Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tuesday morning, and the TVs in the radio studio are
not working, Channon, is anything working in there?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Certainly not me certain.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
So as I was driving to the studio today, I
saw a whole row of like eight or ten Expinity
trucks outside the building, which probably explains why why we
have no televisions in here. So a little harder to
keep up on the news. It's such a fast breaking
news thing. I mean yesterday, yesterday, in the second half
of my show, we were talking with Jennifer Griffin of
(00:32):
Fox News, and.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I knew I didn't have her for long. I was
trying to get one more question in and she said, oh,
I'm sorry, I got to go.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
There's reports of air raid sirens over cut her now
and I gotta go. And then, you know, three minutes
later we cut to the audio of her.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Talking on Fox News on television. But everything's just so
fast moving.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And as I was just describing in my little crossover
talk there with Marty and Gina, you know, I wrote
this piece for my substack, And by the way, can
I ask you to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Do me a favor and go to Rosscominski dot.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Substack dot com and just subscribe to my Substack. It's
absolutely free, and it's probably worth a little bit more
than that, but it's free, so you might as well.
And I tend to write somewhat longer form pieces there.
My friend Greg Brophy always says that my notes there
too long, and he's probably right, so maybe I'll try
to shorten them a little bit. But usually what happens
(01:22):
is I just get some thoughts and I just start typing,
and then it's just like diarrhea of the brain and
it just comes out all over the page and then
it's there for you to read. What you think that's
a bad metaphor, Shannon, when I'm trying to get someone
to subscribe, worried about sanitary condition?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
All right, But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So I wrote a piece for my substack yesterday afternoon
entitled they did but they didn't. And what I'm talking
about is Iran's quote unquote retaliation against the US by
lobbing missiles kind of sort of at an American base
in Cutter And the subtitle of my article is Iran
could not retaliate for US strikes, but they also couldn't
(02:04):
not retaliate, right, And so I wrote this thing and
it's still there, it's still there.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But then as I as.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I write it, just as I finished writing it, suddenly
we get this announcement from President Trump on his social
media platform that is announcing a ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It says congratulations to everyone.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
That's in all caps with an exclamation point. It's been
fully agreed by in between Israel and Iran that there
will be a complete and total ceasefire. And approximately six
hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down
and completed their in progress final missions, for twelve hours
at which the war will be considered ended officially, Iran
will start the ceasefire. And upon the twelve hour, Israel
(02:47):
we'll start the ceasefire. Upon the okay, Iran will start
the ceasefire, let's see. And upon the twelfth hour, Israel
will start the cease fire, and on the twenty fourth
hour and official end to what Trump has now declared
the twelve day war. And he's taking credit for the name,
which is fine. He didn't. I mean, he came up
(03:08):
with the name, so it's his name. So I'm so,
I'm I wrote my thing. I wrote my thing, and
then I see and then I see this news, right, okay,
ceasefire because.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I was writing will there be a ceasefire?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And I was kind of leaning toward yes, actually because
Iran is so screwed if they don't, they really don't
have any choice.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So I actually thought a ceasefire was probably coming.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And also because it seemed clear that once the US
did what it did, and especially with the Iranian So
I mentioned this at the end of the show yesterday,
so Jennifer Griffin had to go because there were the.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Air raids sirens.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And then I was talking on the show yesterday about
a video I was seeing online of maybe a Patriot
missile battery or some other kind of similar defense system
in Cutter launching. As you could see the little you know,
the white light that basically rep presents the heat at
the end of the missile. You could see those going
up not down right, So that's the defensive system launching
(04:07):
a missiles. And after a little and what it was
actually fascinating to watch because just before jen Griffin said
We've got these alerts, the DOW was up about one
hundred and fifty points.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Then we get the alerts and then you know.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Defensive systems firing and Cutter and then the Dow drops
really fast, although not an enormous move, but it goes
from up one fifty to down one fifty and then
and then it starts to look like there's not much
damage and the defensive systems are working, and then it
starts creeping up, and it's the dow was hanging around
unchanged for a while, and then it becomes clear that
(04:43):
nobody got hurt on the ground, no American, no Katari,
and and Iran telegraphed it by posting in advance, we're
going to be attacking, which they did certainly in order to.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Let the defensive systems get set up. And then the.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Market screamed upward and the Dow closed up to three
hundred and seventy four points, I think. And even more
interesting than that was oil. And I have all this
in my notes, so I won't go through it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But oil got.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Destroyed yesterday and down a lot more today. And all
these people who crowded into the oil trade thinking that
this was gonna blow and it's not a ridiculous thing
to worry about, of course, but the people who crowded
into the oil trade thinking that this could result in
disruptions to the flow of oil so far it looks
like that's not gonna happen, and those people.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Are all getting out now and taking their losses.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So anyway, I'm writing this thing, and I'm writing, will
there will there not be a ceasefire, and will Iran
agree to this or that? And then Trump announces the
ceasefire and they're like, Okay, I'm going to update my note
with that. And then a little bit later, a little
bit after Trump's announcement that everybody's agreed to a ceasefire,
the Foreign Minister from Iran helpfully added this, and I
(05:52):
will quote as Iran has repeatedly made clear, Iran launched,
Israel launched war on Iran, not the other way around.
As of now, there is no agreement on any ceasefire
or cessation of military operations. However, provided that the Israeli
regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people, know
later than four am Tehran time, we have no intention
(06:12):
to continue our response afterwards. The final decision on the
cessation of our military operations will be made later.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
So, in other words, what the foreign.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Minister said is there's no agreement on a ceasefire, but
we agree to it. So that was that, and then
a little bit later he posted, and I've just loved
this one.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I just love this.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
The military operations of our powerful armed forces to punish
Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute
at four am, together with all Iranians, I think are
brave armed forces who remain ready to defend our dear
country until their last drop of blood, and who responded
to any attack by the enemy until the very last minute.
(06:55):
So what that is saying is we fought until we surrendered.
That's how I read that. And so then I had
to update with all that last night, and then this
morning while I was sleeping, bib.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Net Yahoo posted on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
In light of having achieved the objectives of the operation
and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel agrees to
the President's proposal for a bilateral ceasefire. Israel will respond
forcefully to any violation of the seasefire. So that's fine.
And then probably the funniest thing of all, this is
a quote translated into English from Iranian State Television News
(07:35):
reporting the SEAPA, which is what they call the IRGC,
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps successful missile operations in response
to US aggression and the exemplary steadfastness and unity of
our dear people in defending our land has imposed ceasefire
(07:56):
on the enemy, straight up bag Dad Bob propaganda and
absolutely hilarious. And so then I'm updating that with that
this morning, and I'm thinking, okay, all right, Trump said
there was a ceasefire. The other people said, well, we
really haven't agreed to it yet, but now we do.
(08:19):
And then I think I'm done updating. And then the
next thing I see is Iran launches a missile or
two at Israel. Israel responds with a small strike, taking
out a radart installation near Tehran. And then Donald Trump,
just as he's about to get on a plane or
a helicopter to a plane to go to a NATO
(08:41):
summit in Europe, says he's really mad at Israel and Iran,
especially Israel. He's more mad at Israel, and he drops
the F bomb. You know, these people don't know what
the Basically what he said was Iran and Israel have
been fighting for so long that they don't know what
the f they're doing. But he said the whole word,
not just F. And if you want to see that,
it's up on my blog at Roskiminski dot com, but
(09:02):
I can't play it on.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
The air, So that's where we are right now.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It appears that the ceasefire is holding after some little
some violation by Iran, Israel retaliated.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
One last thing I want to say about this.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The missile that was fired at Iran at Israel by
Iran after the ceasefire deadline.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I suspect I would.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Bet on this wouldn't bet a lot, but I would
bet was not ordered by the Iranian government. I bet
it was a rogue element of the Iranian military that
either didn't get the message or is a fanatic, radical
supporter of you destroying Israel who wanted to try to
break up the ceasefire and so launched a missile or two.
(09:50):
That's my guess. We'll be right back, all right, Thanks
for spending some time with me. I saw this story
the other day. I'm to switch gears and we'll be
doing more on the Holy Iran thing over the course
of the show, and I'll try to keep you updated
if there's breaking news. Like I said, this is just
a very fast moving situation, although I hope, I hope
that it becomes a lot less fast moving like now
(10:13):
in the sense that hopefully the ceasefire will hold.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
At least for a little while. So I saw a
story the other day.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We are as you know, the broadcast home of the
Colorado Rockies, as well as the Denver Broncos, and to
see you Buffs and so on. But I got a
Rockies thing for you, And I think listeners who pay
close attention to the show realize I'm more of a
football fan than a baseball fan. Just generally it's not about,
(10:40):
you know, Broncos versus Rockies.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It probably doesn't help that the.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Rocky has been bad for a long time, But in
any case, friends of mine who pay a little more
attention to baseball than I do have been pretty down
on Rockies ownership as much as anything else.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And there seems to be a vibe out there.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And again I don't have enough knowledge to really agree
or disagree, but among my friends, a lot of folks
seem to think that the primary owner of the club,
or the guy who's really running the show, Dick Montfort,
just doesn't seem to care that much about winning. Again,
I don't know mister Montfort. I've never spoken to him.
I don't know that that's a fair characterization. But I'm
(11:22):
telling you that a lot of people feel that way.
I mean, I don't need to tell you that. You
know if you're if you're a Rockies fan already. So
I was very interested in this story that I saw
at the Denver Post just a couple of days ago.
Rocky's owner Charlie Montfort. So that's the brother now, sober
says team quote needs new set of.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Eyeballs and the subhead of the article.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Team CEO Dick Montfort says his younger brother is more
involved with the team than he's been in years.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I think he's in a good place. I hope he
is now, just in an interesting time. I'm not going
to share the whole article with you. It starts talking
about Charlie Montfort sitting down for breakfast at a diner
in Greeley, which I guess maybe he lives in Greeley.
It seems like he's there a lot, and then quoting
now from the article.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
He laughed often and easily.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
He said that the problems with alcohol that derailed his
active role as one of the Rockies founders and principal
owners are in the past. He's repaired his relationship with
Dick Montfort, his older brother and the club's owner, chairman,
CEO and ultimate decision maker. But there is irony here.
And again I'm still quoting. It's not me saying there's
irony here. For just as Charlie as emerged from the
(12:36):
dark shadows of his past, his beloved Rockies are in
the worst place they've been in their thirty three year history.
He ponders what the team must do as a Kareem's
toward a seventh straight losing season, with a third consecutive
one hundred loss campaign all but assured and the clubs
steering down the possibility of losing more games than any
team in baseball's modern era. Though he's not in a
(12:58):
position to steer the franchise as he once did, he
said significant changes are needed in the front office, and
he's told Dick that in no uncertain terms. Quote, the
Rockies are still my baby. I see what the fans
see and it crushes me. I'm one of those people
who compartmentalize, so I try not to think about about
(13:21):
it too much.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
But if you prime me open.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Montford paused for a moment before continuing, every time I
see that team and how it's doing.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It makes me want to cry because I have memories
of the past just like the fans do. So what's
Charlie's solution.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Quoting again from Charlie Montford, I think we need a
new set of eyeballs.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
We need to give somebody the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Someone who knows baseball and has lived and breathed baseball
and sometimes died with baseball. Someone who knows everything that
all the good teams we face do, from grassroots on up.
Someone who's gonna stand by their decisions because they're going
to live with it now. So that's clearly a modest
(14:04):
jab at his brother, and that's not very aggressive.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I think it's basically speaking the truth.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think it's speaking what lots of people recognize. So
the Denver Post contacted Dick Monfort and told him about
the interview, and I actually think Dick Monfort's response is
pretty good. He said, that's not only Charlie's opinion, it's
the public's in general.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And I get it.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
There's a criticism, which is fair, that we are very loyal,
insular and we promote from within. However, Dick also noted,
as others have that playing baseball at altitude in Denver
is a different animal.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
We have this dynamic of playing somewhere where nobody else plays.
It's easier for an outsider to say, well, I would
do this, or I would have done that. This is
a tough place to play. It has its little intricacies
that other places don't. But I agree that what has
gone on over the last few years is not a
representation of what we want. I think they're There are
lots of reasons for that, but it's probably time to
(15:03):
have somebody who has a fresh opinion, a fresh set
of eyes. I'm not opposed to bringing people in for
the outside. He went on to say, I trust Charlie,
and more importantly, Charlie is a smart guy. He sometimes
doesn't act like it, but he absolutely is a guy
of substance.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
The brothers are putting that humpty dumpty back together again.
And it sounds like maybe Charlie has prevailed upon his
big brother too. Instead of promoting from within, bring in
somebody as a quote unquote fresh set of eyeballs from
the outside to look at what the Rockies can do better.
And I sure hope they do for the sake of
(15:44):
the team, for the sake of Denver, for the sake
of Colorado, gosh, even for the sake of major League Baseball.
I hope that the Rockies do something to get better,
and of course, frankly, for the sake of Koa.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
We are the.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Radio homer of the Rockies, and I actually feel a
little bad for my broadcast pals, Jerry Schimmel and Jack Corgan,
have to cover a team that loses all the time,
although I have to say I am always amazed and
impressed at how it never gets them down.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
They always go in with a sense.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Of optimism and talk about every game like it's a
fabulous new thing, and they really do. They're not faking it.
That's really how they are, which is a wonderful thing.
But I would still like to see the Rockies be
a better team. Gosh, there's a ton of stuff to
do today. What a crazy, crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Time we live in.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I'm gonna do a couple of little, random stories that
are just sort of not tied in with anything else
we've been talking about so far. I saw a piece
over at the Colorado Sun, and I'm always a little
careful when I see pieces by this particular writer.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Michael Booth.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
He's not a bad writer, but he's beat is sort
of climate and environment, and it's usually quite easy to
tell that he has a very specific perspective, and so
a lot of times his pieces come out as what
feel to me like sort of left leading advocacy as
(17:03):
much as news reporting. But still he does cover this stuff,
and he brings up interesting stories from time to time.
And so here's the headline. You'll see maybe a little
bit of a little bit of bias in the headline,
although he probably didn't write the headline himself. Millions of
acres of Colorado forest under thread after Trump reversus long
standing roadless rule and the subhead Forest Service seeks economic
(17:27):
development and wildfire fighting routes. But environmental advocates are furious.
So what are we talking about here? I'm gonna quote
a little bit from the article. The Trump administration yesterday
reversed the roadless rule that protects thirty percent of national
forest land from development after nearly a quarter century of
land set asides, knocking down one of the hard fought
(17:49):
pillars of open space protections in Colorado and across the nation.
So you can just sense right there, just a little
bit of the writer leaning a particular direction on this.
That's okay, I'm here. I'm here for the news, not
for his opinion. Let me keep going.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
US Agriculture Secretary.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Brook Rollins, who announced the turn about at a meeting
of Western governors in New Mexico, and that WGA Western
Governor's Association meeting is going on. I think it's in
Santa Fe right now, said the move opens the way
for road building to help mitigate wildfire damage and promote
timber harvests that dwindled under increasing forest protections. So the
(18:29):
Agriculture Department put out a statement that said, and I'm quoting,
this outdated administrative rule contradicts the will of Congress and
goes against the mandate of the Forest Service to sustain
the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands.
Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction,
(18:51):
and timber harvest on nearly fifty nine million acres of
the National forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible
timber production. So Colorado environmental advocates are not very happy.
They say this is going to promote quote, large scale mining,
oil and gas drilling. There isn't evidence of that yet,
(19:13):
but we'll see, as well as widespread logging in areas
that should stay set aside for wilderness and backcountry experience.
The Forest Service currently overseas nearly fifteen million acres of
Colorado forest and grasslands, and some environmental activists said an
attack on the roadless Rule is an attack on clean water, wildlife,
(19:35):
western communities, and recreation.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
On public lands.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
She says, for over two decades, the roadless Rule has
protected intact ecosystems from irresponsible timber companies who want to
clear cut the mature and old growth forests that provide
clean and drinking water and recreation opportunities to Westerners, as
well as healthy habitat for wildlife. So look, I am
not an expert on this at all. I'm going to
(20:00):
jump in though with my non expert opinion, and you
can correct me or agree with me, or whatever you.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Want to do.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You can text me at five sixty six nine zero.
So here's my take. I think, as always, the radical
environmentalists are trying to make it sound like by eliminating
this particular rule that protects some percent of the forest
from having roads, that suddenly the forest is just gonna
suddenly look like the.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Mouse trap in downtown Denver. It's not going to be
like that.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And remember, the federal government is still going to have
control over who can build roads where and for what,
and all of these federal departments do value using these
national forests for outdoor recreation, for wildlife, for all these things.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
It's going to be a balance, just as it always is.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
And I would think that given the massive destruction that
we have seen in recent years in terms of wildfires,
not just Colorado we've had our share, but other places
as well, the idea that you can go through and
kind of road that doesn't necessarily need to be very big.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And when you're talking.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
About miles and miles and miles and miles of forest
and someone's gonna come through and cut an eighteen foot
road or an eight foot road, Like, who cares. There's
even a thing in this article. I'm not gonna go
find it and quote it where they complain about the
possibility of putting these roads in because of climate change. Really, like,
what percentage of the trees in that forest do you
(21:28):
think you're gonna lose by putting in a few roads
So that either fire fighters can get in there to
fight fires more easily, or to use as at least
modest fire breaks. A road is not a great fire break,
but it's better than nothing. So I just think the
radical environmentalists are these incredible purists that value trees more
(21:51):
than they value people.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And it's always been that way.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I've often said on this show that radical environmentalists don't
so much of the planet is they hate humans, And
I think it's I think it's still the case. And
so we'll say, look, you can imagine, and you know,
a situation where they'll somehow open it up and allow
lots and lots and lots of logging and we'll see
the destruction of the national forest. Do you think that's
(22:17):
an actually likely scenario. I don't. Anyway, I wanted to
share it with you because it definitely is an interesting change.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
It definitely is an interesting change. It was one other
thing I wanted to share with you.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Of the fifty nine million acres that National Forest Service
land of National Forest Service land across the US, this alliance,
I guess the Environmental Group says about fifty percent is
open to drilling, logging, and mining, eighteen percent is protected
and as designated wilderness and the remaining thirty percent are
known as roadless areas.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So this roadless area thing is going to go away.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
That doesn't mean it will necessarily be opened to mining
and you know, drilling, logging, all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
We'll have to see. But I actually am with the.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Secretary on this, who says who describes this as an
outdated rule that contradicts the will of Congress.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
So there you go. I wanted to share that with you,
all right.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So here's something Even the most rich and famous people
in the world can still get pushed around a little
bit by things that you wouldn't suspect. So you may
have heard that Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people
in the world, the founder of Amazon, is going to
get married soon to the woman. His fiance's name is
(23:39):
Lauren Sanchez. He left his previous wife for her, and
Lauren Sanchez is most famous I.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Think for her boob job.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I assume those are not natural that way, so I
think that's what she's best known for, and that's probably
what she's best known to Jeff Bezos for.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
In anyway, those.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Two are getting married, and I wish them well, well,
I do wish them well why not, Why wouldn't I
I want him to be happy, I want her to
be happy, I want everybody to be happy. So they
have been planning to have a wedding in Venice, Italy,
a wedding that.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Is expected to cost somewhere around.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Sixteen million dollars. And you know what, for him, that's
basically nothing. What is that like a tenth of a
percent of his net worth? Not even it's less than
a tenth of a percent of his net worth, which
means that he would probably make that much money in
(24:37):
a few days. So wouldn't you spend a few days
of income on your wedding? So anyway, it's like a
million dollars just in flowers and decorations for the wedding,
just to give you a sense. Anyway, they're supposed to
do this in Venice at a place called the Scuola
Grande della Misericordia. So I have some lovely play in Venice,
(25:00):
which is already a lovely city. But the people in
Venice are are not too pleased, and so they have
said that what they would do if Bezos showed up
there is throw lots and lots and lots of plastic
inflatable crocodiles into the canals to prevent the boats from
(25:23):
navigating through the canals and to prevent guests from being
able to arrive at the event. And so mister and
future Missus Bezos have slightly moved the event, still in
sort of in Venice, but not in the center anymore.
They are moving to some place called the Arsenale. Like Arsenal,
(25:43):
which is described by the UK Telegraph as a huge
complex of boat yards, basins, warehouses and canals where Venetians
built waterships and merchant vessels for centuries until the eighteenth century,
was Europe's largest industrial complex. Surrounded by krenel lated walls,
the Arsonale will be much easier to secure than the
(26:04):
Scuola Grande della miser Recordia, which has easy public access.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Angry Venetians force mister and future Missus Bezos to move
their wedding, by the way. Kind of a funny thing, Yeah,
it's it's easy to just, i don't know, poke a
little fun at these richest people in the world for
their their incredible lifestyles.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I mean, Jeff Bezos's boat is like six.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Hundred million dollars right, and so anyway, the picture associated
with this article that I've been sharing from at the
at Telegraph dot co dot UK is Bezos and Lauren
Sanchez in swimsuits wearing floppy hats and sunglasses covered in
(26:52):
foam like like soap bubbles, and apparently they just had
a big foam party on their boat and a bunch
of they and some of their rich friends, like they
have some kind of cannon blowing foam bubbles at them,
and they describe like other people driving golf balls off
the deck of the boat into the water.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Wherever they are.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
So that is the lifestyles of the rich and famous,
and again easy to kind of poke fun at it.
But bottom line is, and I promise you I'm not
being sarcastic when I say this next thing, what is
the point in getting fabulously wealthy? If you can't then
go ahead and do any freaking thing you want to
(27:33):
do that doesn't hurt other people.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Go ahead and do it. That's the purpose.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It doesn't matter if other people are jealous, screw them.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
It's your life. You made the money, You created one of.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The most incredible companies in the history of the world
with Amazon, and I'm not exaggerating with that.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Good for you, Good for you. You know, I don't.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Love that you broke up with you divorced your wife
to go marry this other chick. But whatever, that's a
that's a thoroughly modern thing. And and I don't know
whether you paid for her boobs or not, but if
you did, nice job, you got what's paid for. And
there anything else, Shannon, You think I need to add
anything to that?
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You think I got it covered. You just don't even
have to be rich to do that last part. Yeah,
that's true. That's true, all right.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
One of the things that I only talked about a
little bit heading into the US involvement in the Israel
Iran war, and I did if you were if you've
been reading my blog, you would have seen I wrote
about it a lot. I brought it up a lot,
but I didn't bring it up a lot on the air,
just a little bit. And this is the issue of
(28:44):
the Magabase, which generally has been isolationist, in part because
Trump ran as an isolationist Trump.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I've said this umpteen times.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Trump is the most anti war president in my lifetime.
And he can't paint on that. No more wars get
us out or whatever wars we're in. And so there
was a poll done a week and a half ago
and they asked, do you think.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
The US military.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran?
And twenty three percent of Republicans said yes, right, twenty
three percent said yes, twenty four percent said not sure,
and fifty three percent said no. But again twenty twenty
three percent said yes. And there were a bunch of
(29:37):
people on social media, some really heinous people like Candice Owens. Oh,
I got sort of a joke for you. Do you remember,
do you remember maybe a year ago there was this
massive uproar about the bias built into artificial intelligence by
(30:01):
the programmers that was theoretically exposed when one of them,
I don't know if it was chet GPT, I don't
remember who it was, was asked to like create a
picture of a of a Nazi, and they created a
black person as a Nazi, right, you remember this? And
there was a black Viking and a female something where
(30:25):
there would never would have been a female, and it
was all like, oh, look at all the wokeness here, and.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Maybe maybe it's not.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
It's actually the way AI systems work it's not actually
that easy to program wokeness into it. Really, what these
AI systems are doing is learning whatever material they're trained on.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So really the way you would.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Program wokeness into an AI is by getting it to
train on woke websites and go ingest that stuff and
think of that stuff as.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
As the truth or something like it.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But it occurs to me as I see Candice Owens,
Now that me that AI was just training on reading
Candace's Owens Twitter or ex posts and then realize, oh, yeah,
there's a black Nazi.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So that's my thought about Candace Owens, black Nazi.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And so she and a bunch of other fools, Tucker
Carlson among them, have been raging online. We didn't vote
for this. We voted for Trump in order and never
have another war. First of all, they're so unrealistic it's
mind boggling. But this is their thing. We didn't vote
for this. You get a bunch of people saying, I, gosh,
(31:35):
I feel so fooled. I'm never going to vote Republican again,
or just I'm never going to vote again. I've seen
all these things online. I've seen them. I've seen them myself.
I've seen them with my own eyes on Twitter, I've
seen these posts and my thinking has been, these Trump voters,
these MAGA people who are isolationists and Trump supporters, they
(32:00):
have those two things. They support not getting involved and
they support Trump. So for me, the question was which
one do they support more, not getting involved or Trump?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
And for me, the answer is obvious.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
They support Trump much, much, much more than they support
adherence to any particular principle like that. And I'm not
making a jab at them. I'm just saying I think
that many or most isolationist leaning Trump voters, and especially,
but not only, people who self identify as MAGA, are
(32:35):
much more loyal to Trump than to any particular policy
position you want to name, and that if Trump can
say my policy position is A, they will say we
love A. And then a week later, if he says, no,
my policy position is B, now they'll say we love B.
(32:58):
And look, I'm not sure to judge that. I'm just
talking about the political realities. And yet a bunch of
people out there who were kind of sort of they've
always talked about themselves as MAGA or conservative or Trump
supporters kind of bashing Trump for even talking about this.
Is before the strikes for even talking about getting involved.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
This isn't what we voted for. And my take all along.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Has been those people are a minority, although they're very loud.
Now we have a little chance to test it because
Donald Trump just did what he did, and there's been
a poll since then by the Economist and Yugov. So
remember now the poll a week or so, a week
and yeah, a week before the US did what it did,
(33:46):
twenty three percent of Republicans said yes to the question
of whether the military should get involved in the contract
in the conflict between Israel and I run And by the.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Way, who you know I should mention this?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Just so we're clear that twenty three percent is actually
a higher percent than Democrats were independents. So now there's
another poll by the same group, you Gov, a reasonably
well respected polling.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Outfit, asking do you approve or.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Disapprove of the US bombing nuclear sites in Iran? And
the percentage of Republicans who say they approve of it?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Is you ready for this? Shannon?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Sixty eight percent? Sixty eight percent. Now, the Democrats didn't move. Basically,
they were fifteen percent yes before the strikes and sixteen
percent yes after the strikes, Independence moved a lot more.
They were eleven percent before the strikes, but twenty seven afterwards,
(34:50):
still fifty one against. I also note that this poll
was taken.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Before the ceasefire. If the Sea pease fire holds, these.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Numbers are going to move in Trump's favor even more,
even among Democrats who don't want to give Trump credit
for anything, and clearly they didn't so far, but in
a new poll maybe they will. But to me, the
important thing to recognize from this is Trump still has
(35:22):
absolute command over a very large part the vast majority
right now of the Republican Party, not just MAGA, not
just MAGA. But to see Republicans go from twenty three
percent yes should the US get involved to sixty eight
percent support after we did get involved, and that number
(35:45):
being before the ceasefire, you know, I'll give myself a
little pad on the back, I suppose for saying and
writing that far more Republicans are going to support Trump
than stick with the isolationist position. And it's actually kind
of amusing to see some people like Charlie Kirk, who
wasn't the most hardcore don't do it, but was very
(36:07):
much don't do it now flipping and flopping as much
as they can. And there's this other ass hat on
Twitter named Jack Pasobekcher something he blocked me a few
years ago, but he's one of the worst people on Twitter,
and he was just jumping up and down screaming, don't
do it. Trump, it's World War three. You promised us this,
(36:27):
and now he's like in favor. These people are such fools.
The reason they're fools is their followers, not leaders. Charlie
Kirk is a little bit more of a leader, and
that's why he left a little wiggle room. But some
of the dumbest people are realizing that Trump just steamrolled them.
Governor of Wyoming on the show and we were talking
about the Wyoming Stable Token Project and he said, and
(36:51):
some of his staff said, you know, you should.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Really have Anthony Apollo on the show.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Anthony is executive director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission.
And of course we do have plenty of listeners in
Wyoming here on KOA, so that's part of the reason
we're doing this. But the other reason is I'm just
fascinated by it and it's something I don't entirely understand.
So I'm doing this for my education and hopefully for
yours as well.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Anthony, Welcome to Koa. It's good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Ross, thank you for having me this morning.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
All right, we're gonna move quick because we got about
six or seven minutes only.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
What is the stable token?
Speaker 4 (37:26):
It is a digital representation of one dollar on a
blockchain and spy a lot more than that.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yes, what are stable tokens backed by? How do we
know it has any value?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Great question.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
So for the State of Wyoming, with the Wyoming Stable Token,
we're backing it with a combination of cash and short
duration US treasury so US debt, as well as repurchase
agreements of those treasuries. So they're very short duration financial instruments.
They're such backed by the United States government, so they're
as secure as you could possibly we get. But they
(38:01):
also bear interest, which is revenue for the state.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
That's purchasing them.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
And when we generate that interest income, those revenues come
back to the state and we put those dollars into
Wyoming's school Foundation fund. So at the end of the day,
this is a public goods project for the state of Wyoming.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Okay, And all right, so here's how I'm thinking of
this and you got to tell me why I why
I'm wrong. And I think the digital aspect is very
very important here. But back in the day when I
used to go to Las Vegas a lot, like in
the eighties and nineties, a lot of the casinos would
(38:37):
have these big coins that look kind of like silver dollars,
but each casino would have their own and they're worth
a dollar, and you always know you can turn that
into the casino for a dollar, well, unless the casino
goes out of business. But I'd always rather have the
actual dollar. So because you know that that's always an
actual dollar. So what's the value proposition for a thing
(39:00):
that's worth a dollar instead of having a dollar.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Well, so we're talking about cash that is the physical
representation of one dollar.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
You're always going to want some of those.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
But from the perspective of the money that's in your bank,
it's already highly virtualized. And those dollars that you have
in the bank, I regret to inform you only six
to eleven percent of those dollars are actually there. The
rest of it is lent out by that bank so
they can go make their money and put out loans
the community and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
So it's an important function.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
But if people want to know where their dollars are
and have that actually backed, that.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Is where stable token could come in.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Because those stable tokens are what we call fully reserved,
meaning every stable token is backed by at a minimum
one dollar of either cash or again those treasuries, and
then we as a state have a legislative mandate to
over collateralize those dollars, which is Laman's terms. Every dollar
that we have or every stable token that we have,
(39:58):
we backed by one dollar plus a little bit more
so for us it's two percent, and that's what gives
you to a full backing of the dollar. So a
stable token is going to get you a lot more
to the actual custody of a dollar than putting the
money in a bank.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
For example, if I own a stable token, do I
earn any interest or is it just the collateral behind
it that earns interest, so the state is earning the interest.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
It is an excellent question.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
So one of the things that we've seen is stable
coins that bear interest going offshore for their issuance because
they have not been able to figure out the securities
law in the US that would allow stable coin issuers
to provide yield or interest to the holder that would
not be in some contravention or a complexity of securities
(40:43):
law here in the US. So we've seen platforms like
there's a Goorra, there's Mountain Protocol. Those are being issued
at Bermuda or the Bahamas, and those are bearing interest.
There's also some domestic projects like the Buildel stable token
which is issued by black Rock and securitize or that
will bear interest, but only to a credit investors. You
need to have some amount of worth before you're allowed
(41:03):
to get that interest.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
We as a.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
State are very much looking into some of the exceptions
that are granted two states by a securious Exchange Commission
that may allow us to do an interest bearing or
yield bearing stable token that'll be downstream of significant compliance checks.
But that is a vector that may be opened to
us in the future that may not be open to
private issuers.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Up stable coins.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Okay, we got about two and a half minutes here.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
What is the function of this stable coin and why
is it?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Why would there.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Be a benefit to using the stable coin for this
function or functions versus let's say a wire transfer between
banks or whatever alternative there might be.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
The short answer is efficiency. So when you're transacting with
the stable coin on a blockchain, if I wanted to
send ten dollars worth of stable coins to Ross and
nearro overseas in Japan, that transaction is peer to peer,
can settle within ten secs, will cost us a couple
of cents or maybe even fractions of a cent. There's
limited counterparty risk because we're transacting directly. These networks are
(42:09):
available three hundred and sixty five days a year twenty
four to seven. If you juxtapose that against your wires
or your ahs, you're talking twenty five to forty dollars.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
To send that money.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
It may take a couple of days to get there,
has to go through multiple correspondent banks, and it opens
up some risk along the way, especially if you're going
between currencies. So it's a much more efficient way of transacting.
It's faster, it's cheaper, it's more secure in many ways,
and in terms of how we intend to use it.
It's really for any time you need to send money,
So whether you're paying at the coffee shop and you
want to pay them in stable tokens, and the transaction
(42:41):
fee for that retailer will be a couple of fractions
of a cent rather than three to five percent that
they're getting hit with on a visa master card rails.
Or if I want to send money globally and have
it settle fairly instantaneously without having to go through a
series of intermediaries and feed takers along the way, that's
the goal.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
It's very interesting for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
By the way, we're talking with Anthony Apollo, who's executive
director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Just about out of time. Let me ask you just
two very last questions.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Is the upside for the state the interest that a
cruise on the collateral?
Speaker 3 (43:15):
That is correct.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
We're not looking to include any fees into this, it's
just the underlying reserve.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
And last thing I want to ask you, and again
we can probably I should probably have had you on
for longer, but maybe I'll get you back. Just what
are the key things we need to know about the
big legislation around stable coin that the Senate just passed
a week ago.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
So the Senate passed the Genius Act.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Congress is working on the Stable Act that governs stable
tokens issued in restable coins issue in the US.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
We are going to be outside of that.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
It doesn't really cover state issuance, but that looks to
create a lot of consumer protection, so we're studying it
closely to make sure that we fall in line with that,
even if we're not under the purview of that bill specifically,
I also will personally put out there I think it
will cause some commoditization of stable coins. We're seeing the
kind of explosion of stable coins, but in the pretty
near future they all might start to look the same.
(44:04):
So it'll be interesting to see what happens with the
full passage of the Stable Genius Act.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Well maybe when some of that stuff passes and we
have a better look at what the framework is. And
is your stable coin already launched or launching soon? I
know it's one of them.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
We're on test networks now, but we intend to launch
on August twentieth on one or more blockchains. And all
that information is on our website stabletoken dot Yo dot gov.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Everything we do is public, it's all available.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Fabulous Anthony Apollo, Executive Director of the Wyoming Stabletoken Commission.
Thanks for a great conversation, Thanks for your brief answers,
and we'll keep up with you and maybe get you
back once.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
It's launched in a few months.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
A couple months sounds good, Thank you. Ros.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
All right, we'll take a quick break. We'll be right
back on KOA. Anybody else get it.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
I want you to text us at five sixty six
nine zero and see if you can explain why Dragon
played that particular that particular bumper music.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
And what will they.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Win Dragon if they can explain why you picked that.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Bumping you Chris high five if they ever see me
out there? All right, very very good.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Hi. By the way, I haven't said hello to you,
even though you've been with me for twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Did you take your trash out?
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Uh h.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
No, I haven't asked in a few weeks. No, and
that's why I'm so up. No I I don't think
I'm supposed to today. Okay, here's a headline from the
Denver Is that former Colorado parental evaluator's deception costs her
four year prison sentence. Now that's kind of a longer
article than it actually needed to be, but I'm going
(45:35):
to share a little with you because it's just such
a wacky story. So there's this woman named Shannon McShane,
who also apparently goes by the name Shannon Terrell, who
has been serving as a court appointed parental evaluator, and
(45:56):
the you know, the the end of the story is
that she need guilty to three criminal counts relate and
I'm quoting from the Denver Gazette, related to an elaborate
fraud on Colorado's family court system. And she's been sentenced
to four years in jail, and she and she certainly
deserves it. But I just want to kind of skip
(46:17):
ahead a little bit to some of the details of
this story, and.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I just have a couple of minutes here.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
But the judge imposed a sentence of two years in
prison on two felony charges, twelve another year for a
misdemeanor perjury count. Those are consecutive, which means you serve
one and then you serve the next. Judges can also
order sentence to be sentences to be served concurrently. So
let's say you get two two year sentences, but if
(46:43):
you run them concurrently, you're serving them both at the
same time. You can be out in two years. Put
aside parole for a second, and if you're running them consecutively,
you'd be out in four years right. He also ordered
three ordered three years of parole. YadA, YadA, YadA. She
is one of three former parental evaluators now bar by
the Colorado Court Administrator's Office from accepting court appointments. Skipping
(47:04):
ahead a little bit, and as she was eventually charged
with fifteen different criminal accounts, mostly based on that she
in order to get her license in Colorado, she provided
or claimed a degree from the University of Hertfordshire in England,
but she didn't actually have that degree. She claimed to
(47:26):
have essentially a PhD in psychology from this English university.
She did not have that degree, but she used that
fake doctorate to get a Colorado license as a psychologist.
She used those licenses to get a job as a
court appointed evaluator who made custody recommendations in high conflict
custody disputes. Skipping ahead, Now, there's some very bizarre cases here.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
A guy named Chad Coolham k U L L H E. M.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Is a parent and I guess he was getting divorced
and in some kind of you know, high tension custody situation,
ended up being shaddled with this woman as the evaluator.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
He told the sentencing judge that he feared he would
lose both his.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Job and custody of his two boys, then aged three
and six, and an email to one of the lawyers
in the custody dispute McShane, who's the lady who's going
to jail?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Compared Coulam to a murderer. She claimed to have counseled.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
That she said had put his victims through a wood chepper.
The indictment alleged that McShane also wrote a letter to
the then Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, falsely
accusing mister Coolam of producing a multitude of questionable documents
during the custody dispute. She also falsely claimed that Culim
had showed up at her house. Culam said McShane had
(48:44):
also sought to isolate him, telling him that he should
leave his new girlfriend, should stop talking with friends and
family members. She falsely called him a gas lighter and alienator,
a classic abuser, when actually he was the protective parent.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
He added that she exacerbated his two.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Boys PTSD, leaving them shaken after one painful meeting with him. Quote,
she has affected countless families, people too scared or too.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Defeated to speak up.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
The psychological damage she's inflicted is real, it's deep, and
in many cases, it's permanent. A tearful McShane apologized to
mister Coolham and told the judge, no matter what the
sentence is, I've already given myself a life sentence. The
judge did not go easy on her, basically gave her
close to as much as as he could have. Can
you imagine being insane and evil enough to be an
(49:33):
evaluator in custody disputes and just making stuff up to
hurt particular people for no obvious reason and ruining or
almost ruining their lives. I actually wish this person could
go to jail for longer, but at least she's gonna
have to live with it for the rest of her life.
Why you played that last bumper music and one person
(49:54):
got the song right?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (49:56):
But yeah, yeah, nobody really got it. That's okay, Yeah,
that's all right, that's all right as long as one
person gets it. And if that one person happened to
be you, Yeah, that's fine, okay.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
I've did two different sets of back to back interviews,
so a total of four interviews about Douglas County Home
Rule and each time I had one guest who was
in favor of it one guest against it. The first pair,
and again I didn't have him at the same time,
(50:31):
I wasn't really looking for a debate. I had one
and then the other in the same segment of the show.
The first time was doug CO Commissioner Abe Layden in
favor and former doug CO Commissioner Laura Thomas against, And
then the second time was current Douglas County Commissioner George
Teel in favor and former Douglas County Commissioner and former
(50:54):
mayor of Castle Rock Steve Boand against.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
And I I realize election.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Day is today, and most people who are going to
vote in this election have already voted, because you've had
your ballots for some weeks now, and you've probably either
made up your mind or made up your mind not
to vote, or whatever. And I've been hesitant to take
a position on this, in part because I don't live
in Douglas County and I didn't have a strong opinion
(51:21):
about it, and I just keep I keep thinking about,
especially that last set of back to back interviews George
Teele and Steve Boland, and I think that it's my
job to give you my opinion.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
And even though I don't vote.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
In Douglas County, and I'm explicit about that, right, So
my take on this is, if I did vote in
Douglas County, here's how I would vote and why. And again,
I realize today is election day. People have had their
ballots for weeks, and probably almost everybody who would vote, oh,
the TVs are coming back on Dragon. Probably almost everybody
(52:01):
who would vote in this has already voted. But I
want to tell you that if I lived in Douglas County,
I would vote no.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I would vote no on home rule. And I put
all this in my blog.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Note today at Rosskiminsky dot com if you want to
check it out, if you want to read it, if
you want to share it with anybody. And again I
understand that it's really kind of too late to make
a difference, and I don't even assume that I do
make a difference. I just tell you what I think,
and you know, maybe it impacts some people and maybe
it doesn't. But I just want to share with you
because I actually think it's a very interesting conversation, a
(52:35):
very interesting question, just separate from Doug co because if
Douglas County does go down this road, you might see
a lot of other counties going down this road as well.
And before I give you my various reasons, let me
just say I don't necessarily have an act to grind
against home rule. I just don't know enough to say
(53:01):
that home rule is a good idea. So I'm not
for it. I'm not against it, but this particular vote,
I would vote no. And here's why I'm going to
give you a few reasons. So the process this time,
especially for such a big decision, I think was rushed,
and it seemed to me to be intentionally hidden from
(53:21):
the public.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
And I think it was done. I think it was very.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Poorly done by the supporters, by the county commissioners, who
are the people really driving this kind of like they
just they intended to jam it down people's throats, and
I didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
I didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
The potential benefits of home rule for a county. So remember,
there can be home rule counties and there can be
home rule municipalities also known as cities or towns or something.
Home rule for cities gives cities a lot more flexibility
then home rule for counties gives counties.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
So I believe that.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
The supporters of home rule have significantly overstated the benefits
of home rule. They have said, and I'm not saying
that the guests on my show have said this, at
least not on my show, but as I've been reading about.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
It, and I think I actually.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Do think this came up on my show the first
time I talked about it, it was claimed that being
a home rule county would allow residents of Douglas County
to not have to abide by at least some state
firearm laws. That's not true. It is just simply not
(54:47):
true period. Some people are saying that the county would
no longer have to abide by the state's ridiculous tencent
bag tax plastic bag tax, or maybe it's just a
bad it's just a bad not plastic bag now any bag.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Ten cent bag tacks in that.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
As a home rule county, you wouldn't have to abide
by that anymore. I'm pretty sure that's not true. When
George was on the show, he said it allow it
would allow the county sheriff to engage in much more
cooperation with ICE.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
At least that's what I.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Took George to me with ICE and do more working
with the FEDS to get illegal alien criminals and maybe
illegal alien non criminals out of Douglas County. Now, for
the record, I don't like Colorado's sanctuary laws, but being
(55:46):
a home rule county, I do not believe will give the.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
We'll give the sheriff.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Any significant amount of additional flexibility to work with ICE,
maybe none at all, may just a tiny bit, but
not enough to really matter. And when I asked the
county sheriff about that.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
He said, look, I don't think it'll.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Give me a lot of more flexibility either. It is
a very complex issue, though, and I can't say I
know everything about it yet, so that's a fair answer.
But he doesn't think it's going to give him more flexibility.
And so if the proponents of Douglas County home rule
are going to lead with proposed benefits of home rule
(56:28):
that aren't true, I think they're not true. I could
be wrong, but it makes me very skeptical of the
whole thing. Here's another one for you. You know, there
are two home rule counties in Colorado right now, not
counting Denver because Denver is also a city or Broomfield,
(56:49):
which is also a city. So there are two counties
that are only counties that are home rule. One is
a conservative county and that is Weld County. And one
is a liberal and that's northeast Colorado, Greeley and such.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Not far northeast, but you get the head more north.
And then the other is.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Pitkin, which is a liberal county. That's where Aspen is.
When do you think, so there's only two. When do
you think the last home rule county in Colorado the
most recent home rule county in Colorado became a home
rule county? When do you think that was? And I'll
(57:29):
tell you Weld was first and Pitkin was second. So
Pitkin was the.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Most recent county to become a home rule county. What
year was that? Dragon? What year were you born? Eighty three? Okay,
so you were.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
You were already five years old when Pitkin County.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Became home rule. Welld County was before that.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
The last county to become a home rule county in
the state of Colorado was in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (58:02):
Both of them are in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
So what that makes me wonder is if this is
such a fabulous idea. Why haven't other counties done it?
In almost fifty years, no other county.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Has done it.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
It sure does make me think there's something going on
there where. There must have been dozens or hundreds of
county commissioners who have looked at it and decided not to.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
So for me, that's a lot of concern.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
And I'm not saying there's no good answer for the
Douglas County commissioners. There might be a fine explanation for
why this should be done, but I haven't heard it.
And I will say that Colorado's generally and yours truly,
tend to vote no on things we don't understand, and
(58:55):
I think most Douglas County voters will not understand it,
and that's why I think this thing won't pass. It
wouldn't surprise me if it's not even close. We'll see now.
The two interviews, the two conversations that really struck me
were the second two with George Teel, who's for it,
(59:17):
and Steve Bowend, who's against it. And what's interesting about
it is those two conversations both moved me the same direction,
which is to say against it. The guy who's for
it moved me against it, and the guy who's against
it moved me against it.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
We'll deal with the easier one first.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Steve Bowend, former county commissioner in Douglas County and former
mayor of Castle Rock, lifelong Republican member of the Republican
National Committee, said that he actually signed petitions in order
to get this on the ballot just because maybe it's
an interesting thing and maybe it's worth doing, and was
open to it. He turned against it after feeling that
(59:55):
the process by which it was rolled out was just
so flawed. But more important than that for me was
that he said that when he was county commissioner, they
looked at home rule twice and both in Douglas County,
same county. They looked at it twice and decided it's
(01:00:17):
too much work, it's too much money for too little benefit,
and we don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
So that moved me against it. And then the other
thing that moved me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Against it was talking to George, who was for it,
And I asked George near the end of our conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
I asked him.
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
What happens if the public votes know on this thing
because they don't understand it, they don't like the process.
They think you didn't talk about it with the public enough,
you didn't educate the public enough. They think the rollout
has been bad, so they vote no. What then, And
George said to me, and this is an exact quote, now,
(01:00:56):
no problem, We'll do the vote again in November if
it fails now.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Because there's been some objection to doing this.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
In a special election that tends.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
To have very low turnout, where you want to do.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Something that is going to have permanent impact on an
entire county, you know, some people have said, do it
in a November election, a bigger election where more people
are participating. So George said, no problem, we'll do the
vote again in November. All right, I get that, But
then he added this. He added this, And this was
more along the lines of, okay, what if it fails
(01:01:33):
now and it fails again in November. And this was
the I didn't ask that question explicitly, but this was
clearly George's train of thought because he kept going. He said,
and there's a quote, again, not a paraphrase. We'll keep
doing it until, quite frankly, the people of Douglas County
feel comfortable with the conversation. So that's a quote from George,
(01:01:57):
and so now back to me, not you George. On
the one hand, I appreciate the commitment to the position
if he really seems to believe in it. On the
other hand, something rubs me the wrong way about a
county commissioner or any other politician basically saying and now
I'm translating what George said into how I heard it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
No matter how many.
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Times the people of this county vote against my idea,
I'm not going to try to I'm not going to
stop trying to push.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It on him. I really didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
So I think home role may or may not be
a good idea. I think that if it were a
good idea, we would have had at least one county
do this more recently than nineteen seventy eight. Wait, I
said you were five. I said it backwards. You were
(01:02:51):
five years from being born.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
I'm sorry. They told me there would be no math.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
You were five years from being born Dragon the last
time a county became a home rule county in the state.
If home rule were a good idea, that wouldn't be true.
If home rule were so obviously a good idea, some
county would have become a home rule county during Dragon's lifetime,
(01:03:16):
and that has not happened. So there's some evidence there
that a lot of people have looked at this and
decided against it. And the role out by the Douglas
County Commissioners has been very poorly done and almost seems
to have been secretive, and some people supporting it, I'm
not going to say directly the commissioners, but some people
at least supporting it have lied about the benefits. And
(01:03:40):
so you've put together this whole thing where I don't
trust the process trying to bring it to us, and
the evidence from history suggests that it might not be
a good idea, And therefore, if I lived in Douglas County,
I would vote no. I didn't mean to spend that
long on that, but it's a big thing for that county,
and it may come up in other counties, and hopefully
if it comes up in other counties, maybe they'll do
(01:04:02):
a better job explaining it to their population. But like
I said, not one county has done it since five
years before Dragon was born. Now there's another election going
on today, not in Colorado, but nevertheless very interesting, and
this is the mayoral primary for New York City. Wow,
(01:04:26):
A crazy thing, right, A crazy thing. So this primary,
and I think I think it is an all party primary.
I don't think it's separated by parties. This says Democratic
New York City mayoral primary. But I thought Eric Adams,
(01:04:47):
the current mayor, was running as an independent.
Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
I'm not sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter because very very very.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Unlikely that a Republican has any shot in New York City, right,
It's probably a one percent chance or something, maybe not
even that. So the two major candidates are Andrew Cuomo,
the former governor of New York who at least borderline disgraced.
He had to resign do the accusations of womanizing and
you know, sexual harassment and all this stuff. Plus plus
(01:05:16):
he's the guy who required nursing homes in his state
to accept people who were COVID positive.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Going into the nursing homes.
Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
And it's unclear how many people he got killed by
forcing people who had COVID, elderly people who had COVID
to go into the nursing homes and spread it to
other people. Now, COVID I'm sure would have been spreading
in the nursing homes anyway. From employees and so on,
but you know he did this. Janis Dean, the weather
person on Fox News, is forever furious with Andrew Cuomo.
(01:05:50):
She believes that Andrew Cuomo got one of her parents
killed by doing that. So Andrew Cuomo a weak candidate,
but sort of an establish blishment candidate, and as Democrats
go these days, a relative moderate. I know that sounds crazy,
but the guy that Andrew Cuomo is up against.
Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
His name is Zoron Mom Domini, Mom, Donnie m A M.
D Ani.
Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
He is of Indian heritage, but born in Africa and
raised here.
Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
And he is a socialist.
Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Now I don't mean he's to the left of me
and therefore I'm calling him a socialist. I mean he
is a socialist and proud of it, overt about it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
He's also an.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Anti semi and this has come up in some interviews
lately where he sort of changes the definition of intofada,
which is the Palestinian effort to kill as many Jews
as possible, and he changes what the word means and says, well,
they just wanted their freedom right. So, but he wants
things like all public transportation to be free. He thinks
(01:06:54):
groceries are expensive, so he wants he wants the government
to run the grocery store in New York City. He
wants to increase the tax on the income tax on
anyone who makes over a million dollars by another two percent.
Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
New York is already very high.
Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
He wants to increase the corporate tax in New York
to eleven and a half percent, just for the city.
We're not talking about the state, not talking about the nation,
just for the city.
Speaker 6 (01:07:26):
He is.
Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
As wild eyed a socialist lunatic as you can imagine. Now,
he's smart. He's smart and stupid at the same time.
You can tell when he talks that he has a brain.
He is just that everything he believes is wrong. Imagine,
imagine a smarter and more socialist version of AOC. It's
(01:07:52):
like that really really bad and embedding markets right now,
that guys in the lead. Now, just a couple of
days ago, just a couple of days ago, Cuomoa was way, way,
way in the lead in betting markets, like three to one,
(01:08:13):
seventy something percent to twenty something percent, just a couple
of just two days ago, two days ago. Then a
poll came out that shows Mam Donnie in the lead,
and as I look at it right now on a
website kelshe dot com, Mom Donnie is up ten, like
roughly fifty six to forty six, that kind of thing,
fifty five forty five on Andrew Cuomo in the betting odds.
Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
The thing to keep in mind here is this is
a ranked choice election, and there's a whole bunch of candidates.
So what's gonna happen is neither one of these guys
is gonna get fifty percent in the first round, So
then the person who comes in last gets knocked out
and those votes get reallocated, on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
So what's gonna end up happening is.
Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
If these two Mam Donni in Cuomo or close in
the first round, then the person who wins is gonna
end up being the person who gets the most second
choice votes.
Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
In other words, I'm.
Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Voting for Dragon, all right, Dragon's not gonna win, He's out.
My second choice after voting for Dragon was Mom Donnie
or Cuomo. Whoever gets more of those second choice votes
is gonna end up being the winner. We might not
know the outcome for a few days, but the election
(01:09:33):
is today, and I just wanted to make you aware
of it. And if this guy, Mom Donnie wins, he
will probably be the second worst mayor in America after
the mayor of Chicago, but he might be the worst
mayor in America. And it will be very very interesting
to see if he wins, to see the damage that
(01:09:56):
is done to New York and the damage that that
does to socialist can It's an everywhere or especially with
the betting odds showing him in the lead now, it
would be very interesting if he loses and show that
even New Yorkers are not this dumb. The question is
are the betting odds any better than regular polls or
do you just like them? I definitely like them, and
(01:10:22):
I think that generally betting odds are better than polls,
but not as much better as they used to be
a lot of people and I could be wrong on this, Okay,
this is just empirical. This is from my own observing
of these things, and I've been watching betting markets since way, way,
way before they were popular, since way before really any
(01:10:43):
other many other people heard about him, basically since they
were small experimental things on university websites, and back then
like fifteen twenty years ago, they did a lot better
than poles. And you would expect in general that if
somebody is going to stake money on an outcome, they're
(01:11:06):
going to tell the truth of what they really expect
versus and this is especially true lately and especially among
Trump supporters. There's no downside in lying to a polster,
and a polster, in fact, it can be kind of
a sport, and many Trump supporters in particular either refuse
to talk to polsters or lie to them just for fun,
(01:11:30):
and that can certainly change how a poll looks. Right,
you can be planning on voting Republican, you tell a
poster you're going to vote Democrat or whatever, and if
you're only doing a poll of let's say eight hundred people,
and even ten of them lie like that.
Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
You could have a poll that's really wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
So if and now this is key, if you believe
that the people who are placing bets.
Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
In the betting market betting on what.
Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
They actually believe, and if true beliefs have some likelihood
of coming true because they represent something about how that
person's going to vote, plus how that person.
Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Thinks other people are going to vote.
Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Because they're betting money on it, then you would expect
the betting odds to be a little more accurate than poles,
and again, in general they have been. With Trump, the
betting odds have been more accurate than the polls. In
twenty sixteen, for example, the betting odds had Trump losing.
Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
An he won, but they had him losing.
Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
By a very very very small amount, whereas the polls
had him losing by a big amount and then he
ended up winning by a very very small amount. So
when you think about it that way, the polls weren't
wrong by much like is there really an important difference
when I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Sorry the betting odds not the polls?
Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Is there really an important difference when the betting odds
are fifty one forty nine one way and then it
ends up coming out fifty and a half forty nine
and a half the other way. It's a very very
small error, and people will look at it and think
no versus yes, and that it's.
Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
A huge error.
Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
And it's a binary thing. It's either yes or no,
and if you had it wrong, you got it wrong.
But it's not like that. It's not like that. But
here's what I think has happened, and again, this is
just me watching this stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
I haven't read reports about it.
Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
I haven't gone to look at analysis of this, and
I'm sure that there are people actually doing this research,
but I have not read it. And it seems to
me that what's happened in recent years is you have
a lot of people trading in these political betting markets
based on what they hope rather than what they think.
(01:13:52):
And you know, this is going to sound like I'm
being sarcastic, but I'm not. I think there's a certain
amount of participation in these betting markets. It's of a
similar mindset to the person who will go buy a
pair of Trump sneakers. Now there's a little difference because
(01:14:13):
when you bet in the betting market, the person you're
betting on isn't getting any of your money. And when
you're buying the Trump sneakers or the Trump watch or
whatever other goofy nonsense Trump is selling, he's gonna get
a few cents of it, or a dollar of it,
or a few dollars whatever, And a lot of those
people want to give Trump their money. So it is
a little different, but it is still a sign of
(01:14:34):
support more than it or as much as it is
a sign of who you're gonna vote for now. Obviously,
if you're gonna by Trump sneakers, you're voting for Trump.
But I think a lot of people who jump into
these political betting markets are doing it because they hope
a thing happens, rather than they think a thing happens.
(01:14:54):
And I think that has made the betting markets a
little bit less accurate. So we'll see if you the
betting odds right now or I mean, this isn't really
that close with this socialist lunatic Mom Donnie ahead of
Andrew Cuomo by ten or eleven points.
Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
And it's really quite a massive thing.
Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
And it came because one poll came out that showed
Mom Donnie ahead. Remember, though, this is rank choice and
it's can be complicated. If you made me bet on it,
I guess I would bet on Cuomo, but I wouldn't
bet a lot. Who knows New York is a very
left wing place, but New York City is also a
(01:15:33):
very Jewish place, and Mom Donnie is clearly an anti Semite.
Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
This is not a close call. He is an anti Semite.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
I'd I don't that's a big hill for him to climb.
The problem I'll just stick. I wasn't planning on talking
about this, but we got that listener question, so I'm
actually enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
So the problem here, and.
Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Actually, in a way, this reminds me of the last
three president elections, the three elections with Trump. So think
about this, Trump versus Hillary, Trump versus Biden, Trump versus
Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
All six of those candidates.
Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
By which I mean both candidates in each election, and
I realized one of them is the same guy or
in three elections. But I'm all right, So we'll say
all four of those candidates in all three elections were
weak candidates. They're all unpopular. Trump was unpopular in every election.
Hillary was unpopular enough to lose to someone as unpopular
as Trump. Biden was unpopular but not unpopular enough to
(01:16:35):
lose to Trump, and then Kamala Harris was unpopular enough
to lose to Trump, who was unpopular.
Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
They're all weak, but one of them is gonna win.
Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Right. It's like you get the two worst teams in
the NFL, right, and the over under in the game
might be thirty seven because these teams are so freaking bad,
but one of them is gonna win. Maybe they're both
oho and seven teams. One of them is gonna come
out of it one and seven. And that's like this,
and and I feel a little bad for New York
(01:17:08):
that their choices are a lunatic socialist and a disgraced,
very difficult to like Andrew Cuomo who killed old people.
Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
And sexually harassed women.
Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
These are these are my choices, These are my choices.
And a socialist and uh and uh, sexual harasser who mishandled,
who mishandled COVID. Actually that sounds a lot like Donald Trump,
doesn't it? A sexual harasser who mishandled COVID in a
significant way. But look, Trump was a sexual harasser who
(01:17:46):
mishandled COVID, and he won, not not the not the
next one, but later he won. Andrew Cuomo could win.
I don't know. The betting odds right now are saying,
Mom Donnie, I'm not trading this mark.
Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I'm not making a bet on it.
Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
If I were gonna make a bet on it, I
would bet on Cuomo, but I wouldn't bet more than
two dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
New York voters are crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
I do think that if Mom Donnie ends up losing,
I think it's gonna be because of some of this
recent stuff about his anti Semitism.
Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
But we'll see. I don't know if we'll know the
answer tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Oh yeah, all right, yeah, So you're looking ahead, you're
looking back.
Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
I know, I should be ready for that. You should
be ready for that.
Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
I mean earlier today when you played Money Talks, that
was looking back at the previous segment too.
Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Yeah all right, all right, uh yeah, we'll see. We'll
see what happens on that, you know what.
Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
I have just a few minutes in this segment, So
I think this would be a perfect for this A
bit of a sad story, but also a also a
great story, by which I mean when somebody passes.
Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Away, it is a sad thing most of the time.
Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
But if the person who passed away lived a long
and remarkable life, that's a lot less said. And you
may recall that some weeks ago I shared with you
a list that I don't remember what website I saw
it on, but maybe it was Axios of the richest
(01:19:18):
people in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
And of course Phil.
Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Anshoots is number one, and I think John Malone is
number two. And you look at the industries that these
people are in and it's mostly things like telecommunications, oil
and hedge funds, that sort of thing. And then there's
one guy in the middle of the list, like fifth
or sixth richest guy in Colorado, James or Jim or
Jimmy to his friends, Loprino and you know, like where
(01:19:45):
it says what do they do to make their money?
You know again, hedge fund they're telecom or oil.
Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
For Jim Loprino, cheese is it cheese? Billionaire? And I
and what I talked about at the time was was.
Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
What a remarkable thing to be so good at making
something that, in theory, is not difficult to make. Right,
This is not like making a fifteen nanamin or semiconductor chip.
Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
We're talking about cheese.
Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Imagine how good you have to be at making cheese,
both in terms of the quality of the product and
the efficiency of your process, that you completely dominate the
market for. And in this case, what we're talking about
is actually pizza cheese. And Forbes had him worth two
(01:20:40):
point one billion dollars. And I wanted to let you
know that Jim Loprino passed away last Thursday at the
age of eighty seven. He was very, very private I
was actually talking with a.
Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
Relative of his. I won't say who.
Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
Somebody named Loprino and said, would you like to come
on the show and talk about your relative. I'm not
going to say what the relation is because that might
give away who the person is. And the person said,
you know what, Jim was very very private in his life,
and I want to honor that now, and so I
appreciate the ask.
Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
But no, but no.
Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
From this is from actually Denver post piece. Loaprino wasn't
one to work the social circuit, grant media interviews or
even allow his photo to be taken, but he took
the Loprino Foods Company now known as Loprino, from a
small local supplier of handmade cheeses to the world's largest
producer of mozzarella. Anybody who orders home delivered pizza has
(01:21:47):
likely tasted Loprino's handiwork multiple times, especially the stretch in
cheese that he helped create and for fitness fanatics wh
wouldn't dare put a slice to their lips. The company
is also a leading producer of way pery, a liquid
buy product of making mozzarella that was considered a waste
product until Jim tepped its value as a protein source
(01:22:09):
for everything from infant formula at a post workout smoothies.
His dad, Mike Loprino Senior, came to the US from Potenza,
Italy in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
Jim was one of five children.
Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
He worked various jobs, and then Mike Senior started a
family grocery store in nineteen fifty after retiring from whatever
work he did. It was on thirty eighth Avenue in
Shoshone Street, in the heart of what was then Little
Italy in Denver, And just in the interested time, I'm
basically gonna kind of skip ahead here, but bottom line
(01:22:42):
is that Loprino Foods is now the cheese supplier to Domino's,
Little Caesar's, Papa John's Pizza Hut, and even stuff you
buy this supermarket like hot pockets and other frozen meals
(01:23:03):
that use mozzarella. Some people called him the Willy Wonka
of cheese. Forbes ranked him as the sixth wealthiest person
in Colorado despite having only a high school education.
Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
He was an interesting guy. Obviously I never.
Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Had a chance to meet him, but just based on
this story, quite an interesting guy kept himself private, so
I would just say to his family and friends and
to all of you.
Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
I suppose Jim Laprino rest in peace. So what what?
Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (01:23:38):
You have me concerned as to you whether or not
you understand the reference this time around, I'm sure you hope.
Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
I don't know. I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
I want to take a moment here, actually, for those
who were listening at this time. Yesterday, I had a
retired US Army National Guard major general and former member
of Congress on the show talking about the Iran Israel
US stuff, and I want to I want to correct
(01:24:09):
him on a couple of things. He's not here, not,
you know, to stand up for himself, but I want
to correct him. And I want to just comment because
I didn't yesterday at least not well. I did a little,
but I want to do it more forcefully. And I
will note that I knew going to that interview that
he was a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
He served as in Congress as a Democrat.
Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
And I there is always something a little odd to
me when military officers are a Democrat. I don't really
get it. And it's not that they don't they can't be.
It's just I just, over the course of my life,
I really haven't thought of him that way, and especially
with today's Democratic Party, which is.
Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
So far left, like.
Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
Like, who's more disappointing than Jason Crowe? Right a Bronze
Star awarded Army ranger turned into like left.
Speaker 2 (01:25:03):
Wings some I just I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
I didn't serve in the military, but I lived on
and around military basis my entire childhood because both my
parents were Navy officers and so, and we didn't really
talk a lot of politics. I guess I would describe
both of my parents as moderate Republicans, and so maybe
I just projected that on everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
But you know, when you've.
Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
Got a party these days that's full of people that
don't love the country, I just I continue to find
it weird, even though it's probably more my problem than
their problem. I just continue to find it weird when
you get these military officers, or not just officers, anybody
who's a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Anyway. I don't object him being democrat. I just find
it odd. So two things.
Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
One of them I kind of corrected him on yesterday,
but I want to address again. I'll get to that
in a second. The other one is just a straight
up correction. He said that Iran and Russia share a border,
and that just came up in the context of how
Russia would play in all this. But Iran and Russia
do not share a border now. They each border the
(01:26:10):
Caspian Sea, right, Russia's on one side and Iran's on
the other side of part of the CASPI and C.
I don't call that sharing a border. I don't know
if you do, but I don't think most people would
call that sharing a border because it's not a land border.
You cannot walk from Iran into Russia. That's what I
call sharing a border. What we have with Mexico or
(01:26:31):
what we have with Canada, that's sharing a border. So
he got that wrong. I actually emailed him about it
and he said, yeah, you're right, there's the Caspian C.
Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I think you know.
Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
What I had in mind was that Iran border is
the former Soviet Union, and that's true to former Soviet
Socialist republics, but that's not the same thing as bordering
Russia now. So I did want to get that correction
out there. And then the other thing I just wanted
to address again because I think it's really wrong and
I really didn't like it, and you know, I sometimes
I'm a little too polite in my radio interviews when
(01:27:05):
somebody says something I disagree with. Sometimes it's probably politeness
that I just sort of let it go, but also
it's because I realize that my listeners are smart, and
I expect you to notice things like that, even if
if well, when I say like that, I'll explain it
to you in a second again, and I expect you
to recognize it and you make your own thing of it,
and you don't need me to point out absolutely everything,
(01:27:27):
because you're already smart. You know, that's why you're here.
This is a show that smart people listen to. And
some things I just don't need to elaborate on. And
then there are sometimes where I do challenge something, correct something,
(01:27:48):
and in some of those cases I probably could be
more aggressive about it than I am. And I wonder
about that. From yesterday. I think I basically played it right,
actually because I did comment, But it was when the
General suggested that the reason that Israel and the United
(01:28:12):
States had attacked Iran was that the political leaders of
the two countries, Benjamin Netan Yahoo and Donald Trump, respectively,
had low poll numbers, and therefore they started a war
do you remember a movie back in the day called
Wag the Dog? And that was the idea a politician
(01:28:33):
doing badly, so he starts a war to help his
poll numbers so we can win an election, if I
remember correctly.
Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
But that's certainly the concept of Wag the Dog, and
I used that term.
Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
I asked him, general, are you suggesting some kind of
wag the Dog here thing where they're starting a war
to help themselves politically?
Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
And he made some comment along the lines.
Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Of, well, it's worth considering, and I said, I really
don't think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
I said, Trump's numbers are.
Speaker 1 (01:28:59):
About as good does Trump's numbers have ever been as
long as he's been in politics.
Speaker 2 (01:29:04):
His numbers are close to their all time high.
Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
And he doesn't care about his numbers very much anyway,
especially because he's not going to run for office again,
but also because he doesn't trust polling and doesn't believe
in it, so it doesn't really he doesn't care.
Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
He's not going to start a war over that.
Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
And Benjamin Etna, who has spent an entire political career
looking for an opportunity to defang the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which for as long as they've been in existence, has
been hell bent on destroying his country and trying to
kill Americans and Israelis and Jews wherever they can, not
(01:29:41):
just over there, but around the world. In South America,
you had Iranian operatives kill Jews. And Benjamin Etnia, who
was built for this moment, And yes, his political fortunes
were already kind of weak and then absolutely cratered after
October seventh. But he's the leader of a country that
just had twelve hundred people murdered. If you were to
(01:30:03):
scale that up to be the same thing as the
United States of America in terms of the percentage of population,
it would be like if there was a terrorist rampage
into this country and twenty or thirty thousand people were
killed in three thousand people were taking hostage, and the
General is going to suggest that maybe he attacked Iran
(01:30:24):
because of his own low polling numbers at home. Now, again,
I did challenge him on it yesterday at the time,
so I don't think I played it wrong, But I
just I don't know. It's been bothering me all night.
I don't I don't mean, and you know I am
from time to time self critical and I will come
(01:30:46):
on the show and tell you I should have done
that better or I got that wrong. This I think
I basically got it right, but it was still bothering
me so much. Not bothering me that I did something wrong,
but bothering me that a guy who was a member
of Congress and the head of the National Guard of
Illinois and a retired major general would say something like
that to argue or you know what it is.
Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
It's like it's like.
Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
The unbelievably annoying thing that Tucker Carlson does, where he'll
ask some insane question, implying some insane and obviously wrong thing,
and defend himself by saying, well, I'm just asking questions.
It's nonsense, and what the what the general did on
(01:31:33):
the show was was nonsense. And I think I've been
thinking about this because I ended the interview as I
usually do.
Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
It's almost a matter of habit, right, I'm It's.
Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Almost a kind of thing I say without even thinking
about it all that much, especially with higher profile guests
or very interesting guests. You know, I'll say I look
forward to having you back on the show. I just
say that as a matter of habit. I say, thank you,
I say, I look forward to having you back, But
you know what, I think I'm not gonna.
Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Have him back.
Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
I don't think i'm gonna tell him that. I'm not
gonna waste my time with that. But every once in
a while, someone says or does something that I just
think is disqualifying. And I think for somebody who served
as a member of Congress and who served as a
general active duty in the Air Force when he was young,
and then thirty something years in the Army National Guard
(01:32:25):
and ended up leading the Army National Guard in his state,
for somebody like that to suggest that two leaders attacked
the most evil regime on Earth because their poll numbers
were low, I'm just I'm not having it. I'm not
(01:32:47):
having it, and I'm not going to have him back.
And I just wanted to tell you that you probably
didn't need to know, but I just wanted to. I
wanted to tell you that. What else, I got a
couple of local stories here that I wanted to share
with you. This next question I'm going to ask you
is also I feel like I'm caveating a lot of
things today because I'm going into things that feel like
they should have some kind of sarcasm at the end,
(01:33:09):
but they really don't.
Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
So my question as I go.
Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Into this is would you hold this against him or not?
And here's the headline from chalkbeat dot org. It's very
good website that does education reporting. And here's the headline
from chalkbeat. And this is from a little bit less
than a week ago. Denver School Board candidate Jeremy Harris
pleaded guilty to theft charges in Tennessee a candidate And
(01:33:36):
now that's the headline.
Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
And here's a little bit from the article.
Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
A candidate for Denver School Board as a criminal record
in Tennessee. Jeremy Harris, a mortician and Denver Public School's
father who is running to represent Northeast Denver's District four
on the board, pleaded guilty to two counts of felony
theft in twenty fourteen. According to documents obtained by Chalkbeat from.
Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Shelby County Criminal Court.
Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
The theft happened when Harris worked at the MJ. Edwards
Funeral Home in Memphis in twenty twelve. Harris used the
company credit card machine to put two refunds onto his
personal debit card, one for eight thousand dollars and one
(01:34:21):
for ten thousand dollars. He was sentenced to three years
of confinement for one of those charges, in four years
for the other. Both sentences were suspended in favor of
five years of supervised probation, and he was also ordered
to pay back the eighteen thousand dollars. Harris once violated
(01:34:44):
his probation by moving to North Carolina without permission.
Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
But let's see, by twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
He had completed all the requirements of his probation. In
an interview, he said he made a mistake more than
a decade ago.
Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
He said, he quote.
Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
Took full legal and financial responsibility and paid back the
eighteen thousand dollars. And so now I'm going to get
to the point where I raised that non sarcastic question
with you, which is do you hold this against him? So,
he says, my record does not make me unfit for
public office. In fact, I believe it makes me uniquely
(01:35:23):
fit for leadership because I know what accountability means. I
have faced adversity, I've had to rebuild my life. I've
emerged stronger and more focused on service. He added, I
understand some voters may see this as disqualifying. I welcome
the chance to speak directly to voters. I'm not asking
(01:35:44):
for blind trust. I'm asking for a chance to prove
that people can grow, lead and serve with honor, even
if their story didn't start out perfectly. So this is
a serious question for you, and frankly, I don't know
the answer for myself. I don't vote in Denver. I
won't have an opportunity to vote for this guy. And
(01:36:06):
I neither favor nor oppose this guy at this time
because I don't know anything else about him other than
this story. I don't know what he believes about any
educational issues, so I'm only focused on this. But my
question for you is this, If somebody had that story
and was a candidate in an election that you.
Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
Can vote in, could vote in, would you hold it
against him?
Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
Would you say that is disqualifying or at least bad
enough that I'm going to pick someone else, or would
you go with his line that I'm going to paraphrase,
it's changed him and he's learned a lot, and therefore
it's actually made him better fit for public office.
Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
I really want to know what you think.
Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Again, it's not going to change my vote because I
don't vote in this election, but I would really like
to know what you think at five six six nine zero.
Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Let me mention one other thing.
Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Actually, I just noticed that I hadn't read all the
way down to the bottom of the article before, and
this is near the end of the article. But I'm
gonna share this so that this man we're talking about again,
Jeremy Harris is his name. He is running in Denver
School District four against school board member Michelle Quaddlebaum, who
(01:37:20):
was an incumbent running for reelection. And I will tell
you Michelle Quaddlebaum is terrible, absolutely terrible left wing, all
the DEI nonsense, you know, prioritizing social justice over over
the quality of education, at least as far as I
can tell from everything I've ever heard from her. She's
(01:37:42):
welcome to disagree with me if she hears this or
hears about it. She's welcome to send me an email,
she's welcome to come on to the show. But this
guy Harris is running against her, and she's not quite
Tay Anderson, but she's bad in my opinion, and so
actually I want to support this guy. I don't vote,
I don't vote there, but I want to support anybody
(01:38:03):
who's going to try to take Michelle Quadlebaum out of
the school board. But I would like to know what
you think. Do you think that kind of thing? Keeping
in mind that, well, I was gonna say, he did
his time, he didn't go to jail, he did his probation,
he paid the money back. Is that disqualifying? Is it
neutral or is it a positive? You know, I spend
a lot of time on this show man not recently though,
(01:38:26):
talking about second chances, and I'm very much of a
believer in second chances, but not for everybody on everything,
And so I'd really like to know what you think.
One listener says, I'd say no second chances for the
fact that he committed those.
Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Crimes as an adult.
Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
Maybe if it had happened when he was a teenager,
but not as an adult.
Speaker 2 (01:38:45):
I don't believe he has changed. What else, it.
Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
Wouldn't be disqualifying for me, But it would depend on
the opposing candidate.
Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
Ross I didn't hear the first part, but.
Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Depending on the severity of the charges, I might forgive
a candidate for that. I would definitely forgive her apublic
and more than a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
I don't think it makes sense to me to determine
your level of forgiveness based on uh, based on which
party the person is. Like, if it's a Democrat, you're
not You're you're like already not going to vote for
then you're not already going.
Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
To vote I don't know. I I would, I would.
Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
I would respectfully ask you to reconsider that, right. I
would respectfully ask you to reconsider the question of whether
you're more likely to give a second chance to somebody
who is in your same political party versus someone who
isn't if all other factors about that person were the same.
(01:39:41):
I don't love that, and I would ask you to
reconsider it. Ross it would depend on who the other
candidates were. If the others were progressive socialists, I'd probably
feel more comfortable with him, the Denver school board guy with.
Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
The theft conviction.
Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
The conviction, the crime is not automatically disqualifying for me.
Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
That comment is tone deaf.
Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
How do you believe you're a better candidate, How do
you believe you're a better candidate for having a criminal history. Well,
I think his argument is he's been through these things,
he's seen the criminal justice thing, he's had to take
responsibility for doing something wrong, and maybe it'll make him
more Again, I'm putting words in his mouth now, but
maybe it would make him more responsive to voters, taking
(01:40:19):
accountability for whatever he does in office, rather than acting.
Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Like he's not accounting for it.
Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
And then another listener says, I think it should disqualify him.
Speaker 2 (01:40:29):
So, actually it's about it's about fifty to fifty. I
don't know if Mandy heard the question. You did not
hear the question. All right, that's allowed. I'm going to
run this by you real quick.
Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
So there's a guy running for Denver school Board who's
running against the very terrible Michelle Quadlebombs. And ten years ago,
as an adult, he stole in two different transactions eighteen
thousand dollars through fraudulent credit card receipt credit card refunds
onto his card that were customers receipts. I caught, He
(01:41:01):
served probation, he paid the money back, And my question
is is that disqualifying?
Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Tough one? Huh?
Speaker 7 (01:41:11):
I mean, no trouble since then at all? Right, what
has he said about it?
Speaker 3 (01:41:14):
Anything?
Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
He said?
Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
He said, I've seen adversity. I've had to I've had
to rebuild my life. I've taken responsibility, and I think
it will make me more accountable.
Speaker 7 (01:41:25):
I mean, I would prefer if he said, God, I
did a dumb thing, but I paid the price, yeah,
which is kind of a I mean a squishy way
of what he said.
Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 7 (01:41:32):
I think that I happen to believe in redemption, right.
I think that if people do the time and they
make restitution and everybody got made whole. Yeah, you know,
nothing since then? Eh, maybe he learned his lesson.
Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
Yeah, and that's where I am.
Speaker 7 (01:41:46):
I'm so bad that that's exactly did he kill someone?
Speaker 1 (01:41:51):
No? Yeah, all right, that's what I just said too
about Michelle quadlebook, exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
What you got.
Speaker 7 (01:41:57):
Coming up today, I'm talking to Jim Riggan. He is
the author of the Sin of Empathy.
Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
Have you heard about this? No? No, First of all,
it's fantastic. I totally agree with him.
Speaker 7 (01:42:06):
It has created a firestorm as he argues that we
are are having empathy weaponized against us when we should
be using compassion to help those that are in need
instead of Well, I'll explain today with him, and then
Rich kuga Haide popping in.
Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
We're talking a little pride.
Speaker 7 (01:42:22):
His Ambicus brief was actually named in this Scremmtti decision, So.
Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
We're going to talk about that as well. Yeah, so it's.
Speaker 7 (01:42:27):
Gonna one of those days of course, talking more about
all that.
Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
Yeah, all that, all that.
Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
So, but one of the things that sounds like you're
saying is understanding the difference between empathy and compassion.
Speaker 2 (01:42:36):
Correct.
Speaker 7 (01:42:37):
Yeah, Empathy is getting into someone's feelings with them. Compassion
is helping them get out of those feelings.
Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
Interesting, what time is that? That is at one o'clock?
Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
All right, everybody stick around for Mandy's fabulous show. I'm
actually out tomorrow, so I will talk with you on Thursday.
Tuesday morning, and the TVs in the radio studio are
not working, Channon, is anything working in there?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Certainly not me certain.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
So as I was driving to the studio today, I
saw a whole row of like eight or ten Expinity
trucks outside the building, which probably explains why why we
have no televisions in here. So a little harder to
keep up on the news. It's such a fast breaking
news thing. I mean yesterday, yesterday, in the second half
of my show, we were talking with Jennifer Griffin of
(00:32):
Fox News, and.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I knew I didn't have her for long. I was
trying to get one more question in and she said, oh,
I'm sorry, I got to go.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
There's reports of air raid sirens over cut her now
and I gotta go. And then, you know, three minutes
later we cut to the audio of her.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Talking on Fox News on television. But everything's just so
fast moving.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And as I was just describing in my little crossover
talk there with Marty and Gina, you know, I wrote
this piece for my substack, And by the way, can
I ask you to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Do me a favor and go to Rosscominski dot.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Substack dot com and just subscribe to my Substack. It's
absolutely free, and it's probably worth a little bit more
than that, but it's free, so you might as well.
And I tend to write somewhat longer form pieces there.
My friend Greg Brophy always says that my notes there
too long, and he's probably right, so maybe I'll try
to shorten them a little bit. But usually what happens
(01:22):
is I just get some thoughts and I just start typing,
and then it's just like diarrhea of the brain and
it just comes out all over the page and then
it's there for you to read. What you think that's
a bad metaphor, Shannon, when I'm trying to get someone
to subscribe, worried about sanitary condition?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
All right, But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So I wrote a piece for my substack yesterday afternoon
entitled they did but they didn't. And what I'm talking
about is Iran's quote unquote retaliation against the US by
lobbing missiles kind of sort of at an American base
in Cutter And the subtitle of my article is Iran
could not retaliate for US strikes, but they also couldn't
(02:04):
not retaliate, right, And so I wrote this thing and
it's still there, it's still there.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But then as I as.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I write it, just as I finished writing it, suddenly
we get this announcement from President Trump on his social
media platform that is announcing a ceasefire.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It says congratulations to everyone.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
That's in all caps with an exclamation point. It's been
fully agreed by in between Israel and Iran that there
will be a complete and total ceasefire. And approximately six
hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down
and completed their in progress final missions, for twelve hours
at which the war will be considered ended officially, Iran
will start the ceasefire. And upon the twelve hour, Israel
(02:47):
we'll start the ceasefire. Upon the okay, Iran will start
the ceasefire, let's see. And upon the twelfth hour, Israel
will start the cease fire, and on the twenty fourth
hour and official end to what Trump has now declared
the twelve day war. And he's taking credit for the name,
which is fine. He didn't. I mean, he came up
(03:08):
with the name, so it's his name. So I'm so,
I'm I wrote my thing. I wrote my thing, and
then I see and then I see this news, right, okay,
ceasefire because.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I was writing will there be a ceasefire?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
And I was kind of leaning toward yes, actually because
Iran is so screwed if they don't, they really don't
have any choice.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So I actually thought a ceasefire was probably coming.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And also because it seemed clear that once the US
did what it did, and especially with the Iranian So
I mentioned this at the end of the show yesterday,
so Jennifer Griffin had to go because there were the.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Air raids sirens.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And then I was talking on the show yesterday about
a video I was seeing online of maybe a Patriot
missile battery or some other kind of similar defense system
in Cutter launching. As you could see the little you know,
the white light that basically rep presents the heat at
the end of the missile. You could see those going
up not down right, So that's the defensive system launching
(04:07):
a missiles. And after a little and what it was
actually fascinating to watch because just before jen Griffin said
We've got these alerts, the DOW was up about one
hundred and fifty points.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Then we get the alerts and then you know.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Defensive systems firing and Cutter and then the Dow drops
really fast, although not an enormous move, but it goes
from up one fifty to down one fifty and then
and then it starts to look like there's not much
damage and the defensive systems are working, and then it
starts creeping up, and it's the dow was hanging around
unchanged for a while, and then it becomes clear that
(04:43):
nobody got hurt on the ground, no American, no Katari,
and and Iran telegraphed it by posting in advance, we're
going to be attacking, which they did certainly in order to.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Let the defensive systems get set up. And then the.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Market screamed upward and the Dow closed up to three
hundred and seventy four points, I think. And even more
interesting than that was oil. And I have all this
in my notes, so I won't go through it.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But oil got.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Destroyed yesterday and down a lot more today. And all
these people who crowded into the oil trade thinking that
this was gonna blow and it's not a ridiculous thing
to worry about, of course, but the people who crowded
into the oil trade thinking that this could result in
disruptions to the flow of oil so far it looks
like that's not gonna happen, and those people.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Are all getting out now and taking their losses.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So anyway, I'm writing this thing, and I'm writing, will
there will there not be a ceasefire, and will Iran
agree to this or that? And then Trump announces the
ceasefire and they're like, Okay, I'm going to update my note
with that. And then a little bit later, a little
bit after Trump's announcement that everybody's agreed to a ceasefire,
the Foreign Minister from Iran helpfully added this, and I
(05:52):
will quote as Iran has repeatedly made clear, Iran launched,
Israel launched war on Iran, not the other way around.
As of now, there is no agreement on any ceasefire
or cessation of military operations. However, provided that the Israeli
regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people, know
later than four am Tehran time, we have no intention
(06:12):
to continue our response afterwards. The final decision on the
cessation of our military operations will be made later.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
So, in other words, what the foreign.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Minister said is there's no agreement on a ceasefire, but
we agree to it. So that was that, and then
a little bit later he posted, and I've just loved
this one.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I just love this.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
The military operations of our powerful armed forces to punish
Israel for its aggression continued until the very last minute
at four am, together with all Iranians, I think are
brave armed forces who remain ready to defend our dear
country until their last drop of blood, and who responded
to any attack by the enemy until the very last minute.
(06:55):
So what that is saying is we fought until we surrendered.
That's how I read that. And so then I had
to update with all that last night, and then this
morning while I was sleeping, bib.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Net Yahoo posted on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
In light of having achieved the objectives of the operation
and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel agrees to
the President's proposal for a bilateral ceasefire. Israel will respond
forcefully to any violation of the seasefire. So that's fine.
And then probably the funniest thing of all, this is
a quote translated into English from Iranian State Television News
(07:35):
reporting the SEAPA, which is what they call the IRGC,
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps successful missile operations in response
to US aggression and the exemplary steadfastness and unity of
our dear people in defending our land has imposed ceasefire
(07:56):
on the enemy, straight up bag Dad Bob propaganda and
absolutely hilarious. And so then I'm updating that with that
this morning, and I'm thinking, okay, all right, Trump said
there was a ceasefire. The other people said, well, we
really haven't agreed to it yet, but now we do.
(08:19):
And then I think I'm done updating. And then the
next thing I see is Iran launches a missile or
two at Israel. Israel responds with a small strike, taking
out a radart installation near Tehran. And then Donald Trump,
just as he's about to get on a plane or
a helicopter to a plane to go to a NATO
(08:41):
summit in Europe, says he's really mad at Israel and Iran,
especially Israel. He's more mad at Israel, and he drops
the F bomb. You know, these people don't know what
the Basically what he said was Iran and Israel have
been fighting for so long that they don't know what
the f they're doing. But he said the whole word,
not just F. And if you want to see that,
it's up on my blog at Roskiminski dot com, but
(09:02):
I can't play it on.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
The air, So that's where we are right now.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It appears that the ceasefire is holding after some little
some violation by Iran, Israel retaliated.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
One last thing I want to say about this.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
The missile that was fired at Iran at Israel by
Iran after the ceasefire deadline.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I suspect I would.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Bet on this wouldn't bet a lot, but I would
bet was not ordered by the Iranian government. I bet
it was a rogue element of the Iranian military that
either didn't get the message or is a fanatic, radical
supporter of you destroying Israel who wanted to try to
break up the ceasefire and so launched a missile or two.
(09:50):
That's my guess. We'll be right back, all right, Thanks
for spending some time with me. I saw this story
the other day. I'm to switch gears and we'll be
doing more on the Holy Iran thing over the course
of the show, and I'll try to keep you updated
if there's breaking news. Like I said, this is just
a very fast moving situation, although I hope, I hope
that it becomes a lot less fast moving like now
(10:13):
in the sense that hopefully the ceasefire will hold.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
At least for a little while. So I saw a
story the other day.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We are as you know, the broadcast home of the
Colorado Rockies, as well as the Denver Broncos, and to
see you Buffs and so on. But I got a
Rockies thing for you, And I think listeners who pay
close attention to the show realize I'm more of a
football fan than a baseball fan. Just generally it's not about,
(10:40):
you know, Broncos versus Rockies.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It probably doesn't help that the.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Rocky has been bad for a long time, But in
any case, friends of mine who pay a little more
attention to baseball than I do have been pretty down
on Rockies ownership as much as anything else.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And there seems to be a vibe out there.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
And again I don't have enough knowledge to really agree
or disagree, but among my friends, a lot of folks
seem to think that the primary owner of the club,
or the guy who's really running the show, Dick Montfort,
just doesn't seem to care that much about winning. Again,
I don't know mister Montfort. I've never spoken to him.
I don't know that that's a fair characterization. But I'm
(11:22):
telling you that a lot of people feel that way.
I mean, I don't need to tell you that. You
know if you're if you're a Rockies fan already. So
I was very interested in this story that I saw
at the Denver Post just a couple of days ago.
Rocky's owner Charlie Montfort. So that's the brother now, sober
says team quote needs new set of.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Eyeballs and the subhead of the article.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Team CEO Dick Montfort says his younger brother is more
involved with the team than he's been in years.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I think he's in a good place. I hope he
is now, just in an interesting time. I'm not going
to share the whole article with you. It starts talking
about Charlie Montfort sitting down for breakfast at a diner
in Greeley, which I guess maybe he lives in Greeley.
It seems like he's there a lot, and then quoting
now from the article.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
He laughed often and easily.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
He said that the problems with alcohol that derailed his
active role as one of the Rockies founders and principal
owners are in the past. He's repaired his relationship with
Dick Montfort, his older brother and the club's owner, chairman,
CEO and ultimate decision maker. But there is irony here.
And again I'm still quoting. It's not me saying there's
irony here. For just as Charlie as emerged from the
(12:36):
dark shadows of his past, his beloved Rockies are in
the worst place they've been in their thirty three year history.
He ponders what the team must do as a Kareem's
toward a seventh straight losing season, with a third consecutive
one hundred loss campaign all but assured and the clubs
steering down the possibility of losing more games than any
team in baseball's modern era. Though he's not in a
(12:58):
position to steer the franchise as he once did, he
said significant changes are needed in the front office, and
he's told Dick that in no uncertain terms. Quote, the
Rockies are still my baby. I see what the fans
see and it crushes me. I'm one of those people
who compartmentalize, so I try not to think about about
(13:21):
it too much.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
But if you prime me open.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Montford paused for a moment before continuing, every time I
see that team and how it's doing.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It makes me want to cry because I have memories
of the past just like the fans do. So what's
Charlie's solution.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Quoting again from Charlie Montford, I think we need a
new set of eyeballs.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
We need to give somebody the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Someone who knows baseball and has lived and breathed baseball
and sometimes died with baseball. Someone who knows everything that
all the good teams we face do, from grassroots on up.
Someone who's gonna stand by their decisions because they're going
to live with it now. So that's clearly a modest
(14:04):
jab at his brother, and that's not very aggressive.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I think it's basically speaking the truth.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think it's speaking what lots of people recognize. So
the Denver Post contacted Dick Monfort and told him about
the interview, and I actually think Dick Monfort's response is
pretty good. He said, that's not only Charlie's opinion, it's
the public's in general.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And I get it.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
There's a criticism, which is fair, that we are very loyal,
insular and we promote from within. However, Dick also noted,
as others have that playing baseball at altitude in Denver
is a different animal.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
We have this dynamic of playing somewhere where nobody else plays.
It's easier for an outsider to say, well, I would
do this, or I would have done that. This is
a tough place to play. It has its little intricacies
that other places don't. But I agree that what has
gone on over the last few years is not a
representation of what we want. I think they're There are
lots of reasons for that, but it's probably time to
(15:03):
have somebody who has a fresh opinion, a fresh set
of eyes. I'm not opposed to bringing people in for
the outside. He went on to say, I trust Charlie,
and more importantly, Charlie is a smart guy. He sometimes
doesn't act like it, but he absolutely is a guy
of substance.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
The brothers are putting that humpty dumpty back together again.
And it sounds like maybe Charlie has prevailed upon his
big brother too. Instead of promoting from within, bring in
somebody as a quote unquote fresh set of eyeballs from
the outside to look at what the Rockies can do better.
And I sure hope they do for the sake of
(15:44):
the team, for the sake of Denver, for the sake
of Colorado, gosh, even for the sake of major League Baseball.
I hope that the Rockies do something to get better,
and of course, frankly, for the sake of Koa.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
We are the.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Radio homer of the Rockies, and I actually feel a
little bad for my broadcast pals, Jerry Schimmel and Jack Corgan,
have to cover a team that loses all the time,
although I have to say I am always amazed and
impressed at how it never gets them down.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
They always go in with a sense.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Of optimism and talk about every game like it's a
fabulous new thing, and they really do. They're not faking it.
That's really how they are, which is a wonderful thing.
But I would still like to see the Rockies be
a better team. Gosh, there's a ton of stuff to
do today. What a crazy, crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Time we live in.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I'm gonna do a couple of little, random stories that
are just sort of not tied in with anything else
we've been talking about so far. I saw a piece
over at the Colorado Sun, and I'm always a little
careful when I see pieces by this particular writer.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Michael Booth.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
He's not a bad writer, but he's beat is sort
of climate and environment, and it's usually quite easy to
tell that he has a very specific perspective, and so
a lot of times his pieces come out as what
feel to me like sort of left leading advocacy as
(17:03):
much as news reporting. But still he does cover this stuff,
and he brings up interesting stories from time to time.
And so here's the headline. You'll see maybe a little
bit of a little bit of bias in the headline,
although he probably didn't write the headline himself. Millions of
acres of Colorado forest under thread after Trump reversus long
standing roadless rule and the subhead Forest Service seeks economic
(17:27):
development and wildfire fighting routes. But environmental advocates are furious.
So what are we talking about here? I'm gonna quote
a little bit from the article. The Trump administration yesterday
reversed the roadless rule that protects thirty percent of national
forest land from development after nearly a quarter century of
land set asides, knocking down one of the hard fought
(17:49):
pillars of open space protections in Colorado and across the nation.
So you can just sense right there, just a little
bit of the writer leaning a particular direction on this.
That's okay, I'm here. I'm here for the news, not
for his opinion. Let me keep going.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
US Agriculture Secretary.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Brook Rollins, who announced the turn about at a meeting
of Western governors in New Mexico, and that WGA Western
Governor's Association meeting is going on. I think it's in
Santa Fe right now, said the move opens the way
for road building to help mitigate wildfire damage and promote
timber harvests that dwindled under increasing forest protections. So the
(18:29):
Agriculture Department put out a statement that said, and I'm quoting,
this outdated administrative rule contradicts the will of Congress and
goes against the mandate of the Forest Service to sustain
the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands.
Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction,
(18:51):
and timber harvest on nearly fifty nine million acres of
the National forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible
timber production. So Colorado environmental advocates are not very happy.
They say this is going to promote quote, large scale mining,
oil and gas drilling. There isn't evidence of that yet,
(19:13):
but we'll see, as well as widespread logging in areas
that should stay set aside for wilderness and backcountry experience.
The Forest Service currently overseas nearly fifteen million acres of
Colorado forest and grasslands, and some environmental activists said an
attack on the roadless Rule is an attack on clean water, wildlife,
(19:35):
western communities, and recreation.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
On public lands.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
She says, for over two decades, the roadless Rule has
protected intact ecosystems from irresponsible timber companies who want to
clear cut the mature and old growth forests that provide
clean and drinking water and recreation opportunities to Westerners, as
well as healthy habitat for wildlife. So look, I am
not an expert on this at all. I'm going to
(20:00):
jump in though with my non expert opinion, and you
can correct me or agree with me, or whatever you.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Want to do.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
You can text me at five sixty six nine zero.
So here's my take. I think, as always, the radical
environmentalists are trying to make it sound like by eliminating
this particular rule that protects some percent of the forest
from having roads, that suddenly the forest is just gonna
suddenly look like the.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Mouse trap in downtown Denver. It's not going to be
like that.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And remember, the federal government is still going to have
control over who can build roads where and for what,
and all of these federal departments do value using these
national forests for outdoor recreation, for wildlife, for all these things.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
It's going to be a balance, just as it always is.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
And I would think that given the massive destruction that
we have seen in recent years in terms of wildfires,
not just Colorado we've had our share, but other places
as well, the idea that you can go through and
kind of road that doesn't necessarily need to be very big.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And when you're talking.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
About miles and miles and miles and miles of forest
and someone's gonna come through and cut an eighteen foot
road or an eight foot road, Like, who cares. There's
even a thing in this article. I'm not gonna go
find it and quote it where they complain about the
possibility of putting these roads in because of climate change. Really, like,
what percentage of the trees in that forest do you
(21:28):
think you're gonna lose by putting in a few roads
So that either fire fighters can get in there to
fight fires more easily, or to use as at least
modest fire breaks. A road is not a great fire break,
but it's better than nothing. So I just think the
radical environmentalists are these incredible purists that value trees more
(21:51):
than they value people.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
And it's always been that way.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I've often said on this show that radical environmentalists don't
so much of the planet is they hate humans, And
I think it's I think it's still the case. And
so we'll say, look, you can imagine, and you know,
a situation where they'll somehow open it up and allow
lots and lots and lots of logging and we'll see
the destruction of the national forest. Do you think that's
(22:17):
an actually likely scenario. I don't. Anyway, I wanted to
share it with you because it definitely is an interesting change.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
It definitely is an interesting change. It was one other
thing I wanted to share with you.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Of the fifty nine million acres that National Forest Service
land of National Forest Service land across the US, this alliance,
I guess the Environmental Group says about fifty percent is
open to drilling, logging, and mining, eighteen percent is protected
and as designated wilderness and the remaining thirty percent are
known as roadless areas.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So this roadless area thing is going to go away.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
That doesn't mean it will necessarily be opened to mining
and you know, drilling, logging, all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
We'll have to see. But I actually am with the.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Secretary on this, who says who describes this as an
outdated rule that contradicts the will of Congress.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
So there you go. I wanted to share that with you,
all right.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So here's something Even the most rich and famous people
in the world can still get pushed around a little
bit by things that you wouldn't suspect. So you may
have heard that Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people
in the world, the founder of Amazon, is going to
get married soon to the woman. His fiance's name is
(23:39):
Lauren Sanchez. He left his previous wife for her, and
Lauren Sanchez is most famous I.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Think for her boob job.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I assume those are not natural that way, so I
think that's what she's best known for, and that's probably
what she's best known to Jeff Bezos for.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
In anyway, those.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Two are getting married, and I wish them well, well,
I do wish them well why not, Why wouldn't I
I want him to be happy, I want her to
be happy, I want everybody to be happy. So they
have been planning to have a wedding in Venice, Italy,
a wedding that.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Is expected to cost somewhere around.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Sixteen million dollars. And you know what, for him, that's
basically nothing. What is that like a tenth of a
percent of his net worth? Not even it's less than
a tenth of a percent of his net worth, which
means that he would probably make that much money in
(24:37):
a few days. So wouldn't you spend a few days
of income on your wedding? So anyway, it's like a
million dollars just in flowers and decorations for the wedding,
just to give you a sense. Anyway, they're supposed to
do this in Venice at a place called the Scuola
Grande della Misericordia. So I have some lovely play in Venice,
(25:00):
which is already a lovely city. But the people in
Venice are are not too pleased, and so they have
said that what they would do if Bezos showed up
there is throw lots and lots and lots of plastic
inflatable crocodiles into the canals to prevent the boats from
(25:23):
navigating through the canals and to prevent guests from being
able to arrive at the event. And so mister and
future Missus Bezos have slightly moved the event, still in
sort of in Venice, but not in the center anymore.
They are moving to some place called the Arsenale. Like Arsenal,
(25:43):
which is described by the UK Telegraph as a huge
complex of boat yards, basins, warehouses and canals where Venetians
built waterships and merchant vessels for centuries until the eighteenth century,
was Europe's largest industrial complex. Surrounded by krenel lated walls,
the Arsonale will be much easier to secure than the
(26:04):
Scuola Grande della miser Recordia, which has easy public access.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Angry Venetians force mister and future Missus Bezos to move
their wedding, by the way. Kind of a funny thing, Yeah,
it's it's easy to just, i don't know, poke a
little fun at these richest people in the world for
their their incredible lifestyles.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I mean, Jeff Bezos's boat is like six.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Hundred million dollars right, and so anyway, the picture associated
with this article that I've been sharing from at the
at Telegraph dot co dot UK is Bezos and Lauren
Sanchez in swimsuits wearing floppy hats and sunglasses covered in
(26:52):
foam like like soap bubbles, and apparently they just had
a big foam party on their boat and a bunch
of they and some of their rich friends, like they
have some kind of cannon blowing foam bubbles at them,
and they describe like other people driving golf balls off
the deck of the boat into the water.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Wherever they are.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
So that is the lifestyles of the rich and famous,
and again easy to kind of poke fun at it.
But bottom line is, and I promise you I'm not
being sarcastic when I say this next thing, what is
the point in getting fabulously wealthy? If you can't then
go ahead and do any freaking thing you want to
(27:33):
do that doesn't hurt other people.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Go ahead and do it. That's the purpose.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It doesn't matter if other people are jealous, screw them.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
It's your life. You made the money, You created one of.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The most incredible companies in the history of the world
with Amazon, and I'm not exaggerating with that.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Good for you, Good for you. You know, I don't.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Love that you broke up with you divorced your wife
to go marry this other chick. But whatever, that's a
that's a thoroughly modern thing. And and I don't know
whether you paid for her boobs or not, but if
you did, nice job, you got what's paid for. And
there anything else, Shannon, You think I need to add
anything to that?
Speaker 2 (28:11):
You think I got it covered. You just don't even
have to be rich to do that last part. Yeah,
that's true. That's true, all right.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
One of the things that I only talked about a
little bit heading into the US involvement in the Israel
Iran war, and I did if you were if you've
been reading my blog, you would have seen I wrote
about it a lot. I brought it up a lot,
but I didn't bring it up a lot on the air,
just a little bit. And this is the issue of
(28:44):
the Magabase, which generally has been isolationist, in part because
Trump ran as an isolationist Trump.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I've said this umpteen times.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Trump is the most anti war president in my lifetime.
And he can't paint on that. No more wars get
us out or whatever wars we're in. And so there
was a poll done a week and a half ago
and they asked, do you think.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
The US military.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran?
And twenty three percent of Republicans said yes, right, twenty
three percent said yes, twenty four percent said not sure,
and fifty three percent said no. But again twenty twenty
three percent said yes. And there were a bunch of
(29:37):
people on social media, some really heinous people like Candice Owens. Oh,
I got sort of a joke for you. Do you remember,
do you remember maybe a year ago there was this
massive uproar about the bias built into artificial intelligence by
(30:01):
the programmers that was theoretically exposed when one of them,
I don't know if it was chet GPT, I don't
remember who it was, was asked to like create a
picture of a of a Nazi, and they created a
black person as a Nazi, right, you remember this? And
there was a black Viking and a female something where
(30:25):
there would never would have been a female, and it
was all like, oh, look at all the wokeness here, and.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Maybe maybe it's not.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
It's actually the way AI systems work it's not actually
that easy to program wokeness into it. Really, what these
AI systems are doing is learning whatever material they're trained on.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So really the way you would.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Program wokeness into an AI is by getting it to
train on woke websites and go ingest that stuff and
think of that stuff as.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
As the truth or something like it.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
But it occurs to me as I see Candice Owens,
Now that me that AI was just training on reading
Candace's Owens Twitter or ex posts and then realize, oh, yeah,
there's a black Nazi.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So that's my thought about Candace Owens, black Nazi.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And so she and a bunch of other fools, Tucker
Carlson among them, have been raging online. We didn't vote
for this. We voted for Trump in order and never
have another war. First of all, they're so unrealistic it's
mind boggling. But this is their thing. We didn't vote
for this. You get a bunch of people saying, I, gosh,
(31:35):
I feel so fooled. I'm never going to vote Republican again,
or just I'm never going to vote again. I've seen
all these things online. I've seen them. I've seen them myself.
I've seen them with my own eyes on Twitter, I've
seen these posts and my thinking has been, these Trump voters,
these MAGA people who are isolationists and Trump supporters, they
(32:00):
have those two things. They support not getting involved and
they support Trump. So for me, the question was which
one do they support more, not getting involved or Trump?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
And for me, the answer is obvious.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
They support Trump much, much, much more than they support
adherence to any particular principle like that. And I'm not
making a jab at them. I'm just saying I think
that many or most isolationist leaning Trump voters, and especially,
but not only, people who self identify as MAGA, are
(32:35):
much more loyal to Trump than to any particular policy
position you want to name, and that if Trump can
say my policy position is A, they will say we
love A. And then a week later, if he says, no,
my policy position is B, now they'll say we love B.
(32:58):
And look, I'm not sure to judge that. I'm just
talking about the political realities. And yet a bunch of
people out there who were kind of sort of they've
always talked about themselves as MAGA or conservative or Trump
supporters kind of bashing Trump for even talking about this.
Is before the strikes for even talking about getting involved.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
This isn't what we voted for. And my take all along.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Has been those people are a minority, although they're very loud.
Now we have a little chance to test it because
Donald Trump just did what he did, and there's been
a poll since then by the Economist and Yugov. So
remember now the poll a week or so, a week
and yeah, a week before the US did what it did,
(33:46):
twenty three percent of Republicans said yes to the question
of whether the military should get involved in the contract
in the conflict between Israel and I run And by the.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Way, who you know I should mention this?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Just so we're clear that twenty three percent is actually
a higher percent than Democrats were independents. So now there's
another poll by the same group, you Gov, a reasonably
well respected polling.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Outfit, asking do you approve or.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Disapprove of the US bombing nuclear sites in Iran? And
the percentage of Republicans who say they approve of it?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Is you ready for this? Shannon?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Sixty eight percent? Sixty eight percent. Now, the Democrats didn't move. Basically,
they were fifteen percent yes before the strikes and sixteen
percent yes after the strikes, Independence moved a lot more.
They were eleven percent before the strikes, but twenty seven afterwards,
(34:50):
still fifty one against. I also note that this poll
was taken.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Before the ceasefire. If the Sea pease fire holds, these.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Numbers are going to move in Trump's favor even more,
even among Democrats who don't want to give Trump credit
for anything, and clearly they didn't so far, but in
a new poll maybe they will. But to me, the
important thing to recognize from this is Trump still has
(35:22):
absolute command over a very large part the vast majority
right now of the Republican Party, not just MAGA, not
just MAGA. But to see Republicans go from twenty three
percent yes should the US get involved to sixty eight
percent support after we did get involved, and that number
(35:45):
being before the ceasefire, you know, I'll give myself a
little pad on the back, I suppose for saying and
writing that far more Republicans are going to support Trump
than stick with the isolationist position. And it's actually kind
of amusing to see some people like Charlie Kirk, who
wasn't the most hardcore don't do it, but was very
(36:07):
much don't do it now flipping and flopping as much
as they can. And there's this other ass hat on
Twitter named Jack Pasobekcher something he blocked me a few
years ago, but he's one of the worst people on Twitter,
and he was just jumping up and down screaming, don't
do it. Trump, it's World War three. You promised us this,
(36:27):
and now he's like in favor. These people are such fools.
The reason they're fools is their followers, not leaders. Charlie
Kirk is a little bit more of a leader, and
that's why he left a little wiggle room. But some
of the dumbest people are realizing that Trump just steamrolled them.
Governor of Wyoming on the show and we were talking
about the Wyoming Stable Token Project and he said, and
(36:51):
some of his staff said, you know, you should.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Really have Anthony Apollo on the show.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Anthony is executive director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission.
And of course we do have plenty of listeners in
Wyoming here on KOA, so that's part of the reason
we're doing this. But the other reason is I'm just
fascinated by it and it's something I don't entirely understand.
So I'm doing this for my education and hopefully for
yours as well.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Anthony, Welcome to Koa. It's good to have you here.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Ross, thank you for having me this morning.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
All right, we're gonna move quick because we got about
six or seven minutes only.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
What is the stable token?
Speaker 4 (37:26):
It is a digital representation of one dollar on a
blockchain and spy a lot more than that.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yes, what are stable tokens backed by? How do we
know it has any value?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Great question.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
So for the State of Wyoming, with the Wyoming Stable Token,
we're backing it with a combination of cash and short
duration US treasury so US debt, as well as repurchase
agreements of those treasuries. So they're very short duration financial instruments.
They're such backed by the United States government, so they're
as secure as you could possibly we get. But they
(38:01):
also bear interest, which is revenue for the state.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
That's purchasing them.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
And when we generate that interest income, those revenues come
back to the state and we put those dollars into
Wyoming's school Foundation fund. So at the end of the day,
this is a public goods project for the state of Wyoming.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Okay, And all right, so here's how I'm thinking of
this and you got to tell me why I why
I'm wrong. And I think the digital aspect is very
very important here. But back in the day when I
used to go to Las Vegas a lot, like in
the eighties and nineties, a lot of the casinos would
(38:37):
have these big coins that look kind of like silver dollars,
but each casino would have their own and they're worth
a dollar, and you always know you can turn that
into the casino for a dollar, well, unless the casino
goes out of business. But I'd always rather have the
actual dollar. So because you know that that's always an
actual dollar. So what's the value proposition for a thing
(39:00):
that's worth a dollar instead of having a dollar.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Well, so we're talking about cash that is the physical
representation of one dollar.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
You're always going to want some of those.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
But from the perspective of the money that's in your bank,
it's already highly virtualized. And those dollars that you have
in the bank, I regret to inform you only six
to eleven percent of those dollars are actually there. The
rest of it is lent out by that bank so
they can go make their money and put out loans
the community and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
So it's an important function.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
But if people want to know where their dollars are
and have that actually backed, that.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Is where stable token could come in.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Because those stable tokens are what we call fully reserved,
meaning every stable token is backed by at a minimum
one dollar of either cash or again those treasuries, and
then we as a state have a legislative mandate to
over collateralize those dollars, which is Laman's terms. Every dollar
that we have or every stable token that we have,
(39:58):
we backed by one dollar plus a little bit more
so for us it's two percent, and that's what gives
you to a full backing of the dollar. So a
stable token is going to get you a lot more
to the actual custody of a dollar than putting the
money in a bank.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
For example, if I own a stable token, do I
earn any interest or is it just the collateral behind
it that earns interest, so the state is earning the interest.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
It is an excellent question.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
So one of the things that we've seen is stable
coins that bear interest going offshore for their issuance because
they have not been able to figure out the securities
law in the US that would allow stable coin issuers
to provide yield or interest to the holder that would
not be in some contravention or a complexity of securities
(40:43):
law here in the US. So we've seen platforms like
there's a Goorra, there's Mountain Protocol. Those are being issued
at Bermuda or the Bahamas, and those are bearing interest.
There's also some domestic projects like the Buildel stable token
which is issued by black Rock and securitize or that
will bear interest, but only to a credit investors. You
need to have some amount of worth before you're allowed
(41:03):
to get that interest.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
We as a.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
State are very much looking into some of the exceptions
that are granted two states by a securious Exchange Commission
that may allow us to do an interest bearing or
yield bearing stable token that'll be downstream of significant compliance checks.
But that is a vector that may be opened to
us in the future that may not be open to
private issuers.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Up stable coins.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Okay, we got about two and a half minutes here.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
What is the function of this stable coin and why
is it?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Why would there.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Be a benefit to using the stable coin for this
function or functions versus let's say a wire transfer between
banks or whatever alternative there might be.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
The short answer is efficiency. So when you're transacting with
the stable coin on a blockchain, if I wanted to
send ten dollars worth of stable coins to Ross and
nearro overseas in Japan, that transaction is peer to peer,
can settle within ten secs, will cost us a couple
of cents or maybe even fractions of a cent. There's
limited counterparty risk because we're transacting directly. These networks are
(42:09):
available three hundred and sixty five days a year twenty
four to seven. If you juxtapose that against your wires
or your ahs, you're talking twenty five to forty dollars.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
To send that money.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
It may take a couple of days to get there,
has to go through multiple correspondent banks, and it opens
up some risk along the way, especially if you're going
between currencies. So it's a much more efficient way of transacting.
It's faster, it's cheaper, it's more secure in many ways,
and in terms of how we intend to use it.
It's really for any time you need to send money,
So whether you're paying at the coffee shop and you
want to pay them in stable tokens, and the transaction
(42:41):
fee for that retailer will be a couple of fractions
of a cent rather than three to five percent that
they're getting hit with on a visa master card rails.
Or if I want to send money globally and have
it settle fairly instantaneously without having to go through a
series of intermediaries and feed takers along the way, that's
the goal.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
It's very interesting for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
By the way, we're talking with Anthony Apollo, who's executive
director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Just about out of time. Let me ask you just
two very last questions.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Is the upside for the state the interest that a
cruise on the collateral?
Speaker 3 (43:15):
That is correct.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
We're not looking to include any fees into this, it's
just the underlying reserve.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
And last thing I want to ask you, and again
we can probably I should probably have had you on
for longer, but maybe I'll get you back. Just what
are the key things we need to know about the
big legislation around stable coin that the Senate just passed
a week ago.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
So the Senate passed the Genius Act.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Congress is working on the Stable Act that governs stable
tokens issued in restable coins issue in the US.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
We are going to be outside of that.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
It doesn't really cover state issuance, but that looks to
create a lot of consumer protection, so we're studying it
closely to make sure that we fall in line with that,
even if we're not under the purview of that bill specifically,
I also will personally put out there I think it
will cause some commoditization of stable coins. We're seeing the
kind of explosion of stable coins, but in the pretty
near future they all might start to look the same.
(44:04):
So it'll be interesting to see what happens with the
full passage of the Stable Genius Act.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Well maybe when some of that stuff passes and we
have a better look at what the framework is. And
is your stable coin already launched or launching soon? I
know it's one of them.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
We're on test networks now, but we intend to launch
on August twentieth on one or more blockchains. And all
that information is on our website stabletoken dot Yo dot gov.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Everything we do is public, it's all available.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Fabulous Anthony Apollo, Executive Director of the Wyoming Stabletoken Commission.
Thanks for a great conversation, Thanks for your brief answers,
and we'll keep up with you and maybe get you
back once.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
It's launched in a few months.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
A couple months sounds good, Thank you. Ros.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
All right, we'll take a quick break. We'll be right
back on KOA. Anybody else get it.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
I want you to text us at five sixty six
nine zero and see if you can explain why Dragon
played that particular that particular bumper music.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
And what will they.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Win Dragon if they can explain why you picked that.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Bumping you Chris high five if they ever see me
out there? All right, very very good.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Hi. By the way, I haven't said hello to you,
even though you've been with me for twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Did you take your trash out?
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Uh h.
Speaker 5 (45:15):
No, I haven't asked in a few weeks. No, and
that's why I'm so up. No I I don't think
I'm supposed to today. Okay, here's a headline from the
Denver Is that former Colorado parental evaluator's deception costs her
four year prison sentence. Now that's kind of a longer
article than it actually needed to be, but I'm going
(45:35):
to share a little with you because it's just such
a wacky story. So there's this woman named Shannon McShane,
who also apparently goes by the name Shannon Terrell, who
has been serving as a court appointed parental evaluator, and
(45:56):
the you know, the the end of the story is
that she need guilty to three criminal counts relate and
I'm quoting from the Denver Gazette, related to an elaborate
fraud on Colorado's family court system. And she's been sentenced
to four years in jail, and she and she certainly
deserves it. But I just want to kind of skip
(46:17):
ahead a little bit to some of the details of
this story, and.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I just have a couple of minutes here.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
But the judge imposed a sentence of two years in
prison on two felony charges, twelve another year for a
misdemeanor perjury count. Those are consecutive, which means you serve
one and then you serve the next. Judges can also
order sentence to be sentences to be served concurrently. So
let's say you get two two year sentences, but if
(46:43):
you run them concurrently, you're serving them both at the
same time. You can be out in two years. Put
aside parole for a second, and if you're running them consecutively,
you'd be out in four years right. He also ordered
three ordered three years of parole. YadA, YadA, YadA. She
is one of three former parental evaluators now bar by
the Colorado Court Administrator's Office from accepting court appointments. Skipping
(47:04):
ahead a little bit, and as she was eventually charged
with fifteen different criminal accounts, mostly based on that she
in order to get her license in Colorado, she provided
or claimed a degree from the University of Hertfordshire in England,
but she didn't actually have that degree. She claimed to
(47:26):
have essentially a PhD in psychology from this English university.
She did not have that degree, but she used that
fake doctorate to get a Colorado license as a psychologist.
She used those licenses to get a job as a
court appointed evaluator who made custody recommendations in high conflict
custody disputes. Skipping ahead, Now, there's some very bizarre cases here.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
A guy named Chad Coolham k U L L H E. M.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
Is a parent and I guess he was getting divorced
and in some kind of you know, high tension custody situation,
ended up being shaddled with this woman as the evaluator.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
He told the sentencing judge that he feared he would
lose both his.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Job and custody of his two boys, then aged three
and six, and an email to one of the lawyers
in the custody dispute McShane, who's the lady who's going
to jail?
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Compared Coulam to a murderer. She claimed to have counseled.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
That she said had put his victims through a wood chepper.
The indictment alleged that McShane also wrote a letter to
the then Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, falsely
accusing mister Coolam of producing a multitude of questionable documents
during the custody dispute. She also falsely claimed that Culim
had showed up at her house. Culam said McShane had
(48:44):
also sought to isolate him, telling him that he should
leave his new girlfriend, should stop talking with friends and
family members. She falsely called him a gas lighter and alienator,
a classic abuser, when actually he was the protective parent.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
He added that she exacerbated his two.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Boys PTSD, leaving them shaken after one painful meeting with him. Quote,
she has affected countless families, people too scared or too.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Defeated to speak up.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
The psychological damage she's inflicted is real, it's deep, and
in many cases, it's permanent. A tearful McShane apologized to
mister Coolham and told the judge, no matter what the
sentence is, I've already given myself a life sentence. The
judge did not go easy on her, basically gave her
close to as much as as he could have. Can
you imagine being insane and evil enough to be an
(49:33):
evaluator in custody disputes and just making stuff up to
hurt particular people for no obvious reason and ruining or
almost ruining their lives. I actually wish this person could
go to jail for longer, but at least she's gonna
have to live with it for the rest of her life.
Why you played that last bumper music and one person
(49:54):
got the song right?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (49:56):
But yeah, yeah, nobody really got it. That's okay, Yeah,
that's all right, that's all right as long as one
person gets it. And if that one person happened to
be you, Yeah, that's fine, okay.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
I've did two different sets of back to back interviews,
so a total of four interviews about Douglas County Home
Rule and each time I had one guest who was
in favor of it one guest against it. The first pair,
and again I didn't have him at the same time,
(50:31):
I wasn't really looking for a debate. I had one
and then the other in the same segment of the show.
The first time was doug CO Commissioner Abe Layden in
favor and former doug CO Commissioner Laura Thomas against, And
then the second time was current Douglas County Commissioner George
Teel in favor and former Douglas County Commissioner and former
(50:54):
mayor of Castle Rock Steve Boand against.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
And I I realize election.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Day is today, and most people who are going to
vote in this election have already voted, because you've had
your ballots for some weeks now, and you've probably either
made up your mind or made up your mind not
to vote, or whatever. And I've been hesitant to take
a position on this, in part because I don't live
in Douglas County and I didn't have a strong opinion
(51:21):
about it, and I just keep I keep thinking about,
especially that last set of back to back interviews George
Teele and Steve Boland, and I think that it's my
job to give you my opinion.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
And even though I don't vote.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
In Douglas County, and I'm explicit about that, right, So
my take on this is, if I did vote in
Douglas County, here's how I would vote and why. And again,
I realize today is election day. People have had their
ballots for weeks, and probably almost everybody who would vote, oh,
the TVs are coming back on Dragon. Probably almost everybody
(52:01):
who would vote in this has already voted. But I
want to tell you that if I lived in Douglas County,
I would vote no.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
I would vote no on home rule. And I put
all this in my blog.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
Note today at Rosskiminsky dot com if you want to
check it out, if you want to read it, if
you want to share it with anybody. And again I
understand that it's really kind of too late to make
a difference, and I don't even assume that I do
make a difference. I just tell you what I think,
and you know, maybe it impacts some people and maybe
it doesn't. But I just want to share with you
because I actually think it's a very interesting conversation, a
(52:35):
very interesting question, just separate from Doug co because if
Douglas County does go down this road, you might see
a lot of other counties going down this road as well.
And before I give you my various reasons, let me
just say I don't necessarily have an act to grind
against home rule. I just don't know enough to say
(53:01):
that home rule is a good idea. So I'm not
for it. I'm not against it, but this particular vote,
I would vote no. And here's why I'm going to
give you a few reasons. So the process this time,
especially for such a big decision, I think was rushed,
and it seemed to me to be intentionally hidden from
(53:21):
the public.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
And I think it was done. I think it was very.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Poorly done by the supporters, by the county commissioners, who
are the people really driving this kind of like they
just they intended to jam it down people's throats, and
I didn't like it.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
I didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
The potential benefits of home rule for a county. So remember,
there can be home rule counties and there can be
home rule municipalities also known as cities or towns or something.
Home rule for cities gives cities a lot more flexibility
then home rule for counties gives counties.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
So I believe that.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
The supporters of home rule have significantly overstated the benefits
of home rule. They have said, and I'm not saying
that the guests on my show have said this, at
least not on my show, but as I've been reading about.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
It, and I think I actually.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
Do think this came up on my show the first
time I talked about it, it was claimed that being
a home rule county would allow residents of Douglas County
to not have to abide by at least some state
firearm laws. That's not true. It is just simply not
(54:47):
true period. Some people are saying that the county would
no longer have to abide by the state's ridiculous tencent
bag tax plastic bag tax, or maybe it's just a
bad it's just a bad not plastic bag now any bag.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Ten cent bag tacks in that.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
As a home rule county, you wouldn't have to abide
by that anymore. I'm pretty sure that's not true. When
George was on the show, he said it allow it
would allow the county sheriff to engage in much more
cooperation with ICE.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
At least that's what I.
Speaker 1 (55:25):
Took George to me with ICE and do more working
with the FEDS to get illegal alien criminals and maybe
illegal alien non criminals out of Douglas County. Now, for
the record, I don't like Colorado's sanctuary laws, but being
(55:46):
a home rule county, I do not believe will give the.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
We'll give the sheriff.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Any significant amount of additional flexibility to work with ICE,
maybe none at all, may just a tiny bit, but
not enough to really matter. And when I asked the
county sheriff about that.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
He said, look, I don't think it'll.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Give me a lot of more flexibility either. It is
a very complex issue, though, and I can't say I
know everything about it yet, so that's a fair answer.
But he doesn't think it's going to give him more flexibility.
And so if the proponents of Douglas County home rule
are going to lead with proposed benefits of home rule
(56:28):
that aren't true, I think they're not true. I could
be wrong, but it makes me very skeptical of the
whole thing. Here's another one for you. You know, there
are two home rule counties in Colorado right now, not
counting Denver because Denver is also a city or Broomfield,
(56:49):
which is also a city. So there are two counties
that are only counties that are home rule. One is
a conservative county and that is Weld County. And one
is a liberal and that's northeast Colorado, Greeley and such.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Not far northeast, but you get the head more north.
And then the other is.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Pitkin, which is a liberal county. That's where Aspen is.
When do you think, so there's only two. When do
you think the last home rule county in Colorado the
most recent home rule county in Colorado became a home
rule county? When do you think that was? And I'll
(57:29):
tell you Weld was first and Pitkin was second. So
Pitkin was the.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Most recent county to become a home rule county. What
year was that? Dragon? What year were you born? Eighty three? Okay,
so you were.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
You were already five years old when Pitkin County.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Became home rule. Welld County was before that.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
The last county to become a home rule county in
the state of Colorado was in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (58:02):
Both of them are in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
So what that makes me wonder is if this is
such a fabulous idea. Why haven't other counties done it?
In almost fifty years, no other county.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Has done it.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
It sure does make me think there's something going on
there where. There must have been dozens or hundreds of
county commissioners who have looked at it and decided not to.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
So for me, that's a lot of concern.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
And I'm not saying there's no good answer for the
Douglas County commissioners. There might be a fine explanation for
why this should be done, but I haven't heard it.
And I will say that Colorado's generally and yours truly,
tend to vote no on things we don't understand, and
(58:55):
I think most Douglas County voters will not understand it,
and that's why I think this thing won't pass. It
wouldn't surprise me if it's not even close. We'll see now.
The two interviews, the two conversations that really struck me
were the second two with George Teel, who's for it,
(59:17):
and Steve Bowend, who's against it. And what's interesting about
it is those two conversations both moved me the same direction,
which is to say against it. The guy who's for
it moved me against it, and the guy who's against
it moved me against it.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
We'll deal with the easier one first.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Steve Bowend, former county commissioner in Douglas County and former
mayor of Castle Rock, lifelong Republican member of the Republican
National Committee, said that he actually signed petitions in order
to get this on the ballot just because maybe it's
an interesting thing and maybe it's worth doing, and was
open to it. He turned against it after feeling that
(59:55):
the process by which it was rolled out was just
so flawed. But more important than that for me was
that he said that when he was county commissioner, they
looked at home rule twice and both in Douglas County,
same county. They looked at it twice and decided it's
(01:00:17):
too much work, it's too much money for too little benefit,
and we don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
So that moved me against it. And then the other
thing that moved me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Against it was talking to George, who was for it,
And I asked George near the end of our conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
I asked him.
Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
What happens if the public votes know on this thing
because they don't understand it, they don't like the process.
They think you didn't talk about it with the public enough,
you didn't educate the public enough. They think the rollout
has been bad, so they vote no. What then, And
George said to me, and this is an exact quote, now,
(01:00:56):
no problem, We'll do the vote again in November if
it fails now.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Because there's been some objection to doing this.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
In a special election that tends.
Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
To have very low turnout, where you want to do.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Something that is going to have permanent impact on an
entire county, you know, some people have said, do it
in a November election, a bigger election where more people
are participating. So George said, no problem, we'll do the
vote again in November. All right, I get that, But
then he added this. He added this, And this was
more along the lines of, okay, what if it fails
(01:01:33):
now and it fails again in November. And this was
the I didn't ask that question explicitly, but this was
clearly George's train of thought because he kept going. He said,
and there's a quote, again, not a paraphrase. We'll keep
doing it until, quite frankly, the people of Douglas County
feel comfortable with the conversation. So that's a quote from George,
(01:01:57):
and so now back to me, not you George. On
the one hand, I appreciate the commitment to the position
if he really seems to believe in it. On the
other hand, something rubs me the wrong way about a
county commissioner or any other politician basically saying and now
I'm translating what George said into how I heard it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
No matter how many.
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Times the people of this county vote against my idea,
I'm not going to try to I'm not going to
stop trying to push.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It on him. I really didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
So I think home role may or may not be
a good idea. I think that if it were a
good idea, we would have had at least one county
do this more recently than nineteen seventy eight. Wait, I
said you were five. I said it backwards. You were
(01:02:51):
five years from being born.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
I'm sorry. They told me there would be no math.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
You were five years from being born Dragon the last
time a county became a home rule county in the state.
If home rule were a good idea, that wouldn't be true.
If home rule were so obviously a good idea, some
county would have become a home rule county during Dragon's lifetime,
(01:03:16):
and that has not happened. So there's some evidence there
that a lot of people have looked at this and
decided against it. And the role out by the Douglas
County Commissioners has been very poorly done and almost seems
to have been secretive, and some people supporting it, I'm
not going to say directly the commissioners, but some people
at least supporting it have lied about the benefits. And
(01:03:40):
so you've put together this whole thing where I don't
trust the process trying to bring it to us, and
the evidence from history suggests that it might not be
a good idea, And therefore, if I lived in Douglas County,
I would vote no. I didn't mean to spend that
long on that, but it's a big thing for that county,
and it may come up in other counties, and hopefully
if it comes up in other counties, maybe they'll do
(01:04:02):
a better job explaining it to their population. But like
I said, not one county has done it since five
years before Dragon was born. Now there's another election going
on today, not in Colorado, but nevertheless very interesting, and
this is the mayoral primary for New York City. Wow,
(01:04:26):
A crazy thing, right, A crazy thing. So this primary,
and I think I think it is an all party primary.
I don't think it's separated by parties. This says Democratic
New York City mayoral primary. But I thought Eric Adams,
(01:04:47):
the current mayor, was running as an independent.
Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
I'm not sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter because very very very.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Unlikely that a Republican has any shot in New York City, right,
It's probably a one percent chance or something, maybe not
even that. So the two major candidates are Andrew Cuomo,
the former governor of New York who at least borderline disgraced.
He had to resign do the accusations of womanizing and
you know, sexual harassment and all this stuff. Plus plus
(01:05:16):
he's the guy who required nursing homes in his state
to accept people who were COVID positive.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Going into the nursing homes.
Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
And it's unclear how many people he got killed by
forcing people who had COVID, elderly people who had COVID
to go into the nursing homes and spread it to
other people. Now, COVID I'm sure would have been spreading
in the nursing homes anyway. From employees and so on,
but you know he did this. Janis Dean, the weather
person on Fox News, is forever furious with Andrew Cuomo.
(01:05:50):
She believes that Andrew Cuomo got one of her parents
killed by doing that. So Andrew Cuomo a weak candidate,
but sort of an establish blishment candidate, and as Democrats
go these days, a relative moderate. I know that sounds crazy,
but the guy that Andrew Cuomo is up against.
Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
His name is Zoron Mom Domini, Mom, Donnie m A M.
D Ani.
Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
He is of Indian heritage, but born in Africa and
raised here.
Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
And he is a socialist.
Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Now I don't mean he's to the left of me
and therefore I'm calling him a socialist. I mean he
is a socialist and proud of it, overt about it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
He's also an.
Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Anti semi and this has come up in some interviews
lately where he sort of changes the definition of intofada,
which is the Palestinian effort to kill as many Jews
as possible, and he changes what the word means and says, well,
they just wanted their freedom right. So, but he wants
things like all public transportation to be free. He thinks
(01:06:54):
groceries are expensive, so he wants he wants the government
to run the grocery store in New York City. He
wants to increase the tax on the income tax on
anyone who makes over a million dollars by another two percent.
Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
New York is already very high.
Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
He wants to increase the corporate tax in New York
to eleven and a half percent, just for the city.
We're not talking about the state, not talking about the nation,
just for the city.
Speaker 6 (01:07:26):
He is.
Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
As wild eyed a socialist lunatic as you can imagine. Now,
he's smart. He's smart and stupid at the same time.
You can tell when he talks that he has a brain.
He is just that everything he believes is wrong. Imagine,
imagine a smarter and more socialist version of AOC. It's
(01:07:52):
like that really really bad and embedding markets right now,
that guys in the lead. Now, just a couple of
days ago, just a couple of days ago, Cuomoa was way, way,
way in the lead in betting markets, like three to one,
(01:08:13):
seventy something percent to twenty something percent, just a couple
of just two days ago, two days ago. Then a
poll came out that shows Mam Donnie in the lead,
and as I look at it right now on a
website kelshe dot com, Mom Donnie is up ten, like
roughly fifty six to forty six, that kind of thing,
fifty five forty five on Andrew Cuomo in the betting odds.
Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
The thing to keep in mind here is this is
a ranked choice election, and there's a whole bunch of candidates.
So what's gonna happen is neither one of these guys
is gonna get fifty percent in the first round, So
then the person who comes in last gets knocked out
and those votes get reallocated, on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
So what's gonna end up happening is.
Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
If these two Mam Donni in Cuomo or close in
the first round, then the person who wins is gonna
end up being the person who gets the most second
choice votes.
Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
In other words, I'm.
Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Voting for Dragon, all right, Dragon's not gonna win, He's out.
My second choice after voting for Dragon was Mom Donnie
or Cuomo. Whoever gets more of those second choice votes
is gonna end up being the winner. We might not
know the outcome for a few days, but the election
(01:09:33):
is today, and I just wanted to make you aware
of it. And if this guy, Mom Donnie wins, he
will probably be the second worst mayor in America after
the mayor of Chicago, but he might be the worst
mayor in America. And it will be very very interesting
to see if he wins, to see the damage that
(01:09:56):
is done to New York and the damage that that
does to socialist can It's an everywhere or especially with
the betting odds showing him in the lead now, it
would be very interesting if he loses and show that
even New Yorkers are not this dumb. The question is
are the betting odds any better than regular polls or
do you just like them? I definitely like them, and
(01:10:22):
I think that generally betting odds are better than polls,
but not as much better as they used to be
a lot of people and I could be wrong on this, Okay,
this is just empirical. This is from my own observing
of these things, and I've been watching betting markets since way, way,
way before they were popular, since way before really any
(01:10:43):
other many other people heard about him, basically since they
were small experimental things on university websites, and back then
like fifteen twenty years ago, they did a lot better
than poles. And you would expect in general that if
somebody is going to stake money on an outcome, they're
(01:11:06):
going to tell the truth of what they really expect
versus and this is especially true lately and especially among
Trump supporters. There's no downside in lying to a polster,
and a polster, in fact, it can be kind of
a sport, and many Trump supporters in particular either refuse
to talk to polsters or lie to them just for fun,
(01:11:30):
and that can certainly change how a poll looks. Right,
you can be planning on voting Republican, you tell a
poster you're going to vote Democrat or whatever, and if
you're only doing a poll of let's say eight hundred people,
and even ten of them lie like that.
Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
You could have a poll that's really wrong.
Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
So if and now this is key, if you believe
that the people who are placing bets.
Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
In the betting market betting on what.
Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
They actually believe, and if true beliefs have some likelihood
of coming true because they represent something about how that
person's going to vote, plus how that person.
Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Thinks other people are going to vote.
Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Because they're betting money on it, then you would expect
the betting odds to be a little more accurate than poles,
and again, in general they have been. With Trump, the
betting odds have been more accurate than the polls. In
twenty sixteen, for example, the betting odds had Trump losing.
Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
An he won, but they had him losing.
Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
By a very very very small amount, whereas the polls
had him losing by a big amount and then he
ended up winning by a very very small amount. So
when you think about it that way, the polls weren't
wrong by much like is there really an important difference
when I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Sorry the betting odds not the polls?
Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Is there really an important difference when the betting odds
are fifty one forty nine one way and then it
ends up coming out fifty and a half forty nine
and a half the other way. It's a very very
small error, and people will look at it and think
no versus yes, and that it's.
Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
A huge error.
Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
And it's a binary thing. It's either yes or no,
and if you had it wrong, you got it wrong.
But it's not like that. It's not like that. But
here's what I think has happened, and again, this is
just me watching this stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
I haven't read reports about it.
Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
I haven't gone to look at analysis of this, and
I'm sure that there are people actually doing this research,
but I have not read it. And it seems to
me that what's happened in recent years is you have
a lot of people trading in these political betting markets
based on what they hope rather than what they think.
(01:13:52):
And you know, this is going to sound like I'm
being sarcastic, but I'm not. I think there's a certain
amount of participation in these betting markets. It's of a
similar mindset to the person who will go buy a
pair of Trump sneakers. Now there's a little difference because
(01:14:13):
when you bet in the betting market, the person you're
betting on isn't getting any of your money. And when
you're buying the Trump sneakers or the Trump watch or
whatever other goofy nonsense Trump is selling, he's gonna get
a few cents of it, or a dollar of it,
or a few dollars whatever, And a lot of those
people want to give Trump their money. So it is
a little different, but it is still a sign of
(01:14:34):
support more than it or as much as it is
a sign of who you're gonna vote for now. Obviously,
if you're gonna by Trump sneakers, you're voting for Trump.
But I think a lot of people who jump into
these political betting markets are doing it because they hope
a thing happens, rather than they think a thing happens.
(01:14:54):
And I think that has made the betting markets a
little bit less accurate. So we'll see if you the
betting odds right now or I mean, this isn't really
that close with this socialist lunatic Mom Donnie ahead of
Andrew Cuomo by ten or eleven points.
Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
And it's really quite a massive thing.
Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
And it came because one poll came out that showed
Mom Donnie ahead. Remember, though, this is rank choice and
it's can be complicated. If you made me bet on it,
I guess I would bet on Cuomo, but I wouldn't
bet a lot. Who knows New York is a very
left wing place, but New York City is also a
(01:15:33):
very Jewish place, and Mom Donnie is clearly an anti Semite.
Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
This is not a close call. He is an anti Semite.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
I'd I don't that's a big hill for him to climb.
The problem I'll just stick. I wasn't planning on talking
about this, but we got that listener question, so I'm
actually enjoying it.
Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
So the problem here, and.
Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Actually, in a way, this reminds me of the last
three president elections, the three elections with Trump. So think
about this, Trump versus Hillary, Trump versus Biden, Trump versus
Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
All six of those candidates.
Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
By which I mean both candidates in each election, and
I realized one of them is the same guy or
in three elections. But I'm all right, So we'll say
all four of those candidates in all three elections were
weak candidates. They're all unpopular. Trump was unpopular in every election.
Hillary was unpopular enough to lose to someone as unpopular
as Trump. Biden was unpopular but not unpopular enough to
(01:16:35):
lose to Trump, and then Kamala Harris was unpopular enough
to lose to Trump, who was unpopular.
Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
They're all weak, but one of them is gonna win.
Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
Right. It's like you get the two worst teams in
the NFL, right, and the over under in the game
might be thirty seven because these teams are so freaking bad,
but one of them is gonna win. Maybe they're both
oho and seven teams. One of them is gonna come
out of it one and seven. And that's like this,
and and I feel a little bad for New York
(01:17:08):
that their choices are a lunatic socialist and a disgraced,
very difficult to like Andrew Cuomo who killed old people.
Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
And sexually harassed women.
Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
These are these are my choices, These are my choices.
And a socialist and uh and uh, sexual harasser who mishandled,
who mishandled COVID. Actually that sounds a lot like Donald Trump,
doesn't it? A sexual harasser who mishandled COVID in a
significant way. But look, Trump was a sexual harasser who
(01:17:46):
mishandled COVID, and he won, not not the not the
next one, but later he won. Andrew Cuomo could win.
I don't know. The betting odds right now are saying,
Mom Donnie, I'm not trading this mark.
Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I'm not making a bet on it.
Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
If I were gonna make a bet on it, I
would bet on Cuomo, but I wouldn't bet more than
two dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
New York voters are crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
I do think that if Mom Donnie ends up losing,
I think it's gonna be because of some of this
recent stuff about his anti Semitism.
Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
But we'll see. I don't know if we'll know the
answer tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Oh yeah, all right, yeah, So you're looking ahead, you're
looking back.
Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
I know, I should be ready for that. You should
be ready for that.
Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
I mean earlier today when you played Money Talks, that
was looking back at the previous segment too.
Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Yeah all right, all right, uh yeah, we'll see. We'll
see what happens on that, you know what.
Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
I have just a few minutes in this segment, So
I think this would be a perfect for this A
bit of a sad story, but also a also a
great story, by which I mean when somebody passes.
Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Away, it is a sad thing most of the time.
Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
But if the person who passed away lived a long
and remarkable life, that's a lot less said. And you
may recall that some weeks ago I shared with you
a list that I don't remember what website I saw
it on, but maybe it was Axios of the richest
(01:19:18):
people in Colorado.
Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
And of course Phil.
Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Anshoots is number one, and I think John Malone is
number two. And you look at the industries that these
people are in and it's mostly things like telecommunications, oil
and hedge funds, that sort of thing. And then there's
one guy in the middle of the list, like fifth
or sixth richest guy in Colorado, James or Jim or
Jimmy to his friends, Loprino and you know, like where
(01:19:45):
it says what do they do to make their money?
You know again, hedge fund they're telecom or oil.
Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
For Jim Loprino, cheese is it cheese? Billionaire? And I
and what I talked about at the time was was.
Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
What a remarkable thing to be so good at making
something that, in theory, is not difficult to make. Right,
This is not like making a fifteen nanamin or semiconductor chip.
Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
We're talking about cheese.
Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Imagine how good you have to be at making cheese,
both in terms of the quality of the product and
the efficiency of your process, that you completely dominate the
market for. And in this case, what we're talking about
is actually pizza cheese. And Forbes had him worth two
(01:20:40):
point one billion dollars. And I wanted to let you
know that Jim Loprino passed away last Thursday at the
age of eighty seven. He was very, very private I
was actually talking with a.
Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
Relative of his. I won't say who.
Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
Somebody named Loprino and said, would you like to come
on the show and talk about your relative. I'm not
going to say what the relation is because that might
give away who the person is. And the person said,
you know what, Jim was very very private in his life,
and I want to honor that now, and so I
appreciate the ask.
Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
But no, but no.
Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
From this is from actually Denver post piece. Loaprino wasn't
one to work the social circuit, grant media interviews or
even allow his photo to be taken, but he took
the Loprino Foods Company now known as Loprino, from a
small local supplier of handmade cheeses to the world's largest
producer of mozzarella. Anybody who orders home delivered pizza has
(01:21:47):
likely tasted Loprino's handiwork multiple times, especially the stretch in
cheese that he helped create and for fitness fanatics wh
wouldn't dare put a slice to their lips. The company
is also a leading producer of way pery, a liquid
buy product of making mozzarella that was considered a waste
product until Jim tepped its value as a protein source
(01:22:09):
for everything from infant formula at a post workout smoothies.
His dad, Mike Loprino Senior, came to the US from Potenza,
Italy in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
Jim was one of five children.
Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
He worked various jobs, and then Mike Senior started a
family grocery store in nineteen fifty after retiring from whatever
work he did. It was on thirty eighth Avenue in
Shoshone Street, in the heart of what was then Little
Italy in Denver, And just in the interested time, I'm
basically gonna kind of skip ahead here, but bottom line
(01:22:42):
is that Loprino Foods is now the cheese supplier to Domino's,
Little Caesar's, Papa John's Pizza Hut, and even stuff you
buy this supermarket like hot pockets and other frozen meals
(01:23:03):
that use mozzarella. Some people called him the Willy Wonka
of cheese. Forbes ranked him as the sixth wealthiest person
in Colorado despite having only a high school education.
Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
He was an interesting guy. Obviously I never.
Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Had a chance to meet him, but just based on
this story, quite an interesting guy kept himself private, so
I would just say to his family and friends and
to all of you.
Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
I suppose Jim Laprino rest in peace. So what what?
Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
Hey?
Speaker 5 (01:23:38):
You have me concerned as to you whether or not
you understand the reference this time around, I'm sure you hope.
Speaker 2 (01:23:44):
I don't know. I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
I want to take a moment here, actually, for those
who were listening at this time. Yesterday, I had a
retired US Army National Guard major general and former member
of Congress on the show talking about the Iran Israel
US stuff, and I want to I want to correct
(01:24:09):
him on a couple of things. He's not here, not,
you know, to stand up for himself, but I want
to correct him. And I want to just comment because
I didn't yesterday at least not well. I did a little,
but I want to do it more forcefully. And I
will note that I knew going to that interview that
he was a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
He served as in Congress as a Democrat.
Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
And I there is always something a little odd to
me when military officers are a Democrat. I don't really
get it. And it's not that they don't they can't be.
It's just I just, over the course of my life,
I really haven't thought of him that way, and especially
with today's Democratic Party, which is.
Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
So far left, like.
Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
Like, who's more disappointing than Jason Crowe? Right a Bronze
Star awarded Army ranger turned into like left.
Speaker 2 (01:25:03):
Wings some I just I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
I didn't serve in the military, but I lived on
and around military basis my entire childhood because both my
parents were Navy officers and so, and we didn't really
talk a lot of politics. I guess I would describe
both of my parents as moderate Republicans, and so maybe
I just projected that on everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
But you know, when you've.
Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
Got a party these days that's full of people that
don't love the country, I just I continue to find
it weird, even though it's probably more my problem than
their problem. I just continue to find it weird when
you get these military officers, or not just officers, anybody
who's a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Anyway. I don't object him being democrat. I just find
it odd. So two things.
Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
One of them I kind of corrected him on yesterday,
but I want to address again. I'll get to that
in a second. The other one is just a straight
up correction. He said that Iran and Russia share a border,
and that just came up in the context of how
Russia would play in all this. But Iran and Russia
do not share a border now. They each border the
(01:26:10):
Caspian Sea, right, Russia's on one side and Iran's on
the other side of part of the CASPI and C.
I don't call that sharing a border. I don't know
if you do, but I don't think most people would
call that sharing a border because it's not a land border.
You cannot walk from Iran into Russia. That's what I
call sharing a border. What we have with Mexico or
(01:26:31):
what we have with Canada, that's sharing a border. So
he got that wrong. I actually emailed him about it
and he said, yeah, you're right, there's the Caspian C.
Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
I think you know.
Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
What I had in mind was that Iran border is
the former Soviet Union, and that's true to former Soviet
Socialist republics, but that's not the same thing as bordering
Russia now. So I did want to get that correction
out there. And then the other thing I just wanted
to address again because I think it's really wrong and
I really didn't like it, and you know, I sometimes
I'm a little too polite in my radio interviews when
(01:27:05):
somebody says something I disagree with. Sometimes it's probably politeness
that I just sort of let it go, but also
it's because I realize that my listeners are smart, and
I expect you to notice things like that, even if
if well, when I say like that, I'll explain it
to you in a second again, and I expect you
to recognize it and you make your own thing of it,
and you don't need me to point out absolutely everything,
(01:27:27):
because you're already smart. You know, that's why you're here.
This is a show that smart people listen to. And
some things I just don't need to elaborate on. And
then there are sometimes where I do challenge something, correct something,
(01:27:48):
and in some of those cases I probably could be
more aggressive about it than I am. And I wonder
about that. From yesterday. I think I basically played it right,
actually because I did comment, But it was when the
General suggested that the reason that Israel and the United
(01:28:12):
States had attacked Iran was that the political leaders of
the two countries, Benjamin Netan Yahoo and Donald Trump, respectively,
had low poll numbers, and therefore they started a war
do you remember a movie back in the day called
Wag the Dog? And that was the idea a politician
(01:28:33):
doing badly, so he starts a war to help his
poll numbers so we can win an election, if I
remember correctly.
Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
But that's certainly the concept of Wag the Dog, and
I used that term.
Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
I asked him, general, are you suggesting some kind of
wag the Dog here thing where they're starting a war
to help themselves politically?
Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
And he made some comment along the lines.
Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Of, well, it's worth considering, and I said, I really
don't think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
I said, Trump's numbers are.
Speaker 1 (01:28:59):
About as good does Trump's numbers have ever been as
long as he's been in politics.
Speaker 2 (01:29:04):
His numbers are close to their all time high.
Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
And he doesn't care about his numbers very much anyway,
especially because he's not going to run for office again,
but also because he doesn't trust polling and doesn't believe
in it, so it doesn't really he doesn't care.
Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
He's not going to start a war over that.
Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
And Benjamin Etna, who has spent an entire political career
looking for an opportunity to defang the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which for as long as they've been in existence, has
been hell bent on destroying his country and trying to
kill Americans and Israelis and Jews wherever they can, not
(01:29:41):
just over there, but around the world. In South America,
you had Iranian operatives kill Jews. And Benjamin Etnia, who
was built for this moment, And yes, his political fortunes
were already kind of weak and then absolutely cratered after
October seventh. But he's the leader of a country that
just had twelve hundred people murdered. If you were to
(01:30:03):
scale that up to be the same thing as the
United States of America in terms of the percentage of population,
it would be like if there was a terrorist rampage
into this country and twenty or thirty thousand people were
killed in three thousand people were taking hostage, and the
General is going to suggest that maybe he attacked Iran
(01:30:24):
because of his own low polling numbers at home. Now, again,
I did challenge him on it yesterday at the time,
so I don't think I played it wrong, But I
just I don't know. It's been bothering me all night.
I don't I don't mean, and you know I am
from time to time self critical and I will come
(01:30:46):
on the show and tell you I should have done
that better or I got that wrong. This I think
I basically got it right, but it was still bothering
me so much. Not bothering me that I did something wrong,
but bothering me that a guy who was a member
of Congress and the head of the National Guard of
Illinois and a retired major general would say something like
that to argue or you know what it is.
Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
It's like it's like.
Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
The unbelievably annoying thing that Tucker Carlson does, where he'll
ask some insane question, implying some insane and obviously wrong thing,
and defend himself by saying, well, I'm just asking questions.
It's nonsense, and what the what the general did on
(01:31:33):
the show was was nonsense. And I think I've been
thinking about this because I ended the interview as I
usually do.
Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
It's almost a matter of habit, right, I'm It's.
Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Almost a kind of thing I say without even thinking
about it all that much, especially with higher profile guests
or very interesting guests. You know, I'll say I look
forward to having you back on the show. I just
say that as a matter of habit. I say, thank you,
I say, I look forward to having you back, But
you know what, I think I'm not gonna.
Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Have him back.
Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
I don't think i'm gonna tell him that. I'm not
gonna waste my time with that. But every once in
a while, someone says or does something that I just
think is disqualifying. And I think for somebody who served
as a member of Congress and who served as a
general active duty in the Air Force when he was young,
and then thirty something years in the Army National Guard
(01:32:25):
and ended up leading the Army National Guard in his state,
for somebody like that to suggest that two leaders attacked
the most evil regime on Earth because their poll numbers
were low, I'm just I'm not having it. I'm not
(01:32:47):
having it, and I'm not going to have him back.
And I just wanted to tell you that you probably
didn't need to know, but I just wanted to. I
wanted to tell you that. What else, I got a
couple of local stories here that I wanted to share
with you. This next question I'm going to ask you
is also I feel like I'm caveating a lot of
things today because I'm going into things that feel like
they should have some kind of sarcasm at the end,
(01:33:09):
but they really don't.
Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
So my question as I go.
Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Into this is would you hold this against him or not?
And here's the headline from chalkbeat dot org. It's very
good website that does education reporting. And here's the headline
from chalkbeat. And this is from a little bit less
than a week ago. Denver School Board candidate Jeremy Harris
pleaded guilty to theft charges in Tennessee a candidate And
(01:33:36):
now that's the headline.
Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
And here's a little bit from the article.
Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
A candidate for Denver School Board as a criminal record
in Tennessee. Jeremy Harris, a mortician and Denver Public School's
father who is running to represent Northeast Denver's District four
on the board, pleaded guilty to two counts of felony
theft in twenty fourteen. According to documents obtained by Chalkbeat from.
Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
Shelby County Criminal Court.
Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
The theft happened when Harris worked at the MJ. Edwards
Funeral Home in Memphis in twenty twelve. Harris used the
company credit card machine to put two refunds onto his
personal debit card, one for eight thousand dollars and one
(01:34:21):
for ten thousand dollars. He was sentenced to three years
of confinement for one of those charges, in four years
for the other. Both sentences were suspended in favor of
five years of supervised probation, and he was also ordered
to pay back the eighteen thousand dollars. Harris once violated
(01:34:44):
his probation by moving to North Carolina without permission.
Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
But let's see, by twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
He had completed all the requirements of his probation. In
an interview, he said he made a mistake more than
a decade ago.
Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
He said, he quote.
Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
Took full legal and financial responsibility and paid back the
eighteen thousand dollars. And so now I'm going to get
to the point where I raised that non sarcastic question
with you, which is do you hold this against him? So,
he says, my record does not make me unfit for
public office. In fact, I believe it makes me uniquely
(01:35:23):
fit for leadership because I know what accountability means. I
have faced adversity, I've had to rebuild my life. I've
emerged stronger and more focused on service. He added, I
understand some voters may see this as disqualifying. I welcome
the chance to speak directly to voters. I'm not asking
(01:35:44):
for blind trust. I'm asking for a chance to prove
that people can grow, lead and serve with honor, even
if their story didn't start out perfectly. So this is
a serious question for you, and frankly, I don't know
the answer for myself. I don't vote in Denver. I
won't have an opportunity to vote for this guy. And
(01:36:06):
I neither favor nor oppose this guy at this time
because I don't know anything else about him other than
this story. I don't know what he believes about any
educational issues, so I'm only focused on this. But my
question for you is this, If somebody had that story
and was a candidate in an election that you.
Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
Can vote in, could vote in, would you hold it
against him?
Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
Would you say that is disqualifying or at least bad
enough that I'm going to pick someone else, or would
you go with his line that I'm going to paraphrase,
it's changed him and he's learned a lot, and therefore
it's actually made him better fit for public office.
Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
I really want to know what you think.
Speaker 1 (01:36:49):
Again, it's not going to change my vote because I
don't vote in this election, but I would really like
to know what you think at five six six nine zero.
Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Let me mention one other thing.
Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Actually, I just noticed that I hadn't read all the
way down to the bottom of the article before, and
this is near the end of the article. But I'm
gonna share this so that this man we're talking about again,
Jeremy Harris is his name. He is running in Denver
School District four against school board member Michelle Quaddlebaum, who
(01:37:20):
was an incumbent running for reelection. And I will tell
you Michelle Quaddlebaum is terrible, absolutely terrible left wing, all
the DEI nonsense, you know, prioritizing social justice over over
the quality of education, at least as far as I
can tell from everything I've ever heard from her. She's
(01:37:42):
welcome to disagree with me if she hears this or
hears about it. She's welcome to send me an email,
she's welcome to come on to the show. But this
guy Harris is running against her, and she's not quite
Tay Anderson, but she's bad in my opinion, and so
actually I want to support this guy. I don't vote,
I don't vote there, but I want to support anybody
(01:38:03):
who's going to try to take Michelle Quadlebaum out of
the school board. But I would like to know what
you think. Do you think that kind of thing? Keeping
in mind that, well, I was gonna say, he did
his time, he didn't go to jail, he did his probation,
he paid the money back. Is that disqualifying? Is it
neutral or is it a positive? You know, I spend
a lot of time on this show man not recently though,
(01:38:26):
talking about second chances, and I'm very much of a
believer in second chances, but not for everybody on everything,
And so I'd really like to know what you think.
One listener says, I'd say no second chances for the
fact that he committed those.
Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Crimes as an adult.
Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
Maybe if it had happened when he was a teenager,
but not as an adult.
Speaker 2 (01:38:45):
I don't believe he has changed. What else, it.
Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
Wouldn't be disqualifying for me, But it would depend on
the opposing candidate.
Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
Ross I didn't hear the first part, but.
Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Depending on the severity of the charges, I might forgive
a candidate for that. I would definitely forgive her apublic
and more than a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
I don't think it makes sense to me to determine
your level of forgiveness based on uh, based on which
party the person is. Like, if it's a Democrat, you're
not You're you're like already not going to vote for
then you're not already going.
Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
To vote I don't know. I I would, I would.
Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
I would respectfully ask you to reconsider that, right. I
would respectfully ask you to reconsider the question of whether
you're more likely to give a second chance to somebody
who is in your same political party versus someone who
isn't if all other factors about that person were the same.
(01:39:41):
I don't love that, and I would ask you to
reconsider it. Ross it would depend on who the other
candidates were. If the others were progressive socialists, I'd probably
feel more comfortable with him, the Denver school board guy with.
Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
The theft conviction.
Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
The conviction, the crime is not automatically disqualifying for me.
Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
That comment is tone deaf.
Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
How do you believe you're a better candidate, How do
you believe you're a better candidate for having a criminal history. Well,
I think his argument is he's been through these things,
he's seen the criminal justice thing, he's had to take
responsibility for doing something wrong, and maybe it'll make him
more Again, I'm putting words in his mouth now, but
maybe it would make him more responsive to voters, taking
(01:40:19):
accountability for whatever he does in office, rather than acting.
Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Like he's not accounting for it.
Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
And then another listener says, I think it should disqualify him.
Speaker 2 (01:40:29):
So, actually it's about it's about fifty to fifty. I
don't know if Mandy heard the question. You did not
hear the question. All right, that's allowed. I'm going to
run this by you real quick.
Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
So there's a guy running for Denver school Board who's
running against the very terrible Michelle Quadlebombs. And ten years ago,
as an adult, he stole in two different transactions eighteen
thousand dollars through fraudulent credit card receipt credit card refunds
onto his card that were customers receipts. I caught, He
(01:41:01):
served probation, he paid the money back, And my question
is is that disqualifying?
Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Tough one? Huh?
Speaker 7 (01:41:11):
I mean, no trouble since then at all? Right, what
has he said about it?
Speaker 3 (01:41:14):
Anything?
Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
He said?
Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
He said, I've seen adversity. I've had to I've had
to rebuild my life. I've taken responsibility, and I think
it will make me more accountable.
Speaker 7 (01:41:25):
I mean, I would prefer if he said, God, I
did a dumb thing, but I paid the price, yeah,
which is kind of a I mean a squishy way
of what he said.
Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 7 (01:41:32):
I think that I happen to believe in redemption, right.
I think that if people do the time and they
make restitution and everybody got made whole. Yeah, you know,
nothing since then? Eh, maybe he learned his lesson.
Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
Yeah, and that's where I am.
Speaker 7 (01:41:46):
I'm so bad that that's exactly did he kill someone?
Speaker 1 (01:41:51):
No? Yeah, all right, that's what I just said too
about Michelle quadlebook, exact same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
What you got.
Speaker 7 (01:41:57):
Coming up today, I'm talking to Jim Riggan. He is
the author of the Sin of Empathy.
Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
Have you heard about this? No? No, First of all,
it's fantastic. I totally agree with him.
Speaker 7 (01:42:06):
It has created a firestorm as he argues that we
are are having empathy weaponized against us when we should
be using compassion to help those that are in need
instead of Well, I'll explain today with him, and then
Rich kuga Haide popping in.
Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
We're talking a little pride.
Speaker 7 (01:42:22):
His Ambicus brief was actually named in this Scremmtti decision, So.
Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
We're going to talk about that as well. Yeah, so it's.
Speaker 7 (01:42:27):
Gonna one of those days of course, talking more about
all that.
Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
Yeah, all that, all that.
Speaker 1 (01:42:31):
So, but one of the things that sounds like you're
saying is understanding the difference between empathy and compassion.
Speaker 2 (01:42:36):
Correct.
Speaker 7 (01:42:37):
Yeah, Empathy is getting into someone's feelings with them. Compassion
is helping them get out of those feelings.
Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
Interesting, what time is that? That is at one o'clock?
Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
All right, everybody stick around for Mandy's fabulous show. I'm
actually out tomorrow, so I will talk with you on Thursday.
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.