09-02-25 - *FULL SHOW* Court Nixes Tariffs; No Tax on Which Tips; Pulse of Israel

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From time to time on the show, you hear me
talk about my friend Mike, who's turned into a bit
of a liberal, but I really like him. We were
traders together in Chicago. I often bring him up in
a political context, which is why I mentioned that, but
really it's not the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
And we were traders together in Chicago. Then we moved.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
With the same company to Amsterdam, and we were both
traders in Amsterdam, and then we traveled to China and
Vietnam together as well. I've been friends with this dude
for a long time and and of course, you know,
I met him when we were living in Chicago, and
you know, he's a huge Cubs fan.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
So he came to town and we went to.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
One of the Rockies Cubs game, this Saturday game, which
we lost. It was actually a pretty good game. I
forget it was four to three or five four is
a one run game, and so that was pretty good.
And before the game, we went to eat at Mercantile.
If you haven't been to Mercantile, by the way, give
it a try. It's it's at the would that be
the north side of Union Station and really real I

(01:01):
had okay, I had the best pasta carbonara I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
It was a slightly atypical.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Pasta carbonara, which is probably my single favorite pasta dish.
Shannon is giving me a little bit of a side
eye there, as if he's not down with carbonara. But
it The meat in carbonara is usually like little pieces
of speck or some delicious kind of what were you
gonna say, Shannon, and yet or panchetta exactly? This instead
was larger chunks like cubes, not slices of crispy pork belly.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And it was to die for, as they as they say.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
And also they have some kind of like a seasonal
special cocktail, and the seasonal special cocktail had espresso liquor
in it, and I don't like coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So I was talking with the bartender. Dude his name
is Nate.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
If you go over to if you go over to Mercantile,
see if you can find Nate at the bar, And
I said, can you make something else for us? Like surprise,
it had rye in it. The special drink had rye
in it, and then this espresso stuff. I don't like coffee.
I said, how about some other rye drink? And he
made a drink that I have not had before, called
a via kre v i e U x c A

(02:13):
r r E, which means old square, like square like
the square in the center of a town, right, and
it's similar to U sazarak me. It's kind of sort
of similar to an old fashioned and it was really
really good anyway, So we did that, and then we
went out to another bar that I just love in

(02:35):
Denver called Union Lodge number one. If you've never been,
I'm just mentioned Nobody asked me to mention these places.
By the way, it's not like they're not giving me anything.
No one asked me to mention them. I'm just telling
you places we went that we really liked. Union Lodge
number one is on Champa Street in downtown Denver, and
it's like if you were to imagine what a really

(02:58):
nice ups scale speakeasy would have looked and felt like
during Prohibition, and watching these guys make the drinks at
that bar, you feel like you're watching artistry or a
magician or something. And it's a really cool bar, Union
Lodge number one. Anyway, So we did that. I did
a bunch of work in the yard Christen in the

(03:20):
house where remodeling had to dig out a bunch of
weeds and stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
So that there was that.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
And then and then last night, producer Dragon and I
went to the Neil Young concert, and I'm going to
tell you more about that in an hour when Dragon
gets here. But I will just say it was every
bit as bad as I thought it would be, really,
really bad.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
All right, So what else we're.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Gonna I guess we probably won't have the news during
my show. We probably Mandy will probably get the news
during her show of whatever President Trump is going to
announce today from presumably from the Oval Office. And all
they really.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Said is that it has something to do with the
Department of Defense.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
And you heard Pat Wordard and a couple other folks
and Gina and Marty talking about how one thing it
might be and by the way, maybe there will be
more than one thing, but one thing it might be
would be announcing again, as Trump tried to do the
first time he was in office, moving of Space Force
or the command Space Force Command to Huntsville, Alabama, from Colorado,

(04:29):
which would be a bummer for Colorado.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's, you know.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Not surprising Trump tried to do this the first time around.
Colorado didn't vote for Trump. We have two Democratic senators.
Alabama did vote for Trump. They have two Republican senators,
although they had a Democrat for a very short time,
but very republican state. And you know, that's whatever. So
there's a decent chance that will happen. Huntsville is not
a ridiculous place to put Space Command. There's a lot

(04:55):
of other space stuff going on in Huntsville, Alabama.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I'd rather have it stay in Colorado. So that's one thing.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
The other thing that it might be is renaming of
the Department of Defense to the Department of War. That's
what it was called since it was established when George
Washington was President of the United States in the late
seventeen eighties, the Department of War, and it was it

(05:26):
was let me go to let's see who wrote this piece?
This is that from the Hill the Hill dot com.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
It existed until.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Nineteen forty seven, when it was reorganized by then President Truman,
and two years later it was renamed the Department of Defense.
So Trump seems to be thinking, and I don't know
whether this will be toda's announcement, but thinking of renaming
it the Department of War. So there's that, all right.
Let me do this quickly. I think this is a
very interesting thing. President Trump posted this on truth Social

(05:59):
yes yesterday, and I quote, it's very important that drug
companies justify the success of.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Their various COVID drugs.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Many people think they're a miracle that saved millions of lives.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Others disagree.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Exclamation point with CDC being ripped apart over this question.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
I want the answer, and I want it now.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
I've been shown information from Pfizer and others that's extraordinary,
but they never seem to show those results to the public.
Why not they go off to the next hunt and
let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Junior and
CDC trying to figure out the success or failure of
the drug company's COVID work. They show me great numbers
and results, but don't seem to be showing them to

(06:37):
many others. I want them to show them now capitals
to CDC and the public and clear up this mess
one way or another. I hope Operation Warp Speed was
as brilliant as many say it was. If not, we
all want to know about it and why. Thank you
for your attention to this very important matter. President DJT
So I think this is super interesting and actually, even

(07:00):
where we are right now, I support this because there
is so much skepticism out there. If you read the
replies to this post, especially and as somebody this was
originally untrue social but as it was then posted on Twitter,
people responding to it, many many people, because these are
mostly Trump supporters who are responding, many many people are

(07:21):
extremely skeptical of the COVID vaccines. There are other people saying, yeah,
and what about ivermectin, and all the data out there
says ivermectin does nothing for COVID, But there's plenty of
people out there who still believe it. And for me,
and I've said this many times in recent years, well
certainly during COVID. Other than the loss of life, which
of course is horrendous, the biggest casualty was trust in science,

(07:42):
and it was the fault of scientists that that trust
went away. And the same thing has happened with climate change.
So many scientists lying about climate change in order to
be able to feather their own nests. So it's very
interesting that Trump, who has long bragged about Operation Warp
Speed and by the way he should it was.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's a remarkable thing that he got done. But now he's.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Saying, all right, I still think it was great, but
let's see more data and show the public. I think
this is great because the public will come to believe
whatever you know, hopefully whatever the fact show. It's also
a huge challenge to RFK JR. What if all this
data comes out and actually shows that, at least for
some part of the population, these drugs were incredibly important,

(08:24):
then what does RFK do? Listeners says, Space Force is
a branch of DoD. It's headquartered in the Pentagon.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
US Space Come is a joint command.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Let's see in an expensive building on Peterson's Space Force
space there's not a Space Force Command. So all right,
Space Command, US Space comm All right, anyway, that may
be moving to Alabama. All right, Sorry if I got
that wording a little bit a little bit wrong, apologize.
So gosh, still a ton of stuff to do. Obviously,
there's a ton of stuff to do. We just got

(08:56):
started on today's show. Oh here's something I want to do.
So there are many people, very many people who earn
some of their income by tips and overtime, which, as
we know in the Big Beautiful Bill, are partially exempted
from federal income tax and in many states will be

(09:19):
partially exempted from their state tax as well. Here in Colorado,
certainly they will be for a year. I believe the
Democrats already passed the bill that will add back taxes
on overtime. They haven't dealt with tips yet, but they
will add back taxes on overtime the following tax here,
if I remember correctly, in any case, In any case,

(09:40):
it's it has been unknown just which jobs that where
people may earn tips would qualify for the provision of
no tax on tips and axios got this list and
I thought I would try to share it with you.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Oh and let's see. Oh, let me just one other
quick thing I said. I said partially exempted.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
And what I mean by partially exempted from federal income taxes,
I mean there are limits on it. And I don't
have the limits in front of me, but I want
to say it's maybe twenty five thousand for tips and
twelve and a half thousand for overtime. And when you
start earning tips or overtime above those thresholds, And again
I might have those numbers wrong, but whatever the thresholds are,

(10:30):
when you start earning above that, then it will be
taxable again, so it's it's partially excluded from tax.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
In any case, Axios.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Got this list that will soon be published as part
of the Federal Register, because the Federal Register is where
federal relation federal regulations get published. But Axios got a
copy of the list in advance, and it covered I
think sixty eight jobs, and I'm not going to read
all sixty eight, but I'm going to give you a

(10:59):
sense of some of the stuff. That it's sixty eight
jobs in eight categories, So I'll at least talk about
all eight categories and then a couple jobs within each
category to give you a sense of what kind of
work will have will no longer be subject to tax
on tips at least up to that threshold. So beverage
in food service, this is not surprising. So wait staff, bartenders,

(11:22):
food servers, who even aren't who even aren't in restaurants.
So for example, maybe you work for a catering company
or something like that and you get some tips, or
you work in some kind of cafeteria or some other
place where you're serving food.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
You might get tips.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
So that chefs, cooks, food prep workers, fast food and
counter workers, dishwashers, host staff, and bakers. So that's actually
that's everything listed in this category. Dining room and cafeteria
attendance and bartender helpers as well, so those people no
tax on tips up to the threshold. Entertainment and events,
there's a bunch of stuff related to gambling, dealers, change persons,

(12:00):
people in the booth, other workers, writers and runners for.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Like sports books and stuff. Dancers, musicians, singers, DJs, not
radio DJs, but DJs right in entertainment DJs. Right, So
if you're out there doing an event and you're you know,
you spinning some vinyl albums or CDs or everything's digital
these days, and you get some tips, no tax on
that for you.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Entertainers and performers, digital content creators, usher's, lobby attendants and
ticket takers, locker room, coatroom and dressing room attendants. Various
folks in hospitality and guest services like porters and bell
hops and desk clerks and stuff like that. Maids and
housekeeping cleaners as well at hotels. No tax on tips
for you. Home services maintenance repair workers, landscapers, electricians, plumbers,

(12:46):
hvac appliance installers, cleaning services, locksmiths and roadside assistants workers,
personal services, personal care and service, private event planners, photographers, videographers,
event officients, pet caretakers, oh like a dog, sitter all right? Tutors, nannies, babysitters,
Personal appearance and wellness, skin care specialists, massage barbers, hairdressers, shampoos,

(13:11):
manicures and pedicure people, eyebrow threading and waxing people, make
up people, exercise trainers, tattoo.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Artists, tailors, shoe and leather workers.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
I am actually reading most of these to you because
it's going pretty fast. Number seven Category Recreation and instruction.
Golf caddies, self enrichment teachers, recreational and tour pilots, tour guides,
travel guides, sports and recreation instructors, and category Number eight
Transportation and delivery. Parking in valet attendants, taxi and ride
share drivers, shuttle drivers, people delivering stuff, people who clean vehicles,

(13:45):
private and charter bus drivers, water taxi drivers, charter boat workers,
rickshaw petticabin carriage drivers, and movers like the people who
come to your house and move your stuff. So actually
I did end up reading almost all of them. That's
the list of sixty eight that qualify for the new
tax deduction under the no tax on tips in the

(14:06):
Big Beautiful Bill. Still a ton of stuff to do
on on today's show. I'm gonna have a guest coming
up in a little bit on Zoom, which probably means
I need to get the whole Zoom thing ready. So oh,
a little Broncos thing, not an important thing, but.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Just a little story I saw. I thought i'd share
with you if you are, you know, watching the game.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Next Sunday, first first game there is it Sunday to
the Bronco. Is the Broncos opening game on Sunday this year?
I should know that because sometimes it sometimes it isn't.
Hold on, let's look that up. Broncos opening game twenty
twenty Okay, Sunday at home against Tennessee. So, uh, if
you're watching and you are looking for cornerback John A. Barron,

(14:49):
who was Bronco's first round draft pick. This guy we think,
we hope will be a great player. During preseason, he
was wearing number twelve, and he has now switched his
jersey number to number twenty three, which is what he
wore for four years.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
At the University of Texas.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Although he was there for five years, and he switched
to number seven during his fifth year at University of Texas.
But anyway, number twenty three, which is a great numbers
Michael Jordan's number right for most of Michael Jordan's career anyway.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
So if you are looking for John A.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Barren on the field when you're watching the Broncos during
the regular season, go look for number twenty three rather
than rather than for number twelve. All right, this is
story that came out a couple of weeks ago, and
I didn't get to it at the time, but it
still works talking about it now.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
This is a headline from.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
The Colorado Sun Excel said needs to spend twenty two
billion dollars to keep up with potential demand from Colorado
data centers by twenty forty. The subhead on the article
figuring out how much demand there will be as tricky
industry and consumer advocates warn the overbuilding could leave.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Customers on the hook.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
So this comes back to something that you and I
have talked about many times in the past, and it's
the way we need to understand the way we need
to think about Excel Energy and their business model. So
remember what we're talking about with Excel Energy and many
other similar companies around the country is that these regulated

(16:20):
utilities in most markets in which they operate are monopolies. Right,
So if Excel Energy is providing let's say, electricity or
natural gas to your home, there is probably no alternative
at your home for a utility connection for electricity or

(16:41):
natural gas.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Right. It's not like you can.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Say, I need to buy some food and I'm gonna
try to decide between Safeway and Supers and Target and
Walmart and Trader Joe's and Aldi. You don't have that, right.
It's electricity. This is the electricity provider. And the reason
is that to be able to distributetricity to homes involves
an incredible amount of infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Right, digging and wires and all and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
And it just doesn't make sense to have three different
power companies run three different multi, multi, multi billion dollar
sets of wires to everybody's house or something like that.
So you have this monopoly, and since it's a monopoly,
it must be regulated.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Because a monopoly that.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Isn't regulated will get out of control in terms of
prices to consumers. It will also not adapt, it will
not modernize. Monopolies are bad for a lot of reasons,
but they all come down to the bottom line, which
is that they don't have the same incentives to have
a good product or good customer service or good pricing.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
That a competitive business has.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
So you have to so you have to regulate it,
and you have to tell them here's how much you
can spend and here's how much you can make. And
it's a very tricky situation. Right when you've got bureaucrats
or you know, then they may or may not government employees,
depending on where you are, but members of public utility
commission that kind of thing, who have the job of

(18:08):
analyzing what these utilities say they want to build, how
much they say they want to spend, and these commissions
then have to decide we're going to approve it or not.
And what you have to keep in mind is that
since these are regulated monopolies, their business model is fairly simple,
and that is and it's.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Not the same as other businesses.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
They their goal is to spend absolutely as much money
as they can get permission to spend because they are
guaranteed a profit some return percentage on that spending, and
they get that simply by raising the cost to consumers.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Well, let's do things.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
They get it by what you might think of as
a more natural way, by there being more customers. But
if there aren't more customers, or there aren't enough more customers,
then they got to make the money back some other way,
and that's.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
By raising the price on all the rest of us.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
And so Excel is now apparently coming to Colorado and
saying that they want to add between twelve and fourteen
gigawatts of new generation and new transmission at a cost
of twenty two billion dollars because of what might come
in terms of power hungry data centers coming to an

(19:30):
area of Denver and Aurora that the Colorado Sun says
is being called Data Center Row. But we really have
no idea how many of these businesses will come to Colorado,
and it's not obvious that these places should come to
Denver and Aurora. Denver and Aurora is a very expensive
place to be. We have a governor who is hell
bent on raising energy prices, and our next governor will

(19:52):
probably be the same. These people are absolutely worshiping at
the altar of Gaia and love renewable so called neewable energy,
no matter how much it costs you in me and
I just I frankly, I frankly don't understand why there
would likely be a lot of data center activity here. Yeah,

(20:13):
there could be some, could be some, But would you
rather go to a place where land is cheaper and
government is better like Utah?

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Right? I mean, even if you are going to do
renewable think.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
About all the stuff you could put in these kind
of open lands in Utah. It's really I mean, it
seems better. Just as an example, right, just as an example.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
So, now the Public Utility Commission here has to figure
out what they're gonna do.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Are they going, you know, how much of this stuff
are they going to approve? And the idea the key
thing they need to think about is what's a likely
realistic level of demand. So Excel Energy is saying, like
in our wildest dreams. They're not wording it like that,
but that's how I'm wording it to you. In our
wildest dreams, we think there could be this many data

(21:02):
center's been needing this much power, and just in case,
we want to spend all twenty two billion dollars so
that we can make an extra billion or two billion
dollars a year for our shareholders and just hope that
this stuff shows up in the Public Utility Commission too
write and I don't think they're very good, but at
least to their credit, they say, no, we can't assume

(21:22):
that we're going to have that level of demand. And
can you imagine the harm to rate payers in Colorado
if you build thirteen gigawatts of generation and you spend
twenty two billion dollars and then enough data centers only
show up to require let's say a third of that
extra power, but you've spent all the money, and so

(21:45):
now you're going to have a much smaller number of
customers having to fund this massive over expense. So we'll
see what happens here. I wanted you to be aware
of it, and just keep in mind whenever you see
a regular monopoly utility looking to spend money on something,
you've got to remember that their business model doesn't revolve

(22:08):
around earning profit the way a normal business does. If
I start a business, it's going to earn profit or
not based on whether customers want my stuff at the
price that I'm selling it at. That is not how
regulated monopolies work. The way they work is they spend
money in the government guarantees that they get to make
money on it, and they're just going to raise prices

(22:29):
until they make the amount of money they were told
they can make. So it's not exactly a corrupt model,
but it's a dangerous model.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
On the other hand, there isn't.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Really much of a choice because you also can't have
three or five different power companies running lines to your
house to send you electricity or natural gas. So we'll
keep an eye on that story as it develops. All right,
I want to do something completely different now. I am
very very pleased to welcome to the show Avi Abolo,
who is the proprietor and host of Pulse of Israel.

(23:02):
And I've got all this information on my blog, by
the way, so you can find his podcast and videos
and so on. And actually Abby is going to be
giving a talk this evening and if you're interested in going,
and hopefully you will be after hearing our conversation, the
information is up on my website at Rosscominski dot com.
And I'll just let you know. When you go to

(23:23):
the link that's on my website, it says registration is closed,
but what I have put there is a phone number
that you can call today.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
If you call that, it's ten dollars to go.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
You can do RSVP, pay the ten bucks to go,
and you can go tonight. So in any case, Abvi
is just a fearless champion of Israel, of Jews, of Zionism.
And of course I think, as my listeners know, I'm
Jewish but not very religious, but I am extremely pro
Israel and Zionist. So with that, Avi Ablow, welcome to Koa.

(23:55):
It's good to have you here, and welcome to Colorado.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
Thank you, Thank you so much from us for having
me a pleasure being on your show this morning.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Hey, tell me a little about you. Where are you from?

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Originally well born and bred in New York City.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Moved to Israel when I was sixteen years old, did
religious studies, served in the IDF, still to this day,
serve in reserves.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
I had two stints of reserve.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Duty already in this war, two sons actively serving this war.
What one through Gaza, Syria Lebanon, another one at Gaza
and Lebanon. And I'm just a proud of you trying
to help Jews and non Jews wake up and realize
and internalize the truth that Israel is the front line
of the whole freedom loving world. What we're doing today

(24:41):
in fighting is not just an enemy of hours, but
it's an enemy that's growing throughout the West that aims
to just destroy the West. And it is so critical
for people to understand this, that understanding that standing up
and supporting Israel is not about helping the Jews or
standing up to tanti Semitism or standing up for Israel.

(25:03):
It's about trying to save America from the growing tsunami
of this red Green alliance that we are the frontline
fighting right now.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Why do you think that I saw a video I
think it was yesterday or day before of some lecturer
at Berkeley standing up behind e lectern and talking about
how the whole campus is Gaza and we need to
liberate Dozin. And then look, I understand that there are
people out there who were anti semi to cover themselves

(25:31):
in some other language like free Palestine, but we all
know what they really are.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
But the thing that strikes me at.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Some of these events is how many nineteen year olds
in that room start cheering.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
What do you attribute that to?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (25:46):
So first of all, people have to really understand and
I'll be speaking partly about this tonight, so if people
want to come, they'll get much more detail.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
And I think it's at seven to nine o'clock at the.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
BMH bmh BJ congregation at seven o'clock that it's.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Not all about the Jews.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
I don't know if you're familiar with a KGB defector
back I think in the nineteen seventies his name was
Yury Besmanov, the highest level KGB defector to America, and
he was interviewed on one of the national interview programs
eight o'clock news, nine o'clock news, back when there was
either ABC, CBS at NBC, right, so a third of
America was watching him being interviewed, and he was telling

(26:28):
the interviewer at the time that the Soviet Union since
the nineteen sixties was working on destabilizing the United States
by having anti America socialist values being taught at United
States universities across the United States. He was saying this
in the nineteen eighties, and he said specifically, and I
can send you the video clip that you can share

(26:50):
and talk about also.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
To help people understand that.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Again, ury Bezanov said, when they reached three generations of
United States professors on US college campuses pushing the anti
America values and socialist values instead.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
That will be the destruction of America. The KGB also
is the.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
One that created the Palestinian national identity. It was a
huge propaganda campaign. It was a Romanian defector who spoke
about this, and Colonel Richard Kemp talks about this and
rights to the bestics extensively, and that was about legitimizing
terror against the Jews and the Jewish State of Israel,
not just to destroy Israel, but.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
To weaken America.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
So what we are experiencing in the United States college
campuses today globalize the antifata. It's not about anti Semitism,
it's not even about destroying Israel.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
It's also about destroying America. And people don't get that.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
They think, oh, we should stand up because it's against
the anti Simatism. What does decolonizing the United States have
America have.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
To do with Gaza.

Speaker 4 (27:53):
But that's what these university professors are screaming on college
campuses and US students, nineteen twenty year olds are being
brainwashed to believe, and it's about the ultimate destruction of America.
The Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel. We're
just the Canarian the coal mine, and we're the front line,
literally putting our lives on the line by fighting this war.

(28:16):
But it's also about protecting America, and too little, too
few Americans, even American Jews, understand this big picture.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
We're talking with Abby Abolo of Pulse of Israel to
check out pulseive Israel dot com. I want to very
slightly quibble with something you said and ask if maybe
you would agree with my quibble in a way. So
you said, it's not about anti Semitism, it's about attacking
of America. I think the way I would word it
is it's not only about anti Semitism, because I do

(28:46):
think a lot of these people are deeply anti Semitic
and are turning many of America's young people into being
anti Semitic in their larger mission of destroying the United
States and Western civilization. But I do think anti Semitism
remains a key part of it.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
I will agree with you and up you one.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
Basically, it's about semantics and say that the Jew hating
anti Semitism was weaponized by the Soviet Union, and again the.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Soviety no longer exists.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
But this has been their most successful propaganda and disinformation
campaign that still exists today and has legs that is
growing with each day.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
It was weaponized by.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
The Soviet Union in order to bring about the destruction
of America. So, yes, it is about jew hatred, because
that's what they used to get people on the feet,
their feet to end up being active and vocal, because
who's the jew We're a tiny percentage, zero point two
percentage of the world population. All these tropes about us
controlling the world. We don't control the world. We don't

(29:50):
tell America what to do. But that's what they say,
and it's so easy to get people so upset at us,
but it's ultimately a weaponizing that in order.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
To destroy America. The semantics.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well, you know, fortunately, Ave, we will be able to
adequately defend ourselves with our Jewish space lasers. So at
least we got that. We got that, villain.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
I recently got that, and in Israel we got real space.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
You do, Yeah, you guys have the real thing, all right.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
So you posted a very long tweet and I'm not
going to read all of it, but what I will
what I will do instead is just share a little
bit with listeners from a peace from the Washington Post.
The headline is Gaza post war plan envisions voluntary relocation
of entire population. And this goes back to something that

(30:38):
President Trump has been talking out for quite talking about
for quite some time, like perhaps turning the Gaza Strip
into some kind of Middle Eastern riviera. And by the way,
it is gorgeous land and it would be well suited
for that, and it also wouldn't break my heart to
have all the quote unquote Palestinians out of there.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
But let me just share one other thing.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
From the Washington Post and then I want to get
Avi's response. Those who own land in Gaza would be
offered a digital token by a trust in exchange for
rights to develop their property, to be used to finance
a new life elsewhere, or eventually redeemed for an apartment
in one of six to eight new AI powered smart
cities in Gaza. Each Palestinian chooses to leave would be

(31:19):
given a five thousand dollars cash payment and subsidies to
cover four years of rents elsewhere, as well as a
year of food. So you've got some strong thoughts about
this ABVI fire away.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Yeah, Well, first of all, I am a huge supporter
of President Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
I am a huge supporter of his Gaza immigration plan.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
However, my overall commentary was about the details of that plan.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
And again no clue if that's actually a Trump.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
Plan, or it's just a child balloon, or it's just
some disinformation.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
But I believe because it was out there.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
By the Washington Post, it would be important to put
these points out there. Number One, I find it immoral
to even consider giving these people money. People make a
mistake in differentiating Hamas from gozens.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
All of Gaza is Hamas.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
The United Nations has been funding two billions of dollars
to educate their children, their kindergarten children, to kill Jews
and destroy Israel. Every it's in their mother's milk. This
is not just oh a Ramas terrorist or a terrorist organization.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Everyone in Gaza is Ramas.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
And another point, data point proof for this is the
Jewish State of Israel offered five million dollars for any
Gossen to offer any bit of information to help us.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Save any one of the hostages.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Not one Gosen came forward to receive that five million
dollar reward, zero zero, not one righteous Gozen. And they
know about it because it's out there where the guy
where the hostages are.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
They an't know about it.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
It's in their population centers.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
So it's in a mistake to think that there is
a separation between Ramas.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Terrorists and the whole god population.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
And another data point for that anyone asked to just
go back to the videos of October seventh. They paraded
our hostages through the streets of Gaza. Gozzins, the non
combatants were celebrating, they were hitting.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Our hostages dead or alive. Just look at those videos.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
Find those videos, and it's another proof there is no separation.
So to think that a plan is being conceptualized to
give them money to then even though to be taken out,
but to potentially be returned to Gaza. No, I agree
with Trump's immigration plan that not one Gazin should be
allowed to live in Gaza anymore.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
October seventh was proof enough.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
They are a genocidal, deaf cult population that have proven
they cannot live near us. They had twenty years of
their own states. Gaza was Jew free, it was uden rhyme.
There was not one Jew in Gaza. They had their own.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
States, their own army, their own governance.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
And they turned it in to a terror state to
murder and massacre Jews as part of their plan to
destroy all of Israel again.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
And this part of the whole.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
Iranian Katari plan October seventh is proof enough.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
They can't live there. So I agree with Trump's.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
Plan that yes, they should be allowed to leave and
immigrate and go other places. And honestly, I don't want
them going to America. I don't want them going to Europe.
I want them going to Iran, Qatar, Syria and all
the other Middle Eastern genocidal cult societies that believe in
that sa a jihadi ideology. And all Trump has to do,
it's very simple. I said this back in October eighth.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
All Biden had to do.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
What all Trump has to do is raise the phone
and call President I'll see see of Egypt and say hey,
i'll see see.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
We'll give you billions of dollars of aid.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
You guys are going against international asylum law. They're going
against international law by not opening the Rafah border again.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Ukraine, the world opened up to taking refuge the war zone.
You allowed refugees to leave a war zone Syria. Millions
of refugees left the war.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Gaza is the only war in the history of the
world where the world is forbidding the refugees for being
allowed to leave a war zone endangering their lives.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
So the immorality the whole situation, it screams to the
high heavens. And the solution is simple.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
You don't open up the raw border and let the
refugees leave the war zone.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
We take we don't give you the aid. And that's
the most simplest solution, and it's not being discussed.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
And I'd be specific, I personally have told this the
senators and congressmen and it saddens me that that's.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
The simplest solution. It's not really being discussed. So I
hope the passification then happens. But that's my feedback on
the world.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
So we're out of time here, folks, But if you
want to, I just have one quick comment. The answer
to your this point you just made is contained in
the point you previously made. There's the reason that that Jordan, Egypt, whoever,
won't take the gosins is they already know what you
just said about them being a murderous death cult and
they don't want them there either. There's other stuff to

(35:57):
it as well, because they like having the issue. But
in any case, Avi Abolo is speaking this evening in Denver,
and if you want to go hear more of this
fantastic conversation, if you go to Rosskominski dot com.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
I've got all the information.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
There's a phone number you can call to RSVP to
go to the event this evening. Avi, thanks for being
here and thanks for being such a strong voice for Israel.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Thank you so much for having me. Ross pleasure talking
to you.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
You two pulse off Israel dot com to learn more.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I write quite a bit about the experience Dragon and
I had going to the Neil Young concert last night
and Art was leaving.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, that was really good.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Let me share with you a listener text let me
find this, Hey, Ross, even for a guy who doesn't
like Neil Young, hopefully you were impressed by the concert
last night.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
I loved the song selection.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
The band was tight and sounded great and for a
seventy nine year old playing the lead guitar like that
is amazing. What do you have to say to that listener, Dragon.

Speaker 5 (36:57):
I would say that, yes, the band was tight, the
guitar playing was was on point, the singing was absolutely terrible.
The songs that the content of said songs we only
really knew.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Two we need to I think you and I stayed
for six songs, yea. And part of it was because
neither one of us really wanted to be there, and
part of it also was the opening band didn't start
until forty five minutes late, and then and then Neil
Young caught up a little bit, but he still started
thirty or thirty five minutes late. And I wake up

(37:33):
a little early, and Dragon wakes up very early. So
you know, I got home maybe a little before ten
something like that, and Dragon you probably got home a
little after ten or somewhere you're on there, Yeah okay.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
And and d what time do you wake up normally? Four? Yeah? Okay.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
So anyway, so we were there for about six songs.
I think I knew two of them, right, And it.

Speaker 5 (37:56):
Took three or four songs in order for them to get.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Us to one's a we knew, and that was Southern Man,
and then a couple songs later they did Ohio about
Kent State, uh stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
But in between the or so I think it was
after Southern Man and before Ohio, he did this one
song about saving Planet Earth right, and it was, oh god,
it was terrible. It was worse than probably the others
because not only was the singing bad, but then he
interrupted the singing with some kind of weird it was

(38:29):
like somewhere between talking and screeching and like.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
The megaphone, Yeah, I had some commentary song.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah, like you were some like he's some activist out
in the street talking through a megaphone with bad audio quality,
exhorting people to fight big oil. And that's in the song,
like he says big oil in the song he is
an unreconstructed you know, leftist and you know that's okay,
he's been like that.

Speaker 6 (38:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
And then and then the song that Dragon just played,
do you have a title?

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Is there a title on that song? Big Crime? Big Crime?

Speaker 1 (39:01):
And so it's clear it's just this massive attack against
Donald Trump Big Crime in DC at the White House.
He used the word fascist probably fifteen or twenty times
in the song.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Just in that little clip, it was like.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Three or four yeah, right, right, And then he talked
about the millionaires that he didn't like, even though he's
probably been a millionaire since nineteen seventy five. And okay,
so I'll just give my overall take, and I'll have
Dragon give his overall take. So I went into the concert,

(39:32):
as you know, not being a Neil Young fan, not
really digging it, but I wanted to have a bit
of an open mind.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
He's playing and I'm listening and I'm thinking, and so
I just want.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
To say to you, after further reflection, after really thinking
a lot and taking that all in and checking the
vibe and the.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Crowd and all that, and going to a Neil Young.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Concert rather than just like sniping at it from the
cheap seats, which kind of isn't fair, right, But now
that I've really had the time to think about it
and really had the time to take it all in
and appreciate it, it was even worse than I thought
it was.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
It was even worse than I expected it to be.
It was beyond bad. It was pain. It was.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
I got more stories about what happened to us as
we were walking out, which I'll tell you later in
the show.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
But why don't you give me your your overview, Dragon.

Speaker 5 (40:21):
I mean, Neil Young is who he is with that voice,
so you're going to get that. But yeah, arguably, though,
like I said earlier, the guitar playing the band together.
The music that was pretty good, you put somebody else's lyrics,
you put somebody else's voice over it.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
I think you got something there. But with Neil Young.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
You know what that reminds me a little bit of
is something I used to say when I was when
I was younger. Let's say I read, you know, an
article or or a story. Let's say I read a
short story and and and I didn't think it was
very good. What I would say is, in order to
in order to make it better, what you need to

(41:08):
do is re arrange all the letters and change.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Them pretty right.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
So it's kind of like that, if you had a
Neil Young concert and and instead you made it so
that someone else was singing songs that had different words, right,
then it could be better.

Speaker 5 (41:28):
Yeah, and there was that one. There was what three
minutes there, two and a half.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yeah, it was glororious. It was glorious. It was the
best two and a half or three minutes of the
part of of the concert. The night that we saw
it was. Yeah, it was the Well, the best part
of the night is that Mandy's husband, Chuck was there
and we got to hang out with.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Him for a while and talk.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Yeah, But the best part of the Neil Young concert
was that two and a half or three minutes when
he did what. When Neil Young did what, he walked away.
He just left. He just left, no explanation. He just
left the stage after like three songs, and one of
the band members started, eventually, after twiddling their thumbs for
a while, telling some inane's story about one of the
other band members, and then Neil Young came back. But

(42:08):
for those two and a half or three minutes, Dragon
and I were happy. I can't talk about more of
it right now. It's too much brain damage. We'll come
back to it. We survived it, though. I'm gonna switch
gears in a very radical way. I promise you, Dragon.
We just you and I just need a few minutes
off from Neil Young, and then we can come back

(42:29):
and talk about like the conversations we overheard as we
were walking to the car, and that kind of thing
is interesting.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
So here's a wacky story.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
This is from BBC France returns Slain King's skull to Madagascar.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
I think Dragon found this story for me.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Originally there was there's a particular aspect of this story that.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
I find super interesting. But all of it is kind
of interesting.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
The head of a Malagassy king, so those are the
people on the island of Madagascar killed by French troops
during a colonial era war, has been formally returned to Madagascar.
The handover of King Tiwera, that's to er King Tuera's
skull and those of two other members of his court
took place at a ceremony at the Culture Ministry in Paris.

(43:17):
The skulls had been brought to France at the end
of the nineteenth century and stored at the Museum of
Natural History in Paris. It's the first use of a
new law meant to expedite the return of human remains
from collections in France. Quote, these skulls entered the national
collections in circumstances the clearly violated human dignity and in

(43:37):
a context of colonial violence, said the French Culture minister,
whose name is Rachida Dati. In August of eighteen ninety seven,
a French force sent to assert colonial control over the
Menabe Kingdom of the Saklava people in western Madagascar massacred

(44:00):
local army. King Towera was killed and decapitated. His head
was sent to Paris where it was placed in the museum.
Nearly one hundred and thirty years later, pressure from the
king's descendants as well as from the government of the
Indian Ocean Nation, has opened the way for the skull's return.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Here is my favorite part of the story.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
There is no DNA proof that the skull is King
Towera's tests carried out several years ago were inconclusive. Ultimately,
it was a traditional saka lava spirit medium who confirmed
the skull was that of the monarch. There's more to
the story, but that last bit is so good that

(44:42):
I'm gonna stop there. It was a traditional spirit medium
who confirmed for governments now that that was.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
The real skull. Ah really, really all right, let.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Me do this for ninety seconds or two minutes or something.
I've talked a bit on the show about the proposal
to put in a BUCkies travel center at I twenty
five and County Line Road in El Paso County, basically
right next to the what would that be the west
side of I twenty five, between I twenty five and

(45:19):
the town of Palmer Lake. And the Town of Palmer
Lake wants to do this Flagpole annexation where the town
of Palmer Lake again some distance to the west of
the highway, would annex this long, skinny strip of land
going to the east, which connects then to the very
large area of land where the BUCkies would be.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
So if you leave out the picture of the.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Existing town of Palmer Lake and just imagine what they're
going to annex. It's a long, skinny thing with a
big rectangular, square ish thing on the end. It looks
kind of like a flagpole, so they call it a
flagpole annexation. I have had a person or two on
the show who is against Bucky's coming in. I have
been unable to get a guest who is willing to

(46:04):
be on the show who is in favor of it.
I think they have a fear that some of the
folks who are against it are so aggressive that they
fear for I don't know if their own safety is
a little too strong, but just harassment or being annoyed
or whatever. So I have been unable to get a
guest on the show who was strongly in favor of this.

(46:26):
A couple quick things that I wanted you to be
aware of. There's going to be a recall election soon
targeting two trustees of the town of palmer Lake, one
is Shauna Ball, and another is Kevin Dreyer.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Dre H e R. And she said the first.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Gal Shawna said she was shocked when she found out
she was named in the recall effort. She said, I've
learned to have thick skin. I know a lot of
people were lied to get their signature on the petitions,
and that's fine. Eventually the truth will come out. And
basically what she said was she voted yes in May
because to her it seemed like a straightforward legal question.
Is the application sufficient to proceed based on the requirements

(47:12):
under the law, and she voted yes that it was
in any case, I haven't taken a public stand on
the BUCkies thing because not only do I not live
or vote there, I don't live or vote even near there.
And I really don't think I should take a public
position on this. I don't think I even know enough
about it to make a very strong statement. But I

(47:33):
will mention one other thing that I find interesting, and
hopefully I'm going to get Senator Michael Bennett on the
show pretty soon, in a couple of weeks, I hope,
And he's fairly likely to be the next governor of Colorado,
and he recently announced that he has opposed to this annexation.
He said, this so called Flagpole annexation goes beyond the

(47:53):
local land use issue. It would scar land the Colorado
families have fought to protect for decades in our precious
water resources and flood a treasured landscape with noise, traffic,
and light. He said, That's why I cannot support the proposal.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
So there you go, Michael.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
But not that often you hear a US senator jump
into something that most people would call a local land
use issue.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
But it looks like the opponents.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Of BUCkies have a somewhat influential ally on their side
at this point.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh right, Okay, I got your sympathy. Yeah, I should
have gotten that too, should have gotten that too.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
I was thinking on the devil's side rather than the
sympathy side. But okay, so you want me to talk
about that, Well, it's rather than what I was thinking of.
It's your show sheet. You choose to follow it or not.
You gotta do what the boss says. There's there's a
lot of risk in not doing what the boss says.

(48:49):
What one All right, fine, dragon, I'll do what you say.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
But just one one.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Quick thing before I do what Dragon is making me do,
and that is that hour and a half ish, there's
going to be an announcement sometime around an hour and
a half from now from President Trump. As you hear
in our news broadcasts, some people think that the announcement
is going to be moving Space Command from Colorado Springs

(49:13):
to Huntsville, Alabama. I did see some other people mention
that one other possible thing that Trump might announce, either
today or some other day, it would be renaming of
the Department of Defense to the Department of War. But
any case, let's stick with the Space Command thing. So
I just saw an email that came in a big
email blast, like to everybody on the email list, not

(49:34):
just to me, from the Colorado State Attorney General's office.
And it's a statement from Attorney General Phil Wiser. And
here's what Phil says. Then, Trump administration should not play
political games with our nation's military readiness and military families.
Moving Space Command headquarters to Alabama is not only wrong
for a national defense, but it's harmful to hundreds of

(49:56):
Space Command personnel and their families. These El Paso County
residents are our neighbors. They relied on the federal government's
decision to keep Space Command HQ and Colorado Springs. They
bought homes for their families, selected schools for their children,
and have contributed to.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
The local economy.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
The Colorado Attorney General's Office has been preparing in the
event the President made such an unlawful decision to move
Space Command headquarters. If the Trump administration takes this step,
I'm prepared to challenge it in court. So that is
a statement from Attorney General Phil Wiser. And let me
just issue my own statement in response to my good

(50:32):
friend Phil.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
And we are good friends. Now. Phil has made it his.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Hobby, his passion, perhaps even his job, to sue the
Trump administration over almost anything he can think of. And
I think that some significant percentage of that is because
of his true beliefs, where he thinks that the Trump
administration is doing something illegal and that they should be stopped.

(51:01):
And I don't always agree, and lots of times I don't.
I think Phil files way too many lawsuits against the
federal government, but on most of them, I think he's
sincere even if I think he's wrong. This one I
got to say, and Phil, I hope you're listening.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
This is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
You don't, Phil, you do not have any Look, I'm
not a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
I could be wrong, but I'll just tell you what
I think. Phil.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
I think that this will not only lose, but get
laughed out of court so fast that it'll end up
being an embarrassment for you. You won't even you don't have
standing to sue. And on what basis do you think
that any court, any federal court, because that's where this

(51:50):
will be.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
On what basis do you think that any federal court.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Will give a rats behind about what a state attorney
general thinks about a commander in chief's decision regarding where
to locate certain parts of the United States military. I mean, really, Look,
here's the thing. Phil is running for governor. Phil and

(52:17):
Michael Bennett are the only two credible Democratic candidates for governor.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
I may have more to say later.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
In the show or tomorrow and tomorrow's show about potential
Republican candidates for governor. But Phil and Michael Bennett are
the Democrats who have a chance, and I would have
to think that between the two of them, I would
have to think that Michael Bennett is way ahead. Right
if the primary election were held today, I think Michael

(52:45):
Bennett would probably beat Phil by quite a lot. I
could be wrong. I could be wrong. I don't care
that much. Right, they're both way to my left. I
know Phil, and I don't know Senator Bennett. And you know,
maybe there's part of me that would rather have the
governor be someone I know, if everything else about them
is the same. But that's a small thing.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Really.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
What I care about is having the best governor for Colorado,
and I don't know which one of them would be
better because they're both so far to my left.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
But the idea that you're gonna sue.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
The Trump administration over a decision regarding where to locate
a part of the military is nuts.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
It's absolutely nuts.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
And again, Phil, if you're listening, I understand some of this,
you might believe this one. I don't even I bet
you don't even believe this one yourself. And it's kind
of frustrating because there is zero basis for a lawsuit here,
and it sounds like what Phil is saying is that
the basis for a lawsuit would be some kind of reliance.

(53:50):
A reliance is a reliance is a term of law
that or a term of art in law where somebody
makes it decision and then you make a decision based
on that, and then they change. And now, in some
cases you might have some form of relief available to

(54:14):
you right or with government. Let's say government makes a
decision that gives you permission to build a factory, okay,
and then somebody and you've started building, and you relied
on all that and there was and there was nothing
illegal in the process that gave you the permission.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
There was nothing corrupt or illegal.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
It was just a decision and they gave you permission,
totally legal, totally reasonable. And then another government comes in
and changes the mind and says you can't finish your factory,
but you've already sunk five million dollars into.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
It because you relied on it.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
So you could have a reliance claim and sue the
government saying, yeah, if you want to stop certain kinds
of factories in the future, go ahead, But I relied
on this, and so what you're doing is harming me
where I had a legitimate reliance on the previous action.
So it sounds like what Phil wants to say is
that members of the military who for example, bought homes

(55:09):
or put their kids in particular schools. Folks who are
working for Space Command have some kind of reliance claim.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
That since the government said.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
At some point, you know, okay, it looks like we're
going to keep it in Colorado. Now now, the government
can't change that because some people.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Are relying on that. That's nonsense. Everybody who's in the
United States military.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Knows that the government can move them anywhere at any
time for any reason.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
All Right, I've spent too long on this.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
I'll just say that is an absolutely nonsense lawsuit. That
is one of the worst lawsuits I've ever seen from
Phil Okay, Dragon played Sympathy for the Devil.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
So he's requiring me to talk about this thing. And
it's not that I want to, Okay, it's that I
have to because of this bald, red bearded viking behind
the glass. The show sheet that you put together.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
It's irrelevant. Irrelevant, Stop trying to distract us. Here's the
headline from the Denver Post. From feeling betrayed to volunteering
to leave, Five former Denvers City employees tell their layoff stories.
And the reason that Dragon played the sympathy music is
that I put a little note on my show sheet,

(56:27):
which I don't follow, even though I spent hours putting
it together. And what I noted to myself is that
I do feel sympathy on an individual basis for people
who lose their jobs. You know, I don't, or at
least it's very rare that I want somebody to lose

(56:49):
a job because I don't like that person or something
like that. That doesn't mean, however, that I think that
that job should exist. So it's kind of a it's
a double edged sword.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
I'm not happy that an individual has.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Lost a job and a way to make a living
and so on has to go fund try to find
a new job and all that, but that doesn't mean
that I'm completely unhappy about a decision. And you know,
these are people who are being laid off by Denver.
The state is also doing some kind of hiring freeze,
I think, not nearly as much as Denver is doing,
maybe not even on an absolute dollar basis, and definitely
not on a percentage basis. But the city and the

(57:25):
state have spent way too much money on things that
they shouldn't spend money on, certainly not to that illegal
aliens being number one. I mean, the city of Denver
spent like closet to one hundred million dollars. I think
on illegal aliens and you know, closing rec centers and
let the illegal aliens take over and giving them this,
that and the other thing. And the state did that too.

(57:46):
Colorado has been much too welcoming. And that's their word. Okay,
that's the politician's word. We are welcoming, not just to
be illegal aliens, but of anybody, including the bums, the
so called urban campers, right, which is these young homeless
people who come to Colorado and came to Colorado shortly
after marijuana, recreational marijuana became legalized in this state, these

(58:08):
quote unquote urban campers, they're just we're welcoming.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Actually said I think it was too.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Daryl Watson maybe I think I think it was Daryl
Watson's Denver City councilman. I said, can we please start
being less welcoming? And he said, oh no, no, no, no,
we got we gotta be welcoming. No, no, we don't. Right,
I'm not saying we need to be evil. I'm not
saying we need to severely beat people about the head

(58:35):
and neck as they try to walk into Denver, take
a bus into Denver, but welcoming where you where you
make it clear to people that if you come here,
we will pay for your food and your shelter and
your health care and everything. Look, if you want to
do that as a charity, as a nonprofit, spending your

(58:55):
own money and your donor's money, then go for it.
Although there is the whole separate illegal a alien question,
but just put that aside for a second. If you
want to fund the living expenses of other people and
attract lots and lots of them to your place by
spending your own money, fine, But I don't want our
government being welcoming and turn our city and state into

(59:20):
a giant magnet.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
That is such a giant magnet that the.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
Governor of Texas could feel its poll and that's why
he put. However, many hundred one thousands of illegal aliens
on buses from Texas to Colorado a couple of years ago.
So because of this stupid spending, especially at the city level,
the city has.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Budget problems, and then.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
You tie that into sales tax revenue coming up very short.
There's not as much consumer spending going on in Denver
as they had predicted, so it's coming up very short.
So these people are being laid off and that's what
the story is about.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
And a couple of these they're kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Oh, by the way, I would also note, you know,
Mike Johnston said that they were going to cut like
eight hundred and something jobs. What he actually did was
they laid off one hundred and sixty nine people only,
and then announced that there were something like six hundred
and sixty six hundred and seventy vacant jobs in the

(01:00:24):
city and they're just going to eliminate them, right, So
you know, three quarters, let's say, of their so called
cost savings, is coming from just not filling jobs that
are already empty, and only about one quarter of it
or so is coming from laying off people.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
So that seems a little cowardly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
Although I realized the city needs to do some things,
and at some point, I don't know where the point is,
but at some point you might not have enough people
to do a very good job. I don't think we're
at that point yet. But there are a couple people
mentioned in this store, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
I thought I would I would check with check on
a couple of these.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Share a couple of these with you. Let me look
for this Gal's name or yeah, yeah, this is actually
this is a woman, even though the name sounds a
little bit like a guy's name. Mikhail va Fayattes va
f e ad E s, I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing
your last name. With a twenty year old in college

(01:01:26):
and a four year old at home, Va Faiattes is
preparing for a major strain on her family's finances. She said,
I can't afford to be without a job. When she
first when Johnson first announced the layoffs again this is
from the Denver Post. Okay, she thought she'd be safe
because of how long she had worked for the city.
And then this is the part we talked about on
the show, the Career Service Board being kind of nudged

(01:01:47):
by the mayor, and we talked directly with the mayor
about this.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
I thanked him for this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Voted in early July to change Denver's policies so that
seniority is a fact her but not the only factor.
And this Gal, again quoting from the Denver Post, said
that she thought her job would still be secure because
she was the only person in her office who knew

(01:02:12):
how to use multiple programs, and because of her many
contacts in the field, and let me just see if
I can find the thing that says what she does.
She is the budget and operations manager for the Office
of Children's Affairs. So remember I told you that four

(01:02:33):
of the five top categories within the City of Denver's
budget cutting in terms of percentage of staff that are
being laid off are in these kind of well, I
don't want to say woke, but like progressive sounding things
like the Children's Affairs department. I said, you remember, I said,
I didn't realize children had affairs. That was what we're
talking about the other day, But also things like you know,

(01:02:54):
social justice or something, equity and all these kind of
left wing sounding departments are the ones that are in
some of the biggest cuts, which is good because most
of the work being done in those departments is probably
not work that should be done anywhere by anybody, at
least not in government. But anyway, so she says that
she thought she'd be safe because she really knew her

(01:03:15):
job and had a lot of contact and knew what
to do and all this stuff, and she was laid
off anyway. She was among twenty employees with more than
fifteen years of service who were laid off, according to
data from the Mayor's office, is about twelve percent of
the people who lost their jobs. That's whatever. It doesn't
seem like a crazy number. But I think the thing

(01:03:35):
to keep in mind is if you have been working
for the city for a long time, then you're probably
at least within the scale of the city. You're probably
fairly highly paid. So in a sense, that makes you
a bigger target. Right, the seniority works in your favor,
but your cost works against you. And again, I have

(01:03:57):
nothing against this lady, and I don't know if she's
great at her job or mediocre at her job. I mean,
I'm guessing she's probably pretty good at her job because
she got the job and it's a big job.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
You know. I don't know that she was, you know,
a diversity higher. Hopefully she wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Hopefully she got her job because she deserved it and
she worked her way up through the ranks and knew
what she was doing. My point though, is that you know,
when when you make a relatively lot of money in
a in an organization that needs to cut costs, they're
gonna have to balance that. So we'll see so that
that particular person is is a little bit or more
than a little bit unhappy. Now they talk to five

(01:04:32):
different people in this Denver post piece, but I just
want to mention one more to you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Because this is kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Earl Jackson is his name, chief financial officer of the
Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
So that's really a big job.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
And he said that he was already considering leaving the
job after years of what he called chaos in the department.
And he said, when we get on the other side
of this and the US settles, is that the type
of organization that you want to work for.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
I asked myself that question. It was a resounding no.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Jackson was with the department for about three years and
worked for the Chicago Transit Authority before that. Said, things
took a turn when Johnston was elected in twenty twenty three. Quote,
it's been pretty much crisis after crisis mode since he arrived,
particularly within the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Now, listen to this next bit. Listen to this next bit.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
And by the way, I assume that everybody who works
not everybody. I assume that most people who work for
city government are probably Democrats. They're probably not you know
secret maga people looking to bash the liberal mayor of Denver.
I also note not that you can guarantee somebody's political

(01:05:49):
affiliation from this particular data point, but I do note
that Earl Jackson is an African American. They tend to
lean democrat in by a very wide margin.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
So again, I don't know, but I just want.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
To throw that out there that I don't think this
is a guy who's just sort of looking to bash
the mayor or as some kind of conservative dude. So
this was this was his comment, or this is how
the Denver Post describes him. Jackson attributes that sense of
instability to the city's many budget constraints, including major financial
commitments for the migrant crisis and homelessness. The city spent

(01:06:28):
ninety five million dollars to help migrants.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
And annually it spends about fifty seven million.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Dollars on the homelessness problem.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Jackson said there was a perception among some that the
entire city was reoriented, as if that was the only
thing we did in the city, that meaning taking care
of the homeless and illegal aliens. He said he believed
the layoffs could have been softened if the city's finance team,
which has been preparing for a budget downturn since at

(01:06:59):
least last fall, had started making changes sooner.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
He said, there was.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
An opportunity to have this entire thing be far less
severe than it actually ended up being. In any case,
that's interesting, don't you think to see a former rather
senior city in County of Denver employee at least partly
blaming the city's spending on homelessness, on the homeless, and
on illegal immigrants as a reason that he's losing his job.

(01:07:27):
But of the five people that they spoke to in
that Denver post piece, he was the only one who said,
you know, it's just such a mess that I was
thinking of leaving the job anyway. Neither of those says
great things about Denver. I posted a couple of pictures
on the blog at Rosscominski dot com. One is just
a Neil Young in the band up on stage. Another

(01:07:48):
is me and Dragon, you know, sort of proof of
life that we were actually there. We left soon enough
that you will not see blood coming out of our
ears or other orifices. Is we got out in time.
It was internal damage there there's certainly and certainly cerebral
damage as well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
And it was it was bad, but it was nice
talking with Chuck And yeah, it was great talking with
Chuck and Josh Blue.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Brett Saunders from KBCO was there. Comedian Josh Blue was there.
We had to say we didn't talk with them much,
but I got to say hi, and and it was
a lovely evening, you know, sitting out in the open
air and listen to some music, some bad music.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Uh, I'm gonna say so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
People will think I'm exaggerating, but I promise you I'm
not when I say that. As we were sitting there
listening for however long we sat there for the Neil
Young part, it is probably an hour. It was about
an hour that that we stayed. And dude, I'm telling you,

(01:08:53):
almost every single moment I was thinking about when can
we leave? I really made not any moment, but like
every other minute maybe like can I go yet?

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Can I get as soon as he walked off, like
it's our chance we go?

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
No, And we only did this, dragon and I only
did this like as a just as a bit for
the show.

Speaker 5 (01:09:16):
Yeah, thank you to the listener that suggested this really
appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
I think it was a listener who said that you
and I should go to the show, something.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
About you had said something about Neil Young or you
weren't doing something. So I played one torture. I played
a Neil Young bumper to torture you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah. And then some text or.

Speaker 5 (01:09:35):
Texteders like you know they're coming on the first Yeah,
And then you looked it up and you're like, sure
enough they are.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Wouldn't it be great if we got tickets? No? No,
it would not be great if we got tickets. No.
And then I made the mistake of asking if they
had tickets, assuming that the answer would be no because
it was so close to show time. But they ended
up having a pair of tickets for us. And at
that point we were we were committed to the bit,
as they say in comedy, not that I've know any
about comedy, but we were committed to the bit at

(01:10:02):
that point. Picture of me and Dragon, not the text plane.
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
They still don't like that picture, the picture of Dragon
in me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
Does that make you feel better? All right? Picture of
Dragon and me? And anyway, So.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
I want to just tell you this other little part
of the story, which was kind of interesting and in
a way, I'm gonna defend Neil Young here.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
So earlier Dragon played a couple of clips from a couple.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Of songs that were among the six songs that we
listened to, and I said, we stayed for an hour,
and I'm pretty sure we heard six songs. And it's
because the songs were long, because at some point, beginning,
middle and any combination, there'd be a little bit of
a jam session and they'd be going playing it, just
jamming along. And it was all right, Well it wasn't.
I mean, Neil Young's pretty good guitar player. I don't

(01:10:47):
love I don't love his sound on the electric guitar
in particular, so it doesn't really do it for me.
Even though I recognize he's a good guitar player, I
don't really dig it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
But anyway, anyway, so he.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Did this one song about protecting Mother Earth, and he
criticized big oil got a job to do, We got
a job to do. Did you say you had a
little something of his like or do you want to
not stick it in.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
Here because the lawyers, okay, so we'll leave that out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
But then so he's singing and then he starts talking like,
I don't know, Oklahoma, save the Earth from big oil,
like and then close to that, right, he's.

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
Got a little talk box kind of device. Yeah, sounded
like a megaphone, and it was there was a little
front of the stand. Yeah, that was just you know,
in front of his microphone stand there. Yeah, when he
would talk, and it was just yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
So so he did that and that was kind of
you know, like radical environmentalist preachy stuff. And then two
songs later he he did this song that Dragon played
a clip of earlier, called Big Crime, which is clearly
a recently written song savaging Donald Trump, calling him a
fascist and talking about how we don't want soldiers in

(01:11:56):
the streets, right, and soldiers in the streets under Trump
is not something that I recall happening during.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
The first Trump administration.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
So I think his is a song he must have
written very recently about Trump right now. And and it
had the word fascist in the song at least fifteen
or twenty times, right, oh, at least Yeah, And it
was it was it was annoying, but okay.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
So then Dragon and I left after.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
The sixth song, partly because we get up early, and
partly just to save our sanity. And we're we're walking
at a at a moderate pace toward where we.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
Parked the car. And we.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
And we catch up with this couple who looked to
me to be maybe in their fifties.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
We weren't the only people leaving. No, no, we were
definitely not the only people leaving.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
So we caught up with this couple and and and
the guy said, and I don't know if he was
saying it to us or saying to his wife or
his day or whatever that was to him, something along
the lines of that he was annoy And I turned
back towards him because we passed him a little because
we were walking faster than they were.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
And I said, at.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
All the political stuff, and he kind of nodded at that,
he said, and then like we we kept walking.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
And then there was a couple in front of us.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
They were a little younger, but not young like Dragon
was probably one of the youngest people at the concert,
not the only. There were a few younger ones, but
it was a very old like walkers in oxygen tanks crowd,
octagenarian crowd. Yeah, And it was I mean, I think
I think probably half of the AARP membership of Colorado
was there. And I also think probably you know, fifteen

(01:13:35):
percent of the membership of the Democratic Party.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
In Colorado was there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
And by the way, when he did that song bashing Trump,
he didn't say the word trump. Oh it was clear
when he did that song bashing Trump and using the
word fascist, that was the song that got the most applause.
While while we were there, that was the song that
got the most applause. Anyway, case, so, as we're walking,
this couple that was in front of us walked by

(01:14:00):
a police officer who was sitting down behind a gate.
It was a gate that was blocking the road where
Neil Young's tour buses were a little further down that road,
so they were just not letting people go down there,
go down the road there. And this female cop asked,
why are you leaving early? And the guy said too
much political and then the s word, yeah, too much political,

(01:14:24):
bleep ay bleep, And.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
Okay, here's my thinking on this. Neil Young is an.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
Unreconstructed radical, environmentalist, leftist hippie right product of the you know,
flower child, product of the sixties. Lots of music in
the seventies. The song Ohio about Kent State. You know,
he's anti establishment, he's certainly anti conservatives, and he has
been for fifty years, for sixty years. I mean, the

(01:14:55):
dude is almost eighty, right, So the dude has been
a leftist for for longer.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
Than I've been alive. And I gotta say, uh, I don't.
I don't share his politics.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
But if if you're gonna go to Anneil Young concert,
how do you go to a Neil Young concert and
not know that you're gonna get some kind of leftist
talking points and you're gonna walk.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
Out of it? I don't know. Like, look, I get,
I get if you're watching. Let me give you an example.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
You're watching the Oscars and some famous actor whose political views.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
You don't know and don't want.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
To know, starts excoriating Donald Trump or anybody else, and
you say, this is not what I'm here for, and
you change it because you're expecting something completely different. But
why would you not expect that from Neil Young? I
actually think, you know, if you're gonna be that sensitive
about leftist politics, you shouldn't have gone to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
All right, what do you think?

Speaker 5 (01:15:58):
Dragon again to Neil Young's his credit here is that
he didn't stand up there in monologue political stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
It was all just in.

Speaker 5 (01:16:05):
His song, so it would have been much worse, I
would believe if you're just going to go hear Neil
Young's songs and then all he does is monologue at
you the entire time. But these were actual songs. So
it's Neil Young, so you know what you're getting. Couldn't
agree more.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
All right, We're going to take a quick break and
when we come back, I'm gonna talk with you about
the Guinness World Record folks. Wanting to encourage you to
get in the Guinness Book, just.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
To waste a little bit of your time.

Speaker 1 (01:16:38):
But the last couple of things I want to say
about Neil Young, just responding to a couple of listener
texts who note that he's Canadian, so he's singing all
this stuff about America. He became an American citizen in
twenty twenty and as a as a listener just noted
on text, and I do think this is correct. He
said he became a citizen and took the oath so
he could vote against Donald trum So I think that's

(01:17:01):
probably right. He is a Canadian citizen and an American
citizen he is still married to actress Daryl Hannah, so
good for him. And the other thing that I didn't
mention before this isn't exactly a political thing, but it is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
It's a thing. And this has been going on with
Neil Young.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
Since the late nineteen eighties. He put out a song
blanking on the name this Notes for You. I think
this Notes for you. Isn't there a soda like this
COCHX for you? Or this Bud's for you?

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
Is a beer? This Bud's for you? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
So he did this Notes for You, and it's a
song that essentially attacks very large corporations that provide, you know,
things you want to eat and drink. And MTV wouldn't
put the song, wouldn't put the video on MTV because
I guess they didn't want to offend the people who
who write the checks. But what I didn't know, and

(01:17:57):
I think Chuck said this last night and we looked
it up and it's true, or somebody said it is
that since at least the late nineteen eighties, Neil Young
has been requiring the venues where he does his concerts
to not have any big name brands of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
So you can't buy coke. You can't buy pepsi, you
can't buy Budweiser, you can't buy cores. I don't It
was hard for me to tell.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
Chuck said there was no soda, but I think there
might be soda, but just not the big brands. And
one of the dudes that we were sitting with went
to get a course and he was told, no, we
have this other brand and it was too dark for
me to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
See what the can was. Did you see it?

Speaker 5 (01:18:36):
I did not see that also, but it is something
that Chuck had mentioned, and this is only from Chuck,
so I can't really say it if that was really
a fact. Also, but there was no steak or chicken
available in the venue. Oh, for some kind of Neil
Young reason.

Speaker 7 (01:18:49):
Does Neil Young ban meet at his concerts? Let's see
what the source of all just from Chuck said. We
didn't look that part up. We did look up the
soda thing. We're like, really, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
This is from Google's AI that answered the question that
I just typed in does Neel Young band meet at
his concerts? In November twenty twenty two, Neil Young announced
he would refuse to perform at venues that serve products
from factory farms, which includes most meat and dairy. He
insists that any venue he plays must provide quote clean,
sustainably grown food and operate sustainably.

Speaker 5 (01:19:23):
Huh, well, there you go, There you go, Chuck, being
the big guy that he is, I would kind of
trust him as whether or not you can get food
at that venue.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Okay, uh, that's enough, Neil Young, I guess we survived, survived.
I want to let's talk about crime for a couple
of minutes. So there's a whole thing going on now
with President Trump, who has sent the National Guard into Washington,
d C.

Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
Threatening to send national guard.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
Is Chicago is his primary focus right now, and he's
talking about the levels of crime in Chicago and other places.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
He meant Baltimore from time to time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
Chicago does not actually have anything even close to the
highest crime rate in the United States in terms of
violent crime. The number of violent crimes divided by the population.
But if you don't divide by the population, you just
want to know how many crimes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Are committed in a place. I think Chicago has.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
More murders than anybody else, right, so crime is bad.
The other thing I'll say is Democrats have been talking
about crime coming down in.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
The past couple of years.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
It's almost certainly true, but that doesn't mean that crime
isn't still unacceptably high. I also note that crime really
spiked just going through COVID and now is coming down,
but it's still in many places higher.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Than it was before COVID.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
The other thing that I want to say is, and
this has long been a topic of mine for all
my years on the radio, and just as a concept
because of the the tendency in broadcast news for if
it bleeds, it leads, right, if there's a gruesome crime,

(01:21:10):
a terrible traffic accident, a mass murder, or something even
and I don't mean like a school shooting that of
course everybody will cover. But a couple people get shot
into town, they're gonna put it on the news. And
what that has meant. And now I'm talking about now
for like thirty years, I'm not talking about for three years, Okay,
for thirty years, the public has overestimated crime rates. Now,

(01:21:35):
in the eighties and maybe early nineties when crime rates
were quite high, maybe they were a little closer, but
crime dropped steadily from then through up until about the
time of COVID, but the reporting of crime doesn't. So
for a very long time now, most Americans have overestimated
crime rates. So what Trump understands. Trump understands that, and

(01:22:02):
he understands that this is a big political win for
him this weekend in Chicago, and this was the data point,
like late morning on Monday, and Monday counts as part
of the weekend when it's a three day holiday weekend.
Right by that point, and there were still many hours
left on Monday, at least fifty four people had been shot.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
In Chicago this weekend, this past weekend and eight people killed.
And I don't think the previous weekend was much better.
And so now Trump says, I'm gonna do something about this.
We're gonna send in the National Guard, We're gonna help.
He's got an issue in that it's unclear that you
can send the National Guard into a place to do
anythinglike law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
If the Guard wasn't invited by the governor. You cannot
federalize the National Guard and have them do ordinary law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
And so this is gonna be tricky.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
And I don't actually think Trump wants to lose this lawsuit.
And it's not clear to me that he will install
the National Guard in Chicago in a way that is illegal.
He will probably install them in a way where he
can show the good pictures and show that he's doing something,
but where they will actually be around some kind of
federal facility or protecting ice personnel or something that has
a tie to the FEDS without doing ordinary law enforcement.

(01:23:21):
That might be his way around it. But the bottom
line is you stee statistics like this and you realize
that only lunatics in a political sense, only lunatics would
take the other side of Trump's big push to clean
up crime.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
You're gonna make me do a thing that it wasn't
even gonna do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
Out of the two of us I read the show,
one of us has to one of this is the
thing one of us writes it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
You know one of us reads it. That sounds almost fair.
It does, doesn't it? All right?

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
The reason Dragon is playing that. And then I promised
you the thing about the Guinness Book. So I'm gonna
do that right after this thing that Dragon is making
me do. Now here's the headline from the New York Post.
Rosie O'Donnell apologizes for.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Calling Trans Minneapolis Catholic School shooter, a MAGA supporter. Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
I messed up, Rosie O'Donnell is eating her words after
she falsely claimed that the transgender Minneapolis Catholic school shooter
was a mega supporter and.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
A hate fueled social media rant.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Last week, the former talk show host and fierce President
Trump critic, who lives in Ireland now after she she
left the US when Trump won and good riddance to her,
dangerously suggested that the shooter whose name I won't use,
who killed two kids and injured eighteen others, was a
quote Republican, MAGA person, white supremacist. After realizing that her

(01:24:39):
conspiracy Leyden Tirade was factually incorrect, o'donald, sixty three years old,
took to social media to issue a groveling apology.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
I know a lot of you were very upset about
the video I made before I went away for a
few days. You're right, and I didn't do my due
diligence Before I made that emotional statement. I said things
about the shooter that were incorrect. I now listen to
this part. O'Donnell says. I assumed, like most.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Shooters, they followed a standard mo and head standard feelings
of you know, NRA loving kind of gun people.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
Now again, whether or not you like the NRA, whether
or not you like guns, whether you're a conservative or
a liberal, I don't think you can factually even attempt
to claim that most of these mass killers school shooters

(01:25:31):
have been MAGA or white supremacist or any other There
there are people out there who have those terrible traits
that are white supremacist type of people. But it, I mean,
she's attacking people while in the act of apologizing, and
she's making another huge mistake while trying to, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Apologize for the previous mistake. It's it's rather a strange thing.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
I will also note, and I didn't talk about this
after the shooting because frankly, I didn't want to. I
don't like coming back to a topic of dead kids.
As a parent, these topics are very very difficult for
me to talk about at all. It's really not easy. Right,
So all I want to say about this deranged shooter
is that he hated everybody, right. He hated Catholics, he

(01:26:22):
really hated Jews and Israel, he hated Donald Trump. He
seems to have hated blacks and Mexicans. He definitely hated himself,
and the only people that he seemed to like, at
least from what we've heard about this manifesto. When some
people have seen it, I haven't seen it. I don't
really care to the only people that he seemed to

(01:26:43):
like were mass murderers. And so this was a thing
that I said when the shooting first happened, which is,
we just got to be incredibly careful to avoid speculating,
because more often than not, speculations turn out wrong these situations.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
And you know, she did it. But the thing when she.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Does something like that and she comes out and I mean,
there probably are some people who, oddly enough are influenced
by Rosie O'Donnell, not a lot, but a couple, and
she influences more than zero people, then she's really doing
something quite harmful to society when she says that a
deranged person who murdered children and tried to murder many

(01:27:25):
more children was a Republican, MAGA, white supremacist, when there
is not evidence of any of that, none at all,
none at all.

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
So Rosie O'Donnell, as I said, good riddance.

Speaker 1 (01:27:41):
Now, just one other quick thing before I get to
the to the Guinness as long as we're talking about
fat people. So with Rosie, I mean like, so as
long as we're talking about fat people, I want to
do another fat person story. So Southwest Airlines has been
changing some policies, like the pick your own seat thing.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
They're going to do assigned seats now.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
And another thing they're changing actually is free luggage, which
I think is actually I think that's a huge mistake
for Southwest because people hate being nickel and dimed. So
I think if I think for a lot of people,
if you showed them a flight for two hundred dollars
on some airline, but then you had a baggage fee
of let's say thirty five dollars, so it'll be two

(01:28:24):
thirty five with the bag, I bet you you could
show them two thirty five or two thirty or even
to forty on Southwest bags fly free and they would
take it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
Because we hate being nickel and dimed and hate feeling
like there's an extra charge. There is something.

Speaker 1 (01:28:40):
About many people, and I'm among them, who more often
than not would just like something to be included in
the price and not have the extra this and the
extra that you go to a restaurant and there's an
extra fee and another fee, and this is the health
insurance fee, and this is this is to make sure
you know that minimum wage is gone up. So we're
adding another three percent to your bill. Just include it
in the price. Here's your straw fee. Yeah, right, at

(01:29:02):
one fee after another. So anyway, anyway, so the reason
that I mentioned the fat people thing is that Southwest
has been one of the few airlines that in recent
years has maintained a policy where very large people don't

(01:29:24):
have to buy two seats. Now, Kristin and I were
on a flight recently, was it, man?

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
Yeah? Where were we? I don't know where we were.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
But Kristin and Kristin and I were on a flight
recently somewhere, and oh maybe it was going to going
to California to take my kid to look at some colleges.
And in the row in front of us, in the
middle seat was a really wide lady whose whose roles

(01:29:56):
and rolls of fat were her falling over the arm
rests on both sides of her and encroaching not a
little onto the seats on both sides of her, like
two three inches past the arm rest into the next seat. Now,
I believe she was traveling with the person sitting at

(01:30:18):
the window.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
So that's fine. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
You're traveling together and you want to deal with that,
that's fine. But the lady on the left was not
with them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
And her personal space, the seat she had paid for
was being invaded by several pounds of blubber coming into
her space. So from the New York Post, starting.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
January twenty seventh of next year, flyers who quote encroach
upon the neighboring seat will be required to purchase an
extra seat in advance. Southwest said, to ensure space, we
are communicating to customers who have previously used the extra
seat policy that they should purchase it at booking.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
So let me just skip ahead. I don't fly.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Southwest, and the reason is that I hate their boarding procedure.
A lot of people love it, I hate it, So
I don't fly Southwest. Now that Southwest is actually going
to assigning seats, I might check them again, But of
course they don't have free luggage anymore, so it makes
them less interesting, especially since I tend to accumulate miles
on United, and when you're accumulating miles on one airline,

(01:31:25):
it does keep you kind of loyal to them anyway
back to the thing. Those who don't purchase a seat
ahead of time an extra seat ahead of time will
be required to buy one at the airport. This marks
a major change from the current policy in which plus
size passengers can proactively purchase an additional seat with the
option of being refunded later, or request a free extra

(01:31:46):
seat at the airport. Under the new mandate, the second
seat is non refundable unless the flight isn't fully booked
at the time of departure, and if both of the
passengers tickets are booked in.

Speaker 2 (01:31:59):
The same class.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
However, the passenger needs to request money back within ninety
days of the flight.

Speaker 2 (01:32:05):
If the flight is fully booked, the.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Flyer will be rebooked onto a new flight. In other words,
if you are a very large person who was supposed
to buy a second seat so that you do not
encroach on whoever would be sitting next to you, and
you don't and the flight is otherwise full, they will
book you on a new flight to make sure that
you can buy the seat that's next to you, so

(01:32:29):
that you don't do that right. Critics were quick to
rip Southwest, says the New York Post, which has long
been seen as a haven for plus sized passengers. The
executive director of a group called the National Association to
Advance Fat Acceptance deemed the overhaul charges devastating for plus
sized flyers. Quote Southwest was the only beacon of hope

(01:32:51):
for many fat people who otherwise wouldn't have been flying,
she lamented, according to New York Times, and now that
beacon has gone out. Another person who is a travel
agent who shares travel tips for plus sized tourists on
a website called Fat Travel Tested, said, I think it's
gonna make the flying experience worse for everybody. No, it's

(01:33:13):
not gonna make the flying experience worse for the person
who would otherwise have to sit next to that wall
rus who is flowing over into her seat. No, now, Dragon,
you are a former fat person, correct, what do you
think of this?

Speaker 5 (01:33:29):
I was waiting for the parties to house Southwest would
be able to identify the person purchasing the seat, whether
or not they knew that that was a fat person
or not, that would require them to purchase the second seat.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
But then you went on the story of saying.

Speaker 5 (01:33:42):
That you know, if you are you show up and
like no, no, no, you gotta get back.

Speaker 2 (01:33:46):
Yeah, they will rebook you on another flight.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
So, and it doesn't say anywhere in here how they
know or how they judge when they see you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
Right. They don't say specific carry on luggage. You know,
the airlines will have.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
This little box and if you can fit it in
the box then you can.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
Ring put it right.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
But they're not I don't see anything like that in
this articles.

Speaker 5 (01:34:04):
Like they do at the amusement parks, you have the
seats outside of the line, you know, before you get
in line for the ride, and you sit in the
seat and if you fit, great, go ahead and get on.

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
And if you don't, well, yeah, buy a new one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
Oh, maybe they put an airplane seat up by chick
in and then you sit on it.

Speaker 5 (01:34:23):
Wow, it's the thing. We saw that at Disney this
past summer.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
It was great. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:34:28):
Well look what the cat dragged in just in time
for this conversation. I don't know if you walked in
early because you heard what we were talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:34:34):
Well, I came in to make one point about the
Neil Young concert. Oh, the then diagram of Neil Young's
audience and the people who do the No King's rally
is just two circles right on top.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
Of each other. Indeed, indeed, that's what Dragon and I
were saying.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
You could have simultaneously wiped out a quarter of the
state's AARP membership at Democratic Party membership with a bomb
on Fiddler's Green last night?

Speaker 2 (01:34:57):
Did Chuck like it? Ah?

Speaker 6 (01:35:00):
So last night I was already in bed, like half
asleep when he came in from the show, because I
like to go to bed at nine point thirty when I.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
Can and him when it's bedtime.

Speaker 6 (01:35:07):
Yeah, And I said, how's the show and he said
it was good. He said, I don't feel the need
to see him again, okay. And then today I said, so,
what was the show like? And he said, well, I
could have, you know, lived without this sort of sanctimodious
songs about fascism. But other than that, and there was
a few songs that Chuck wanted to hear that he
didn't play. So I got the overall impression from him.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
That it was may yeah. Actually, and again I'm not
a fan, but just trying.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
It seemed to me like the crowd was pretty subdued,
and not maybe just because they were old, but it
just seemed like they weren't well.

Speaker 6 (01:35:43):
I'll tell you when I went to see Neil Diamond, Yeah,
the Louisville ym Center, and that crowd there was literally
like five oxygen tanks against every wall. Yeah, they were
boogying down for very short periods of time, but they
were booging down as soon as I could get back up,
and then you know, boogie boogie and then sit back down.
I'm not joking about that. By the way, That's exactly

(01:36:04):
how it went down.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
I know you're not joking, all right, So let me
just bring you up to speed on what I was
talking about in the just before you walked in. And
I'm asking you this in the context of one of
your previous lines of work. Okay, Southwest Airlines is going
to become maybe the last major airline because they've been
holding off on this for a long time to require

(01:36:27):
fat people to buy a second seat. They had avoided
that they had allowed a fat person to ask for
a free second seat on a flight that wasn't full.
Now they're saying you got to buy it in advance.
And in your previous line of work you might have
experienced this a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
I actually told the story on the air.

Speaker 6 (01:36:46):
My most embarrassing horrifying day at any job ever, was
on the day that a man walked back up to
me as I was the flight attendant charged during boarding,
and said, my seat isn't there.

Speaker 2 (01:36:56):
Then I went what, and he goes, my seat is
not there.

Speaker 6 (01:36:58):
And I clearly knew what aircraft we were on, that
twenty one B was going to be right there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
I walk back.

Speaker 6 (01:37:03):
There are two people that had bought A and C
and they are so large they are touching in the middle.

Speaker 2 (01:37:08):
So to his point, he was correct. His seat was not.

Speaker 6 (01:37:11):
There, and I had no idea what to do. So
I turned around. What I was like, halfway down the
isle way, Oh, I see what's going on here? Went
up which the gate agent said, this man's seat's not there.
We have two really large people. She's like, let me
go back there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
I'm the agent. I'll like yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:37:24):
She walks halfway back, turns around and goes, sir, we
can get your on a later flight in first class,
and gave him another seat. And now I know for
a fact I have a friend who, though he is
not this large now, he used to, as he called it,
be circus big, and he used to buy a second seat.
And if the plane is not full, they would give
you your money back. Yes, So he's done that many,

(01:37:46):
many times. So that's been around a.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
Long time, right, and Southwest is now saying you have
to buy the seat in advance, but if the flight
isn't full, you can ask for your money back within
ninety days, but only if the second seat that you're
asking for was purchased in the same class of service
wrecked as your original ticket. And I think that's clear.

Speaker 6 (01:38:05):
It is a it is a fungible commodity. As soon
as it pushes back from the gate, it can never
be sold again, right, that seat. So if you're using
more than your seat, then you need to pay more
than your seat. And I'm not trying to pick on
heavy set people. I hate flying on some airlines because
I got a swish in there. But you're using two,
you're using more than one of the product. So sorry, all.

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
Right, So I promised to you guys this other thing,
let me share it. And then so Guinness World Records
is turning seventy and they are celebrating their seventies.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
It's only seventy years old.

Speaker 6 (01:38:39):
Yeah, I know, it seems like I mean, I thought
it was like one of those ancient books that we
all we all submitted all records to the ancients, and
they put them old in the Guinness Book of World
Records from.

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
The beginning of time.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Yeah, like mister Guinness was having you're telling me it's
like fifty one. Mister Guinness was having a pint with
Ben Franklin and they came up with this idea.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
Right, this boy fault. That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
So the they're seventy years old now and they are
challenging people to attempt seventy although I'm sure there's really
an infinite number, but seventy that they've already identified unclaimed
world records. What do we got, for example? Okay, the
fastest four hundred meters sack race.

Speaker 6 (01:39:21):
The good about that at all? My hips don't lie
on that one. The fuck say no?

Speaker 2 (01:39:26):
The picture Shakira bouncing along the farthest distance to bounce
a coin into a cup. The farthest wait a minute,
that might have left, that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:36):
Might that might the farthest distance bottles slip. I guess
that means throwing it and having it land straight off. Yeah,
I guess that the most high fives and thirty seconds
the fastest time to build a five story playing card pyramid.
The fastest time to make a burrito. You could probably
try that one, Mandy make a burrito?

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
Are you kidding me? Have you've seen actual Mexican people
make burritos? I do not stay a chance. Now you
can barely see their hea all.

Speaker 6 (01:40:00):
To the Mexicans, and they're burrito making prowess.

Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
Fair point. And then I like this one.

Speaker 1 (01:40:04):
The fastest time to arrange a settle scrabble tiles in
alphabetic lord, oh that seems good.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
That or the.

Speaker 6 (01:40:11):
Most high fives and thirty seconds hear me out.

Speaker 2 (01:40:13):
Okay, so we get a.

Speaker 6 (01:40:14):
Bunch of listeners to show up, and we line them
all up like super tight, arms out like this, and
then you just run as fast as you can with
your short white guy legs.

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):
Just me, well, I'm not doing it, white guy?

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
Did you say I white legs? Am I lying? Am
I lying? Yeah? I mean you're you're fast for a
white Jewish guy. You were booking it. I mean you know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
Let me share this listener text real quick. In twenty
twenty one, my daughter was trying to distract herself from
wedding prep and went for quote, the most burpies by
a woman in an hour. Dragon does burpies, right, so
he knows ye burpee Yeah, they're hard and and she
beat the existing record. It was verified by Guinness and
she received her certificate.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
You can see it on YouTube at and there's a
let's see the name Riley r A I l I
shilling s c h I L l I n G.
She has a one minute video and then a whole
hour in a separate video. She was in New Mexico
when she did it. She beat the record by and
by a nice margin.

Speaker 6 (01:41:19):
So so you challenging for the burpie one, that's not
a thing that's ever gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:41:24):
What she got coming up? Man be in the world. Maybe, Oh,
you got to take a piece of that muffin that
Kristen made and see what you think a bunch of
fruit in it? Yes, but just get up a bit
that doesn't have the fruit it.

Speaker 6 (01:41:35):
Nope, really no, even if you take a piece of
it in my teeth for like a decade, like what
is that? A year and a half from now, I'm like, oh,
is that raising ross tricked me into eating?

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
You know what's the worst as far as that goes.

Speaker 1 (01:41:46):
The seeds in raspberries, they will stay in your teeth forever, the.

Speaker 6 (01:41:50):
Feel of like raspberry strawberry seeds in my mouth.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
At least a peach get stuck in your That's fine.
What do you got coming up? No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 6 (01:42:01):
I actually have Deputy John Gray and his canine companion
Rex coming in Big Rex run this weekend to support
four legged law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:42:09):
And then I also have my friend David Strong from
Hot Air.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
He wrote an interesting column.

Speaker 6 (01:42:14):
I don't know if you saw the post put out
by President Trump about the vaccines.

Speaker 2 (01:42:19):
I did.

Speaker 6 (01:42:21):
That was kind of a shot across the bow, and
David wrote a column about it and basically is like, did.

Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
Trump just turn on Big Pharma?

Speaker 6 (01:42:27):
Because it could happen because if if he finds out
they kept information from him as president.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
Yeah, all bets are off. It could be that. It
depends on what comes out.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
It was a shot across the bow of Big Pharma
and a shot across the bow of RFK. Jillian exactly
it was. I actually I like it. A lot of
people are skeptical of all this stuff. Let's get the
information out.

Speaker 2 (01:42:49):
I agree. I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
Everybody stick around for Mandy's fabulous show. She might or
might not talk about Neilia bye