07-08-25 - *FULL SHOW* The Aftermath; Time To Step Down (Not Me); Good and Bad AI

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's something unlike me and something like me. Unlike me,
he takes a train to work every day. He's in
New York. He lives on Long Island. He works in
the city, and he takes a hour and a quarter
train ride each way every day. And I asked him
what he does on the train, and he started talking
about how he does these puzzles. And I'm like, like
wordle and Connections and the New York Times Mini Crossword
and he said, yep, I do all those every day

(00:20):
and some other ones too, and I said, so do I.
And then we started talking about that, and then he
sent me you can easily share the results from these silly,
little time wasting but brain stimulating games. And then he
sent me the results from a game I hadn't seen
before called strand str n ds, another little New York
Times word games. So I just did that game for

(00:41):
the first time, and I'm trying to decide whether I
like it. And I'm trying to decide whether it's more
important to think about whether I like it versus whether
it's more important to think about the radio show. Probably
the radio show, Shannon, do you think we might be
able to take a little bit of this, Thankful for
all the resources that have been provided to us to
do this job.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
You know, and I can assure you we will not
stop until this mission is complete.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
At this tide of way is just Sheriff of Kirk County, Texas.
Now he's gonna switch to somebody else here. This is
obviously an update for the flooding rescue recovery efforts.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, I'm Joeyring Junior. I'm mayor the City of Kerrville.
I want to reasure our community and those families that
the city, the county, the state, and that federal experts
are working together, not separately, but as one team. If

(01:38):
you go inside the Emergency Operatingsation Center, you don't see silos,
you see one team. I want to talk briefly about
in kind donations. The outpouring of generosity has been tremendous
and we are grateful. We're going to We are working

(02:01):
on a new system to accept donations, and one of
those plans are complete, we will post them online on
the city's Facebook page.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
We are grateful.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
We need a new system to handle the generosity.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
All right, let's leave that. I don't think there's going
to be a ton of update on rescue and recovery
right now, because frankly, much of it has been done,
and it's probably a recovery effort at this point rather
than a rescue effort. I got to say, just looking
at the mayor, Joe Herring Junior is his name. I
don't know how old he is. He looks to me

(02:37):
to be maybe in his sixties, maybe seventy. And unsurprisingly
he looks he looks tired, And I can you imagine
being having that job, being the mayor of a nice
little town in central Texas, you know, and hill country,
lovely terrain people come to go camping and in the summer,

(02:59):
and now and now dealing with one of the biggest tragedies,
one of the biggest natural disaster tragedies in terms of
loss of life, at least in recent American history. Gosh,
I feel so bad for him in his town. I
actually have a letter that I'm not going to share
with you at the moment, but just a little bit later,
maybe even in the next segment of the show that

(03:20):
a listener sent me that's written by a guy in Kerville,
and it's quite moving. I'm going to share that with you.
I'm just do something lighter here for a second. This
is from the Denver gas At and this story just
gave me a chuckle yesterday on a day when I
needed a chuckle. A rodeo bull called Sauce Boss has

(03:44):
been recaptured after escaping from the Snow Mass Rodeo while
crews were reloading last Wednesday. According to the Aspen Times,
the bull had escaped the Snow Mass Rodeo grounds through
a fence on July second. It slipped through a fence
as cowboys unloaded animals for the Snow rodeo on Wednesday night.
After a few days on the run, the bull was
captured on Sunday evening. After the bull escaped, cowboys rode

(04:08):
through Snowmass searching for it, but eventually I had to
return to the grounds on Wednesday afternoon to get ready
for the rodeo. According to CBS News, the bull had
been found a few times roaming behind the Horse Ranch neighborhood,
but crews were having difficulty capturing the bull. Cowboys were, however,
able to successfully find the bull and lead him back
to the rodeo on Sunday evening, and the bull is

(04:31):
expected to be back in the rodeo next Wednesday. I
guess that would be tomorrow according to CBS, And so
I would like to just give a shout out and
a bit of a golf clap to that bull. And
I would like to know, you know, what a bull
does with a few days off, you know, like your prisoner,

(04:51):
and you get sort of this like good behavior pass
for a few days, and you go out on the
town and do you know, you're probably not suppose to
violate your you know, certain conditions. But I don't think
bulls are that respectful of the rules. But I just
wonder what does a bull do on his day off?
And if you have any thoughts for me, Maybe you're

(05:11):
a rancher and you've raised a lot of bulls, maybe
you've got a thought as to what a bull would
do on his day off. Please text that to me
at five six six nine zero and let me know
what you what you think a bull would do on
his day off?

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
If you have to decide if you like it, then
you don't. But I think I do. Actually, strands is great.
I play wordles, strands and connections every day. Try to
do strands without using their hints. Okay, I did use
their hints. Today, but I will try without hints in
the future. I can see how that would be a
lot harder. I also love the mini Crossword. And then
at the end of the Colorado's Morning News, a listener said,

(05:51):
and of course Ross just said Alexa. No I did
not say Alexa. Well, maybe I said Alexa. I don't
know if I don't know what. Maybe I said Alexa
play koa on iHeartRadio. But it's probably bad form for
a talk show host to say Alexa, and especially to
say it quite a few times. So I'll just say Alexa,

(06:16):
thank you and moving on now. This listener says, in
response to the question of what a bull would do
on his day off, this listener says, just some random bs. Excellent,
that's a great answer. He's looking for cows. Yeah, maybe
so as well? Maybe so as well. One more listener

(06:39):
text on the other subject. I've been through that area
several times. Kurville is beautiful, like you describe. I always appreciate
that area before dropping into the hectic metro of San Antonio.
I do not personally have much experience with Texas. I've
been to Dallas just as a tourist for a few days.
I took my younger kid. We went to the Daily

(07:00):
Daily Plaza and the library where Kennedy was shot from
and wandered around town a little bit and it was fine.
And that's really my only experience with Texas probably is
that I would like to check out San Antonio. I've
heard it's a pretty cool town. I'll get there. I'll
get there one day. Let's see. I'm going to just
throw this other thing out there more as a question

(07:22):
than as a news story or comment. But you heard
Gina talking about a little bit. Today is not only
the beginning of Amazon's annual Prime Day thing, which they
have doubled from four days to I'm sorry, from two
days to four days vis only for Amazon Prime members, which,
by the way, check this out, something like two hundred

(07:43):
million people are Amazon Prime members. Imagine that. Think about that.
That's what like twenty five billion or thirty billion in
revenue just from that without them even buying anything, just
from their membership fiecet. And then the other thing that's
quite interesting is this year, for the first time, a

(08:04):
Walmart is launching what they call their Walmart Deals sale
beginning the same day. So beginning today, Walmart is having
their Deals so you don't need to be a member
of Walmart's you know, Walmart Plus Thing to shop the
Walmart Deal sale. You do need to be a member
of Amazon Prime to shop the Amazon Things. I do
shop both, but I prefer I prefer Amazon for one

(08:28):
simple reason. And I and we'll see whether Walmart. I mean,
maybe I'm the only one who thinks this. I think
the Amazon website is much easier to navigate. I think
it's easier to shop. I think it's easier to compare.
I think it's easier to do everything on the Amazon website.
And that's one of the main reasons that I don't
shop very much on the Walmart website. I do from
time to time. Here's my question for you. Are you

(08:49):
looking to buy anything in one of these sales today?
And if so, what are you looking to buy? Text
me at five six six nine zero. I want to
share this with you. I actually received this in my email.
This more from a listener named Denise who might be
listening right now.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
And this is.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Something that was written by a gentleman named Clint who
runs a it looks like an investment firm actually that
is based in Kerrville, Texas and I'm gonna just share
this with you. It's been a horrible Fourth of July
weekend here. Unfortunately, as you probably know, Kerville is where

(09:25):
our office is, and it was devastated by a massive
flood on July fourth. What you don't know is that
one of our employees, Dusty Block, is a volunteer firefighter
that lives in Ingram, right where the worst of it hit.
Dusty is also a swift water rescue certified. Swift water

(09:49):
Rescue certified and has a small team that he prepares
with for just such events. He's a meteorology nerd and
was watching the rainstorm on his phone late that night
and anticipated the flooding would be bad. He got up
at one forty five am and got dressed and started
responding to distress calls around two thirty am. He went
for eighteen hours straight with very limited year in support

(10:13):
in dangerous situations, risking his life to save others. He
then did twelve hour shifts the next two days in
a row, and still showed up to work this morning
visibly cut, bruised and shaken up to get some work
done before heading back out to recover bodies. They needed
swimmers to get to this afternoon, day four of his efforts.

(10:37):
I was able to talk to him at the office
today and get a bigger picture about what he's experienced
and went through, and I was just staggered. I can't
do it justice. But here's the short version. Fifteen to
twenty people water rescued like he pulled them out of
swift water as they were being swept downriver and are

(10:57):
likely alive now because of him seeing them and throwing
them a rope. They were able to grab. Thirty to
forty people that had serious immediate medical needs he found
in flooded areas and was able to get them medical care.
Forty to fifty other people in immediate danger he was
able to help help the safety, and he was able

(11:20):
to find them and help in the safety. Eighty people
evacuated who had been cut off by floodwaters, including from
Camp Mystic, six girls who he drove out in a
five ton truck just hours hours before other vehicles could
even get there. Fifteen to eighteen bodies of victims found

(11:42):
and recovered. Hundreds of vehicles checked for bodies or survivors. Sadly,
he personally saw many people die as it was happening,
with people screaming and pleading for help just beyond his
ability to reach and get to them, And he saw
a whole family pleading for help go down in an
RV right in front of him. Sixty miles of flooded

(12:08):
terrain covered on foot in the past three days, including
a sixteen mile hike along cliff sides with his team
of four to be the first people that made it
out to find the survivors of Camp Mystic. He swam
through the flooded areas multiple times to get access to
places otherwise inaccessible. His fire department truck he initially responded

(12:29):
to the scene with floated away, even after he parked
it way above where he thought the water could get to,
and crazily enough, the truck saved a man that was
able to swim to it while it was floating right
on top of it, and then get onto the roof

(12:50):
of a building. The truck ended up pinned against. I
told him he didn't need to work today, but he
wanted to come in just to get his mind find
off of things for a little bit, because quote, when
I stop, all I can hear is their screams. Dusty
is just a volunteer. He doesn't get paid a dime.
He routinely puts himself in harm's way to help and

(13:12):
save others, and has saved lives, saved lives before. He
never asked for anything. He'd tell you just to give
to the victims for funeral expenses and so on. He
doesn't toot his own horn. I think Dusty is every
bit as big of a hero as the Coastguard guy
everybody's talking about on national news. But he didn't have
the support of the Coast Guard and helicopters and every

(13:34):
other advantage. Yet he probably saved a similar number of
people by being here first, knowing the river and the
terrain as a local, and being tremendously brave and quick
to respond in the places that need into him most
where no one else was around to see it or
know about it. That's a note from a gentleman named

(13:57):
Clint Fiori, who runs a business in Curerville, Texas, talk
about his colleague Dusty Block. I don't have anything to
add a listener questions going on at the same time,
for example, and I'll ask this again, and you can
just keep your answers coming throughout the course of the show.
At five six six nine zero. Are you shopping today
on Amazon Prime Day or over the next few days

(14:18):
Amazon Prime Days or Walmart's competitor sale, which for the
first time ever they're running at the same time, which
is Walmart Deals. Walmart has the advantage that you don't
have to be a member of anything with Amazon. You
need to be a member of Amazon Prime. But are
you shopping for something? And if so, what one person?
Set of fly fishing reel. Those things can be really expensive.

(14:41):
Pool cleaner, pressure washer, portable evaporative cooler. Interesting, A lot
of looks like a lot of guys buying various tools.
Sony soundbar because I think my LG soundbar is intermittently disconnecting. Okay,
I don't normally participate in Prime Day, but I'm looking
for portable cell phone charger as I will be going

(15:02):
to a multiple day concert next week and need to
keep my phone charged. But I am not sure which
one to buy, all right, So what you need to
look for there is the optimal combination of small size
and high amp hours or million amp HOURSMAH. You get

(15:23):
like the highest MAH you can get that still fits
within a size and weight that you're okay with and
a lot of these things. The ads will say how
many times you can recharge a typical cell phone from
that battery. They're not that expensive these days, you should
be able to get a good one for less than
fifty bucks. So there you go. Ross is the parent

(15:48):
of a firefighter. I can tell you it's in their blood.
Since the moment he stepped on to our local fire
Explorer program at the age of fourteen, he was hooked
and it's been his passion since. As a young adult,
his favorite thing is rescue, whether extraction, fire ems. They
are the unsung heroes, underpaid, and the horrors they see

(16:10):
and experience are unimaginable, but they do it for the
hope of saving lives. Takes an incredible, selfless, special sort
of being. If anything, please say a prayer for all
first responders who jump in the waters, the fire, the
extrication of people in vehicles in the hopes of saving
someone's life. God bless and protect them all. That is

(16:32):
an absolutely great note. Thank you for that. So I
want to follow up just for a moment. I still
have so many things. Oh, this is one of those days.
I want to follow up for a moment. On a
couple of things that Chad just mentioned in the news broadcast.
So there are a couple of things going on with
federal spending that I want to mention. I've had this

(16:52):
on my mind for a while and I haven't got
to it. I want to get to it now. So first,
we've heard this stuff about how the federal government may
withhold some previously planned spending regarding educational some educational stuff
and after school activities and whatever it is. I don't know.

(17:13):
I don't care, and I'll explain why I don't care
in a second. But this just falls so perfectly into
this category of stuff that bothers me every single day.
I hear about it over and over and over. There's this,
and there's that, and they all fall into this category.

(17:35):
And what the category is federal spending on things that
should be state responsibilities. And because the federal government can
and does run a huge deficit and huge national debt,
it has the effect of a kind of allowing states
to effectively run at a deficit. It allows states to not

(17:56):
be fiscally responsible and to dump that irresponsible ability onto
our children. And so when I hear, all right, the
federal government might cut a total of seven billion dollars
across the nation and this and that kind of education spending,
and again I really don't care what exactly what it's for,
because there let me just make this extra clear, there

(18:17):
is precisely zero legitimate federal involvement in education period, in
anything to do with money. Right the only as far
as I can think of this, the only legitimate federal
involvement in education is to make sure that federal civil
rights laws are followed. Other than that, nothing, nothing. And

(18:43):
so when I hear the federal government saying they're withholding
the seven billion dollars, my first thought is, good, withhold
all of it.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
Now.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
I do understand that school districts and other institutions that
perhaps are relying on this money have budgeted this, have
planned for this, and it's an enormous challenge and maybe
an insurmountable challenge to have money that you were expecting

(19:12):
next week or next month now to be told that's
just not going to show up. That's hard. That's definitely hard.
And maybe there's a better way to do it, to
try to kind of phase it out. But the problem
is this phase out stuff, this long term stuff. This
usually involves acts of Congress and This raises another question
about whether what Trump is doing is legal or not.

(19:34):
And if it's not legal, then he shouldn't get away
with it. But if it is legal, and I'm not
the one to determine that. If it is legal, I
think it's awesome. Again, I realize a huge challenge in
the very short term. Right, if it were up to
me and I could get away with absolutely anything, I
would say, all right, I'm distributing this money this year
because you budgeted it, but that's it zero next year.

(19:59):
That's probably how I would handle it, because it does
cause a lot of turmoil when you say money you
thought you were going to get right now you're not getting.
But it's still the complaint about it is wrong, just
like the Democrats complaints about the Big Beautiful Bill. Like
almost everything the Democrats say they don't like about the
Big Beautiful Bill is the stuff that I like best

(20:20):
about it. I mean, that's politics, and that's different views
of the proper role of government. And I get all that.
But not only is there no legitimate federal role in
education funding, there's no constitutional role in education funding. There's
also no evidence that federal involvement in education makes anything

(20:42):
better and that's the crazy thing. So I think, yeah,
cut all that out and make the state run. I mean,
states can't run at deficits. States have to have balance budgets.
Make them run a balanced budget period, don't make run
a fake balanced budget where it's really not balanced. But

(21:04):
they're making up the extra by stealing our children's futures,
by grabbing money from the federal government that our kids
are going to have to pay back later. We need
to stop all this. And then you know similar thing
with the big beautiful Bill and Medicaid and so on.
I mean, this is just a ridiculous grift. It's insane
that Congress ever went along with it. Where a state

(21:25):
during the Obamacare expansion, if a state pays a dollar
towards a new Medicaid and rollee, the federal government will
pay nine dollars. Are you kidding? Of course, especially in
liberal states where they want everybody on government healthcare as
much as possible because they want to eliminate private health care.
They're going to add as many people as they can,

(21:48):
and they're going to steal the money from our children's
futures in the form of the biggest federal deficit and
biggest federal debt that's ever existed. So when I hear
this stuff about cut medicaid, my response is no cut
more than that, that's not enough. It's not about removing

(22:09):
people from Medicaid so much as it is about changing
the funding. And here's the other thing to keep in mind.
If the federal government weren't so ridiculous giving away our
children's future earnings to buy the votes of people in
states who are going on medicaid, now maybe the federal government.
And again, they shouldn't be doing any of this, all right,

(22:31):
There's no legitimate role for the federal government in healthcare either,
but it exists. But let's just say that the federal
government went from being the most ridiculous, gullible sucker of
all time saying you put up a dollar and we'll
put up nine dollars of other people's money. Let's say

(22:54):
they went from that to being the second most gullible,
ridiculous sucker of all time, saying you put up a
dollar and we'll put up three dollars or five dollars
of other people's money. All of a sudden, at that point,
I know, it still sounds really stupid, right, Like, why
would you do that. Why would you just incinerate taxpayers'

(23:18):
money and burden our children like that. I know it
still sounds nuts what we're doing here, but let's just
say they went from a nine to one match to
a five to one match, or you know, a three
to one match even better, all of a sudden, Now
for the state to provide the same number of services
to the same number of people, they're gonna have to

(23:39):
spend a lot more state money that they don't have,
and therefore the state will have the responsibility of saying,
all right, we can't do this anymore. Can't we can't
afford this. We're going to have to figure out a
way to either reduce the benefits for people who are
on Medicaid, and you can't do that very much because

(24:01):
the benefits are already not very large, mostly except for
people with real disabilities, and it's not that easy to
take care of them in ways that are less expensive.
So it's difficult to actually reduce benefits for people who
are on that program. And that program already pays doctors
less than it costs the doctors to provide the services

(24:23):
most of the time, so it's already difficult for a
Medicaid patient to see a doctor in many cases. So
you can't really reduce the cost by reducing benefits. The
only way to reduce the cost is to reduce the
number of people on the program. And you'd reduce the
number of people on the program by doing things like saying,
going back to where you actually have to be poor

(24:44):
to be on the program, adding the work requirements, and
other things like that, and try and doing things to
get ten or twenty or thirty or forty or fifty
percent of the people who are on Medicaid off and
get them out there working if they are young and
able bodied, not taking care of young children or taking

(25:05):
care of a disabled person who needs a full time career,
get them off the program. And I've said this so
many times as this conversation has come up in recent days.
When Bill Clinton was forced by Nuke Gingrich to do
welfare reform, we were told repeatedly by the Democrats in

(25:25):
Congress that kicking people off of welfare would literally cause
people to be dying in the streets. And they were
thinking in particular of African Americans who have a very
high rate of being on welfare. And they said, you're
going to see lots of poor black people literally dead

(25:47):
in the streets. They didn't mean it metaphorically, and they're
actually saying the same thing about the bill now. And
what happened instead, the unemployment rate of those people who
got kicked off of welfare, the unemployment rate plummeted. They
went and got jobs, and that's what's gonna happen now too.

(26:11):
But the main point that I want to make right now,
because Chad was just talking about potentially having a special
session here in Colorado, and the governor did not want
a special session, and he said, I'm not gonna have
one unless unless something happens with Medicaid because with these changes,
and they're not gonna happen immediately, but with these changes,

(26:32):
there will be some massive changes to state spending in
the and the legislature could probably try to tackle this
in the next legislative session rather than a special session now,
but it might take all their time and they wouldn't
get very much of anything else done, which is why
I would rather have them do it that way, because
whenever our legislature is in session, I feel like they're

(26:52):
screwing us every possible way because these you know, I
had the chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party in studio
with me, and he talks to good game about caring
about costs of living. Yeah, that guy, he talks a
good game about caring about cost of living. But of
course everything they want to do is to add fees
on stuff. I don't care what you say about wanting

(27:13):
to help with cost of living. And by the way,
adding taxes and adding fees, even if you're going to
redistribute the income, see maybe you raise my tax so
that somebody else has a slightly lower cost of something else.
That's not improving anybody's cost of living. You cannot improve
cost of living by adding regulation. You can't. So anyway,

(27:35):
whenever the Democrats are running the show down there in
the state legislature for the months of the legislative session,
I just feel like I need to keep my hand
on my wallet all the time. So I would rather
have them deal with this in the next legislative session,
where it would take all their time and they'd stop
attacking gun rights and so on. But they're probably going

(27:56):
to do a special legislative session to do this stuff,
and to figure out how to cut something like a
billion dollars out of the state budget, and they are
going to have to do things that are that would
be very difficult even for Republicans who want to do it,
but exceedingly difficult for Democrats who don't want to do it.

(28:17):
Democrats want to maximize the number of people who are
getting quote unquote free healthcare. Of course, when government provides
something for free, it always means paid for by somebody else.
So we will, we will see what happens. Here's the
other thing to keep in mind, And I'm not one
hundred percent sure about this, but it's worth it's worth
noting at the end, just after the legislation legislative session ended,

(28:41):
there were a couple of bills that Governor Polus vetoed
that the Democrats really wanted to pass. It's not it's
not impossible that if they have a special session here,
and my understanding is they could try to come back
and override his veto on one or more of those things.
And we will see. I'm i I really don't can't
say I'm an expert on who gets to decide that,

(29:04):
but it's something we need to keep an eye out on.
So all right, so we'll see, And I just I'm
gonna remind folks repeatedly that whenever the state pads some
of its costs of operating the state by taking money
from the federal government, what that really is is a

(29:24):
fiscally undisciplined state. And they're all like this, not just Colorado,
every state is like this. It's a fiscally undisciplined state
that is masking an actual budget deficit in the state's
operations by adding to the national debt that our children

(29:46):
and grandchildren will be impoverished when they have to repay.
And it's a sin, and we have to stop it.
We're not going to stop it, but we have to.
And if we can make small inroads cutting back federal
education funding, cutting medicaid, making states be smarter than we

(30:06):
should emphatically, we should. All right, I'm gonna switch gears here.
My friend Jay Newman who had on the show a
few years ago for a thriller that he wrote called
under Money. And this guy was a huge hedge fund
trader of distressed international debt, like he and his firm
made a billion dollars or two billion dollars on a

(30:27):
trade he made and Argentinian bonds when it seemed like
Argentina wasn't going to repay the bonds anyway. He wrote
this piece for the Wall Street Journal that I wanted
to share with you because I like it a lot.
And it's called some Modest Proposals for Mom Donnie. So
Mom Donnie is the socialist anti Semite who was the
Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. We'll see

(30:48):
how that all plays out. There's a lot of pressure
on Andrew Cuomo to get out so that everybody else
can support Eric Adams, the current mayor, to beat Mom Donnie,
because this guy's a disaster in any case. This is
Jay Newman's note. Lots of folks are whining that the
New York Socialist Zoron Mamdani is making promises the city

(31:08):
can't afford. I felt the same way until a thought
hit me while I was standing in front of season's
paintings of apples and pears at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art on the Upper East Side. If you're a Marxist
and appropriating stodgy civic institutions is your goal, there's plenty
of low hanging fruit in a city like New York.
Mister mom Donnie could start by picking the ripest melon

(31:29):
of them all the MET itself. The city owns the
land the museum is built on and the buildings that
house its treasures. New York also pays the museum's heat,
light and power bills and a third of the cost
of upkeep and security. A funky old lease governs the
relationship between city and museum, but contracts are made to
be broken, and anyway the law should serve the people.

(31:50):
Rent control as a form of redistributive justice is a
central plank of mister Mamdani's platform, So canceling the METS
lease ought to be easy. Past comprises more than two
million square feet of prime real estate. With a little
creative renovation, it could become low income housing. With a
little imagination, the Great Hall, with three domes soaring seventy

(32:12):
five feet high, could become a six story housing project.
The average size of a Manhattan apartment built from twenty
fourteen to twenty twenty three is seven hundred and thirty
seven square feet. Even without zoning changes, the MET could
fit nearly three thousand apartment units, and if the city
Council agets busy rezoning, some eight thousand new homes could

(32:32):
be created in the MET. We don't need antiquated, fussy
architecture like Richard Howland Hunt's bosearch Facade. Just dust off
plans for the red brick Alfredy Smith houses that grace
the lower east Side. They'll be cheap and cheerful, with
plenty of light, air and unobstructed views across Central Park.
No need to stop with the met though, mister mom

(32:53):
donnie should also repurpose monuments to the patriarchy around the city.
The land and buildings of the upper West sides American
Museum of Natural History are also owned by the city government,
which funds annual operating costs. The Natural History Museum similarly
has some two million or more square feet that could
be converted into a massive affordable housing project. Repurposing monuments

(33:15):
that celebrate privilege would be just, and mister mom donnie
has said billionaires shouldn't exist, so why should the edifices
they erect to honor themselves on city land survive them.
There will be details to work out. Eviction would mean
moving millions of objects, even after incinerating art made by
white men, repatriating artifacts looted from ancient civilizations, and returning

(33:38):
grotesque collections like Native American bones to their rightful owners.
There will still be piles of objects to rehouse. With
mister mom Donnie's encouragement, the United Nations could make a difference.
The UN building in Turtle Bay is old, but rather
than taking over a city park to build something new,
the UN could get an early start on its twenty
thirty agenda for sustainable development. Mister mom Donia and he

(34:00):
could charm the Natural History Museum's trustees with names like Bloomberg,
Hurst and Roosevelt into footing the bill to buy the
Turtle Bay campus and turn it into a new temple
to their reactionary art. Equatorial Guinea has my vote as
the UN's new home. It's a small, centrally located West
African country with fabulous beaches and lots of open land.

(34:21):
After mister mom Donnie eliminates privileged cultural institutions, he'll naturally
want to turn to New York's police in prisons, sites
such as Rikers Island, the Metropolitan Detention Center, and one
Police Plausa could become small public parks. The NYPD's shooting
range in the Bronx could be reimagined as a mini
burning Man, a non judgmental ten city to hang out

(34:43):
and get high. All that construction activity would generate well
paid city jobs. Mister mam Donnie might consider creating a
new city agency, perhaps the Department of Central Planning. In
addition to running supermarkets, it could manage these massive publics
worse works with sustainability and in mind working with labor unions,
the department could ensure that greedy capitalists don't profit from

(35:06):
mister mom Donnie's plan to turn New York into the
nation's first post colonial city. If this vision is too
progressive for you, if you're filled with sentimental longing for
New York as you thought it once was, or if
you're frozen in the past, take comfort from the words
of an empowering icon, Queen Elsa let it Go. You
probably know of my next guest, Eric Sanderman, is an

(35:29):
independent political commentator. I think of Eric is quite a
centrist and generally maybe Lee Ellians will probably a little
left from me, But I think in his writing and
his analysis, he's very fair. He's thoughtful, and I appreciate
his writing. And so I saw a piece over at
coloradopolitics dot Com by Eric entitled the Knack for Knowing

(35:54):
When to step aside, and I thought it would be
good to have Eric to on to talk about a
little bit. So Eric Sonderman, welcome back to Koa. It's
good to have you.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Hey, Ross, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Glad to do it. You start this piece by saying
criticizing friends is no fun. However, it's sometimes necessary, so
pick it up from there.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
Sure, I mean I go a ways back with both
Diana to get and it sat on Hick and Looper,
both of whom are the subjects of my column. With
Diana de Guet, we had a particularly you know, reasonably
close friendship many years ago. Our eldest daughters are same
age within a couple of weeks, and we you know,

(36:37):
raised them largely with lots of family events together. Be
that as it may. Given my role as a sort
of down the middle if you want, or independent minded commentator,
I think occasionally get people to account, even when that's
not comfortable. My point is it's time for some generational change,

(36:59):
particularly in Colorado. Both parties across the country have grown
very long in the tooth, but it's an ailment in
my mind that particularly afflicts Democrats. You look at the
leadership of the US House on the Democratic side up
until a couple of years ago the triumpherate that led
that House web nance Jim Cliburn, Stenny Wayer averaged underscore

(37:24):
the word averaged over eighty one years of age. Now, yes,
they stepped aside, and you have hatem Jeffries and Kathleen
Clark and other new leaders. But it was a long
time in coming. And obviously you look at the debacle
that culminated, you know, in the sudden transfer of the
nomination from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, the blowout near

(37:49):
blow one at least in modern day terms for President Trump,
this is a party that needs to turn the page,
that needs to empower a younger generation. And as I said,
it needs to pass the torch. And I think that
starts here at home. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
I hadn't realized that hicken Looper was quite as old
as he is until I read your article. But he's
seventy three now, and I guess would be seventy five
in his next term if he runs for another one,
which sure looks like he is. And how old is Diana.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
To get it, it's not an age question so much
with the get I believe.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
She's she's sixty seven, seven or sixty eight, something like that.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
She's actually we went to college together at my alma mater,
Colorado College. She was a couple of years behind me
in the harbor to the west exactly. But you know
Diana has been there. Next year, thirtieth year. Yeah, it's
her fifteenth term, assuming she runs for reelection. And I'm

(38:55):
under no illusion that my column is going to deter
either of them from doing what they're doing and being
the careerst that they are. But assume, as she runs
for re election, this will be a sixteenth term, which
means extending it into a fourth decade. And you have
to ask, if that is prudent, what is she going

(39:16):
to do in a sixteenth term that she was unable
to do in a term or a seventh, or an eighth, etc.
And there is a deep bench both statewide and in
Denver on the Democratic side. And let's be clear that
the Denver seat that the get seat. It's impossible to

(39:36):
conjure up the scenario in which it doesn't remain in
Democratic hands and almost ghetto for hicken Looper's US Senate
seat get the deep blue complexion of Colorado at the moment,
So This is not a question you're a partisan Democrat.
I'm not, but if you are, this is not a
question about exposing those seats to a competitive election in

(39:58):
which a Republican could could win him. That's not going
to happen.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
So what would be the upside then for Democrats? Democrats
are going to hold the seats no matter why. So
what's the upside for Democrats to And I don't mean
for to get in Hickenlooper, but I mean for Democrat activists,
for Democrat political establishment, what's the upside for any of

(40:22):
them to go along with your suggestion?

Speaker 4 (40:26):
I think the upside is more governmental than it is political,
although it is both, and good government tends to be
good politics in the long run. But this is particularly
a Democratic party that needs to turn the page. We
saw that with President Biden. He had pledged to be
a one term president. He broke that promise. He had

(40:48):
pledged to be a ridged generation. That only happened when
the country saw up close and personally for itself, the
limitations on his capacity than the decline that was self evident.
I just think, you know, and I'm a baby boomer myself,
but baby boomers at some point our track record is

(41:11):
a very mixed track record, as any generations is. But
we need to pass the torture, yeah, to younger generations.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
I like the argument. I don't know who's going to
agree with you. I would, I would just make one
quick comment. I would say, claiming that baby boomers have
a you know, a mixed result is kind of not
fair to groups that have mixed results.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
The baby boomers have been terrible, right, I mean, I mean,
for me, the only issue domestically is our national debt
and deficit, and baby boomers have driven this by being
both recipients of the policy, you know, the redistribution, and
also by implementing it. And so I would love to
see the elimination of baby boomers from our politics as

(41:57):
soon as possible. But I don't. I don't. You're honest
about this, like with yourself and with listeners. You said,
you know, you don't think they're gonna gonna listen to you,
But I do. I do very much appreciate Eric that
you that you're getting out there and making the argument,
especially since to Get and Hicky Looper are are to
some degree at least based on your own writing friends

(42:19):
of yours. I think that took some courage.

Speaker 4 (42:22):
Well, I appreciate that, but you know, it's the point
that needed to be made, and I felt I was
in a position to make it. So let's the chips
ball where they may.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Eric Sonderman's piece for Colorado Politics is called The Knack
for Knowing When to Step Aside. You can find it
at coloradopolitics dot com or if you go to my
blog at Rosskominski dot com. I've got the link right
in there today in the guest section where I note
Eric being on the show. Thanks for your time as always, Eric,
thanks for your writing. As always. We'll talk against soon

(42:52):
my pleasure.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
I would just I would just I would just know that.
It's also in both the Denver Gazette and car Spring's
Gazette today, so you, I mean, your listeners can find
it there as well.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Very good. Thank you so much. Eric, appreciate it. Okay, Look,
I barely care right if to get steps aside, then
whoever gets that job will be just as bad as
to get on a policy basis. If Hick and Looper
steps aside. You know Hick and Looper, he always he's
one of these guys, almost like Joe Biden, who ran

(43:26):
as kind of a cheerful, upbeat, optimistic moderate and then
governs as something completely different. And John Hickylooper has spent
so much time in the last couple of weeks just
he's one of these guys who's been tweeting about how
this so called big beautiful bill is gonna just destroy
America and people are gonna die and all this suff

(43:47):
and it's like, I don't know what happens to these people.
I do know what happens to these people. Actually I'm
not gonna get in. But you and I both know
what happens to these people. But they run as a
certain kind of thing and then they get into office
and become something else. To get I don't know that
she ever ran as a moderate. I don't know anything
about her early time in Congress because she's been in
Congress way longer than I've been in Colorado, and I've

(44:10):
been in Colorado for more than twenty years, so that's
how long she's been around. But you know, do I
care if Diana to get leaves? And I mean I
probably more likely to get someone like AOC in that seat,
you know, in that sense, I probably rather have Diana
to get We've done some skinnered before, but not that one. Yeah,
I've actually already, like I think, on Sunday, I cut

(44:36):
up the sound already for this coming Friday's named Natune.
So I'm you I'm prepared because I had the thought
in my head. I'm like, ah, I'll do that one.
So so yeah, I want to follow I So I
went on kind of a big rant a little bit
ago in the show about how states use stupid federal
government policy to mask how states overspend, and the way

(44:58):
they mask it is by dumping spending the federal government,
which then adds to the national debt. And I talk
about this frequently, very frequently in the context of stealing
our children's futures, right, that it's gonna be our kids
who end up having to pay this national debt. A
friend of mine who is retired now sent me a

(45:20):
text message saying, look, Ross, you're right the harm this
is going to do to you know, coming generations, but
don't forget about us. And he made a point that
I really hadn't thought of, hadn't focused on, but it's
absolutely true and it's worth mentioning. Depending on when this
game of musical chairs stops and when the bond vigilantes say, no,

(45:45):
this debt is unsustainable and we don't think you're gonna
be able to pay it back, at least not without
some really serious trouble, and they stop buying our debt. Right,
You've got millions and tens of millions of Americans who
are retired, hired, and on fixed incomes. And typically the
way out of massive debt one way or another. And

(46:07):
I'm not going to get into the economic weeds here,
but typically the way out of massive debt involves devaluing
the currency, usually through inflation. And if you are on
a fixed income that is not going to change with inflation,
and you get inflation, suddenly you are poorer. Now, keep

(46:29):
in mind this is an important thing to understand. The
politicians don't care about you, all right, they don't care. Yeah,
they want your vote, but they're much much more afraid
of being accused of doing something that reduces benefits in
some program than they are of this thing out there
called inflation that they figure you and other people won't

(46:52):
really blame the government for it, even though inflation is
everywhere and all the time. The fault of government always
one hundred percent of the time, but it is it
is a great point. I mean, imagine that you are
on some fixed income and maybe social Security is a
little bit of your income, and that does have a

(47:14):
cost of living thing, cost of living adjustment associated with it.
But imagine that much of your income comes from being
in a private pension over some number of years, and
you're guaranteed four thousand dollars a month for the rest
of your life, and put aside social Security for a minute.
You can add that in as you want, even with
the cost of living adjustment in there, that you can

(47:34):
do that mentally. But so you're going to get four
thousand a month for the rest of your life. And
right now you are cost of living in retirement are
three thousand dollars a month. I know it's a very
low number, but three thousand dollars a month. Just stick
with me. And now we have inflation, and now your
cost of living, food, property taxes, healthcare vacation goes from

(47:59):
three thousand a month month to four thousand a month
or over four thousand a month. But your income is
still four thousand a month. And that was caused by
government adding to the federal debt. Debt and then they
get out of it. The only way out of that
federal debt is by debasing the currency. And now suddenly
you're much poorer. Your income hasn't changed, but your expensive

(48:20):
has expensive changed a lot because of government policy. So
even though I do focus so much on sort of
the moral sin of stealing our children's futures, we should
understand that by adding to the federal debt the way
they are, it's going to cause massive punishment for everybody

(48:41):
at some point. So the other thing, that other question
I have for Dragon and also for anybody else with
the sound of my voice I see you out there,
is today is the beginning of Amazon Prime Days four days,
it's usually two, and for the first time ever, Walmart
is doing their huge sale at the same time. Usually
separate it by some weeks or whatever, but Walmart is

(49:02):
doing their as they call it, Walmart Deals. Also starting
today at Amazon, you have to be a Prime member.
At Walmart, you do not need to be a member
of their thing which is called Walmart Plus. And also
Walmart is making theirs six days. So my question for everybody,
including you, Dragon, is are you planning to buy anything?

Speaker 5 (49:18):
I wasn't until now, and usually I can't find much
of anything that I would normally use or want to
use on Amazon. But I have had my eyes on
some weights that Walmart has. Oh I may go that.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
All right?

Speaker 5 (49:31):
Let us know what's it like? Kettlebells or bar belts.
What are we dumbells? I need fifty five plus pounds
now for some dumbbells. So and they've got typically better deals.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
So what do you do with those? Are heavy? Especially
I we've got two of them at a time. So
what are you doing with fifty five or sixty pound dumbells?
Jest presses in squats, gotcha right? Okay? Not necessarily shoulder
raisers or curls.

Speaker 5 (49:56):
I got puny little shoulders. I can only do about
thirty thirty five with my shoulders.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
All right, Well let me know about thirty if you
buy anything, let me know. Or maybe, just as a
bit of a service to producer Dragon, maybe somebody listening
right now can go onto Walmart's website and see if
any heavy dumbbells are on sale right now with the
Walmart deals, and then you can email Dragon the link
at Dragon at iHeartMedia dot com.

Speaker 5 (50:20):
With weights and dumbbells, whatnot. It's typically about a dollar
a pound. Anything is if you're looking for a fifty
five or a sixty. If you're paying for more than
fifty five or sixty dollars, then you're kind.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Of getting ripped for one of them or for two
of them for one one And then have you happened
to check Facebook Marketplace to see if anybody is selling dumbells?

Speaker 5 (50:39):
Not recently, That's where I would go first at the
beginning of the year, but people try and do the
weight loss resolution, so try and stay away from that.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
And then I just forgot come around, you know, February
and March, so interesting, all right, I've been I was
looking at Facebook Marketplace a lot yesterday for two things
for the landscaping we're doing for the for the house
we're redoing. I'm looking for so we're going to so
big trees, fairly big trees, ten twelve foot trees, and
then red or moss covered red boulders for decorating a landscape.

(51:13):
And of course we Kristen knows all of the the
what do you call them nurseries the places that sell trees,
and we're going to check those out. But I was
looking at Facebook Marketplace for kind of independent people selling
that stuff where sometimes you might be able to get
better pricing.

Speaker 5 (51:28):
Trees on Facebook markets Yeah, yeah, Wow, there's one guy
in Elizabeth who advertises a lot.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Actually there's two guys who advertise a lot, and then
there's a few on Facebook marketplace, and then there are
a few others. But I'll just say to listeners, if
you know of independent people separate from the established nursery
businesses who sell and deliver and plant you know, six
to fourteen foot evergreens have them, or you can just

(51:57):
shoot me an email at ross at iHeartMedia dot so
we can check them out. And same thing with boulders,
because we need to get boulders as well. All right,
do we still have that thing ready to go? Okay?
So President Trump is having a cabinet meeting today and interestingly,
and this is common for him, the cabinet meetings, at

(52:18):
least parts of them, are televised. Now one of the
things that's been going on in the past couple of days.
I need to take a moment to set this up.
So MAGA world has been obsessed for a while with
the death of Jeffrey Epstein, and they are at Maga
is absolutely convinced that Epstein was murdered, and that he

(52:41):
was murdered because he has this client list that he
would use to leverage or blackmail people, and therefore and
therefore they killed him, you know, and that Clinton's killed him.
Somebody killed him. Now that violates Occam's razor, But it's
not impossible. It's not absolutely impossible given what we know

(53:03):
about what happened there. Right, he was left alone and
a prison cell, and a guard who was supposed to
check on him instead took a nap and then falsified
the record, saying I think it was a she. I
think it was a woman. There were more than one,
but I think one of them was a woman, falsified
the records saying, oh, yeah, I checked on him but
didn't check on him. And then he's dead and they're
all the and then the camera system isn't very good,

(53:25):
and you've got all these things that kind of come
together like a plot in a really bad Netflix mini series.
Right of things, you'd say, no, that's too stupid, that
couldn't happen, all these things going wrong at the same time.
But when you're talking about New York State government or
New York City government, and prisons and all this. Of course,
all of it can go wrong at the same time,

(53:46):
and apparently it did. So MAGA really wanted Jeffrey Epstein
to have been murdered. They loved the conspiracy theory and
they are It's so psychologically invested in it that if somebody,
even somebody they should trust and do trust, says no,

(54:09):
it didn't happen the way you want, then instead of saying,
all right, you are my trusted person, I believe you instead,
because it is too psychologically painful for them to extract
themselves from the conspiracy theory because it will mean they
would have to admit themselves that they were fooled, or
they were wrong, or they were dumb or something. And

(54:31):
conspiracy theory people really like being in that because it
makes them feel smarter, It makes them feel like they
know something that other people don't know, and it makes
them feel like they're part of an in group, and
it makes them feel better about themselves. And it's very,
very hard to get the member of any cult to
get out of that cult. And the whole Epstein murdered
thing is definitely a cult.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
Now.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
I want to make one thing clear. It's not impossible
that Epstein was murdered, not absolutely impossible. It does violate
Ockham's razor, though it's not the most likely thing. So
going up into the Trump election and for the period

(55:13):
of time after Epstein died in prison, there were some
folks massively aggressively promoting the Jeffrey Epstein was killed to
prevent the release of a client list that conspiracy theory,
and some of the leaders. Two of the biggest leaders

(55:35):
of that were a guy named Cash Patel, who is
now head of the FBI, and a guy named Dan
Bongino who is now Deputy director of the FBI, and
to a certain degree, Pam Bondy, who is their boss
as Attorney General of the United States of America. And

(55:57):
in fact, Pam Bondy said fairly recently that she had
all the Epstein file stuff on her desk and she
needed to go through it and then they'd release all
this stuff. And they released some and it was a
big yawn, and she said, don't worry, there's more, and
we found more that was being hidden from us, And
don't worry. Where you get you all the information about
the Epstein files, and you are really gonna understand just

(56:19):
all the terrible stuff that was going on here and
the blackmail and the client list and all this stuff,
and Maga world was so excited, so excited. They were
as excited as producer A Rod before a new Marvel film. Right,
they were as excited as.

Speaker 5 (56:39):
You gotta be careful, everybody that is a Goodnow careful,
what would you.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Be most excited about, like opening day for the Broncos?
Are you that big a fan?

Speaker 5 (56:50):
Yeah, being on the sidelines for the Broncos, Being on
the sideline for the Broncos, And are you gonna do
that this year?

Speaker 1 (56:54):
By the way, I haven't asked, but you better get
that request in soon. Okay. So that's how excited Maga
is about Jeffrey. The waiting, salivating over the information about
Jeffrey Epstein having been murdered, and then what happens Cash
Bettel and Dan Bongino, two of the absolute heroes and

(57:16):
the pantheon of the great gods of Maga, who now
have access to all of the information. Well, at least
we think they do, come out and say we are
absolutely convinced, having looked at every piece of evidence, including video,
although there may be you know, thirty seconds or a
minute missing from video. But they say, based on all

(57:39):
the evidence we've seen, we believe two things. We believe
Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide, was not murdered, and we believe
there was no client list that would be used for anything.
There was no client list, period, but the thought was

(58:01):
client lists that would be used to blackmail people. They
say this list doesn't exist, and it's hilarious to watch
mega people on Twitter going absolutely crazy saying, oh my gosh,
we need to fire Cash Bettel and Dan Bongino and
maybe Pam Bonding now, Like, think about the brain damage

(58:24):
involved there, Like, these are the people you trusted most,
These are the people you were so excited that Donald
Trump put them in these positions in the FBI and
in the DOJ because now we're finally going to get
the truth about Epstein and they come out and say
there's nothing to see here.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Now.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
I will also note, just to be fair, there's a
lot of weirdness around this, and Justin Amash, former congressman
who is not MAGA and who is very sane, put
up a tweet or a post on X yesterday saying
this just seems weird. It really does kind of seem

(59:05):
like they're covering something up. So I'm not saying it's impossible.
There is maybe a one percent chance, two percent chance.
I don't think it's more than a two percent chance
that they're covering something up. Rather, I think it's that
they were just bloviating all along and claiming there's a
client list and he was murdered. But they said all
that before they had any information, and when it benefited

(59:26):
them by getting them more gullible followers on Twitter. It's
all a grift. It's all part of the whole Ultramaga grift.
And so now it seems like this is a thing
that's coming up in the Trump Cabinet meeting today. So
let's have a listen.

Speaker 6 (59:48):
Your memo can released yesterday. Jeffrey Fstein forty lest some
lingering mysteries. One of the biggest ones is whether he
ever worked for an American or foreign intelligence agency. The
former leaker secretary who is Miami. He was attorney Alex Casa.
He alligedly said that he did for intelligence agency. So

(01:00:09):
can you resolve whether or not you did? And also
can you see why there was a minute missing from
Geil House to Tea.

Speaker 7 (01:00:14):
Dominated So yeah, sure, but I just sent you up.
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been
talked about for years. You're asking, we have Texas, we
have this, we have all of the things, and are
people still talking about this guy? This creat that is unbelievable.

(01:00:36):
Do you want to waste the time and you feel
like answering?

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
I don't mind answering.

Speaker 7 (01:00:40):
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on
at Epstein at a time like this where we're having
some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what
happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration. But
you go ahead, sure, Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
First to back up on that, in February, I did
an interview on Fox and it's getting a lot of
attention because I said I was asking a question about
the client list, and my response was it's sitting on
my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file along with
the JFK MLK files as well.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
That's what I meant by that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Also, to the tens of thousands of video they turned
out to be child born downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Child born is what they were.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Never going to be released, never going to see the
lighted day to him being an agent. I have no
knowledge about that. We can get back to you on that.
And the minute missing from the video. We released the
video showing definitively the video was not conclusive, but the
evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
And what was on that there was a minute that
was off the counter. And what we learned from.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Your own prisons was every year, every night they redo
that video as old from like nineteen ninety nine, So
every night the video is reset and every night should
have the same minute missing. So we're looking for that
video to release that as well, showing that a minute
is missing every night.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
And that's it on Epstein.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Thank you, presidents. Harrison features again August. First, you said
it is the deadline, all right, interest, So that's that's
some interesting word play by her, right. She did that
interview on Fox News and asked her about the so
called Epstein files, and she said it's on my desk
to review, or the client list, the client list, and
she said it's on my desk to review. And now
she's saying she didn't really mean there was a client

(01:02:38):
list to review. She meant the larger literally the files,
the FBI files, the DOJ files on Epstein were on
her desk to review. And she did say, as she
just properly quoted herself saying, along with the JFK stuff,
along with the MLK stuff. Because one of the first
things President Trump did when he came into office was

(01:02:59):
to say, I want all this stuff classified. And so
she was reviewing all of that stuff. But so now
so now they're saying there's nothing. There's nothing he committed suicide.
This so called missing minute, which I mentioned before, is
not suspicious for the reason she just said, and they're
going to try to prove that, and to me, it
really is.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
Look, the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Jeffrey Epstein was an utter scumbag and I hope he's
rotting in hell. And this guy was trafficking in underage women,
primarily for himself, but apparently also offering them to some friends.
We think maybe, for example, this guy Prince Andrew, who's

(01:03:46):
been kind of excommunicated from his from the royal family
in England, probably did some of this. Don't know who else,
you know, we don't know that anybody, and everybody who
went to Epstein's island would have, you know, had sex
with an underage girl. It might have been you got
invited to an island by a billionaire with a private plane,

(01:04:08):
and it seemed like a nice weekend. I'm not trying
to make excuses for anybody. I don't know who did what,
right anybody who anybody who knowingly had sex with an
underage girl and hasn't faced justice. You know, just they
say justice delayed is justice denied. And I am never
and will never make any kind of excuse for anybody
who did that with an underage girl, nor for Glene Maxwell,

(01:04:30):
who procured underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein. And again, you
know Jeffrey Epstein. I'm a little bit sad that he
died because I wish he had suffered a lot. First, right,
I am I allowed to say. I wish he had
gone to prison and that what, and that he was
treated in prison the way he treated those underage girls.

(01:04:54):
I wish he had had years of being somebody's b
word in prison. That would be karmic justice. I am
in no way making excuses for that scumbag and the
people who helped him. Again, I have no way to
know who of the people who went to his island

(01:05:15):
engaged in any of that stuff versus hung out and
had dinner and had drinks and talked with rich, famous people.
I don't know, you know, once the rumors were out
there more than rumors of what kind of person he
was and some of the stuff that he was involved with,
you'd have to think that anybody who went to the
island after that, I'm not going to say they engaged in,
but I'm gonna say they showed very bad judgment. But

(01:05:40):
that's not what this is about right now. Right now,
this is about this weird fascination claiming he was murdered
and that there's a client list, and that he was
murdered to keep the client list from becoming public. And again,
there's never been evidence of that. And if it were

(01:06:02):
just a true crime thing, is there a client list
or not? And we're all thinking about what could this
be and what could that be? That would be one thing.
But what has really struck me about all this is
how much a certain segment of the population, how much
a certain segment of the population wants it to be true.

(01:06:27):
And you heard Donald Trump just there saying that they're
criticizing the reporter. Are you really asking about Jeffrey Epstein
now with all the stuff we've got going on in
the world with Texas, with what we just did with Iran,
with Trump's perceived success in his mind for the Big
Beautiful Bill. Actually politically that was probably a success for him.

(01:06:47):
And there are certainly some people who will say, of
course Trump doesn't want people to talk about it because
he went to the island, or he was on the
plane or something, And I don't know about any of that.
At this point, there's no reason to believe that Trump
did anything wrong with, you know, underage girls on Epstein's island.
There's no evidence of that, and I'm not going to
assume that he did. Even though Trump has a longtime

(01:07:09):
reputation as a womanizer, it's a whole different thing to
say he's gonna, you know, have sex with a teenager.
So I don't to me, the part of the story
that's interesting now because Jeffrey Epstein is dead now. The
part of the story that's interesting now is how much

(01:07:30):
so so many people on Twitter Trump supporters are furious
with cash Betel, Dan Bongino, and Pam Bondi and want
them fired because they're not giving these people who never
had evidence of anything confirmation bias, saying, oh, you were

(01:07:51):
right all along, and he was murdered and there was
a client list in all this, and I just think
it shows a certain kind of brain damage. And in
a way, I hope that the Trump supporters who won't
shut up about Epstein will take Trump commentary there to heart.
When he said, are you still talking about this brain

(01:08:11):
damage around the Epstein thing? And it's it's very very strange,
and there's this what I was talking about. This one
listener just kept pinging me with with texts and really
kind of kind of odd. But you know, he said,
why aren't you talking about the real issue and why

(01:08:33):
are you sidestepping whatever? And then he called me a
coward and then I said I don't care, and then
he called me an effing coward and then I and
then I blocked him so I don't have to see
I don't have to see his messages anymore. So whoever
you are, yeah, you can, you're you're welcome to actually
text at me, spend as much time as you want.

(01:08:55):
Certainly effing coward in this case, evan coward in this case.
And you know, it's kind of funny actually, So I
blocked him and then once I block someone, the list
sort of refreshes, and something like a third of my
texts or a half of my text on the Epstein
topic went away because this guy, I assume it's a guy,

(01:09:18):
wouldn't shut up. So this was kind of an interesting thing.
From this morning. A whole bunch of places were reporting,
and even was talked about in Colorado's Morning News that
the TSA is no longer requiring passengers to take shoes
off at security checkpoints and unless you get flagged for
extra screening and then they'll pull you aside and maybe

(01:09:39):
check your shoes. And to me, what's interesting. So, first
of all, I'm very happy about that, because having to
take shoes off at the airport was the worst part
of the screening, really annoying, slowed down absolutely everything, and
just kind of dumb. And But to me, the interesting

(01:09:59):
part of this then is not so much they're changing,
but rather there's no apparently there's no official TSA announcement
about the change. It's just they've changed and people are
noticing it and people are writing about it, and I'm
guessing they won't be able to not talk about it
for much longer, and who knows, maybe there's already something
out this morning that I've missed. But report after report

(01:10:21):
after report is saying TSA isn't checking, isn't making you
take your shoes off anymore. But TSA hasn't actually announced it.
So I guess there were some internal memos that somehow
were leaked from TSA that said that they would eliminate that.
And so there's that. Now listen to that. This is

(01:10:45):
from a website called view from the Wing dot com.
Shoe removal was probably never necessary, but hasn't been necessary
in years, regardless, Richard Reid tried to detonate. Oh, look
at that. Chad just gave me a news release. The
news release ses the TSA is going to end it

(01:11:06):
you removal at some airport security checkpoints. According to multiple reports,
the agency sent in internal memos security officers about testing
the new policy in a soft launch at security checkpoints.
So it looks like maybe it's not everywhere, but it's
at some big enough airports that people have been noticing,
including according to Chad's press release here BWY with Baltimore, Washington, LaGuardia, lax,

(01:11:32):
Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Fort Lauderdale. So and then today
no yesterday, the TSA said they are exploring new and innovative,
new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience. Well,
that would be a good enhancement, So let me go back.
Chee removal was probably never necessary and hasn't been in years. Regardless,
Richard Reid tried to detonate Petn in his shoes on

(01:11:56):
an American airliness flight from Paris to Miami. Do you remember?
I mean, it's incredible. Actually, how long ago that was? Dragon?
What's your?

Speaker 4 (01:12:03):
What's your?

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Just off the cuff? Guess how long ago was the
attempted shoebomber?

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
Guy?

Speaker 5 (01:12:07):
I have to say this probably close to twenty years ago,
So it was either two thousand five or two thousand
and six.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
Yes, that's a great guess, and it's actually earlier than that.
Oh wow, yeah it was two thousand and one. Oh,
it's a really long time ago. Yeah, you were close.
TSA began encouraging shoes off in February of two thousand
and two, but it didn't become mandatory. Actually, you're you're
right on, Well no, because I actually win the shoe
bomber was. Shoebomber was two thousand and one. It didn't

(01:12:34):
become a requirement from TSA until summer of two thousand
and six, at the same time that they did the
thing about their stupid like how little liquid you can
bring on, Like you bring something that's like five ounces
instead of three and a half and they throw it away, Like,
oh my gosh, I hate that so much. But anyway,

(01:12:55):
they did those at the same time after there was
a plot out of the UK to have some bring
some liquid chemicals on and mix them on on the plant. Anyway,
it's not clear. According to this guy at viewfrom thewing
dot com, it's not clear that the shoe plot would
even have worked. Reid had about ten ounces of PETN
spread between both shoes, and that may not have been

(01:13:17):
enough to take down in aircraft. Larger quantities can be
hidden elsewhere without taking your shoes off. Now, these are
a couple of bullet points that I am interested in
from this story. This was a one off event that
has never recurred in nearly twenty four years. It wasn't
repeated even in the years following the shoe bomber plot.

(01:13:38):
Prior to mandatory shoe removal. Designing procedures around a single
data point is poor risk management. The rule became permanent
for bureaucratic, not analytic reasons. Modern scanners see through shoes,
Millimeter wave ai T portals detect non metallic explosives on

(01:14:02):
the body. Everyone in pre check already doesn't take their
shoes off. People twelve and underdn't take their shoes off.
Senior seventy five, seventy five and older already keep their
shoes on. Most European airports rely on targeted secondary inspection
only when alarms trigger and haven't had any shoe bomb plots.

(01:14:23):
But shoe removal does slow down checkpoints. It creates crowding,
which itself is a vulnerability. That's an interesting point. So
he mentions attacks in an airport, not in an airplane,
in an airport in Istanbul and in Brussels, where there
were more people crowded around in an area to potentially

(01:14:45):
be victims of an attack because of the crowding being
created by people having to take off and then put
back on their shoes. Focusing on low risk threats low
risk threats distracts from real security. The time officers spent
and barking shoes off takes away from real misk risk
mitigation and I think this is the perfect summary. The

(01:15:12):
shoe rule was a classic example of security theater, a
visible ritual that signals diligence but contributes little measurable safety.

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
The TSA does seem like they're trying to improve clearly.
Sean Duffy at the Department of Transportation is very focused
on this and has made some comments recently about how
TSA needs to be better. And maybe you maybe you
separate the roles of screening and security, make those possibly
two different things. I don't know, but in any case,

(01:15:53):
hopefully they will roll this out at every single airport
so you don't have to take your shoes off anymore.
And also they should revisit these liquid rules so that
they don't steal so much stuff and make us throw away.
You know, a sealed bottle of water. I know, yeah,
you can make you can put something else in it

(01:16:14):
and make it look sealed.

Speaker 4 (01:16:15):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
But just do something to be less stupid. We'll see.
It's not really the government's strong suit to be less stupid,
but we can always hope. Local story here for a second.
Castle Rock an interesting piece I saw at the Denver
g is at and the headline is Castle Rocks building
height limit proposal faces developer resistance. And why I like

(01:16:41):
this story is it's a perfect example of the kinds
of things that governments have to try to balance, and
oftentimes there's no way to balance them without really pissing
somebody off. And I think more often than not, if
you get to an outcome where everybody's a lie little
pissed off, then that's probably the right thing. But a

(01:17:04):
proposed ordinance in Castle Rock has met criticism as officials
there again Denver Gazette dot com, they're aimed to preserve
its small town character by limiting or limiting even more
than they're already limited, how tall buildings in their downtown
can be. Now, I guess my understanding is they have
three different districts that comprise Castle Rocks downtown, and in

(01:17:32):
one of the districts there are there's a if I
understand this correctly, there is a limit of four stories,
and in two of the districts there's a limit of
six stories. And the proposal, which is primarily coming from
planning staff in the town, in the city, however you
want to call it, have said, we don't think we
should have different height limits. We want to make it

(01:17:54):
four stories everywhere, and developers are a little upset. Obviously,
if you can build a six building instead of a
four story building, you're going to make somewhere around fifty
percent more in rent. The building's fifty percent bigger. And
developers have a legit point here in that if you
are a developer and you bought either an empty lot

(01:18:18):
or an existing building that you're going to demolish and
rebuild something there, or an existing building that you're going
to add on to to make it bigger, and that
six story limit was a thing for you because you
were planning to build up to six stories or even five,
and now the city is going to say to you, sorry,
you can't do that anymore. In a sense, that's what

(01:18:39):
you might call in the law, you might call that
a taking. Right you are you are taking some of
the value of that property. And typically if there is
a taking, if it is ruled to be ruled by
the government to be a taking, typically the government would
have to pay you for that. So this could be

(01:19:00):
quite a big fight about whether it's a taking. Note,
people who worked at the city say maintaining lower building
heights helps preserve the visual integrity and traditional scale of
the area's historic architecture, ensuring that new development doesn't overwhelm
existing landmarks. And that's probably right. That's probably right. They

(01:19:23):
also say this approach of having four story limit everywhere
rather than six story like I think on the outer
ones and four stories in the middle. They say this
approach also supports a more comfortable and engaging pedestrian environment,
as human scale buildings typically three to four stories, foster
walkability and enhance street level activity. Staff added that shorter

(01:19:48):
buildings quote reduced shadows and allow more natural sunlight to
reach sidewalks and adjacent properties, contributing to a more livable
and inviting street scape. And again, I'm not taking a
side this. I don't live in Castle Rock. I see
both arguments. I do think there is a legitimate government

(01:20:10):
concern in keeping some kind of nice small town, large town,
small city, keeping it within a certain kind of character
that makes it a more appealing place to live in.
It makes it a more appealing place to do business in,
and it makes a more appealing place to be a
tourist they're a visitor in. And I do think there

(01:20:33):
is a legitimate interest there by the city to not
have in this case, downtown Castle Rock turn into a
bunch of even six story buildings. Maybe right. I mean
I kind of picture that the difference between a six
story building and a three or four story buildings. It's
easy to see. I actually can see it right out
our window here right, Dragon's looking out the window right now.

(01:20:55):
These are these are six story buildings. They look kind
of big. You know, it looks like a city. It
doesn't look like a town. So I get it. And
I also think that the people who are saying this
would be trampling on our property rights also have a
real argument. And I realize I've raised more questions than answers.
But I like that kind of story because it demonstrates

(01:21:18):
what governments have to deal with, what governments have to balance,
what these people we elect have to try to deal with,
and they are not always easy questions. Listener says, I
live in Castle Rock. The building height thing is a farce.
They're changing it now after they changed it to allow
six story buildings to get a couple of big developments
in town, and now that they're built, they want to

(01:21:38):
change it back. I'm sure there's all kinds of crazy
insider politics that happens in local town stuff. It's everywhere
all the time, and it's impossible for me to keep
up with all. Right, a couple of things I want
to mention here. First of all, this summer, I and
our little show here and Koa have teamed up with
Flat Irons fire tot up your summer. Well, it's already,

(01:22:01):
it's already hot. Maybe it'll be heat up the enjoyment
of your summer and then literally heat up your autumn
and winter, because this month we are going to be
entering listeners to win a beautiful forty five hundred dollars
fire pit. It's it's a little bit over than a
yard square. It's hand finished concrete essentially with an electronic ignition.

(01:22:22):
It's just gorgeous. And what we're gonna do here is
each Friday for the next We did this last week already,
So each Friday for the next three Fridays, I'm gonna
give away one entry over the air, and we're gonna
do two more on social media. So three a week
for the next three weeks plus last week, we'll mean
a total of twelve. I told you there would be

(01:22:42):
no math. And at the end of the month, Flat
Irons Fire is gonna pick one name from those twelve randomly.
One name from those twelve is gonna win a forty
five hundred dollars fire pit. So just follow us on
x follow us on Instagram, and you will see those
post attacks. Actually gonna be more chances to win online
than on the show. So follow us on those socials

(01:23:05):
and you could win this incredible thing, and then we're
going to do another one in the following month. Now
I almost never do this, but I'm going to. I
shared something with you that was a note that a
listener sent me, and I shared it with you over
two hours ago. And you know, as a radio host,

(01:23:27):
it's an odd thing, but I tend to hear the
whole show. Almost every day. I hear my whole show.
It's very weird how that works. But not everybody who
listens to the show listens to the whole show. You know,
if you listen to the podcast, you might listen to
the whole show, But a lot of folks you tune
in when you can, right you maybe you go to
work a little later than other people, so you can

(01:23:47):
listen in the nine o'clock hour, But then you're working
and you don't listen in the eleven o'clock hour, or
maybe it's the other way, and you go to work
kind of early, and then the eleven o'clock hour you're
driving around for lunch and you listen a lot in
the eleven o'clock hour, And for other people, it's just random.
I'm listening at this time today, another time, another day.
So anyway, just as a radio host, I need to
remember that just because I did something earlier in the

(01:24:07):
show doesn't mean that everybody who's listening now heard it.
And sometimes I think that there's something that was really
worth repeating, not just a news story, but something else,
and this is one of those things. And I would
like to share this. It's just it's not that long.
It's a few minutes, and a listener named Denise sent

(01:24:27):
it to me this morning, and it's a note that
was written by a guy named Clint who works at
some kind of investment firm in Kerrville, Texas, where all
this tragedy happened over the July fourth weekend. And I
would like to share this with you. If you heard

(01:24:47):
it again earlier in the show, you know, you might
just listen to it again. And if you haven't heard
it before. That's really who I want to hear this now,
so again. This is from a gentleman named Clint Fior
who is in Cerville. He says, it's been a horrible
Fourth of July weekend here. Unfortunately, as you probably know, Curville,

(01:25:10):
where our office is, was devastated by a massive flood
on July fourth. What you don't know is that one
of our directors, Dusty Block, is a volunteer firefighter who
lives in Ingram, right where the worst of it hit,
just north of Cerville. Dusty is also swift water Rescue

(01:25:33):
certified and has a small team he's prepared with for
just such events. He's a meteorology nerd and was watching
the rainstorm on his phone late that night and anticipated
the flooding would be bad. He got up at one
forty five am and got dressed and started responding to
distress calls around two thirty am. He went for eighteen

(01:25:53):
hours straight with very limited gear and support, in dangerous situations,
risking his life to save others. He then did twelve
hour shifts the next two days in a row, and
still showed up to work this morning visibly cut, bruised,
and shaken up to get some work done before heading
back out to recover bodies that they needed swimmers to

(01:26:16):
get to. This afternoon, day four of his efforts. I
was able to talk to him at the office today
and get a better picture about what he's experienced and
went through, and was just staggered. I can't do it justice,
but here's the short version. Fifteen to twenty people he
rescued from the water, meaning he pulled them out of

(01:26:38):
swift water as they were being swept downriver and are
likely alive now because of him seeing them and throwing
them a rope that they were able to grab. Thirty
to forty other people that had serious immediate medical needs
that he found in flooded areas and was able to
get them to medical care already to fifty still other

(01:27:02):
people who were in immediate danger and he was able
to find and help get them to safety. Eighty people
that he evacuated that had been cut off by floodwaters,
many from Camp Mystic. Six girls he drove out in
a five ton truck hours before other vehicles could even

(01:27:23):
get there. Fifteen to eighteen bodies of victims found and recovered,
hundreds of vehicles checked for bodies or survivors. Sadly, he
personally saw many people die as it was happening, with
people screaming and pleading for help just beyond his ability

(01:27:46):
to reach and get to them. And he saw a
whole family pleading for help go down in an RV
right in front of him. Sixty miles of flooded terrain
covered on foot for the past three days, including a

(01:28:07):
sixteen mile hike along cliff sides with his team of
four to be the first people that made it out
to find the survivors of Camp Mystic. He swam through
the flooded areas multiple times to get access to places
otherwise inaccessible. His fire truck he initially responded to the
scene with, floated away, even after he parked it far

(01:28:30):
above where he thought the water could get, and crazily enough,
the truck saved a man that was able to swim
to it while it was floating right on top of it,
and then get onto the roof of a building that
the truck ended up pinned against. I told him he

(01:28:50):
didn't need to work today, but he wanted to come
in just to get his mind off of things for
a little bit because quote when I stopped. All I
can hear is their screams. Dusty is just a volunteer.
He doesn't get paid a dime. He routinely puts himself
in harm's way to help and save others, and he

(01:29:12):
has saved lives before. He never asks for anything. He
would tell you just give to the victims for funeral
expenses and so on. He doesn't toot his own horn.
I think Dusty is every bit as big a hero
as the Coastguard guy everybody's talking about on national news.
But he didn't have the support of the Coastguard and
helicopters and every other advantage. Yet he probably saved a

(01:29:33):
similar number of people by being there first, knowing the
river and terrain as a local, and being tremendously brave
and quick to respond in the places that needed him most,
where no one else was around to see it or
know about it. That's a note from a gentleman named
Clint Fiori, who runs an investment firm in Cerville, Texas,

(01:29:57):
about his truly heroic colleague named Dusty Block. It's hard
to read, especially the part about you know, a family
yelling at him for help from an RV and he
can't do anything and they get washed away.

Speaker 4 (01:30:14):
I just I just can't.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
But I I wanted to share that with you, just
because of the the actual human story. All right, let
me get away from that for a minute. I want
to share a couple of things with you. First, I
saw this pop up in the news this morning, and

(01:30:41):
it's a it's a story that's still like one of
these breaking stories where newspaper will put up just a
few paragraphs and saying, you know, this story is still developing.
Sometimes they'll update the news story. This is from the
Washington Post from this morning. The US Department of Agriculture
Chief Brooke Rollins announced today that the US government will

(01:31:03):
move to ban sales of farmland nationwide to Chinese buyers
and other foreign adversaries, citing threats to national security and
food security. In a joint news conference with Defense Secretary
Hegsath Homeland Security Secretary Nome Rolins said the administration would
work with state partners and pursue executive actions to halt

(01:31:26):
the purchases. She also announced plans to increase oversight of
existing farmland owned by entities from countries including China, Russia,
and Iran. Now China or Chinese investors currently own two
hundred and sixty five thousand acres of land in the US,
which I have to say is a much smaller number

(01:31:48):
than I thought. It would be two hundred and sixty
five thousand acres, and about half of it is actually
one company, Smithfield Foods, which is owned by a Chinese conglomerate.
And I'm not saying that, you know, because it's a
food company, it's better or worse or whatever, but just
saying half of it is, you know, about half of

(01:32:09):
it is one company. And we hear all these stories
about the Chinese buying land, and there was this kind
of famous story about them trying to buy a bunch
of land near a military base up in Montana or
the Dakotas somewhere up there. But what I didn't realize, actually,
and this is quite interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
Is that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:28):
China owns two hundred and sixty five thousand acres of
US land, or you know, Chinese investors. Four years ago,
in twenty twenty one, that number, right, two hundred and
sixty five thousand acres. Now, four years ago it was
are you ready three hundred and eighty four thousand. I
would have thought they'd be buying buy and buying. They
haven't been They've been selling. They've been selling. Hag Seth said,

(01:32:51):
no longer can foreign adversaries assume we're not watching. He
added that the Pentagon would move to bar sales of
farmland to foreign adverse series near military bases, and said
the effort would help secure the US food supply for soldiers,
especially in a contingency. So I think what he's suggesting
there is even if let's say a nation that one

(01:33:15):
that even if a nation plans to really use the
land as farmland, if it's near a military base and
maybe it's a place that supplies the military base with food,
I guess what he's saying is, well, if we end
up getting into a war with the country and the
investors in that land or from that country we're at
war with, maybe they'll stop supplying food to the nearby

(01:33:37):
military base and we can't allow that. I think that's
what he's saying in any case, I just I wanted
to share that with you. One more lawmakers have stepped
up scrutiny of farmland acquisitions by Chinese entities after a
controversial deal in North Dakota in twenty twenty two. Chinese
owned Fu Feng Group purchased this is what we were
just talking about. This is the detail purchased three hundred

(01:33:59):
and seventy eight for a corn milling facility roughly twelve
miles from the Grand Forks Air based Local officials ultimately
blocked blocked the project citing national security concerns. So those
are the detail of thing I just mentioned moments ago,
so I wanted to share that with you. So that's interesting.
I've got one more story from China I would like

(01:34:21):
to share with you, and it's a somewhat less serious story,
but only a little bit, because there is certainly a
lesson to be had here. This is from a website
called Must Share News, and I've seen this story on
a few kind of small websites. I'm just going to

(01:34:42):
assume that it's true, because it doesn't matter all that
much if it's not. A thirty year old man in
why Hua in Honan Province, China arrived at the emergency
department of the hospital at the Hounan University of Medicine.
In case you're concerned about which hospital he went to
about a week ago with excruciating abdominal pain. He was pale,

(01:35:08):
he was sweating profusely. He was grabbing his stomach. When
the doctors checked his stomach, they found that his abdomen
was bored like and it's not because he had great
abs and was doing lots of sit ups every day
like Dragon. It is, as this website says, a classic
red flag for severe infection and internal damage. And it

(01:35:30):
turned out that he had an internal injury that had
caused a hole in his intestine and then some of
that to leak out into the peritoneum, which is just
kind of the cavity that holds all your organs, like
that big bag inside of you that's holding everything right
in there. And there was a leak of stuff from
his intestine into there, and he had an acute infection there,

(01:35:56):
and so they figure out he's got this significant an infection,
and so Dragon, do you know this story? Did you
send me this story?

Speaker 5 (01:36:04):
If it's the one I'm thinking of, then yeah, yes, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:36:06):
I think you did. I think I just found a
version of it that I liked a little better. But yeah,
you said, I think you said the unusual stories. Yeah,
this is definitely an unusual story. And so they they're like, Okay,
this guy clearly has some kind of abdominal infection going on.
They did laparoscopic surgery, which just means you make a
very small incision rather than the you know, old school
big incision and open you up. It's a small incision

(01:36:28):
where you put in a scope and you look around
and sometimes the scope has little grabby things on the
end and you can reach in and take things out.
And so they did the laparoscopic thing, and Dragon, what
did they find?

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
It?

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
Was it an eel?

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
Indeed, yeah, yeah, it was an eel. It was It
was an eel. There was a while, right, a live eel,
a little over a foot long, a live eel in
his abdomen. And you might ask how did a live
eel get into his abdomen? Well, ross, how would alive
eel get into his abdomen? Yes, And I would say, Dragon,
if we were going to play detective, the hole in

(01:37:01):
his intestine might be a clue. It might imply that
the eel went was in the intestine, chewed a hole
in it. Can you make a good chewing noise? Chew
a hole in the intestine and got out into the abdomen,
causing all kinds of infection. And so the lesson of

(01:37:24):
this story from China, and it's a lesson I hope
you all take to heart. And doctors everywhere are thinking
this just as I'm saying it, And even Mandy, who
just walked in, is thinking this just as I'm saying it.
The lesson of the story is don't put an eel
in your butt. It's really that simple.

Speaker 4 (01:37:44):
What what.

Speaker 8 (01:37:49):
That's the first part of the story that's awful.

Speaker 4 (01:37:53):
Don't what.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
This guy in China came into the emergency room with
significant of nominal pain. They found a live eel in
his abdomen that had chewed its way out of the intestine.
Because the guy, like trying to pleasure himself for something,
put an eel in his butt, and the eel escaped
and went up his butt and they decided to get freeze.

Speaker 8 (01:38:13):
It was gone like at no point, and you're like, wait,
where did I put that eel?

Speaker 4 (01:38:18):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
You got to count those as you go in and out?
I mean, oh, now, why is that a thing? I know?

Speaker 4 (01:38:25):
Now? Ross?

Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
That's just taking up space in.

Speaker 8 (01:38:29):
My head right now? Why why do I need to
know that?

Speaker 1 (01:38:32):
Hi? Mandy, Hi Ross, you are we haven't done real
or fake in a while, and you're here early, so
we got time.

Speaker 8 (01:38:41):
I have you know what I'm in the I have
no idea how long it's going to take me get
to work season in Colorado because everything's under construction. So
something that normally would take you twenty five minutes now
could take forty five minutes, could take twenty five minutes,
could take fifty minutes ross. So I'll just be showing
up at random time.

Speaker 1 (01:38:59):
Well, let's go to Happy to have you early, think
is better than having you late or not at all.
And then I go stick around and do your show
for you. Uh dragon? What is Mandy get if she
gets it right today? By the way, live eel? But
you know not what not to do with they not know?
You can make sushi out of it? That would be
better than what the Chinese got of eel and sushi

(01:39:19):
I do too, favorite, Yeah really good, Yeah, really good.
French Town attacked by bees twenty four injured boy neglected
by family communicates by barking after spending time with dogs.
Montana Town planning to host first ever Captain crunch eating contest.
Owners of pet lion arrested after it jumps a wall

(01:39:41):
and attacks three people. M what do you think I
am going.

Speaker 8 (01:39:47):
To say the one about Montana is fake, because surely
someone has had a Captain Crunch eating contest before now
and decided it was a terrible idea. Because I got
sued by everybody because all the skin dout taken off
the for their mouths.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
This is a thing with Captain crunch. It is if
you eat it really quickly, it shreds your mouth, and
if you wait even ninety seconds longer than that, it's
so soggy you have to just throw it away. The
Captain crunch is basically never good, or if it is good,
there's like a ten second window.

Speaker 8 (01:40:16):
I don't like captain crunch.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
I don't either. I've never liked you liked him, not as.

Speaker 8 (01:40:20):
Much as I don't like grape nuts. Oh, grape nuts
are like the triple of breakfast cereals. You put like
a quarter cup in a bowl and you put milk
on it, and then all of a sudden there's four
cups of cereal.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
In your bowl.

Speaker 9 (01:40:32):
Oh does it Expand I don't know what happens in
that bowl with a milk. I justumed I have no
grape nuts experience. My bad experience, I think was life
cereal way back in the day when I was a kid. Hey, mikey,
he likes it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:43):
He like Mike, he likes it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
But I think what happened was I think I let
it sit a little too on auto. I was a kid,
and I think it got mushy, and then I gagged
on it, and then I can see what I have
a kind of experience also with canned spinach. I never
ate can spinach.

Speaker 8 (01:40:56):
Say spinach is an abomination. I don't care what pop
I said.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
I know and this so cal spinich was like nineteen
seventy two on Guam when there was very little available town.
I can feel it, and I'm mouth all right. But yeah,
the actual fake headline, unfortunately for you, Mandy, is Montana
Town planning to host first ever Captain crunchheating contest. The
other potential let me let me ask you if the
other potential fake headline would have fooled you, because this

(01:41:20):
other one is fake, okay, And I could have chosen
which one, and I uh, pilot accidentally calls his bookie
with cabin intercom on No, I would have.

Speaker 4 (01:41:30):
Said that was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
I would have said that was It's just too much
going on in there for that kind of what I
thought too. Yeah, No, what do you got coming up?

Speaker 8 (01:41:38):
I got Thomas Friar Futures coming on talking about the
Noyman engine as a means to revitalize downtown communities. It's
a very interesting concept we're going to get into. Did
you say noman neyman, n e U m A and
n noyman. That's how you pronounce it?

Speaker 4 (01:41:53):
All right?

Speaker 8 (01:41:54):
And then we have nine News is Chris Vanderveen coming on.
He did a story last week that is about the
parole Board and their assessments of criminals and their likeliness
to re offend. They get way too many wrong, way,
way way too many wrong in one direction. We don't
know if they're keeping good people in prison. What we

(01:42:15):
do know is they're letting bad people out of prison.
And one of the people they just released they leave
stabbed to people to death and then killed his cellmate
as soon as they arrested him, and he had just
gotten out from the parole Board. So we're gonna talk
to christ May Andreveen at two thirty about that, because
that seems like we should be concerned about that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:33):
Indeed, everybody stick around for Mandy's Fabulous show. I'll talk
to you tomorrow,