09-04-25- *FULL SHOW* Harvard v Trump; CO gun lawsuit; Farmers & solar

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, it's very good to see you.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
You know you reminded me to promote a thing, So
why don't I ask you to promote the thing for
a second. Let me just start the show off with
just seventeen seconds of this the Flat Irons Fire.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yes, what our listeners need to know? You want to
do your portions first?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, okay, so my portion is thanks to our amazing
partners at Flat Irons Fire, they're going to be giving
away to one of our listeners a twenty six hundred
dollars Napoleon Gas barbecue. We are taking a total of
twelve entries over four weeks.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Is this the last one? It is? Okay?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
So I will be giving away one entry over the
air tomorrow and a Rod will be giving away two
entries via social media tomorrow. But you could start on
that the social stuff now right. You can't do the
on air stuff early, but you could start. You could
do the social one at any time. So if you
want a chance to win one of the entries into

(00:57):
the final drawing, and remember the final drawing will only
have twelve entrants, you have a decent chance of winning
if you get one.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Of those entries.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
A Rod, what do people need to do to try
to win an entry on social media.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes, on both our X and Instagram accounts pinned at
the very top is your opportunity to get in on
those Again, those two opportunities both pinned to the Koa
Instagram at and X accounts at Koa Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Right now, okay ax dot com, slash Koa Colorado, Instagram
dot com slash Koa Colorado and just follow the instructions
on the always excellent looking social media posts that a
Rod does for us. All right, I want to follow
up on something you just heard about in our newscast
from Pat Woodard. I saw a press release yesterday from

(01:44):
the Bell Policy Center and whatever organization they've put together
called the Protect Colorado's Future Coalition, and I had the
story from the Denver Post as.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well, and this is basically.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Democrats trying to destroy what little business friendliness there is
left in this state. Colorado used to be one of
the more business friendly states in the country, and of
course liberals don't care about that because they seem to
forget where people get their jobs from, and they seem
to forget that people, which include businesses, respond to incentives,

(02:20):
and so they keep making the state, more and more
highly regulated, add more and more fees. They pretend to
help us out with small decreases in the state income
tax rate, which are welcome, by the way, but are
more than offset, much more than offset by the new
fees they add on us all the time. Now, remember
what I've said for the left. If they were in

(02:44):
charge and they could design their own tax form, the
upside of a potential Democrats tax form is.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
That it would be very simple.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
And the downside is it would it would have basically
one blank for you to fill in and just a
couple of sentences. It would say how much did you
make last year? And they don't have a blank, and
then underneath that I would say send it in and
that's it. That would be the Democrat tax form. There
is never enough money, okay, and yeah, okay. They'll pretend

(03:13):
to care a little bit about people that don't make
very much money because that's their base, and they think
that they can keep buying the votes of that base
with money from upper income people. But at some point,
of course, upper income people will say I'm leaving. And
that's exactly what will happen if this thing passes. So
there is a ballot measure that is being proposed by

(03:36):
this group called Protect Colorado's Future.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
And they are.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
A bunch of leftist groups like the Bell Policy Center,
which is run by a clown named Chris de Groy Kennedy,
who used to be one of the very worst members
of the Colorado State Senate and now, of course he's
gone to become one of the worst people in think
tanks here in Colorado. And he and a bunch of

(04:01):
other groups got together with the stuff a bunch of
other left wing groups, and they are proposing a ballot
measure that they say would generate two point three billion
dollars per year for the state two points so that's
two point three billion dollars more they want to take
out of the private sector and give to the government,

(04:22):
because the government does such an excellent, efficient, well fought
out job spending our money, like all the money they
spend on stuff for illegal aliens. Just as one example,
now you did hear already the comment from Michael Fields
from Advanced Colorado. Michael and his organization are among the

(04:44):
most effective anti tax increase groups. They, along with i'd
say Independence Institute, are probably the two best in the
state at protecting us from tax increases. And I will
also note that historically voters in Colorado I have not
wanted to go along with tax hikes or as this

(05:04):
one proposes a change in the structure of the tax
from a flat tax to a so called progressive tax.
What a progressive tax means is as your income goes up,
not only do you pay more because your income is higher,
but you also pay a higher percentage. That is a
concept that I think is straight out of Carl Marx.
It is it is I think it's immoral. Actually, I

(05:27):
think that to the extent you're going to have income tax,
everybody should pay the same percentage. If you want to
have some modest levels of like a standard deduction in there,
so that in effect it slightly modifies the effective interest
rate for people. Like if you had a twenty thousand
dollars standard deduction, then if you made forty thousand dollars

(05:47):
in income, you'd only be paying taxes on twenty thousand,
So actually your tax rate would be half of the
nominal tax rate. But if you're making a million dollars
and you still have that thousand dollar standard deduction, you're
paying tax on nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars instead
of a million. But that's almost the same like in

(06:09):
terms of out there in the decimal places, So it
barely moves your effective text. Right, I can live with. That,
I can live with. So here's here's what these commies
are trying to do. So right now, we have a
four point four percent income tax rate. What they're proposing
is that is lowering it to four point two if
you make one.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Hundred thousand or less.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
So that's where the bribe comes in four point three
at two hundred and fifty thousand, four point four the
current rate right at five hundred thousand or less, and
then it really starts going crazy's at seven hundred thousand
of income five point three percent, at a million six
point two percent, at a million and a half seven
point three percent, at three million eight point four percent,

(06:51):
at five million eight point eight percent, and at at
ten million nine point two percent. Now, what I would
just to ask you to consider is, and you might
not like rich people.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
You might have your own issue with that.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
I don't know why people have this odd desire to
not like rich people. I like rich people, especially rich
people who made their own money. If you inherited your money, eh,
you know whatever. But if you made that kind of money,
and assuming you're not a criminal, then you must be
pretty smart and you must be providing a product or
service that people want, and you're probably creating jobs.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Now. Can you imagine.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Somebody who's thinking about setting up a small business that
they hope to turn into a mid sized business or
maybe even a big business, and you're thinking about, oh,
Colorado or Utah or Wyoming or Tennessee.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Or anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
And now you see, oh, look, if I get to
make five million dollars in a year because I become
a successful businessman, Colorado is going to tax me eight
point eight percent.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Nope, not setting up in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
So anyway, it's odd how folks on the left seem
to believe that people and business will not react to incentives.
This would be one of the most anti business things
ever passed, maybe the single most anti business thing ever
to pass in the state of Colorado. Keep in mind,

(08:13):
this would be a ballot measure, and unfortunately, our state
has proven in recent years that we have voters who
are willing to pass very terrible, very left wing, very
expensive ballot measures of sorts that might not even pass
in California, but let's hoping. Let's hope that if this

(08:34):
gets to the ballot. Actually, what we should hope is
that they don't get enough signatures. But if it gets
to the ballot, let's hope Coloraden's wise up. Lawsuits related
to some actions of Trump administration. There's a lot of
lawsuits that are being decided right now. Some are being
decided in lower courts that are already going to be appealed.
Some are already at appeals courts, and I just want

(08:56):
to share a couple of them with you. These are
both about lower court rulings that are going to be appealed.
So I think I mentioned briefly in passing, and I
actually didn't spend.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Very much time on it, that the.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
There's a kind of a specialized federal appeals court that
you don't hear about very much, called the Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is not the same
as the Court of Appeals for the d C Circuit.
All right, So the Court of Appeals for the DC
Circuit is a court you hear about a lot, because
they get very many of the federal cases that have

(09:33):
to do with the operation of the executive branch. And
then you know, it's often thought of as sort of
the second most important court after the Supreme Court, even
though really all.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
The courts of appeals are nominally equal.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Anyway, the Federal Circuit they do some much narrower subset
of areas of law.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And I don't really.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Know what all they do, but one of the things
they handle is trade law, tariff law, stuff like that.
So this Federal Appeals Court, I said it was lower court,
so it was. This one was the appeals court. The
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled last week

(10:16):
that that most of President Trump's tariffs, the ones that
he is imposing under something called the iee PA, the
International Economic Emergency.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Powers Act, are illegal.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
These are the ten percent quote unquote baseline tariffs that
he's putting on everything, and then the so called reciprocal
tariffs where he says, well, we have such and such
a trade deficit with that country, and therefore we're going
to tariff them thirty seven percent. And it was all
the math was all nonsense, and the concept is nonsense.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
But anyway, that's what.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
He did, and what this court ruled is that and
by the way, I think the court is clearly right.
I don't actually think it's a close call, although the
vote of the court was seven to four, so there
were some judges who were didn't agree with me. But
what they ruled is that that law simply does not
allow the president to impose tariffs.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
The law says, if there.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Is an emergency, the president can do a B and C,
but tariffs aren't among them. And so to me, it's
a pretty straightforward, even separate from the question of whether
there's an emergency, and I think there's not, but Trump
says there is. But putting that aside, I just see
I don't see the laws allowing it. So it was

(11:32):
It was also interesting that right after that happened a
couple of days ago, the stock market went down quite
a lot. It's recovered most of that, but it went
down quite a lot at first. And there are all
different reasons that people are giving that I won't get
into all of it, but on one reason it could
go down a lot because the bond bond yields went up.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
This gets a little technical, but.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
There seemed to be a little fear maybe that if
the tariffs went away, that the federal budget deficit would
get worse and the government would have to sell more
bonds and borrow more money because they'd have left tax
revenue coming in. Because after all, tariffs are taxes, sales
taxes imposed on American buyers. So tariffs are in money
you're spending, and it's just tax revenue to the government.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
So some people were thinking that there's.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Also probably some question of the just ongoing instability or
tariff's on Are they off?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
In any case, What I wanted you to know is.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
That Trump administration late yesterday filed their request with the
Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case.
They want the Supreme Court to take the case and
have the Supreme Court rule on it. I don't know
how the Supreme Court would rule.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Again, to me, this thing is pretty clear that Trump's
tariffs are illegal. And I'm not saying that because I
don't like them. Even though I don't like them, I
just think the law is pretty it's pretty clear that
the law doesn't allow that. So we'll see. So that's
one thing that's happening. The other thing that's happening, and
this came out yes today as well. A federal judge

(13:02):
the lowest level of federal judge.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
District Judge ruled.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
That the Trump administration cannot freeze the two point two
billion dollars of federal grants to Harvard University that the
Trump administration had frozen. The administration did it claiming that
Harvard had violated the civil rights of Jewish.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Students, and they definitely did.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
The judge argues that that might be true, but also
it seems clear that the Trump administration is on this
sort of punishment mission to go after any organizations that
did more DEI than the Trump administration likes, and they're
trying to punish them for that. And so the judge said,
you can't block this two point two billion dollars of funding.

(13:48):
So the Trump administration will appeal that as well, and
we'll see what happens. I So, I think both sides
went too far right. I think the Trump administration is
right that harvardoilated the civil rights of Jewish students. I
think blocking two point two billion dollars of mostly science
research funding was going too far. But I also think

(14:09):
the judge is going too far when she seems to
be saying that Harvard shouldn't suffer any financial penalty. At all, because,
after all, that kind of penalty is the only kind
of penalty that they will understand.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
It's going to remain my favorite day of.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
The week, even though I have to talk to John
keldera Now it's okay.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Thursday your favorite day of the week. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
It has long been my favorite day of the week,
partly because the next day is Friday, and partly because
Thursday used to be ladies night at some of the
better nightclubs in Chicago when I lived when I lived
in Chicago, which always gave me the sense that I could,
you know, go to a club on the Thursday night
and meet some lovely young lady and you know this
and that, and my aspirations were much higher than my game.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, so you took hope over experience.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, so you know what I did when that didn't work,
I just bought a bar instead into a bar. And
then that did And then that didn't work either either. No,
that didn't work either. It did for everybody. I made
a huge mistake, John, Uh So, I don't I don't
know if you know the story. I was one of
the bigger partners in the most popular nightclub in Chicago,
like the the Rolling Stones came and I never told

(15:17):
me this. The Rolling Stones were there, Paula Abdul when
she was a big deal, was there. I sang with
Jimmy Buffett at my own club.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
But and still you couldn't get a woman.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
So and and like all the hottest models in Chicago
came to our club, as you would if it was
that kind of club.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
I made it, like one of the biggest mistakes in
my life.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
John, Yeah, I had a girlfriend the whole time, even
and she wasn't a very nice girl.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
She was good looking.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Girl, but I knew it wasn't going anywhere, and I
stayed loyal to her.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
And what a mistake.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
Yeah, we all have those stories. But it had a
happy ending, did it not?

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yes, it did. I ended up in a Just in
case your wife is listening.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Yeah, boy, are you glad you didn't hook up with
Paula Abdul.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Gosh, all right, you're here to talk about a particular thing.
But before we get to that particular thing, I don't know.
I'm gonna put you on the spot because you probably
can answer these questions in your sleep. But if you
had any time to think about this proposed ballot measure
for this unbelievable so called you know, progressive income tax.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Here in Colorado, we knew this was coming for years,
if not a decade. This is been part of their
plan all along, because it makes such great political sense.
You give most voters a small tax increase and then
you just stare away all the productive people at the
higher end. You know, we'll see if it makes it

(16:49):
to the ballot, so before we lose our cool. There's
a long way from here until there as somebody who's
done a lot of ballot initiatives. There's let's let's see
how much they get going. But it would be the
death of Colorado. Why in the world, when the rest
of the nation states are competing with one another to

(17:10):
lower their tax rates or to get rid of them
all together, why would we emulate California. You know, I
can't believe that the people at California who are refugees
come to Colorado and say, you know, let's import the
same tax policy that destroyed our state. So I think
it is defeatable. I think it will take some education.

(17:34):
Independence Institute. Our organization was crucial in creating the flat
tax back in nineteen eighty seven. Here's a little bit
of tidbit for you. It won't surprise you, Barry Paulson.
Our economists at the time did the calculations, and a
revenue neutral tax flat tax to take care of replace

(17:54):
the progressive income tax would.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Have been four and a half percent.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Four and a half So what did the Republican legislature
and Democratic governor do? They made it a five percent tax.
So the flat tax was actually a tax hike when
we got it there. And over the years we've been
able to lower The Independence Institute put two different tax
cut proposals on the ballot before the legislature changed the

(18:21):
way that we could do that, and now it's at
four point four percent. We have a plan to bring
it to zero over time. And that's how we saved Colorado.
We must make Colorado competitive. It's already unaffordable. Why Chase
Away employers couldn't agree more?

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I wonder you know you know better than most that
Colorado's have gone pretty crazy in terms of the ballot
measures they're willing to support.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
In the last couple of election cycles.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
It's actually seemed to me that California voters have been
more sane than Colorado voters on ballot measures. So I
do hope you're right that they don't even make it
to the ballot.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
But I'm I'm a little nervous.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Even though the Colorads have tended to vote down this
kind of thing, I'm a little nervous.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
But they haven't.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
They haven't voted down tax on other people of cigarette taxes.
Since now only fifteen percent or so of adults smoke,
it's easy to beat up the smokers, which is odd.
Why we push marijuana. We beat up the smokers. You
think of tourism taxes like the car rental tax or

(19:31):
the hotel taxes. You know, so Colorado, like everybody else,
can say, oh, I'm just taxing somebody else, but they
don't do the next step. What was it?

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Henry Hazl.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
The economists always say, finish the equation. If you tax
the most productive people, the people who bring in the
most jobs, that start businesses, they leave and so it
might be a tiny tax cut for you, but in
the long run, it's going to destroy the state. And
I think people understand that. We need to make sure

(20:02):
that people do understand that. And the fact is right now,
rich here in Colorado pay exorbitantly more in tax than poor.
We've done studies on this, and you can look at
the Department of Revenue's own numbers. They break our people
into fifths, and the bottom fifth pay the least amount

(20:25):
of taxes by percentage of their income. Why because they
get tax credits, they have the higher deductions. So people
at the lower end already pay a marginally less than
four point four percent, and people in the top, because
they don't get all those tax breaks or are blown
by them.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
They pay a much higher.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
Percentage, not just in raw numbers, but a percentage.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
It also already has a progressive.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Income tax, right, And I would also note that with
that insane free school lunch for rich kids thing, that
they eliminated most available tax deductions, or they capped most
available tax deduction for people making over three hundred thousand,
and they're gonna put another ballot measure on to reduce

(21:14):
it even further, so that if you make over three
hundred thousand dollars a year, you essentially don't get any deductions.
So they're gonna they're gonna hose the rich even even more.
And by the way, I don't know that I properly
introduced John John Caldera as president of the Independence Institute.
Thinkfreedom dot org is probably the easiest website to remember.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Thinkfreedom dot org. And every year the.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Independence Institute does a wonderful party called the Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms Party, although just to be very precise as
the day goes along, the firearms come before the alcohol
because you can't shoot if you've been drinking.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
But it's the ATF.

Speaker 4 (21:51):
Party and lawyers, lawyers, everything.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
So tell us about this year's ATF party. Oh yeah,
so you've been a speaker at the ATF Party.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
We go out to Kiawa Creek Sporting Clays, which is
a little bit out east. They've got this beautiful shotgun
course for people who do sporting clays, and we just
do a wonderful day of sporting clays and then we
relax with great cigars, a great whiskey and a great speaker.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I mean, except the year that you came and spoke.
And it's a kick.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
We've been doing this now for I don't know, twenty
five years, and it started as a lark.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, it's like the nannyists get hacked off when.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
We enjoy the perks of adulthood, and so we just
leaned into it. And it's really become this fun, fun thing.
John Fund will be speaking this year. You know, John Fund,
formerly a Walls Ship journal is very interesting guy. I
don't know a guy who knows more about state politics
on a federal level than John Fund.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
And you've come many many times.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
We always appreciate having you. You usually wear your Celebrate
Diversity t shirt when you do, and I'm always appreciate
for those who don't know.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
The first time I met Ross, he's.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Wearing this shirt and it says celebrate diversity and it
had like twenty different diverse.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Handguns all over it, and he's like, Oh, we're gonna
be friends. And so we do this.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
It's a fundraiser for Independence Institute for all the work
we've done, and we've been doing it for forty years now.
It's hard to believe Independence Institute has been pointing to
the free market north star here in Colorado, working for
lower tax, educational choice and gun rights and all the
rest that we've done.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
And so it's a way to celebrate.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
It's also a way to hack off the left, because
I swear to God, they do not like people like
you and I having a good time now being adults,
having a cigar whiskey and shooting clays, and so it's
just a wonderful, wonderful time. People should go to Thinkfreedom
dot Org. We're gonna be closing up the registration I
think at the end of the day today or tomorrow morning.

(23:55):
We've got to get all the numbers in. We've got
a couple seats left, and it's just it's rip.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
You've been there. What do you think. I love it.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I would be there, except I'm going to be out
of town with friends, but I would. It's one of
my favorite, you know, party days. The crowd is always
so great. John Fund is going to be great, and
I want to just mention again in case we sort
of blew by it a little bit quickly. The ATF
party is next Saturday, right and again as at the thirteenth,

(24:24):
And as John said, you can go to Thinkfreedom dot
orgon right there on the front page. You will see
it's a kind of a yellow and orange little banner
thing that you'll click on. It says alcohol, tobacco and
Firearms party. It is a wonderful day. You don't have
to be a great shooter either, and there's usually some
folks there who will give you a couple pointers. And
also you don't even necessarily have to own your own shotgun,

(24:46):
right John.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
No, No, they're just lying around on the ground. You
just pick them up for all over your feet. Someone
alone you a gun, or you can rent them, or
you can rent on.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
It's a great place if you just want to go
to what's called the five Stand. We have instructors there
because shooting clay targets those plate clay pigeons. When you
miss them and miss them and miss them, it's this
is getting kind of weird, and then you hit one.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
It's like, oh, that was cool. Yeah, And so to
have some folks.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
It is a different style of shooting than when you're
at the range holding a handgun. Instead of very here
you have to move the gun, move your body while
you shoot. Yeah, so you remember to follow through. You
don't want to stop moving as soon as you pull.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
The trigger, which is also very different from right shooting
a long gun or a pistol.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
So it's odd women tend to naturally be better at it,
and I think it's for the same reason women tend
to be better dancers.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
They they can move and men are very rigid, and
it's more of a challenge.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
So like that they all right, folks, thinkfreedom dot org.
Click on the link you'll see at the bright orange
and yellow sign that says alcohol to back one firearms party.
Sign up while you still can not much longer available
to sign up and go into.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
We're going to Ross.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
You always make it a kick, so we'll be saying
bad things about you and your absence.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Please do, please do, Thank you, John hes Ross.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
All right, okay, I want to do this other thing
is not political. I was talking about this briefly with
Marty and Gina and our little crossover thing.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
So you may recall that last was it.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
It was either December of twenty three or January, December
of twenty four, January twenty five, I think it was January.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
I think it was January.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
There was there was a playoff game the Eagles versus
the Green Bay Packers, and the Eagles star receiver AJ Brown,
who you might see tonight because tonight's first game of
the NFL season and the Eagles are playing.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
So anyway, they showed a picture of him reading a.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Book and a bunch of people saw the book and
started buying it. And I want to share this story
with you from This is from NBC News. It's a
little bit long, but it's so I'll skip some of
it in the interested time.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
But it's such a lovely story that.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
I just wanted to take a few minutes and share
it with you and you know, get away from conversations
for a few minutes at least about you know, tariffs
and taxes. So this is again nbcnews dot Com. Several
years ago, Jim Murphy typed out a note on his
phone that he would look at and repeat every day.
I'm the New York Times best selling author since his

(27:26):
book Inter Excellence was published in two thousand and nine.
That affirmation had yet to come true. But if his
sales were low, his confidence wasn't. The book had earned
clients for his business coaching athletes from professional golfers to
Olympians by using such affirmations of visualizing success.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
When Murphy got the publishing rights back to.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Inter Excellence from his original publisher in twenty eighteen, he
rewrote a new edition and published it himself. He's told
NBC News, I had an amazing life. It just wasn't
a super well known life. All that changed in January.
During a January twelfth broadcast of the Philadelphia Eagles playoff
win over the Packers, camera caught Eagles receiver A. J.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Brown reading Murphy's book.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Among the more than thirty six million people watching that
broadcast were internet sluice, who quickly deduced the book's title.
Inner Excellence, had sold five copies one week in December
and nine in another week in December. According to book Scan,
which captures print edition sales, in the three weeks after

(28:32):
Brown was seen reading it, more than two hundred thousand copies.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Were sold on Amazon, Murphy said.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Before the shot on national television, the book reportedly ranked
five hundred and twenty three thousand, four hundred and ninety
seventh on Amazon's platform, and afterwards it was first. What
made the moment all the more jarring was that it
came when Murphy's personal and professional lives were enduring a
considerable EBB. As January began, his mother was day's from

(29:00):
passing away. Business's at business had slowed enough that Murphy
wasn't able to pay off his credit cards for the
first time in years. He had long ago erased the
affirmation about being a best selling author off his phone.
Days after Murphy fifty eight years old had unwittingly become
the season's most unexpected breakout star without having played a

(29:22):
single down or called a single play. He was in
Philly to attend the Eagles next game playoff game on
January nineteenth as a guest of AJ Brown. When he
tried to withdraw money at an ATM, his account, the
machine said had insufficient funds, and the next day his
mortgage payment balanced.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
His checking account may not.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Have reflected it at that moment, but Murphy's life had
been irrevocably changed. He was suddenly America's most in demand author.
Eight months later, as defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia hosts
Dallas to begin a new NFL season tonight. That overnight
change has challenged Murph to practice what he preaches. For years,
he counseled athletes to perform their best under scrutiny by

(30:05):
living what he calls a selfless and therefore fearless life. Today,
months after he signed a three book deal and with
more clients than ever before interested in his advice, Murphy
is adjusting to being in the spotlight himself. Quote, inner
excellence is about being selfless, and I don't need the
attention or I've never wanted the attention. I'm super grateful

(30:25):
for what's happened and that lives have changed, and that's
the amazing part.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
My life is very different now, for sure.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
But I think it was kind of an interesting thing
and I was surprised.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Why do they keep asking about me?

Speaker 2 (30:38):
He continues, Am I good at inner excellence? I wouldn't
say I'm great at it? I want to be great
at it. I want to be the best in the world.
But who knows where I'm at right now. I try,
obviously not to compare myself to others.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
I want to get better every day at it.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
When I say at inner excellence, I mean being more
selfless and having more compassion, getting out of my own way,
the self referential life, self centeredness my biggest challenge. So
it was my biggest challenge. Then it's my biggest challenge.
Now that's from mister Murphy, the author. Murphy, the youngest
of five siblings, grew up outside Seattle, obsessed with becoming

(31:14):
a famous athlete.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Or at least working in sports.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
He was drafted in the thirteenth round of the MLB
draft by the Cubs in eighty eight. He bounced around
minor league clubs for a while. He went back to
college at the University of British Columbia, where he played football,
wrote a master's paper on baseball that later became a
book What Else. He played two more minor league seasons
in the mid nineteen nineties. He became a briefly a

(31:37):
scout for Kansas City and a hitting coach for South
Africa's Olympic baseball team. In two thousand and was briefly
in the Texas Rangers organization. Anyway, if the popularity of
inter Excellence was a slow burn.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
So was its conception.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
In two thousand and three, Murphy moved to Arizona's Sonoran Desert,
having given away most of his possessions in an attempt
to find solitude. He was thirty six. For the next
six years, he wrote a book that he hoped would
serve as a manual to help professional athletes perform.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
With peace and confidence.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Financing his interviews in travel put him ninety thousand dollars
in debt, he said, and left him with a near
mental breakdown. When the book was published in two thousand
and nine by McGraw hill. The first edition found an
audience with professional golfers, but very few others. Like any
successful play in football, it's rise to number.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
One depended on timing.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Among those who had read the book was a guy
named dj gr a Telly director of Athletes in Action,
a Christian sports ministry in Texas. He had met Murphy
at a retreat. He was soon recommending the book to
some athletes.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
One of them was a guy.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Named Moro Ojomo, a defensive lineman he knew at Texas
the University of Texas, who the Eagles drafted in the
seventh round of twenty twenty three. Ojomo didn't read the
book until months after the recommendation, but he happened to
be even threw a copy on a team flight home
when AJ Brown asked him what he was reading. Ojomo

(33:06):
later told the Philadelphia Inquirer. I read it one day.
I had it on my heart that aj would like it.
I didn't think it would result into what it has.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Just so just think about that, right.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
This one dude knew about the book told another guy
who was an athlete who happened to be drafted by
the Eagles, who happened to have a player who really
liked reading on the sidelines of games, who happened to
make it to a huge playoff game. Who happened to

(33:38):
get caught by a television camera showing him reading the book,
and the shot happened to be clear enough that people
could catch the title and figure it out, figure out
what the book was, and now mister Murphy's life is
completely changed. That's actually only about half the article, but
in the interesting time, I'm going to stop there. I
hope you enjoyed that story as much as I did.

(33:58):
The Colorado State legislation your past, and the governor signed
a terrible bill, Senate Bill three that adds a bunch
of requirements.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
In an interesting time. I won't go through all.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Of it, but essentially educational requirements that you have to
go through before you can get permission to buy certain
types of firearms. Joining us to talk about what his
organization is trying to do about that particular law Daniel Fenlissen.
Daniel is director of operations for the Colorado State Shooting Association.

(34:31):
Their website is CSSA dot or. Daniel, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 5 (34:36):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, so we've only.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Got about five or six minutes here, so I want
to just jump in and tell us about this lawsuit
absolutely so.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
After the governor signed the bill three straight into law,
we knew ats to say that we had to make
sure that this law is challenging the court on its
constitutionality and imposes a tremendous amount of fees, beer cract nightmares,
and a timeline for anyone to be able to purchase
the most commonplace in common use self defense and home
defense firearms that are on the market today in both

(35:06):
in Colorado and across the country. And so we launched
this lawsuit with mount State Legal Foundation representing several of
our members as playing this, each of them affected in
different negative ways. But every Coloradan who wants to protect themselves,
protect others, protect our community, and our freedoms are going
to be vatively impacted by this bill. And ultimately, you know,

(35:27):
the Second Amendment is there, and I know you know
this and your listeners know this, to protect our other freedoms.
It's not a second class right. It's the right that
protects all the other ones that our founders wrote into
the Constitution and into our founding documents, and so we
knew we had to challenge this. We partnered with Mountain
State Legal Foundation coming off of their big wind down
in New Mexico. They just overturned a seven day waiting

(35:48):
period down there, and we have a window our backs
here as we're walking into this next fight in the courts.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah, you know what's interesting, I realized the seven day
way the New Mexico thing was that a lower court
and I'm sure it'll get appeeled and all, but that
was that was an interesting data point because you know,
it seemed to me that while the Supreme Court of
the United States has been upholding the rights of people
generally kind of at the macro level to be able

(36:16):
to own guns, carry, concealed carry, and so on, they
have also either allowed or refused to hear cases and
thus by default allowing certain kinds of limitations, of hurdles
of stuff like that. And I wonder, I'm not highly
confident you're going to win this case, but if there's

(36:38):
more thinking along the lines of the New Mexico case
that said that, even a seven day win, like, to me,
this is very much in that same category as a
waiting period.

Speaker 5 (36:47):
Absolutely, and the seven day waiting period are getting overturned
is in the same circuit that Colorado's in, and so
that is an important win for US. To show and
in that case winning, they showed that there's a way
to acquire firearms kinds on their debating right now, Yeah,
a lot of people have said, you have the right
to keep them bear arms, but we don't have the
right to acquire it. Well, this ruling in our own
circuit shows that there's a right to acquire and say

(37:10):
that Bill three is not a seven day waiting period.
We're talking about months that it would take for someone
to get through this process. Even when you get through
the process, you still have to wait three more days
actually get your firearm. Because that three day waiting period
is selling the books here in Colorado. And so it
is an important win for us, and we are planning
to drive this as high up the court system as
we need to straighten the Supreme Court if that's what

(37:31):
it takes to be able to win this. And we're
not the only ones across the country that are doing this.
Your sister organization in New York, we're the ones that
won the Brewer case and they're the sister association for
the NRA like we are here in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
All right, two quick things, let me just jump in here,
because we got we got two or three minutes. So
the new Mexico seven day waiting period thing just now?
Was that at the district court level? Or was that
the tenth circuit?

Speaker 5 (37:53):
That was the tenth circuit?

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Okay, so that's that's very good.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
All right, Let me play Devil's advocate for a second
with you.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
And let's listeners who are new to me.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Let me just say I enjoy my firearms. I have
somewhere twenty five or thirty firearms. I don't call myself
a gun nut, but I do like them. So I'm
gonna play Devil's ad Kate. Okay, Daniel, Sure, you have
to go through these hurdles to buy a couple of
particular types of firearms. And yes, it's true they are
popular types, but the law doesn't actually prevent you from

(38:25):
going to buy, you know, all the other types of firearms.
And if you need for some reason, you want a
firearm right away, then just buy one of the other types.
This isn't that big an infringement on your Second.

Speaker 5 (38:37):
Amendment rights, well, first of all, but second of all,
this is all the common use firearms. The top ten
subsfense firearms for women, all of them would be included
on this list. Top ten home defense firearms right by
the NRA. All of them would be included in this list.
Top ten percent of competition firearms, all of them would
be included in this list. This is if you walk

(38:58):
into a gun store ninety to ninety five and what
you see would be included in this list. And that's
why this is so dangerous. It's going to severely limit
the first time gun owner from knowing how to get
through this process, and it makes the price so high
that it's going to limit people from actually interacting with
these firearms, and it's going to be pushing people to
use firearms that malfunction at a higher rates, that are

(39:19):
not as safe and secure and don't have as many
modern safety mechanisms.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Okay, on like internal safety.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
One quick follow up, then, so, when this bill was passing,
the people who were passing it are saying, well, this
applies to quote unquote assault weapons, which basically means black
guns that scare liberals, and they were claiming that it
won't apply to most pistols. Now it sounds like you're
arguing that you think it will event end up being

(39:46):
applied to most pistols. If you're saying that almost everything
you see in the gun store, a lot of which
are the glocks in the springfields and the Walthers and
czs and all these other pistols. So do you think
that when push comes to shove, the people implementing the
are going to try to apply it to the most
common pistols.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
Absolutely, they just should applied when they passed this Anything
that is semi automatic has a removable magazine's bigger than
twenty two fits their definition. All except one model of
the firearm that has been made since the seventies, and
so every gun that fits that model. So that's your glocks,
of your springfields, your ars, your aks, everything in between.
A lot of shotguns fall into that category. They are

(40:25):
going to be negatively affected by this bill. And that's
actually why we're hosting the Shops for Freedom event down
in car Springs on the twenty to twenty first, to
bring out all these firearms so people can go out
and try and see what's getting removed from having easy
access for law of petting citizens to be able to
purchase these firearms. So people want to join that event,
they can go to see us in say dot org
porge slash events. We're even going to have a TV

(40:45):
gun range run by our sheriff down there to start
introducing kids into this into the shooting sports comparative that
we build the next generation of freedom lovers, or else
we're going to lose the Second Amendment, and once the
Second Amendment's gone, all of our other freedoms are.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
At Riskally BB guns is how I got started shooting
as well as a little kid. Daniel Fenn listen as
director of Operations for the Colorado State Shooting Association cs
SA dot org.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
And if you go there CSSA dot org.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Actually right on the front page there's the link for
Colorado Shots for Freedom, the range event and banquet that'll
be coming up September twentieth and twenty first.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Thanks for your time.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
And we will absolutely keep in touch with you on
the progress of the lawsuit.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Perfect.

Speaker 5 (41:28):
Thank you so much, sir.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
All right, we'll be right back on KOA.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
I always very much appreciate your company and your texts
at five six six nine zero and your occasional emails
as well. If you want to email me, I am
at Ross Ross at iHeartMedia dot com. You do not
need to put my last name in there. Ross at
iHeartMedia dot com. And for social media, please follow the

(41:52):
station at Koa, Colorado and follow me at Ross Putin
r O S S, P U T I N.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
I'm mostly on x slash Twitter.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
I don't do too much on the other on the
other platforms, so at least follow me on exat Ross Putin.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
And that is not named for Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Okay, it's a historical joke for Rasputin anyway, So let
me let me cover this for a couple minutes. You
probably saw in the news that the Surgeon General of Florida,
with the support of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida,
has decided to suspend all vaccine mandates, which would include

(42:34):
requirements for students in K through twelve schools to be vaccinated.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
Now let me quote from National Review.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Previously, parents were required to fill out religious or medical
exemption forms if they wanted to abstain from vaccinating their
children for illnesses such as measles, rubella, and polio. Florida, however,
has decided that vaccines or individual vaccine exemptions are no
longer a requirement to attend school.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Every last one of well else competit.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
So, like I said, the Governor's on board with this,
and I have a sort of mixed view on this
that I just wanted to take a couple of minutes
and share with you. So as a as a libertarian,
I believe two things. People should be in charge of
their own health decisions and government should mostly stay out
of the way, right even with things like pharmaceuticals, like

(43:30):
I think it's ridiculous how you have to go to
a doctor to get permission to take a drub, Like
I think we should get rid of most prescription requirements.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I also think that parents, not government, should make decisions
for children. So I think that's probably very much on
board with the more conservative people listening to me right now.
The other side of this coin, though, is that when
you put unvaccinated people into a crowd, and especially into

(44:06):
a crowd that doesn't have a choice about being there,
like kids at school, now you're not only risking the
health of the people who aren't vaccinated, but you're also
actually risking the health of the people who are vaccinated
because because.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Vaccines are not one hundred percent effective, and so even
if let's say there's.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
A vaccine's ninety eight percent effective. I think measles is
around there ninety seven percent, ninety eight percent effective, all right,
And so let's say you've got one hundred kids, call
it a fairly small school.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Let's say there's there's one hundred kids there.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
And let's say there's one hundred and one kids there,
and one of them doesn't get vaccinated, and the other
hundred are vaccinated, and this unvaccinated kid catches measles, which,
by the way, is very easy to catch if you're
If an unvaccinated person is around someone with measles, the
chances that they will get measles over ninety percent. That's

(45:08):
how that's how viral it is, that's how transmissible it is.
So in that case, even though the vaccine is incredibly effective,
there's still a reasonable chance that two or three of
those hundred kids will get measles, even though they're vaccinated,
you know, ninety eight long, Thank goodness. So this is

(45:29):
not like, if I can make a quick analogy here,
this is not like giving permission for somebody to walk
around carrying a gun. This is like giving someone permission
to shoot a gun straight up into the air and
hope the bullet does while standing in a crowd and
hoping that the bullet doesn't hit someone and injure or

(45:52):
kill someone when it falls to the ground.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
And because.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Not vaccinating people poses real risk to other people, I
have a lot of concern about saying that you shouldn't
mandate vaccines, especially for some of these key things. I'm
not talking about COVID because COVID is not a risk
for school kids. I think this is very dangerous. Actually,

(46:23):
now I'm kind I'm a federalist, let's schools to let
let individual states decide what they want to do. I'll
just say I'm not sure that I'm not sure how
I would come down on it if I were voting
on it in the state legislature.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
I'm very concerned about it, and I.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Have a feeling that if a lot of people decide
and maybe they'll think, oh, if they think we don't
have to vaccinate, maybe vaccinating isn't important, and you'll have
more and.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
More unvaccinated kids in school.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
I'm quite afraid you're gonna see quite a few sick
and dead kids, including a small number of sick and
dead kids who were d And I think this is
a I think this is probably a bad decision but
I guess my main message to parents would be vaccinate
your kids.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
The vaccine thing I was talking about in the last segment, because.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I got a couple of interesting comments and questions, and
I feel like maybe I should, maybe I should clarify
a little bit. And I got some people kind of
agreeing with me, some people kind of disagreeing with me.
One person says, I agree with the latter half of
your argument. So was the latter half of my argument.
The latter half of my argument was that when you so,

(47:33):
for those just joining, this is in the context of
Florida announcing that they will no longer require vaccines of.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Students in K through twelve schools.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
OK.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
So that's that's what the concept the context is. And
so I said, on the one hand, as a libertarian,
I support the right of individuals to make their own
health decisions and of parents to make decisions for their children.
And then the latter half of my argument that this
gentleman or woman, I'm not sure, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah, it's a guy. He says he's a dad.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
The part that he says he's agreeing with is that
I don't care very much about the risk any individual
wants to take on for himself, and even to a
certain extent, the risk an individual wants to allow to
be taken on by his child. There's some discussion to
be had, and I won't have it right now, about
what the federal government, not the federal government, but the
state or local government's role might be in protecting a child.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Like an extreme case.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Of that would be if there is a parent with
a religious view that does not allow for blood transfusions
and there's a kid in the hospital who's absolutely positively
going to die without a blood transfusion, what should happen there?
So I'm not going to debate all that, and just
that's sort of that area.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
That area.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
So this guy says, I agree with the latter half.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
I'd like to add.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
That those two or three percent of kids who are
at risk, if even even if vaccinated, maybe immunocompromised, like
cancer patients or transplant recipients. As a dad of a
kid in this category, it is very alarming, borderline criminal
not to mandate critical vaccines. So again, my point in
the second half of my argument was that I don't

(49:19):
care about the risk an adult wants to take on
for himself or even to some degree the risk and
adult wants to take on for their kid. But I
do care about an adult who wants to make a
decision that happens to be about their own kid, but
that puts other people's kids at risk. And again, I

(49:42):
want to re emphasize that people's mindsets about vaccines have
gotten very confused by what happened during COVID.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
There was just so much.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
I'm not making a comment about whether the COVID vaccine
works or not. I think I think the data are
pretty clear that the COVID vaccine does work to reduce serious.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Illness and death. I think the data.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Are also clear that at least after the very first
variant of COVID, the vaccines did not reduce transmission. And
so that's actually let me just stick with that for
a second, because that's very different.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Right. So, if you have a vaccine that.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
You know will prevent you from catching a thing from
catching it, versus a vaccine where you could still catch
it but you won't get as sick, these are rather different.
Or a vaccine that if you took it, it will
prevent you from spreading it to somebody else, which is actually.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Probably the better.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
The better analogy, even though I don't like good analogies.
So when COVID first came around, and when everybody was scared,
and when we weren't sure who it would kill.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
There was at least some.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Slightly credible argument for some kind of mandate. And again,
it's very hard to think about this with the twenty
twenty hindsight that we have already in place. It's hard
to strip out because we were told so many lies.
But if you think back to the very beginning, when
we didn't know who was going to die, and when
it did seem like the vaccine prevented transmission, one could

(51:24):
make a not completely insane argument say that everybody should
have to get the vaccine. And again, especially if you
allow yourself the hypothetical of the vac of the virus
potentially killing a higher percentage of people who got it
than it actually ended up killing.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
But as soon as you get to a situation where the.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Vaccine has no impact on transmission and only protects the
person who takes it, does not protect anybody else, there,
in my opinion, there is no legitimate argument for a mandate.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
And we actually got to that place pretty fast.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
We knew pretty soon after the second variant came, we
knew the vaccine probably is saving lives, especially among old
people and sick people, but not among young, healthy people.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
But among this one particular category it does.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
And nevertheless, if it doesn't prevent transmission, I don't think
there's a legitimate argument to mandate it. When listener says
I sound like Rachel Maddow, no, I really don't. Rachel
Maddow sounds much more masculine than I do. So anyway, sorry,
I don't sound like Rachel Maddow. If you think my

(52:46):
making a philosophical argument about in what situation there might
be a legitimate argument to mandate something somehow makes me
Rachel Maddow, then your brain isn't working very well, because
why don't you listen to everything that I'm saying. So
another listener says, legislatures that create laws mandating vaccines, that's

(53:10):
anti libertarian, And I think that's an interesting comment.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
And what again, what I want to focus on.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
There's a difference between protecting individual liberty and anarchy. And
one of the legitimate functions of government is to protect
people from being hurt by other people. And if somebody

(53:38):
is going to take an action that is likely to
cause other people to get hurt, then you could make
an ar Again, I'm not saying.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
I know where I'd come down on this.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Frankly, I've even given all this stuff that we talked about,
I haven't thought about very much, you know, but in
terms of how would I vote if I were in
the legislature.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
But the fact that you're gonna someone.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Might put an unvaccinated kid in school, to me, the
risk is to all the other kids in the school.
And so what I'm saying on my point here is
not and I want to be very clear about this.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
What I want to be very clear about this.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
I'm not saying that there should be a mandate for
kids to get vaccinated. What I am saying is if
your kid is not vaccinated unless it is for a
medical reason, and maybe I have room for a religious reason.

(54:41):
I'm not sure about that, although I think many people
who claim a religious reason to not vaccinate are lying.
But let's just say I have room for a you know,
legitimate religious objection, because there won't be very many of those,
and legitimate medical objection like this kid is immunal compromise
and can't take the vaccine.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
For some reason. I can live with that too.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
But other than that, I would say, you have the
choice whether to vaccinate your kid or not, but if
you don't, they can't be in school. And if you
want to put your kid in school, find a private
school that's willing to take a kid that isn't vaccinated,
or create your own school full of kids that aren't vaccinated.
That's my point. That's my point. So, yeah, Russ, why

(55:28):
do you keep calling why do you keep calling them
vaccines if they don't keep us from getting sick?

Speaker 1 (55:34):
Yeah, that's an interesting question. I get it, I get it.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
I don't know that the definition of vaccine must include
a provision that you can't get sick if you get
the vaccine. Rather, I think of a vaccine as something
that reduces the harm to you, the potential harm to

(55:59):
you of some transmissible disease, something that let's say, oh here, here,
I just typed in definition of vaccine a substance used
to stimulate immunity, right, And there can be levels of immunity.
You could be so immune that you can't even catch it,

(56:20):
or you could be at least a degree of immune
that if you did catch it, your body knows how
to respond to it, and it kills off the invading
virus or bacteria or whatever viruses are hard, but kills
it off before you get very sick. So I have
heard this argument a lot by people say if it
doesn't keep you from getting sick, it's not a vaccine.
But I think that's wrong. I get it, though, I

(56:42):
get the question, but I think I think that's wrong.
Driving a car is an action where people are likely
to be hurt. I get that, too, interesting philosophical point.
And folks, I'm trying to take all of your comments seriously,
even the ones where you're being sarcastic, but I'm trying
to take them all as really serious arguments, sophical arguments. Right,
driving a car is an action where people are likely

(57:03):
to be hurt sort of sort.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Of, right.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
I mean, you're not likely to get into an accident
on any given day, right, But if an unvaccinated kid
catches one of these very transmissible diseases and then goes
to school, it is very likely that they will transmit
it to another kid. Far more likely that any person
driving a car is going to cause a car accident.

(57:28):
And I will note also again you gotta strip out
the conversation about the COVID vaccine, because that confused everything
go back to before COVID. The vaccines we're talking about
here are repeatedly proven for decades and decades and decades
to be both safe and effective. And this is part
of the reason that RFK Junior, in my opinion, is

(57:49):
such a villain, even though he.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Does some things that are that are all right.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
I like that he's focusing people's attention on the quality
of our food supply. But to me, it can't overcome
the fact that he has been telling parents to essentially
abuse their own children by not getting them vaccinated. Not
only to abuse their own children, but abuse every other
child in the neighborhood indirectly by not getting them vaccinated
pre COVID with these vaccines that have done so much

(58:16):
to prevent absolutely unnecessary injury and death.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
All right, I'm going to move on. I'm going to
move on. So I talked a little bit about.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
The press conference yesterday with Marjorie Taylor Green and a
few other members of Congress, Rocanna, Thomas Massey about the
whole Epstein thing, and I talked a little about the
politics of it, and I want to do a couple
quick updates.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
So I said to you yesterday that.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Rocanna and Thomas Massey, Democrat and Republican, respectively, have put
together what's called a discharge petition in order to try
to force a vote in the House of Representatives over
the objection of the Speaker of the House to release
all the Epstein files, whatever those are.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
We don't even know what it means.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
We don't even know what that term the Epstein files means,
but whatever it means, they want it released in order
to keep pressure on the Republicans because Donald Trump doesn't
want this stuff released. And it's not entirely clear why,
but Donald Trump doesn't want this stuff released, even though
it seems obvious to most people that there is not
negative information in there.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
About Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
I could be wrong, but you would think that if
there were negative information in there about Donald Trump, it
would have been leaked out during the Biden administration.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
So I suspect there's not.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
So Democrats are all going to vote yes on this
thing because so many Republicans campaigned on releasing the Epstein files,
and now because Trump doesn't want it out, they have
to change. They have to change what they said. They
cared about before and act like they don't care about it. Now,
since every Democrat probably will vote for the discharge petition

(59:54):
to put political pressure on Republicans and make them look
hypocritical and make them look like they're trying to something,
they'll get every Democrat. And that means in order for
the discharge petition to pass, I think they only need
five Republicans to go along with it. Five Republicans beyond
Thomas Massey, who is one of the sponsors.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
They need five more.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
And I mentioned to you yesterday that we know they
have Marjorie Taylor Green, we know they have Lauren Bobert
from here in Colorado, and we know they have Nancy
Mace from South Carolina, who is herself are a victim

(01:00:39):
of sexual assault or rape. And in one of these
hearings with some of these victims, she came out like
shuddering and crying, Nancy Mace did. And my thought yesterday
was it won't. So they've got three, they only need five.
They're probably gonna find the other two. But I do
have to say right now it appears not nearly as

(01:01:01):
clear that they're gonna find the other two. They might
not find the other two. There is gonna be so
much pressure on every other Republican to not go along
with it, to in part because they want to side
with Trump. So it's gonna be really interesting to watch.

(01:01:22):
There are like a bunch of maga people in Congress,
and I don't remember who talked about what, because I
never thought that much about the Epstein thing as a
factor in the last election.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
That was not a top of mind thing for me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
But there were plenty of people Republicans in Congress who
did campaign on, hey, if we win, we're gonna get
the Epstein files out. And some of those people are
gonna have some splaining to.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Do if they now vote no.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
But there's gonna be an immense amount of pressure on
them from the Speaker of the House and the.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
President to vote no. So they might not get five.
We'll see. We just have to keep an eye on that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I'm just saying I was a little more confident yesterday
that they would get five than I should have been.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
I don't know that they will.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
I don't know that they won't, but I think I
was over confident that they will because they might not. Also,
yesterday Lisa Phillips, who I guess is one of.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
The let's see is Lisa Phillips.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
I think Lisa Phillips is one of the women who
was abused by Jeffrey Epstein and or other men around
Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
And she said that some of the.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Survivors quote have been discussing creating our own list end
quote of people within Epstein's orbit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
This is from CBS News. We know the names.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Many of us were abused by them, she said, We're
not sure how we're going to release that, or even
if we are going to. She said that the survivors
to the team, I have a term I have a
little bit of trouble with, but anyway, confidentially would confidentially
compile the names we are all know who were regularly
in the Epstein world, and it will be done by

(01:03:04):
survivors and for survivors.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
No one else is involved.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
This is a little bit scary because what does it
mean to have been within the Epstein orbit?

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Okay, it's one thing if you were on the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Plane and on the island and there were a lot
of there's a lot of this bad stuff going on,
and if you were in a place where it was
known that young girls were being abused, that's one thing, but.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Being in the Epstein orbit?

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Does that mean having gone to a fundraiser where he
was the chairman of the committee. Does it mean you
were invited to his house for a birthday party at
some point?

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
What does that? What does it mean?

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Does it mean you were you were you know, both
members of the same health club and seem talking together
at some point? What does it mean to be in
the Epstein orbit? And how unfair would that be to
somebody who never did anything wrong to have his I,

(01:04:03):
assuming these would all be men, have his name put
on a list by the survivors because some woman remembers
that guy having been near Epstein in some situation.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
I've got I think it's very dangerous. And you know,
with these.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Women, if I I don't even think they should make
the list unless they intend to release it, because the
odds of their making a list in it not being
released probably pretty low. Right. What if some what if
the National Inquirer something like them? Does the National Inquirer
even still exist anyway? What if some paper like that,

(01:04:45):
some tabloid like that, the New York Post? What if
they go to one of these survivors after they find
out that the list exists? And offers him a million
dollars for it. Then what now, what happens to a
guy who is unfair barely you know, has his has
his life and reputation ruined because his name is on
the list.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I got a lot of trouble with this. I really
really do.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
If they're if these women know names of men who
sexually abused them, put together the list and.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Take it to the FBI. Other than that, don't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
I want to tell you about another cool event coming
up next Tuesday at the Common Sense Institute where I
am proud to be the Mike Loprino Free Market Fellow.
They do this awesome series called Eggs and the Economy
and it's a morning thing. It's seven thirty am to
nine am, and the next one is next Tuesday, and
joining us to talk about what you're gonna hear at

(01:05:42):
the next Eggs and the Economy where you can come
sign up, here's some very interesting stuff and have some
free breakfast.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Kelly Cawfield is executive director.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Of the Common Sense Institute and Greg Walcher is a
Natural Resources Fellow.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
At Common Sense Institute.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
And if you've been following If you've been following owing
natural resource policy in the state of Colorado for any
amount of time. You know Greg, because he's been around
these issues a long long time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
So good morning to both of you. Thank you so
much for being here. Appreciate recording in progress.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
A recording is in progress. Yes, a recording is apparently
in progress. So why don't we what don't we? I'm
going to kind of go back and forth here. Kelly,
just give a super high level thing about the event
just quickly, and then I want to talk to Greg
about a couple specific issues. All you.

Speaker 6 (01:06:30):
Thanks so much for ross. Yes, Common Sense Institute will
be hosting our ex Eggs in the Economy. It is
next Tuesday, September ninth at our building in Greenwood Village
located at AMG National Trust seven thirty and you can
register on our website. But we'll be tackling for the
first time really in agriculture Natural Resources Focus program.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
We're going to have fresh.

Speaker 6 (01:06:52):
Data out on the economic impacts of wolf reintroduction to
the Colorado economy, as well as a very study that
Greg Walcher and Mike King. Common Senses Outdoor Recreation Fellows
will be tackling about the importance of land and stream
access and you can learn a lot more by coming

(01:07:14):
on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
So and again, folks, you can go to CSIC dot org,
CSI like Common Sense Institute, CEO like Colorado csico dot
org and you can find the event there and sign up.
All right, So, Greg, actually, what I might do is
ask you just for like the briefest kind of thumbnail
of maybe both of those things that Kelly talked about

(01:07:37):
that you're going to be talking about with part of
a panel and much greater detail next Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
That's a really interesting point that I hadn't really thought.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
About the impact of the wolf stuff on the economy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
What do you want to say.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
About that, Greg, And again, just sort of a tease
for what you'll be doing in a broader form next week.

Speaker 7 (01:07:58):
We have a couple of different speakers on the panel
talking specifically about that issue, including one of the state
senators who has.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Been actively involved in the issue.

Speaker 7 (01:08:09):
But yeah, a lot of people are worried about the
safety of wolves, and people talk about health aspects of
it and whether or not it's the right thing to
manage wildlife by ballid initiative. But yeah, it has clearly
has an effect on economics too. Just for one simple reason,
wolves and lives talk don't peacefully coexist, and we're finding
that out in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Just quick follow up there, are you seeing what is
data showing in terms of economic impact? We're talking about,
for example, the prices of something going up because the
ranchers have to spend so much more money to try
to protect their farms from their ranches from the wolves.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
I mean, what are we looking at.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
Well, it's all around ranchers are having to spend more
money to protect their property against wolves. The Colorado state
government and just having to spend massive amounts of money
compensating branchers for the loss of livestock. And then that's
kind of the beginning of it. But the long term
effect of it, if you actually make it hard to
raise cattle in Colorado, then of course we'll all see

(01:09:14):
a huge impact of that in the price of food.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
All Right, So one other thing I'll ask you, Greg,
and I'm just going to be kind of broad and
then you can narrow it down.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Tell us an area.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Of the intersection of public policy and outdoor recreation that
you think is very interesting and that you might talk
about next Tuesday at Eggs in the Economy.

Speaker 7 (01:09:34):
Well, we are going to spend a little bit of
time talking specifically about this long term question in Colorado
about whether whether or not you have the right to
float down a river across private property legally. As you
certainly know, Colorado treats the issue differently than a lot
of other states because in this state the stream bed
and the banks adjacent to the river are private property.

(01:09:55):
They belong to the underlying landowner. Now in Colorado, you know,
third of the land in the state is owned by
the federal government, two thirds of the land on the
western slope, but lots of rivers cross private land as well,
and so the water belongs to the public but not
the land under it, and so waiting on private property,
as well as portaging around obstructions and.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
So on, is trespassing.

Speaker 7 (01:10:17):
And so this public access for floating is fairly well
established in Colorado, in including the right to use the
waters recreationally. So rafting and kayaking and canoeing are multi
billion dollar businesses in this state. But floaters are constantly
pushing for more, and we've seen years of legislation and

(01:10:37):
potential ballot initiatives and lawsuits on the issue, with people
wanting the right to trespass on private property. It's a
very complex issue, and so we've done this analysis of
the legal situation exactly what the state of play is
and really want people to understand that Colorado is different
than other states because our water situation is so differently

(01:10:58):
different than other states. So we've evolved a very different
system of water law. And to compensate for that, Colorado
has also spent several billion dollars through a lottery proceeds
on the wildlife and parks in an open space and
outdoor recreation including stream access that only that other states
can only dream about. So we are different in both ways.

(01:11:19):
We handle the issue legally differently, and we spend money
on it, but other states don't don't spend all.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
Right, Just one very quick follow up on that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
Does what you just say mean that if I were
kayaking down a river in an area where the property
is where the land is private, not government. If I'm
floating down the river in a kayak, that's legal. But
if I for some reason step out of.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
My kayak and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
I'm standing in the middle of the river on the
river bed, I'm holding my kayak for some reason, there's
a beautiful bird there and I want to look at
that bird for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
That I could be trespassing, you could be.

Speaker 7 (01:12:02):
That doesn't mean you're always going to get in trouble
for it, because there are lots of places in the
state where we've made agreements with between between floating outfitters
and local property owners, and that is kind of the
system in Colorado. We handle it differently because every piece
of property is different. There are places where you're floating
through is no threat to the landowner, and there are

(01:12:23):
places where the landowner has invested enormous amounts of money
in improving stream so they can sell access to it,
like with guest ranches, for example, And there are places
where fences have to be built to keep cattle in
and so it's not the same everywhere. So we have
this case by case mediation process in Colorado. What's missing,

(01:12:45):
of course, is any place where you can go and
find out which places are which, and so that's one
of the things we're talking about in this paper that
we're going to talk about next Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
All Right, Kelly, I just have a few seconds here,
so just remind listeners again when and where where this
upcoming eggs in the economy is and how he can sign.

Speaker 6 (01:13:03):
Up Tuesday September ninth, that's next Tuesday, will be seven
thirty to nine. You could go to our website csico
dot org. There's a tab that says events and you
can register. You'll hear from Greg as well as Senator
Byron Pelton, Aaron Carney Sparr, the president of the Colorada
Cattleman's Association, and it will be moderated by Vince Bezdek

(01:13:25):
from the Gazette.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
So please join us.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Fabulous And in case it wasn't obvious based on the
name Eggs in the Economy, that's seven thirty to nine
in the morning, so you go get some free breakfast
and learn a bunch of things. It's in the heart
of Greenwood Village. It's a wonderful event. I'm going to
try to stop by as well. Greg Walcher is Natural
Resources Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. Kelly Cawfield, executive director.
Thanks for your time, both of you us. Thanks all right,

(01:13:49):
we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right
back on KOA. Boy, this show has gone really really fast.
There's been a big hearing most of the morning in
the US Senate with RFK junior, the Health and Human
Services Secretary. I haven't paid attention to most of it.
We heard some of Michael Bennett talking about I want
to mention just one thing that I heard just before

(01:14:09):
I got to work this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
Again, this hearing went for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
It looks like it's done now, and that I think
is is super interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Again. You know, I'm not an RFK junior fan.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
But that just because he's wrong about some things doesn't
mean he's wrong about everything.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
And one of the things he talked about that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
I've talked about with a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
On the show in the past with with.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
A particular guest, is the system for organ transplantations. And
I guess he said there was a sole source provider
for organs and the whole system is really complex and
odd and seems a little bit corrupt. He said they
canceled that contract, and he said they are gonna He
said there's been all kinds of favoritism, and like maybe

(01:14:51):
somebody's been.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
In the line for a transplant for a long.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Time and then somebody who knows somebody in.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
The right place will get bumped up in the line.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
And of course with the those things, it's a little
bit tricky because it's not just about how long you've
been in the line, but it's also there are some
calculations to be made regarding how likely you are to survive,
because they don't want to give you a transplant with
an organ that, you know, some organ that is difficult
to come by and a lot of people waiting for

(01:15:19):
him if your underlying situation is such that you're likely
to be dead in a year. Anyway, so it all
gets a little messy. But he basically said, we're gonna
We're gonna overhaul this whole system. And I think that's
I think that's good. I think it's an important thing
to keep an eye on. So I do I do
like that he's doing that. Uh, that system has long
seemed kind of corrupt to me, and and.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Anyway, so there's that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
I saw a story in the Denver Post a couple
of weeks back that I want to just cover with you.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
For two minutes or three minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
One of the reasons that I have turned against the
death penalty, and I do it is that I don't
trust government to do the right thing. I don't trust
prosecutors in particular, and I don't mean every prosecutor. But
my fundamental premise on this is, while there are people

(01:16:15):
who need killing, and I do not have a moral
objection to government killing people who need killing, I do
have a moral objection to government killing, and I mean
as part of.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
The criminal justice system. I'm not talking.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
About war, but I have a very strong objection to
government killing even one innocent person.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
And for me, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Not okay with putting to death even a thousand guilty
people if it means one innocent person will also be
killed somewhere in that mess. So let me just briefly
share a little of this with you. This from about
two weeks ago or a little less than two weeks
ago in the Denver Post. On a July morning, in

(01:16:58):
a Denver courtroom, District judged Dmitria Trujillo took a senior
prosecutor to task chief Deputy District Attorney Daniel Cohen willfully
violated discovery rules and failed to disclose information in a
timely manner to the defense attorney for a man facing
more than two dozen felony charges related to possessing child
sexual abuse material. The judge found on what was supposed

(01:17:21):
to be the first day of the man's trial. The
judge said, this is a district attorney who's a supervisor
in the Denver District Attorney's office.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
There is no excuse for not.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
Understanding or effectuating the obligations under Rule sixteen. The arguments
and excuses that have been provided by counsel carry no
weight given the history a number of times that this
district attorney has been on notice, and while the office
itself has endeavored to make changes to ensure that discovery
is timely produced, this district attorney has either ignored the
changes within the office or doesn't again understand them.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Wow. So the judge suppressed.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Evidence in a case as a punitive sanction for the
rule violation that delayed the trial, and then the trial
could not be rescheduled within a statutory deadline, so that
the judge dismissed all the charges. And again we're talking
about somebody who was charged with possessing possessing child sexual
abuse material. I have no idea whether the person who

(01:18:20):
was accused did it or not. I suspect he probably
did it. I suspect he probably did it. Most people
who are accused of crimes did the crime. Not everybody,
but most people but you've got to have a system
where the government abides by the rules. And apparently this
particular DA has done this repeatedly and has has not

(01:18:44):
done what's required under the rules providing information to the
defense attorneys, and it just has to stop. And the
rest of this article talks about multiple other cases in
the past, and then they talk about this being.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
A long standing.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Issue with the denver DA's office in particular. So there's
some element this is another person being quoted here, there's
some element of just fatigue at the frequency and gravity
of these violations. So there's a lot more to the article.
But I did also want to share with you that
it appears that this guy who was violated the rules
repeatedly and therefore caused somebody who probably was involved with

(01:19:20):
childborn to have all the charges drop. That guy apparently
has been demoded and is not a senior official in
the denver DA's office anymore. It seems like that probably
should have happened a long time ago. We spend a
fair amount of time on the show talking about energy generally,
and then fossil fuels and nuclear and renewables, and you know,

(01:19:43):
among renewables there the biggest categories you normally talk about
are wind and solar. And I got an interesting note
from a guy who sometimes suggests guests to me about
a term that I hadn't heard before, agri voltaics, and
the idea here, as I understand it is farmers using

(01:20:04):
some of their land at least for solar power. And
I have a lot of questions, and my next guest
probably has a lot of answers. Angela Burke is director
of operations at Pivot Energy and she joins us here
on KOA.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Angela, welcome to the show.

Speaker 8 (01:20:21):
It's good to have you, good morning, and thanks for
having your us.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
All right, well we'll see hopefully there's not as much
delay as it seemed like there, but we'll do the
very best we can. So tell us a little bit
about and we're going to start very macro. What does
agrovoltaics mean and what does Pivot Energy do?

Speaker 9 (01:20:45):
So Agroboltaics, as the word implies, combines agricultural production with
solar photo voltaics aka solar energy production and Pivot Energy.
We develop finance and across the tree, including many right

(01:21:07):
here in our backyard in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Are you guys based in Colorado?

Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
Yes, we are.

Speaker 8 (01:21:16):
Our headquarters is in Colorado and this is a huge
market for us. So we have twenty five projects across
the state that are either active or under construction, and
all of those projects are incorporating agribaltaics.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
Okay, And one of the interesting things to me as
I read a little bit more about this is that
it doesn't seem to be primarily farmers walking away from
farming and seeing turn all of my land into a
giant solar farm, but rather farmers using some part of.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
Their land for solar and then.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
Continuing to grow crops or raised cattle or I don't know,
have bees living under the solar panels or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Can can you kind of elaborate on that for me?

Speaker 9 (01:22:06):
Certainly, So to clarify the spit energy, we develop community
scale solar so that meets each.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
Of our.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
You know what, Antie, I'm sorry, let me. She probably
can't hear me because we're doing and she let me
just jump in here. We're uh a rod. You see
that phone number. Okay, Angie, We're gonna call you on
the phone to the zoom is just not working well enough.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna end the zoom thing, and
hopefully we'll get Angie on the phone where maybe the
audio quality will be a little bit better. It's just

(01:22:37):
too distracting having that delay and having her having her
audio just drop out is a little a little too difficult.
So we're gonna try to get her on the phone.
So again, but let me just elaborate for a minute.
And by the way, if there's you know, farmers and
ranchers listening right now who have some experience with this,
right you've done it, you're thinking about do it? Do

(01:22:57):
you know and something about you know something about it?
Please tell text me at five six six nine zero.
And if you've got questions that you'd want to ask
the guests about it, text us at five six six
nine zero, and let me know there. All right, let's
let's let's see if this is a little better. Hey, Angela,
are you hearing me?

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
All right?

Speaker 10 (01:23:13):
All right, I am back.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
Okay, we'll give it a try and if the if
the cell signal is just too bad, then we'll we'll
give up and we'll try another time. But anyway, okay,
so I was asking you to describe this kind of
dual use thing and are your projects typically farmers who
want to continue to farm, but are just using some
of their land for solar.

Speaker 7 (01:23:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:23:35):
So for Pina Energy, we lease the land from farmers
and so we're operating at that community solar scale. That
means our sites are only about three up to about
fifty acres per project. So we work with landowners that
have hundreds or thousands of acres and so they can

(01:23:55):
parse off a smaller portion of that land for the
solar and can can continue their other farm operations, and
or we can work with them in contract with them
to graze on the solar site as well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
So I'm assuming that if a farmer or rancher is
going to do this, they must see some benefit to themselves,
either in higher income per acre for that part of
the land, or maybe equal income but steadier income per acre.
I mean, what is the economic conversation normally, like with

(01:24:30):
the farmers.

Speaker 10 (01:24:32):
Yeah, it's a combination of both of those things. So
for that landowner, they're getting a higher and consistent revenue
stream from leasing those acres to solar versus leasing those
to other tenant farmers. And then for our grazing and
cropping partners that work in the solar array, we're paying
them to work in the solar array and have more

(01:24:54):
production for their operations versus them having to go out
and pay for more acreage beyond the home farm.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
So I don't know if you'd be willing to answer
this question, but maybe if maybe with a range rather
than a number, how much might a farmer or rancher
expect to earn, let's say, per acre from having your
solar generation stuff on their land.

Speaker 10 (01:25:19):
The toughest answer, of course, is it depends. So it's
going to be a wide range that veries state by
state and also very depending on how close you are
to the power line to connect into the grid. So
I can't give a number, but I'll say you can
always reach out to Pivot Energy anytime and we can
talk about your individual parcel.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
So and again this sort of goes back to the
first question, but kind of trying to think about what
a farmer might be getting for the solar versus what
a farmer might be getting for growing food. But again
I guess, going back to the previous thing, the farmer
must either think that at least for that part of land,
they're getting either more from you or as we said,
steady or stream. Otherwise they probably wouldn't do it right.

Speaker 10 (01:26:04):
Yep, yep, exactly, And we work really collaboratively with those
landowners and try to prioritize maybe parts of their land
that are currently fallow or are being underutilized, they're underproductive,
so we can get creative about exactly where we cite
the solar and really kind of work around their overall
goals for the site.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
So, just to be totally transparent with you, I've been
a pretty big skeptic of renewable energy in the sense
of I'd like to see it be economically viable without
any government subsidies.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Because I don't have anything against solar.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
I got some much bigger problems with wind than I
do with solar, but I won't get into that today.
But I have an enormous problem with government subsidies. So
most of the government subsidies appear to be going away,
and the federal subsidies at least, And I'm curious how
much that impacts your business model and how much you
think that will affect your ability to get farmers to

(01:27:02):
work with you at a price that everybody can agree on.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Sure.

Speaker 10 (01:27:07):
Sure, So Pivot Energy feels really confident in our outlook.
So we have some really strong plans in place to
basically preemptively procure our panels and other equipment to get
us through at least the next three years. Now, after
three years, the whole industry is going to need to shift.

(01:27:27):
And yes, those least rates might change a bit, other
design choices might change a bit. But you know, the
end of the day, American needs to produce more energy.
Our demand is ever growing day by day, and solar
energy needs to be a part of that US energy mix.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
So I'm far from expert on the tax policy regarding
this stuff, but it seems to me that in that
big beautiful bill, some of the issues one't so much
about when you buy the parts as when the system
is actually operating. So I'm unclear on how buying the
solar panels in advance will help you keep tax credits

(01:28:05):
that you don't get if the system isn't operating.

Speaker 10 (01:28:09):
Yes, so quick clarification for the listeners is that those
tax credit timelines and deadline really have to do with
starting construction, and so that can be physical construction on.

Speaker 9 (01:28:21):
Site, Okay.

Speaker 10 (01:28:23):
Pre Purchasing and procuring that equipment can't count towards that, Okay,
got it?

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
And I think where I where my error or confusion
was what I said was correct, But it was correct
for residential solar on the roof of a house, which
is probably quite different from what you're doing. So for
residential solar, if the project isn't finished in producing energy
by the end of this year, you can't get the
tax credit.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
But for what you're doing, it's a little bit different.

Speaker 10 (01:28:51):
There's a little different timeline, different dead lacks.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
That makes that makes sense. So and you said, you know,
get through the next three years. Was your implication from
that that you hope or expect that the next president,
especially if the next president is of the other political party,
would reinstate certain subsidies and incentives for these projects.

Speaker 10 (01:29:16):
So No, that more so has to do with the
overall time clock on that kind of step down of
the federal tax credit in those three years, and even today,
we're really actually looking more towards state level policy to
make more favorable markets for US. So states like Colorado
and like Illinois have really strong renewable energy standards and

(01:29:40):
goals and have really good policy that we think will
weather the storm well pass that tax credit going away.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
Yeah, I guess, And again not to be like snide
or anything, but like good policy to you, like you
might mean good policy and something that is pushing people
to do more solar. I might not share your view
of what is policy.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
I want.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
I want whatever produces the most reliable, cheapest energy for
Colorado and if it's if that is solar, the then fine.
And if it's not solar, then that's also fine.

Speaker 10 (01:30:13):
Yeah. Well, I would just say that solar is the
lowest cost new energy production to add to the grid,
and it's faster and easier to dispatch and build and
get active versus something like adding nuclear. Right, And so
when I'm talking about favorable good policy, I'm really talking
about community solar program that allow anyone and everyone to

(01:30:37):
benefit from that lower cost of production.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
Is it lower cost even even if there were no subsidies?

Speaker 10 (01:30:45):
And short answer is I'm not on the financial modeling.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
Okay, all right, that's fine. Let's move on to another
another question.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
So a friend of mine who does a lot of
work in this space, his name is Robert Brice. He
keeps a database of communities, counties and so on that
are pushing back on some of this stuff. And I
think a lot of what he's focused on are much
bigger projects than you're talking about thousands of acres, But
what the kind of things you're doing working with farmers,

(01:31:15):
what's the permitting experience like, and are you getting the
kinds of pushback and refusals to allow your projects the
way that it seems to becoming quite common.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
With the very large scale projects right now.

Speaker 10 (01:31:34):
Yeah, I think for Pivot Energy, we're in a great
position with again the scale of our projects and that
commitment to one hundred percent agroboltics.

Speaker 5 (01:31:43):
So we're truly.

Speaker 10 (01:31:44):
Working with those communities and with those farmers and ranchers
to find the best co use of those lands. And
so I understand, and there certainly are those pushbacks and
the questions about losing prime farmland, but quite for as
a country, we're losing two thousand acres a day to

(01:32:04):
other retail and urban and housing development, and really we
see solar, especially at our scale, as a way to
maintain that farmland, not taking it away from production.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
All Right, I've got two quick listener questions and then
we'll call it a day. The one listener who farms
in northeastern Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:32:25):
Is wondering if there are.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
Ways that the contract can be tailored so that, for example,
the landowner might put some money into the project, pay
for infrastructure or pay for panels or something, and get
a higher return from the electricity being generated or the
contract standard.

Speaker 10 (01:32:48):
So that would really apply to it. Sounds like them
wanting to maybe pursue their own solar array or partial
ownership type of a model that would really it would
look a little different from what Pivot Energy is typical
business modeling. I got it. There is potential maybe for

(01:33:09):
different like grant funding, et cetera. They could reach out
to me anytime to point them in those directions, but
it's really a little out of the wheelhouse of our model.

Speaker 1 (01:33:18):
Gotcha.

Speaker 2 (01:33:19):
And one last listener question, at the end of the lease,
I assume you've had you put I don't know what
you put on the ground, you put concrete pads, you
put posts or whatever. The solar panels are going on.
At the end of the lease, do you remove that stuff?

Speaker 10 (01:33:32):
Yes, absolutely so. Actually, we at the beginning, when we're
permitting a project, we post a decommissioning bond, so a
removal bond, so those moneys are set aside from day
one and then are youth to fully remove the system.
Everything above and below ground, and so our overall goal

(01:33:52):
is to restore that land to ideally better condition than
what we found it in.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
Excellent. That's a great answer.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
I think my listener was expecting a different answer, so
that's that's excellent. Angela Burke is director of operations at
Pivot Energy. Pivot Energy dot net is the website. Thanks
for your time, Angela, is very interesting conversation.

Speaker 10 (01:34:13):
Great thanks for having me, ros I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
Glad to hi. Mandy gonnat you off?

Speaker 11 (01:34:19):
Is that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
Thing is ya kimono? Is that from Japan?

Speaker 11 (01:34:24):
No, this would be from that fashion boutique known as Walmart.

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
Uh huh yeah, love it at Walmart actually Japan.

Speaker 11 (01:34:32):
I didn't want to like the opposer in Japan, so
I didn't take it Japan.

Speaker 1 (01:34:36):
With me, but I like it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
I was kind of curious, given the scale of your
collection of Burke and bags and such, how you feel
about the death of Georgio Armani today, whether that's put
a crump on your whole day.

Speaker 11 (01:34:47):
I will say that I am not a fashion person,
as indicated by the fact that I bought my clothing
at Walmart for today. But Georgia Armano was Ormani was
one of those designers that loved women. And you can
tell designers that love women because they make beautiful clothes
on women. And there are a lot of designers that, honestly,
sometimes I look at their stuff and I'm like, do
they hate women?

Speaker 1 (01:35:08):
Like only a boy, only a young boy could fit
in that.

Speaker 4 (01:35:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:35:11):
And so Georgio ARMANI he celebrated the female forms. So
that's I mean. I don't know how much actual designing
he's been doing, you know, as of weight.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
How old was he was? He was ninety one? Oh god,
he was ninety one.

Speaker 2 (01:35:22):
And what I don't follow this stuff, but I just
happened to hear someone in the news this morning and
I said he was very involved, like all the way
up to all the way up to the end. And
one of the other things they said that was interesting
about him is I guess he owned the whole company. Yea,
like a lot of these other ones. They're public companies.
Tommy Hill, figure, you can trade this sock. He owned
the whole thing. And they were talking about how unusual

(01:35:42):
it is for a designer to have that level of
business sense to not only build up all the clothing stuff,
but the glasses and the.

Speaker 1 (01:35:49):
And the shoes or wahs and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
So I'm I'm I'm not a you know, I'm obviously
not a fashion plate either you or I are you
and I are No.

Speaker 11 (01:35:58):
I got here to be a fashion play, but I
would not, but I was a passion plate.

Speaker 1 (01:36:02):
But you got to admire that level of its fantastic.

Speaker 11 (01:36:05):
Anybody that has the wherewithal and I think it's a
very special person to your point, that has the ability
to scale and still maintain control of their business, that
is a very impressive thing. And someone who resists the
urge to sell out. You know, he's been approached, God
talked the countless times over the years, uh, you know,
with offers to buy. Did you happen to see that

(01:36:27):
our mutual friend?

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Very wise?

Speaker 11 (01:36:29):
Have you seen the story circulating about.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Her right now? No, Oh, paramount is.

Speaker 11 (01:36:34):
In talks according to the people who know to buy
the free press. Not only that, but very in charge
of CBS News. That's the rumor.

Speaker 1 (01:36:44):
God, amazing, that would be incredible. Here's the thing, and
here's the rub.

Speaker 11 (01:36:50):
The culture at CBS News, just as the culture at
CNN when they brought in Jeff Licked and I was
very hopeful that something was going to change the culture
beat him. Yes, so can Barry beat the culture if
she goes in.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
There, if anybody she can.

Speaker 11 (01:37:06):
I think she's demonstrated her ability to not give. She
gives zero craps, as the kids say. And it's an
interesting story that's out there. But they're talking like one
hundred million for the Free Press.

Speaker 1 (01:37:18):
That actually sounds kind of low to me, given.

Speaker 11 (01:37:20):
They said anywhere the valuation could be one hundred million
to two hundred million. But they've got like seventeen million
in subscriber income now right now annually, which is incredibly
impressive since she started it two years ago, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
But yeah, that's the rumor right now.

Speaker 11 (01:37:36):
I have that story on my blog today Antmandy's blog
dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
What you got coming up?

Speaker 11 (01:37:40):
I got a couple interesting things, I think. So One,
we've got a doctor from Do No Harm, which is
an organization of doctors who push back against politicized medicine,
and they're filing an official complaint against the University of
Connecticut for racist programs in their medical school that are
designed only for minorities, which is clearly racist. And then

(01:38:00):
I also have another who else is on the show today, Rod,
you know, dang it, I have another guest on dang it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
I can't remember what Mandy will remember in the next
minute or two, and then she'll and then she'll tell
you stick around for Mandy's fabulous show. I'm gonna go
enjoy the rest of my favorite day of the week,
it being a Thursday. I do have to remember to
put the trash out because the trash was delayed this
week by the holiday we had earlier in the week,
namely the Neil Diamond the Neil Young concert. So I

(01:38:28):
will put my trash out later. Have a wonderful rest
of your Thursday.