10-4-24 - *FULL SHOW* Tina Peters Sentenced; Trade Like Pelosi; Name That Tune

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
One quick thing before we get to my special guest
in that is, after a very short strike the longshoreman
the International Longshoreman's Association DOC workers along the East Coast
and the eastern part of our southern coast have gone
back to work. They agreed temporarily to a roughly three
month extension of their current contract with a sixty two

(00:24):
percent rays. They have not solved any of the other issues.
And here's what I think happened. I think somebody told
Harold Daggett, the mobbed up boss of that union, that
if they kept the strike going, they were going to
get Donald Trump elected, and that he would then end
up somewhere very comfortably close to Jimmy Hoffa if that happened,

(00:47):
and so he better in that strike until after the election.
And so they did. All right, let's do something. We
may talk about that later, we'll see, But right now
I want to go to my friend Jimmy Sangenberger. Jimmy
is an investigative columnist at the Denver Gazette, and you
hear him frequently here on KOA and our sister station

(01:08):
K Howe, and he's filled in for me and lots
of other folks and Jimmy has taken a major interest
in the whole TEENA Peters thing for the entire time,
and yesterday he was in grand junction in the courtroom
listening to the sentencing hearing.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Good morning Jimmy, thanks for joining us, Good.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Morning Ross, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay, So for the folks who missed the major headline,
just quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Tell us what the sentence was.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
I want to spend more time with you talking about
what it was like being in the room.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, it was fascinating, so definitely looking forward to that.
In essence, she is facing just shy of nine years
behind bars, with almost all of that in the Department
of Corrections that would be in prison. And this is
because of again an election security breach from May twenty
twenty one, where, in essence, she got this guy named

(02:03):
Conan Hayes in a secure election facility pretending to be
somebody else named Gerald Wood, and they did some things
with the technology there and it leaked out and then
we have this the consequence, just shy of nine years
in jail.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
And it's a complex it's a complex sentence. A friend
of mine who was a district attorney, but not that
district attorney said he expects she'll probably spend somewhere in
the neighborhood of three years in prison, maybe a little
more before being eligible for parole, but still that's a
significant time behind bars.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
So all right, so that's good.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
I want to hear what it was like being in
that room, because we've heard a couple clips from the
judge here on Kaway about how, you know, she's completely
unrepentant and she still believes all this nonsense. What was
it like being there, and particularly when she was talking.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Well, the tension so thick ross you could cut it
with a knife throughout the whole sentence thing, and especially
during Tina's forty minutes. She spoke for just above forty minutes,
going through all kinds of things, including basically introducing things
that she was not allowed to bring in because it

(03:18):
wasn't relevant during the trial. And you could tell that
there was palpable frustration from the judge because she was
going into these territories that she expressed it was not
supposed to do. And she even got very argumentative, had
multiple back and forth exchanges, literally arguing with the judge
who had to correct your at one point and be

(03:39):
like you're telling me that I said something that I
believe and I didn't say that I believe that. And
that was something you don't normally hear when somebody is
before a judge being sentenced. Why in the world would
you argue with them. But it was another piece that
showed ross that Judge Matthew Barrett, who I thought had
done a phenomenal job through out this whole thing, that

(04:01):
he could tell she was now remorseful and she was
disrespectful of the process. And that's why when he finally
got the sentence, and he did two things. One, yes,
he excoriated her in many ways on many different points,
but he also deliberately walked through, piece by piece what
probation entails and what would qualify her for that, and

(04:22):
why she doesn't qualify for that, and why she's going
to get prison time. And that's something notable to me.
Throughout all of this, Judge Barrett has been very deliberate
in explaining all the intricacies of his thinking, and I
think that's to the betterment of everybody in this state
because it means we can better understand what the judge
is thinking.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, the judge made a comment and this is a paraphrase,
not an exact quote, but prison is prison is where
we put people who have harmed many others or will
harm many others.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
And that was an interesting description of Tina.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Peters, a description which, by the way, I share, I
do not share the slightest tear for her. I'm I'm
I don't know whether I'm slightly pleased or overjoyed that
she's going to prison, probably the latter. You've approached this more,
you know in our conversation today as a reporter, but
what about as a as a citizen and journalist.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
And an opinion radio host. What's your take.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
As all of those things. I really believe that justice
was done here, that she was prosecuted for things that
she should have been prosecuted for, that the jury duly
considered the facts of the case and concluded that there
were three things that she was charged with. They found
her enough reasonable doubt to acquit her of those, but

(05:43):
still convicted her on seven counts, including for felonies, which
is the big thrust of her prison time. And I
think when you look at I was just talking about
the judge being very deliberate and thoughtful in laying out
reasonings throughout the proceedings when they would bring in irrelevant
things about the defense would about election and computers and

(06:05):
so forth, and the judge would shoot that down but
say it's not relevant, let me explain why. And when
that's done by the judge time and time again, when
he really lays out takes the time to do that,
that says a lot. And then when you go to
the sentence saying, look, the fact of the matter is
when you are before a judge, when you are facing justice,

(06:26):
you need to show contrition, you need to show remorse
and that you understand what's going on. La Ross, she
was really that kid who is in trouble because they
did something wrong and so they got their iPad taken
away or they've been sent to their room or what
have you. If they're upset not about what they did
and thinking, shoot, I shouldn't have done that, but because

(06:46):
oh my gosh, mom and dad took my iPad.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Away, right, yeah, and pretty stupid actually, I mean we
know that she's stupid because she did what she did
and kept going with it.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
But exeedingly stupid.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Once you lose to antagonize the judge that you're sentencing,
hearing and it just goes to you know, the other
thing that I thought was interesting and just about out
a time, Jimmy, but I read in one account that
she started making some comments about how she is a
child of God and the judge shouldn't be punishing someone
who is, you know, a child of God.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Did you hear something like that.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yes, yes, I forget I have it in my notes,
but she said something to that effect. And what it
just really showed to me very clearly was that she
is somebody who just uses Staith as a shield. We
have a lot of those people in Colorado politics on
the right right now that will take their religious faith
and use that as a shield for the wrong that

(07:45):
they do.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Well.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, No, Christianity teaches about showing contrition, and you do
not see that from Tema Peters in any way, shape
or form. And she just put up all the shields
that she could from faith to here's of the things
that I endured in the past, with my health issues
or losing my son, which is tragic, absolutely, but those

(08:08):
are not things that are germane in any way to
what she was accused of, what she did, what she
was found guilty of in the sentencing that she says,
so I do agree completely with Judge Barrett that Tina
Peters is a charlatan and she got what she deserved.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Jimmy Singenberger is an investigative columnist at the Denver Gazette
and a frequent fill in host here at KOA and
our sister station k how. Thanks for your time, and
thanks for all the energy and effort you've put into
following the Tina Peters case the whole way through, you bet.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Brother Mike column will be on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
About this, all right, Denver Gazette dot com. Folks, Thanks Jimmy.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
All right, I want to make sure you know coming
up in the next five minutes or so is this
hour's chance to win one thousand dollars and our keyword
for cash. And also if you're interested in the Great
American Beer Festival, sometime this hour I'm going to be
given away a pair of tickets to the Great American
Beer Festival, which is next week.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Keep it here on Koway.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
So a couple of people said, or you know, one
couple of people said, and a couple of people asked,
you know, what do you do you think her sentence
would have been less if she had shown some contrition
and absolutely right. So throughout this trial, Tina Peters kept
saying over and over and over the election was stolen,
even though there's zero evidence of that, and she kept

(09:23):
saying she did what was right and all this, and
the judge just wasn't having it. And I think she
really got the book thrown at it. I mean, her
sentence was harsher than I expected, and.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
I'm really glad it was.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Her sentence was harsher than I expected, and clearly, and
this came out in the judges comments yesterday. It was
because she didn't express any remorse at all. And so
one listener said, comment about her supporters. So I'm gonna
do this. I'm gonna do this carefully. So look, I

(09:56):
understand that a lot of people, for whatever reason, believed
Ronald Trump's lies early on that the election was stolen,
and a lot of people started mimicking those lies. And
it's possible that you hear them enough, and you hear
them from places that you trust, and you might think
they're true. And at that point, then you hear of
an elections official in Western Colorado who describes herself as

(10:20):
trying to get to the bottom of it and trying
to see if the election was stolen, if voting machines
were tampered with, and so on, And you could think
to yourself, and it would not be entirely irrational, even
though you were believing lies to begin with.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
But still it wouldn't be entire You didn't know they were.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
You didn't know they were, And you might say to yourself,
all right, I'm glad someone's looking into it, and even
if it's wrong, even if it's wrong, I would like
someone to look into it so that I feel better
about the security of our elections. And as far as
that goes, that part's fine. But then when you start
committing crimes and identity theft and leaking inform me or

(10:59):
giving in formation about our secure election system to some
former surfer who was hired by some out of state dude,
and then you steal someone else's ID to sneak the
former surfer into the room, and then that information gets
out on the internet.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Because of these these are true crimes.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
That she committed, and that she did this stuff, much
of it after it was already clear that there was
nothing to the arguments of the machines having been tampered with,
or an election having been manipulated and there's still no
evidence of it after all this time and all these people.

(11:39):
So my problem is not really with the people who
perhaps supported her at the very very beginning, when they
thought maybe she's looking out for them, and she wasn't,
but they thought she was, and I can I can
understand that. My problem is with everybody who supported her
after it became clear that she committed crimes in the

(12:03):
service of a lie. People like Ron Hanks, who I'm
so glad he lost his primary in the third congressional district,
people like Dave Williams, people like Mike Lindell.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I haven't heard.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Donald Trump say anything about Tina Peters in a while,
but of course he's sort of the origin story of
all of this stuff. But people who still support Tina Peters,
I think need to have their head examined, and I
think they are very harmful to the political fabric of
our state and our country. One other thing, A listener asked,

(12:39):
do you think Donald Trump will pardon Tina Peters if
he becomes president of the United States?

Speaker 2 (12:44):
And the answer is no, he can't.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
This is a conviction in a state court, and a
president can only can only pardon or.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Commute sentences from federal court.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
So there you go. I'm very glad Tina Peters got
the sentence that she got. She absolutely deserves it. Again,
I'm pleasantly surprised by how harsh that story was. And yeah,
there you go. All right, I I owe you some
some interesting stuff in the next segment. I got I've
got a really funny story from my recent vacation that

(13:20):
I forgot to forgot to tell you about right when
I got back from vacation. And we're gonna have a
guest on. We're gonna nerd out a little bit on
some economics, and I'm gonna have Great American Beer Festival
tickets to give away. We're gonna do all that in
the coming hour or so. Keep it here on KOA
while we wait for our guest. Why don't I give
away some tickets to the Great American Beer Festival, Great

(13:43):
American Beer Fest. It's the tickets I'm gonna give away
her for next Thursday, which is October tenth. It'll be
a pair of tickets. And if you don't win them,
or you want to go a different day, you can
go to Great American Beer Festival dot com. And I'm
gonna do this with a little trivia question. And it
may take me a little time to get to the
get to the text line and and and get in

(14:07):
touch with who whoever the winner is. But let's do
this as as a trivia question. So right now it's
nine thirty four, and what we'll do is, I'll take
I'll take the fourth texter at nine to thirty nine
at five six six nine zero. Okay, Textra number four

(14:27):
at nine thirty nine at five six six nine zero.
Who can answer this question correctly? What is the name
of the oldest currently operating brewery in the United States
of America. The oldest currently operating brewery in the United
States of America. It also happens to be the largest

(14:51):
American owned brewery in the United States of America because
all the big famous brands, the biggest most famous brands
you know, are not a Errican companies anymore in there
parent corporation.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Which is kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
So Textra number four at nine thirty nine, with that answer,
will win a pair of passes to the Great American
Beer Festival for the Thursday session October tenth of next week,
And of course passes at Great American Beer Festival dot com.
All right, let's see. I'm gonna hit a button here
on my trusty laptop and all right, let's do this. Mike.

(15:29):
I think you may be muted, by the way, so
there we go. All right, I'm very pleased to welcome
to the show a fellow economics nerd just like I am.
Mike Murphy is senior VP and chief of Staff at
the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Oftentimes out there
you will hear names of think tank, some of which

(15:50):
have distinct partisan leanings, like Heritage on the right, or
Brookings or ACLU on the left.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Is a nonpartisan think tank, and I really appreciate the
work they do focusing on what I think is our
most important domestic issue.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
So Mike Murphy, welcome to KOA.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Ross. Great to be with you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
So I want to I want to do two things.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
I want to do a little econ and then a
little politics, so on the econ side, and I'm going
to play Devil's advocate for a second, because I get
this from time to time from some of.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
My more left leaning listeners.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Mike, we've been told for years that the debt and
deficit are a big problem.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
And I mean we've been told.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
That since the debt was three trillion dollars and now
it's thirty whatever trillion dollars. So I kind of feel
like you're the boy who cried wolf.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Why should I care about the debt and deficit?

Speaker 4 (16:46):
Yeah, Well, here's what I would say in response to that. Ross.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
We've also heard a lot from similar people, same types
of people at interest rates, we're going to stay low
for a long time, and therefore it's okay that we
can borrow and answer this debt.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
Well, that didn't turn out so well, didn't interest rates.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
Then went up? And here is the here's the key point.
We are going to spend in this This the year
that this ended, we just spent more on interest on
our national debt than we do in an entire year
on defense. Okay, We've spent more on interest on the
debt about nine hundred billion dollars that we spent in
a year on medicare.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Okay, So the reason.

Speaker 5 (17:22):
That this matters is we You're right, we've been saying
for a long time the debt is too high. The
debt is growing, but it is now skyrocketing. And the
reason that is skyrocketing is because of known factors aging, demographics,
healthcare costs. So we known we're coming from a long time.
We didn't prepare for it. And now our debt trajectory,
it is high right now. Measure is a percentage of

(17:43):
our economy. It's almost the same exact size, almost one
hundred percent size of the economy.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
But it is projected to grow over twenty four trillion
dollars more just in the next decade. And so if
we think that our budget situation is getting squeezed by
that interest right now, that I said, wait till those
folks see where it goes within the next ten years.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Okay, So just in the interest of time, I am
going from this point forward to stipulate that I agree
with you that debt and deficit are a huge problem,
which I already did agree with you.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
But I just I wanted to bring that up because
we hear it a lot. Now.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
You talked about the trajectory we're on right now, what
is to be done to fix this?

Speaker 2 (18:27):
And you could give you an answer.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
That ranges between politics and economics, because clearly there are
economic policies that need to change, but we also have
politicians who need to change.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
So what is to be done?

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (18:38):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely right. So I look, I think there's
a couple of things. When we're asked this question, one
of the first things we say is one of the
ways you solve this problem, or a first principle of
solving this problem is stop making it worse, right, Like, So,
what's going on often in Washington is there's just a
consistent pattern of putting forward new new spending programs and

(19:02):
or new tax cuts and then choosing not to pay
for them. Right, And we're at risk of that happening
work okay in the next year or two based on
some of the ways the kind of the campaign is
going right now, frankly, and also some of the things
that are on tap next year in Washington, that we
have tax cuts that are kind of expiring, we have
a debt ceiling to deal with, other budget green's gonna

(19:23):
have to be dealt with. So they just need to
stop making worse. Is pago principal ross what you might
be familiar with, right, it's the idea that you need
to pay for things as you go. So one thing
when you're in a holy stop digging. So the first
thing is we got to do that. So that's that's
kind of pour principle number one. But then it's like,
how do you bend the trajectory right, get the trajectory
back on track because it's already on a bad track.

(19:44):
And the way you do that is you got to
look at the sounds simple, but obviously you got to
look at both the spending side and the revenue side.
And you in your introduction you said we are a
nonpartisan by Parson, we are we approach that in that
way where you know, we we believe when one looks
at these numbers, you got to look at both. To
the alledger, it's very very hard to tackle this and
get it on our trajectory all on one side of this, okay,

(20:05):
for numerous reasons, right, And so if you look at
both of those, on the spending and the revenue side
and the spending side, you have to look at where
the money is. Frankly, right, eighty seven percent of projected
spending growth over the next ten years is due to
three things. Health care spending, social security spending, and interest

(20:25):
on the debt. Okay, well, you can't do anything directly
about interest on the debt. You got to get your
trajectory in right. So it's these big ticket drivers are
due to agent demographics and healthcare costs, social Security and
Medica and healthcare, and those are really hard to tackle politically,
but we get ask some difficult conversations about that, and
there are some reforms to do it. So that's where
you've got to focus some attention on that side. And

(20:47):
on the revenue side. Look, I'm going to have a
debate about tax cuts next year. We've got to figure
out how we can look through that code, look through
a lot of the various exemptions, deductions, credits, things that
are in there, see if we can clean up the code,
make some efficiencies, and see if we can generates some
revenue at the same time.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
So for me personally, while I am nonpartisan in the
sense that I am unaffiliated and you know, neither Republican
nor Democrat, it doesn't mean I'm unbiased. So I have
a very strong I have a very strong bias here
that almost all of our problem is spending and very
little of it is taxation. And as a percentage of

(21:25):
national revenue that is taken in by the federal government,
it's it's higher now than it has been historically. It's
lower than Europe, but Europe has a much lower standard
of standard of.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Living than we do.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
I think a lot of people don't really know that
it's much better live in America. And also, tax hikes
tend not to bring in the income they were projected
to bring in, and tax cuts tend not to reduce
revenue as much as people projected.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Do you do you disagree with me?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Do you think there's a lot of money to be
had on the revenue side, or that the big driver
is spending?

Speaker 5 (22:09):
The big driver going forward is automatic spending growth kind
of built in due to primarily, as I said, some
of these programs are as social security, healthcare related programs
that just grow automatically, right, So that is a big
key driver of the budget situation. The issue is it's
more called sort of a structural deficit.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Right.

Speaker 5 (22:29):
So it's a structural deficit in the sense that there
on the spending side, those things are projected just grow
and grow and grow, but your revenue is relatively flat, right,
Your revenue is projected to be releatively fat percentage You
need to put it right. And so the question is
how do you deal with that big structural and balance right,
because the spending is going to skyrocket so much, you're
either going to have to bend that spending curve enormously

(22:50):
right because it's really big to kind of get in line,
or you got to have some conversation about how you
generate some more revenue than you are relatively right now.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
No.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
One way you generate more revenue, okay, is by economic growth.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Right.

Speaker 5 (23:02):
The more economic growth you have, the more you can
bring into the revenue. And you I think alluded to
this at least in the tax cuts point right, is
that a lot of people make the argument that you
caught taxes. It obviously can stimulate growth. The issue there
is most people look at all these things, analysis analysis
on this is it can generate some growth, and the
past tax cuts have generated some growth, but it can't

(23:24):
generate enough to make up for the entire revenue. Looks
it's going to make up for some smaller portion of that. Okay,
it's not going to make up for the whole thing.
Some people have made the case to look at the
tax cuts, they kind of look at our revenue projections, Oh,
we've done pretty good, like relative to what they said.
That's true, But a lot of times what they're not
accounting for is the inflation. Like you look at the
baseline projections a couple of years ago where they might

(23:46):
have been for the tax cuts, and you think it
like matches up.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
It's like a lot of us do to inflation.

Speaker 5 (23:50):
The revenue is fire because of inflation, not necessarily the
task cuts broken inmong.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
So there's a.

Speaker 5 (23:54):
Lot there, and I think there are reasonable ways when
people look at this to maybe about generating more revenue.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
So all right, I want to do two more things
with you. So Kamala Harris. Always Democrats generally talk about
that the rich don't pay their fair share, and they're right,
but they're right in the opposite direction from what they believe.
The rich pay too much and the middle class don't
pay enough. In this country, you know, the top one

(24:23):
percent pay more than the bottom ninety five percent, and
the top one percent pay as a share of all
income taxes something like double their share of the national income.
And you know, you know the old Willy Horton thing,
you know, ask him why he robbed It's an apocryphal,
I'm sure, but when asked why he robbed banks, Willy
Horton said, that's where the money is. And I don't

(24:43):
think that the Democratic idea of raising corporate taxes and
taxes on the rich has any chance at all of
solving this problem because the rich are frankly not where
the money is. And the only way that you're going
to make a real difference on the revenue side is
by increasing taxes on the middle class, which which you know, what,
if we have to, we have to. I'm middle class.

(25:06):
You know I'll do my part as long as they're
also cutting spending and not making it worse.

Speaker 5 (25:13):
Right, So a couple of things on that for us, right, Like,
So one of the things that's been around for a
long time. People are talking about some of these budget
debates in Washington, they bring up taxes. Is they a
lot of people like to say and bemoone sort of
on the Republican side of the aisles, like there's this
no new taxes pledge, right like that that's been out
there for a while, but people can't talk about taxes.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
All on the Republican side.

Speaker 5 (25:33):
Well, guess what, there's a pledge on the Democratic side
now too, and it's been out there for a little while.
And that pledge is that they're not going to talk
about raising taxes for anyone below four hundred thousand dollars
a year. That pledge has been out there that by
administration put that out. Vice President Harris has basically been
stuck to that as well. And look, as a fiscal responsibility,

(25:54):
we obviously don't like those things. We don't think that
you should be tying your hands, okay when you have
such a troubling fiscal situation. And look, I get that
four hundred thousand dollars might not get you as far
relatively speaking in different parts of the country, et cetera.
But it's still four hundred thousand dollars okay. And they
basically have put that pledge out there right as a

(26:15):
way limiting that. So there's this pledge out that you're
kind of alluding to a little bit ross that kind
of gets at this very point.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
And yeah, you are.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
Correct, right, Look, there are probably ways that are going
to be on the table, should be on the table
to see where you're going to generate some more revenue
from people at the wealthy under expectrum, but there is
not enough money there, right, you're saying to deal with
the revenue side of this in a comprehensive way. At
the same time, what you often hear, right is from
the Democrats side of the so to speak, is a

(26:43):
lot of times those higher revenues that they want to say,
are you being used to finance new programs, right or
new initiatives not necessarily to use it to deal with
an already troubling fiscal situation.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
So, I think there's a couple of things there, But
I think you are basically spot on the very politically
difficult point is that the reality here is if you're
going to deal with this over the long term, revenues
below those that pledge line were probably going to have
to be on the table.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
We're talking with Mike Murphy, who is senior vice president
and chief of Staff at the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget CRFB dot org. Uh Okay, do two things
with me real quick, and then we'll go. Uh So.
Donald Trump's biggest failure as a president on domestic policy
was his lack of care for debt and deficit, and

(27:34):
many Republicans who used to pretend to care about debt
and deficit hid behind Donald Trump's skirts they when he
was president and just spent like Democrats and.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Donald Trump himself.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
You know, when we dropped all this insane helicopter money
into the economy, he wanted to spend more. So Donald
Trump is as bad as you could ever imagine a
Republican being on this issue. How should we expect anything
good will happen on this when our choices are Kamala
Harris and a Republican who spends like a Democrat.

Speaker 5 (28:11):
Well, yep, you' raising a good point. Ross has no
doubt about what you're saying in terms of the fact
that if you examine the records here, President Trump when
he was in office, worsened our fiscal situation. There's no
doubt about that, through a combination on the tax cuts
and spending side, and certainly based on what he's putting
forward from his campaign to date, not giving any indication

(28:32):
that that's going to change course, right, particularly when it
comes to it seems like on a weekly basis, offering
new ideas that.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
Are just going to cost more and more money.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
No taxes on Social Security, no taxes on overtime, no
taxes on pick you're writing, right, and it just keeps
coming out.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
So that's definitely concerning.

Speaker 5 (28:49):
And on the Harris side, they've said some things, try
to do some things where they're going to say they're
going to try and pay for some things. But as
I said, they are in a lot of cases, you know,
having men new initiatives but not enough to offset the
cost and then deal with the dead situation as well.
So you're right to be concerned. Here's where I'll give
you hope. I'll give you hope.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Is that.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Look, we work in Washington, and believe it or not,
well it does feel pretty lonely to work on an
advancing fiscal responsibility. There are a good number of members
of Congress that are really trying to do the right
thing on this. There's a group in the House called
the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum. It's headed up by bipartisan members
of Congress from both sides of the aisle. Bill heysinga
from Michigan Republican, and Scott Peters a Democrat from California,

(29:32):
And they are convening folks to try to focus on
these issues.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
And as I allude to, the.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Four of us, there are many action forcing moments next year.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
Where fiscal sit is going to be on the table.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
But the point here is that I'm trying to make
is I get and sympathize with your point about where's
the leadership on this at the presidential level, and that's
critically important. I'm not trying to downplay that, but there
are leaders in Congress that are trying to focus on
this and we need people from the outside to recognize
that and do everything.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
We kind of support them and doing so.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Mike Murphy, Senior VP with Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
These guys do a lot of great work CRFB dot org.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
If you forget any of that, just go to.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
My website at Rosskominsky dot com. All of this stuff
is linked to there in today's blog. Thanks for your time, Mike,
great conversation.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
We'll have you back.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Thanks ros, thanks for having me all right. Glad to
do it, glad to do it all right? That was
great stuff. I can't believe, I said, Willy Horton. Willie Sutton,
uh bank robber, Willie Sutton.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Sorry Friday brain.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Uh okay listener text just now joining. Is this conversation
online anywhere afterwards? Yes, all of my interviews. Almost all
of my interviews get posted on my website at Rosskominsky
dot com, which just redirects you to my koa page.
He did say right a lot. Yes, the guest did
say right a lot. I know, I know, I think
I prefer right to M. I prefer right to M.

(30:56):
Shannon knows who I'm talking about. Not going to say
the name, but we we we coached a guest out
of saying as much as he used to. Yes, he
did say right, I understand. The guests are posted. The
guests the interviews are posted at Rosskominsky dot com and
they go up as standalone podcasts within the podcast feed.

(31:16):
That so if you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
it doesn't matter what podcast have. Just go look for
the Ross Kominsky Show podcast subscribe to it.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
You can listen. No, it's free, Shannon, It's absolutely free.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
It's worth you know, it's worth a lot, but it's
actually free.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
And so there you could listen to a whole show.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
But we also break out the interviews as standalons so
you can you can listen to them.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Let me do two other quick stories with you.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Remember yesterday I told you that four teams had forfeited
their women's volleyball games against San Jose State without without
playing the game. Right, not in the middle of a game.
They just said, we're not playing you because there is
apparently a transgender player on San Jose State Blair with

(32:06):
any Blair something or other, I don't remember. The last
name hasn't actually been confirmed, but is also not denied
by San Jose State. And a bunch of teams, a
couple teams in Utah and Wyoming and Idaho have all said,
you know, we're not playing them. It's not fair if
there's a dude on the other team who's going to
spike the ball at our players at eighty miles an
hour and they're going to get hurt and they can't

(32:27):
get out of the way. And a dude named Sean
Keeler wrote this for the Denver Post, and this was
published when this morning, you know what, inclusive excellence Day
at Moby Arena didn't include drose of arm police protests
outside or inside the facility. The Colorado State Rams swept

(32:50):
San Jose State three to nothing, no offensive signs, no hollering,
a trans player took the court for the visiting Spartans.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
And it felt like any other Mountain.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
West volleyball match, which of course it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And this is a quote from this.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Is a quote from the San Jose State Spartan's volleyball coach,
and he said, yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
I walked up to the CSU.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Coach, Emily Cohen, and I was like, should I say
thank you for playing us tonight? And I seriously meant that,
because of course we were disappointed that we were losing
opportunities to play. But it's not just us that are
losing opportunities to play, it's the people choosing not to
play us. And that's very unfortunate when it comes to
these young women who have earned the right to step

(33:34):
on the court and play.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
And I mentioned that yesterday too.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
I still think the NCAA has a real problem here.
I think the fact that the Colorado State team swept
San Jose three games to none shows that having one
kind of physically dominant player on a team sport with
a large team like volleyball players like a volleyball team

(33:57):
is shows that probably, you know, one player isn't going
to change the outcome of the game. But that really
wasn't the objection of the other teams. The objection of
the other teams was the risk of the ultra high
power spikes by that one player. Where you have female
volleyball players who have never seen a ball come out
them that fast and can't get out.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Of the way and get hurt.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
So in any case, I do think the NCAA still
has an issue here. This writer for the Denver Post
is not sympathetic at all to the teams that forfeited,
and you know, basically is arguing they should have just
played the game. I'm not going to take a position
on that, but I did want to share that story
with you. One other very quick thing. There was another
air strike in bay Root yesterday and the headline from

(34:41):
Times of Israel Nosrala's presumed successor said to be target
of heavy Israeli strike in Beyroot, and it just leaves
me continuing to wonder who the heck wants that promotion.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
I'll have another pair of tickets to give away.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
The trivia question that was asked and answered correctly by
Eric and while dragging you know the answer now because
you've been reading the text line, But would you have
known the answer? What was the quick question is what
is the oldest currently operating brewery in the United States,
which also happens to be the biggest American owned brewery

(35:16):
in the United States? Because Budweiser and Cores and so
all that these companies are now owned by the European
or South American and European and Canadian companies.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
So what's the.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Oldest brewery in the US and it also happens to
be the biggest American owned brewing company.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Would you have known the answer to that?

Speaker 6 (35:36):
I probably would have guessed incorrectly, but I think deep
down I have heard that correct information before, so it
sounds right. When I see the name, I think I'm
I'm probably with you on that it Would you know if, like.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
If you gave me ten chances to guess it, I
would have guessed it.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Like ten guests would have been in there. It would
have been in there.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
And the answer is Yangling from Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Y U
E n G L I ng not not always the
easiest beer to get here in Colorado, but it's pretty
good beer and I like Yengling. So anyway, that's the
oldest brewery currently operating in the United States of America.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
And again, good job by Eric to win that.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
And we'll do another pair of tickets for the Great
American Beer Festival sometime later in the show with another
trivia question I was just gonna ask.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
It was just to make sure that it's going to
be a different trivia. Yes, it will be a different one.
It's gonna be slightly easier, it will be a.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Different And I could have done two winners based on
one trivia question, but I decided not to.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Can I tell you why I decided not to. Well,
imagine how much fun it would be for the second
guy later on.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
If you had the same question, the same question, that
would be funny. No, the reason I decided to break
it up into two. So here's the thing. At first,
I was thinking, all right, Ross, you're a fundamentally lazy person,
and wouldn't it be nice to be able to fill
up three minutes of the show giving away tickets rather
than having to think of something to talk minutes? You
must be new here wasting time. I know, I know

(37:05):
you and me I know, but here okay, But here's
the problem. You're seriously unrescivating yourself.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
At three minutes.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
I was thinking to myself, all right, I could I
could fill some time in the show giving away tickets,
and it'll be real easy. And then this morning, I
swear to you, I took at least ten minutes maybe
more researching the trivia question that I'm going to use
for the trivia question for the next one. So it
ended up being a huge time waster for me when

(37:34):
I thought it was only going to be a time
waster for you. And I'm perfectly happy wasting your time
but not mine. And and it didn't work out that
way at all. And you've wasted that time for yourself.
So now that we're you've already wasted your time. Now
we have to waste everybody your time. Yeah, yeah, everybody's everybody.
That makes perfect sense. Yes, thank you, thank you very little.

(37:56):
Congratulations to the Cherry Greek Arts Festival, which I've only
been a couple of times, but I have thoroughly enjoyed
it when i've been there. In fact, we have a
spectacular kind of it would sculpture, very edgy looking little
I'm not gonna describe it anymore. We have a piece
of art at our house that we really really like
that we bought at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival a

(38:18):
few years back. And I'm mentioning this to you because
a group called the International Festivals and Events Association, which
is described let's see who did this article is in
This is a Denver Post article.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
It's described in the Denver.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Post as the largest professional organization for that industry, the
festivals and events industry. And they have a cat They
have different categories where they where they rank festivals and
events based on and the categories are based on the
budget for the event, right, because it's not really fair
to have an event that has a two million dollar

(38:53):
budget compete with an event that has a twenty thousand
dollars budget. Okay, but in that big category, which is budget,
it's more than a million. Cherry Creek Arts Festival just
took home the Gold Grand Pinnacle Award from this from
this organization. It's actually the sixth time that the Cherry
Creek Arts Festival has won that award in the thirty

(39:14):
four year history of the Cherry Creek Art Arts Festival,
but it's the first time in over a decade, first
time since twenty thirteen.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
And there you go. I'll just pardon me. I'll read
this to you for those who haven't been to the
Cherry Creek Arts.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Festival, because it's pretty cool and it's passed.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
For this year already, but still.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
The sprawling Cherry Creek event is the high point of
denver summer outdoor art festival season, taking place in the
Cherry Creek North shopping district just southeast of downtown Denver,
and it typically includes about two hundred and fifty juried artists,
live music, art, education, and food and drink. Next year's
event is scheduled for July fourth to sixth. Then, Yeah,

(39:55):
one of the nice things about this is it's so
in demand from the people who I want to be
there and sell that. You know, you have to apply
and you have to be jewelied before you are allowed
to be a seller of art at the Cherry Creek
Art Festival. So you can find a lot of really
good art there and I really dig it. So congratulations
to the Cherry Creek Art Festival. And if you haven't

(40:16):
been before, or you haven't been in a while, then
go next year. I mean it's you know, ten months away,
but still go next year.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
What else? Actually it's nine nine months away. I want
to get that math right.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
I would have totally thrown off your schedule for the
rest of how long if I told you something was
ten months away it was actually nine months away, and
then you missed it, and then you blamed me.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
It's all your fault.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
It's all my fault, right, It's all my fault, all right.
So you heard Chad Bauer mention that the dock workers
strike is over. They got for now a sixty two
percent raise, and they're just continuing on with the existing
terms in their contract for three months except for a
sixty two percent raise, and next year they are going

(41:01):
to sit down to negotiate what are going to be
the remaining terms. I do have a couple of things
that I want to say about this. One I'm gonna
say now, another one I'll probably talk about in the
in the next segment of the show. And what I
want to say now is this, and it's indirectly related
to the dock workers strike. People started hoarding toilet paper.

(41:24):
You remember during COVID, like you couldn't find toilet paper,
and you could almost kind of sort of understand it
because during COVID, manufacture of lots and lots of things
and transport of lots and lots of things.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Basically shut down.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
But it made absolutely no sense at all for people
to be hoarding toilet paper because of the dock workers strike.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Because toilet paper.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Almost all of the toilet paper that we use in
the United States is made in the United States and
just you know, goes around on train and truck, not
on chips, and there was no reason for people people
to start hoarding it. I actually posted a picture on
my blog at Roskiminski dot com. There's somebody's post on
on on Twitter of empty shelves in the toilet paper

(42:09):
section in their in their local walmart.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Really really nuts.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
And you do sometimes wonder how this nation survives when
you've got people whose brains work like that. Coming up
next in the next five minutes is this hour's chance
to win a thousand bucks in this hour's keyword for cash?

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Keep it here on Koa Ross.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
I only bought toilet paper because I knew others would
be hoarding. Well, aren't you part of the problem then,
I mean, I get it, But that's how bad things happen.
That's why we can't have nice things to people like you.

Speaker 6 (42:41):
I mean, his logic kind of kind of makes sense,
It kind of makes sense.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
But if everybody starts thinking that way, right, then what
are you gonna wipe your Oh man, you know what
that that actually that reminds me of something. Hold on,
I need to I need to get something going here
for a second, because this is all right.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
There's gonna be in a second. I'm asking you to
put my audio.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Up because this this thing about why we why we
can't have nice things? All right, let's let's see if
we can sew I'm I know, I'm not actually had
this on the show sheet before, and I forgot about
it until we started talking about toilet paper. So you
can tell how bad this is about to be, and
and in fact, you might in retrospect think of it

(43:26):
as a massive waste of your time. And if so,
you're welcome, all right. Kristin and I went on vacation recently.
Part of the time was in the city in Cartagena, Columbia,
and then part of the time was at a beach
resort not too far from there, and every you basically
rent like your own little cabin. It's not, you know,

(43:49):
a tall building with lots of rooms. Everybody's got their
own little almost like a little mini house. And the
toilet had on it one of these fancy toilet seats
that functions as a B day And the whole concept
of B day has come up on the show in

(44:10):
the past, and there have been a handful of people
who have bought these fancy kinds of toilets that are
as Tom Waits noted moments ago big in Japan and said, Ross,
once you tried it, you'll never go back. And so
I said, all right, I'm gonna try it. So I'm
sitting on the toilet and this thing has a wired

(44:32):
remote control with an immense number of buttons, and then
hanging on the wall is a double sided instruction card
with one side in Spanish and one side in English,
because I was in a Spanish speaking country, but there's
a lot of English speaking guests. And one button says
something like turbo wash. All right, all right, you know,

(44:54):
so I did what I needed to do there on the.

Speaker 6 (44:56):
Toilet, just had some taco bells.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Something like that, something like that, and and and so
I hit the button. In this stream of warm water
fires out from behind my rear end right more or
less at the area where that yeah right, yeah, yeah,

(45:20):
we get it. We And it was it was odd.
It was really really odd. And then okay, so it
does that for some amount of time and.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
It stops, and then you have.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
An option if you want to to hit a different button.
That blows hot air to dry it off. And this
is this is what it seemed like to me.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Dragon.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Have you ever had a pair of sunglasses that were
dusty and so you brought them up to your mouth,
you went on the two lenses and then wipe the
lenses off with a cleaning cloth.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Have you ever done that?

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (45:58):
I have.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, So it like.

Speaker 6 (46:00):
Someone was doing that to my butt. Uh I And
here I'm not sure I quite get it.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
It was so uncomfortable having this sort of low ish pressure,
warm air blowing on my butt from behind.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
And then after all that, I'm like, I'm gonna get
some toilet paper and white.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
I don't trust. I don't trust any of that. And
it was and it was, it was. It was way
too weird. It wasn't particularly comfortable. I didn't get the
sense necessarily that it was especially effective, although I didn't
go inspect in one way or another. And and I've
just got to say, I'm I'm I'm never doing that again.

(46:50):
I'm never I'm never doing that again. This listener says, Ross,
I just decided to get.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
A B day.

Speaker 6 (46:57):
You're never doing the drying posture either, either. Because when
we went to Egypt, the days were all over. Yeah,
but I didn't use one.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
I used it every time you did.

Speaker 6 (47:05):
But I still use the toilet paper because I was
wet afterwards, right, all right, I gotta make sure I'm dry, right,
So now, indeed it's got a dryer in it.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Indeed, it might be kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Another listener says, I bought three B days forty three dollars.
Each takes five minutes to install. Yeah, and then it's
like getting a boat. The best days of the day
you buy it the day you sell it. Right, I'm
never doing that again. I'm going to spend a minute
or two just to respond to some listener texts about
our our very high minded dare I say intellectual conversation

(47:36):
in the in the previous segment about this B day
functioning kind of toilet seat that I experienced when on
vacation with christin a few weeks ago.

Speaker 6 (47:46):
And it was like saying that you didn't use a
single beday in Egypt?

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Correct, not once? I didn't even I don't even remember
noticing them, but yeah, maybe I remember were they like,
were they on the river boat?

Speaker 2 (48:00):
They were everywhere?

Speaker 6 (48:02):
Yeah, even the little podunk restaurants that we went to Yeah.
I mean, yeah, good restaurants, but you know, very uninhabited restaurants.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
They were there too.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Really, yeah, I guess I just tune them out.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
You know.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
It was funny.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
I always I always thought that I wouldn't enjoy the
experience very much. But then we had all these listeners
texting in the last time we talked about it, and
they said, Ross, once you try it, you know you're
gonna go buy one.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
You're never gonna You're never gonna go back. You mean
to say, DC is not putting up a day in
your home. Interesting.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
I hadn't even thought about that, and so people said
all that, like, Ross, you really got to try it.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
And I am very very open to trying new things.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
And you know, I'm probably not quite as much of
an early adopter as I used to be when I
was young, but I thought I got very very smart
listeners and if they say that, I probably will dig something.
And my objection is really just probably because I haven't
tried it before, I should I should probably try it.
And so I did and they were absolutely absolutely wrong,
and they were completely wrong. Uh, listen listener comment, Ross,

(49:04):
I really hope the resort had a significant sanitizing regimen
for both the remote control and the.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Instructions for it.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
I did respond to that listener text and said, I
have no idea.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
It never occurred to me, but I hope they do too.
Ross Was the toilet paper clean? So?

Speaker 1 (49:20):
I was talking about the toilet paper I used after
I used the b DA, And actually more than one
person I think asked that question was the toilet paper
toilet paper clean? When I used the toilet paper after
using the b DA, to which my response is, I
think you're suggesting that I should have looked at the
toilet paper.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Why would the toilet paper not be clean? I'm confused
by that.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Way and why? And was I supposed to When people
are saying was the toilet paper clean? Is it because
they think that I should have looked at the toilet
paper just as part of the overall science experiment of
using the b DA and seeing if it did a
good job, or because these are people who routinely look
at the toilet paper after using it.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
I did neither.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
I do need.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
I do not know.

Speaker 6 (50:05):
How do you test if toilet paper is cleaned? You
do you taste it?

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Ew? That's gross curious. I know they must mean they
must mean visually. Oh, okay, right, is there a mark
on it? I'm just trying to do this in the
least gross way possible. Okay, is there a mark on it?
I wouldn't because it would beating up on the roll,
it would be marks on it. It would be gross
if I said something like, is there a skid mark

(50:29):
on it? So I'm not gonna say that, right, So
is skid marks are gross? After after you use, after
you use the toilet paper? Are you suggesting I should
have inspected it? I don't inspect my toilet paper. Sorry,
I guess maybe you're maybe you're from the South and
and that's a thing there. But I didn't grow up
inspecting my used toilet paper.

Speaker 6 (50:51):
Early nineties that you know, they started doing like colored
toilet paper.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
There was like red, really blue, and I do not recall, No,
I don't. Did you, yeah, did you use him?

Speaker 2 (51:01):
I wonder it was, you know, just for the novelty
of it, man, I wonder.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Why they went away. Maybe people were getting you know,
food coloring on there.

Speaker 6 (51:07):
I think that's probably why. Yeah, and what would cost
more to make because you have to add color to it?

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Right right, this.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Listener says, good toilet paper with a quick squirt of
which hazel is the way a real man wipes his bleep.
Wiping with dry toilet paper is akin to being a
farm animal.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
So I will say, first of all.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I've never heard that from anyone before about putting which
hazel on toilet ever have you?

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (51:31):
And why would you want to sprits anything? No, you've
never heard of that before, never heard of it, never done.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
It, never heard of it, never done it, and never
gonna do it probably correct?

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Correct?

Speaker 6 (51:39):
Why are you going to sprits the toilet paper. It's
going to make it wet, which is going to make it's.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
That's true, that's true.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Then you could then you could get a spot that
wears out either right in the middle of the toilet
paper or right where your fingers happen to be, and
then your fingers go through the toilet paper.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
That thing.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
You're trying not to talk. You've got work to do
back there. You want the strug, Yes, you want the
cool possible. Yeah, that's a good point. That is a
good point. Also, as we have established earlier in the
show and at other times, I am a fundamentally lazy person.
And when so what you were What you were doing

(52:15):
here is adding a step, right, you are saying, Ross,
before before you wipe, you should add a step. That
step being squirting this thing on the toilet paper. But
it barely matters what the step is. You are adding
a step and the answer to that is no. My
friend Melissa just texted me saying she is obsessed with
B days and just put a little emoji of little

(52:38):
little water drops. Corin, who was on our trip to Egypt.
Hi Corin said she didn't notice the B days there either.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
What else?

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Ross?

Speaker 1 (52:49):
The BDA cleans most of it. Also, you only need
a little bit of toilet paper to finish the job.
So I had to sit there for like the better
part of a minute between the washing and the drying.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
I am not.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
But if you're gonna waste time wasting, we are.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
This is perfect. This is perfect. This is full on professional.
This isn't even semi professional. This professional time wasting. Right now,
let me let me ask you and listeners a question.
I want you to text me at five six six
nine zero. There are two kinds of people when it
comes to go into the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
I have to text you or can I just answer.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
No, you can answer, and everybody else can tell. If
you're here, you can just walk into the studio and
tell me. But there, when it comes to doing number
two in the bathroom, you could, perhaps if you were
so inclined. You're wondering whether I'm gonna say something super
gross right now, right, you know, yeah, something that's like

(53:47):
going to be an FCC violation. No, you could, if
you were so inclined, divide the population into two categories
of people. And I am distinctly in one of these
categories of people. I do not sort of cross between them,
and you don't wash your legs.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
The category where.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
You sit on the toilet for a long time, reading
a book, reading a newspaper, playing on your phone, doing
all kinds of things, and you make social media and
you make an event out of it, and you will
sit on the toilet for you know, a minimum of
four minutes, in a maximum of twenty minutes, break time,
irrit fifteen minutes. And then the other category is like

(54:27):
you get in, you do your business, and you get out.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Which are you?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Text me at five sixty six nine zero, text me
at five six You could word it any way you want,
right as quick as possible, or I linger, or I
like to read in the toilet, you know, in the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Whatever. What about you, dragon?

Speaker 1 (54:44):
I think you probably know which category I'm in, But
what category are you in?

Speaker 6 (54:49):
Or do you kind of do both? It depends on
the where I am and what I am doing. So
if I'm here at work and something happened and I
have to, I don't like here at work. If I
have to, I'm gonna try and make that experience as
quickly as humanly possible.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
Okay. But if I'm at home, I was like, uh, well, yeah, okay,
I got some time.

Speaker 6 (55:10):
Okay, let make sure I got my phone. My phone's good. Yeah,
it makes sure I'm comfortable. You take your time, you
ever read?

Speaker 1 (55:16):
You're like, I mean, nobody has a physical newspaper anymore,
But do you like.

Speaker 6 (55:20):
Bring a book? Well before my phone? You just grab
the shampoo bottle and go home.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yeah, and then you try to read all the chemicals
that you can't pronounce. I am distinctly in the category
if I get in to get out as fast as possible,
and I don't think there's something morally wrong with being
in the other category, although unless you do quite a
bit of courtesy flushing for yourself, then you're probably gonna
be sitting in some stank for a while.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
But your legs start going up. But for me, yeah,
your legs start going numb.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Oh do you remember this is probably back in the
same days as the colored toilet paper, but the padded
toilet seats.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Oh yeah, time. I haven't seen padded toilet seats in
a while. Sure they still exist.

Speaker 6 (55:59):
When we bought our house ten years ago, we got
the padded toilet seats, but they crack after maybe a
year or so. So you sit down and you pinch yourself, like, no,
this is not where I want to be. So you
get the you know right, this listener says, sit, PLoP,
get Yeah, I'm in that category now.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Now I will say this other listener says, you got
to do whirdles, and you know what, I am down with.
That sometimes fits early in the morning, you know, Like
I'm pretty regular. Usually I'll have a bowl of cereal
or a bowl of something, and then I'll need to
go to the bathroom, And like dragon, I prefer not
to have to do that here at the radio station.
Not that the bathrooms here are grosser ring, but it's

(56:44):
kind of public, and you just like, you know, thank you.

Speaker 6 (56:46):
You only have a few minutes because you've got a
special break and that's it.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
But I do agree with the person who says you
got to do wordle, and so I will sometimes bring
my phone and do wordle while I'm sitting on the toilet,
but usually that's less than a minute, so I'm still
not sitting there for a long time.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
I got wordling three today.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
By the way, Yeah, this listener says enough, no, no,
if we stopped here, one more question. If if we
stopped here, that would be semi professional time wasting, and
I'm looking to do professional time wasting, all right, dragon,
what's your question?

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Squatty potty? Have you heard of it? Have you used it?

Speaker 4 (57:23):
Yes? And no.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
But I think there's a concept there where it's like,
if you angle your joints in your head right in
a somewhat different angle from the way they normally are
when you're sitting on a toilet, it makes it easier
to evacuate exactly.

Speaker 6 (57:41):
Everything is empties out easy, easier. Yeah, yeah, you, yeah,
I have one. Does it work? And I love it?
Does it work?

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Huh? Well we can keep going since we're trying to
be professional here.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (57:55):
Yeah, Candy was actually talking about it because we were
talking not long ago about items that you must bring along.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yeah, or was it a poop Hurrie?

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
That that you spray, right, I know I've heard Mandy
talk about that.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Have you ever used that?

Speaker 3 (58:10):
No?

Speaker 1 (58:10):
But I think maybe my wife does, because every once
in a while I'll walk into a bathroom at home
and there's some kind of air freshening sort of thing
on the tank in the back, you know, sitting on
the tank, and.

Speaker 6 (58:20):
It's not an air freshener for like, you know, it's
like a spray like ass, like a missed thing.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 6 (58:26):
You do it in the bowl, not oh really in
the bl I'm pretty sure we'll have to double check
with Mandy when she comes back, you know, to.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Ruin our Wow.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Yeah, this person says a few sprintzes in the water
before you go, oh my gosh, all right, I want
to do some other things, even though I could probably
do that for a long time. Uh, So audio up,
if you would please, Dragon, I'm switching gears here entirely.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
We wasted plenty of your time and mine.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Uh so this has been getting a lot of attention,
especially in conservative media in the past couple of days,
with the disaster that's been going on in North Carolina,
Western North Carolina, Ashville and other places. You're talking about
as some people are out there trying to work on
the rescue, talking about apocalyptic, biblical levels of damage, like

(59:12):
you can't believe what you're seeing. And there are a
lot of people complaining about a lot of things in
ways that I think goes beyond just partisanship, and we
want to complain about about the party that happens to
be in office right now. I'm going to share with
you some audio in a second, but I'm going to
describe something else.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Something I was.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Listening to this morning was an interview that I think
was maybe yesterday on Fox Business, and they were interviewing
a guy who brought his own helicopter or works for
a company that has helicopters, and they're flying stuff in
to help people, but also they used the helicopter to
rescue some people and get them out of a place
where they just couldn't stay anymore. And he brought him
to a hotel in some town and there is a

(59:51):
security guard out front, and the security guard said, you said,
you can't stay here. This hotel has been booked for
federal employees, And of course there weren't nearly enough federal
employees there to fill the hotel, but they were apparently
not gonna let local people who were just rescued from
a mountain with you know, six days without running water

(01:00:12):
and food and electricity and all this stuff, and they're
gonna like book up.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
An entire hotel for federal employees.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
And there's a lot of stories coming out of there
now that really do sound sound pretty bad. And I'm
not one of these people to go bashing FEMA. I
think mostly they do great work, okay, but every once
in a while, even small decisions can end up turning
into pr nightmares, and that could certainly be one of them. Now,

(01:00:39):
what I've got for you here is this is a
compilation of two different audio clips from Alejandro Majorchis, who
is the Secretary of Homeland Security and by far the
worst secretary of anything that I can remember, long long time.

(01:01:01):
If this guy worked in a private corporation as a
senior executive, he would have been fired very very very
long ago. He is terrible. He is incompetent. He's the worst.
So this first thing is myriorcist speaking a few months ago.

Speaker 7 (01:01:18):
FIVA is tremendously prepared. This is what we do. This
is what they do. And the key here, Rebecca, is
also to make sure that the communities who are potentially
impacted are prepared as well. And it's not just hurricanes
and wildfires, also extreme heat, which certainly is some parts

(01:01:40):
of the United States are already experiencing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
A secondary Okay, so so that was three months ago, right,
he said we are tremendously prepared for her. He's talking
specifically about hurricane season. We're tremendously prepared. This is what
we do. This is what they do. Now let's hear
a little more. I think the first words are going
to be a Fox News reporter and then you'll hear
my orcis again. Okay, Elejondro, myorc is sounding the alarm

(01:02:06):
on THEMA funding right after the devastation of Hurricane Eileen.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Listen, we are.

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
Meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have.
We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have
the funds. So FEMA does not have the funds to
make it through the season.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
This Wow, Okay, so that's our federal government. This is
why you should never rely on government. This is especially
why you should never put an incompetent person in charge of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
An important function of government. But here we are.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Now, there's been some talk about FEMA having used over
the past couple of fiscal years something close to a
billion dollars on money to support illegal aliens. Now I
don't I'm guessing that that number is probably right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
I don't know whether that number.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Was specifically appropriated by Congress for that purpose so that
it never would have been available for natural disaster recovery efforts,
or whether it was just part of femous budget and
that it could have been used for natural disaster recovery efforts.
I do think it's kind of nuts that FEMA spent
a billion dollars on stuff for I think it's nuts

(01:03:20):
that every government has Denver government has spent what they've spent,
and I think the country is completely out of control
on that. Don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
If we lived in a normal world and we had
a halfway decent Republican candidate, just the fact of all
of this illegal immigration insanity would cause the sitting vice
president who was presiding over this illegal immigration tsunami. To
be twenty points well ten points behind in a presidential election,

(01:03:56):
it's just so beyond frustrating frustrating in any case, there's
a lot of talk about this today. The last I heard,
and this could change. The last I heard, that storm
that they thought might be turning into another hurricane looked
like maybe it was dissipating a little bit. But I
haven't checked it in a day or so, and these

(01:04:17):
things can change very quickly. After all, Hurricane Helene was
Category one and then very quickly ramped up to category
four before it hit Florida. And then as it scaled
down where the winds were still fast but not disastrously fast,
then it moved inland. And now we've got over two

(01:04:38):
hundred dead because of the rain and the rain and
the mud and the flash flooding and all that stuff.
Let me do one other local story here over in
the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver, there's a natural grocer's store.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
It's actually a Colorado company.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Their headquarters are in Lakewood, and a couple of days
ago they announced that the store at fourteen thirty three
Washington Street is going to close on the last day
of this month, right so about four weeks from now.
And what they said was, we've been actively working to
address the theft and safety issues impacting our store at

(01:05:18):
Colfax and Washington for some time. Despite our investment in
security and loss prevention strategies over the years, these factors
have continued to challenge our ability to operate our store
safely and sustainably, and we have made the difficult decision
to close our doors at this location. And I just
think this is a tragedy, not because I care about
natural grocers one way or another, but because you were

(01:05:41):
talking about something that might be within a baseballs throw
if you have a good enough arm or a golf shot,
if you've got a good enough swing of the state
capital of the state capitol. And this store, which is
a fairly upmarket store, is going to have to close

(01:06:01):
down because of crime, because of theft, and because of
risk to employees and customers. And what that means is
the city in County of Denver is unable to control
the crime. And of course, because of a combination of
lawyers and insurance companies and so on, most companies are
not aggressively trying to stop the crime with the kinds

(01:06:24):
of physical measures that you might want, right like, if
somebody steals something, then you cut their finger off, or
you bash them over the head, or you break a
knee cap.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Or you know, you hold them there with a.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Gun, you take the stuff, and then the cops come
and take them away. But since the das aren't prosecuting
any of this stuff, and since there aren't enough police
and they don't care that much anyway about this low
level crime, now you've got stores closing, you've got people
losing jobs, you've got the city losing tax revenue. You've
got people who would like to shop there and buy
whatever you buy it natural grossers can't buy it anymore
or have to go somewhere else. And to me, to me,

(01:06:58):
this demonstrates an incredible failure of Colorado generally and Denver specifically,
that in the capital of our state, a city that
should be, you know, like Ronald Reagan's Shining City on
the hill, even though it's not quite on a hill,
is a place that stores cannot keep safely open.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
And I think it's a travesty.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
And I also think that if Denver rights want things better,
they need to elect better people to city council. I'm
going to start on another topic and maybe the dood
will show up, and maybe he won't. Now, I often
don't do a topic on the show where I'm trying
to get a guest on the topic. Usually I will

(01:07:44):
wait for the guest, but I have no idea if
and I don't mean the guest I'm about to have
right now, I just mean in general, if I think
I'm gonna be able to get someone to talk about something,
I will usually not talk about that thing until I
have that person. I don't know if I'm gonna be
able to get the guests. And this topic is so
crazy that I want to just share it with you
a little bit right now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
This is from Forbes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
Metas ray bands smart glasses used to instantly docs strangers
in public thanks to AI and facial recognition. Now I've
got some links to all this stuff that I think
you're really going to want to look at, and it's
up at Roskaminsky dot com. Now, two students at Harvard
put together this system that they call I x ray,

(01:08:28):
So I the letter I hyphen x ray and I'm
gonna kind of dumb it down a little bit here
for for me, not for you, and explain this as
as best I understand it. So they got these high
tech glasses from Meta, which is parent company of Facebook,

(01:08:51):
and they use those glasses you you know you're wearing
and you look at someone, and the glasses can then
essentially take a picture of someone and feed that image
into something because these are Internet connected glasses.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
So then they connected that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
They connected the video from the glasses into Instagram, and
then they have a computer program that monitors the Instagram
video feed and then they use AI to detect when
the video feed includes a person's face, and then they

(01:09:35):
use available information on the Internet, including some databases that
specialize in having facial recognition data. They pass the face
that they captured on the glasses through one of these things.
They determine face whose name goes with that face, They

(01:09:58):
determine who that person is, and then they further then
take that name and send it through other online databases
that we'll get things about the person based on the name,
and of course there can be other people with the
same name and you have to filter through that, but
still articles about them. They'll go scour voter registration databases

(01:10:23):
to get their phone number, their addresses, the names of relatives.

Speaker 5 (01:10:31):
And.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
One of these Harvard students said, using our glasses, we
were able to identify dozens of people, including Harvard students,
without them ever knowing. So what they do is they
just be walking down a path and you know in Harvard,
let's say, or or around town or on the subway,
and they're wearing the glasses and they look at somebody.

Speaker 6 (01:10:51):
This feels a little bit like the scene in Minority
Report where Tom Cruise is walking through the whole. Then
the cameras are looking at him and they started directed
advertising towards him. Very much similar but different. But it's like,
that's scary.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
It's scary, and in fact, it's interesting that you put
it that way because the way I noted this on
my blog is that I'm not normally someone who is
fearful of new technologies, but this is pretty scary because
what they do, and they show this in the video
which is on my blog again Roskimisky dot com. Click

(01:11:25):
on the TGIF blogcast I do that for don't even ask.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
How it's spelled.

Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
Dragon.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Is that what the Silent three?

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
I was thinking about that I almost bought it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
It didn't though, So.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
They they look at someone with the glasses, and not
much after that they get on their own phones a
whole bunch of information about the person. So, you know,
they're on campus at Harvard and they look at this
young woman through the glasses and then they have a
conversation with her like, oh, so are you related to
Susan and John And she said yeah, those are my

(01:11:59):
parents and you know, and this other one, Oh, you
went to the you know, Yale something something.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
High school summer program, didn't you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
And then they're in I think a subway station and
there's just this random dude, not a student.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
They look at him with the glasses and.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
And they determine and then they they don't say to
this guy that they're doing this thing, but they go
up to him and say are you are you like
I think I know you. Don't you work in this
particular area like regard immigrant something something? And uh he
said yeah I do, and and and then the guy

(01:12:40):
with the glasses says, isn't your name? And then whatever
the name is is actually a Middle Eastern name, not
a common name, and yeah, that's me and the guy
with the glasses, oh, I've read your writing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
I really enjoy your work.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
And you know, he didn't do anything harmful to the guy,
but he also didn't tell him what was going on.
And gosh, it's just it's unbelievable. It's absolutely unbelievable. So
the people who did this put up a very short
two page Google document which describes in very plain English
how this works, and then near the end of the document,

(01:13:11):
it describes some things that you can do to try
to reduce the probability or possibility of this kind of
thing being used on you, Like how you can try
to get your face out of those facial recognition databases,
how you can try to get your data out of
these massive databases that are sold by data brokers. You
have no idea how big that business is, and it's

(01:13:33):
well worth looking at that. And I'm trying to get
one of these guys from Harvard who did this to
come on the show. These are kids, these are not professors,
these are students. I'm trying to get one of them
on the show to explain about it a little bit more,
even though I explained it a lot already, And.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
Just it's rare.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
It's rare that I see a new let's say non
military technology, and think to myself, that's kind of scary.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
But here we are.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
It's not just that someone could walk down the street
and look at you with their magic glasses and know
your name.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
That's scary enough.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
It's they could walk down the street look you with
their magic glasses and know your address and follow you home.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Or you know what?

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
What about some I mean, I guess I'm gonna pick
the worst possible example. What about what about a rapist
or a would be kidnapper? Right, there's probably not as
much information in these online facial databases and other databases
about kids, but let's you know, what about a would
be rapist who sees a you know, attractive twenty five

(01:14:36):
year old woman walking down the street and and the
glasses identify her name and where she lives, and and
then and then he at some other point like goes
their knocks on the door and says, you know, missus
or not missus, but you know Julie Smith, this is
so and so from the city.

Speaker 2 (01:14:58):
We're doing whatever, And.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
She opens the door because he knows her name, so
so he's probably official. And then right, it's scary, It
really is scary. Let me do a couple other short
stories with you. This one is the dumbest story of
the day yesterday, and all of the kind of left
wing media outlets were just running with this story, just breathlessly.

(01:15:21):
I'll give you the AP headline, but all the headlines
were basically the same. Photo shows US Representative Mike Lawler
wearing blackface at a college Halloween party in two thousand
and six. Okay, so eighteen years ago, when he was
a college sophomore. Here's the story. By the way, the
dude apologized. I don't think he should have apologized, but

(01:15:44):
he did. And I will also note this is a
Republican in a slightly Democratic leaning district in New York.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
I think it's in the suburbs of the city.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
I think I don't remember where his district is though,
but you know so, I think all the left wing
media has been running with this story because I think
this is a chance to knock it republican out of
Congress and replace him with the Democrats. So they're all
running with this thing. But here's the story. So when
he was sophomore in college, this is Hudson Valley. By way,

(01:16:16):
It's Hudson Valley of New York. When he was in college,
he went to a Halloween party and he went as
Michael Jackson. And I haven't seen the picture. I guess
there's a picture out there. And this is what he
said when attempting to imitate Michael's legendary dance moves at

(01:16:36):
a college Halloween party eighteen years ago. The ugly practice
of blackface was the furthest.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
Thing from my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
Let me be clear, this is not that, he said,
adding that the costume was intended as a genuine homage
to one of my childhood idols.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
That's what he said.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
He said, I'm a student of history, and for anyone
who takes offense to the photo, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
All you can do is live and learn.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
I appreciate everyone's grace along the way. So the dude
was taken when Lawler was twenty years old, and in
the picture, again which I haven't seen, he can be
seen wearing a red jacket and posing with an outstretched
arm in one of Michael Jackson's signature dance moves.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
And he used bronzer to darken his face.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
So it wasn't even like black shoe polish or what.
I have no idea what people do blackface with but
he was bronzer, so that would and remember, and again
is going to sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I promise.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
You I'm not right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
Michael Jackson, from the time he was very young to
the time he passed away kept getting whiter and whiter
and whiter, and he was clearly bleaching his own skin
over the years to be less dark skinned. And I
guess that by the time Lawler kind of wanted to

(01:17:55):
do this, Michael Jackson was somewhere through that process. But
the key point is Lawler is a huge fan of
Michael Jackson and loved Michael Jackson's music and dance moves.
And also remember this a long time ago, before all
of that stuff about the kids, and this is just
a college kid who loved the guy who was probably

(01:18:19):
the best dancer in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
At that time.

Speaker 6 (01:18:21):
And I haven't seen the photos, but a college kid
who says used a bronzert, he got a tan, he
got a good tan. Yeah, I'm just sure I'm fully understanding, right, while.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
While clearly dressing like Michael Jackson, trying to dance like
Michael Jackson, doing poses like Michael Jackson, by which I
mean he was complimenting Michael Jackson.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
You know they what do they say?

Speaker 7 (01:18:49):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
What is it? Mimicry is the is the most sincere
form of flattery.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Imitation.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. That's what
that was. And now suddenly, you know, the New York
Times and the AP and whatever think this is an
important story.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
It's not an important story.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
It's only out there because these left wing media outlets
think that they can take out a Republican in a
swing state, and it's just really, really kind of gross.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
All Right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
At some point in the next segment of the show,
I'm going to give away another pair of tickets to
Thursday's Great American Beer Festival, which it's not The Great
American Beer Festival is not just Thursday, but I'll be
giving away tickets for for next Thursday with a trivia question.

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
And still plenty of other things to talk about as well.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
Also, this hour's chance to win a thousand bucks in
our keyword for cash thing is coming up in the
next five minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
Keep it here.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Oh, I'll tell you a quick story, not actually about me,
but my older kid graduated from high school and my
older kid just loves the forest because when he grew up,
we were living near Netherland, Colorado, when the foothills outside
of Boulder, we had forty eight which I will probably
never own again that much land because land was cheap

(01:20:04):
then and it's expensive now. But we had forty acres
bordering National Forest. And my kid just grew up like
that around the forest and just running around, climbing rocks
and all this stuff. And that's my kid's happy place.
And so my kid, I think at this point, wants
to study forestry and is very interested in studying in Canada.
And it just has this kind of idea in his

(01:20:25):
head about Canada. And so as a graduation president, we
got him, you know, a few weeks kind of more or.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
Less on his own in the woods.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
Like so we did a little Airbnb vrbo and we
were looking for something around here. It didn't work out
very well. So we rented a place for a few
weeks just for him, not for me and my wife
in northern Idaho. So you go like a half hour
western year in Washington, you go a half hour east
year in Montana, you go an hour and a half north,
and you're in Canada. So yesterday my kid's just taking

(01:20:54):
a couple of days away from that. VRBO kid drove
up into Canada and he called me to say, like
two minutes after crossing the border into Canada and driving,
you know, basically through through forest or there's some grass
on the side and then forest behind it. So an
enormous sort of rust colored wolf came out, came out

(01:21:17):
of the forest, and he said it was incredible, he said, first,
he said, at first I thought it was a coyote,
and then I looked more like it was enormous, absolutely enormous,
and and it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Was a wolf. And as I think, that's just such
a cool story.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
You know, my kid has this this idea and loves animals, right,
my kid's all about animals and and has this idea
in his head of Canada. And as soon as he
crosses into canada's greeted by a wolf. So that was
that was kind of fun. So you know what, let's do,
Let's do some more great American beer festival tickets. I
want to make sure to get this done today, so

(01:21:49):
I might as well do it now. So I'm gonna
do this by text, and the winner will win a
pair of passes to next Thursday's session. That's a's Ober tenth,
next Thursday's session of the Great American Beer Festival. That's
what the winner will get a pair of tickets. And
by the way, if you don't win and you want

(01:22:09):
to get passes and passes for you know, Thursday through
Saturday for the Great American View. I think it's Thursday
through Saturday. I should look it up. But you just
go to Great American Beer Festival dot com and you
can buy your own passes if you don't win them. Now,
so as I speak to you, it's eleven thirty seven
and change. I'm going to take texter number text number

(01:22:32):
three at eleven forty two. I'm gonna write this down
text number three at eleven forty two, and of course
your text would go to five six six nine zero?
Who can answer this question? And for now, the only
thing you need in your text is the answer. If
you're the winner, I or Cove will get back to

(01:22:52):
you to ask for more information. So texter number three
at eleven forty two, at five six six nine zero,
who properly answers this question? What brewery at least claims
to be the oldest in Colorado? And to be fair.
It's true as a brand name right, as a brand
of beer and brewery, it's the oldest still existing in Colorado.

(01:23:18):
There were quite a few years when the brand didn't exist,
but it was revived and it's being produced essentially in
the original location of one of the very very first
breweries and the oldest remaining brewery in Colorado. So I
that was probably a little bit unclear. But what brewery

(01:23:40):
claims to be the oldest in Colorado? And like I said,
they were closed down for a while but revamped and
they're operating again. And I think this is a rather
difficult question, and so I'm going to add one more
hint to it. And the hint is, there's a lot
of students nearby. Okay, there's a lot of students nearby.

(01:24:01):
So what is that brewery? Text he number three with
the right answer at eleven forty two am. And it
might take me a while to get back to the winner,
but I will try to remember in a few minutes
to tell you the answer on the air.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
All right, let me do a few other things.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Gosh, I have so many stories still to do, and
I know I'm just not gonna not to get to
all of them. First, let me just say, let me
just say congratulations to the Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Teacher of the Year.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
Her name is Janet Damon, and she teaches history at
Delta High School. And that's Delta in all capital letters,
and it's in Denver, and she's been teaching. According to
our news partners at Fox thirty one KIDVR, she's been
teaching students in Denver public schools for over twenty five years.
And I'll just share a little bit of this with you.

(01:24:51):
Damon's lessons focus on inquiry, research, digital storytelling, and culturally
sustaining learning and are designed to help students think critically
about their own life challenges, according to the Department of
a Colorado Department of Education.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
The Department of Education said, and I quote.

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
Her, students imagine new solutions to problems in our state
and create podcasts to advocate for issues like homelessness, gun violence, incarceration, inflation, immigration, racism,
health disparities, and drug addiction in Colorado. And I want

(01:25:31):
to I want to make two points, and one of
them is more important than the other.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
I'm going to start with the less important point. The
less important point.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Is that I hope that as she teaches her students
to go through and think about these incredibly important issues
that I just mentioned, right, these are these are all
really important issues, and especially I will say, you know,
if you're teaching in an inner city school, in an
urban school, right then the and to you, it's quite

(01:26:01):
possible that, for example, issues of incarceration, immigration, racism, and
health disparities, just to name a few, might be more
more much more locally important to you than they might
be to you know, somebody and somewhere else. But what
I hope is that the teacher includes in the instruction

(01:26:24):
about these issues and how to think about things, includes
the idea of looking for answers that involve civil society
and private action and not just more government. I know
it's a very political point, and this is a story
about a great teacher, and that's why I said it's
the less important point, But it was something that occurred

(01:26:47):
to me as I read the list of issues, because
you could imagine a whole bunch of woke in doctrination there.
And I have no reason to think that this teacher
is doing woke in doctrination.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
I am not saying that about her.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
What I'm saying is that I hope that she and
others when teaching students, when getting students into discussions about
these significant societal issues, I hope they have conversations that
revolve around possible solutions that don't include more government. The
more important point is, congratulations teacher of the year, inspiring students,

(01:27:27):
getting students to really think and listen and pay attention
and do something and advocate and make podcasts. We need
great teachers. We need teachers who really care. And to
hear about a teacher who's been teaching for twenty five
years and still seems based on this like she still
really really cares is wonderful and it's something that we

(01:27:53):
need much more of.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
We need much more of. So there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
Okay, oh my gosh, A lot of people have the
right answer.

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):
Look at that. Gosh, how many do I have this
set on? I think I have this set.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
On one hundred, and I think I think my text
line is full already at A at one hundred. All right,
all right, so yeah, so coove, you've got the third
person at eleven forty two and after right, okay, do
you have a So if they didn't already send it, coove,
if you could just text that person and ask them
for their name and email address and ask them to

(01:28:30):
text it back so you can call them, you can
text them back whatever you want to do, and then
let me know, let me know the name, okay, and
so I will. I will tell you again if you're
just joining. I asked this question just a few minutes ago,
what brewery claims to be the oldest in Colorado? And
to be fair as a brand name and as a

(01:28:50):
brewery name, it certainly is. But there were quite a
few years, and not just during Prohibition, when it wasn't operating,
but it is operating now in the original location. And
I said, I thought that that was a rather difficult question.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:29:07):
Maybe it's an easy question actually for people who spent
their whole lives here.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
I've only been here twenty years.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
But I gave a hint, and the hint is there
are a lot of students nearby.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
And so the answer to the question, as I said, I've.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Got more than I've got more than one hundred answers already,
and most people got it right. Some people said Cores,
and some people said Boulder Brewing and a few other things,
but the vast, vast majority of people got it right,
And the answer is Tivoli.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
Tivoli. You probably know the Tivoli building.

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
If you know Denver at all, down there by the
Area campus, across the street from Ball Arena, and so Tivoli.

Speaker 2 (01:29:48):
Is that's the answer. That's the answer. They've been around.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
Tivoli has been around since the eighteen hundreds, and then
you know, obviously closed down during provision, and then it
came back for a while. And then actually, if I
remember the story right, it might have been in the sixties,
maybe that there was some kind of water disaster.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
I think it got flooded and it destroyed everything.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
And then and they didn't reopen it, and then the
building got condemned and the building was vacant for many years,
and then the building started getting restored, and then and
they turned it into student union for some of those
schools there. And then somebody said, all right, we're going
to restart the brewery here. So that's that's the answer.
All right, this is sort of a political story, but

(01:30:30):
I want to do this. I want to do this quickly.
When when Joe Biden a couple of years back, I
guess started talking about canceling student loans, what I said
on the air was what he's doing is illegal. And
what he's going to be doing here is he's going
to be promising a bunch of people that they're going
to get they're going to be the recipients of stolen goods. Effectively.

(01:30:52):
They don't word it that way, but that's really what
it is. Right Like, you borrowed a bunch of money
to go to college or go to med school or
law school or whatever. You borrow a bunch of money,
and now Joe Biden says, We're going to give you
other people's money in order to pay off your college loan,
even though you're the one getting the benefit of it,
and even though you're the one making more money than
you would have made without it. We're going to steal,

(01:31:15):
just steal other people's money and.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Give it to you.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
And there's lots of people out there say yes, please
give me that, give me that stolen goods. I would
love to be the recipient of stolen goods. And so
what I said was despite the disappointing fact that there's
so many Americans who are willing to be the recipient
of stolen goods, what I said was what Joe Biden's
doing is is so illegal, so obviously illegal, that he's

(01:31:37):
going to be stopped, and the Supreme Court stopped him.
But then he just kept going, and he keeps trying
to do these things that are obviously illegal. Now he's
trying again recently, and what he did was trying to
cancel a whole bunch of student loan stuff. And there
was a lawsuit brought in I think it was in Georgia,
and a judge in Georgia initially put a hold on

(01:32:01):
Biden's current version of the plan to reassign people's student
loan debts to the taxpayers.

Speaker 2 (01:32:09):
That don't call it canceling student loans.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
There's no loan, there's no loan, there's no debt that's
being canceled.

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
It's just that the people who owe.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
The money aren't going to have to pay it back,
and everybody else will have to pay it back.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Okay, so don't be fooled by that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:22):
But so there was a case, there was suit brought
in Georgia, and a judge in Georgia decided that Georgia
didn't have the right to sue, and that judge dismissed
the case, but then transferred it to Missouri, and the
Supreme Court case about this in that that was maybe

(01:32:43):
a year.

Speaker 2 (01:32:44):
Ago, was actually based on Missouri.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
So we know that Missouri has standing, we know that
Missouri can sue. So the next federal judge in Missouri said,
all right, we're putting we're putting a hold on a
hold on this and that uh, you know, the Attorney
General of Missouri said that if the Department of Education

(01:33:08):
isn't stop now, they could unlawfully mass cancel up to
hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans as soon
as Monday. And so the judge did stop them. And
and again it's I said this.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
On the air.

Speaker 1 (01:33:24):
I at the like a couple of years ago, I said,
I think this is a massive gamble for Joe Biden. Now,
of course we didn't know everything else that would happen
with Joe Biden becoming senile and dropping out and all that,
but at the time, I said, this is a huge,
huge thing, a huge risk for Joe Biden to take
because he probably won't be allowed to do this thing
that he's promising people. Right, and and let's say, you know,

(01:33:48):
you're like, you're just living your life and you're doing
the things you do every day, and now sudden some
politician comes to you and says, I'm gonna give you
one thousand dollars or ten thousds. Well, you're gonna remember that,
and you're gonna say, where's some money. And then after
some period of time, a court's gonna say, no, he can't,
he can't give you that ten thousand dollars. You're not

(01:34:10):
getting that. And now what you're gonna remember is he
promised you something that he didn't deliver. And it certainly
would have been better politically for that person never.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
To promise it to you, because now you remember that.
And and this is happening again.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
Although I think the fact that that the se al
Joe Biden has dropped out and now we've got Kamala
Harris and the media is making sure nothing sticks to her,
I don't think it will hurt her as much as
it would have hurt him.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
But it was still I always thought an odd.

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Thing to go promising people that there was always a
very very very low chance that you would get away
with kove. Do we have a name yet, do we
know if the dude even wants the tickets? I've called
him three times and I also texted him I have
not heard back as of yet. Okay, So, and what
are the last couple numbers of the phone number of
the of the person that we're looking for?

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
Two seven four zero.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
Okay, So if your phone number ends with two seven
four zero, then you would have gotten a text back
through our text line asking you for more information. Please
do send that to us asap. Gosh if you know,
if you don't get back to us pretty soon, here,
I'm just gonna move on to uh, to the next person.

Speaker 2 (01:35:21):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
So, every once in a while, there are some really
dumb criminals, and I want to tell you a story
of one. And then we're gonna and then we're gonna
do Name that tune. I wonder if Mandy's gonna show
up for Name that tune she often does. We'll see.
So I love this story. The guy in this story
is so dumb that I can't believe he's not Florida Man.

(01:35:45):
Whenever you hear these stories, it's Florida Man. Florida Man
does this, and Florida Man does that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):
A dude from Columbia County, Pennsylvania was arrested at Philadelphia
Inner National Airport earlier earlier this week for concealing methamphetamine
as he was trying to go through the scanner, and
he hid something under his clothes and he and he

(01:36:14):
got caught with this meth. But that's not what makes
him Amori. And that's not what makes him Florida man.
A lot of people might try to do that. Here's
what makes him one of the dumbest, dumbest criminals I've
heard of in a long time. The dude tried to
conceal the meth in a modified shotgun shell. So the

(01:36:37):
the dude, the dude took a shotgun shell, emptied it out,
filled it with meth, and then let and then left
it in his pocket as he went through.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
The scanner at the airport.

Speaker 1 (01:36:50):
And that guy, Mandy, I can't you probably didn't hear
me say this because you were you were walking.

Speaker 2 (01:36:56):
I cannot believe. This is not Florida man. But it's not.
It's pencil.

Speaker 8 (01:37:00):
Imagine if this guy put that brain power into curing cancer.
You know what I'm saying, Like, just choose your battles
a little better, buddy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
Uh huh, I understand, Like accidentally leave the ammunition and luggage.
I understand sneaking crystal myth through the airport if you
got to, but but loading loading a shotgunshell with crystal
meth and then putting it in your pocket as you
are going through airport and want to go through airport
security is a whole new level of stupid.

Speaker 8 (01:37:26):
He's my favorite criminal of the year. And boy howdy,
we've had a lot of this year with this guy.
This guy, we should let him plan all crimes. I mean,
I feel like he really miss his calling is evil genius.

Speaker 2 (01:37:39):
I'm glad you found that as amusing as as I do. Curious, excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
Hey, folks, if you're listening on the podcast right now,
that's the end of today's show. Thank you so much
for listening. Don't forget you can catch us every day
on the podcast as you are right now, on your
smart speaker, on your iHeartRadio app, even on the computer
at Koa, Colorado, and the good old fashioned way on
your radio.

Speaker 2 (01:38:03):
Thanks so much for listening to the show.