06-10-25 - *FULL SHOW* Trump sends in Marines; Suing Denver; A friend of the Pope

Donald Trump sends in the marines, a lawsuit against Denver and I chat with a friend of the Pope!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was consternating me. I think that's a word, but
we're going to go with it. And and I found
the beeping this morning. It was a smoke detector, unused,
still sealed in its box. I bought six of them
to put in the house that were remodeling, and I
bought them all at once on eBay because.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I got a good deal.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
It's like the Google smoke detectors, and they're normally very expensive,
but I got a good deal, and I bought six,
and U.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
And one of them.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I guess the batteries that shouldn't be dying either were
dying or whatever. And it was just but this is
this is why it was so hard to isolate. It
was in a box in another box, and so when
that happens, the sound just becomes diffuse and very hard
to isolate. And then and then all right, I won't
waste any more of your time with that story. But

(00:48):
I but I, but I did find it. So I
didn't spend a lot of time yesterday, probably not as
much as I should have talking about President Trump's deployment
of nonational guards California without a request of the Governor
of California. And the last time that happened where the

(01:08):
National Guard was deployed without the request of a governor
was before I was born. It was in nineteen sixty five,
and so this just doesn't happen very often. And then
we learned yesterday, and this had been kind of simmering
as kind of a vague threat, and.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I didn't really know whether they would go ahead with
it or not.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
But with this administration, you should never assume that there's
something they won't do, and it was they might send
the marines, and so they did seven hundred marines. Now
what's interesting, There's a lot of interesting parts on this story,
and I'm I'm gonna do a little more because I
feel like I neglected.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
A debate yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
So this is.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Perfect for Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Donald Trump ran actually both times, but especially this time,
on really two issues, two huge issues.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
And then there were other issues, but two huge issues
the economy slash inflation.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And the border slash immigration slash illegal alien criminals.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Right, he ran on these things. He won on these things.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
And I think what's important about both of those issues,
although obviously our focus right now with the stuff going
on in Los Angeles is the immigration side. But what's
interesting about both of those issues. Is While, of course
almost every registered Democrat is going to vote for the
damn no matter who it is, some crossed over to
Trump this time. Almost every registered Republican will vote for

(02:42):
the Republican no matter who it is. But we have
an increasing number of unaffiliated voters in this country. Now,
don't confuse unaffiliated with being a swing voter. There are
plenty of unaffiliated voters. Who are unaffiliated because you don't
need to be affiliated. For example, here in Colorado, you
can vote in a primary election. In fact, it's an
advantage to be unaffiliated because you can pick whether you

(03:03):
want to vote in the Democrats primary or the Republican's primary,
depending on what's more interesting that year. Right, So, but
there's lots and lots of unaffiliated voters, and some of
them are actually swing voters, and a lot of those
swaning voters. Enough of those swing voters who might in
the past, and I'm sure did in the past, vote
for Democrats. Thus I'm calling them swing voters said, gosh,

(03:25):
look what Joe Biden has done to the value of
a dollar effectively, Then probably don't think in those terms,
but look at.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Look at these prices.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Look how much it's costing me to, you know, go
buy a stake at the supermarket or eggs, which became
kind of the avatar for food prices for a while.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Look at the cost of everything.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
And they held that against Joe Biden, and rightly so,
rightly so, and that got a lot of Democrats leaning
toward Trump.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And then the border.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
There are lots of you know, suburban soccer moms who
are not very political, maybe a little bit squishy, want
to lean down a little because it makes them feel
better about themselves or something like that, and then they
see what happens at the border, and Joe Biden just
opens the border and lets in literally millions of illegal aliens.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
And you know what, even if even.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
If one percent of the people that Joe Biden let
into the country are criminals, Okay, And I'm not talking
about you're being a criminal just for coming into the
country illegally.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
That is a crime, but that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about you committed a crime after you got
into the country.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Even if it's only one percent, and it's probably more
than one percent, but even if it's only one percent,
that's somewhere around one hundred thousand people committing crimes around
the country. Again, it's probably more than one percent plus
the illegal alien criminals who were already here. And this
is what the and those suburban soccer moms I mean

(04:52):
think about during COVID. It was a slightly different reason,
but think about during COVID. And I know this is
going to sound nuts thinking back on it, but do
you remember.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
The sheer panic over.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Whether supermarkets would be able to get supplies and the
run I mean most famously on toilet paper. But if
you went into the supermarket at almost any time, unless
you happen to get there right after some kind of delivery,
you also couldn't buy mac and cheese in a box, flour, sugar,
you know, staples, long lasting staples that you could use,

(05:29):
you know, ramen, stuff that would be good in your
pantry for a while. And people were actually starting to
get afraid, especially around the time of the George Floyd
riots as well.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Remember the George Floyd riots.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
During COVID, remember all that you can't go outside, you
can't go to your job, you can't go to the playground,
you can't go to the shopping mall.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
You can't go to the movie theater.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
You can't go to a football game, you can't go
to a rock concert. But if you're pissed off about
George Floyd, you can go in a mob and you
can go riot because you're you know, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Everything else isn't. Remember all that.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
So a lot of people in the burbs, and I'm
talking women now, going back a few years started buying guns.
When I would go over to the gun store, you know,
sort of during that the peak.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Of all that stuff, there.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Would be a line of women who had never thought
about owning a gun, never never touched a gun before
in their lives. My point is, those people, separate from
any partisan view care about safety, and safety is a
huge factor in Donald Trump's winning the election. So now

(06:40):
here we are with these people rioting in Los Angeles,
and I want to be very clear. You hear some
people saying, well, these protests are mostly peaceful, and of
course there's a whole joke. I think it was the
CNN guy saying mostly peaceful protests during the George Floyd
Floyd riots, where the scene behind him was actually like
a burning sin. It was really pretty nuts. But I

(07:02):
want to make something clear. I will stipulate for the
record that in Los Angeles many or even most of
the protests are peaceful. It doesn't matter. The protests that
matter are the violent ones. I don't care about peaceful protests.
And here's the other thing that's really important to understand.
Americans love a good protest. Americans love a good march, right,

(07:22):
We're all about that. We're revolutionaries at heart in a way.
And and you know, civil rights and all this stuff,
we love all that.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
We don't love riots. We don't love arson, we don't
love violence.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
And these people are giving Trump the biggest political win
you can imagine right now from their perspective. I just
don't And Democrats are trying to now navigate, well, do
we side with Ice?

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Do we side with the protesters.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
If we side with the protesters, it's going with their
their hardcore base.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
You know. If we side with not necessarily exactly Ice, but.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Saying there shouldn't be violence, then is the base going
to be mad at us because they like violence? Or
is the center gonna like us because we're at least
not being insane anymore. It is a very complicated situation.
So here's the one other thing I want you to know,
and this part of the reason is also an interesting
play for Trump. He sent the Guard, he sent the Marines,
but mostly the Marines especially are not going to be

(08:26):
interacting with the public unless the public attacks federal facilities
in federal personnel. The Marines are for now going to
basically be functioning like security guards for federal property and people.
The National Guard mostly that too. They may have a
little bit more interaction with crowd control. But really the
best win for Trump is to claim he sent the

(08:49):
Marines and the National Guard, but actually to keep them
away from the action, because the last thing he needs
is a marine killing somebody, right and really let the
state local cops handle it. And if they won't, screw them,
people get the government they deserve. My friend Robert, who
producer Shannon knows, my friend Robert served in law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Before that, he served in the United States Marine Corps.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
And Robert liked pretty much every other marine you're ever
gonna meet. Is very proud of the Marines and of
his service, and likes to make fun of the other services.
Of course, you do need to when that comes up.
You do need to respond to the Marines with a
quip about how they like eating crayons.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
That's the proper response.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
But in any case, Robert sent me this and I
would like to share it with you. The reason the Army, Navy,
Air Force, and Marines squabble among themselves is.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
That they don't speak the same language.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
For example, Shannon, take a simple phrase like secure the building. Okay,
you got it. Secure the building. The Army will put
guards around the place. The Navy will turn out the
lights and lock the doors. The Air Force will take

(10:08):
out a five year lease with an option to buy.
The Marines will kill everybody inside and make it a
command post. It's really good because when you think about those,
you can easily imagine any of those being a reaction
to the orders secure of the building, including take out

(10:30):
a five year lease with an option to buy. That's
securing the building in a way.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Anyway. I just I love that. And even though my
parents were Navy.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
I do hold a special place in my heart for
the United States Marine Corps my parents.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
So if you know anything about the.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Military, the Marines are a division of the Navy. They're
in the Department of the Navy, and they use Navy
doctors and lawyers. So if you are on a Marine
Corps base and there's a hospital on it.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
It's going to be US Navy personnel.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
And my parents were stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California,
and my dad, I think, spent a little time. I
don't know if my mom did, but I think my
dad spent a little time at twenty nine Palms, California,
which is kind of north of Joshua Tree National Park
kind of you go if you go up from Palm

(11:22):
Springs for a while. And I believe that the Marines
that have just been deployed are from both of those places.
I think Pendleton and twenty nine Palms have seen both
of them mentioned. Here's a fun little story. I probably
shouldn't tell you this, but it's such a big area
it doesn't matter. My dad has a house, just a

(11:43):
little vacation house kind of thing, a little garden and such,
not too far from twenty nine Palms. There are a
lot of little towns around there, and I won't tell
you which town it is, but my dad just loves
it when he can hear them off in the distance
practicing our hillary. You just hear these, I mean, it
could be thirty forty miles whatever it is, But you

(12:06):
just hear this distant boom, and that's that I think
is that I think is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I tried joining the Marines, but I couldn't fit my
head in a bucket. Yeah, all right, there's still a
ton of stuff to do on today's show.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Oh, I want to do a quick follow up.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Even though I talked about this at eleven o'clock yesterday,
I'm talking about it briefly now. So yesterday at eleven
o'clock we had Congressman Gabe Evans on the show, and
he was talking about a resolution that he had brought
forward in Congress, and he wouldn't admit to bringing forward

(12:45):
the resolution in part because he actually believes in it,
but also in part to put Democrats in a very
hard spot. And the resolution has a whole bunch of
wearas is about the Boulder attack and about the guy
being illegal alien and shouting.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
In submittic staff.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
And then it is resolved that the House of Representatives
condemns this guy and his anti Semitic terrorist attack.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Affirms that free.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
And open communication between state and local law enforcement and
their federal counterparts remains the bedrock of public safety and
is necessary in preventing terrorist attacks and expresses gratitude to
law enforcement officers, including US Immigration and Customs enforcement personnel,
for protecting the homeland.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
So you can imagine how.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
That puts some of these Democrats in a difficult position
because they've based their campaigns for quite a few years
now on essentially opposing ICE.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
This thing passed the House of Representatives yesterday.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
And what's interesting about it is now most Democrats voted against,
but a lot voted for it. Close to eighty Democrats
voted in favor of it, So I thought that was
a rather interesting thing.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
I would also note that Joany.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Goose, who is a Member of Congress who represents Boulder,
forwarded his own resolution that condemned the attack, that expresses
solidarity with survivors and their families, That recognizes the resilience
of the Boulder community, that calls for continued vigilance, that
stands with the Jewish community, that affirms that hate and

(14:19):
violence have no place in the United States. I'm shortening
all that. That one passed unanimously four hundred and nothing.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
There were a bunch of people who didn't vote. There
were two people who voted present instead of yes or no.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
One of them oddly Marjorie Taylor Green strange thing considering
even Thomas Massey voted yes on that one, and Rashida
Tualeb voted president President. The biggest anti semite in Congress anyway,
Good job by Gabe Evans putting the Democrats in a
tough position and actually getting some of them.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
To vote yes.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
What does TGIF mean to a marine toes go in first?

Speaker 2 (14:57):
H love it all right. There's an endless, endless.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Opportunity for jokes at the expense of the Marine corps
out there.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
But I still love them. I still love them. All right.
We got a ton of stuff to talk about.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
You know what, I want to follow up on something
that was just in the news there, and really what
I want to start with is the remarkable difference in
headlines on the same story. I'm talking about, that homelessness story.
So first first, here's the headline from our news partners
at KADIVR Fox thirty one, Denver sees historic drop in

(15:32):
street homelessness. Okay, got it, Denver sees historic drop in
street homelessness. And then from Axios Denver this is about
the same data.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Okay, this is.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
About the exact same data that our own Nea Bender
has been doing such great reporting on here in the
KOA News team. Here's the ACTIOS headline, homelessness rises despite
fewer people living on Denver streets. Doesn't even sound like
the like the same story, does it? Let me let
me just say him again. Denver sees historic drop in

(16:06):
street homelessness. Homelessness rises despite fewer people living on Denver streets.
So there you go, right, lies, lies, damned lies and statistics,
as they say.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
And I don't know, den what are you gonna do?
I'll share.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
I'll share a little in the number with you rather
than focusing too much on the headlines. But this point
in time count was released Monday by the Metro Denver
Homeless Initiative, and I hope that's an initiative to reduce
the number of homeless rather than create them. But in
any case, the survey found that across the seven county
Denver metro area. And so let me just name those

(16:46):
you know where we're talking about, So obviously it's Denver itself,
and then the rest in alphabetical order, Adam's a Wrap
a hole, Boulder, Broomfield, Douglas, and jeffco All right, so
the rate of homelessness, which I guess rate is an
odd word there, but I think what they mean by

(17:06):
rate in this context is simply the number of homeless
people increased from let's call it ten thousand last year
to just under ten thousand, eight hundred this year, but
the rate of increased slowed compared to previous years. The
number of people experiencing homelessness experiencing homelessess for the first

(17:27):
time did fall and a decent percentage, from about thirty
five hundred to about three thousand. The number of people
in emergency shelters and transitional housing increased from seven thousand
to eighty six hundred, so that's a pretty big jump.
And the number of people sleeping on the streets, in
cars or in other places decreased from twenty nine hundred

(17:49):
to twenty one hundred. So it was already a relatively
low number as a percentage of homeless. But this is
what at least this particular article is focusing on, right
that drop of of In Denver itself, there were seven
and eighty five people living on the streets in this survey,
and the Mayor's office said that was a forty five

(18:12):
percent drop from there. From I guess from twenty twenty
three maybe, And you know they're so they're they're cheering
that I'm not. Look, I'm not cheering or booing Mike
Johnston and Denver's current situation.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
I want Denver to do well.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Denver's are capital city, Denver's Denver should be a wonderful city.
It is a good city. It should be a great city.
And I'm rooting for it. And I'm rooting for Denver
and I'm rooting for the people of Denver. It's unfortunate
that the people of Denver keep electing some pretty bad

(18:50):
people to city council. Some people really don't have a
clue about much of anything. Mike Johnston is a smart guy,
but I don't know that he you know, his instant
tend to be toward toward government rather than private sector.
But even on that, he hasn't been terrible. And the
bottom line is I wish him, I wish him well.
I want success. And the real problem for Denver is

(19:13):
not so much policies right now. The real problem for
Denver is actually the mayoral.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Term or terms of John Hickenlooper.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
When John Hickenlooper decided to make the city a welcoming place,
an easy place for people to be homeless. And as
I say from time to time, he intentionally turned the
safety net into a hammock and just invite, you know,
instead of catching you when you're falling and then you

(19:45):
hop out of the safety net and you get.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
On with your life.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Instead turn it into a comfortable hammock. Come hang around,
will hand you a beer or a little a little
fruit drink with an umbrella in it. Right, Yeah, And
so this I really think was John Hickenlooper's doing. Primarily
of course Michael Hancock kept going with it, and now
Mike Johnston has to.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Fix the problem. So, like I said, I wish Denver.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Well, it does seem like the trends are going in
the right direction, but they're going in the right direction
from a very bad spot because they went in the
wrong direction for such a long time. Right, So it
would be like if any particular negative thing that you
wanted to measure, you know, increased increased, increased, increased, increased,

(20:31):
like just massively, you know, thousands of percent over a
few years, and then you have a twenty percent drop, Right,
that twenty percent drop is very welcome, but it doesn't
it doesn't mean you solve the problem. And again, even
though Denver is cheering this thing and KDVR has their
headline denver SE's historic drop in street homelessness, I think

(20:54):
the more honest headline is from Axio's homelessness rises despite
fewer people living on Denver streets.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
All right, let's do something completely different now.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
We are actually going to stick with Denver, and we
are going to stick with an issue that relates to
housing in a way in Denver. And I think you
probably know that I am a big fan of the
Pacific Legal of Pacific Legal Foundation, and I love these guys,
guys and gals, and I have their guests frequently, and

(21:28):
sometimes they're doing stuff that actually involves Colorado. A lot
of times it's national stuff that I find interesting too,
but this one is about Colorado. And joining us talk
about it is Austin Walson and he's an attorney at
Pacific Legal Foundation and if you need it, their website
is Pacific Legal dot org.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
And Austin is suing.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Denver on an issue that I think is on the
one hand, kind of in the weeds and on the
other hand interesting and important.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So Austin welcome to Kaway and thanks for being here.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Good morning, Ross, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
And I think I put an ail in your last
name that isn't there Weissning?

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Why?

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Then you got it?

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Is that finish?

Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Very good? All right? Tell us why you're suing Denver.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yeah, So, my colleagues and I represent Red Tea Homes,
a Denver home builder, and red T Holmes is applied
to build several homes in the Denver area, and the
City and County of Denver told Red te Homes that
they have to pay a seventy thousand dollars a combined
fees of seventy thousand dollars meant to offset their project's

(22:37):
supposed impact on affordable housing. Now, the Constitution places strict
limits on the ability of local governments to impose these
types of fees. They have to be supported by an
actual impact of development, and so Denver's request fails this
constitutional test because Red T Homes, by building new housing,

(23:00):
is increasing the supply of housing in Denver, and therefore
the project tends to solve the affordable housing crisis that
the city and county has identified.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
And I note in your press release and Pacific Legal
press release. It sounds like it's seventy thousand dollars in
fees for a total of a total of six units,
or four single family homes and two duplexes. So I
guess that would be a total of eight units, but
sort of like six buildings.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
The fees come down to between four and eight bucks
a square foot on average, depending on the size of
each project.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
So you said that this violates the constitution. Are we
talking the Federal Constitution the state Constitution?

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Are both?

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (23:48):
The Federal Constitution, the Fifth Amendment provides that government shall
not take private property except upon payment of just compensation.
And so this protection, the taking's clause and the right
to just compensation has been interpreted by the Supreme Court
over decades to mean that when local governments demand of

(24:11):
a property owner a property interest, a set aside, or
a fee meant to offset some supposed impact of the development,
that it has to be.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
The impact that they've identified.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
It has to be real, it has to be traceable
to the development, and otherwise the request is just. It's
a it's an unconstitutional burdening of the property owner's right
to just compensation because the government can always take private property.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
It just has to pay for it.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
When they need to take it for private uses or
for public uses, they have to pay for it.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
So what are we claiming?

Speaker 1 (24:47):
What are we claiming would be the taking here of
the actual cash amount of the fee, or or making.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
It so expensive to do something with property that you
bought that you were.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
The government is effectively taking peaceful enjoyment of the property
or or what.

Speaker 4 (25:06):
Yeah, your question kind of gets that.

Speaker 5 (25:08):
One of the nuances of this area of law and
the area of law and the claimer bringing is called
unconstitutional conditions, and so that the taking is is really
the burdening of Red Tea's right to just compensation for
property taken for public uses. So the City and County
of Denver is telling Red Tea that they have to
pay this money in lieu of dedicating property that the

(25:29):
city and county will use for these uh, you know,
suppose it or apparent public purposes of building affordable housing.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
Red Tea Holmes has a right under the United States
Constitution to receive just compensation. It's a little bit wonky
in the fee context because just compensation would be the
amount of the fee. But but that's that's the that's
the real issue interesting.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
I'm I'm fascinated by constitutional law, and I love thinking
about this stuff and reading this stuff, and but it
sounds to me like you're claiming that this is really
settled law. I mean, I realize you're not an objective
observer of this, but you're talking about it as if

(26:11):
at this point the Supreme Court interpretation or interpretations if
there have been more than one, and you made it
sound like there was more than one, are so clear
that you think this is a slam dunk case. So
do you think it's a slam dunk case? And if
you think it's a slam dunk case, why do you
think Denver has fees that they should know are illegal.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
Well, I'll say I think it's pretty close to a
slam dunk case. I'll knock on wood. The issue here
is whether in affordable housing shortage is traceable to building
new housing. And so if you read Denver's studies that
purport to justify the fee, they engage in this complicated

(26:56):
chain of causation where new construction creates new jobs, and
new housing creates new households that are occupied by people, uh,
some people who can't afford housing at the going rate,
and that this creation of economic activity.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Results in a shortage, a.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
Increase in population of people who can't afford housing, and
therefore it's developers responsibility to provide that housing.

Speaker 4 (27:25):
So it's yeah, it's.

Speaker 5 (27:27):
It's it's multi step, it's it's pretty attenuated. It's, uh,
you know, kind of close to a butterfly effect.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, let me just let me jump in. Let just
to make sure I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
So, developers create jobs, and because they create jobs, they
have employees who might not be able to afford to live,
for example, in the homes that are being built. And
therefore the developer is creating a creating but not satisfying

(28:02):
a demand for lower price housing.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
And therefore the developer either has.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
To pay the city a bunch of money to go
towards or at least we're gonna claim it goes towards
affordable housing, or they have to donate property that would
be used towards affordable housing.

Speaker 5 (28:19):
Yeah, that's the idea, except for a lad that it's
not only that development and self creates jobs. The idea
put forth by the city and counties also that the
people who live in these housing by virtue of their
economic spending or they're spending in the local economy, they'll
they'll create jobs as well. And yeah, and you know,
so a person in building a home or a developer

(28:41):
like Red Tea is you know, thinking, well, you know,
I don't set the wages that people on the local
economy it can charge.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
You know.

Speaker 5 (28:49):
It's the problem, isn't you know it's it's it's definitely
we recognize the problem.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
You know, the affordable housing is a serious problem.

Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, country, sure, this ain't this ain't the fix there
to make this.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Is penalizing people who are creating homes and jobs. And
by the way, even if you're building, you know, homes
that are not quote unquote affordable, you would think that
on the margin, any increase in housing supply would tend
to make housing overall more affordable. That is, I gotta say,
even for a Democrat run city that their Rube Goldberg

(29:23):
machine of a way to get to saying that these
fees should be justifiable is pretty nuts.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 5 (29:31):
I think it's uh, it's slightly humorous when you look
at it, you think, well, uh, you know, I think
under the city in counties reasoning, we could probably connect
a new housing development with basically any evil in the world.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right, right, enough steps.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
But I think the.

Speaker 5 (29:46):
Way you said it is is right and and reflects
more of an economic consensus, and that's that increasing supply
tends to lower prices, and then that's a that's an
economists I disagree about many things.

Speaker 4 (29:59):
But that's not one supplies effect on pricing.

Speaker 5 (30:02):
And so, yeah, it's hard to understand how it's red
Tea's a fair impact of their development when in fact
the economics suggests that the impact is.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Actually the opposite. Sure, yeah, it's really backwards. We're talking
with Austin weisson In from Pacific Legal Foundation.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
He is suing on behalf of clients.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
He is suing Denver for their what Pacific Legal calls
their inclusionary zoning extortion scheme.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Okay, last quick thing for you, Austin.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Is this in federal court in federal District court in
Denver or where is this happening?

Speaker 5 (30:40):
Yeah, that's right, the federal District court in the United
States District Court for the District of Colorado.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
And what's the timeline here? What has already been heard
or briefed or anything?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
What's next?

Speaker 5 (30:52):
What we filed a complaint within the last ten days.
The city and county has twenty one days after filing
to respond, so we'll be looking for an answer from.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Them within the next couple of weeks, and.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
Then it'll proceed like ordinary civil litigation, somewhat slowly, but
we'll be looking forward to a decision in the matter.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
You'd have a hard time convincing Denver to just say, ah,
you're right, we're not going to do this anymore, even
on the best of days.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
But this isn't the.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Best of days for Denver because Denver has some massive,
massive budgetary problems right now, and they're going to fight
tooth and nail to keep every dollar that they can
steal from anybody. And I don't see them. I don't
see them giving in. And I have no idea whether
your your case is strong enough to win at the

(31:43):
level of immediate injunction by a judge who says this
is so obvious that it doesn't even need to go
to trial.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
God willing that'll be the case, but we'll see.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
Yeah, thanks for the wish of good luck, Ross And yeah,
I'll say that we've had a brought similar cases again,
and other jurisdictions in the past few months, and some
of these jurisdictions have chosen to settle. And I was
actually just talking to some Colorado lawyers this morning who
settled some cases recently.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
And so there is a recognition I think by some
cities across the country that actually these policies they may
not withstand judicial scrutiny, and so there is kind of
an impetus to make our clients go away rather than
test these.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Well, you're right, I mean, the argument against the argument
that I just made is maybe they wouldn't want it
to go to trial if they think the decision in
that in the trial would impact other outrageous extortion schemes
that they have or that other cities have.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
But we'll see exactly.

Speaker 5 (32:44):
In any event, we'll look forward to getting a decision
on the merits in this case if it reaches that.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Austin Weisen an attorney of Pacific Legal Foundation. The website
is Pacific Legal dot org. Thanks for your time, good
luck in the trial. We'll keep in touch.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
All right, how about that twisted logic? Did you kind
of sort of follow that? Can I just try to
repeat it? Denver is claiming at least based on what
this lawyer just told us Denver is And by.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
The way, a friend of mine who was in the state.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Legislature quite a few years ago, said Denver was doing
this even back when I was in the legislature. I
remember debating someone named Susan Barnes Gelt, then a city
council member, and I referred to it as extraordinary zoning.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, all right, So let me just recap this because
it's so nuts.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Denver claims that by a developer building residences in the city,
they are creating jobs building the houses, but also they
are creating economic activity in the city because some people
will now call live in those houses, and they will

(34:02):
generate their own economic activity by shopping or doing whatever
they're doing in the city. That will also have the
secondary effect of creating more jobs in the city, ongoing jobs. Obviously,
the construction jobs only last as long as the construction does.
But then, pardon me, the people who live there will
create ongoing jobs. And Denver's argument is the ongoing jobs,

(34:22):
and I guess the construction jobs that are created, but
especially the ongoing jobs it sounds like might be of
people who can't afford most housing in the area, and
therefore the developer of that project has a responsibility to
pay an extortionate fee to the City of Denver that

(34:43):
they can then claim they will use to somehow make
housing more affordable. So, in other words, in other words,
the people who are building new housing in a city
that short of new housing are to be penalized for
doing so, because they are doing the dastardly deed of
both giving people a place to live and creating jobs,

(35:05):
and therefore they must be punished. How nineteen eighty four
is that New Orleans hoodie on Ayrod really liked New Orleans,
especially especially the World War Two museum.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
I need to go there with my kids. So good,
so good.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
All right, let's lighten it up a little bit from
riots and constitutional law. Let's talk about cowpoop. So not
just cowpoop. I just said that just to be you
know whatever. So coloradosun dot com. This is kind of
a fun story. In Boulder, cows from a historic ranch

(35:41):
chomped through tall grass before it can fuel a wildfire.
For more than a decade, Boulders Open Space and Mountain
Parks has used cows and calves to clear swathes of
six foot tall oat grass that is primed for fire.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
I love this story, by the way.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Before I get into the part of the story that
I love, though, let me just let me just mention
I got for a story that's kind of uplifting and
interesting and about how cows are helping us out by
kind of functioning like lawnmowers. This article, strangely enough, starts
off with such a sad, such a sad anecdote, I

(36:18):
just couldn't okay. If the caw this is from the
beginning of the article, if the cow balling in the
bawl I like crying. If the cow balling in the
field below the flat irons was human, she probably would
have gotten bereavement leave. Her mournful cries meant her calf

(36:40):
was gone, likely in the belly of a mountain lion.
But she didn't necessarily need to take time off because
her job was to eat, and eating she loved.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Now I'll go on from there for the rest of
the article what it's really about.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
But isn't that just a terribly sad way to an
unnecessarily sad way to start this article about happy grass
eating cows. That there's one cow that's crying because maybe
a mountain lion got her calf, and if she were human,
she would have gotten bereavement leave Like that's supposed to
put me in the mood for the rest of your article.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Are you kidding anyway?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
That cow was per this article among the forty eight
cow calf pairs brought to the grassy meadow above the
Shanahan Ridge neighborhood near Encar National Center for Atmospheric Research
in Boulder, where in twenty twenty two, a wildfire dubbed
the Encar Fire tore down the ridge atop speed because

(37:38):
there was so much available fuel. A lot of that
was this tall oat grass stuff that you just heard
me mention. It's an invasive species, but it's been here
a long time, all right, likely to have been brought
to America in the eighteen hundreds. Cattle ate this stuff
and then pooped out the seeds, and that helped spread
this grass, which doesn't need more water to grow drought

(38:01):
tolerant grass, and it can get up to six feet
tall and chokes out the vegetation around it. Again, quoting
from the article, tall oat grass grows fast, dries out quickly,
and gobbles up resources. Other plants need water, soil, sunlight,
in doing so, it robs the area of beauty. Now
they quote Kelly Ewing uhi g. Kelly says, now it's

(38:27):
like walking through a Disney movie. Think swallowtail and painted
lady butterflies flitting among wildflowers, songbirds, trilling arias, and an
increase of wildlife munching on the vegetation, including a flock
of fifty or so wild turkeys that frequent the region.
So they the story generally is about how you get

(38:51):
these overgrowths of mostly grasses, and that they provide fuel
for wildfires. And so they're using cows in some places
I believe have used goats as well to go through
and chomp down the grass. And there's actually an interesting

(39:12):
thing in this not it goes beyond just will the
fire spread. It goes also to how intense is the
fire and how long is the fire in a particular place.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
So Ewing we were just.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Said, now I was talking about this end car fire.
The fire was racing downhill. Once it hit the grazed area,
it slowed significantly, and after it was put out, they
realized that the burned area.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Was scorched, absolutely scorched.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
The earth was scorched where there had not been cowsgrazing,
but where there had been cows grazing, so the fire
spread a little more slowly, but didn't last very long
because there's so much less fuel and it just, you know,
sort of burns itself out.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
It's much less scorched.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
What they're dealing with now, though, is trying to get
people who own fancy homes near this Shanahan Ridge Trail
system or many of the millions of people who use
Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks system every year. Or
there are some lunatic enviros out there who think all
fire mitigation is bad.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
But they need to convince.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
These people that allowing cows to share the landscape with
them is useful. Right, And some people don't like the
cow poop, Some people don't like the cow noise. Some
people get frustrated because they're walking their dogs and they
don't have control of their dogs, and the dogs he's
a cow, and the dog takes off after a cow,
so that's not great. But I think this is fabulous.

(40:49):
Cattle grazing for fire mitigation in Boulder County has been
around for over ten years now, and I just love
this story. I think it's I think it's creative of
how low tech it is for Boulder Rights. You know,
the crunchy granola Boulder Rights. This is as natural as
it gets. And I just think it's a fabulous story.

(41:11):
So that's why I wanted to share it with you.
All Right, we still have an immense amount of stuff
to do.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Keep it here with me. I'm Ross on KOA.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
I got a whole bunch of listener texts about the
topic in the last segment, and if you were not
with us at that point, we talked about Boulder's use
of cows effectively as lawnmowers for areas that could be
prone to or could be the site of wildfires. And

(41:38):
especially they chew on this tall oat grass stuff that
can grow six feet tall. And it grows six feet
tall and it dries out and it becomes unbelievable fuel
for fires. So Boulder is using cows. So first thing
before I share with you the idea that all these
listeners had at the same time. Hey, Ross, it's mark
with Colorado Parks and wildlife. We use moo cows to

(42:02):
improve habitat for elk on some state wildlife areas. Moo
cows eat grass and when the grass grows back, tends
to be more nutritious and palatable for the elk. We
use a strict pardon me, a strict grazing plan to
prevent overgrazing, like you said, cheaper way to improve habitat
for wildlife and reduce fire risk, all using the dreaded

(42:25):
moo cow. Now, I got a bunch of texts all
in a row from listeners who all had the same question,
how do Boulderites tolerate the fact that cows will eat and.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's reputed to be cow farts, but it's actually.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Cow burps that contain a lot of methane and per
the climate alarmists, and you know a lot of people,
a lot of people run around with their panties and
a bunch are they afraid of global warming? And this
is actually a thing that apparently has come up when
they're trying to sell this this stuff to Boulder Rights.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
In fact, I wasn't gonna go back to this, but
so many people texted about it. So one of the
guys involved with this program, which by the way, is
funded by a quote unquote climate tax, which tells you howntty,
how nutty Boulder is?

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Climate tax said.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
With cattle, there's certainly a connotation that they're kind of
a global climate problem. And yes, they're inherently gonna be
part of the problem, I suppose, because they're farting and burping.
But at the same time we're seeing so much benefit
and the regenerative movement, if you will, is really illustrating
how important livestock are to seequestering carbon and nutrient cycling. Anyway,

(43:49):
I'll stop there, but you know you get the idea,
and well done, Well done to all of you listeners
who thought, gosh, it's Boulder. Aren't they going to be
worried about climate change from cal burps? And yes they are,
Yes they are. It is It's pretty nuts, isn't it.
A quick follow up on a legal story we've been
following here. I mentioned to you the other day that

(44:11):
there was a whistleblower lawsuit against Governor Jared Polis based
on an accusation which actually does not seem to be contradicted.
The actual accusation that Governor Polus right after signing a
bill that made Colorado even more of a sanctuary state

(44:32):
and made it even more difficult for state and local
officials in Colorado to cooperate.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
With federal immigration officials.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Right after he signed that, he then ordered state employees
to disclose information to ICE that included and I want
to make sure I get this right, but it included
wage data, leave filings, and home addresses for thirty five

(45:00):
people who were sponsoring unaccompanied minor children. Now clearly, in
Jared's mind and the way ICE was talking about it
is this is an effort to make sure that illegalalien
children who were brought to the United sent to the
United States under the tender loving care of coyotes more

(45:22):
often than not, but.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Without their parents.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
They get into the United States, and then they end
up somewhere, they end up with someone who sponsors them.
What ICE apparently wants to do is to make sure
that wherever they are that they are safe and not
actually being trafficked, whether it's sex trafficking or anything else.
And Jared Polis wants to be part of the solution

(45:44):
and not part of the problem when it comes to
protecting kids. So he ordered his state employees to give
the data to ICE.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
But here's the problem. As the lawsuit claims.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
The ICE subpoena requesting the information did not come from
I'm a judge it was an administrative subpoena, which the
plaintiffs claim does not have the force of law, or
enough force.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Of law to allow.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
To allow state employees to overcome existing sanctuary state law
and give information to the FEDS.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
And so far, based on the reporting, it is not.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
It is not being described by ICE as a criminal investigation.
So so far it's not a criminal investigation and it's
not a judicial subpoena.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
And it could well be that Jared was well.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Intended but might have indeed broken the law or ordered
his own employees to break the law. So I think
it's going to come down to a question of whether
a court says that this is close enough to an
actual criminal investigation that Jared was justified in telling his
staff to give the data. But the update today is

(47:00):
that there's a very big public sector union. It's called
Colorado Wins, and I don't like them at all because
with them, Colorado loses. But they represent twenty seven thousand,
more than twenty seven thousand government workers here in the state,
and they just signed on as plaintiffs joining on that lawsuit.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
So that's the update, and we'll keep an eye on it.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
I never promised you that there would be no math.
So there's gonna be a little math now, not too much,
not super nerdy math, as math anybody can do.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
But I was.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
I think I literally laughed out loud when I read
a story in the Washington Post about the mayor of
Detroit who is a Democrat who is running for governor.
And because it's a fairly crowded field when it comes
to Democrats running for governor, this guy and his name

(47:58):
escapes me at the moment. But this guy is thinking
that he might run as an independent, and you know,
thinking maybe kind of.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Split the vote.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
He's a pretty popular mayor in Detroit, pretty good name
id and not everywhere in Michigan, but in populated places
in Michigan. And you know, he's thinking that his path
is is to run as an independent.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
So that's fine. I don't care one way or another.
And you know, could do it. Now.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
He was asked by the Washington Post, well, what's your
electoral strategy if you run as an independent?

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Right?

Speaker 1 (48:34):
And now I want you to listen carefully and think
about this, ay, Rod, you need to think about this too,
even though and just I did not promise a Rod,
I did not promise there would be no math.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Okay, here's what he said. Right now.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
My goal is twenty percent from the Democratic side, twenty
percent from the Republican side, and win with forty percent
of the vote.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Should I say it again? Right now?

Speaker 1 (49:04):
My goal is twenty percent from the Democratic side, twenty
percent from the Republican side, and I win with forty
percent of the vote. By a show of hands, how
many of you understand the mistake that he made?

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Eyrod put his hand up, but it.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Took a few seconds. Uh yeah, I'd say maybe two
thirds of people out there have their hands up right now.
And does someone want to explain it to the class
or should I just do it?

Speaker 2 (49:36):
All right, I'll do it. I'll do it if you.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Get and let's just say, for the sake of argument,
that there aren't you know, unaffiliated voters, that everybody is
a Democrat or a Republican or a Democrat leaning, you know,
unaffiliated who we count as a Democrat for purposes of
this conversation. So if you get and there's so there's
only two camps, Democrat and Republican. If you get twenty

(49:59):
percent from the Democrats and twenty percent from the Republicans. Class,
what percent of the total vote have you gotten? You
better not say forty. Are you gonna fail my math class?
The answer is twenty you've got. And let's just do
this as a thought experiment together.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
And let's say we're talking about we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Michigan, right, which is quite a democratic state, although Trump
won Michigan, but just barely. Because I but I just
I don't want to do this where the parties are
fifty to fifty because I don't want people to think
that the parties need to be fifty to fifty for
this math to work, because they because it doesn't need
to be fifty to fifty. So let's say in the

(50:42):
entire state, there's only one hundred voters, and let's say
it's sixty percent Democrat and forty percent Republican. So let's
say you get twenty percent of the of the sixty percent. Okay,
so they're sixty percent of Democrats. There's one hundred voters,

(51:03):
so there's sixty Democrats. You get twenty percent of them.
You got twelve Democrat votes. Forty percent, which means forty
voters in my example are Republicans. You also get twenty
percent of them. Twenty percent of forty is eight. So
you got twelve Dems, you've got eight Republicans. That's a
total of twenty votes that you got. And it's a

(51:27):
total of twenty votes out of how many total voters
one hundred, it's twenty percent. And what the mistake this
guy made was he only added voters in the numerator
and he didn't add them in the denominator. But anyway,
I just hope this was my thought when I read it.
I hope the guy's a better governor or a better

(51:49):
politician than he is a mathematician. But I wonder, because
there is a lot of numeracy out there, this probably
got by a lot of people. I don't think it
got by a lot of people in my audience, but
I think it probably got by a lot of people.
Where he said, my goal is twenty percent from the
Democratic side, twenty percent from the Republican side, and I

(52:09):
win with forty percent of the vote. No, if you're
going to win with forty percent of the vote.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
You need.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Something that's the equivalent of forty percent from the Dems
and forty percent from the Republicans. Although a Democratic mayor
isn't going to get that, So to win with forty
percent of the vote, you would probably need, you know,
sixty percent of the Dems and fifteen.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Percent of the Republicans.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you because
it just jumped out at me. So when I read it,
I couldn't believe that somebody wants to be a governor
of the of a state.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Said that.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
All right, moving on to another thing where there will
be no math. So we all heard about this guy,
Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He's a guy who the Trump administration
claimed as a member of MS thirteen, and he was
deported from Maryland to a prison in L Salvador, despite

(53:04):
the existence of an order from a federal judge saying
that he could not be deported to L.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Salvador.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Now, I want to make something very clear, and I
have made this clear in the past. The federal judges
order did not say that he cannot be deported, only
that he cannot.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Be deported to L. Salvador.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
They did it anyway, and the Trump administration, some person
or persons in the Trump administration said this was a mistake.
They admitted it was a mistake before later saying it
wasn't a mistake. But this was the top thing in
the news for day after day after day, in part

(53:46):
because Democrats thought they had some kind of winning issue
when you had Chris van Holland, Senator of Maryland, flying
down to l. Salvador to meet with this guy over
at Margarita or something, and they made themselves really look
like fools.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Now, I will say, in the.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Early stages of the story, the guy did seem pretty sympathetic,
and the media was constantly just describing him as a
Maryland dad. I said on the show, there's not nearly
enough information to say that he's a good guy. There's
also not nearly enough information to say that.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
He's a bad guy.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
All we know for sure is that he's an illegal
alien who was wrongly.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Deported to a particular location. That's all. But again, that
was all the news for almost a week.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Now. What I would like to ask you is whether
you heard the news from about four or five days ago.
I guess now maybe it was a little more yeah, no, no,
something like that. Four or five days ago. Did you
hear the news that this guy was returned to the

(54:58):
United States of America? Have you even heard that you
remember when the president of L. Salvador was visiting with
Donald Trump in the White House and the President of L.
Salvador was asked by a reporter would you send him back?
And he said, why would I do that? Why would
I send a gang member back to the United States
of America?

Speaker 2 (55:14):
And Trump just sort of sat.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Back, and Jadvanson and these people just sort of sat
back like they had nothing to do with it and
they had no authority to tell the guy to send
him back. But of course they do because they're actually
paying L. Salvador to hold these people as prisoners. So
really the United States still has significant responsibility for those people.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
But in any case, they kept talking about as.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
No, of course, we wouldn't ask to have him back,
and I wouldn't send him back, and they just stuck
with that, and then the Supreme Court said you need
to facilitate getting him back. They didn't quite order him
because they can't quite order him. They didn't say you
must get him back here now, but they said something
along the lines that you should facilitate his return. And

(56:01):
to me, what the fascinating part of the story is
not that he was brought back and I'm going to
tell you the rest in a second. It's not that
he was brought back. It's that he was brought back.
And the announcement was made late last Friday in order
because whenever the government does something late on a Friday,

(56:21):
it is with the intentional purpose of minimizing news coverage
and public awareness. So the Trump administration did not want anybody,
especially their people, to know that they brought him back. Now,

(56:42):
I think, and I thought the whole time that they
had to bring him back.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
They absolutely had to.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
They violated a federal court order by sending him there.
I am not saying they need to let him stay
in the United States. I am saying they need to
undo their error and start again with whatever the proper
deportation process is for this guy. And I think some lawyers,

(57:11):
including maybe Attorney General Pam Bondi, prevailed on the president saying,
you don't want to be you don't want to be
in the position of appearing to defy the Supreme Court.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
And we did admit to making a mistake.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
So let's try to find a way to deal with
this that gets you on the right side of the
Supreme Court and on the right side of the law
and we know you don't want to look like you're
caving in because right now, in particular, after folks have
been talking about the so called taco trade, the Trump
always chickens out trade when we talked about the other
that the other day. I'm not going to elaborate on

(57:51):
it now. If you don't know what I'm talking about,
just go on to your favorite search engine and type
in taco taco trade and you can read what it's about.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
But Trump right.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Now is feeling very sensitive. He doesn't like when people
say that he's a chicken or that he backs down.
Because Trump's brand is strength, right, That's the thing he
cares about most. It's the trait he values most in
other people and in himself. But he had to back
down on this, didn't have to, but the risk of

(58:21):
not doing so was very high. So they brought him
back and they announced it late last Friday.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
And I bet, I bet.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
That of all the people who are listening to me
right now, who knew about this guy through the prior
news of the deportation and the Democrats trying to do
this stuff to get him back, and all the uproar
about it, and I'm guessing that ninety percent of people
listening to me right now knew that story.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
And I'm guessing that ten percent of people listening to
me right now knew that he was brought back. In fact,
let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.
I want you to.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Text me at five six six nine zero. I want
you to text me at five six six nine zero and.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
Tell me.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Did you hear the original story about the guy? And
did you hear the story that he had been returned
to the US?

Speaker 2 (59:23):
And all you can give.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Me yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, right,
you can just give me yes and no. The first
question is had you heard the original story about the
guy being deported? And then the second question and you
can put the answer in the same text. The second
question is did you hear the story about the guy
coming back? By the way when I said meeting with
him over a margarita? Yes, someone said the margarita was

(59:44):
a photo shop. It's not the point. He went down there,
got a meeting with the guy. It doesn't matter whether
it's a I didn't even I actually.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Just sort of made up the margarita.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
I didn't even see that picture, so it was it
was metaphorical margarita. But I guess there's a picture with
a margarita. And yeah, Now, I do think I have
a very news attentive audience, and probably I'll have a
higher percentage of people in this audience who actually heard

(01:00:16):
the second story. But I promise you that that second
story was brought intentionally the news dump intentionally last Friday
night in order to prevent as much of Maga as
possible and everybody, not just Maga, from learning that they
brought him back. But here's the rest of the story.
Now here's the rest of the story. Now, they didn't
just bring him back. They brought him back and filed

(01:00:39):
a whole bunch of criminal charges against him. And so
he's going to be prosecuted here and if he's convicted,
he will serve his sentence here. And Attorney General Pam
Bondi said that, you know, assuming they still have this
relationship going on with L Salvador, that they would again

(01:01:02):
seek to deport him to L Salvador. I'm quoting from
the Washington Post after he completes his sentence here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
But he has been charged with humans smuggling.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Now, the Washington Post says that the guy has no
criminal history in the US or l Salvador, or at
least his lawyers have said that now, what the administration
is claiming is that he said he had some kind
of like construction job in Florida or something he'd drive
up and down the coast. But they argue that really

(01:01:35):
what he did was he drove up and down to
Texas and would just smuggle people in and he was kind.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Of like a like a coyote. And this there's.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Some pretty pretty intense, pretty intense charges. A twenty twenty
two traffic stop in Tennessee appears to have led to
a brego. Garcia's indictment initially ended with a warning from
local authorities to renew his expired license. Interesting that kind
of goes into the conversation we had the other day

(01:02:09):
about traffic stops. Although obviously you don't pull someone over
for an expired license. You pull someone over for something else,
and then you find that he had an expired license.
And the Wall Street Journal wrote an op ed on
this or an editorial on this. BONDI bends on a
brago Garcia subhead. Trump averts a needless showdown with Supreme

(01:02:29):
Court by bringing him back from a prisoner in l. Salvador,
and I think that's right. I think that's right. I
think was smarter them to bring him back. But these
charges against him are serious, and a federal grand jury.
Now I'm over at NBC News, a federal grand jury
has indicted him for being they say an MS thirteen member,

(01:02:53):
although I don't know that that's indictable, but the NBC
has that who quote transported thousands of un documented immigrants,
including children, from Texas to states across the country for
profit for nine years. He allegedly also transported firearms and drugs,
abused female migrants, and was linked to an incident in

(01:03:16):
Mexico where a tractor trailer overturned and killed fifty migrants. Wow,
all right, the Department of Justice or the FBI sure
has been doing their homework on this guy. To come
up with all of that stuff on this very low
level guy is actually kind of weird. Normally, these guys

(01:03:37):
who are just driving cars or whatever. You know, you
bring some little charge, you put him in prison for
a few months, and then you deport him. This guy,
they're treating him kind of like a kingpin, even though
he certainly not. And by the way, I'm not saying
they shouldn't do this. I'm just saying you normally wouldn't
see this level of charges against a guy they know

(01:03:57):
who is like, if he's even done this stuff, and
if he's part of some kind of gang or whatever,
he'd be a foot soldier kind of guy almost certainly,
rather than a ring leader.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
And so normally you would see the very very.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Heavy charges that could result in many, many years of imprisonment,
saved more for the ring leaders. But they're trying to
make a point here, all right. You know you made
me bring him back, and you thought you'd be doing
him a favor by pressuring us to bring him back.
How do you like me now? And I think that's

(01:04:28):
what that's what it's about. So I just wanted to share.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
It with you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I look, if he did this stuff, he should be convicted,
is said to him. I I don't. I've got nothing.
I don't have an AX to grind for this guy.
I don't have an AX to grind for some illegal
alien who may or may not.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Be a criminal.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
All I said all the way through all of this
stuff is we just don't have enough information yet to
say that he's a criminal. Right separate from being here illegally.
We just don't know. So let's get the information. Now,
it looks like they went and got it. And I think,
you know, for the people who were press you know,
pressuring the government to bring him back, play stupid games,

(01:05:09):
win stupid prizes. Right, let's see, I've got I definitely
have more listeners saying they heard both stories than saying
they only heard the first story.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
So that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
That means that means I have very smart listeners, because
I promise you it's probably seventy five to twenty five, right,
probably seventy five percent say you heard you heard both stories.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Uh ross.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
It seems convenient to find all these charges, now, nobody.
It's not convenient in the sense that it's not coincidental.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
They went to find the charges before.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
They brought him back, so that they could bring back
an indicted guy and have, to the extent that the
story got out, bring back an indicted guy and charge
him with serious sounding crimes.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
For the political purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
I mean, there's a law enforcement there's a legit law
enforcement purpose. There's also a political purpose of showing the
public what kind of person Democrats decided to spend so
much political capital defending that my friend is really what's

(01:06:29):
going on. I'm actually just going to tell you about
two guests. Tomorrow ten thirty or ten thirty three. Governor
Mark Gordon of Wyoming is going to be on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
He was here recently doing an event with.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
The Common Sense Institute, and I am the Mike A.
Loprino free Market Fellow for the Common Sense Institute. A
wonderful honor for me to be involved with such a
great organization. He was here doing an event about primarily
about energy, and Wyoming is very interesting energy state. And
I'm just so impressed with this guy, and it's just

(01:07:05):
so smart, so on top of the details, just really
an impressive guy. So I asked if he'd be willing
to come on the show, and he said he'd love to.
And of course, Koa being Koa, We've got listeners in Wyoming.
I get texts from people listening in Cheyenne and southern
Wyoming and so on. So tomorrow at ten thirty three,

(01:07:25):
we're gonna have the Governor of Wyoming. If you want
to ask him a question, I might take one. I
have a lot of my own, but I might take
one or two listener questions but you could send it
to me tomorrow, not today. And then at eleven thirty
tomorrow we're gonna have Leland Viddert back on the show,
and you know, he's a good friend of mine and
a great guest, and he just got married, so we'll
ask him about that, but lots of other things too,

(01:07:46):
And then coming up later in this hour, just a
little bit less than half an hour from now, we're
going to talk with Francis Rooney. And he was most
recently a member of Congress from Florida, but before that
he was ambassador to the Holy See and ambassador to
the Vatican.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
And I'm told that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
He has at least an acquaintance, maybe a friendship, with
the current Pope. So I just thought that would be
a fun guy to talk to. Now I owe you
a story from yesterday about AI and in the world
we live in, I think you're gonna hear me doing AI,
you know, short AI stories pretty frequently, like I'd be

(01:08:24):
really shocked at given the age in which we live,
if I didn't have one at least one AI story
every week, and maybe two or three. So I covered
this very briefly the other day, but I'm going to
broaden it out a little bit with a piece by
Axios entitled Behind the Curtain the Scariest AI Reality. And

(01:08:46):
I was just talking with some friends of mine about
this the other day. It's just such a crazy thing.
Before I tell you this, just imagine. Let's say you're
enough of a nerd that one day in the past,
what or not one day, but in your past, maybe
you goofed around with a little bit of computer program
Right when I was a kid, Apple two plus or
TRS eighty, which we call the trash eighty from Radio Shack,

(01:09:09):
you could program in basic and some other stuff. And
I did some programming in basic. And here's the thing
with any of that traditional kind of programming. The program
works or it doesn't. And when I say it works,
that could be two things.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Either it just.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Runs at all, or just there's some bad code and
it just stops. So that's one version of running versus not.
And the other version of kind of running versus not
is that it does what you think it's supposed to do.
So an example might be you put in a you
write a formula to create I'll go from my personal past. Okay,

(01:09:47):
you write a formula to calculate the value of a
stock option given certain variable inputs. Right, So the program
asks for the inputs and then it calculates the value
of the stock option. So if it works, fine, I'll
call that the program is running.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
But if at some point in there.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Let's say there's something you're supposed to multiply and you
accidentally made a division instead of multiplication and you get
all the answers are wrong, I'll call that sort of
not running correctly. Now here's the thing with those examples.
If the program just stops, it just breaks, or it's
always giving wrong answers, it's at least theoretically possible to

(01:10:29):
always figure out why. You just go into your code,
and in my example, you look through your Black Showal's formula.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Let's say, if.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
That's or a binomial form binomial formula, if that's what
you're using for your options pricing, you go look through
it and you go check in. You gotta it's sometimes
it's hard to edit your own work, just the way
it's hard sometimes to edit your own writing. But you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Look through and of this times this to that power
plus this, and the like, oh wait.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
A minute, that's uh, that's got a division sign there
it's supposed to be multiplication. Fix that, and you run
it again. My point is you can find the error.
You can find the error, you can track it down.
And even with programs that have a million lines of code,
and these days there are tools that help you go
through the million lines of code to look for errors,

(01:11:18):
like the code that they would use to write Fortnite
and to write and to write I don't know, Call
of Duty, write any of these massive games, right, millions
literally millions of lines of code. But if it's not working,
you can find out why. AI is not like that.
AI is not like that. Here's what Axeo says. The wildest, scariest,

(01:11:39):
indisputable truth about AI's large language models is that the
company's building them don't know exactly why or.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
How they work. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
The most powerful companies racing to build the most powerful
superhuman intelligence capabilities, ones they readily admit occasionally go rogue,
to make things up or even threaten their users, don't
know why their machines do what they do. This, my friends,
is fascinating, fascinating. There's never never.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Been something like this.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
I mean think even in a nuclear reactor, even in
a large hadron collider at least in theory, you know
what's gonna happen, or if something happens, you should be
able to figure out why.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
It might take very smart people.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
It might take a Nobel Prize physicist to get the
data and sort.

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
It out, but you can figure it out. Not here,
not here. A little more from acxios.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
With the companies pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into
willing superhuman intelligence into a quick existence, and Washington doing
nothing to slow or police them, it seems worth dissecting
this great unknown. None of the AI companies dispute this.
They marvel at the mystery and muse about it publicly.
They're working feverishly to better understand it. They argue that

(01:13:03):
you don't need to fully understand a technology to tame
or trust it. See I don't think that's right, Not
at this level of technology. When it's a technology that
you can put in charge of other technologies or in
charge of decisions made by computers or people, you probably
do need to fully understand a technology to fully trust it.

(01:13:26):
Two years ago at CEOs, managing editor for Tech Scott
Rosenberg wrote a story quote AI's scariest mystery, saying it's
common knowledge among AI developers that they can't always explain
or predict their systems behavior, and that's more true than ever.
The House, despite knowing so little about AI, put language

(01:13:49):
into President Trump's big beautiful bill that would prohibit states
and localities from any AI regulations for ten years. The
Senate is considering limiting that provision somewhat but still crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Large language models are not traditional software. They are massive
neural networks, kind of like a brain that ingest massive
amounts of information to learn to generate answers. The engineers
know what they're setting in motion and what data sources
they draw on. But the LM's size, the year inhuman,

(01:14:24):
number of variables in each choice of best next word
it makes means even the experts can't explain exactly why
it chooses to say anything in particular. I just think
this is incredible stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
They have the thing in here about how one of
the AIS tried to blackmail its inventor when they told
the AI that it was going to be replaced. They
also told the AI a story that wasn't true, but
they told the AI that the inventor had an extra
material affair, and in something like at least three quarters
of the simulations they ran. The AI result ended up

(01:15:00):
backmailing trying to blackmail the inventor to not shut it down.
It's absolutely crazy. So this is the world we live
in now. I don't live in fear of this. I
think there's so much opportunity here. Is it proper for
the federal government to say that states and localities cannot

(01:15:21):
regulate it at all?

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
Maybe?

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Maybe because you know that a lot of people who
will be afraid and tend to be afraid of things,
will over regulate and stifle regulate, stifle innovation, stifle development,
stifle growth, and that might just simply end up with
China trouncing us in AI. That could happen. But that said,
nobody can honestly argue that these systems are without risk.

(01:15:46):
This is a wacky story. I'm gonna do this one
for a little bit with you, and then in the
next segment of the show, we're gonna be joined by
a guy named Francis Rooney, who I'm told we'll see
how how true this story is when we actually get
talked to him.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
But I'm but.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
I'm told that he knows the current pope, and I'm
not Catholic, but I think that's so that's fascinating, and
so I want to talk to him.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
So that'll be.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
That'll be in the next segment of the show less
than fifteen minutes from now. In the meantime, I want
to do this with you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
By the way, just before I do this, I want
to mention a couple of quick things.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
I put a lot of work into.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
My website, which you can access at Rosskominski dot com,
and it just redirects to my KOA page. So when
you get redirected to KOA, that's where you're supposed to be.
But I put a lot of work into this, and
I just want you to know a couple of things.
For example, the link to our trip next April is

(01:16:38):
up there right. If you don't remember rosstrip dot com.
If you go to Rosskominsky dot com, you'll see a
link for the trip. The other thing you'll see a
link for it says show partners. So all of my
show partners, all of the fabulous companies offering products or
services that you hear me talk about on the show.
If you forget the name of a company right, who

(01:16:59):
is the roofing comempany who's the builder?

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Right, you can go.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
To Roscommitsky dot com, click on the show partners and
it's got them all contact information, all that stuff. And
then every day I've got my blogcast. Every day that
I have a show, I've got my blogcast.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
That term doesn't really mean anything.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
It's just sort of a summary of not only stuff
I expect to talk about on the show, but there'll
be a ton of stuff there that I don't actually
even get to on the show, and I think you
would find it a useful and interesting way to start
your day as a bit of a news source, and
stuff that isn't news that is interesting. The other thing
that I try to do there, and I don't do

(01:17:38):
it with every article because my ability to do it
is quantitatively limited by certain websites. But what I try
to do when I get interesting articles is to find
a link where you can access the thing for free,
even if you would normally need a subscription like a
New York Times piece.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Right, And I have that today This article I share
with you now.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
If you go to my blog Ross Kamensky dot com,
click on the Tuesday blogcast, you will find this article
and it is a gift length, so you can read
it at the New York Times website without needing a subscription.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
This is pretty nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Four years ago, an unconscious Kentucky man began to awaken
as he was about to be removed from life support
so his organs could be donated. Even though the man cried,
pulled his legs to his chest, and shook his head,
officials still tried to move forward. Now, a federal investigation
has found that officials at the nonprofit in charge of

(01:18:33):
coordinating organ donations in Kentucky ignored signs of growing alertness
not only in that patient, but also in dozens of
other potential donors. The investigation examined about three hundred and
fifty cases in Kentucky over the past four years in
which plans to remove organs were ultimately canceled.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
It found that in seventy three instances.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Officials should have considered stopping sooner because the patients had
high or improving levels of consciousness. Although the surgeries in
those cases did not happen, the investigations said multiple patients
showed signs of pain or distress while being prepared for
the procedure. Now, the other thing I want to note, right, so,

(01:19:19):
These are people who are in very very very bad,
like bad enough shape that it's thought that they are
going to be organ donors.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
Right, So it's not like, you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Know, somebody has a headache and goes to the hospital
and is having a good night's sleep and they're going
to go take their organs. So most of these patients
in fact eventually did die hours later or days later,
but some did recover enough to leave the hospital at
least for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
And this whole story is just nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
This practice is called donation after circulatory death. So unlike
most organ donors were brain dead, patients in these cases
can have some brain function but are on life support
and not expected to reco how often they are in
a coma. If family members agree to the donation, employees
of a nonprofit called an organ procurement organization begins testing

(01:20:09):
the patient. They begin testing the patient's organs and lining
up transplant surgeons and recipients.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Every state has at.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Least one procurement organization and they often staff in hospitals
to help manage donations.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
And there is a long.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
Piece, and I'm in the interest of time, I'm not
going to share more.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
With you, but let me just give one little story.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
In December of twenty twenty two, a fifty year old
overdose victim began stirring less than an hour after being
taken off of life support and started looking around. The
effort to take his organs was not immediately ended, nor
was the patient given any explanation.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
The patient had no idea what was going on, but
was becoming more aware by the minute. After forty more minutes,
when the patient's organs would no longer qualify for a donation,
the attempt was called off and he was moved to
an intensive care unit. He later sat up and spoke
with his family before dying three days later. Overall, the
investigation found one hundred and three cases of having concerning features.

(01:21:10):
All right, in the interesting time, I'm gonna leave it there,
but I arranged for this to be available to you
at my website at Roskiminsky dot com within Tuesday's blogcast
with a gift link so that you don't have to
have a New York Times subscription to read it. When
we come back, Ambassador Francis Rooney, who I think is
a friend of the Popes, right to our koa Common

(01:21:32):
Spirit Health studio line, and we are. I'm so pleased
to be joined by Francis Rooney, and I don't think
we've spoken before, although somewhere in my brain I feel
like maybe we have. But Francis Roney was a member
of Congress representing Florida's nineteenth congressional district, basically overlapping Trump's

(01:21:54):
first term in office. Before that, and what's gonna be
the primary subject of our conversation today. In the mid
two thousands, he was United States Ambassador to the Holy
See to the Vatican, and so we had a ton
of stuff to talk about. Ambassador Rooney, Welcome to Kowa,
and thanks so much for being.

Speaker 3 (01:22:13):
Here, Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Hey, before we talk about the Pope and the ambassador stuff,
I have one quick question for you. I'm always pleased, impressed,
and slightly curious when folks who have not served in
Congress for very long and probably could win reelection decide

(01:22:36):
not to run again.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Why did you decide not to run again?

Speaker 3 (01:22:40):
Well, the only reason I ran in the first place
was to get the money necessary to build out the
Everglades restoration projects and the other environmentally related things that
we needed to in tough West Florida, particularly extending the
ban on offshore drilling that George W had put in
place back when Jeb was governor of Florida. It was

(01:23:00):
inspired in two thousand and seven, and after that I
didn't really care about all the sausage making. Look what's
going on now? Waste of time?

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
Yeah, I mean, are you glad not to be there?

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Does any part of you wish you could be there
to knock some heads together and knock some sense into people?

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
Or do you realize or believe it's.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
A lost cause there's no sense to knock. Yeah, the
process is defected from the start. Executive controls everything. We
really the Congress is a rubber stamp to the Senate,
which is generally a rubber stamp to the executive event.
So once I got the things that I ran to
do and was thankful that I could get done with
President Trump and with the with the Senate. What am

(01:23:40):
I doing down here? I have other things I need
to do with my life.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Why do you think members of the House of Representatives
don't more zealously guard their Article one rights and powers?
Why do you think they let the executive and not
just Trump, but one executive after another for a generation
accumulate power that they shouldn't have.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
It's been going on ever since FDR. Yeah, you know,
Arthur Schlessinger wrote a book in nineteen seventy two called
The Imperial Presidency. I reread it, I said, well, that's
quine compared to the way we are now with the
overreach of the executive and every part of the government.
I think it's because of fear of not getting re elected.

(01:24:21):
The Congress is like a dog with its like a
deer in the headlights. They don't want to do anything
controversial that can get them not elected, and as such
that write these very vague, vague, milk toast bills that
can be interpreted by the bureaucracy and the president and
the executive branch anyway they want. Right, you know, we're

(01:24:43):
still operating under the same authorization for the use of
military force that was passed to allow us to go
into Iraq and Afghanistan yep.

Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
And there are only a few people who ever talk
about it, right, Rand Paul and a couple others are
the only folks who ever talk about talk about that?
Is there last question on this? Is there any reason
to have hope that it might get better? Or do
you think it's just Look, my son's middle name is
rand and you seem like a pretty intellectual guy. So

(01:25:12):
you know, I'm often of the mindset that nothing is
going to get better until it gets much, much, much worse.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
That's probably the case. I mean, you know, at the
end of Bill Clinton's second term, twenty six percent of
House districts were considered highly partisan. Now it's what I mean.
And so that all the elections take place in the primaries,
which drives these people to the polls, and there's really
no functioning democracy from an electoral point of view. Oh

(01:25:40):
all right, I could talk to you about limits the
term moments, cause these guys get up there and they
use the power of the incumbency. They basically market the
people on their own money.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Yeah, I couldn't agree.

Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
I used to think, and now I'm talking about twenty
five thirty years ago, that an election was the term limit.
But the power of incumbency is so great that I've
come around to thinking we actually need we actually need
term limits.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
I'm with you on that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
The anti terminent people said the same thing you just did.
That You're right, there's so much power of the incumbency
that they can use to market themselves for free, if
you will. We need term limits. Remember, we thought the
founders of this country thought of war to avoid a
political class and to get rid of one. And look

(01:26:26):
what we got.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Yeah, we got to political classes and political dynasties. Even
though you know, I kind of like the Bushes, but
it's still a political dynasty. And then and then the
Clintons and anyway, all right, So, how how did you
become ambassador to the Holy See? I mean, I know
George W. Bush appointed you, but what's that process?

Speaker 3 (01:26:49):
Well, these important appointments of the president are kind of
very personal. And I knew the president quite well, and
he reached down and offered me something that was very
very special, and I'm thankful for it. But we were
very good friends, and I've known him for a long
time and have helped him in all of his races.

(01:27:12):
We built some we built a baseball stadium for him
when he owned the team in Texas Rangers. And we'll
go way back. We go back to the late to
the mid eighties.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
So I assume if you were ambassador to the Vatican,
ambassador to the Holy See, that the Vatican and Catholicism
means a lot to you, and you know a lot
about it, and you clearly wanted that. And so let's
bring it forward now to our current pope, the first
ever American pope, Pope Leo the fourteenth, who you know.

(01:27:42):
I hear on TV when he was a parish priest.
People called him Father Bob. I sometimes call him Pope Bob,
not with any disrespect, just because it sounds so awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
Do you know him, I've known him for thirty years,
me and my family.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Tell tell us a little, tell me what he's like
as a human being, and then and then we can
separately talk about what you think about him as pope.
By the way, I'm Jewish, so I don't know a
ton about this.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):
Our kids went to an Augustinian middle school and high
school in Tulsa, and Father Bob came head of the
Midwest Augustinians. That's their biggest provinces, the Midwest, one Chicago.
Rased in Chicago, and so he would come down to
our board meetings every month. If to know him real well,
I was on the board of the school for years
and then lo and behold. In two thousand and one,

(01:28:32):
I think it was or two, he moved to Rome
to take over the leadership of the entire Augustinian Order,
and come two thousand and five we moved over there.
In fact, the third night we were over there, we
had dinner with.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
Bob and Bob Wow, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
We did a lot of things. We saw a lot
of him. We went to a lot of Augustinian events
while we were there, and certainly invited him to all
the events we would have at the house for Americans
and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
You too chat about, and I don't mean when you're
talking politics or anything like that, just like two guys
hanging out over a beer or a glass of wine
or something.

Speaker 3 (01:29:10):
What would be the last time we visited. He came
by our house in Naples two winters ago for about
two and a half hours. He was there for a
conference and had some time. He came by the house
with another Ugustinian and we just visited about things going
on in the world, political things, challenges the church, bass
which since Father Bob had been in Peru, he was

(01:29:33):
keenly aware of the expansive role of Evangelical Christians in
Latin America. Six countries in Latin America are no longer
Catholic majorities and we talked about that quite a bit. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
So we went from and again I'm not Catholic, but
we went from a very conservative Pope in Benedict to
a very liberal Pope in Francis. How do you think
of Father Bob in that kind of spectrum.

Speaker 3 (01:30:07):
Well, I think we'll have a little bit of both.
He will be more doctrinaire and adherent and respective of
the evolutionary Church doctrine as Pope Benedict was and his predecessors.
He won't be a rock droller. I don't think we
like Pope Francis was. On the other hand, I'm sure
that he will continue the social justice impetus that Pope

(01:30:29):
Francis whose consciousness Pope Francis rains. Because we have all
these things going on in the world, all these refugees,
all these migrants around the world, conflicts around the world.
I think there's a role for the Holy See to
play in resolving the youth brain things like that I
think will be emphasis for him as well.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
Much of the growth of the Catholic Church in the
last at least couple of decades has been in Africa
and to a certain degree in Asia, not that much
in the us, maybe a little, and probably all religion
has been shrinking except for Islam in Europe. What do
you think it means.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
To have, you know, Father Bob as pope for the
experience of American Catholics or for the growth of Catholicism
in America.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):
Well, I think that given his age, in his historical
teaching orientation, he will be attractive to younger, younger Catholics
deciding whether or not to re engage with the church.
And I'm hoping that we'll see a groundswell of younger
people return to or join the church. And because he's

(01:31:45):
going to present a very welcoming position to them as
far the like the real conservative Africans and things like that,
I think you're right, that's been the growth of the church.
But they're much moreservative in the mainstream church. Those bishops
and cardinals from Nigeria are very conservative. I know them,

(01:32:08):
and you know, the mainstream, mainstream church has moved towards
the middle a little bit, and I think for good reason.
The fact that he took the name pu Leo is
very instructive for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:32:20):
I mean, and I read about Leo the thirteenth, a
very interesting guy who I think you know far better
than I do, so maybe you should be telling these stories.
But he seemed to me to be a guy who
really tried to balance nobody talking about social justice back then,
but that kind of thing, but also not as like
a socialist radical.

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):
No. A lot of people criticized Leo for being just
another liberal Democrat, Catholic guy, you know, but the fact
of the matter, what is he was calling out the
injustices and dislocations and inequalities that arose out of the
industrial revolution and the people, and he basically made the

(01:33:03):
argument in Barham Novarum that if you don't have enough
people in your country that are benefiting from your system,
you're going to have a problem. He kind of foresaw
the communist revolution that made nineteen seventeen and we have.
So for Pope Leo the fourteenth to take that name
shows me that he's sensitive to the changes in upheavals

(01:33:26):
that we're facing right now around the world, whether it's migrants,
whether it's social media. You know, there's a lot of
ai there's a lot of challenges out there that are
uprooting our last couple hundred year away alive.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
I told you there would be no math, but I'm
going to do some.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
So Popolo the fourteenth, it just occurred to me, could
be Popelio the thirteenth, plus Popo Lelio the First, who
is sometimes called Popolo the Great. There's only I think
three popes who have the great after their names. Now,
and I'm sure you're well aware of the famous story
about Pope Leo the Great and Attila the Hun.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
Yeah, why don't you tell my listeners?

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
Well, he faced him down right, yeah, and welcomed him
to join the church and room, and.

Speaker 1 (01:34:14):
He did, and Attila the Hunt was going to basically
read not just Rome but most of Italy, and Pope
Leo the First shows up and talks with him, and
Attila says, all right, I'll leave you guys alone, and
he keeps going.

Speaker 3 (01:34:27):
Gossip became Catholics.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
It's an incredible story. And I wonder in Father Bob's
mind as he was picking his name, his pope's name
when he becomes pope. Clearly, the Leo the thirteenth connection
is obvious, but I wonder how much of the Leo
the First was in his mind.

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
It could be it could be that he wants to say, well,
you're welcome here, Okay. I mean Pope Francis had that
liberation theology thing that these Latin Americans are all eating
up with. Basically says, you know, the state needs to
dominate your life, and the rich states need to give
the poor states more money, and there's no individual initiative

(01:35:11):
in their dogma. And I think that's why Evangelical Christian
Christianity has taken over Latin America. Well, they say to
those people, it's good for you to provide for your
family and get ahead. God wants you to do that right,
And there's nothing wrong with that message within reason, And
I think that I think certainly, after his experience in Peru,

(01:35:33):
Pope Leo sensitive to that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
Well, there's certainly very major overlap in the Venn diagram
of liberation theology and socialism totally. We're talking with Francis Roney,
who was a member of Congress but before that and
the main subject of our conversation today, Ambassador the Holy
See and devout Catholic and a friend of Father Bob

(01:35:57):
who is now Pope Leo the fourteenth.

Speaker 2 (01:35:59):
What are I'm going to ask you a crazy question.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
If I got a chance to talk to Father Bob
and asked him. Tell me a little about Francis Rooney.
What do you think he'd say.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
I think he would say that he was a good
ambassador represent the United States well, and he's a very
strong partner with the Augustinians. I'm much called an Augustinian affiliate.
That means you're kind of a lay person that's associated
with the Augustinians. And we've been very close to him.
We think an awful lot of what they taught our
kids and their ministry. And I think he'd say things like.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
That, have you spoken to him since he became pope?

Speaker 3 (01:36:37):
No? No, I wouldn't bother him.

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:36:40):
Once he's set out and he's organized, and he's on
his guide path to be pope, and he's done a
few things and gets a staff together, I'll call one
of my Augustinian friends and find out who to talk
to over there and take all the kids and family
over there to go say hi to him.

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):
That would be just a remarkable experience for you, for
your kids.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
I mean, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
You met at least one prior pope. I don't know
who was pope when or if there was just one.
When you were in that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:05):
We spent a lot of time with Benedict. That was
my job. Uh huh, you know, every three or four
times a year, five times a year, i'd go see Benedict. Now,
Pope Francis I.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
Only met once, right, which was probably enough.

Speaker 3 (01:37:18):
Probably I didn't agree with him all that much.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
Ambassador Francis Roney, fascinating conversation. I'm really grateful for your time,
and even though it's not your doing, congratulations on your
friend becoming pope. And I do think I think again,
I'm not Catholic, but I think this is a good
thing for the church. I think it's a good thing
for the American Catholic Church. I think it's a good

(01:37:41):
thing for America.

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
I think it's a super thing for America to have
someone that shares our values. Look, he's gonna do some
big deal in White Sox Park next week. That's as
American as you can get.

Speaker 1 (01:37:52):
Well, maybe he should be at at Wrigley instead.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
The White Sox ain't much.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
That was the big debate right away. People didn't care
about his theology. They've cared about whether he's a White
Sox or cubstance.

Speaker 2 (01:38:06):
I know, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
And one of my producers here said, the White Sox
need to make up a jersey for him that says
LEO on the back with XIV as the number and
send it to him. I mean they probably did it already. Topic,
we've already done it. Yeah, they've probably already done it.
Francis Rooney, thanks so much for your time. I thoroughly
enjoyed that conversation. Thanks for having me on glad to
do it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:27):
All right. I hope you like that. Gosh, that was
really fun. The time went really fast.

Speaker 1 (01:38:32):
All right, let me do two minutes on something completely different.
I don't think I have much to add to that conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
I was just great.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
So you know, we have the whole thing with wolves
coming into Colorado. But the other thing that's going on
right now, and I saw this at the Colorado Sun
is bison. Wild bison, not bison on ranches. Wild bison
which live in eastern Utah or northeastern Utah are crossing

(01:39:03):
into Colorado. And what this article talks about at the
Colorado Sun is before just recently, like this year's legislative session,
bison were legally treated as livestock. And I'll quote from
coloradosun dot com. People could shoot the hulking visitors from

(01:39:26):
Utah without consequence. State wildlife officials told a Senate committee
that's happened a dozen times over ten years. So there
was a new bill that went through the state legislature,
Senate Bill fifty three. It was signed by Governor Polis
and it changes the bison's designation from livestock to big

(01:39:47):
game animal, which then makes shooting them unless you've got
a hunting license to hunt them. It makes shooting them
a poaching offense, and there are no hunting licenses to
hunt them right now. The bill does tell Colorado Parks
and Wildlife to set up a regime for licensing and
hunting bison, but according to the article, there are no

(01:40:10):
immediate plans to create a hunting season. They're just going
to set up the framework for such a program if
there ever comes a time when for you know, the reasons,
the things that Colorado Parks and Wildlife cares about, whether
if there's a reason to hunt them at some point, they.

Speaker 2 (01:40:29):
Could then implement a hunting season.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
But for now, as of this bill, bison are now
designated as big game and if you shoot one, it's
a poaching offense, and that's fine with me. Thanks so
much for sharing some time with me. I hope you
enjoyed the show as much as I did. We got
some fabulous guests tomorrow as well. I hope you will
join us. Of course, we've got Leland Vindor and before that,

(01:40:52):
at ten thirty three, we're going to have the Governor
of Wyoming. His name is Mark Gordon. Very interesting guy.
Enjoy the rest of your day.