07-01-25 - *FULL SHOW* Kohberger Plea; AI Power Demand; Trump v Musk

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I woke up at five fifty this morning, which is
shockingly late for me.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
That's all right. I feel pretty well rested now.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
I felt a little tired in recent days, but I'm
feeling good now. Oh let me tell you what I
one thing I did yesterday. So I've been having some
neck issues, and I've had some neck issues for many,
many years, not a new thing. And my doctor says,
probably time to get another MRI of my cervical spine
up by C five C six where we know I
have a disc issue, bulging disc issue. And I contacted

(00:32):
the imaging center scheduling people and they said they actually
had a cancelation at.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
The Littleton location. I was talking to them at like.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Five fifteen and I said, well, yeah, you have any
cancelations this evening? They said, yeah, actually we have one
at Littleton. So if you want to go over there,
you know, be there in about an hour and we
can get you taken care of today on your MRI.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
And I said, okay, let's do that. And I went
over there.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
And so here's the thing I'm obviously when you when
you go into these things, they.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Look at your insurance.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well I shouldn't say obviously maybe it's not obvious. They
they do some insurance verification and then they tell you
how much it'll be, and everybody's price is different based
on your insurance and so on. And so I gave
her my insurance information, and then I'm filling out paper,
well paperwork, digital paperwork on this tablet thingy, and then

(01:29):
I get to one of the last pages and it says,
all right, the cost for the MRI is AE thousand
and fifteen dollars and there's a one hundred and ninety
nine dollar insurance discount, so you're out of pocket is
eight hundred and sixteen dollars today. And I said, I'm
not doing that. That's ridiculous. Eight hundred and sixteen dollars.

(01:51):
This is negotiated by the insurance company, supposedly, not just
on my behalf, but what about on their behalf? Right now,
I haven't met my deductible yet, and I don't know
if I will meet my deductible this year. So eight
hundred and sixteen dollars out of my pocket.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
So then I asked the lady how much if I.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Don't go through insurance, if I just pay you as
she said, that's five hundred five hundred instead of eight
hundred and sixteen.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
So I did the five hundred.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Now, if I end up meeting my deductible later, I
might slightly regret that decision.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
But even if that happens, it's not gonna be too
bad financially.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
So put aside the math for a second, and I
just wonder, what on God's green Earth is the purpose
of this health insurance company. I realize, if you spend
a lot of money, you'll be glad that you have
it after you've spent many, many thousands of dollars, and
after you've spent thousands of dollars in premiums getting the
health insurance. Because really, health insurance these days not so

(02:48):
much insurance as it is prepaid healthcare.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's a very different thing.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's almost more like dental insurance, right, it's not really insurance.
I mean, imagine if your auto insurance cover new windshield wipers,
new tires, even even filling up your gas tank, like
things that everybody knows that everybody is gonna.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Have to do.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, you don't change your tires every year. But but
you get my point. So it's it's not really insurance
that is covering for unanticipated future events. Instead, it's pre
paid medical care where people end up paying huge amounts
of money upfront and then they feel like they're getting
their check up or whatever for free, but really they
just paid for it in advance, and it's coming out

(03:30):
of your your your pat well, your employer is paying
for it, and you're paying for some but anyway, So
then the employer contracts with some enormous you know, medical
insurance company. And there's a lot I won't even bother
naming them. There's lots of them, and you know the names,
and I don't want to pick on one, and I'm
not even gonna name mine because they really all have
the same problem. And these companies are supposed to negotiate

(03:52):
with the hospitals, with the doctors and come up.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
With the you know, better prices.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
You know, we're we're volume purchasers of you know, we've
got so many millions of people in our networks, and
if you want to get our people, which is lots
and lots of customers, you need to give us good pricing.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
At least that's how I think it should work.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
And maybe somebody can text me at five sixty sixty
nine zero and please explain to me, what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
But why is it?

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Why is it that if I'm going through insurance, which
is supposed to be negotiated rates, why is it sixty
percent more sixty five percent more than me just paying
for it? Now I realize that when I just pay
for it the in this case, the imaging center, and
I'm not holding it against them, the imaging center gets

(04:42):
paid right away, and that is worth something versus having
to wait.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
It's probably not thirty days.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
It's probably sixty or ninety or one hundred and twenty
days to get paid by the insurance company.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I get that, but.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
That doesn't explain that sixty five percent difference, and it
was It was really rather infuriating. And I wonder if
there's somebody listening right now who understands the health insurance
insurance market well enough to edumcate me on why the
cost of.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
A medical service?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
And it's not just this, but I've always found this
to be true when it comes to imaging.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Over and over and over again, I've had this same experience.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Why is the cost of medical imaging and I'm sure
other things too, higher if you go through your insurance
than if you pay for it yourself, because you just
can't explain the.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Size of the gap by.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
The benefit to the provider of getting paid right away
versus ninety days later. Right, I mean, maybe you think
a proper interest rate is sixteen percent an enormous rate,
So then the insurance company's price should be four percent
higher than the cast price. Why was it sixty five
percent higher? Don't understand? I mean, and I'm sure five

(06:02):
hundred dollars is too much anyway. I know the MRI
machines are expensive, but it was a fifteen minute procedure,
you know, you know, quote unquote fair price is probably
more like two hundred dollars. But it's a it's not
a very competitive market. It's sort of an oligopoly, so
there's a little competition, but not great competition.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
But still, I was just so infuriated.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
You know that my insurance company that if I run
it through insurance, it costs me sixty something percent more
than not.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, I just thought of one other thing.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And so normally I'm not even sure you're really allowed
or want to do can do self pay if you're
on insurance, But I did it anyway. And so here's
the other thing that just occurred to me. Maybe the
insurance company wants me to do it as self pay,
and because they don't want me to spend money that
will apply toward my deductible. Because once it starts applying

(06:56):
toward my deductible and toward my maximum cash out of pocket,
then they get closer to having spent to having to
spend money.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
So maybe by making it so expensive.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Maybe they're trying to get me to do it as
out of pocket. That's just one theory. I don't think
it's a great theory. I don't think it's because most
people won't even think of that. Most people will just say, oh,
I'm running it through my insurance. Here's the eight hundred dollars.
I don't know that. That was my evening yesterday. It
was a little bit frustrating.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
All right. When we come back, we obviously have.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
A lot to talk about regarding what's going on with
this big beautiful bill. Also have an interesting update for
members of the US military flying out of Colorado Springs
and other cities that have a large military presence.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I'll explain right after this.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
A vote in the US Senate on this so called
big beautiful bill that is very big nine hundred and
forty pages, And how do we know it's nine hundred
and forty pages? The Democrats forced the Senate clerks to
read the whole thing from Saturday night through.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
To Sunday morning or so.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
These poor clerks just had to stand there reading nine
hundred and forty pages of legally is why did the
Democrats do that. They did it in order to try
to create like twelve hours of time where they could
try to get out and message against the bill. And
I do have a lot to say about messaging in
a little bit. So just before I came in this morning,

(08:24):
I heard one report that said that they believe at
this point that Lisa Markowski is a yes.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
So if Lisa Markowski.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Is a yes, then it's basically certain that Republicans can
pass the bill. They will either pass it fifty one
forty nine or it will be fifty to fifty in
the Senate as a tie, and then Vice President JD Vance,
which I still can't believe I'm saying Vice President jd
Vance will cast the tie breaking vote and it would

(08:54):
pass fifty one to fifty. That does seem like the
most likely thing over that last break. Like in the past,
few minutes, I was texting with a senator who I
won't name, and he he said, getting I'm getting on

(09:16):
a flight at three pm Eastern, assuming we passed the
bill in the next hour. So he seems to think
they may pass this bill in the next hour. I
said to the senator, and again I won't name, I
won't name the senator, I said, this bill really sucks,
but no bill is probably even worse. And he said, yeah,

(09:39):
it's definitely a bleep sandwich, but it's a tax bill,
not a spending bill.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
And I also said that I really.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Respect Ron Johnson's position on this. The senator I'm texting
with is not Ron Johnson, and he said this senator said,
I like Ron a lot and respect what he did
to make it less poisonous. So that's from a Republican senator.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Who I won't name.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Anyway, it looks like this thing is getting close to
passage in the Senate.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
So then what then it goes back to the House
and the House and unless the House.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Is just going to accept the Senate bill as is,
which I think is unlikely, it will have to go
to what's called a conference. And the way these conferences
work is House leaders and Senate leaders a point, a
few negotiators and the House and Senate leaders go meet

(10:38):
and hash out these differences and modifications to the bill
and come up with the House Senate Conference bill that
they've all agreed on, and then both chambers vote on that,
and that last you know, if it gets to if
it gets to conference, then it's very likely to pass.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
When it comes out of out of conference.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Is this is a hard vote right now, but it
looks like they're going to pass. And then when it
gets to the House, this is going to be the
tricky thing.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Now.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
So in the House you have hardcore fiscal conservatives who
are the people who are correct, and then you have
squishy Republicans who are the people who are wrong. But
when you only have a three or four or five
seat majority, depending on the day and who shows up
to work and all that, you've got to pacify almost

(11:31):
every member of both groups.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
And that's not easy.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Partly, you pacify them by putting stuff in the bill
that makes everybody happy, but especially when half of the
people you're trying to satisfy have bad ideas, that makes
the bill worse.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
And the other way you pacify.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Them is by the president, and especially this president, who
has an incredible amount of power over his party, more
power over his party than I've ever seen any president
didn't have over his party, at least during my lifetime.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Maybe FDR did over the Democrats or something like that.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
That was a little before I was born.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
And so the other way you passify them is by
President Trump getting out and threatening them and saying you
better vote for this, or I'm going to fund a
primary challenge to you.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
But he hasn't really done much of that.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
He threatened to do that to Tom Tillis, but Tillus
decided he's not going to run anyway. So there's that.
So we'll see. Here's the bottom line. If the bill
doesn't pass, two things can happen.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
One, no bill will.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Pass period, and then we get a massive tax hike,
we go into recession, and Republicans get wiped out in
the next two elections. And every Republican knows it.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
That's the key. They all know that's true.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
The other alternative would if this bill doesn't pass, would
be a better bill.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
I think that's not very likely.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
I think typically throughout legislative history, typically you don't end
up with a better bill. If the first one fails,
you end up with having to compromise a lot more.
But the tragedy and the difficulty here is that the
physical Conservatives and the Freedom Caucus and the House of
Representatives are absolutely right. The federal government is spending way.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Too much money. Donald Trump's giveaways.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
With no tax on tips and no tax on overtime
and social security is stupid policy. Although the House Freedom
Caucus isn't going to fight that too much because Trump
campaigned on that and that stuff's not going to go away.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
But the salt deduction.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Allowing high income New Yorkers and New Jerseyans and Californians
and other people in high tax blue states to deduct
more of their state income tax and their state property
tax and dump it on the federal taxpayer, which means
adding more to the federal debts that my kids are
going to have to pay. That's disgusting. That was lowered

(14:04):
from an unlimited amount I think, to ten thousand dollars
in the twenty seventeen tax reform. These clowns, these mostly
New York State Republicans, are insisting that it goes up
to forty thousand dollars and for now the Senate is
going along with it. It has a sunset where it'll
go back down to ten thousand dollars in twenty thirty.
But of course some future Congress is not going to

(14:25):
let that happen either. President Trump should be out there
verbally stomping all of these New York Republicans and telling
them forget it on the salt tax. That is a
massive It's just a giveaway to upper income people in
high tax blue states. Their answer should be to lean
on their own states to cut their taxes. But I'll

(14:48):
tell you I don't think that's going to get any
better either. So my bottom line is this bill is bad,
but any likely alternative is probably worse. Tuesday it feels
like Wednesday because we're not worth Friday. Is that right, Shannon?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Right?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I don't know. You always work, It doesn't matter what
day it is. Shannon's always working.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Let's see Ross explain your certainty that tax hikes would
lead to recession. Well, I guess I shouldn't say I'm
one hundred percent certain, but I'll say eighty five percent
certain that way, if this bill doesn't pass, and.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
And the twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Tax reform is undone, and the rates go back up,
and they go up for everybody.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
I think people don't understand.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
This, and maybe I will spend a moment on this,
but essentially, you're going to take an immense amount of
money out of the private sector. Consumer spending will absolutely drop,
and I feel quite confident there would be a recession
after a tax hike this big. Let me just also
clarify something. Donald Trump keeps saying there would be a
sixty eight percent tax hike.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's wrong.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
And I don't know whether he's saying it that way
because he's lying or because he doesn't get it.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
But what it would be though, and actually.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
This is more important't even he doesn't even let me
back up one of the things that I say from
time to time, and I've said it about Trump, I've
said it about Biden. I don't know if I thought
of the phrase, but there were certainly times during Obama
when it would have been true. But it's especially true
with Trump. Trump lies a lot when it's not necessary.

(16:21):
Biden lied a lot because it was necessary because he
just all this terrible stuff.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
And I'm not saying I like everything that Trump is.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Doing, but there are a lot of times when Trump
is doing something good and he lies about it, and
the sort of rhetorical question is why lie when the
truth will do so he doesn't need to say there's
going to be a sixty eight percent tax increase.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
And again maybe he just doesn't get it.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
But the actual thing is, and the number might be very,
very slightly wrong, but it's certainly in the ballpark of
sixty eight percent. Is that if the bill doesn't pass,
sixty eight percent of Americans will get a tax increase,
which is actually, I think an even more effective way
to say it than some number like a sixty eight

(17:06):
percent tax increase. Nobody even believes that, nobody. But when
when Donald Trump says the sixty eight percent tax increase,
most people think.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
That Donald Trump is claiming.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
That their taxes are going to go up by sixty
eight percent, and everybody knows that's not true.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Son, that gets dismissed.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Whereas if he said sixty eight percent of Americans will
get a tax which is true.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
That's a big deal. And by the way, who.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Are the people who would end up with a net
tax cut if this bill fails and if every bill
like it fails and the twenty seventeen personal income tax
provisions expire. Who are the people who will get a
tax cut? Rich people in high tax states. I talk

(17:53):
about this a lot because it infuriates me so much.
Jim Garritty, who's a really good writer over at National Or,
said that the Senate is going to add three hundred
and twenty five billion dollars would it be to the

(18:14):
national debt over the next decade with their salt provisions, which,
at first their modification assault was better an improvement on
the House.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
The House just raised it to forty thousand.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
From ten thousand to forty thousand how much you can
deduct in a particular year that the Senate at first
made it better, and now they're making it worse. Not
only will it be forty thousand, but then it'll go
up one percent a year for a few years, and
then in theory it'll expire in twenty thirty, but it
won't actually Congress will just continue to extend it. So

(18:49):
the right answer, well, the right answer that might be
politically palatable, would be to just leave it at ten
thousand dollars. Morally and economically, the right ants answer is
this salt deduction should be zero, But what you're talking
about is relatively rich people in very.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
High tax states, high personal income tax, high property tax.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
If they can deduct more, then what they are doing
is they are saying, all right, ross, your children, who
are gonna be the ones who are going to be
suffering and dealing with the inflation and the monetization of
debt and the impoverishing of our nation When the country eventually.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Is forced to deal with its debt, your.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Children are going to be saddled with the burden of
a third of New Yorker's high property taxes and high
state income taxes. We're gonna let them dump that on
our kids. It's disgusting and as Jim Garretty said in
National Review this morning, as Jim Garritty said, the at

(19:54):
three hundred and twenty five billion dollars of spending, they're
basically and they are essentially eight liberal ish Republicans who
are insisting on this higher assault thing. Right, So they're
buying the votes of eight House members with three hundred

(20:17):
and twenty five billion dollars. So that's just over forty billion.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Dollars per vote.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
That we're spending forty billion dollars per vote. I wish
Donald Trump would, who seems like a guy who's not
afraid to go out and say things, and not afraid
to step on some toes, and not afraid to twist
some arms, and not afraid to threaten people. The dude
needs to get out and start threatening these New York

(20:45):
State Republicans saying, sorry, it's immoral, it's wrong to dump
your high state taxes on the federal taxpayer and blow
up our federal debt. All this stuff really does is
allows these states that would otherwise be running deficits or

(21:06):
have to cut taxes, or have to cut spending or something,
to be wildly fiscally irresponsible because they dump it on
the federal budget. And we've got all these worthless members
of Congress and worthless presidents who let them get away
with it.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Okay, so enough of that for now.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I firmly believe that if there is no bill, we
will have a recession.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
I do.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
We had a very strong economy after these rates came
into place, and actually tax receipts exceeded budget expectations after
the tax cut.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Remember it's always like that, the people who hate the
tax cuts and the CBO's methodology, even though I think
they're really pretty neutral, but the methodology is always pretty wrong.
Whenever there's a tax cut, tax receipts. I'm not saying
the tax cuts pay for themselves, but they somewhat for themselves,
and tax receipts under the Trump administration. Let's see, Hey,

(22:06):
one second, give me one second. I gotta do something here.
Uh all right, Sorry, I won't bother explaining that to you.
All right, I'm gonna move I'm gonna move on from that.
Uh no, not close.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Close. Janna is like, was that a.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
New tile choice? Is that what I had to do
right there? Uh no, that's not what I was not
was I was doing okay anyway, natural gas stuff for
the house. But the guy just texted me. I can't
get in, but I can tell that you're not ready for.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, let's see, he says, He says, he says he
wants to talk on the phone and I and I'll say,
I can talk on the phone with you in in
fifteen minutes. So all right, all right, let's do something else.
So we're all gonna be here one day. I'm gonna
move away from the National Police six for a second.
And I saw this interesting piece in the Colorado Sun.
So for now, at least, I'm still in my fifties,

(23:06):
and I'm having some of these you know, thoughts already
about how much stuff we have, and we're moving from
one house to another house that's only a tiny bit smaller.
It's not like we need to do a lot of downsizing,
but one day we will. And one of my kids,
my older kid, is likely to move away, you know,
Thank God, I love my kid, but I want, you know,

(23:28):
I want the I want the chicks to flee the nest,
to fly away from the nest and go and go
have their own lives.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
So one of my kids is likely to move away.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
Within the next two months, and the other kid has
one more year.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Of high school.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
And we're actually going to go look at some colleges
later this month, and so we're going to be in
a house. It's probably bigger than we need and more
expensive than we need, but it's really close to work,
which is not.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
I don't know. I don't know, but anyway, so I saw.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
This piece at the Colorado that was I just thought
an interesting topic and outside of what you know, we
normally talk about on the show, or well, we talk
about a lot of stuff on this show.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
With age comes stuff.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Here's how experts help older Colorado's downsize their possessions and
the subhead and again this is at the Colorado Sun
coloradosun dot com. Advancing years often mean dialing back belongings
to fit life changes. There's a growing industry that guides
people through the difficult choices.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
And this story is.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Colorado focused, although it applies in lots of places. And
they start by talking about a lady named Roda Adkins
who when she was married and had kids, had a
forty eight hundred square foot home, lots of stuff, but
then she got divorced and the kids grew up, and
she downsized to a condo in Thornton and she was

(24:56):
on a quest for simplicity. But it says her quest
was stymied by the memories contained in the chests, boxes
and bins taking up space in her garage. And one
of the interesting pieces about this that is pretty Colorado specific.

(25:17):
Colorado is tied for third in the nation in terms
of the fastest growth in the over sixty population. We
have lots and lots of aging folks here in Colorado,
and folks want to move to you know, just as

(25:38):
there are some people who are moving here when they're
in their twenties and getting started in their working years,
or or transferring here when they're in their thirties, maybe
in their second job.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Then they're gonna look to get married and have a family.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
And those people are gonna want to upsize, right They're
gonna go from a condo in some cool, funky part
of the city into home in the suburbs because they
want a yard for their kids, and they want better schools,
and they want all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
And we think about them a lot.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
But of course, at the other end of the age spectrum,
and I'm I got to say, I'm at this point.
I guess I'm a little closer to the second age
here rather than the first age. It is people who
are downsizing. And I think about this myself. You know, gosh,
I have a lot of stuff, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
I'll tell you what. I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
This is how seriously I'm already thinking about this, even
though I'm still in my fifties, and mostly with this,
we're talking about you know, over sixty, even over seventy,
And this is actually a heartbreaking thing for me in
a way.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
But I also think it's realistic.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
So I've told you on the show lots of times
that there are a couple things that I want to
do when I retire, and I have no thought of
retiring soon, by the way, you know, God willing, I'll
have another iHeart contract to stay with you for another
two or three years.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
And then maybe another contract after that.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
We'll see. I'm not looking to retire. I love my job,
I love talking with you. I love the fact that
I can be over it Regen Revolution and a couple
will walk through and they'll say, oh, Hi, I recognize you,
and it's awesome, just like making friends this way. But

(27:27):
I've told you that the things that I want to
do are repair and rebuild and maybe learn to design
audio equipment based on tubes right old electronic you know two.
It doesn't have to be old, but lots of tube
amplifiers are old, and I love that stuff. And I

(27:51):
also thought, as an extension of that, it would be
really cool to kind of maybe be in the vacuum
two business like buy and sell tubes, sell them on
eBay and in that light. A couple of years back,
I bought seven thousand tubes from one guy and then

(28:14):
in a couple of years since I've bought a couple
thousand more, at least a couple thousand more.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
I don't know how many tubes I have, all right.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
I think it's somewhere in the eight to ten thousand range,
probably on the upper end of that. And I have
no idea what they are. I haven't had time to
look at them. A lot of them are sort of
loose in bins, just a bunch of glass tubes all
sitting together in bins, and thousands of others are in
individual tube boxes. They're called new old stocks. They're old tubes,

(28:44):
but they've never been used. And I thought it would
be so much fun to do that, like for something
a little more than a hobby right away, to make
some money, keep myself.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Busy all that.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
And now, and I even bought this incredible thing that's
a modification to a tube tester that I have that
almost automates tube testing.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
You just connect it to a computer.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
An old laptop really, and you type in the kind
of tube that you're testing, and then it does all
the settings on the tube tester, and you just plug
your tube in and it tells you all the information
and you can test lots of tubes really fast with
this thing, and now I'm taking a long time to
get to the punchline and now tying it into what
I'm talking about here. I'm going to try to sell

(29:36):
all of it, not the amplifier stuff, because I can
still I can still work on old tube gear and
design old tube gear without needing thousands and thousands of tubes.
I can still keep that hobby, keep my soldering iron,
still do all that still, you know, rebuild Diynacost seventy.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I can still do all that.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
But as far as the other thing I wanted to do,
like being in the tube business, I just think I
want to downsize instead. And so I'm I'm actually gonna
list for sale like all these tubes, and not one
at a time. I'm gonna sell them all at once.
I'm not looking to break it up. I'm gonna sell
all of the tubes and lots of other old electronic

(30:18):
equipment that I have accumulated and that really fancy tube tester,
and I'm just gonna list it for sale. I'll probably
start with Facebook Marketplace and maybe eventually go to eBay.
Although the tubes I can't the tubes I can only
sell to a local buyer because there's too many to ship.
But it's a it's a weird thing, and you know what,

(30:41):
I don't feel as bad about the decision as I
thought I would. You know, if there's somebody out there
who's in the tube business, wants to be in the
tube business, and you know, then then they'll come to
me and they'll buy the stuff and that'll be great
for them. And in the meantime, I'm gonna do other
things and my I can still work on tube gear.
The other thing I want to do when retirement is
get better at target shooting.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
I'm not bad. I'd like to be better and it's fun.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
You know. It's a bit of an expensive hobby with
the price of ammunition being what it is. But so
those are the things I want to do. So back
to this story, right, the story about how experts help
older Colorados downsize their their stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
So there's a whole group.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
That's mentioned in this article called the National Association of
Senior and Specialty move Managers, a trade group that launched
in two thousand and two with forty companies as members.
Now they have about twelve hundred member organizations and they
estimate let's see what's this. They estimate that this is

(31:43):
one hundred million dollar industry. I don't know if they
mean that on an annual basis. Normally when you hear
a term like that, it's an annual basis. There are
eleven members of this organization in Colorado, five of which
have been launched just in the last five years.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
And these specialists, and.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
I'm quoting from the Colorado Sun, often for hourly fee,
help clients wrestle with their indecision and even after they've resolved.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
To let go of stuff.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Distinguish the throwaways from the giveaways from the ebays. Right,
So some stuff should just go right into the dumpster.
It's worthless to everybody, and it's a bad use of
your time to try to find a home for it.
Some stuff is not worthless to everybody, and you could
give it away. You could donate it to where you know,
Salvation Army arc, you know all these various thrift stores.

(32:27):
You could donate that and take a tax deduction if
you are itemizing your your your taxes, or maybe.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
You know, just give them away somehow.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Like stuff that's probably worth something to someone, but not
really worth your time to try to sell, and then
there's the ebays and that's the stuff that's worth your
time to try to sell. And they mentioned a local
company here called Mindful Decluttering and Organizing from Westminster, owned
by a gal named Pam Holland. Again, I don't know Pam,

(32:55):
and I don't know this company, but it's in the.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Article, so I'm sharing with you Holland.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
Miss Holland speaks the gentle drawl that thoughtfully guides people
while they sift through loads of everyday items along with poignant,
sometimes painful mile posts of personal history. It's a sentimental journey.
Once she navigates by harmonizing patients with practicality, she says,
so my.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Biggest question today is does this serve me? And if
it doesn't serve me, it's time to get rid of it.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Actually, that quote is not from the lady who owns
the company, but rather the older lady who wants to
simplify her life, and these two are working together.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Listen to this. I'll just do this and then I'll
be done with this topic.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Holland listens intently as Adkins turns the pages of an
old scrap book. There are photos of former classmates, wisps,
of childhood hair, a dime taped to the page, and
with it, like all the other artifacts, a story.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
In sixth grade, one.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Of Adkins's girlfriends had a brother who was a few
years older, and her brother said to me one time,
when you turn eighteen, call me, and he gave me
the dime. She recounts recalling to day is when payphones
were a thing, so clearly he was enamored with me.
But I was twelve or thirteen and he was probably
seventeen or eighteen at the time. Though flattered, she never called,
but she kept the dime a sweet slice of her past.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
So you can imagine where the article goes from there.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
It's quite a long article, quite a good article, and
it just has me thinking about my own future and
my own downsizing. And I would love to hear anything
you want to say. I don't have a specific question
for you, anything you want to say about either your
own thoughts of or your own experience.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
With this kind of downsize.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
And by the way, if there's anybody out there who
might want to buy thousands and thousands of vacuum tubes,
who's a listener of mine, I'll sell them to you
really cheap. I bought him really cheap, so I'll sell
them really cheap. But in any case, yeah, it's quite
a process. And I started this topic by saying, we'll
all be here one day, and indeed we will. Let's

(34:58):
get right to our koa Common Spirit health hotline and
my friend Paul Morrow. Paul is a former NYPD inspector.
He headed up the NYPD Intelligence Department. He has a
fabulous substack called the Ops Desk O P S D
E sk dot substack dot com and he's a Fox

(35:19):
News contributor and getting more and more airtime on Fox
as well.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
He should Paul, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
So I imagine you fully expected to be traveling to Idaho
soon and now you're not where you was shocked by
this plea deal. I don't even want to say the
guy's name, but you can if you want. Were you
as surprised by this plea deal as I was?

Speaker 2 (35:43):
And what do you make of it?

Speaker 3 (35:46):
It was especially at this stage of the game, as
we were going into jury selection and looked like we
were inside the five yard line on this thing. Finally,
after three years of dilatoria tactics by the defense, well,
it looks like it worked out for them. In terms
of what I make of it, I think that there

(36:07):
must have been and I don't know this, but I
can't see any of the way to read the tea
leaves here. I think there must have been a prosecution
vulnerability here. This case looked about as airtight as they come,
and the families, according to all reporting, were on board
with going to trial and going to the death penalty. Well,

(36:27):
here you have all of those factors, and the prosecution
apparently put out a deal that in my estimation, it has
probably been on the table for a while, and once
the defense lost the last of its voluminous motions because
they are losing them all the alibi, the alternative theories
of who could have done it, they kept losing motions.

(36:48):
Once the defense was out of play, they decided, Okay,
we have no further plays, let's take the deal. The
real question becomes why was there a deal to begin with.
I have a couple of theories on it, but I
think there must have been a vulnerability on the prosecution
side that they assessed that we don't all have an
awareness of.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
And one quick note for listeners, and we'll come back
to the topic with Paul.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
The US Senate.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Just passed the so called Big Beautiful Bill by a
vote of fifty one to fifty, which means there was
one more Republican no from the previous time and Vice
President JD. Vance cast tie breaking vote. All right, so
back to Paul.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
I heard.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
I'm sure you know this guy Mark Arragos, who was
an interesting character. I'm not a big fan interesting character.
He made an interesting point on television last night. He said,
if I were the defense, I'm not sure I would
have accepted the deal because he's got because the deal
takes away any opportunity for appeal if he were to
get sentenced, even if he were to get a death sentence,

(37:48):
he'd probably be on death row for twenty or thirty years,
and maybe the death penalty even be abolished by then.
And you know, if the prosecution seemed to think, like
you said, Paul, maybe this kind of weakness, then maybe
the defense should have refused the deal.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely not a bad thought. There
is there. I believe at least one, maybe several people
that are on death row for decades right now in Idaho.
And so consequently, that analysis does hold some water, Because
if you're saying, okay, he's going to be on death
row for the next twenty thirty years as the appeals

(38:26):
wind their way up the chain, who knows he may
even be able to get himself a new trial based
on an appeal that succeeds. Because there was some questions
about the DNA. Now, I feel like the investigatory genealogical
DNA technology has been upheld, that whole methodology has been
upheld for the most part, and under the facts that

(38:48):
are reported, it looks like it would withstand appeal. Nonetheless,
there must be a vulnerability. The FBI does not like
that methodology out I don't think that would be an
enough for the state to say, okay, well, we'll take
a deal here. But I noted the FBI was being
very very recalcitrant in coming across with how they did

(39:10):
what they did, and maybe there was something there that
just made this prosecutor very very nervous. This prosecutor ulsem
he's from Layton County, even though the case got moved
to Boise and Layton County, particularly Moscow, where that prosecutorial
seat is very liberal, and he may just may have

(39:31):
some sort of ideological problem with the death penalty. That's
a possibility to grow.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Okay, So we just have about three three and a
half minutes left, your Paul. So what I had read
was that either two or three of the families of
the four victims wanted to go for the death penalty,
and one family at least wasn't against it, but they
just wanted it all done. They'd be fine basically with

(39:57):
whatever outcome was, as long as there was some kind
of justice. They weren't really pushing for the death penalty.
The thing I wonder about is the other two kids
who were in that house and lived. I wonder if
there was any thought in the mind of the prosecutor
not to put them through a trial.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Well, I think that, I mean, I guess it could
be a facet But when you consider that the two
kids that lived just apparently agreed to sit for a
documentary and I assume they got very well paid for it,
had another complication for the prosecution's case. And you know,
we saw in the Karan Reid case that the defense

(40:39):
was able to subpoena not only the documentary and cut
up clips of it to use during the case, but
even got the stuff that was cut from the documentary
and fell to the cutting room floor, and then juxtaposed
that with statements that were given years ago to the
police to show inconsistency. Inconsistency, excuse me. So you may

(41:00):
have had a situation where all of a sudden, all
of this material that they were going to use in
trial was on the cutting room floor and now available
to the defense growing inconsistencies from some of their prime witnesses,
and that may have been another vulnerability that they did
not want to address. And it also goes to the
fact that what we had as part of that whole thing,

(41:23):
the fact that there were leaks. The Dateline documentary showed
that somebody, and it seemed to be from the prosecution
side the way Judge Hippler was acting, somebody was leaking
material that violated the gag order, and the prosecution may
not have wanted that sunlight on them. Either might have
been a prosecution could have been a cop, could have

(41:43):
been a secretary in the court's office. We don't know,
but that could have been a vulnerability as well. So
when you take all of these factors together, the prosecution
may have finally said, look, let's just make sure we
nail this thing down.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, that it's over.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
This guy's off the street for good and that's it.
But you know, as the consoveation film has said, it
leaves him alive to pursue what appears to be a
very narcissistic personalities and ambitions, a book and stuff like that,
jail house interviews. So it's over, but it's probably not
over in a certain sense.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, I mean, I think the only real upside for
the prosecution here is the fact that.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
He waives all rights to appeal.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Last, very quick question, Paul, I'm just about out of
time here. Do you think there's any chance that a
significant factor for the prosecution would have been cost savings
of ending it now?

Speaker 3 (42:34):
No, this thing has already been pretty expensive, and you've gone,
like I said, let's say ninety yards downfield, So you're
in the red zone now and much left, you know,
a couple of months of trial and taking the jury
at this point, after all, they've spent moving the venue,
all the police over time gathering the evidence. I think
that would be foolhardy And if you really want to

(42:55):
turn around.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I was thinking about the cost of death penalty appeals.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, but when you
consider the fact that you're going to have three months
of trial likely and you're going to have half of
America's media there, every hotel was if you want to
make it, dollars to do that.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
But you know, that's what we're talking about. Oh, that's funny.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
It's a it's a revenue raiser. So yeah, I don't
think it shouldn't be that. It should be the interests
of justice. It should be what determines Paul.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Morrow, former NYPD inspector, head of NYPD Intelligence.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
He's also an attorney.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
He's a Fox News contributor and and one of the
great uh sort of relatively at this point. New Voices
on Fox really adds a lot to that network.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Paul, It's it's great to have you back. Thanks for
doing this anytime.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Thank you.

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

Speaker 1 (43:45):
I'm not really much of a like a true crime guy.
I haven't paid that close attention, you know, the day
by day stuff of the coburger try he used his name.
Oh gosh, of the trial. We should bleep that out.
That'd be good. Actually, don't want do you actually take
it can you dump that.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
I don't know if we got it in time.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I don't even so to me, yeah, maybe maybe we
got it all right.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
I don't like saying those people's names.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
So this trial in Idaho where this lunatic killed four
college students, everybody thought it was going to go to trial.
There was no public talk of a plea deal, and
and then suddenly there is a plea deal and it's done.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
It's it's kind of crazy, uh ross.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
I want to know after official conviction and sentences, the
gag order lifted. Yeah, any sort of any gag order
would be lifted. That doesn't necessarily mean that the police
must or will disclose evidence that they had. It just
means that they'll go back to whatever their normal policies
are and they won't be restrained by a judge. I
think one of the interesting things is that is that

(44:51):
normally you get an allocution in these cases, where the
judge will say to the person who's taking.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
The plea, did you do this right? In this case?

Speaker 1 (45:04):
In this case there are four murder victims, so the
judge will say, did you murder.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
So and so? And then this this person is going
to have to say yes and The judge may also
say how.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Did you murder this person? And then he'll say, you know,
I stabbed her. Now it's unknown whether the judge will
ask why did you do it? The judge doesn't have
to ask that, I think normally they don't. I'm not
an expert on this. Maybe an attorney can text in
and correct me on any of this, because I could

(45:41):
be wrong.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
I'm not a I'm not an attorney.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
And to the extent that I read about a lot
of law, it's constitutional law, not criminal law. So I
do not claim to have any particular knowledge on this,
but just from you know, stuff I've been reading, and
stuff from my stuff I've been watching, and like that.
It's it's unclear to me that I want to put this.
It's unclear to me that the process that this guy

(46:04):
will go through, as far as the elocution and then
the sentencing and the accepting of the plea deal that
will mean life in prison without the possibility of parole
and waving all appeal rights. It's unclear to me that
that process will contain evidence of motive. It's unclear to

(46:24):
me that that process will require this mass murderer to
explain why he did what he did, so we'll see.
Rahi Ross it's anton. Was there something in the Big
Beautiful Bill that benefits small cap stocks they just popped? Well,

(46:47):
I think anything that tends to keep interest rates under control,
And again, very hard to say what the interest rate
effect would be if this thing failed.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
But what you've seen.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
In in recent days, not just today, is a slow,
steady reduction in long term interest rates, and those tend
to benefit small cap stocks. As far as why small
cap stocks just moved now, I don't know. I don't
know that that has anything to do with the so
called Big Beautiful Bill. It might, but I'm not in
a position to tell you.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
I do see.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Nasdaq stocks are down today, Apple is up, Nasdaq is down,
So I don't know. Don't assign too much to any
one thing. There are lots of reasons for lots of things.
I'm just going to share one other listener text. We
were talking just a moment ago in the show about downsizing,
and this listener says, in our sixties, we started.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Downsizing five years ago.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Two houses full of things, acquired and saved over thirty
five years, three kids, et cetera. We asked ourselves if
we wanted to take this into the future. If not,
we gave it away or threw it away. We sold
the houses and moved into fifteen hundred square feet. Life
is simple and more flexible. There are times that we
missed something or the home we raised the kids in,
but overall a good decision for us. You will appreciate

(48:02):
your decision in the long run. There's quite a lot
of texts actually from listeners about decluttering and downsizing. I'm
going to read them all during this break. We'll be
right back on Kowa in a few minutes. We're going
to be talking with the president and CEO of the
Electric Power Supply Association. It's going to be a nerdy
but important and I promise rather interesting conversation. Until then,

(48:24):
I want to do a couple of other quick stories
with you. You might have heard this on the news yesterday.
I think a lot of places. I think a lot
of places this had this story, even though it's not
an American story. So there's a state owned, a government owned,
government run lottery in Norway and it's called Norsek Tipping,

(48:45):
and somebody there made a mistake. So they do you know,
they do their lot ofy drawings and as with many
lottery drawings, there are lots and lots and lots of
winners of small price. Right, lots of people win a dollar,
three dollars, even fifty dollars depending on the lottery. Very

(49:08):
few people win, you know, one thousand dollars, and almost
nobody wins a million or millions of dollars, you know,
every once in a while, that happens. So they were
doing the Norse tipping was handling the Norwegian arm of

(49:30):
a europe wide lottery called Eurojackpot. And Norway is not
in the Euro, right, Norway uses its own currency, the kroner,
And so there were a bunch of Norwegians who entered
the europe Wide lottery and they were winners. But in

(49:52):
order to convert the the Euro to the kroner, they
basically had to divide by one hundred and actually maybe
the coroner is tied to the euro, if it's exactly
a hundred, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
I'm not an expert on the Norwegian currency.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
But in any case, the North Tipping, in order to
inform the Norwegian lottery players of how much they won,
needed to divide the reported winning amount, which is in
euros by one hundred, and instead somebody in the company

(50:29):
multiplied by one hundred.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
So how big an error is that it's.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Not off by one hundred, it's off by one hundred
times one hundred, which means it's off by ten thousand.
And then they notified a whole bunch of people by
text that they had won hundreds of thousands of dollars
when in fact they had won, you know, fifty bucks,

(50:56):
one hundred bucks, that kind of thing, and there really.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Isn't that much more to say about it.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
I actually thought that one of the interesting pieces to
come out of the story was that the CEO of
the company, his name is or her. I don't know
if this is a guy or a girl. Tanya ton
j E. Sag Stewn resigned. I'm sure the CEO didn't

(51:23):
make the math error, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
It's kind of old school.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
When your company makes a big mistake, you fall on
your sword and you and you go. We don't really
seem to have that much in the United States of
America right now, but in any case, there you go.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
I mean, imagine, though.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Imagine, you know, you're a middle class person and and
you suddenly get a notification that you've won four hundred
thousand dollars, but actually you've won forty dollars. And there
were a lot of people like that, and some of
these people went out and they bought dinner for everybody.
And there was one story about a guy who proposed

(52:03):
to his fiance after the news, although he probably was
going to do it anyway, but still, I mean, that's bad.
That's pretty bad. Anyway. There really isn't more. I just
thought i'd share that with you, all right. One other one,
this is also an international story actually, so this is
from the BBC in a town in England called crime

(52:27):
On cr Imnd in a region called Oh No, it's
in Scotland actually in Scotland, in Aberdeenshire or Aberdeenshire.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
A lady there allowed her I.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
Don't know if it's her daughter or just a girl
that she knew, a ten year old girl to drive
her car through the town and the ten year old
girl was driving barefoot and it was raining. And this
thirty two year old lady has been charged and she
has admitted culpable and reckless con after footage emerged of

(53:02):
the incident where she allowed this girl who actually it
says was under ten, so maybe the girl was nine,
I don't know, but allowed the under ten year old
barefoot girl to drive in the dark in the rain
and music was playing at the same time, and I

(53:22):
just I just wanted to.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Say that I suspect that that.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Nine year old girl driving without shoes in the dark
and in the rain, it's probably better than some of
the drivers in my neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
So that that was my only point with that story.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
All right, let's do something completely different here, all right,
let me get this going semi professional radio. All right, Oh,
look at that, I've got a power Point slide instead
of actually seeing my guest. That's a that's an interesting thing.
Here's something you see every day. So I'm very pleased
to welcome to the show, Todd Snitcheller. And Todd is

(53:56):
president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, and
we have a lot to talk about. So Todd, welcome
to KOA. It's good to have you.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Okay, I see like a PowerPoint slide instead of you.
You can change that if you want, but you don't
have to. Oh I would like to ask you there
you go, all right.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Just put you on TV. There, We just put you
on TV.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Oh he's on TV.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
No.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
So, by the way, you and I are the only
ones who see the video.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Everybody else only gets the audio because there's a radio
station and not a TV station. All right, So I
would like to ask you before we jump into the
topic of the day about electricity demand from AI and
all this stuff. I saw really an interesting adjective about
your organization, the Electric Power Supply Association, and it describes

(54:46):
it as an association of competitive power suppliers. Can you
please explain to me what competitive means in that context.

Speaker 5 (54:56):
Sure, there are parts of the country where the obligation
to provide generation has been severed from the utility, and
so competitive power suppliers compete against each other in order
to sell power ultimately to the customers. But they do
so at the wholesale level, and that's who our members are.
So we compete against each other in order to be
the least cost resource that's dispatched. And when we are

(55:20):
that means we run and we power the system. So
we have every incentive to be as inexpensive and as
reliable as possible, because that's how our members actually profit
and make the money that they use to operate the system,
as opposed to our utility cousins, which have a captive
customer where they have a non bypassable charge for their
investments that are made and they recover from those customers

(55:42):
over thirty or forty years, whatever the life of the
asset is. Our business model is just completely different. There's
no captive customer that pays our charges. Those costs are
borne by the investor and shareholder. So it's a completely
different business model. And it's in mostly the East, but
also californ Orny in Texas are places where that happens.
And we think that's a great model, especially as we

(56:04):
look at what we're going to talk about with load
growth and the issues that are facing us going forward.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Interesting, do you have or any of your members in
Colorado or any of your customers in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
I'm assuming like the Giant Excel is not.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
But I wondered if any of the smaller co ops
might be.

Speaker 5 (56:20):
No, they're all together different, so they're members of a
different association because their business.

Speaker 4 (56:24):
Model is different. Although I know that our members have
looked at.

Speaker 5 (56:27):
Colorado is potentially places to invest, but stand by for
future investment.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
Okay, so what we're going to talk about today is
relevant to every electric customer, actually, every every part of
the electricity chain, the generator, the home user, the business user,
the grid operators, absolutely everybody. And that is the I
shouldn't say likely because it's a certain increase in electricity

(56:55):
demand coming.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Well, well, we'll.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Focus today an AI and data centers basically. So first,
why don't you describe for us, if you could, the
scale of the issue, and then we can talk about
what that will lead to and possible solutions.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:12):
I think you're right to note that it's already happening.
This is not a future problem. This is a today
issue that is already being wrestled with in a lot
of the country, and probably more parts of the country
than original Originally. I mean, Laudn County, Virginia is the
place everybody knows is data center alley. But now you're
seeing data center investment that's happening in other parts of
the country, from the Midwest to the southwest to the northwest.

(57:35):
I mean, virtually everywhere has the opportunity to benefit from
deployment of data centers, and the low growth projections are
really astronomical. It's hard to pin down, and there's a
great degree of uncertainty for.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Any number of reasons.

Speaker 5 (57:50):
But some of the numbers suggest that we're going to
have to add hundreds and that's with an s, hundreds
of gigawatts of new resources over the next ten to
twenty years in order to power the data center infrastructure
that will be needed.

Speaker 4 (58:04):
And that is on top.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
Of retaining the resources that already exist in order for
us to power the economy that's already in place as
we look at kind of the status quo today.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Put that in context for us, how I mean, hundreds
of gigawatts could be you know, one percent of current production.
It could be fifty percent of current production. Put it
in context for us.

Speaker 5 (58:25):
Yeah, it varies, but I think it's safe to say
that it's probably close to twenty five to thirty percent
more than our installed capacity is today over the next decade.
And that number is hard to fathom when you consider
how many plants would have to be constructed, where they
would have to be interconnected, the infrastructure that would be
required to do all of those things.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
It's a pretty daunting task. So what do we do
about it? And you know, we just saw this big,
beautiful bill pass that looks like this. If the House
passes anything like the Senate version, it's going to absolutely
got the subsidies to win in solar. And I don't
necessarily need to drag you into that, but I'm really
happy that the what the government is doing right now

(59:07):
because I hate those subsidies.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
But what is the answer to.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Solve our well electricity shortage that we either have or
soon will have.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Is it nuclear? Is it more gas?

Speaker 3 (59:22):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (59:24):
I think there's a couple of likely solutions as we
look forward, But I think the objective or the problem
we're hoping to solve is that energy policy has to
match operational realities.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Of the system.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
So there have been some of us suggested that you
can power the grid with only one or two types
of resources and we should retire everything else. We have
others that are married to one favored resource and one
certain jurisdiction as opposed to others. And I think the
delta between operational reality and aspirational policies had grown and
it is now going to have to shrink. And part

(59:57):
of solving that problem is going to be the fuel
type that you note. I think we're going to need
all of the above, and that's an accurate sentiment. Nuclear
is having a moment. A lot of folks are interested
in deploying nuclear. I think if we can do it
cost effectively, that is going to be a tool that
will have to be utilized in the toolbox. But at
the moment, we need to keep on what we've got,
and then really the technology that is most practically available

(01:00:21):
in the short to medium term as natural gas fired
resources that would also work in concert with wind, solar,
and battery storage, that's either already there or going to
continue to be developed regardless of the outcome of whatever
the legislative outcome looks like when the house is done
with it. But I think really, at the end of
the day, because we have such an immediate need and
because the size of the problem is so large, we're

(01:00:44):
going to need to keep what we have, and we're
going to need every electron that we can put onto
the system if we're going to do this in a
way that ensures reliability and cost effectiveness for consumers.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
We're talking with Todd Snicheler, President and CEO of the
Electric Power Supply Association ESPA dot org. I think I've
got you for about three more minutes. So there's lots
and lots of talk, and as there should be about
the requirements for new electrical power generation, there's not as

(01:01:14):
much talk, but I want to ask you about it,
about the requirements to connect that generation to the grid
and the requirements for the grid to handle that power.
So unless the new power is right where the old
power is, there's a lot of very expensive work to
be done. And Excel Energy here is dealing with a
huge political issue right now, is they're trying.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
To run lines through the state.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
How should we think about the issues created for the
interconnectivity and the grid. Based on the facts that we've
already talked about regarding needing more electricity.

Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
I think we're going to be looking at a number
of different approaches, certainly in the short to medium term,
that are going to try and address the speed to
market question that the data centers want and that they
essentially require. And so the concept of colocation or putting
your plant close to where your demand center is, So
putting a power plant nearby to a data center is

(01:02:09):
certainly something that's being considered. Has got open proceeding at
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to try and address some
of that. I think as we look at where the
Crane Clean Energy Center formerly known as Three Mile Island
has signed a contract with a data center in order
for them to restart that facility. There's been contracts with
other nuclear facilities in other parts of the country. You're

(01:02:29):
seeing a number of different approaches that are being tried
in order to make sure we can respond to the
demand and deliver the type of power at a price
that the customer is willing to pay. Some of that
may be in front of the meter, like a traditional customer.
Some of that may be behind the meter where you're
not connected to the system, at least not initially. But
I think as we look at the next five years,

(01:02:50):
you're going to see a number of approaches that are
going to be utilized in an effort to try and
sort out what is the best, fastest, most cost effective
way for us to get from here to that day
to center win that everybody says that they want to get.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
All right, last question is to follow up on this,
and I'm asking I'm gonna ask you for a completely
wild guess here, Okay, but a as a wild guess,
what percent of the new electricity requirements for data centers
over the next ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Will be.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Will be fulfilled by energy generation located right at right
next to the data center.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Boy, that's a that's a challenging question.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
My best guess is probably somewhere between twenty five and
thirty five percent.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
I think you're going to see that evolve over time.

Speaker 5 (01:03:40):
So I think what you see over the next five
years may be indicative of where the trend line goes.
But then you may see that evolve over time as
the infrastructure and the resources are built out. Just apply
the system and what looks more like a traditional approach.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
That is what happens today. But that's a TVD for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
TODs Snicher is President and CEO of the Electric Power
Supply Association ESPA dot org. Thanks for your time, fascinating conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Look forward to having you back.

Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
All Right, Wow, this is a this is a huge
issue that is not going away.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
It's only going to get bigger.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
And actually a lot of this stuff in the big
Beautiful Bill is in fact.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Hey Dragon, can we drop in on this right now?

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
I don't know if you can, so prisident Trump is
in Florida at this so called like what is it
alligator Alcatraz thing and taking a bunch of questions, let's
just have a quick listen, And they weren't easy.

Speaker 6 (01:04:38):
You know, there are people that really believe in this stuff.
But you know, most states have so much water they
don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
And look at North Carolina. I mean, they had a
lot of water.

Speaker 6 (01:04:47):
And they have to get restrictors on there, you know,
in their kitchen faucets. So we're very proud of the
things we did, and we're going to do a lot
more of them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Yeah, please go ahead. Guy's in good shape. That's Eric Bawling.
How you doing, sir.

Speaker 7 (01:05:03):
Something we've talked about for i'd say better part of
twenty years, and I think it's something near and dear
to your heart. Energy or energy security. Under Joe Biden,
average price of oil for the four years was about seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
Nine dollars a barrel.

Speaker 7 (01:05:16):
He drained the spr halfway down, promised to replenish it
never did. Under you first term fifty three dollars. Average
price for four years Biden was seventy eight dollars. For
eight years, it was never refilled with the question is
now it's sixty four dollars or so what.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
I'm coming down rapidly right, We can leave that, although
it is interesting he's got an energy question.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
We're talking about energy right now.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Either way, I will say it's true that Trump had
very low oil prices in his first term and Biden
had higher oil prices in his second term. Part of
that was because Trump was coming out of COVID, and
Trump was in COVID right there, and there was just
much lower demand and for everything. So it's not really

(01:06:02):
fair to attribute all of that or even much of
that to differences in policies, although the differences and policies
are very, very big in any case. So this electricity
thing we just talked about is a really big deal
and part of the reason that I'm so happy. And
I mean, there's a little bit of a complicated argument,

(01:06:24):
but I'm gonna try to make this argument in ninety
seconds here about the government ending as soon as possible
tax subsidies for wind and solar. Wind and solar are expensive,
they're intermittent. The wind and solar is most not entirely,
but mostly an industry that was created for two reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Radical environmentalists hate oil and.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Gas, and other people figured out the grift. They're like,
we can use the radical environmentalists to make it sound
like we're saving the planet while we convince members of
Congress to give us tens of billions of dollars of
their own children's future earnings, because that's how stupid they are.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
And we know they're that stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
And they will give us tens of billions of dollars
that they just add to the federal debt, so we
can pretend like we're saving the planet, even though what
we're doing is inefficient, expensive and kills lots and lots
of birds and bats and does things that everybody else
would go to prison for but we won't. Now, with
all those subsidies, what you have is power companies like

(01:07:39):
our very own Excel here in Denver, adding lots and
lots and lots of wind and solar, partly to collect
the subsidies, partly to satisfy our kind of radical environmentalist
Governor Jared Polis. He's a friend of mine, but on
energy policy he's pretty nuts. Trying to get us to be,
you know, zero carbon in the next five years or something.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
It's crazy, absolutely crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
When the subsidies go away doing wind and solar when
they actually cost what they cost, instead of making the
federal tax payer pay for some of it and paying
it back later when our children have to pay it
back later.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
They're not going to be able to afford to do
the wind and solar anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
And that's awesome because now Excel and everybody else they're
going to have to do more natural gas, more nuclear,
maybe even more coal.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
I don't know, but what it's going.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
To mean is what it's likely to mean is that
our electric bills will go up less than they otherwise would.
As I often say, and this is kind of an extension.
You know, if you think this thing is expensive, now
wait till you see how much it costs when it's free.
I usually say that about healthcare. But it's the same
kind of thing here. Solar and wind are so expensive,

(01:08:56):
but they make it look cheap by stealing our children's future.
And God willing, this part of the bill will pass
in the final version without too much modification, and maybe
we can get back to some more rational energy policy.
And as we said yesterday on the show, if wind
and solar are that cheap and that good, let him

(01:09:17):
compete during the breaks, you know, a few ads and
news and traffic. More often than not, I'm not paying
very close attention to that because I'm thinking about what
I'm gonna do next on the show, and and but
sometimes I sort of keep, you know, one ear, half
an ear on the news and listen to what Chad's saying.
And I and I caught a bit of what Chad

(01:09:38):
said there where he was talking about Colorado Senator John
Hickenlooper's criticisms of this one big, beautiful bill Act that
just passed the Senate, by the way. The House is
going to vote on it tomorrow. The President has said
he had wanted this on his desk by July fourth,
and that might happen, which would be an unbelievable thing

(01:09:58):
if they actually get it done.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I don't know. I don't know. The fiscal conservatives in
the House.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Are pretty annoyed right now because the Senate, which at
first made bigger spending cuts, ended up reducing the spending
cuts and adds to the deficit more than the fiscal
conservatives want. So they're gonna have to sort that out,
and they're gonna have to do it in a hurry
like they're probably working on it right now. In any case,
I just wanted to take on some of this commentary

(01:10:24):
from John Hickenlooper. And in fact, Hicky Looper has been
tweeting about this and I've been responding. I've been responding
to him on Twitter as well. So let's see. And
I'm actually looking now at the newscast. To Chad's newscast,
so higgin Looper calls the bill.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Lunacy and cruel.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
HM. The Senator says Republicans have voted to kick seventeen
million Americans off their healthcare.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
All right, so let's start with this. Let's start with this.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
So, and I touched on this yesterday, and I'm gonna
I'm gonna look for this article right now.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
I'm gonna look for this article right now. Where Okay,
wait here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
It is the percentage of people on Medicaid in Colorado
twenty two percent of the state. Now during COVID, when
the federal government went crazy and tried to put everybody
on medicaid. And remember when the Left puts people on Medicaid,
their goal is to have them never come off Medicaid.
That is always the goal, right. But in I'm looking

(01:11:22):
for this particular chart. In twenty ten, about eleven percent
of Colorado was on Medicaid.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Now it's doubled.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
It's about twenty two percent of Colorado on Medicaid. In
twenty twenty three, would you believe over thirty percent of
the state of Colorado was on medicaid? And actually Colorado
is kind of roughly in the middle of the pack
of the country, right, A lot of states have higher
numbers than this. First of all, it sounds to me

(01:11:52):
utterly insane to have something around a quarter of a
state getting this particular government healthcare. Doesn't even count the
other government healthcare of Medicare, but that's for older people.
So excluding Medicare, excluding Medicare, twenty two percent of the
state are on this other government healthcare. Now, some years

(01:12:14):
ago it was eleven percent. Do you really think we
need to have twice as many people getting other people's money?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
And let's talk about who is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Going to quote unquote lose their health care, because that's nonsense.
First of all, First of all, anybody who is off
of Medicaid can look for healthcare some.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Other way, and many of them will be.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Eligible for subsidies on the Obamacare exchanges. But what you
need to understand it. It's like a have you ever
heard the concept of a fish story? So somebody catches
a fish, it's a fourteen inch long fish, and then
they tell the story it's and then they tell a
story an inch later, a month later, and then this
fish is fifteen inches and then they tell it, you know,
next year it's eighteen inches, you know, and you know,

(01:12:57):
ten years later they tell a story again, and it's
a seven foot fish. And this is what the Democrats
do with how many people. They say, this isn't going
to kick off of Medicaid, as if the number even matters. Really,
but what I want you to understand is a big
percentage of the people who will lose Medicaid are working age,

(01:13:19):
healthy adults without children. Why should those people who aren't
working get your money.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Get my children's future earnings.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
There was an interesting story from AEI that said, I
think it was of those people, for forty two percent
of them, their most common thing they did during the
workday was sleep, and for many of the rest of
them it was watching TV and playing video games. Why

(01:13:54):
am I paying for their health care? So these people
will be kicked off and they should Illegal immigrants and
some other immigrants who are not eligible also will be
kicked off. There are also people who will lose Medicaid
who might actually be eligible but decide not to or
refuse to comply with new requirements to report that you're working,

(01:14:18):
like I think every six months you get a report
how much you're working. You can also avoid working by
volunteering or.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Going back to school.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
But a bunch of people who will lose Medicaid are
people who potentially could be on Medicaid.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
But decide not to comply with that requirement.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Here's the thing the Democrats don't say, and John Hickenlooper
doesn't say. Medicaid is wildly out of control in terms
of spending. And if you want to save Medicaid for
the people who really need it, you've got to kick
off the people who shouldn't be on it. It's not
that difficult a concept. I also note, by the way,

(01:14:56):
and this is a pretty crazy thing, this is a
chart that I see the Colorado Sun and it comes
from the Colorado Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing. Check
this out. People with disabilities between the ages of zero
and sixty four who are on Medicaid represent six percent
of the people on Medicaid six they represent thirty four

(01:15:20):
percent of Medicaid spending. Isn't that incredible. It's not necessarily
very surprising because disabilities can be expensive to treat, but
they're going to need to sort that out somehow as well.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
But think about these people with disabilities.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Their benefits are eventually at necessarily going to get crushed
because we're allowing lazy twenty nine year olds to sit
at home and sleep and play video games while getting
our money for healthcare. And then John Hickenlooper is complaining
about that. John Hickenlooper, if he cares about the people

(01:15:56):
who really should be on Medicaid, should be cheering this,
should be saying no, you should cut more.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
But no, because it's all politics.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
He says they're going to push hundreds of rural hospitals
towards closure.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
If there is a financial problem.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
For rural hospitals, yes, somebody should deal with it, but
they don't need and we must not let them get
away with that as an excuse not to do other things.
The government must do whatever needs to be done to
help rural hospitals is going to be much much, much
cheaper than not doing this bill. Then he says, wipe
out millions of American clean energy careers.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
Are you serious?

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
Yeah, I realized there are a lot of people working
on solar panels and windmills.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
Go get a different job.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
If your job requires the theft of America's next generations
standard of living and wealth, then you shouldn't have that job.
I'm sorry. I don't have anything against you personally. And
if you could have a job in solar and wind
or whatever it is you're doing without the government subsidies
that are stealing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Our children's future, then good for you. Good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
But until then, why don't we switch to better sources
of energy that are cheaper, that don't require stealing our
children's future. And let these folks who are working on
solar panels and wind turbines and all the electrical stuff
they need to do there, and the construction stuff they
do there, let them go work in the generation and

(01:17:22):
the other power plants.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
That's not a problem.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
And then the last thing, he says, adding trillions to
our national debt, Well, I do not like what this
thing does to our national debt, But you know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
What, I have more to say on that, and.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
It deserves a little more time I'm gonna hit a
quick break and I'll cover it when we come back.
You have no proof that Democrats want people on Medicare
for life.

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
Of course they do.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Democrats want people on the government cheese, the government teat
forever because they think that turns them into permanent democratic voters.
It shows your bias and hurts your message. No, it's
not bias. It's a belief that is backed up by
decades of history. Also, but I don't claim not to

(01:18:01):
be biased. I am very much biased in the sense
that I believe that government transfers of wealth are unconstitutional
and immoral. Ross the bill increases taxes on solar panels
and turbines brought from China.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
It's actually even more than that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
What the bill does is, as it stands now, it
would impose a tax on any solar or wind generation
system that is made with any Chinese parts. I think
that's a really, really stupid idea, and I agree with
this listener, who I think is a Democrat, but I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
With you on that adding additional cause.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
So I fully agree with taking away the subsidies for
wind and solar right put them on a level playing
field with everything else, and let them have the same
kinds of normal tax deductions that oil and gas get,
which you know, normal kinds of deductions that large industrial
companies get.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
That's what oil and gas gets.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
Let you know, let the wind and solar people get
this same kinds of depreciation and expenses and all that,
and then if they can compete without subsidies, then that's awesome.
Of course, they also have to get lots of land,
and they have to get permission to build on the land,
and a lot of that stuff isn't happening anymore because
people are sick of it. But it's one thing to
take away to subsidies. But then this bill goes another

(01:19:18):
step and adds taxes to wind and solar generation if
the windmills or solar generation systems have Chinese parts. And
that's really, really dumb. It's exceedingly dumb. And this is
the kind of thing that happens a lot, you know,

(01:19:38):
in Trump world. As my mom used to say, why
just do it when you can overdo it? And Trump
always believes in that. And look, I agree with you,
mister or missus listener that adding that tax is a
really bad idea. And I hope, I hope the House
takes it out because if wind and solar makes sense
somewhere and they can compete without with subsidies, why should

(01:20:01):
we burden them further with more taxes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Just let him compete like any other business.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
What's the national debt based on government only or consumer debt?
Also Texter from Denver government only? Government only? All right,
let's get back to this higgin Looper thing that I
wanted to mention. I'll just do this for a couple
of minutes. So higgin Looper says that this one big,
beautiful bill Act adds trillions of dollars to our national debt.

(01:20:31):
And Congressman Jason Crowe put out a statement that intrepid
Chadbauer just brought into me. He said, in all my
time in Congress, this is one of the worst bills
I've ever seen. It's a massive wealth transfer from the
working class to the rich who would kick millions off
their healthcare, take away food assistance for millions, and add
trillions to the national debt. So I'm trying to think

(01:20:52):
how to put this gently liar, He's just a liar.
I'm so sick of it. Look, it's one thing to disagree,
it's one thing to say, you want more people getting
more government money. But this is all freaking lies. Okay, yeah,
it is true. It is true that there are some

(01:21:13):
number of some millions of Americans who are on Medicaid
who will be off Medicaid.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
Good, it should be more.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
These are mostly people who are working age, healthy adults
without children.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
Get them off Medicaid.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
Now, the part I want to focus on here that
crow mentions and hicking lupermentions adding trillions of dollars to
our national debt.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
And let me just give me one minute on this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
So that comes from an assumption that the Congressional Budget
Office is required to make that if this bill didn't pass,
whatever is the current law would take effect.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
And the current law says that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
The lower tax rates for everybody in the country that
were passed in twenty seventeen will fire. So now what
the Democrats are doing is they're assuming that the tax
rates are back to what they were in twenty sixteen,
and now the Republicans are passing this thing, and it's
a huge tax increase, a huge tax cut that's going
to add trially into the deficit. By the way, there

(01:22:15):
isn't evidence that it added trillions to the deficit. If
you look at the chart of government revenues, it did fine, right,
the economy spurred, and it's at least it partly paid
for itself. But that's a different topic. So it's not reasonable.
So even Democrats in Congress don't want the old rates
to come back. They want to keep all the new.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
Rates except for the top one or two brackets.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
They want to soak the rich a little more, because
when the top one percent pays more federal income tax
than the bottom ninety five percent, the left still aren't satisfied.
But the only reason there's a claim that it adds
trillions to the debt is assuming that these are brand
new tax cuts starting from the twenty sixteen rates, from

(01:23:00):
the rates we have now.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
This just extends the current rates.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
And if you assume that the current rates were going
to be extended by Congress, or at least most of
it would be extended by Congress in any case, then
the actual number this adds to the debt and deficit
is a much much much smaller number. That said that said,
Republicans should never add to the deficit, and Republicans need
to do a lot more. As a senator, said to

(01:23:26):
me in text about an hour ago, hour and a
half ago. He said, look, this a tax bill, not
the spending bill. Wait till we get to the spending bill,
and we will do more. We will see if it
happens that way. But do not believe the Democratic lies
about this bill. It is not a great bill. It
is not great, but it is also not what these

(01:23:49):
Democrats are saying.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
Let's each do a name that tune on Thursday.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
Sure, maybe we can eat ramen even maybe we can
even guess the songs with our mouth full or our
mouths full of ramen noodles.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
You should we do that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
Okay, just a couple more of this sort of national
political things. I'm gonna move to some local and other
stories for our last bit of time together today. I
wanted to respond to a listener text here, and it's
something I've talked about quite a few times, but I
think it's worth mentioning again.

Speaker 2 (01:24:20):
And this is the listener is.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Upset, and I'm not being sarcastic. The listener's upset, and
the listener sort of taking some of my comments personally
because it's about because it affects his livelihood or her.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
But I think it's a guy. And here's what the
text says.

Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Ross, I listened to your last segment about solar telling
people to leave solar and win. I'll come back to that,
and I'm just gonna read the whole thing, and then
I'll come back to it. What a hypocrite you are.
You have a solar advertiser and you said you had
solar on two homes with a tax credit. He says,
I worked. Oh, it's in past tense, so maybe not

(01:25:03):
doing that now.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
I worked for an award winning solar company for seven
years that did fabulous work and helped people and the environment.
So actually, I'm gonna take more than a minute on this.
I want to address this seriously, and I'm just gonna go.
I'm gonna go just go through it, partly because I
think it's an important thing to talk about, and partly
because I don't want to be misconstrued. So first, the

(01:25:32):
listener says, I am telling people to leave solar and wind.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):
I absolutely did not do that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
I said that I don't want this or really anything
else subsidized by the federal government, and especially at a
time when we're running a two trillion dollar deficit and
have thirty seven trillion dollars in debt. I simply don't
want the federal government covering thirty percent of the cost

(01:26:02):
of somebody's decision to put solar on their house. If
you want to put solar on the house, make your
decision without taking other people's money. Now, I've also said
I've been very open about this for years, including when
I was on the other station. If you are going
to put a subsidy in place, and you are going

(01:26:23):
to allow other Americans to steal my children's future, then
if that subsidy is available to me, and I can
claw back a little bit of that money if it's
something that I want to do anyway, if you know,
like if I want to do solar, of course I'm
gonna take it. It doesn't make me a hypocrite. I

(01:26:44):
don't think it does. Anyway, you can decide for yourself.
I don't think it makes me a hypocrite. If you
put me in Congress, I would vote against this subsidy
every time, including if I had planned to take it
but didn't take it yet, I would vote against it.
I think that would be the definition of.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
Hip hocra is.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
If I if I refuse to vote against it until
such time as I collected it right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
I don't think it's hypocritical. I think I think that
if other people, if you set.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
Up the rules of the game so that it's possible
for people to steal taxpayers money, I'm going to steal
a little of it back. It's that simple. But it
doesn't mean I'm trying to tell people don't do wind
and solar. And for the record, I really, really, really
I'm with Robert Price. I really don't like wind. Okay,

(01:27:38):
solar on people's houses. That can be pretty good helping
you charge your car if you have an electric car,
hybrid car, you know, I like it, But the numbers
generally aren't there.

Speaker 2 (01:27:49):
In terms of ROI you can't.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
You can't generate enough electricity that at current electricity prices,
at least.

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):
You can pay.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Back the cost of a solar generation system on a
roof in a timeframe that is reasonable without the tax
credits and subsidies. Because solar is really expensive and they
keep telling us as cheap. But it's I'm gonna use
the same You heard me say this the other day.
If you listen to the conversation with Robert Bryce, but
I'm gonna say it again right now. All these people

(01:28:25):
keep telling us solar is cheap, And here's my my
analysis as president of the Bad Analogy Club. So we're
walking down the street and I'm thinking, gosh, i'd really
really like to have a lobster dinner, but I.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
Can't afford it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
So I'm walking past you on the street and I
see you left your wallet slightly sticking out of your
slightly sticking out of your pocket, and I pretend.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
To bump into you, and I take your wallet.

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
And I go and I find two hundred dollars in
your wallet, and I take myself out for a lobster
dinner and a really nice bottle of wine, maybe a
lovely steak tar tar or carpaccio appetizer. I think that
sounds tasty, and maybe a molten lava cake for dessert.

(01:29:18):
That sounds you know, that sounds about right. And so
the bill is two hundred and fifty dollars. But fortunately
for me, you had two hundred dollars in your wallet.
Now I have fifty dollars in my wallet, so I
take my fifty dollars, and I also take the two
hundred dollars I got from you, and I paid a bill,

(01:29:42):
and I think to myself, Wow, I just got a
lobster dinner for fifty dollars. But it really wasn't It
really wasn't fifty dollars. It was two hundred and fifty dollars.
I just stole two hundred of it from you. Is
that okay?

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
And separate from is that okay?

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
Obviously it's not okay, but separate from the question of
is that okay? Was that meal actually cheap? Was that
actually a fifty dollars dinner?

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
No, So, if wind and Solar can compete without the subsidies,
without stealing our children's futures, good, I hope so. I
hope so, and I hope even with my Peak roofing

(01:30:30):
and Solar, who I love, Right, it might be that
this bill will hurt their solar business. But again, for anybody,
it doesn't have to be my advertiser.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
I want them to succeed. And here's and.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Actually Mandy texted me about this a little bit ago,
and she might talk about it herself on the show
on her show. In just twenty minutes, the market will
figure it out. The market will figure out a way
to make solar affordable and have a decent return on investment,
and if the market can't, then it should go away.

(01:31:04):
It's not a value judgment about solar. It's just about
not stealing from our children's future.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
It's that simple.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
And I hope, truly, I hope that companies that are
in the solar business figure it out. I hope that
maybe another one or two or three American companies start
up production of solar panels so we're not buying them
from China. But that's not going to be easy because
China is the low cost supplier and I don't know

(01:31:38):
how we're going to catch up with that. But I
want America to succeed, and if part of our succeeding
means solar on.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
More roofs, then I'm for it. I'm just not for
the subsidies.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
And I always get this comment from some person on
the left who doesn't really understand much of what's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
I just got this text. Now do tax breaks for oil?

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
So oil and gas get very similar tax deductions for
depreciation and expensing, and they get this thing called a
depletion allowance.

Speaker 2 (01:32:09):
That's their analogs to.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
The same kinds of tax deductions that other large manufacturing
companies get. It is not It is not like cash
handouts that are like thirty times fifty times one hundred
times the level in terms per amount of energy generation
for wind and solar. So yeah, all right, I got

(01:32:37):
a lot more text, but I'm not gonna I'm done.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
I'm done with this for now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
Again, my final point is, I hope wind and solar
can succeed without the subsidies.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
I don't want anybody to lose a job.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
And whatever's best, whatever is the right answer for energy
policy for the government or for energy policy for your
own house, is fine with me, Absolutely fine with me.
Just do it without taking somebody else's money. That's all
I ask, That's all I ask. And again I don't
think it's hypocritical. Let me switch gears. One of my
favorite writers and thinkers is a woman named ian Hersi Ali,

(01:33:13):
and she's just a brilliant, brilliant thinker.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
She was born.

Speaker 1 (01:33:20):
Muslim in Somalia, fled from the Muslim oppression there and
the female genital mutilation and all that, she moved to Holland.

Speaker 2 (01:33:30):
I believe she was maybe.

Speaker 6 (01:33:33):
In their.

Speaker 1 (01:33:35):
Legislature, their parliament for a while. I think all kinds
of death threats. She moved to the United States. She's
been a writer and thinker here. She's married to Neil Ferguson,
if you know who that is. She's converted to Christianity actually,
and she's just an incredibly clear thinker about some of
these international issues, is international religious issues about Islam, because

(01:33:59):
she grew up that way, she's surrounded by it. She's
she's entirely credible when it comes to this. And she
wrote a piece that I just want to share a
little bit of with you. I did link to it.
I'm not sure if you can read it without a subscription,
but it's up on my blog and you should give
it a try. And it's over at the Free Press,
THEFP dot com and it's entitled Ion Hersey Ali Colon

(01:34:21):
Glastonbury and the Purge of the Jews. So Glastonbury is
this massive music festival that was in the news in
the United States in recent days because of particular British
African rap duo that goes by the name Bob Villain
like Bob Dylan, but with a V instead of a D,

(01:34:42):
and that these two guys who were in the band
don't use their real names. They each call themselves Bobby Villain.
One is Bobby and the other is b O B
B I E. So these guys were at this massive,
massive music festival, and the the thing that's been in
the news, although there was a bunch of other stuff

(01:35:02):
as well, is they started chanting and then get getting
the audience to chant along with them.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
Death, Death to the IDF. To the IDF is.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
The Israeli military, And they have the whole crowd, maybe
not everybody in the crowd, but thousands and thousands of
people chanting along with them.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
Death Death to the I, to the id F.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
And uh yeah, I think last month one of them
was waving a hesbalah flagged around right. So first, first,
let me say they were supposed to come on a
twenty six city tour of the United States later this year.
The United States has announced that their visas have been canceled,

(01:35:43):
so they will not be coming to the United States.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
And that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
The other thing is, you know, we have a First
Amendment here that they don't have in England and they
don't have in Europe. There are lots of places in
Europe where you will get prosecuted for saying things that
are obviously parted speech in the United States. In England,
it's been really bad. I mean, you know, picking up
these old guys for you know, tweeting stuff that they
that somebody thought was offensive and charging them with crimes.

(01:36:11):
But this is a whole different level now, right, This
is this is a guy on stage chanting death to
a particular group that happens to be the Israeli military,
that happens to be the.

Speaker 2 (01:36:20):
Thing between the thing between.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
Israel israel survival as a nation in their destruction by
everybody who wants to kill them. I don't know that
chanting death to the IDF would be protected speech even
in the United States of America. In any case, we
all know what it means. It means death to Jews

(01:36:47):
and death to Israel and so on. And in a
really interesting piece here, ion hersy Ali goes through a
lot of stuff and I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:36:56):
Just gonna just skip through a couple of a couple.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Of things, just as it's nonsense to hear chance of
free Palestine.

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
So she says, okay, people who.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
Are saying that the saying death to the IDF is
just about the military, and she says, that's nonsense. Just
as it's nonsense to hear chance of Free Palestine as
being about Palestine anymore than during the nineteen thirties, slogans
about Laban's Ram were about a bigger backyard. Laban's Ram
is a thing that Hitler talked about and the Nazis

(01:37:28):
talked about, and it basically means living room, not like
the room in your house, but room to live.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
And what that meant that was there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
That was their argument for going to conquer other territories
to Germans would have more space to expand into and
could eliminate all the people who were there. She says,
what happened to Glastonbury over the weekend is part of
a coordinated ideological insurgency against the Jewish people, not just
against the Israeli military, not just against Israel, not just
against Zionism, but against Jews. And that's exactly right now. Again,

(01:38:04):
this is a long article. I'm not gonna share all
this with you. I'm actually gonna jump up ahead to
near the end. Is still you know, maybe two minutes here.
Don't think it ends with Israel. Israel's just the pretext.
The prize is broader. The Jewish people have always represented
something larger people that refuse to assimilate to their surrounding society,

(01:38:24):
that carved an identity through ritual, law, memory, and resilience
in a world increasingly allergic to distinctions between man and woman,
citizen and foreigner, reality and fiction that makes the Jew
an existential threat to the new order. And while Jews
are endlessly forced to disavow this, condemn that prove their decency,
the other side advances unencumbered. No need for facts are logic,

(01:38:47):
just raw power and moral hysteria. So what do we do.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
We name it, we expose it, and we snuff it out.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
This means rejecting the lie that the Free Palestine movement
is a harmless expression of solidarity with oppressed people.

Speaker 2 (01:39:02):
It's not.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
It's a political warfare operation run on Maoist principles and
Islamist grievances. And now the last two short paragraphs, and
remember here Ion Hersili grew up Muslim and is now Christian.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
Okay, so I finish her article.

Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
We must stand with the Jewish community, not quietly, not conditionally,
but unequivocally, because the alternative is absolute hell on Earth.
Jews are once again being cornered, othered, and isolated, not
in the shadows, but in classrooms, boardrooms and brunch tables,
masked by politeness, cloaked in progress, and met with applause.

(01:39:39):
History doesn't repeat, it evolves. The next pogram won't start
with a storm trooper. It will start with a stare
across the room, a whisper in the hallway, a question
that isn't really a question. It will start with a
meme never again. And that's in quotes. The phrase never
again was never meant to be symbol.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
It was a vow. Very powerful stuff. The article is
much longer than that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
It is up on my blog at Rosskominsky dot com
if you want to go check it out.

Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
Hi, Mandy, can it you are? I told Kristen that
you say that every day.

Speaker 3 (01:40:16):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
Yeah, it's very uplifting, it is, isn't it. It's so lovely.
It is lovely.

Speaker 8 (01:40:21):
It's a wonderful, happy greeting.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
Are you still covelling over your eight or ten minutes
with William shatnyday?

Speaker 8 (01:40:27):
It was really good and he was so just charming
and awesome. I mean that's really what it did not
sound ninety if can we talk about how he did
not sound? You age and your voice changes. It happens
to everyone. It's not a sign of weakness. I mean,
we certainly saw it with Joe Biden significantly, But dude
does not sound ninety four at all in timber or

(01:40:50):
in you know, tenacity or whatever you want to say.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
He was quick. He was really quick.

Speaker 8 (01:40:55):
It was really he was very very good.

Speaker 1 (01:40:57):
All right, let's do this quickly. We haven't done it
in a wh in a little bit, I lost real
or fake. I haven't read this yet.

Speaker 8 (01:41:06):
Badge of shame.

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
Okay, here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:41:10):
Hotel in Japan is now using humanoid robots as receptionists.
Norway Lottery mistakenly tell us thousands they had won up
to one hundred times.

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
What they actually won.

Speaker 8 (01:41:20):
Yikes.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
Florida HIA finds resident for not wearing all white on
a designated day for the HOA New AI powered female
robot lunches.

Speaker 8 (01:41:36):
That fourth one new female AI female.

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
Robots, New AI powered female robot lunches.

Speaker 8 (01:41:43):
That seems oddly specific, like almost too specific to be true. Yeah,
I'm gonna say that one. It's false because I've been
in hoas that would have done that very same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
All right, dragon, If Mandy has it right, today. What
she went one hundred times for normal winnings? Right, And
by the way, that story was almost right. The Norway
Lottery exaggerated the winnings by ten thousand times, not one
hundred times. So they But in any case, the actual
fake headline is Florida HLA finds residents for not wearing
all white.

Speaker 8 (01:42:14):
They obviously have never been to Cape Coral if they
think that's fake.

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
What do you got coming up?

Speaker 6 (01:42:17):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (01:42:18):
I got a whole bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
You got a full length show today, I do.

Speaker 8 (01:42:22):
I just stopped talking just to confused.

Speaker 3 (01:42:23):
Ross.

Speaker 8 (01:42:24):
No, we have a guy on to talk about a
really cool program at Jeffco Libraries where there are they're
going to be displaying veteran art. So I thought that
was kind of cool. And of course the big beautiful
bill when I did my blog this morning had not passed.
Now it has passed. I don't know how much time
we're going to spend with that. We've got some interesting
local stories that I think it's time we need to
pay attention to. And what fresh hell does July bring

(01:42:45):
us in Colorado with the slew of new laws that
we're facing this year?

Speaker 1 (01:42:49):
Ross, everybody stick around for Mandy's Fabulous Show