the nineties just just a wasteland, musical wasteland. It's
not my fault.

Speaker 4 (01:32:09):
You're wrong, my friend, Foo Fighters excellent music. Metallica had
good things that came out in the nineties. Excellent. Shame
on you for not knowing good music. I mean, the
Black Album came out in ninety one, so can you
really still consider that ninety Greetings from Asbury Park that's it.

(01:32:29):
The Wild the Innocent in Ea Street Shuffle is good too,
Darkness on the Edge of Town, eh, all right, the
only good music to come up Rosk is not that good.

Speaker 2 (01:32:38):
Born in the USA is very good.

Speaker 4 (01:32:39):
I have to say the only good music to come
out in the nineties was gangster rap and.

Speaker 2 (01:32:43):
R and B.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
I gotta say, nwa, I can't say the album name
the N word, well, the band name the N word
with attitude, and the album Straight out of Compton is
a great album, really great album. There's a lot of
I'm not really a rap guy, but I did love that.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
And you know what, there it could well be Dragon.

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
How about this, It could well be that's so called
mainstream rock and roll in the nineties. All this nonsense
we've been talking about was so bad that actually the
best rock and roll in the nineties may have been.

Speaker 2 (01:33:22):
Like the the.

Speaker 1 (01:33:23):
More the headbang and heavy metal hair rock stuff that
I don't even listen to that much. But like, I mean, yeah,
Metallica did a lot of good music in the.

Speaker 4 (01:33:31):
Nineties eighties, so it's hard to really say what year
was Sandman early nineties? Right, Yeah, that's the black album
that was Blacked one ninety one. Okay, yeah, that's not bad.
It's not bad, but it's but it originated in the eighties.
Plus the band themselves were early.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
Let's just put it this way.

Speaker 1 (01:33:50):
The seventies and eighties were both way better than the nineties,
and the two thousands music started getting a little better again.
Since since then, I think I actually think the twenty
tens were pretty decent.

Speaker 2 (01:34:00):
Believe it or not. I don't just hate old things.
I just hate bad music.

Speaker 1 (01:34:03):
All right, Moving away from music for a few minutes
before we get back to read how Chili Peppers are overrated.

Speaker 4 (01:34:09):
They're an eighties band as well.

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
Injact, I saw him in Chicago at a small club
before they were hugely famous.

Speaker 4 (01:34:14):
In I don't think you can call them a nineties
I mean, they did, they did things in the nineties,
but I wouldn't call them a nineties band.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
Fair enough, fair enough, all right, let me do a
couple quick stories, and then Dragon and I are each
going to have a Name that Tune song.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
I hope Mandy shows up for Name that Tune today.

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
She rod just walked in, so he'll get his quarter point.
So I told you earlier in the week. This story
that really troubled me about a nineteen year old illegal
alien young woman from Georgia who is now on the
verge of being deported because she was pulled over by
a cop and given a ticket by this cop for
an illegal U turn when in fact, she did not

(01:34:52):
make an illegal U turn U turn, and the body
cam or car cam or whatever in the police car
showed that the police officer pulled over the wrong car.
And now she's maybe going to be deported. And I
wanted to give you a little follow up on that.
Let me share this with you. This is from ABC News.
A Georgia teen being detained by Immigration and Customs enforcement

(01:35:14):
after being wrongly arrested, says she forgives the police officer
who mistakenly pulled her over for a traffic violation she
did not commit. She said, quote, I think he needed
to do what he needed to do. He knows why
he did it, and I think, as from my standpoint,
I don't hold a grudge against him. As a Christian,
I think the Bible says forgive those who wrong you,
and I forgive him, And I just wanted to say

(01:35:37):
I wouldn't. She's much nicer than I am. That's somebody
who had a job to do and failed to do it,
with serious consequences for this girl and her family. I
know there are people out there who say she's an
illegal alien, so screw her. Who cares? And I think
you are. I don't want to say what I think
you are. If that's what's in your mind. I think

(01:35:57):
that's very, very wrong. I think she yes brought here
illegally as a child. I assume the first person ever
in her family to go to college in college right now,
And again, I get she didn't come here legally.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
Wasn't her fault.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
Everything else about this girl is exactly what we want
immigrants to the United States to be. And the people
who think she should be thrown out of the country,
there's something wrong with you, not with her.

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
All right. What's the other thing I wanted to do?

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Oh, we'll do this one really quickly and then we'll
do our thing. And I did transfer my audio over dragon.
When we get to name that tune, do you want
to go first?

Speaker 5 (01:36:37):
To you?

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
Where you want me to go first? When we get
you go first?

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
Okay, So I mentioned this briefly, but it was probably
a year ago or more. There's a they're a very
well known, at least in the world of academia, a
well known professor at Harvard named Francesca Gino, and she
was making like a million dollars a year at Harvard,
very well known researcher on kind of social sidecology and

(01:37:00):
stuff like this. And she wrote a big paper that
had another author or two on it, and actually had
one of the other authors on the show about a
different topic. But it was a paper about honesty. It
was a paper about honesty and people and people cheating

(01:37:22):
and this sort of thing really kind of a remarkable thing.
In twenty twenty one, she was accused of fabricating and
manipulating data so that she could reach the conclusion she
wanted to reach in her paper about honesty. So she
was dishonest in her paper about honesty.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
And this week Harvard announced.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
Something that almost never happens at a university. They revoked
her tenure and they are it is almost impossible to
fire a tenured professor, but Harvard is doing it, and
it's it's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):
It took much too long to do this.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
Woman kept being part of Harvard and kept teaching students
and kept pretending that she was decent when she was
a liar and a cheater who was trying to lecture
other people.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
About lying and cheating. It is absolutely unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:38:15):
Hey, folks, if you're listening on the podcast right now,
that's the end of today's show.

Speaker 2 (01:38:20):
Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget.

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
You can catch us every day on the podcast as
you are right now, on your smart speaker, on your
iHeartRadio app, even on the computer at Koa, Colorado, and
the good old fashioned way on your radio.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
Thanks so much for listening to the show.