07-18-25 - *FULL SHOW* NPR Independence Day

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On Fridays, we give away on this show entries into
a big drawing that we're gonna do in a couple
of weeks, and this is brought to you by Flatirons
Fire and the winner of that drawing, and there's only
gonna be twelve entries, right, so if you win an
entry into the drawing, then you got a one out
of twelve chance of winning, which is pretty big for
this kind of thing. And the winner will get a

(00:24):
beautiful fire pit, outdoor fire pit. It's hand finished concrete,
it's got an electronic ignition. It's retails for over four
thousand bucks, and that's gonna be cool. So at some
point during the show today, I'll be giving away the
on air entry and then also noon deadline, as we

(00:44):
do each Friday noon deadline on our Instagram page and
our Twitter or x page, so x dot com, slash
koa Colorado, Instagram dot com slash koa Colorado and there's
a pinned post at the top of each of those
feeds'll that tells you how to try to enter to
win one of the entries that way.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So we do one on the air and two by.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Social media, total of twelve over the course of the
month and then you'll have a one out.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
If you win one of those, you'll have a.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
One out of twelve chance of winning this fabulous fire
pit from Flat Irons Fire. By the way, thanks to
everybody who showed up last Saturday when I went over
for the grand opening, bunch of people, I got to meet,
a bunch of people, won some stuff, and I got
to say, I have never ever seen a fireplace store
as nice.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's more like a gallery.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
It's very large and open, not like these usual fireplace
stores that are small and cramped.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
It's just it's spectacular.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
So if you need any kind of fireplace, outdoor fire pit, barbecue, grill, pizza, oven, smoker,
outdoor kitchen, they've got all of that. It's a little
bit south of the furniture Row stuff just off of
fifty eighth Avenue and I twenty five anyway, Flat Ironsfire
dot com to learn more and we'll do that giveaway
in a bit. So I want to talk a little

(01:58):
bit a lot of stuff in news today. I want
to talk a little bit about this whole Jeffrey Epstein thing.
So Donald Trump tried very hard to tell his supporters
to shut up about the Epstein thing. I personally don't
think that Trump is trying to hide stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I'm just guessing.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
My guess is I don't think he's trying to hide
stuff about him and Epstein because I think he, you know,
moved away from Epstein a long time ago, once the
criminal charges against Epstein the first time around came out.
I think they were I think they were friends before that.
You know, both very rich, you know, young womanizers in

(02:39):
New York, and they did whatever they did with whoever
the hot girls were that they were dating at the time.
I guess he was with Milania already by then. But
in any case, I think Trump thinks it's a huge
distraction from what he perceives as major successes, whether it's
the economy or Iran or Ria McGray or whatever he's doing.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
And I think he's really pissed off that people.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Are talking about all that instead of the stuff that
he's getting done.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
And he's not really wrong about that.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
So yesterday the Wall Street Journal posts a long article
about some kind of birthday book Jeffrey Epstein's fiftieth birthday
and Gallaine Maxwell, who's in prison now for trafficking young girls.
To Epstein and maybe to others, but certainly to Epstein,

(03:28):
put together.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
A leatherbound book.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Actually she had some help with the physical assembly of
the book, but she compiled the stuff apparently, and put
together this book for Epstein.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
And there's this thing in there, according to the New
York and according to the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Which is a letter which the journal apparently has seen,
that is body like others in the album. And I'll
just quote from the journal piece. It contains several lines
of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman,
which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marks.
A pair of small arcs denote the woman's breasts, and

(04:03):
the future president's signature is a squiggly donald below her waist,
mimicking cubic hair. Now you know it doesn't I don't
know Trump. I have no idea if Trump was the
type of guy to do a drawing when he was,
you know, twenty years younger or whatever it was, thirty
y however, I don't know whenever it was.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Doesn't really seem to me like the kind of thing
he would do. But maybe. But here's the part of
this article that really pisses me off.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
On By the way, I'll get to this in a second,
but I just want to note that Trump is screaming
that he told the Journal when he heard they might
run this story, I never wrote that letter. That's a fake.
That's a hoax, and you better not run it. But
they did run it. Now from the Journal, it says
the letter concludes, quote, happy birthday, and may every day

(04:56):
be another wonderful secret. Now Trump again and says that's
not me, this is fake. I never drew a picture.
He says, I never wrote a picture in my life.
I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language,
it's not my words. And he's gonna sue. He says
he's gonna sue the Wall Street Journal. By the way,
if Trump sues the Wall Street Journal over this, as

(05:18):
long as this thing actually exists, Trump's gonna lose.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
In fact, I don't even think it'll go to trial.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
And I think Rupert Murdoch, who already lost a huge
lawsuit when Fox News had to pay hundreds of millions
of dollars to settle their lies about dominion voting, they
know that Trump likes to sue people, and they went
ahead with this anyway, which shows how unafraid they are.
And I would bet a lot of money that Trump

(05:46):
does not win anything out of this. It will probably
never get to trial. But if it does get to trial,
Trump's gonna lose. But in any case, I still don't
like the article. And here's a thing I don't like
about it. So early on in this article it says
that the letter concludes, happy birthday, and may every day
be another wonderful secret.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
If you go further down.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
In the article, now it says it's not clear how
the letter was prepared. Inside the outline of the naked
woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation
between Trump and Epstein voiceover, and this is now all
like written there, the typewritten voiceover. There must be more

(06:34):
to life than having everything, Donald Colon, Yes.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
There is, But I won't tell you what it is, Jeffrey,
nor will I since I already know what it is. Donald.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
We have certain things in common, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Yes, we do,
come to think of it, Donald, Enigma's never age. Have
you noticed that, Jeffrey. As a matter of fact, it
was clear to me the last time I saw you, Donald,
A pal is a wonderful thing, Happy birthday, and may
every day be another wonderful secret was obvious to me
reading that that Donald Trump had nothing to do with

(07:04):
that text. He does not talk that way. He doesn't
even know the word enigma. I doubt he would use
the word pal, and he would not say something like
and may every day be.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Another wonderful secret.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
So somebody else wrote this Trump may or may not
have signed it, like maybe Gleine Maxwell had someone else
do the art, do the poem, brought it over to
Trump and said, hey, this is for Epstein's birthday book.
Will you sign it? And maybe he signed it. That's
my guess as to what's happened. And Trump is saying,

(07:36):
I didn't write that letter. I don't do drawings, and
he's really mad. And now he says he's going to
sue the Wall Street Journal for a whole bunch of money,
and he will try.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
He won't win. But the bigger picture, and I will.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Talk about it more later in the show, is that
the Epstein story at this point is well and truly
getting away from him, and that is why Trump is
now directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to look for court
approval to release what he calls relevant grand jury testimony.
All right, in the interesting time, I'm gonna leave it there,
But there is more to talk about.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
I'm just really stuck on wordle. I'm staring at it
right now.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
I should be doing a radio show and instead I'm
staring at my second wordle guest, trying to figure out what.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Should my third guest be. Here's a crazy story.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
You remember that really terrible Indian Airlines crash.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Two hundred and sixty people.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Died, like everybody except one person on the plane died.
The one guy who who survived, I guess probably got
ejected out of the emergency exit on the side of
the plane before the plane exploded, basically for a fireball
blew through the plane. Crazy story and what seems to
be coming out now, And we still don't know much

(08:48):
more than this, But this is from This is from TMZ.
A black box recording of dialogue between.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
The Boeing seven eighty seven's two.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Pilots suggests at the captain, whose name is Samit Sabharwal,
who reportedly was known as sad Sack in flight school
because he always looked sorrowful, flipped fuel switches off. According
to a Wall Street Journal report about the official probe
into the catastrophe, absolutely crazy, absolutely crazy. The Wall Street

(09:23):
Journal reports the voice recording indicates that the coal pilot
asked why'd you cut it off, which then Sabar Wall
denies doing on the recording. The fuel switches regulate fuel
flow into the plane's engines. Not surprisingly, they're used by
pilots to start up or turn off engines on the
ground or manage engine failures or emergencies wall in the air.

(09:45):
Turning off the switch almost immediately halts fuel to the engine,
according to the reports, and it is very.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Difficult to do by accident.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
So the report allegedly says that each which was turned
off one second apart, but flipped back on to run
about ten seconds later.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
So what this is seeming like, and.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Again we're basically speculating here, but what this is seeming
like is that this pilot and it really can't be
an accident in the sense that you you really have
to make some effort to flip these switches. Right, they're covered,
you gotta lift the cover, they get right, they got
some kind of lock on them, and then you gotta
and then you gotta flip them.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
So it either.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Sounds like the guy intentionally did it, like to commit
suicide and take two hundred and sixty people out with him,
or there was something going crazy in his brain and
I don't know whether here's hallucinating on drugs, thought he
was doing something different but did that and said, I
have no idea.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
All we can do is speculate.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
But two hundred and forty one out of I said
two sixty, it was forty. Two hundred and forty one
out of two hundred and forty two passengers and crew
members died. So what appears to have happened is that
this guy cut off the fuel switches, and the co
pilot noticed after a couple of seconds and said, why'd
you do that, and went and turned it back on.

(11:11):
But at that point the plane was already going too
slow and it was too low, and everybody died, everybody
except one. I know where the two sixty number came from.
The two sixty number came from the number of people
on the plane who lost their lives plus the number
of people on the ground who lost their lives, and
only one person on the plane walked away. And in

(11:33):
any case, I don't have more to add to it
because it's just such a crazy story. I don't have
more to add to it, but I just wanted to
make sure you heard that. Let me let me take
one minute on the Stephen Colbert thing.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Which you heard Pat Wodard talk about.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
So CBS announced that they are going to end the
Late Show with Stephen Colbert next year. And as Pat said,
that's a show that starred did in nineteen ninety three.
And you remember David Letterman, if you're old enough to
remember this. David Letterman was on NBC for a long time.

(12:10):
He was a frequent fill in for Johnny Carson on
The Late Show and or whatever that show was called,
and he was there for a while, and then CBS
hired him away and he came over to CBS in
nineteen ninety three to host the Late Show and Letterman
did it until twenty fifteen, and Colbert took over in

(12:32):
twenty fifteen and has been the consistent leaderund among network
shows that air at that.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Time for much of that time. Now, in the.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Last year or two, Gutfeld on Fox has come to
dominate that time slot, and still Colbert is in second.
But I was doing a little research on this, like
why would they cancel it, and they say it was
just a financial decision. And my thought was, geez, they're
doing not as well as Fox, but much better than

(13:10):
NBC or ABC.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
And it's true, they're doing much better than NBC or ABC.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
But what's actually happened over the past eight years or
so is there's been a huge decline in the number
of viewers of late night television overall. So Colbert has
a big slice of a shrinking pie and what there
is left of that pie is being increasingly eaten.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Up by Gutfeld on Fox.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
So it could be that it's just a financial decision
because it's a very very expensive show to produce. Colbert
makes probably fifteen or twenty million dollars a year.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
You got all these.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Other people you got to hire, you got the writers,
and you got all this stuff going on.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
It's very expensive.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
You could put something else in that time slot that
is much cheaper to produce, and that is what they're
going to do. They are not going to put this
same kind of format back in that time slot. A
combination of young people who just watch the excerpts now
on YouTube the next day or on TikTok the next
day or whatever they've scared away. Whatever conservatives might have

(14:18):
watched those shows because they've been so aggressively anti Trump
for so long, and Gutfeld is dominating that time slot.
So there you go, Steven Colverts show will come to
it and less than a year from now. There was
a thing that looked to me like what was gonna
be in the so called Big Beautiful Bill, but then

(14:39):
ended up not being there, about regulating AI. And I
imagine that this is still something that is going to
come up in Congress, even though it didn't show up
the way I thought it might in the BBB, maybe
because of maybe because of Senate rules. We'll see when
we talk with our next guest. Juan Londonio is chief

(15:00):
regulatory analyst a Taxpayers Protection Alliance. We've had folks from
Taxpayers Protection Alliance on the show in the past. Protecting
Taxpayers dot org is the website, and he wrote a
piece for my former writing home, The American Spectator entitled
don't let California write America's AI laws, And the subhead is,

(15:23):
this is one area the federal government should regulate, not
each individual state.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
So with that, Juan Antonio. Welcome to KOA.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, Ross, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
What I want to start with the big picture here,
What is the issue at hand? What is the regulatory
overview of AI that has you concerned and that makes
you think Congress needs to act?

Speaker 3 (15:48):
So Ross, I think the key satistic right now is
one thousand, one thousand state level bills have been introduced
in twenty twenty five alone trying to regulate AI.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
So that's creating a.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Compliance nightmare because you have these companies that are trying
to catch up, the chemists are trying to comply with
all these laws that I are being.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Passed and introduced.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
But there's also not a lot of clarity over what
jurisdiction applies. Because for example, right now you're in Colorado,
right I am in Virginia, and we're communicating over the Internet,
So like that business can be headquartered in California, but
the infrastructure like data centers and stuff like that can
be in Louisiana, to say the least. So the Internet,

(16:37):
and this has been a problem with the Internet and
other conversations, like with data privacy, you don't really know
what laws apply or users don't know if I'm using
the services of any tech company, or this case, an
AI company that is based in say Colorado, with the
loss of Colorado apply or the ones in Virginia, and
that is creating a lot of confusions both for businesses

(16:59):
and consumers. And that is going to create a problem.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
And I don't know whether you've had much time to
look at what's going on specifically here in Colorado, but
we did pass the law in Colorado last year that's
supposed to go into effect soon, and a lot of
people who have paid close attention to it think that
this law is going to have a bunch of really bad,
unintended side effects. And there was a move in the
state legislature that did not succeed in this most recent

(17:27):
legislative session to delay the implementation of the law. And
now there's some talk, we don't know if it's going
to happen yet, about a special session of the state
legislature that could potentially be next month. If it happens,
that would mostly be about fiscal stuff, but there's talk
about addressing this there too, because it seems like a
bunch of people wrote stuff without fully thinking it through.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, Ross, actually the taxpayers perceptual lions file commons against this.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Colorado builds.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
I think we think it's very onerous. There's a lot
of reportant requirements that are going to create a lot
of busy work for AI companies, and the problem is
that usually benefits incumbanis and large AI capitalized businesses and
small businesses are going to suffer. But the problem aside
from that istead it creates another effect is sometimes and

(18:19):
we've seen with other regulations, like with data privacy, it
is usually that companies will default for the most expensive
or most strict legislation to kind of become a nationwide standard.
So the thing is like now, for example, right now
Colorado is the worst defender, and like a lot of
companies would say.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Probably default to Colorado.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
But that creates an incentive for California or New York
if they want to say become the national standard or
have companies comply with what they want. The incentive is
to regulate even more, to be even more expensive. But
it's a race to the bottom, and you have like
states pre dating each other instead of like for innovation,
which is what we usually see under federalism. It's to

(19:01):
create regulatory barriers and create and bog down the market.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
This reminds me a little bit, and you can tell
me if this is a fair comparison or not, but
of what happened for many years, and it seems like
maybe it's over now thanks to the Trump administration of
California imposing the is incredibly onerous standards on vehicle emissions.
And it's slightly different from what you said in that

(19:26):
under federal law, other states were not allowed to create
their own standards, but they were allowed to adopt California's standard.
And so recently the Trump administration basically eliminated a bunch
of that. So California in some areas can't do their
own standards.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Now.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Colorado, being East California, was following California's standards and you know,
at great expense. And so I wonder if this is something,
if this is kind of a way to think about that.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Yeah, it's a very silver I think you've nailed the
nail of comparison pretty pretty one to one.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So can you just elaborate for us in just plain
language that you don't have to be an expert to
understand what some of the burdens from Colorado's law would
be if Colorado, When, if, and when Colorado's law comes
into effect unmodified?

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Sorry, can you repeat that question?

Speaker 1 (20:27):
What will the burdens to Colorado Colorado users of AI
or companies that want to be AI companies? What will
the burdens be from Colorado's law?

Speaker 2 (20:39):
I think we'll keep part of it.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
I think where a lot of consumers will see the
burden will be companies that decide to use AI in
their businesses. Because the Colorado bill affects not only those
who develop AI, but also those who deploy it. So
if you, as a business owner realize that, say a
chat bot is very good for customer service and to

(21:04):
process claims or refunds more quickly, if you deploy AI,
you will be subject to some of these reporting requirements
and you will have a great set of responsibilities because
you deployed an AI agent and all of a sudden.
If you're a retail business are used to just selling

(21:24):
goods and services, all of a sudden, you have to
have someone doing impact assessments on stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
And like that.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
That creates a lot of compliance burdens on people that like,
all of a sudden, you have to become an AI expert.
If you're in the qualify in the regulatory categories.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
So part of the reason that people might take on AI,
there's two main reasons. One you think it'll do a
better job at a particular thing. The other, and I
think this will be the main driver for a lot
of companies, is that you think it will be a
cost savings.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
So what you're saying now.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Is that what the Colorado Bill might do is eliminate
the cost savings, or at least partly eliminate the cost
savings by adding regulatory compliance requirements. And then to go
back to something you said earlier, which is absolutely true.
And I'll give another comparison, and that's with banks. Big banks.
The biggest banks always cheerlead, almost always cheerlead congressional regulation

(22:20):
of banks, no matter how onerous they are, because the
biggest banks know that they can afford to comply and
smaller banks can't.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
So smaller banks are either then going to.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Have to go sell themselves to the biggest bank or
go out of business, and anybody else who wants to start.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
A small bank won't. So is there a comparison there.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah, I think it's something that we've seen in the
realm of economics and various industries. Most of the time
is incumbents most of the time benefit from regulation, and
especially regulation that drives up costs, that creates busy work because,
as you mentioned Temple, a lot of companies will decide
to deploy I because because they are able to get

(23:03):
stuff done that he couldn't do before.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
I could have a graphic designer.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
By having an LM produce a graphic produce something to
say I'm making a sale, all of a sudden, I
don't have to hire a graphic designer that maybe I
couldn't afford before, But all of a sudden, I also
have to pay to comply with this AI laws because
I'm considered a high risk industry for example.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Okay, So, as somebody who is very fond of the
United States Constitution and the federalist structure of our nation,
where there are very limited numbers of places where I
think it's appropriate for the federal government to dominate the states,
how can you convince me that this is an area

(23:48):
where it's appropriate for there to be federal preemption of
states and for the federal government to say states should
not be allowed to regulate this on their own.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
So, going back to what we're talking about of how
this regulation expands over the jurisdiction that they passed. You
mentioned California. California's laws on an efficiency will impact the
whole nation. It creates tension between states, and that's what
it triggers. What it's called the interstate commerce. And you
can think that the Congress has their thory to regulate

(24:22):
inter cerate commerce to prevent states from sabotage in one
another and to create in this case a free flow
and actually facilitate trade between states. And that's what the moratorium,
I think, at the end wanted to do. It's call
aposts from the states, tell them, look, there's too many
stuff being passed.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Too many laws have been passed. And US Congress, we're
going to.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
Create an uniform nation wide standard that's going to make
it easier for consumers to know what their rights are
and businesses to know what the responsibilities are.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
And it's actually I think.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
That fosters more market efficiency than anything else.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
We're talking with Jan Londonio, chief regulatory analyst Taxpayers Protection
Alliance Protecting Taxpayers dot Org.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
He's got a piece up at American.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Spectator called don't let California write America's AI laws.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Last quick thing on this one.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Part of what troubles me so much about state regulation
of this stuff is that it is most likely being
written by people who know very very little about the subject.
And I don't mean to, you know, just you know,
criticize legislators as.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
A blanket thing, although.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
I'm happy to do that too, But this is a
very complex, very high tech, and maybe most importantly, very
very rapidly changing thing that even the biggest expert in
the Colorado State legislature, or the biggest expert state rep
the biggest expert state senator knows almost nothing, and whatever

(25:55):
he or she thinks he knows will be mostly irrelevant
in a week or a month, and definitely irrelevant in
a year. And that's that's why I'm afraid of these
state level regulations, because they're going to be done, they're
always going to be behind the curve, and they're going
to be done by people who don't know what they're
talking about.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yes, And I think, and that's why taxpayers protection lines
we advocate for prudence. But also I think that the
problem that you mentioned is very notable in emergent technologies,
in new technologies where there's a lot of hype, and
I'd say with AI, there's a lot of hype both
in pessimism and optimism, and a lot of the things
that they're trying to regulate and prevent might not even

(26:37):
show up, but it might also curtail future uses that
we don't know what was beneficial, even in this high
rates industry. Is like housing healthcare. It's like it's easy
to think of the worst case scenario, but you can
also be regulating away the best case scenario. And that's
what we call it for prudence to wait until this
harms and issues actually materialize, and once then you make

(26:58):
targeted interventions basing reality, basing what has happened, not in
what could have been.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Frederick Bostiacht would be very proud of you for that
particular analysis that which is not seen part and it
is a fabulous point.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
And I just want to.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Reiterate that to listeners before we end our conversation with
one these regulators, and I do think, frankly, I think
most of them are well intended, but that doesn't mean
that what they're going to do is have a good effect.
Lots of well intended things have either a few bad
effects or mostly bad effects. So I'm not questioning their intentions,
I'm questioning their capabilities. And I'm also questioning, as Juan said,

(27:38):
the fact that politicians almost never consider the wisdom of
Frederick Bostiat to focus not just on that which is seen,
and in this case, that which is seen is more
like that which is guessed about. What could this bad
result of AI be? But what about the potential massive
upsides of AI and use cases that haven't been thought

(28:00):
of yet, that never come into existence because they get
regulated out of existence in advance by these legislators who,
again well intended, but out of their depth.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Juan Londonio, I'll.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Give you the last nineteen seconds because I like prime
numbers to wrap up.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, I think you nailed that, And I think for
policymakers my number one advice, I think it's sometimes stopped
looking for how AI could go wrong and see how
you can make it go right. And there's a lot
of positive thought frameworks STA It's like Montana to have
thought of the right to compute, for example.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Love it, absolutely love it. Jan Londonio, Chief.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Regulatory analyst to Taxpayers Protection Alliance Protecting Taxpayers dot Org.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Thanks for the great conversation. Enjoy your weekend. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
All right, that was really good. I hope you've thought
so too. All Right, I'm gonna do something completely different now.
I love this headline, Happy Independence Today NPR, And of
course they're not talking about July fourth, although in a
way they are talking about the it's not really big,
beautiful bill, but Independence Day.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Think about that.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
So many people on the political left are so upset
about this bill that passed the House yesterday, by the way,
so it's going to the president now and it's a
done deal.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
That's gonna strip.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
One point one billion dollars from the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and almost all of that money goes to NPR
and PBS and Yuri Berliner, who wrote this fabulous expose
I guess it was probably close to two years ago

(29:42):
now for the Free Press, and that got him fired,
basically saying NPR is making a huge mistake by moving
so far to the left and having no viewpoint diversity.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
And he wrote this piece and then.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
And NPR and PBS have been in conservative sites for
years not to shut him down, just to eliminate the
government funding. And I've said enough already that as far
as I am fully in favor of eliminating government funding
for NPR and PBS. And it's only maybe ten or
fifteen percent. And if any other business lost ten or

(30:20):
fifteen percent, yeah, that's a bad day. But it's not fatal.
And you figure out a way to raise more money.
You slim down your activities a little bit, you do
whatever you need to do. When you make the money back,
it's not really that much money in any case. Juri
Berliner wrote a piece for The Free Press yesterday entitled
Happy Independence Day NPR.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
And it's quite long.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
It's longer than I want to share the whole thing
with you, but I want to share a little bit
because I love the framing pending final approval in the House,
the federal and that happened already. Now the federal government will,
after more than half a century, no longer be in
the business of supporting NPR. And this guy worked for
NPR for twenty five years or something, if I didn't
make that clear before.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
The vote.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Is a victory for Republicans who have long had NPR
in their sites. But it's also a victory for those
of any political stripe who believe the government has no
business funding the media. I didn't used to count myself
among them, he says, but over the past year, under
the leadership of a divisive new CEO, instead of taking
criticisms of its coverage to heart, NPR instead doubled down

(31:25):
on agenda driven journalism. So, as someone who had spent
most of his career at the network, I didn't support defunding.
I instead suggested that NPR could build back credibility by
voluntarily giving up federal support.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Obviously that didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
NPR has said President Trump's push for defunding is an
attack on press freedom in the First Amendment. While defunding
is a harsh rebuke to NPR, it's not fatal as
a relatively small portion of its budget, actually, he says,
for NPR it's only five to ten percent comes from
direct and indirect federal funding. For small public READEO stations
that rely on more on federal support, the repercussions could

(32:04):
be severe and we'll see how that all plays out.
But as Uradi says, it's a self inflicted wound, a
product of how MPR embraced a fringe progressivism that cost
it any legitimate claim to stand as an impartial provider
of news.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
He goes through and I may come back to.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
This a little bit later because it's just so good,
but in the interesting time, and skip ahead a little bit,
and he just talks about how crazy far left NPR went,
and thus this backlash against it is its own fault.
And they said, you know, NPR said, oh, we're really
fair and balanced and we represent all views and we're
not crazy and whatever. And then Uri Berliner writes, this

(32:45):
NPR became a caricature of itself.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
With headlines like these. Check these out. This will crack
you out.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Micro feminism colon the next big thing in fighting the patriarchy.
The next one, which skin color emoji should you use?
The answer can be more complex than you think, And
no it can't.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Actually.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
The next one, Black women's groups find health and healing
on hikes, but sometimes racism too.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Bringing diversity to.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Maines the state of Maine to Maine's nearly all white
lobster fleet.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Oh, I care a lot about that.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Diet culture can hurt kids. This author advises parents to
reclaim the word fat. And finally, these drug artists, no,
I'm sorry, these drag artists know how to turn climate
activism into a joyful blowout inside.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
NPR says rules on the use.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Of language reflected the direction and mindset of the organization.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
We were told to avoid the.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Term biological sex, warned not to say illegal immigrant. A
racial punctuation hierarchy was imposed. Black would be uppercase, but
white would be lowercase. NPR adopted the phrase gender affirming
care to describe childhood medical interventions that can mean sterilization
and the surgical removal of genitals. These were not merely

(34:06):
style choices. They were tribal signals and ideological markers. It
goes on a lot from there, but it is a
wonderful piece.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
He ends with this.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
My hope is that this will be a wake up call,
returning NPR to its roots. Were a curious spirit and
deeared it to generations of listeners. But don't count on it.
Happy Independence Day, NPR.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
You earned it. Indeed they did.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
So.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
I'll be away Monday Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Actually I'm not sure who's in for me, and I
don't care because whoever it is will do a good job,
and so you won't hear me Monday Tuesday. I'll be
back next Wednesday. Don't worry it doesn't mean I've been fired.
I mean, maybe I'll be fired too, but that's not
why I'm going. And there's that I also want to
mention it coming up at some point during today's show.
Thanks to Flatiron's Fire, we're going to do today's on

(34:53):
air giveaway plus both social media giveaways on x dot
com slash Koa Colorado and Instagram dot slash Kaway Colorado.
So a total of three entries today into the drawing
that we're gonna do in about two weeks. With Flatirons Fire,
there will only be twelve entries, So whoever wins these
entries level one out of twelve chance of winning this

(35:14):
gorgeous hand finished concrete fire pit electronic ignition. I actually
saw it the other day when I went to the
grand opening a Flatirons Fire, which is a spectacular, enormous
fireplace gallery.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Just really something, really something if you.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Need fireplaces or outdoor fire pits or outdoor kitchens and
that kind of thing. Flatironsfire dot Com and anyway, during
the show today we'll be doing that giveaway. The other
thing I just wanted to ask you right now to
think about and then I'm gonna come back to it.
A little bit later in the show, just to lighten
it up a little bit on a Friday, is can

(35:49):
you think of any song about Colorado or part of
Colorado other than John Denver Rock Mountain High or another
way to put it, what's your favorite song about Colorado
or part of Colorado that isn't a John Denver saw.

(36:11):
I want you to text me your ideas at five
six six nine zero. I saw a cool article about that,
and I'll share some songs with you probably later this hour.
I'll probably get to that, but I want you to
text me your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
What comes to.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Mind about a song about Colorado or any part of
Colorado that isn't John Denver.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Wanted to get your take on that, all right.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
This next story is a little bit unfortunate, but I'm
gonna share it with you anyway. Colorado health insurers propose
huge price increases following passage of GOP's Federal Spending Bill.
Insurance carriers, and by the way, this is for people
buying insurance through the Obamacare market places. This is not

(36:53):
for people who get health insurance through work or Medicare
or Medicaid or that or trycare. This is for people
who buy their own insurance through the exchanges. All right,
on average, insurers on that platform are asking your regulators,

(37:14):
and it's just Colorado.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Now, for a twenty eight point four.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Percent increase to the health insurance premiums for twenty twenty six.
Can you imagine it would be the second biggest one
year increase in the history of the exchange in Colorado
and the exchange I think it was a huge number
in twenty eighteen somewhere around there. So anyway they're asking

(37:38):
for now, they might not get it. They're gonna get something,
but the regulators have to approve whatever the numbers are.
And it's a balancing act for the regulators because they
basically what they want to do is allow the smallest
let me make sure I get this right, the smallest
increases in insurance premiums that are big enough that the

(38:05):
insurance companies won't simply drop out of offering insurance. Right
you follow me, like you know insurance company XYZ. They
need to make a certain return on capital, and of
course they want to make as much as they can,
but it's a very competitive industry and they can't make
you know, unlimited profits. But let's say that they know

(38:27):
the insurance companies know, and they're not going to tell
this to.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
The regulators, that they need.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
A thirteen percent increase in premiums just to stay in business.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
The regulators don't necessarily know that number. They can try
to take a guess at it.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
This company that needs a thirteen percent increase to stay
in business and maintain their current profit margin is going
to ask for sixteen percent increase. And you know, it's
a business. They're going to try to make a little
more money if they can. And what the regulators are
going to have to do is say yes to sixteen,
or yes to thirteen, or yes to ten, or yes

(39:05):
to whatever. And what they'll be doing there is they're
gonna be playing the game of trying to figure out,
all right, what's because you know, if we give them sixteen,
they probably don't need that much and they'll probably still
stick around. And again the regulators don't know the number.
But in the regulator's mind, say, you know what, maybe
if we're around thirteen fourteen, you know, okay, they're still
gonna be here.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
If we go to eight.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
But they asked for sixteen and we go to eight, yeah,
they might just say we're not going to offer insurance anymore,
and that would be bad because then it makes the
whole thing less competitive, and then the other companies that
are still in the market can request even bigger premium
increases because the market gets less competitive. So this is
this is what's going on right now. And the reason

(39:50):
is not so much because there's been massive increases in
the cost of healthcare, but rather that it appears that
the so called Big Beautiful Bill is going to change
a bunch of things regarding subsidies, and so the subsidies
will be less and.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
There will be some other restrictions.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
The Colorado Sun says there are restrictions on automatic renewals,
extra checks for subsidy eligibility, a shortened enrollment window, limitations
on subsidies for immigrants, and then the bill BBB does
not extend subsidies that were expiring enhanced subsidies created during COVID, meaning,

(40:36):
and I'm quoting again from Colorado Sun, that hundreds of
thousands of Colorados will see less financial help less year
next year to buy an insurance plan. So basically, it's
not really that the cost of providing health insurance is
going on. What it is is, imagine that health insurance
the actual plan costs, and I'm going to make make

(40:57):
up a number. One thousand dollars a month is what
it truly costs.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
And imagine that.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
The federal government is subsidizing four hundred dollars a month
of that, and the person on the exchange then pays
six hundred dollars a month, but really it costs a thousand.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
And now let's.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Say, just hypothetically, we have a year where there's no
increase in what it actually costs. I know that's not realistic,
but stick with me for the example. No increase, so
it still really costs a thousand, but the federal government
now says we're only going to subsidize three hundred instead
of four hundred, so the insurance buyer has to pay

(41:35):
has to pay seven hundred instead of six hundred, which
is something like I'm seventeen percent increase or whatever the
number is. So that's what you're going to have to
keep an eye out for if you are buying insurance
on the exchange.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Text me a.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Five sixty six nine zero with your thoughts. Tell me
what is your favorite song about Colorado or any part
of Colorado that is not a John Denver song, because
I don't know that much about the operations of music
radio and it might be different, you know, at different
times of day. How much influence do you have during

(42:12):
your show over what songs play?

Speaker 4 (42:15):
So not much typically, but there are certain times that
you're doing shifts where you can say, hey, I'd like
to play this song because I have this story to
talk about Tyler Childers or Nathaniel Rightlift and the Night Sweat,
So can we play this song by the Lumineers because
there's a story about them and something that happened at
their concert. And then I fill in every once in

(42:36):
a while for Brad White on The Groove Show, which
is a Saturday night show from ten pm to midnight,
and he pretty much lets you pick whatever you want
as long as it's kind of upbeat and you know,
for a Saturday night.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, love it all right.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
So you can hear Grant on KBCO ninety seven to three,
eight pm, two midnight every weeknight.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Is that what you said? Every week? Every weeknight? Sunday's
six to midnight? Wow? See you.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
I know there's different ways to do that job, but
you do hours and hours of producing here on KOA
usually afternoon and evening stuff. I don't usually get to
work with you, and then you go do that other thing.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yep, the more you do, they say in radio. Yeah,
that's true. That's true, especially for a young dude like you.
You got the energy for all.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
That was some of the first advice I got from
Mandy when I was enterning on her show.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yes, say yes to everything, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
That's how I got where I got is saying yes
every time anybody wanted to fill in host. If I
was in the state, I said yes, even if I
knew it was going to cost me money from having
to be away from my other job. I said yes
every single time. That's exactly right. Folks keep texting us
five six six nine zero. What is your favorite song

(43:46):
that is not a John Denver song? I say, not
a John Denver song that is about Colorado or any
part of Colorado. I have two favorites, and I'm not
going to tell you what they are just yet. But
we're gonna do a bunch of We when to do
a bunch of this, and maybe in the next segment
of the show, but I want to just do literally
two minutes here on the funniest story that I've seen

(44:08):
in a long time, and this has been bouncing around
social media a lot in the past.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Couple of days. See, you might have.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Seen it already, but have you seen this thing about
the couple on the kiss cam at the Coldplay concert.
This is one of the greatest stories ever, Right, And
I I wonder if I even I might even have
the audio. Don't put my audio up yet, because I'm
not sure I have it. But so basically, you know

(44:34):
how it's it's usually more it sporting events than than
rock concerts.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
But they have this camera and they'll you.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Know, focus the camera around the audience, and and it's
a kiss cam, and if you're if you are, and.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
They'll usually focus it on a couple. And then when
you see that the that the camera is on you,
then you, you know, kiss whoever you're.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
There with, right, And actually, okay, I think I have this.
Now let's try let's try this. Put my audio up
and and let's see. And the voice you're gonna hear
is Chris Martin, the lead singer of cold Play, and
he's looking at the picture of the kiss cam with
this couple up there in the in the stands, and
the guy's standing behind the lady with his arms wrapped

(45:19):
around her.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah, all round all ruthieh okay, let me just interject.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
So the camera goes on them, Chris Martin says, look
at these two and they look, you know, briefly for
a moment, like they're deeply in love, and then as
soon as they notice the camera's on them, he lets.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Go overr he moves, she turns around. What. Either they're
having an affair or that's very shun.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy. Well,
Chris Martin, it turns out they were having an affair.
That guy is the CEO of a company, an AI
company called Astronomer, and.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
The lady who.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
He had his arms around is an employee. They're human
resources officer named Kristin Cabot. The problem is that the CEO,
Andy Byron, is married and has children.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
So since then he's put out a statement.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
There's also been a fake statement going around that made
it look like he was, you know, being sarcastic and
blaming cold playing all that. If you see that, that's
not a real statement. But since then he's put out
a real statement kind of apologizing. But can you imagine
that is some of the worst luck ever getting caught
on the kiss cam and then having one of the

(46:41):
biggest rock stars in the world saying, well, they're even
either having an affair or they're really shy.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
It was the former.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
So the question we're working today is what's your favorite
song other than a John Denver song that is about
Colorado or some part of Colorado. And we got a
lot of people texting in a lot of things. I'm
over one hundred over one hundred texts on this question now,
But keep in comming, and producer Grant is going to

(47:11):
look for stuff, and I've got stuff, you know. Let
me just let me do this first though, before we
go on with with some more music. And I'll just note,
by the way, if you're listening to the podcast right now,
when we get to all this music stuff, you're not
going to hear it on the podcast. This would be
an advantage of listening live.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Over the air.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
I realize lots of people can't and it's convenient for
you to listen other times and all that, and I
get it, and thank you for listening to the podcast.
But in case you're wondering why the stuff with the
music isn't in the podcast, the answer is lawyers. It's
not our it's not because we don't want it. In
the podcast, the answer is lawyers. So just letting you
know about that.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
So let's see what would be a what would be
a trivia question that I could that I could ask.
Somebody says they got wordling. I'm still stuck on two
and I'm just oh man, all right, I want to
do a giveaway here of today's entry into the Flatirons
Fire Giveaway. We're gonna do the actual giveaway at the

(48:14):
end of the month. As I've said, we're giving away
three entries a week, one of which is over the
air that I'm gonna do right now, and two of
which are on our social media platforms x dot com,
slash koa Colorado, Instagram dot com slash Koa Colorado Noon
Deadline Today to enter on those two for this week

(48:35):
Noon deadline today. So how do I want to do this? Okay,
here's what we're gonna do. Right now as I speak,
it's ten thirty six. We will take texter number seven
at ten forty three. Now ten yeah, ten forty three.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
That's fine. They'll give everybody a little time.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Number seven at ten forty three, by our clock, not yours.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Who can properly answer this question?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
What fairly big television show did we just learn yesterday
is going to be canceled and probably never coming back?
What fairly big television show? It's been around over thirty years?
And here's a hint, it's been around over thirty years,
but not always starring the same person. What fairly big

(49:35):
television show is being canceled in less than a year?
Texter number seven at ten forty three. You need to
include in your answer the answer to that question. And
I'm not going to be extremely picky on if you
miss a word or something, as long as it's clear
you got the idea, that's fine. And we also need
your name in your email address in the text.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Got it it?

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Also, do not text more than once. If you text
more than once, we will ignore all of them. All right,
Only one text per person. Don't spam us with texts.
Text number seven the ten forty three. It's got to
include your name, your email address, and the answer to
the question, what big time TV show did we learned
yesterday is going to be canceled? Next year? The winner

(50:23):
will get one of only twelve entries into the giveaway
for this fantastic fire pit from Flatirons Fire.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Okay, let's do a little more of this.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
I saw I saw a piece over at the Denver
Post that I really enjoyed a lot. And it is
entitled what's the most iconic song about Colorado? And most
people think of Rocky Mountain High probably, And that actually

(50:54):
became the second official state song back in two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Seven, the first official state song. Do you know what the.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
First official state song of Colorado is? And apparently this
song was made the state song in nineteen fifteen, all right,
nineteen fifteen. And before I play a little let me
just share a little history with you. The composer of

(51:27):
Colorado's first state song was a New York born author
and academic who worked his way up from poverty before
moving to Central City, Colorado in eighteen eighty nine to
be a teacher.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
He was also a poet. He wrote nonfiction books.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
He was an early expert on the Pueblo Indians of
the American Southwest. This is from the Denver Post and
not exactly a musician in any case, here's a little
bit from our first state song.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Did we get some text so yeah, we got a
lot of techs.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
We Oh my gosh, did you pick a winner already?

Speaker 2 (52:05):
I have not.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
I stopped it at ten forty three exactly, so I
am looking. I will count up to number seven and
make sure they have the right answer.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, and so it has to and so by the way,
so this was the trivia question, was what is the
TV show that we learned yesterday that is going to
be canceled next year? It's a big time TV show.
And the answer is The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
And if you got the wording of the show just
slightly wrong, that's okay.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
We're not gonna hold it against you.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
And you didn't even have to necessarily include Stephen Colbert
in the answer.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
We're not going to be too picky on that. But Grant,
we'll go find.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
The seventh person who at or after ten forty three
got that answer right in included the name and email address,
And if you are the winner of the entry into
our big drawing, Grant will text you back through the
text line. If you don't hear back from from Grant,
then you didn't win that entry.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
But you've got just over an hour remaining where.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
You can go to x dot com slash Koa Colorado
or instagram dot com slash Kowa Colorado and there's a
pinnedpost at the top of each that will tell you
what you need to do to try to win an
entry into this incredible giveaway from Flatirons Fire of a
four thousand dollars plus value outdoor fire pitt. It is
hand finished concrete. It's got electronic ignition, so you don't

(53:27):
need to go to it with a match or a
lighter or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
It's a really high end thing.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
And I actually saw it over at Flat Irons Fire
the other day, So all right, I think that's good
for now.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
On on the Colorado music that was that was pretty
fabulous though.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Let me just briefly mention a story I've had for
a couple of days. There apparently three new wolf packs
have established themselves in Colorado, and I guess maybe maybe
not from new wolves being brought in, but rather are
from baby wolves from other wolf packs. As I understand
the story, and actually, and I have this up on

(54:06):
my blog at Rosskaminsky dot com.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
You go see it. They some some.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Very cute little wolf puppies were actually caught on a
trail camera and they've got pictures of these of these
wolf puppies and they are really adorable until they're killing
your livestock, and then they're kind of less adorable once
once that's happening. But here's another thing I actually learned.
They don't name the.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Packs until until the packs are what is this actually,
I'm gonna make sure I get this right.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
They there's something has to happen before they name the packs.
There's some well I think maybe they have to reproduce.
I think that's right. I think they have to have
pupps and then they call it a pack, and then
they usually name the pack after something geographical in the
area where the wolves are. So there are these wolf
packs that had babies, three packs, and one of them

(54:55):
is called the Three Creeks Pack.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
In Rio Blanco County.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
One is called the one the Ear Pack in Jackson County.
We already had the Coppercreek Pack in Pitkin County. But anyway,
we got these wolves around now and there, and they're
very adorable. Like I said, they're adorable until they are
killing your livestock.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
But you know, at least this is just wolves.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Doing what wolves are doing and not be more being
brought in from Canada or whatever. But the other story
that I wanted to share with you that relates to that,
and this story just came out.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Was it today? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Today at coloradosun dot com, wildlife officials approve another one
hundred thousand dollars for Colorado rancher whose livestock was killed
by wolves. It actually ended up being a six to
five vote. I won't get into all the intricacies with you,
and there were some there were some commissioners who thought
that that the rancher should be compensated for a smaller

(55:50):
number of calves because they couldn't prove that all of
them were taken by wolves or something like that. But
in any case, they did get this rancher, his name
is Conway Ferrell, got another one hundred thousand dollars after
getting two hundred and eighty seven, four hundred and eight
dollars in compensation for livestock killed by wolves last year.

(56:10):
Another one hundred thousand and forty six dollars going to him.
And then there's another rancheros getting some other money less
than that, but still some other money. And so, as
I said, these wolves are cute until they're killing your
livestock or killing the Colorado taxpayer. We probably got one
hundred and fifty texts about about Colorado songs, so thanks

(56:32):
so much.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
For playing along.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
And gosh, we probably got fifty texts at least people
trying to win the fire pit thing.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
So don't forget. You've got a little less than an
hour at.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
X dot com slash koa Colorado or instagram dot com
slash koa Colorado to get those last two entries for
this week into that that fire pit giveaway from Flatirons Fire.
So let me do a couple of slightly serious, I
don't know how serious stories with you. So I've been

(57:02):
doing a lot of research lately on Medicaid and the
impact because I'm a nerd, and because I'm doing some
research for the Common Sense Institute for our next report
that I'm involved with, but research on the impact of
the Big Beautiful Bill on the state budget through Medicaid
funding stuff, and the very short version and the report

(57:25):
we do is going to be much more detailed. The
short version is it's going to be a lot of money,
but not very soon, right The changes to medicated the
Big Beautiful Bill kind of roll out over time and
you're not going to probably get to really the significant
numbers for five years or six years, or probably something
like a few years at least, but maybe even not

(57:47):
until like twenty thirty something like that. So there's been
some talk about a special session of the state legislature,
and I was talking with one member of the state
Senate who told me that he thought that there would
be a special session in the middle of August. It's
unclear to me whether there will definitely be one though,

(58:10):
because at least on the Medicaid stuff, there isn't much
impact to the state budget next year or even probably
really the year after. It's kind of some sort of
small numbers, so they have to go do a special
session to deal with it. Maybe there also could be
some other impacts though, to the state budget that.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Are not due to Medicare.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
And I'll give you one example with the no tax
on tips and no tax on overtime. Generally, the state
of Colorado accepts for purposes of what is your taxable income.
They accept whatever your number is that you report as
your federal taxable income. So if the federal taxable income

(58:56):
doesn't include overtime and tips, at least to a certain
degree there are limits on both, then Colorado also would
not be collecting tax on overtime and tips, and that
I don't know how much that is, but that could

(59:17):
be a big enough number that the legislature might want
to get ahead of it and deal with some part
of the state budget right now. The other thing I
will say to you is, as we talked about on
the show, Colorado, the legislature actually did pass a law
saying that even if the federal government doesn't pass even

(59:38):
if the federal government exempts tax on overtime, Colorado will
still tax over time.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
And then, to make it.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
That much more complicated, that provision in Colorado law does
not take effect until the twenty twenty six tax year.
So for our current year, if nothing changes, Colorado will
not be taxing overtime or tips.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
And then later if they want to tax.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Tips, they will have to pass something to do it
that doesn't seem like a This is a challenge for Democrats,
right because people who earn tips tend to be load
of middle income workers, not all, not all, but mostly
tend to be load of middle income workers. Those are
the people that Democrats like to try to get so

(01:00:33):
they're not gonna want to impose taxes on tips because those.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Are their voters, those are demn voters.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
But they also want all your money, so they are
going to be in a very tough spot. So what
I'm getting at here is it's unclear whether there is
actually going to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Be a special session of the state legislature. I do not.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
If you made me bet on it, I would bet
that there would be. But I don't think it's a
ninety percent thing, don't. I really don't. We'll see, we'll
see if they do have a special session. There are
gonna be a couple other things that they're gonna have
to look at.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
We talked earlier in the show with.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
A guy from the Taxpayer Protection Alliance about the artificial
intelligence law that seems like it's badly written, and they
might come back and not so much change the law
as delay implementation of it for another year and then
maybe look at the law itself in the next regular session.
And then the other thing they might need to do

(01:01:39):
is change ballot language, because there's gonna be a ballot
question about the free school lunches for rich kids, which
is what I call the Healthy School Meals for All program,
which Colorado voters stupidly passed. And of course it's running
out of money, because when you give people literally a
free lunch, more people will come take it than you

(01:02:01):
had planned.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
It's always like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
And remember, low income kids already got a free lunch
in Colorado, so they passed this thing that's free lunch
for everybody. So it's you know, free lunch for the
rich kids at Cherry Creek High School or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
And it's running out of money, and so they're going
to try to do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
A couple of things, and one of them will be
to ask to keep even more taxpayer money to fund
this thing. Anyway, they may have to come back and
change some of that language if there is a special session.
So all right, I'm gonna want this one other thing,
just literally in thirty seconds, because it's not even an
American story.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
But I think it's interesting and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Something that I'm sure the Conservatives are gonna hate, and
I mean the British Conservative Party in the United Kingdom.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
In the next election.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
They are going to lower the voting age to sixteen.
It's hard to think of anything dumber than that. Sixteen
and seventeen year olds should not be voting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
They they are.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
It's not a question of are they smart enough, it's
a question of are they wise enough? And do they
have enough life experience? And the answer to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Both of those things is a resounding no.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Remember you were talking about people who, as Bill Cosby
used to say, all children are brain damaged. And these
people are still children. They are sixteen years old. Can
you imagine and all the nonsense propaganda that these kids
here in school that makes them, for example, be antisemitic,
that makes them want to tax everything, that makes them

(01:03:35):
hate rich people, that makes them hate oil and gas.
And you want these people to vote, well, the reason
they're going to get to vote is that they would
vote for leftists, and the leftists right now in England
are the ones in charge of making the rules. But
I can hardly think of a worse idea. Let me

(01:03:57):
just kind of share with you what some of the
big news was yes yesterday on the Epstein thing. And
so the Wall Street Journal put out a story that
apparently Donald Trump warned the Wall Street Journal in advance,
hey don't put this out because it's a hoax. And
what they're talking about, in particular is a birthday book
that was assembled by the currently imprisoned Gilaine Maxwell as

(01:04:19):
a kind of celebration gift of Jeffrey Epstein's fiftieth birthday.
And I guess she got together a bunch of cards, letters,
I don't know what else from Epstein's friends and family, and.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
One of these people was Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that they have seen
this letter, and I'll just quote this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
The letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
By the journal, is body like others in the album.
It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the
outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand
drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arts
denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is
a squiggly Donald below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. Now
that's all juvenile enough. And you know, I don't know Trump.

(01:05:05):
I never met Trump. You know, he was a multimillionaire
or billionaire playboy even when he was a much younger
man in DC in New York. And I'm sure he'd
be hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein in there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
You know, young.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Girlfriends, not the kind of young girl, not the kind
of young that got Epstein into trouble later though. But
in any case, this letter concludes with happy birthday, and
may every day be another wonderful secret, which sounds exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Like something that Donald Trump would never ever say. He
does not talk like that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
And as you go further down in this article, and
I'm just in the interesting time, I'm not going to
share the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
I did it earlier in the show.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Actually that part is typewritten, and it is a typewritten
note styled as an imaginary conversation between Donald Trump and
Jeffrey Epstein. One of the lines, just for example, Donald
Colin enigmas never age. Have you know? Notice that now,
by a show of hands, how many of you believe

(01:06:05):
that Donald Trump has ever used the word enigma in
his life or could tell you what it means? Yeah,
that's what I thought. No hands went up. And so
this thing is typewritten. Trump told the Wall Street Journal
because he was told about it. He was, you know,
maybe asked for a statement in advance of running the article.
And he told them that's a hoax. I didn't write it,

(01:06:26):
I didn't draw it, don't run it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
They ran it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Now he's saying he's gonna sue them. Let me make
something very clear. They are not claiming that Trump drew it.
They are not claiming anything other than it looks like
Trump's signature and it's in the book. And since that's
almost certainly true, they've seen it. And I don't think
the journal is lying about that. A lawsuit against the
Wall Street Journal by Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Will go nowhere.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
He cannot possibly win the lawsuit, and Ruppert Murdoch will
not cave in and settle because the journal is just reporting.
This is not like the sixty minutes thing. This is
not like the Russia stuff. This is different. This is
just I think it's kind of a dumb story, and
I don't think it's very well written. But this is
not knowingly false and malicious, and Trump is pissed off

(01:07:17):
about it, but it is not gonna go anywhere. Another
thing that's interesting, though. The last thing I want to
say about this for today. Trump tried as hard as
he could to make this Epstein thing go away. He
called Charlie Kirk and said stop talking about it, and
it worked for like fifteen minutes, and then the very
next day Charlie Kirk did three separate videos about it,

(01:07:38):
trying to say, Trump, we love you, and my people,
the millennials and the gen Z folks who are part
of Turning Point USA, we want to keep talking about
this because we think we're supporting Trump by doing this.
Now I'm not in that world. I'm not maga, So
they can think whatever they want. But my point is
that Trump tried to make it go away, and he couldn't,
and now it's getting away from him.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
And so now yesterday he and now that he has.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Told Attorney General Pam Bondi to talk to courts about
releasing what he called relevant grand jury testimony, that's gonna
be So I got two quick things to say about that.
One not gonna be easy to get a court to
allow the release of grand jury testimony. So he may
end up disappointing his followers who are interested in all
this if that doesn't happen, I guess I would add,

(01:08:23):
even if it does happen, they may say that's not enough,
depending on what's in it. And then finally, there's a
reason you generally don't release grand jury testimony. A lot
of names come up in that of people who are
somehow involved in the conversation but haven't done anything wrong.
And can you imagine somebody who was named in grand
jury not as somebody who did something wrong, a businessman
who maybe maybe did some business with Epstein, but never

(01:08:45):
was you know, with a girl on the island, on
the airplane, anything like that. And now suddenly this guy's
name is in public and then people are going to
start attacking his business. May maybe his marriage gets stressed
by it, and he never did anything wrong. I think
this is a huge mistake. But it's all politics, all
the time. And as I said, at this point, and
this may be the first thing like it that I've
ever seen, Donald Trump has lost control.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
My name is Nicole Brady.

Speaker 5 (01:09:11):
I work for Denver seven, and we are doing a
story today about public funding cuts for publicly funded media
and agreed, you know, you agreed to talk to us
about your thoughts on that, so we came in.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
It's kind of fun. I'm not usually on the radio,
so thanks for having us.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Yeah, so we just in this last break, Nicole, And
is it Caesar?

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Is that your name? All right?

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
I'm just we just recorded a thing with some of
my comments, and of course Channel seven is also obviously
going to talk with the people directly affected.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
By this at NPR and PBS or just do you know.

Speaker 5 (01:09:48):
Yeah, I think we're talking to some radio people here
in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a consortium of stations,
and Rocky Mountain PPS, PBS twelve, a lot of stations
that some linked of course, and affiliates of those, but
a lot of stations certainly affected by these cuts.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
So this is going to be on Channel seven, our
ABC affiliate here in Denver, at what time?

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
Five pm to night? At five pm tonight?

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
Thank you, thank you? All right, very good. Check it
out ABC seven. You'll see me and Nicole and our
lovely koa wall behind us.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
It's funny, you never know this. I've done a little
bit of TV.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
And what's funny about the TV thing is, first of all,
sometimes folks will come in and record stuff and they
end up not using at all, which is kind of
a bummer. Hopefully they'll use some of this. The other
thing that's that's odd and is that sometimes you'll do
a thing where maybe you'll talk for three minutes five minutes,
and you think this particular thing was really good and
this other thing was kind of boring, and then the

(01:10:49):
people who are putting together the TV show, think it
the other way, and then the stuff you thought wasn't
that good is what makes the air, and the stuff
you thought wasn't good doesn't make the air. And I'm
sure you tooperience that a lot. So anyway, that's pretty
cool to do a little TV shot here in the
radio studio.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
All Right, I'm gonna do some other stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
So yesterday, for reasons I don't entirely understand, President Donald
Trump sent out a tweet that says, and I quote,
I have been speaking to Coca Cola about using real
cane sugar in coke in the United States, and they
have agreed to do so. I'd like to thank all
of those in authority at Coca Cola.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
This will be a very good move by them.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
You'll see, it's just better. Signed President Donald Trump. Now,
this is odd for a few reasons. One, it does
seem a bit of a distraction from all these other
things that he has going on. But maybe that was
part of the point, maybe to kind of move people
away from talking about Epstein. Possible, that kind of thing

(01:11:48):
definitely happens, and the way that political communications people think like, oh,
let's do this, and people start chatting about that and
stop talking about Epstein, although Trump is more wanted to
talk about the economy and immigration and whatever. But any case,
he jumped into that, So that's a little bit odd.
The other thing that's a little bit odd is currently

(01:12:12):
most American soda that isn't diet soda is flavored with
high fructose corn syrup. Now, there had been some debate
in the past about whether high fructose corn syrup was
significantly more unhealthy for you than sugar. The recent data
suggests that it's actually probably very close in health impacts

(01:12:33):
compared to sugar. And Trump always likes supporting the American farmer,
and he will bribe the American farmer.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
With taxpayer money.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
Let's say he puts in tariffs and then the Chinese
say they're gonna impose imposed tariffs and not buy American products,
and then Trump will just start writing checks for your
taxpayer money to the farmers so that they don't yet
hurt by the tariffs. And instead you and I get
hurt by the tariffs because we're paying the tariffs. That
are we're paying the penalty that's going to the farmers

(01:13:07):
from the dumb policy.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
But when it comes to this stuff, high fructose corn
syrup comes from wait for it, corn. We grow a
lot of corn in America, a lot, And in.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Fact, part of the reason high fructose corn syrup became
a thing is that the corn market was so weak
because there was so much more supply than.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Demand, and they started thinking, what can we do with this,
and they thought, okay, we could sweeten soda with it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
We do grow some sugar, mostly sugar beets, very little
sugar cane in the United States of America, but it
is a much much smaller industry. It's big in Florida,
I think, it's big oddly enough in maybe Minnesota or
Wisconsin up there, somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Where you wouldn't normally think of sugar.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
But in any case, much of the sugar that we
get that we use in the United States of America
is imported because a lot of sugar comes from tropical comets. Again,
we do have a sugar industry, but it's not like corn.
And so it is a little bit strange for Donald
Trump to come out with a proposal for Coca Cola
to say essentially, let's use way, way, way way less corn,

(01:14:15):
because corn farmers are like a massive part of his
base and actually the corn corn industry came out shortly
after Trump put.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
This out, saying you're.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
Gonna cost thousands of jobs and millions or many many
millions of revenue if you do this thing. So that's
another weird thing about it. And then the last weird thing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
About it is Donald Trump is famous for drinking diet coke.
He's not drinking regular coke with the high fructose corn
syrup in it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
He's I very much doubt he's gonna and that he's
gonna go drink what we will colloquially now call Mexican coke,
because lots of people in America who liked the flavor
of the coke with the regular sugar and that of
the corn syrup know that that's how they make the
soda for Mexico.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
So you go to the supermarket, you find the Mexican.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Coke, and you can get soda with the actual sugar
in it, and it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Does taste different.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
And I don't know whether I like the Mexican coke
better because of the sugar or just because it's some
psychological thing. We're doing something different than what everybody else
is doing. But in any case, the last thing I
wanted to say on this story. Separate from all the
weirdness is that Trump said that he spoke.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
To Coca Cola and they have agreed to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:30):
But Coca Cola then replied with a comment which does
not confirm that they have agreed to do it, and
I don't think they will agree to do it. It
would increase their cost so much to have to use
that much sugar, way more sugar than America can produce.
They're gonna have to get sugar from overseas that Trump
is gonna have tariffs on. It would raise the cost

(01:15:52):
of making this soda so much. And so Coca Cola
just came out with the comment saying all Coca Cola
brand products are wholesome beverages manufactured in compliance with the
federal law.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
HM.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
So anyway, I think it's really I think it's really
kind of odd that Trump got into this conversation and
for all those ways that I already explained, and then
also it's odd and in a way it's a political mistake.
It's a sort of own goal, if you know that
term from soccer. It's a sort of political own goal

(01:16:30):
for the President to come out and say such and
such a company has agreed to do a thing that
I want them to do, when the company themselves then
come out and say, either directly or indirectly, we actually
haven't agreed to that. So anyway, there's the coach Cola story.
What else did I want to do? Let's do another

(01:16:51):
food thing, another dumb food story. So first I want
to say, you know what, Nicole, come back over here
for a second.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Still here, all right, still here.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
I'm gonna ask you about something completely different. Okay, just
because you're a random person in studio with me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
You don't get that too often, not too often.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
Do you care about expiration dates on food? Do they
mean anything to you at all?

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
No? Only milk, right, only the smell? Right?

Speaker 5 (01:17:18):
Okay, Okay, now I'm all about ignoring those on a boxed, canned,
or other types.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
Of very good, very good. That's why you're a great American.
Thank you, Nicole. Uh okay, that's I'm exactly where Nicole is.
You know, if you got to use by date on milk.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
You sniff it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
If there's chunks in it, you don't use it. It's
that simple, right, And and maybe meat and fish also,
you be a little careful of the date itself.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Is not really a hard and fast guideline.

Speaker 1 (01:17:46):
But what you need to understand, what I think most
Americans don't understand, is that the dates that are on
our food, and if you look closely, you will see
they say best if used by Okay, best if you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Used to buy. And we talked about this a few
years ago on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
It does not mean that there's any expectation that the
food will be.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Unsafe after that date.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
It literally means they think it might just taste a
little less good or a tiny bit less fresh at
some point a little bit after that date. Who cares,
right who? Okay, But there's that. But so that that
was just sort of a setup for what I want
to share with you next. This is from the Associated Press.

(01:18:29):
The US says it destroyed. Listen to this now, five
hundred metric tons of expired food that's supposed to be
food aid for hungry people.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
They say it won't affect future distribution.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
And as I'm reading through this, I'm looking like, as
Nicole said, is it milk?

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
Right? Is it fish?

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
Is it it's high energy biscuits? Now, Nicole, is there
anything that is less likely to go back by the
date on the packet than a biscuit.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
I wouldn't think so. Yeah, I wouldn't think so either.

Speaker 5 (01:19:04):
I heard something about flower being able to go bad.
I remember, But again, I'm all about tasting, yeah, kin
smelling yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Right. So this is this is food aid, five hundred
metric tons that our government destroyed rather than find a
way to distribute.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Now, to be clear, that is less than one percent
of the more than a million metric tons that the
United States supplies every year. But the spokesperson there said,
if something is expired.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
We will destroy it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Like don't you think and that I promise you this
next thing is not sarcasm. Don't you think the hungry
person in Central African Republic or Gaza, or I don't know,
poor village in Amazonian Brazil, don't you think they would

(01:19:58):
much rather have the food aid the high energy biscuit
that's a week out of date or a month out
of date, but tastes exactly the same as it did
before and is not unsafe. Don't you think they would
rather have that than some bureaucrats saying if it's expired,
we're going.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
To destroy it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
And they say it's a matter of whether or not
not it's safe to distribute.

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
But it's not. And by the way, if I were
going to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Be as machiavellian as possible, it's also not as if
that hungry person in Chad or Gaza or Brazilian Amazon
is going to sue you if something's wrong with the biscuit.
So give them the darned biscuits instead of throwing them away.
That's my rant for today. Oh my gosh, unbelievable. All right,

(01:20:44):
let's do one other foreign you know, international story. This
is a wacky thing I saw recently about the African
country of Swatini e s w a t i Ni
And it sounds like something from the Black Panther movie, right, Grant,
what's the name of that country in the Black Panther
movie Wada Wakanda. It sounds like Wakanda Swatini. So Swatini

(01:21:07):
is a country that is a very mountainous country that
is entirely surrounded by South Africa.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Right, So it would be like it would be.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
As if Rocky Mountain National Park was its own state
or its own country wholly surrounded by Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
Right. By the way, it used to be called Swaziland,
and I've been there believe it or not. I mean
you probably do believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
I've been in a lot of places, so this is
a really remote place that nobody wants to really go.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
I think the people who live there barely want to
live there.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
It's one of the few places in the world that
still has an absolute.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
Monarchy king who can do anything he wants.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
And what's crazy about this is this country was just
sent to that country from the United States five illegal aliens, right,
you know they reported some illegal aliens to South Sudan
not that long ago. I think of the people they
deported to South Sudan, I think one was from there,

(01:22:08):
but the others were from Vietnam and Cambodia. They weren't
even African. And now Swatini. Why is oh, by the way,
that the illegals who were sent to Eswatini and these
are all people who were convicted of serious crimes. Okay,
this is not some you know, farm worker who was
just picked up.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
And sent to Africa.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
These are people who were convicted of things like murder
and rape and so on. But they come from Vietnam, Jamaica,
laus Yemen, and Cuba.

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
Yemen is almost close to Swatini.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
The other ones aren't. And so now it's even weirder
about this. So, first of all, why is the United
States of America spending the money to send illegal aliens
to Swatini. To get there, you probably have to fly
to Frankfurt perhaps, or maybe you can get a direct
flight to Johannesburg. There is a direct flight from the

(01:22:56):
United States to Johannesburg right now. It's one of the
longest flights in the world. The US, I'm just gonna
spend that money and then somehow get on the road
and get them to Swaziland. Now Swatini, that would be like,
you know whatever, I don't need to do a comparison,
you get the idea. And now Swatany is saying they
are going to find a way to send all these
people back to their home countries, where the United States

(01:23:17):
had said at first that we're sending them to Swatini
because their home countries won't take them, And now Swatini
is saying that they that they're gonna send them home. Yeah,
it's a tiny chair. Hey, Nicole, are you any good
at Do you know your rock and roll?

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
A little bit? Little? Okay, little?

Speaker 5 (01:23:34):
You're very knowledgeable in the classic rock.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Yeah, okay, you go sit over here. Okay, Nicole, No
you sit there? Oh yeah, we gotta get some headphones
many yeah. All right. So there's Mandy and I only
know her by her voice. How amazing. This is Mandy
Tole from Channel seven.

Speaker 5 (01:23:56):
A very fun to come in and see radio people
in person.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
It's a missing shavy person radio person. This chairs missing
an arm?

Speaker 4 (01:24:03):
What happened to the chairs in the twenty four hours
since I've left here?

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Grant you ready with the sounder? Hit it? Catch me
on with Nicole on Channel seventy five PM. Have a
great weekend.