Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In studio with Gina, who has another big sweater today,
although a different kind of sweater. It's different, but it's
still it's still big. Also thrifted or no, yeah, actually okay?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
All right?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And producer Dragon with a coll hit the Robins egg
blue collared shirt.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Did you do that on purpose?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Most definitely? Was it yesterday or the day before that?
You had the other collared shirt yesterday? Wow, you almost
put your trash out? Yeah, but you put your trash
out today? What it is one of your trash days?
It is one of them? Wait, have you okay? This
is an almost serious question. And then, folks, I promise
we're going to get to the news, because it's in
(00:40):
the name of the show that we have to talk
about news. Dude, when is the last time you wore
a colored shirt two days in a row?
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Two months? More than months? Who knows? I couldn't tell you. Yeah,
that's what I thought. All right.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We have an immense amount of stuff to do on
today's show. We are, of course going to keep you
updated on all of the wind stuff that is and
will be going on. Gina has been giving you a
lot of information throughout the morning already on that you'll
see a lot of news headlines. I will say that
yesterday when they were talking about this, it seemed like
(01:18):
they were predicting a wind event that would come further
south than.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
What they're predicting now.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right, So yesterday they were talking about significant wind event
for like Denver and Arapaho County and maybe even Douglas
County this morning, and this could still change, but this
morning they're looking a little bit more north, like Boulder
and Weld and Larimer, and a little towards the mountains
(01:46):
like Clear Creek.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
But so we'll have to see where this stuff really
comes in. We're not expecting the big winds to start
hitting until after our show, you know, maybe late more morning,
early afternoon.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
But we're going to keep you updated on all that
as best as Gina and I can.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
I think Gina, you already.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Talked about some school closings and things like that. Right,
So in the sort of Denver metro, I think the
only big closing is jeff Co. There's a couple of
small things, but up north there's more stuff going on.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Right.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Clearcreek School District are one six of the Pooter District schools,
Weld ARI four and windsor canceling classes for elementary school
students and then releasing middle and high schoolers before lunch.
But the thing that KA listeners might want to follow
is SeeU Boulder is closed. So they're on the fence
of what's going to take place for the men's basketball game.
It's scheduled for seven pm against Portland State. It's still scheduled,
(02:44):
but they said if they do need to reschedule a
new update, we'll come at three o'clock this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Okay, great, And so just so folks also understand how
this has changed a little bit since yesterday Excel and
there's a whole conversation and again you've heard from Gina
about this, and we'll talk about it more later.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
In the show.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But Excel is going to do some preemptive power outages,
probably because they don't want to be in a position
of big winds knocking over an energized power line and
causing a fire like some people think happened with the
Marshall fire. Right, So, but yesterday, when this was first
coming up as a thing, they were talking about cutting
(03:25):
power to over half a million customers because they were
picturing this thing coming much further south, so to include
Denver in a rapa Hoe and Adams County and so on.
But now they're talking about mostly impacts in the Jefferson
County foothills, Boulder County foothills, Clear Creek, and then Larimer
(03:46):
and Weld County is up north, So now they're talking
about like fifty thousand instead of five hundred thousand Excel
customers potentially affected. But we'll keep you updated on all
that stuff throughout the throughout the morning as we learn more.
So an immense amount of stuff to talk about on
today's show. As Gina mentioned a little bit ago, at
eight thirty five, Governor Polis is going to join the show.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
We have a lot of things to ask.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Him, and we're going to try to get him to
give short answers so we can get a lot of
topics in.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
But for sure, one.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Thing I'm going to ask him about was Donald Trump
calling him all kinds of names lately, repeatedly.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And we'll see what he has to say about that.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yesterday, President Trump posted on social media and I quote
my fellow Americans, I will be giving an address to
the nation tomorrow night, live from the White House. So
that would be tonight at nine pm Eastern time. I
look forward to quote unquote seeing you then. It has
been a great year for our country, and the best
is he had to come, President Donald J.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Trump. So this is an interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
There is no better predictor of how a political party
does in midterm elections. For the House of Representatives, and
for s it All Send, it's a little trickier thing.
So we'll stick with talking about the House. There's no
better predictor of how that goes than the president's approval ratings.
(05:09):
And one of my favorite political analysts a guy named
Henry Olsen, and he.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Does a podcast called Beyond the Polls. It's really really good.
It's very nerdy, but it's very very good.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
And his contention is that for Republicans to keep the
House of Representatives, President Trump needs to have an approval
rating probably in the forty six to forty seven percent range,
and right now he's around forty And it might not
seem like a big difference, but I mean the way
Henry talks about it, and he's looked at this stuff
(05:42):
for decades, it's like going from I'll just pick a number,
going from if you were to if Republicans were to
keep the House at a forty six and a half
percent presidential approval rating, they could easily lose the House
at forty five and a half percent approval rating. That
that's how tightly these things track, and it's pretty consistent
(06:06):
over years, over over decades.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
So obviously Trump's not going to.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Run for anything again, but many Republicans are, and you know,
most Republicans in Congress are, and so they care very
very much about the president's approval rating. And the President's
approval rating has been suffering because people feel that it's
primarily a cost of living thing.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
They feel that the president has.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Not done enough and not done what he said in
order to try to get the cost of living down.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
And I think many Americans, if you were to.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Ask them, can you tell me any Trump policies that
affect cost of living? I think most people might only
say tariffs, right. Some people might point to something about energy,
which is real, but as far as cause of daily goods,
(07:01):
people are gonna say tariffs.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
And people know.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That tariffs increase costs, and so I'm not looking to
debate tariffs with you right now.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
What I'm what I'm here to.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Say is that a lot of American voters are a
little frustrated because they elected Trump to do something that
they don't think he's doing, and that's why his numbers
have dropped so much among unaffiliated voters and even a
little bit among Republicans. So what Trump needs to do
now is to come out and tell the country, Hey,
(07:32):
I understand what you're really focused on. I understand that
you care about the cost of living. He needs to
be very careful that he doesn't go off script and call,
you know, the quote unquote affordability issue a hoax, as
he has been doing, because that's exactly the thing that
cost Democrats the election the last time, when Democrats said,
(07:55):
don't worry, the inflation's transitory, and don't worry, the economy
is going to get better.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
You know, everything we're looking at now.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Is a lagging indicator, but really it's all going to
get better, and it didn't work for them. You cannot
tell an American voter to trust what a politician says
over their own lived experience every day. And so Trump
needs to do this. He needs to talk about it
as if he really understands the other thing that I
(08:24):
think and this this has sort of occurred to me
this morning. Actually, you know, I've spent a lot of
time talking and thinking and writing about President Trump's response
to the death of Rob Reiner. And by the way,
please go to my substackt at Rosskominsky dot substack dot com,
and I write a couple times a week about all
(08:44):
kinds of thing, usually national and international. Sometimes I write
local stuff there and it's free and I think it's
pretty good.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
So if you would do me a.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Favor and go to Rosskominsky dot substack dot com and subscribe,
I would appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Anyway, it occurred to.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Me this morning that one one of the first obvious
big problem with what Trump said about Rob Reiner is
just that it was so tasteless. It was so tasteless
and just off that even most mega people were saying,
you shouldn't have done that. But that's not the point
I want to make this morning. The point I want
to make this morning is one of the things that
(09:19):
I think caused that to break through the news cycle.
Even as many things that Trump says that aren't true
or aren't nice or whatever don't break through, I think
one of the things is that it showed Donald Trump
pretty intensely focused on something that most people would say
(09:42):
a president should not be wasting his time being focused on. Yeah, okay,
Rob Reiner criticized Trump a lot, and Trump might have
some thoughts about that, and he could have said something
brief like, you know, Rob Reiner was mean to me,
but you know, sorry to hear that he was murdered whatever.
But the fact that he sent this long thing shows
(10:04):
that he's not focused on affordability, and I think that's
that's a problem for him as much as what he said.
It just adds to this view that while he's so
busy thinking about Venezuela that and thinking about Rob Reiner,
(10:25):
that he's not thinking about what Americans really want him
to think about. And tonight's press conference is an opportunity
for him to reset that. Speaking of Rob Reiner, there's
been some ongoing news in the past day or two
about his son, who. Well, you tell me, Geno, what's
the latest. Are you kind of proud of me forgetting
(10:45):
it like on the first or second? No, it's an
easy one, though, Yeah, I think I mean, we'll find
out on Nina Tuon on Friday. Okay, all right, So
that was Winds of change by the scorpions that dragon
was playing. Because it's going to be windy today. Let
me take on a listener text or two here. First,
a listener says, it's pretty pathetic how everyone is acting like.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
The world is ending over wind.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Look, I get it, but you saw the Marshall fire, right,
and that one way or another, whether it was caused
by a down power line or people burning trash, or
some combination of all of the above, that was a
wind event.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
The Marshall fire would never have happened that way without
that wind, And so it's reasonable that people are pretty
concerned about it. And you know, and even though it's December,
it's very, very, very dry and warm.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
It was almost seventy degrees yesterday. I think we tied
a record high yesterday.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So I get it, and I don't think it's pretty
pathetic how everyone is acting like the world is ending.
They're not acting like the world is ending. They're acting like, hey,
there's a risk here, and we're going to try to
deal with that risk. Another person says, ross schools closed
too easily. It shows the lack of importance that education
(12:04):
has become in the past. School was valued today not
so much. I think that's quite wrong. Look, I'm sorry
to disagree with with folks this morning.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
But that's that's not right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You just you're a little cynical this morning, folks, just
a little too cynical. Look, if you're running a school
or a school district and the power company is telling
you there's a very good.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Chance that we're going to have to shut.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Off power to your schools, then that's not awesome.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
And as long as especially by the.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Way, they're near the end of the semester already, so
if they've done as many days of teaching as they
need to do to meet the state law requirements for
how many days kids need to be in school. You know,
I realize it's a little bit of a hassle for parents,
depending on how old the kids are, to have a
kid who's not at school. I get that, But you know,
would would you want to be running a big school
(12:58):
district or even a small school district and you got
all these kids in school and suddenly you've got seventy
mile hour per win mile per hour wins and no power.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think if I thought that was a reasonable possibility,
I'd close the school too, So I think you're being
I think you're being a little bit.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
A little bit too cynical this morning. Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So, yes, there have been a few stories coming through
actually that fall into a particular category, and I do
want to let you know. I've reached out to the
Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, to ask him to join
us on the show one day soon to talk about
these things. He's the only Cabinet secretary who I know
(13:49):
pretty well, like he's the only cabinet secretary whose house
I've been to, right, So I'm going to try to
get Chris right on the show to talk about some.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
A broader kind of thing is from the Colorado Sun.
Trump administration cancels one hundred and nine million dollars in
environmentally focused transportation grants for Colorado.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
The subhead and.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This is actually a quote from the Department of Transportation
rather than Energy. These projects did not align with President
Trump's ambitious America First agenda or were redundant, so they're
canceling a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
There was some stuff for.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Fort Collins regarding electric vehicle charging infrastructure up there and
allowing the city to buy more electric vehicles. There is
another one up in Fort Collins where they were looking
to build what they call it, and this is again
from the Colorado Sun, a transit station and roundabout at
the intersection of West Elizabeth Street and South Overland Trail
(14:46):
as part of a bus rapid transit initiative. So that's
eleven million dollars they're canceling. The other one's almost twelve
million dollars they're canceling. Canceling another eight and a half
million dollars for statewide stuff regarding a electric vehicle charging.
And then this is an interesting one, canceling sixty six
and a half million dollars that was going to pay
(15:07):
for real improvements in northern Colorado, including the installation of
something called positive train control, which is a safety thing
we heard. Gosh, when was this. It was probably around
a year ago. There was a there's a pretty big
train derailm and I don't remember where it was. I
don't think it was the one in East Palestine, Ohio.
I think was after that, but anyway it was. It
(15:28):
was a train operator error. But there's a system called
positive train control that can slow down the train even
if the person running the train is making a mistake.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
And I guess that's one of the things that was.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Going to be done up here in northern Colorado with
this grant money that has now been canceled. So there's
that then what we learned, And this seems like kind
of a big deal. And I have to say, I
don't hate it. I might be I'm not quite alone
in this, but I'll probably be in the minority in this.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I do not hate this. The Trump administration is announcing.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And I'll quote here, and this is from Russ Vought,
who directs the OMB, the National Science Foundation, will be
breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in CAR
in Boulder. This facility is one of the largest sources
of climate alarmism in the country. And that's true. That
second thing is true. Now, I do want to be
(16:24):
careful with this to the extent that the federal government
is going to do science research, you know, if you
think they should, then you should have the best science
research done that you can have done. And to the
extent that in CAR is good at actual science research,
if breaking it up might make that worse, then they
should be careful about that. But they are absolutely right
(16:46):
that in CAR has been a source of climate alarmism,
propaganda and nonsense for a long time, and they so.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
They need to be really careful about this. In general.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's not so much that I'm in favor of breaking
it up, but I am in favor of making sure
that they stick with the science. So we will see
how this all plays up. But in any case, it
is a big, big deal for Boulder five six six
nine zero.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Where are the scorpions from?
Speaker 6 (17:16):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Okay still have a ton of gina? Do you know
the answer to that? By the way, Oh, it doesn't
seem like right in your wheelhouse. You know where Katy
Perry is from?
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Though.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, we learned a couple of things yesterday from Chad.
What did we learn about Katy Perry? Not that I care,
but it was funny that he's a music encyclopedia walked
in and told us.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Some things like, you know, Katy Perry's real name is
not Katy Perry.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I think it was Catherine Hudson.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Hudson, Yeah, which we.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Already have a Kate Hudson, so that's why she changed it.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Oh, he said she used to be a Christian singer.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yes, yeah, there you go, You're Katy Perry.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Facts of the day.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
We still have a ton of stuff to talk about
on the show, so much that I'm not even.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Sure where to start, but I'll start here.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
President Trump sent out another social media message yesterday. I
say another because earlier in the show I mentioned his
post announcing that he was going to be doing an
addressed to the nation from the Oval Office tonight. I
want to say that seven pm R time. Do you know, Gina,
what is that?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Seven PMR time?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Okay, So he sent out another one, and this a
little bit long, but I'm going to share it with you.
Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled
in the history of South America. It will only get bigger,
and the shock to them will be like nothing they've
ever seen before, very trumpy, right until such time as
they returned to the United States of America all of
the oil, land and other assets that they previously stole
(18:41):
from US.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
What maybe you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Nationalizing oil fields in Venezuela. I'm guessing maybe the illegitimate
Maduro regime is using oil, okay from these stolen oil
fields to finance themselves drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and
kidnapping for the theft of our assets and many other reasons,
including terrorism, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. The Venezuelan regime
(19:05):
has been designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Therefore, today I'm ordering.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
A total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil going
into and out of Venezuela. The illegal aliens and criminals
that the Maduro regime has sent into the United States
during the week and inept Biden administration are being returned
to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow criminals, terrorists,
or other countries to rob, threatn or harm our nation,
(19:31):
and likewise will not allow a hostile regime to take
our oil, land, or any other assets, all of which
must be returned to the United States immediately. Thank you
for your attention to this matter. Okay, so this is
actually a very interesting situation. So I don't know how
many ships Donald Trump has down there around Venezuela, but
quite a few.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
And you will recall that the United.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
States Coast Guard, I'm under a warrant issued by a
federal judge, by the way, took control of a large
tanker called I think it's called Skipper Skipper.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
I believe that was the name of the ship.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And I see some news casts now that say the
oil on that ship is estimated to be worth about
ninety five million dollars. Now, there's a bunch of these
ships that are currently in Venezuelan ports. Some of them
already have Venezuelan oil on them, some of them don't.
But the owners of these ships now have some pretty
(20:33):
significant decisions to make. Axio says they're about seven hundred
and twelve vessels globally on a list called the Specially
Designated Nationals List, And I guess that's a list you
don't want to be on if.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
You're a ship.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And according to a guy who follows this stuff, of
the seven hundred and twelve, about forty are currently in
Venezuelan waters, about eighteen have Venezuelan oil on them already.
And basically, what Trump is saying is that any of
these ships that comes out of Venezuela, We're going to
(21:11):
take it. Now, it's unclear whether he will actually go
like sell the oil and keep the money or what.
He's putting an immense amount of pressure on the Maduro regime,
which is a terrible dictatorial regime that is not legitimate
they're not legitimate. They want it's it's kind of like
the Hamas thing from two thousand and seven or two
(21:33):
thousand and eight. It's is one man, one vote, one time, right,
they win one election because people are frustrated with whatever
the previous government was. These new people are, you know,
the not quite revolutionaries but almost populist in their own
way and representing something other than what's been going on.
So people vote him in because they want to change.
(21:55):
And then they become the dictators and they either don't
allow another election or they have fake elections in which
they just make up whatever vote numbers they want to
make up, and that's what they've been doing in Venezuela.
So in any case, Venezuela is certainly a source of drugs.
It's probably not much a source of fentanyl. Probably is
a source of cocaine. And yeah, the trendy Iragua gang
(22:20):
that came to the United States and all that.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
So look, it's an interesting Here's what I think is
most interesting about it. You can talk about all the.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Foreign policy stuff, and you can talk about should the
United States be or not be in the business of
trying to overthrow a regime in South America or anywhere
else that hasn't always worked out very well for us.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's one conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
The other conversation that I think is more subtle, hard
to put a finger on, is how does this play
for Trump politically? Trump is a master at getting Democrats
to take positions that the public composes, Like Trump will
take a position that he knows Democrats are against, where
(23:04):
he knows the public is on his side, like men
and women's sports or boys in girls sports. It's an
eighty twenty issue, with eighty percent of the population saying
it's not fair to girls and women to have boys
and men competing against them in competitive sports where strength
and speed matters and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Right, But because the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Hate Trump so much, they will reflexively just take the
other side of his position, and it causes them to
take positions that are politically unpopular. And maybe he's doing
that here. It's a little hard to tell. This is
not like boys in Girls sports? Do the American public
really care that much about drug boats coming out of Venezuela?
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Do you really think if you stop the drug.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Boats coming out of Venezuela that somehow the drugs won't
find a way to get here anyway? Do you think
it's a good use of American time and money. We
haven't lost any lives doing it yet, and maybe we
never will.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
But still, and here's the other thing that.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Just jumps out at me that I want to mention briefly,
and that is much of Trump's base is quite isolationist,
more isolationist than Trump is. With Trump spending all this
time talking about Venezuela, talking about Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Taiwan,
all of these places where Trump is so so heavily
(24:17):
involved overseas, is he turning off some of that base
who wanted him to just turn inward and be focused
on America. And if he is turning them off, how
will that play out in the midterm elections. I think
that's a very interesting question.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Don't forget.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Coming up less than two hours from now, at about
eight thirty four, Governor Jared.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Polus joins the show.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Right now, keep it here for your news, traffic, and weather.
Two listener things I want to address about music. First
listener text says, I've heard more about Katy Perry in
the last two days than I did all year, and
I'm torn on that between saying Dragon's usual thing when
we get it, which is, what do you normally say?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
You're welcome? You're welcome?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Right, So that's one and the other thing that also
Dragon says a lot about when we tell you something
that you know you didn't expect, but.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Maybe more importantly you don't care about.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
What do we say about that to listeners like, what
are we doing here?
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Wasting time? We are wasting your time.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
For folks who are new to this show, and especially
to Gina who is a professional and not used to
intentionally wasting people's time, this is what she's dealing with
now a producer, Dragon and I it's somewhere between a
vocation and a hobby. Oh, wasting people's time on the radio. Nice,
So you're good with that. You can go along with
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And it takes some time to get used to.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Sure, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And then the other thing was we asked listeners where
the Scorpions from, and the Scorpions are from Germany and
if you want to get really in the weeds, there
from a city called Hanover in northern Germany. Anyway, my
favorite German rock band, in part because they're the only
German rock band. I know there's probably one of these
craft Work German. They're not really rock though, do you
know craft Work? I saw craft Work?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Did you really Steamroller? What did you really? When was that.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Last this year? Well they're not dead, no, yeah, they're
still around.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
They're like ninety.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
No I think.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
No, they can't be that all.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
Yeah, definitely not rock. They can't be that form of
edim like the start of ediom.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yeah yeah right, so uh yeah, pretty, let me let.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Me do something for thirty seconds here, because I don't
have a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
To add, but I want to make sure you know
the news.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So there's some talk now that the US and Ukraine
have come up with a plan, a war ending plan,
a peace deal kind of thing, that they are going
to be ready bless you gena, that they are going
to be ready to uh to present to Russia pretty soon.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
So I wanted you to be aware of that.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
My expectation is that just as Ukraine wouldn't even consider
Russia's peace proposal, which is really what the US gave
Ukraine the first time around. Basically, they just took Russia's
dream list and gave it to Ukraine, which was a
pretty significant failing by the United States team actually, but
now the United States team is working with Ukraine and
(27:12):
they're trying to draft something that I suspect will be
much better and much more reasonable than the original draft.
But I still think it's something that Russia will say
no to when we come back. Doctor April Steel, who
has been for the last ten years or so, but
not for much longer, the CEO of Humane Colorado.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Don't forget. We got Governor Polis coming up at eight
thirty four. Very pleased to have joining the show.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
April Steel, Doctor April Steel, And that's ap Ryl and
for nearly eleven years now, but only for a few
days more. She is the CEO of Humane Colorado. And
first of all, April, it's very good to have you here.
Thanks so much for spending time with us. And was
that dumb Friends League before.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Good Morning?
Speaker 7 (28:02):
And yes it was dumb Brindsley before we rebranded in
March to Humane Colorado.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
All right, I have questions, Gina has questions.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We've got about six minutes, so let's try to do
a lot of things. One thing I want to ask
you about, and then we're going to talk about your fund.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But once I want to ask you about. Is something
I was talking.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
About during COVID when there were lots of people adopting animals,
and I said on the show, please don't adopt in it,
or please don't go get an animal wherever you're getting
it from. Please don't go get an animal from a
breeder or a pet shop or whatever unless you're pretty
confident you're gonna want to keep that animal. And I've
seen anecdotally some data that a lot of people have
(28:39):
been turning it as dogs, especially into animal shelters. Is
that true and if so, would you like to say
anything about it?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, So it's slightly more complicated than that.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
I think right after the pandemic people were really able
to keep their animals. We didn't see the math turn
and that a lot of anecdotal reports showed. However, what
we do know is that when dogs, especially reach about
two years of age, they reach their social maturity and
most of their behavior issues manifest then. So they you know,
(29:14):
a lot of puppies that were adopted during the pandemic
and then stayed home and had their people home all
the time didn't really learn the confidence of being alone
in their home and have developed some behaviors that are
bothersome and those are the dogs that when they reach
two years of age start getting turned back into shelters
because people don't know how to manage those behaviors. So
(29:36):
it's a little bit of a delayed thing that we've seen,
but we have been seeing many more dogs coming to
the shelter.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Very interesting insight, Doctor Steele.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I'm curious.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
I know it's hard to talk about yourself and look
back at your career and things like that. I get it,
But for a decade, over a decade here, how has
just animal welfare and just like the standard care of
pets really change.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
In the last decade?
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Is what you've seen at Cumane Colorado and a CEO.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Lovely question and it's fun to talk about because it's
the team, it's not me.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
But there's so much that we have seen evolve.
Speaker 7 (30:12):
I think people are valuing animals more and so it's
no longer acceptable to say only people with the most
privileged can have a relationship with the animal. We know
that animals help people's mental health, emotional health, physical health,
and I don't want to imagine a society where people
and animals don't have positive relationships.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
And help each other through life.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
So as we start honoring that in a different way,
we also have to understand our responsibility in making sure
these animals are cared for. And that's where the subsidized
veterinary care has really come into play. Is you know,
just as positive as that human animal bond can be
to help people get through life, it can turn just
as devastating if an animal gets sicker and injured and
(30:56):
someone cannot afford the care that that animal needs to
And so being a veterinarian and knowing that healing is
my calling. Increasing our service to the community in this
way and creating our venary hospital at CSU Spur where
we help sick and injured animals with subsidized venary care,
has been exceptionally rewarding. We actually served more animals that
(31:21):
are owned and in the community last year than we
did in our shelters, but it was pretty close. It
was about twenty thousand in the shelters and about twenty
three thousand in the community.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
That really is a remarkable thing.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I love that someone When my dog got hurt, someone
told me about the Spur and I said, look, I
can afford to pay for my dog's care, and so
I don't want to even think about, you know, draining
that resource.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
So yeah, that's a that's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And and the April Steel Fund for Veterinary Care. Is
this going to be a full time job for you
or what? You know, how are you approaching this?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 7 (32:02):
So it's definitely an honorary title that the organization and
our Border Directors has done to really make, you know,
honor the work and the healing passion that I have
had for the last decade. And so they've created this
fund that helps serve the veterinary needs of animals within
(32:23):
our shelter and at our subsidized veterinary hospital in the community.
So whether it's a low cost vaccine or sicker.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Injured animals, it's going to do both.
Speaker 7 (32:33):
And I'm just incredibly honored that they have done that,
and you know, hopefully more and more animals will get
healed because of that. And I just wanted to say
real quick, thank you so much for commenting on you
could afford the care so you didn't use that resource,
because we have so much more need for this resource
than we have availability, and that's why the fund's important.
(32:54):
And that's also why people that can afford veterinary care
should use one of our excellent veterinarians in our Cay community.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Doctor Steele. Real quick, about thirty seconds here. If you
had to give one piece of advice for the future
CEO Katie Parker, what would you give her?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Well, first of all, she's amazing.
Speaker 7 (33:10):
He needs little advice from me, absolutely outstanding. But my
advice would be just remember that compassion is the best
way to make decisions. And while passion can motivate you,
compassion is what makes the biggest difference.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I think that answer helps you understand why doctor April
Steele was such a great CEO of Humane Colorado, which
many of you probably remember his dumb friends lye, because
it was that for many years until recently. Congratulations on
a wonderful tenure as CEO and on the fantastic legacy
of the Doctor April Steel Fund for Veterinary Care. What
(33:47):
a great thing to be remembered by, a great way
to be remembered by.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Thank you, and thank you for your partnership. You guys
are lovely.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Thanks so much. We'll take a quick break. We'll be
right back on KOI it's.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Time to thank a veteran or an active duty member
of the military or a first responder with twenty five
hundred bucks to No, you don't have to write the check,
so from now through February first, you can submit your
nominees' name along with your reason why you believe the
person you're nominating deserves twenty five hundred bucks. And the
(34:20):
way you do it is you go to Koacolorado dot
com slash contests Koa Colorado.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Dot com slash contests.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
This is a Heroes thank you presented by Common Spirit,
Health and fix It twenty four to seven.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Speaking of heroes, I mentioned this to you yesterday. I
think it was yesterday.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
This guy, Ahmed al Ahmed, who is a fruit stand
or fruit shop owner near Bondai Beach, born in I believe,
Syria and then moved to Australia some years ago. I
think he's an Australian citizen now.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Based on reporting that I've seen.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Anyway, an immigrant to Australia almost certainly Muslim jumped in
and tackled one of the shooters at Bondai Beach. And
as horrific as the outcome was, there was there it
could have been much worse if that guy hadn't done
what he did. And I mentioned to you that a
go fund me had been started for this man, and
(35:15):
it's not often when you see gofund me is because
this guy did get shot as when he was I
think the other gunman shot him, if.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I understand, because that's what it looked to me like
in the video.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Often when you see these kinds of gofundmes, it's let's
raise money to cover his medical expenses. He's in Australia,
and he's not badly wounded.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
He was shot in the arm in the hand.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I think now, I wouldn't want to be shot in
the arm in the hand, so for me that would
be badly wounded, I guess. But you get my point.
He's not gonna have very very big medical bills. Again,
in Australia, a lot of that stuff is covered by taxpayers.
And instead, what they're really doing with this go fund
me is just trying to reward him for being a hero,
(35:58):
for jumping in, for saving lives. And I just wanted
to let you know that they are almost at two
and a half million dollars US two and a half
million US dollars and that is probably more money than
this guy would would have earned in a lifetime.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Do you mind if I mention another GoFundMe as well?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Go ahead. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
I don't know if you saw the one for Sofia
and Boris German. They were the couple that reportedly tried
to tackle the.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Gunman when he stepped out of the.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
Car to begin with the first people before he was
actually able to disarm them. They unfortunately were killed. So
there's a GoFundMe for that couple. It's now raised almost
five hundred and sixty thousand dollars. The goal is a million.
It's a it's a really sad story. I mean, they
were married for thirty four years, they were approaching their
(36:53):
thirty fifth wedding anniversary. Sophia's sixty second birthday was going.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
To be on today, So that is for you can.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Search GoFundMe dot com and Loving Memory of Sofia and
Boris German g U R M A N and be
able to donate to some of their funeral expenses there
as well.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
So I just looked that up as you were talking
about it, and I see that Bill Ackman, who I
mentioned yesterday as having donated one hundred thousand dollars to
the Ahmed all Ahmed gofund me has also donated one
hundred thousand dollars to this go fund me, which is
(37:33):
called in Loving Memory of Sophia and Boris German.
Speaker 6 (37:37):
Well.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
I somehow hadn't heard that story, so thank you for
sharing that, Gina.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
And wow, what a tragic thing there is.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
There is heroism all around us, and sometimes it works
out very well for the heroes, and sometimes, as with
these two wonderful people, it didn't. But in any case,
now you know about bo of these gofundmes and you
can do whatever feels right to you.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Gina had this story the.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Other day and I didn't know about it until I
heard it from Gina, And now I see an update
on it that I just thought i'd share with you.
This is from Axios, Colorado finishes North America's.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Largest wildlife overpass, and I.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Have to say, the thing that bums me out about
this is they had to caveat it with North America's
largest rather than the world's largest, because apparently India just
build a wildlife overpass.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Well not just they actually did. There's a few months ago.
That's bigger.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
So it's America's biggest North America's biggest wildlife overpass. So
what are we talking about? If you can see a
picture of this thing up on my blog at Rosskiminsky
dot com, and we've got by the way every day
that I have a show, you got to blog up
there at Roskiminsky dot com that has links to stories,
links to guests and all kinds of stuff, and it'll
it's a redirect.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
To my KOA page.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
You can also find standalone blog posts for almost.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Every interview we do, and standalone.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Podcasts as well as the whole show podcast. The producer
Dragon gets up there, so if you want to catch
up on something that you missed, especially with a guest,
it's all there anyway. So there's this picture of this
massive thing going over I twenty five and if at
first it's a little bit hard to tell how big
it is, there's some pictures of cars and even looks
like maybe a school bus nearby.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
And this thing is insane.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
It is two hundred and nine feet long and two
hundred feet wide, so imagine two thirds of a football
field in width. The overpass again from Axios dot com
spans six lanes, right, Well, it goes across the six
lanes of I twenty five covers an area of nearly
an acre between Larkspur and Monument. So this is called
(39:50):
the Greenland Wildlife Overpass. And the thing that I wanted
to mention about this, just a little bit of an
add on to the to the basic story, is that
this is near where.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
The proposed BUCkies is.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And I think this sort of helps might help you
understand a little bit why there's so much opposition to
the BUCkies. Right, if you're in an area where you
need a wildlife overpass over the highway because there are
so many deer and elk and antelope and an occasional
mountain lion or a bear walking somewhere, Right, if you've
(40:30):
got that much wildlife around, and you've got these billionaires
John Malone bought a whole bunch of this area to
keep at pristine. I think that's part of the reason
that folks are really concerned about a Bucky's very near.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
There.
Speaker 5 (40:43):
One thing I hope they do with this wildlife overpass,
because I know a lot of people were like, we're
making an overpass for wildlife. Well, yeah, this is something
that's been done in the past. Utah Dot posted a
video back in September from their Wildlife Overpass. It's the
coolest video where it actually has cameras hooked up where
you can see the animals crossing, and they said that
(41:06):
there was a seventy seven percent reduction in wildlife vehicle
collisions with Utahs Wildlife Overpass, and they have so many
videos of like moose crossing it and things like that,
So I don't know if they're going to have cameras
hooked up or if they can monitor what is actually crossing,
but it is pretty.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Fascinating to see that.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
But we made the joke in the newsroom earlier of
they completed it, and we had the story about it
being completed last week.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Now they opened it, and I was like, did they
do a ribbon cutting? How do they just like allow
the animals to be like you can cross now because
there was completed earlier, But then everyone picked.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Up on the story of.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
It now being open, and I was like, how did
they But it sounds.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
Like they might have even like I don't know, started
bating it or something to allow the animals to like, wow,
to learn where it is and things it's a.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Great idea with the cameras because that could get the
public because I remember when you did this story, which
was only a week ago, but a listener texted in
saying something like, wait, are you telling me they spent
fifteen million dollars on an overpass that isn't for people
to use? And that is yes, although the money mostly
came from the federal government. Although money from the federal
government comes from our children, right, But anyway, it was
(42:12):
about fifteen million dollars. It was apparently on time and
on budget, which is which is kind of nice.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
But I love the idea of the of the cameras.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
And they're claiming and that the Utah data point that
you mentioned, Gina goes a good.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Distance in this direction.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
They're hoping that this will cut wildlife vehicle crashes by
maybe ninety percent around there. And I'll tell you what,
if if it were to reduce car crashes with animals
by even a modest fraction of that, it's going to
be worth that fifteen million dollars really really fast in
what it saves, not just in vehicle damage but in
(42:53):
medical costs, right and in death.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
I mean in the Utah.
Speaker 5 (42:57):
One, they said moves successfully crossed one hundred percent of
the time.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Can you imagine hitting.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
It hitting a moose.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah that if a car hits a moose, the moose wins.
I mean, it's shocking how much damage gets done to
a car when it hits a deer, and a moose
is probably eight or ten times the weight of a deer.
It really is unbelievable. All right, So that's a fun story.
Let me do a this is a DC story. Let
(43:23):
me just do a couple of minutes on this thing,
so you you will recall that a few years ago,
actually I guess it was largely during the first Trump administration,
but there was sort of an ongoing conversation about removing
statues of Confederate General's, Confederate leaders all.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
That, and it became a big movement.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I don't know that I would go so far as
to call it woke, because normally when I call something woke,
I think it has.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Essentially no legitimate underpinning.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
I think there is something potentially legitimate about removing some
statues of some you know, Confederate general.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
I will also note one other thing.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Actually, many of these statues that were I don't know
how many people know this. Many of the statues that
were removed of Confederate generals were actually put up, like
thirty forty fifty years after the Civil War, with the
(44:28):
specific intention of trying to remind black people to stay
in their place and to remind and these some of
these things were put up by people with ill intent,
by racists, and they weren't put up like right after
the Civil.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
War to honor Robert E. Lee as a brilliant general.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
And I thought that whole thing was an interesting conversation,
and I actually thought, I'm not one of these guys
who both sides things, but I actually thought both sides
had pointed there. Right.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Some of these are historical figures that were worth knowing.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
About and worth talking about, even if they weren't good.
But also some of it is just sort of an
in your face reminder that in the United States we
used to allow some people to own other people. Now
in the United States Capital there is a statuary hall,
(45:24):
and every state is allowed two statues, although I think
some of them aren't kept in the hall, some of
them are kept in a couple other places, but basically
within the capital collection of statues, every state is allowed
to and the states choose their own, and so for
a long time, maybe unsurprisingly, one of Virginia's statues was
(45:47):
Robert E.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Lee, a son of Virginia who fought for Virginia. And
I'm sure Robert E.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Lee, in his mind was fighting for Virginia, because that
was the mindset back then, right, It was about the
states more than it was about the country even then,
even then, ninety years, eighty five years after the Revolution
and eighty years or whatever after the Constitution.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
But of course Robert E.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Lee was also fighting to keep a system that allowed
some people to own other people. Virginia decided they're going
to remove their Robert Lee statue from Statuary Hall, and
yesterday was the unveiling of the new statue, and it
is of a woman, well, a girl named Barbara Rose John's.
(46:33):
Barbara Rose Johns Barbara's Johns is an African American at
the time, a black sixteen year old in nineteen fifty one,
born in nineteen thirty five, black sixteen year old in
nineteen fifty one, and she led a strike for equal
education at a high school in a place called Farmville, Virginia,
and her fight there became one of the lawsuits that
(46:57):
was then consolidated into the Brown Versus Board of Education
Supreme Court decision a few years later, which said that
separate but equal quote unquote public schooling is unconstitutional. And
I actually think it's a lovely evocative statue of a
of a teenage girl with fairly long hair holding up a.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
Book and kind of waving it.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
And I actually think this is kind of cool, and
so I just thought I should add with you. If
this were April Fools, what I would say is, I'm
I'm here. I need to report to you some important
news about KOA.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Again.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Let me insort a caveat this would be an April
Fool's joke. It's just what I would do if it
were April Fools, that KOA is changing our format and
instead of news and talk in sports, we are going
to be all German.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Rock all the time.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
What what's is Chad?
Speaker 6 (47:52):
There?
Speaker 4 (47:52):
I heard the laugh out there.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
You know, back in the day, stations used to do
April Fools jokes where they would just switch, like we
would go down to our friends at the Fox and
they will come up here. They do their show on
our station, we do it on theirs.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Those du That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
It doesn't really happen much.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
No, it doesn't happen much anymore. I'm not a big
April Cools joke kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Hello, no one even took me for.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
A second, Folks, don't forget.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Coming up in the forty five minutes, Governor Jared Polus
will join the show. Gina and I have a bunch
of questions for him. I've got let me just go
through a few more quick newsres.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
Actually, let me.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Mention this I mentioned at the top of the show,
but it's important and one of these things I think
I need to mention more than once during a show,
and that is President Trump is going to address.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
The nation tonight at.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Seven pm Mountain time nine pm Eastern time from the
White House. He hadn't said from what room, but you
gotta figure it'll probably be from the Oval Office. And
he's got a little bit of work to do. President
Trump's approval ratings are not great right now.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
In fact, let me look up.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
One good website is realclearpolling dot com, which is just
an offshoot from RealClearPolitics dot com. President President trump job
approval is the first thing that comes up, and right
now is job approval on the average of polls, it
looks like forty three and a half percent, approximately, and
(49:23):
that's up a bit from forty two and a half
percent a month ago, but it's down quite a bit
from let's say the middle of this year, when he
was more around forty seven.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
So he needs to fix that up.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
And as I mentioned earlier, you might say, why does
he need to fix his own job approval ratings since
he's not running for office again, And the reason is
that midterm elections are referendum on president on the president always, always,
and so one of the best indicators of how the
(49:59):
party of the president does in the midterm is the
president's approval ratings, and generally a president needs to be
somewhere in the high forties, probably forty seven ish in
order to feel like you will, you know, at least,
not lose very many seats. And of course, the Republicans
(50:21):
don't have very many to lose. They only have a
three or four or five seat majority, depending on who's
who's actually there at any given time and who's resigning
and all this stuff. So Trump needs to fix this
up because he doesn't want to lose the House, because
if he loses the House. He will not get any
other important piece of legislation through the entire time that
he's presidents unless there's some miracle of some kind of
(50:43):
bipartisan legislation. I think that's not very likely because I
think generally Democrats are not going to want to give
the rep give Trump any kind of win, even if
it's a bill they would support. So Trump really wants
to try to help Republicans keep the majority. I don't
think he'll succeed, but he's got to try. And then
also he wants to minimize losses in the Senate. The
(51:04):
Senate looks better than the House does for Republicans, but still,
if there were a big blue wave, you never know.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
And Trump is trying to prevent the big blue wave.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
So he needs to come out and tell people kind
of like a Bill Clinton sort of way, I feel
your pain.
Speaker 4 (51:19):
He has not been good at that.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
He was not good at during COVID either, And let
me just be real clear on this. During COVID, when
he mobilized the private sector to create COVID vaccines faster
than anybody thought a vaccine could ever be developed. And
I'm not here to debate with you whether you like
the vaccines or not, that's irrelevant for this conversation. He
got that done infinitely faster than anybody thought would be possible.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
But the way he talked about COVID, he talked about
it as if don't worry about it, it's not that serious,
It'll be fine, don't be scared, YadA, YadA, YadA. It
was kind of the way that Joe Biden later talked
about in in People's Economic Anxieties. They both said, it's okay,
you're not really afraid. I'm telling you you are not
(52:08):
really afraid, and then they both lost.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
So what Trump needs to do is to.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Make people believe that he understands them and that he
knows what's important to them, and that he's gonna focus
on it. And that will probably be his goal tonight.
It's not a rally, right, this is going to be
on a teleprompter, and I'm sure his team is hoping
as much as they can hope that.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
He stays on message.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
But whatever he says, we'll talk about it tomorrow morning.
Kind of ironic, perhaps that we are talking about the
power going out today in parts of northern Colorado. Given
our next guest, SARP oz Can, which is one of
the coolest names I've ever heard, is the director of
Energy Analysis at Inverus Market Intelligence, So they're affirm that
(52:56):
does all kinds of data analysis and consult and so
on on energy markets.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
E n V E r US, Sarp, Welcome to KOA.
It's very good to have you here.
Speaker 8 (53:07):
Thanks Ross for having me back on again.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
I gotta ask you.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
I don't know if I asked previously, but Sarp oz
Can is one of the coolest names ever. Where is
that name from. I really have no idea. I'm thinking
like Armenia or something. I have no idea.
Speaker 8 (53:24):
Originally Turky Sross.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Okay, not far. I wasn't that far far. You're very close,
very very close. Okay.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
What I would like to talk with you primarily about
today is data centers. It's a huge issue everywhere. Electricity use,
which we're going to talk about, water use, space, you know,
the land use. I mean, there's a big data center
actually going up in Denver, and there's a little bit
of controversy about that. I heard a lot, you know,
(53:52):
you hear a lot of stories that try to play
up the use of data. And I'm not saying they're
overstating it, but I would like to explain in a
way that we can all understand the scale the scope
of electricity requirements of data centers.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (54:11):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 9 (54:13):
Data centers are absolute power doustlers, and it's the most
important input into their processes. And to put it in context,
one megalot of power can go to.
Speaker 8 (54:26):
Power about eight hundred homes.
Speaker 9 (54:30):
Let's say small data centers today are about one hundred megaalots,
so we're thinking about eighty thousand homes. And in a
lot of cases these can go up to a gig
a loot so times ten, so there's a lot of power.
And to also add to that, these things are using
power twenty four to seven, so it's not like a
(54:53):
home where we sometimes go to sleep. Data centers don't
sleep either, So it's a very very steady demand on
the grid that's enough to power whole cities.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Okay, I think the way that a lot of people
think that food comes from supermarkets, many people think that
power comes from those little holes in the wall by
And I'm not being sarcastic. What I mean is I
think that most people think that it doesn't matter how
many people have, how many things plugged into how many
(55:26):
holes in the wall, there's always going to be enough power,
which might be true in big cities before there's any
data centers maybe, but even that might not be true,
like when everybody's trying to run.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
An air conditioning at the same time.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So in that context, what is the risk posed to
existing electricity infrastructure by the addition of a data center
to an area.
Speaker 9 (55:51):
Well, first of all, we have to consider that we're
talking about the biggest machine on earth. The grid is
actually the biggest machine on earth, and it's a very
very old and rickety one that we work off in
the United States today, and that machine needs to be
in a place where it's balancing the supply and the
demand at all points in time, at all locations. It's
(56:14):
a wonder that it even works the way it does
as well as it does today. So when you start
to add these very very large demand centers onto a
grid that hasn't seen an increase in demand for decades
in the past and is now experiencing this huge increase
in power pool from its infrastructure, it certainly causes some
(56:39):
reliability issues, and that's why utilities need to spend the
money to upgrade their systems. So that the reliability for
both the data center as well as all of us
remains stable.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
So if a utility needs to upgrade, either to support
reliability or to just support basic demand levels, doesn't that
mean then that I, as a rate payer, will be
paying somewhere between a lot more and a hell of
a lot more.
Speaker 8 (57:14):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 9 (57:16):
So what utilities need to do is to recover their
costs from US consumers at a rate that is set
by their regulators, and the regulators approve the spending that
they need to do for these upgrades, and that those
upgrades are recovered through all of our rates and other
(57:39):
people's rates, including the.
Speaker 4 (57:40):
Data including the data center.
Speaker 6 (57:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
So there are some places, some utilities, maybe some state
governments passing laws about this, that are trying to make
sure that the burden of these higher costs actually go
to the data center, right. And they're trying to make
sure that the data center pays for some stuff upfront,
pays you know, as they're going, or the electricity, and
has some kind of contract where if the data center
(58:04):
closes down, that they still owe money for a while.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
Right.
Speaker 8 (58:08):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 9 (58:09):
And this is to make sure that there is an
equitable way that we pay for it versus what the
data center pays for their portion of the upgrades. And
these rates are ensuring that they have a longer term contract.
Speaker 8 (58:26):
Usually a decade or more.
Speaker 9 (58:28):
There's a ramp up period so not all the demand
is imposed on the grid at one time. Making sure
reliability is safe for everybody else utilizing the grid. It
requires that they have to pay all of those costs
back even if they don't use the power or they
decide to exit the area, and it requires a lot
(58:49):
more collateral as well as cash up front for the
equipment that's going to be used, so we don't have
stranded costs that then end up being recovered from others
that are not the data center.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
We're talking with starpos Can, director of Energy analysis at
Inverus Market Intelligence.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
STARp if you were king, would you, I don't.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
Even know if this is possible, but would you say
that any data center greater than with greater than an
x number of megawatts or gigawatts or whatever power requirement
needs to have its own dedicated power supply and maybe
not even be on the grid at all.
Speaker 9 (59:30):
Well, today we're seeing that a lot of data centers
are already doing that themselves, just due to the fact
that there's not a lot of ability to connect to
the grid and have that grid be able to support
you with the generation on the grid, and it takes
a period of time to be able to connect new
generation to the grid. That can take between three and
ten years in different jurisdictions, and these data centers don't
(59:52):
have the time to wait around for that. So what
they're doing is taking their generation behind the meter. So
that's why we're hearing about a lot more these projects
having and sporting their own power needs through behind the
meter natural gas, fire power plants, battery, energy storage, some solar,
or a mix of all of those different generations.
Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
So if I can just reword what you said, just
to make sure I understand it, Such and such data
center would like to have its own small modular nuclear
reactor powering all its needs. But if they're lucky, they
will have that in five years or whatever some number.
But they want to open.
Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
The data center next year, and therefore their only source
of power is the current grid, so they got to
do that even if they're going to transition later.
Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
Is that right or no? Or once the other way around?
Oh go ahead, Go ahead, It's the other way around.
Speaker 9 (01:00:45):
Actually, they would rather have their small module reactor on
site because they might not be able to get the
power off of the grid because that grid needs to
add that new generation on site and upgrade to get
it to them today. So they might choose to build
it on site now and then connect to the grid later.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Okay, I get that, But my question was, if they
were going to choose to build an SMR on site now,
can they build an SMR quick enough that they could
open the data center.
Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
When they want. That was the point I was making.
Even if they wanted SMR, they're gonna.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Have to go get the regular power first because it's
gonna take too long to get the SMR built.
Speaker 8 (01:01:22):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 9 (01:01:23):
SMRs are already still a technology that's in ascent stages
of starting to come up to curve cost.
Speaker 8 (01:01:30):
There's not a lot of them in production today.
Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
Today.
Speaker 9 (01:01:34):
They're looking at more of the ready technologies like natural
gas fire power power plants, turbines, and other things like
battery energy stored solar diesel power generators for pack up,
et cetera.
Speaker 8 (01:01:49):
SMRs still have a little while to go before I
we can get any of that on site.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
This is an issue that's not going to go away,
so we'll definitely have you back and talk about it more.
Sarpos Can, director of an Analysis, is at Inverus Market
Intelligence E n V E r US dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
Thanks Sar, good to talk to you again. Thank you.
Speaker 6 (01:02:07):
Ross.
Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
All right, it's all German rock all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
What are you doing on our first day in our
new format playing Jimmy Hendrix who is most certainly not German?
Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
How did this whole German artist thing even start?
Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
How did it start?
Speaker 6 (01:02:19):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
We played a Scorpions songs and then I said where
are the Scorpions from?
Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And then our program director Dave Tepper thought that was
so good that he decided over breakfast this morning to
make koa all German Rock all the time instead of
news talk sports. Nice, So that'll be starting like in
the next five minutes, all German Rock all the time.
Because we would never play an April Fool's joke on
December seventeen.
Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
No, we would never. We would never never do that.
And you know, I do think just just as a
thing though, Dragon, like.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
If you're going to be programming this like, I don't
know if Tepper told you to choose all the songs
on Kowa's new all German rock, all the time format.
But just as an example, I was listening to a
station and this isn't a joke now, It's like it's
the Tom Petty station, right, But what they'll play sometimes
is songs that Tom Petty liked that weren't Tom Petty songs.
(01:03:14):
So you do have a little bit of leeway, so
you know, maybe you can play some songs. You know,
some band that's super popular in Germany, even if they're not.
Like remember how big David Hasselhoff was in Germany.
Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
I mean, and his with that name. I'm sure his
ancestry is Germany is German.
Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
But like you could probably get away with playing Golden
ear Ring, which is I really love Golden Earring.
Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
But they're from Holland next to Germany. Well I'm pretty
sure Jimmy Hendrix has heard of Germany. So I think
we're there, you go, there.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
You go, and maybe you can find songs where Gina,
what are you what? That's right, that's the reaction we want.
That is exactly the reaction we want. When I even
get Gina, just just like what that is going on here.
You're welcome, You're welcome, You're welcome. That's what we're here for,
(01:04:05):
all right. I do want to remind you. Coming up
in less than fifteen minutes now, Governor Jared Poulos is
going to join the show. Let me actually we're talking
about data centers, and let me just do sort of
a nerdy tech story for a moment with you.
Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
There's an immense.
Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Amount of talk about artificial intelligence, and I bring this
up a lot on the show.
Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
It's sort of a Bostiacht kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
My favorite political economist, this French dude who died in
eighteen fifty. His name is Frederick Bostiatt, and he talked
about that which is seen and that which is not seen.
I won't get into all that stuff right now, but
you can go look it up, that which is seen
and that which is not seen, and I encourage you
to read it. In any case, it's very very easy
to imagine how artificial intelligence may destroy a bunch of.
Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
Jobs, right if they are a job. And I'll actually,
how about this.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
I was having a late breakfast yesterday with a guy
who you to use a what you'd call the person
a graphic designer. For different logos and social media stuff
for his company and now, and he would pay that
graphic designer something like one hundred and fifty dollars an hour.
(01:05:16):
And now he uses chat GPT and he tells, it
make me a picture of this kind of animal doing
this kind of thing with this kind of in this
kind of setting, and chat GPT makes the perfect image
for him. And if it's not perfect, he just tells
him to do it again until it is perfect. And
it costs him twenty dollars a month. And so he's
not hiring that graphic designer anymore, and that's bad for her,
and probably lots of her clients are like that. But
(01:05:37):
I wanted to share with you a headline from Axios
because what I've said is it's obvious how AI is
gonna kill quite a few jobs, but we should also
understand it's probably gonna create quite a few jobs. And
here's the headline I wanted to share from Axios. AI
is creating more work, countering the doomers for now, and then,
(01:05:59):
just briefly, here's.
Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
Something to tell the AI doomers.
Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
There's new evidence that instead of bringing on a job apocalypse,
AI is creating more work and yes jobs, there's a
more nuanced and optimistic story at play when it comes
to AI and the workplace. So you can read the
rest of that article on my blog at Rosskominsky dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
What I want to do is take a quick.
Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Pause here for news, weather and traffic, and when we
come back, if all goes according to.
Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
Plan, Governor Jared Polus will join the show.
Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
You're listening to Ross Kiminski on the News with Ginagondek
and producer Dragon behind the Glass. And I am very
pleased to welcome back to the show Governor Jared Poulis.
When I first asked Jared to come on, there was
a specific education issue I wanted to talk to him about,
and I still do.
Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
But there have been a lot of things in the
news since then, so we're going to get to as
much as we can.
Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Jared, welcome back to the show, and I will ask
you to give relatively brief answers so we can get
to a lot of things.
Speaker 4 (01:06:56):
Okay, is that good? Welcome?
Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
Welcome? It's going to be, and I make sure everybody
be careful with the waite's out there that should be
picking up this morning, so just drive carefully everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Absolutely, I only want to spend a moment on this,
but I do want your reaction to all the stuff
the president has been saying about you, the names he's
been calling you, the Tina Peters stuff, anything you want
to I decided not to play that audio because I
just I really didn't like what he said.
Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
But do you want to say anything about that?
Speaker 6 (01:07:23):
Well? You look, the more he focuses on, you know, me,
rather than making life more affordable and the issues people
liketed him for, the more his popularity is gonna plumb it.
I mean, he does these personal obsessions and he needs
to focus on governing. And you know that's that's what
I do for Colorado. Whether you agree with your different disagreement,
agree with me, and we need a president that does
the same, that focuses on making life better.
Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
One very very quick follow up. He's really focused on
Tina Peters.
Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Is there anything that's going to change regarding Tina Peters's
status in prison here?
Speaker 6 (01:07:55):
Well, I mean, you know, first of all, I don't
think he has a great understanding of the American justice system.
She's not my prisoner or his prisoner. She's in the
custody of the state, of Colorado is an inmate because
she was convicted unanimously by a jury of her peers.
She was, of course prosecuted by a Republican DBA in
a very Republican area of the state, and I talked
to Republicans there regularly, and they feel very wrong by
(01:08:16):
her because frankly, she risked throwing out election results that
were very favorable to Republicans. So I've tried to explain
that to the President as well. I don't think he
sees it that way, But you know, the type of
identity conspiracy, to commit identity fraud that she committed. It
could have been an insurance agent at bank, the county clerk.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Wherever it is.
Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
That's against the long Colorado and she was prosecuted.
Speaker 5 (01:08:38):
Governor's new news this morning the Trump administration moving to
dismantle en CAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
calling it green new scam research activities. Your overall reaction
to this and the future of what could take place
for in car's seven hundred and fifty employees that we
have in the Bolder area.
Speaker 6 (01:08:56):
Well, it's really sad news, and it's sad for everyone
because I think again he misunderstands what they do. I
understand they don't want people doing this direct climate sign stuff,
which I think people should we should always do increase,
but they do so much more. I mean, they literally
support the work we do around our fire pions and fire.
Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
Forecasts, around flooding.
Speaker 6 (01:09:18):
I mean, this is an agency that puts out very
good scientific data that's absolutely critical for public safety. So
I mean, if that does get disbeled, we use Colorado's
and Americans will be less safe.
Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Yeah, I'm hoping that what they'll do if they go
down that road is not stop all the science, but
you know, maybe put it in a house, it elsewhere
so it still gets done. I want to ask you, Jared,
about the thing that I actually emailed you about several
days ago.
Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
The reason I asked you on the show education.
Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
So in the Big Beautiful Bill, I think it was
the Trump administration has created a tax credit that some
Democrats don't like, I think just because it's Trump, some
teachers' unions don't like because they're teachers' unions.
Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
Give us a moment on what this thing is and
why you are taking a different position than many Democrats are.
Speaker 6 (01:10:10):
And by the way, and I don't like as a
budget hawk. By the way, this single blow a hole
in the federal deficit. But that's not our problem. Here's
what this will do. Not for the taxes you're preparing
next day, well those are for twenty twenty five, but
for the following year, so we're talking about your twenty
six taxes. Every Colorado and every American will be able
to donate seventeen hundred dollars to a charity of their
(01:10:31):
choice that helps kids in certain parameters and they will
get literally that seventeen hundred dollars refunded to them by
the federal government one hundred percent. So with no out
of pocket costs, you can support you and your wife,
thirty four hundred and one person seventeen hundred can support
a charity of your choice, and those are afters who activities,
scholarships for kids, summer programs, they can they have to
(01:10:52):
serve middle and low income kids. And it's great. It's
got a free money. From the state perspective, and then
to be clear, from the federal budget perspective, not for this,
I mean again, states are one, but because this will
blow the deficit by several hundred million dollars, because I
think most people will do it because they get the
money back. But of course we're going to take the
money and do what we can and support our kids.
Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
Just one quick follow up to me, this seems obvious
to me, not as a partisan thing, but as a governor.
Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
You have to say yes to this. Why do you
think you're getting.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Pushback from Democrats and teachers unions about free money? This
is not a voucher program, which by the way, I
support and you don't. But it's not that anyway.
Speaker 6 (01:11:32):
No, you know, I think everybody's going to get their ross. Honestly,
I think just stepping down as one of the first it,
you know, sometimes takes a little bravery, a little strength,
and you take a few arrows. But no, I agree
with you Ross. I think nearly every state and every
governor will get there. And I mean, if for some
reason one or two down't there, they're really leaving free
money they can help their kids on the table.
Speaker 5 (01:11:54):
Governor Pool has lots to cover when it comes to
the world of AI, both on a national level local level.
President Trump issued that executive order to curb AI regulations.
At the state level, now, Colorado does have that AI law.
If I'm understanding this correctly, it's not going to be
implemented until June of twenty twenty six. But my question
is what would you want to see from Congress in
(01:12:15):
order to better regulate AI?
Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
And then if they don't, would.
Speaker 5 (01:12:20):
The state legislature continue to try to push for AI
regulations or is that a hard stop now from Trump's order?
Speaker 6 (01:12:27):
You know, it's really the wrong direction for states to
do it. I mean, if you think about this from
a small startup or a small company's perspective, how can
you comply with fifty different compliance regimes. We need to
have one for the country. That's not something the president
can do. Only Congress can do that. Obviously the president's signature,
Congress needs to preempt states from doing this kind of regulation,
(01:12:48):
and whatever types of protections we have as consumers really
need to be national. We do that with intellectual property
through the Digital Millennial Property Right at We need to
do it for AI and other technologies to encourage innovation
and better make sure the consumers are able to access
the technology that we want.
Speaker 5 (01:13:06):
So, if you are against states having all different regulations,
why did you sign the law from Colorado legislature? Just
starting with the AI regulations that we could see coming
up next year.
Speaker 6 (01:13:19):
Well, in my study letter, I called for federal predemption.
We need the federal government do this. I mean, it's
not a Colorado, California has that. There's Republican states, Texas.
There are dozens of states that are doing this, and frankly,
I think it'll take a number of states doing wacky
things that hurt consumers for Congress to act. So that
pressure's building. There's a lot more states that are doing
(01:13:41):
it and congressates act.
Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
But let me just follow up on Gena's follow up.
You're you're about as tech savvy a governor as there is.
You've been in tech for longer than many people. So
Gena's specific question to you was why did you sign
that AI bill?
Speaker 6 (01:13:59):
I think to put a dish pressure on the federal government.
Speaker 4 (01:14:01):
To make it invalid. Interesting, Okay, I mean they're going
to get there.
Speaker 6 (01:14:06):
They will, you know, whether they get there this year
or in three years. But like, the sooner the better,
and frankly, the more states do stuff that hurts consumers,
the sooner.
Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Yeah, all right, I mean I think that's a tricky one,
signing a bill that's going to become law. That's going
to have impact on Colorado to pressure the federal government
that may or may not do anything, it's pretty risky.
Speaker 6 (01:14:25):
Bet, it's not just Colorado. If I thought it was
just Colorado, Ross, I probably wouldn't have signed it. But
knowing that there were dozens of states doing this, that's
the kind of pressure that Congress responds to and acts
sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Okay, last question for you, on a completely different subject.
Speaker 4 (01:14:41):
It's been some.
Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Time since I've seen kind of significant conversation from the
state government about pine beetle, Like that issue kind of
declined for a while, did totally go away. You've sent
out a tweet about and I'll quote a proactive all
hands on deck response to the growing pine beetle outbreak
across the Front Range.
Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
Can you elaborate for us please.
Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
Yeah, they're back in a big way. We release some maps.
I encourage you to look at those that are on
our website, But effectively they're in the western Front Range
down so I think western Larimer, Jeffco, Boulder, al Paso counties.
They're a lot closer to population centers than ever before.
It's in the early stages of this outbreak, and there's
patches of infected trees, but where there are patches, it
(01:15:26):
will likely be near universal for ponderosa pines, very close
to one hundred percent mortality.
Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
For mature trees.
Speaker 6 (01:15:34):
So we are starting early on this particular outbreak, given
THEMS close to the front range, given the fire risk,
and really subbling everybody.
Speaker 4 (01:15:40):
Together to make sure that we can get through this.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Is there anything for individuals to do other than maybe
report to some government agency that hey, I think I've
got an infected tree, or is this you know, as
far as dealing with the problem, is it something that
government has to do?
Speaker 6 (01:15:58):
So you can't you can't you know what, You can't
help on the problem on your own private property. But
if you have particular trees you like that are ponderos
And by the way, this is not going to affect aspens,
very rarely affects blue spruces. We're really talking ponderos is here.
If there's a few lodge poles in the area, affects
them too. So if there's a few trees that you
want to keep, you can protect them, you can treat them.
There's no forest level treatment because if we're talking, you know,
(01:16:20):
this could cost one hundred dollars a tree. But if you,
as a private property owner, have six trees that you're
really fond of, you can protect them. But that doesn't
pencil out at a forest level. There's no treatment for
tens of thousands of trees, undreds of thousands of trees.
Speaker 4 (01:16:35):
Governor Jared Poulus, thank you so much for making time
for us. As always, thank you to take care you too.
All right, a lot there. We got a lot of
questions in.
Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
He actually did a very good job of giving pretty
short answers so we could get to a lot of stuff.
I'll tell you what, Why don't we just pause here
for some news, weather and traffic For listeners. If you
want to comment on anything the governor said, text it
in at five six six nine zero. Maybe Gina and
I will go over anything you have to say.
Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
In our last few minutes together.
Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
Today, another wind song from producer Dragons, So I think
Dragon must have gotten that message from from Dave Tepper
and I must, I must apologize to listeners when I
said that we were changing the station from news talk
sports to all German rock all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:17:22):
We're not doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
We are changing it to half German rock and half
songs about wind, so there'll be a lot more variety
of music than you think. Thank you to folks who
tweeted in or no text it in at five six
six nine zero about our conversation with Governor Polis. One
(01:17:44):
quick thing, So the AI bill, I thought was a
very interesting topic. And a listener asked, if this bill
is so bad, you know, can you please explain to
us what's in it? And you know what, I might
do that, but not today. But in short, it's a bad,
unworkable bill that is likely to cause not just AI
companies to not want to be in Colorado, but to
(01:18:05):
cause any companies that use AI to not want to
be in Colorado. It is really, really a terrible bill.
I will say that when Governor Polus, in answer to
Gina's question and my follow up, said I signed this
bill because I wanted to try to force Congress to
take action at the federal level.
Speaker 4 (01:18:25):
I was wondering if he was making that up now
as a as.
Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
A way to cover for signing a bad bill, But
he actually texted me his signing statement back when he
signed this thing into law. Whenever that was I should
have the I should have the date here may of
twenty twenty four. In the signing statement, it says, I'm
trying to force the federal government to do something.
Speaker 4 (01:18:45):
So we've got about a minute here, Gina.
Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
I just wanted your takeaway from doesn't have to be
ai from any part of that conversation with the governor.
Speaker 5 (01:18:51):
Well, it was very nice to have some clear, concise answers,
because sometimes we get some long winded ones. So that
that was nice, hitting a bunch of different top the
Tina Peters. Tina Peters one is never going to go away.
It's something that's always going to be very interesting. And
he is right in saying that obviously President Trump has
zero control. But now I've seen some reports of you know,
January six Ers saying that they're going to storm the
(01:19:14):
state prisons in order to try to free Tina Peters,
and drestment will continue to have the name calling of
the governor. So I'm just curious to see what's really
going to unfold. He sounds like he will do nothing
when it comes to just leaving her obviously in state prison.
Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
There's not going to be a pardon or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
But if you just answer that question, I asked him
a change and he didn't answer.
Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
And so we've I think the back and forth isn't
going away anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Yeah, all right, one listener text Hi Ross and Gina.
I'm an arborist and I operate a tree company in Evergreen.
Preventative insects praise average about twenty five dollars a tree.
There are forest level treatments, but they aren't conducive with
the current approach to forest inning and fire mitigation.
Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Anyway, we did get into a ton of stuff with
the with the governor.
Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
We got into education, Ai Trump calling him names, Pine Beetle,
Tina Peters, really a lot of stuff. So, as Gina said,
thank you to the governor for joining us, and thank
you to the governor for giving us shorter answers than
he normally does so that we could get to a
lot of stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:20:16):
I hope you found that informative and interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
The Governor does not go on a lot of talk
radio shows, so we are pleased to be able to
bring you those conversations here on KOWA. Michael Brown coming
up next after your news, weather and traffic,
In studio with Gina, who has another big sweater today,
although a different kind of sweater. It's different, but it's
still it's still big. Also thrifted or no, yeah, actually okay?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
All right?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
And producer Dragon with a coll hit the Robins egg
blue collared shirt.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Did you do that on purpose?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Most definitely? Was it yesterday or the day before that?
You had the other collared shirt yesterday? Wow, you almost
put your trash out? Yeah, but you put your trash
out today? What it is one of your trash days?
It is one of them? Wait, have you okay? This
is an almost serious question. And then, folks, I promise
we're going to get to the news, because it's in
(00:40):
the name of the show that we have to talk
about news. Dude, when is the last time you wore
a colored shirt two days in a row?
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Two months? More than months? Who knows? I couldn't tell you. Yeah,
that's what I thought. All right.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We have an immense amount of stuff to do on
today's show. We are, of course going to keep you
updated on all of the wind stuff that is and
will be going on. Gina has been giving you a
lot of information throughout the morning already on that you'll
see a lot of news headlines. I will say that
yesterday when they were talking about this, it seemed like
(01:18):
they were predicting a wind event that would come further
south than.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
What they're predicting now.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right, So yesterday they were talking about significant wind event
for like Denver and Arapaho County and maybe even Douglas
County this morning, and this could still change, but this
morning they're looking a little bit more north, like Boulder
and Weld and Larimer, and a little towards the mountains
(01:46):
like Clear Creek.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
But so we'll have to see where this stuff really
comes in. We're not expecting the big winds to start
hitting until after our show, you know, maybe late more morning,
early afternoon.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
But we're going to keep you updated on all that
as best as Gina and I can.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
I think Gina, you already.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Talked about some school closings and things like that. Right,
So in the sort of Denver metro, I think the
only big closing is jeff Co. There's a couple of
small things, but up north there's more stuff going on.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Right.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Clearcreek School District are one six of the Pooter District schools,
Weld ARI four and windsor canceling classes for elementary school
students and then releasing middle and high schoolers before lunch.
But the thing that KA listeners might want to follow
is SeeU Boulder is closed. So they're on the fence
of what's going to take place for the men's basketball game.
It's scheduled for seven pm against Portland State. It's still scheduled,
(02:44):
but they said if they do need to reschedule a
new update, we'll come at three o'clock this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Okay, great, And so just so folks also understand how
this has changed a little bit since yesterday Excel and
there's a whole conversation and again you've heard from Gina
about this, and we'll talk about it more later.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
In the show.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But Excel is going to do some preemptive power outages,
probably because they don't want to be in a position
of big winds knocking over an energized power line and
causing a fire like some people think happened with the
Marshall fire. Right, So, but yesterday, when this was first
coming up as a thing, they were talking about cutting
(03:25):
power to over half a million customers because they were
picturing this thing coming much further south, so to include
Denver in a rapa Hoe and Adams County and so on.
But now they're talking about mostly impacts in the Jefferson
County foothills, Boulder County foothills, Clear Creek, and then Larimer
(03:46):
and Weld County is up north, So now they're talking
about like fifty thousand instead of five hundred thousand Excel
customers potentially affected. But we'll keep you updated on all
that stuff throughout the throughout the morning as we learn more.
So an immense amount of stuff to talk about on
today's show. As Gina mentioned a little bit ago, at
eight thirty five, Governor Polis is going to join the show.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
We have a lot of things to ask.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Him, and we're going to try to get him to
give short answers so we can get a lot of
topics in.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
But for sure, one.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Thing I'm going to ask him about was Donald Trump
calling him all kinds of names lately, repeatedly.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And we'll see what he has to say about that.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yesterday, President Trump posted on social media and I quote
my fellow Americans, I will be giving an address to
the nation tomorrow night, live from the White House. So
that would be tonight at nine pm Eastern time. I
look forward to quote unquote seeing you then. It has
been a great year for our country, and the best
is he had to come, President Donald J.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Trump. So this is an interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
There is no better predictor of how a political party
does in midterm elections. For the House of Representatives, and
for s it All Send, it's a little trickier thing.
So we'll stick with talking about the House. There's no
better predictor of how that goes than the president's approval ratings.
(05:09):
And one of my favorite political analysts a guy named
Henry Olsen, and he.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Does a podcast called Beyond the Polls. It's really really good.
It's very nerdy, but it's very very good.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
And his contention is that for Republicans to keep the
House of Representatives, President Trump needs to have an approval
rating probably in the forty six to forty seven percent range,
and right now he's around forty And it might not
seem like a big difference, but I mean the way
Henry talks about it, and he's looked at this stuff
(05:42):
for decades, it's like going from I'll just pick a number,
going from if you were to if Republicans were to
keep the House at a forty six and a half
percent presidential approval rating, they could easily lose the House
at forty five and a half percent approval rating. That
that's how tightly these things track, and it's pretty consistent
(06:06):
over years, over over decades.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
So obviously Trump's not going to.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Run for anything again, but many Republicans are, and you know,
most Republicans in Congress are, and so they care very
very much about the president's approval rating. And the President's
approval rating has been suffering because people feel that it's
primarily a cost of living thing.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
They feel that the president has.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Not done enough and not done what he said in
order to try to get the cost of living down.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
And I think many Americans, if you were to.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Ask them, can you tell me any Trump policies that
affect cost of living? I think most people might only
say tariffs, right. Some people might point to something about energy,
which is real, but as far as cause of daily goods,
(07:01):
people are gonna say tariffs.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
And people know.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That tariffs increase costs, and so I'm not looking to
debate tariffs with you right now.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
What I'm what I'm here to.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Say is that a lot of American voters are a
little frustrated because they elected Trump to do something that
they don't think he's doing, and that's why his numbers
have dropped so much among unaffiliated voters and even a
little bit among Republicans. So what Trump needs to do
now is to come out and tell the country, Hey,
(07:32):
I understand what you're really focused on. I understand that
you care about the cost of living. He needs to
be very careful that he doesn't go off script and call,
you know, the quote unquote affordability issue a hoax, as
he has been doing, because that's exactly the thing that
cost Democrats the election the last time, when Democrats said,
(07:55):
don't worry, the inflation's transitory, and don't worry, the economy
is going to get better.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
You know, everything we're looking at now.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Is a lagging indicator, but really it's all going to
get better, and it didn't work for them. You cannot
tell an American voter to trust what a politician says
over their own lived experience every day. And so Trump
needs to do this. He needs to talk about it
as if he really understands the other thing that I
(08:24):
think and this this has sort of occurred to me
this morning. Actually, you know, I've spent a lot of
time talking and thinking and writing about President Trump's response
to the death of Rob Reiner. And by the way,
please go to my substackt at Rosskominsky dot substack dot com,
and I write a couple times a week about all
(08:44):
kinds of thing, usually national and international. Sometimes I write
local stuff there and it's free and I think it's
pretty good.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
So if you would do me a.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Favor and go to Rosskominsky dot substack dot com and subscribe,
I would appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Anyway, it occurred to.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Me this morning that one one of the first obvious
big problem with what Trump said about Rob Reiner is
just that it was so tasteless. It was so tasteless
and just off that even most mega people were saying,
you shouldn't have done that. But that's not the point
I want to make this morning. The point I want
to make this morning is one of the things that
(09:19):
I think caused that to break through the news cycle.
Even as many things that Trump says that aren't true
or aren't nice or whatever don't break through, I think
one of the things is that it showed Donald Trump
pretty intensely focused on something that most people would say
(09:42):
a president should not be wasting his time being focused on. Yeah, okay,
Rob Reiner criticized Trump a lot, and Trump might have
some thoughts about that, and he could have said something
brief like, you know, Rob Reiner was mean to me,
but you know, sorry to hear that he was murdered whatever.
But the fact that he sent this long thing shows
(10:04):
that he's not focused on affordability, and I think that's
that's a problem for him as much as what he said.
It just adds to this view that while he's so
busy thinking about Venezuela that and thinking about Rob Reiner,
(10:25):
that he's not thinking about what Americans really want him
to think about. And tonight's press conference is an opportunity
for him to reset that. Speaking of Rob Reiner, there's
been some ongoing news in the past day or two
about his son, who. Well, you tell me, Geno, what's
the latest. Are you kind of proud of me forgetting
(10:45):
it like on the first or second? No, it's an
easy one, though, Yeah, I think I mean, we'll find
out on Nina Tuon on Friday. Okay, all right, So
that was Winds of change by the scorpions that dragon
was playing. Because it's going to be windy today. Let
me take on a listener text or two here. First,
a listener says, it's pretty pathetic how everyone is acting like.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
The world is ending over wind.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Look, I get it, but you saw the Marshall fire, right,
and that one way or another, whether it was caused
by a down power line or people burning trash, or
some combination of all of the above, that was a
wind event.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
The Marshall fire would never have happened that way without
that wind, And so it's reasonable that people are pretty
concerned about it. And you know, and even though it's December,
it's very, very, very dry and warm.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
It was almost seventy degrees yesterday. I think we tied
a record high yesterday.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
So I get it, and I don't think it's pretty
pathetic how everyone is acting like the world is ending.
They're not acting like the world is ending. They're acting like, hey,
there's a risk here, and we're going to try to
deal with that risk. Another person says, ross schools closed
too easily. It shows the lack of importance that education
(12:04):
has become in the past. School was valued today not
so much. I think that's quite wrong. Look, I'm sorry
to disagree with with folks this morning.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
But that's that's not right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You just you're a little cynical this morning, folks, just
a little too cynical. Look, if you're running a school
or a school district and the power company is telling
you there's a very good.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Chance that we're going to have to shut.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Off power to your schools, then that's not awesome.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
And as long as especially by the.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Way, they're near the end of the semester already, so
if they've done as many days of teaching as they
need to do to meet the state law requirements for
how many days kids need to be in school. You know,
I realize it's a little bit of a hassle for parents,
depending on how old the kids are, to have a
kid who's not at school. I get that, But you know,
would would you want to be running a big school
(12:58):
district or even a small school district and you got
all these kids in school and suddenly you've got seventy
mile hour per win mile per hour wins and no power.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think if I thought that was a reasonable possibility,
I'd close the school too, So I think you're being
I think you're being a little bit.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
A little bit too cynical this morning. Okay.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So, yes, there have been a few stories coming through
actually that fall into a particular category, and I do
want to let you know. I've reached out to the
Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, to ask him to join
us on the show one day soon to talk about
these things. He's the only Cabinet secretary who I know
(13:49):
pretty well, like he's the only cabinet secretary whose house
I've been to, right, So I'm going to try to
get Chris right on the show to talk about some.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
A broader kind of thing is from the Colorado Sun.
Trump administration cancels one hundred and nine million dollars in
environmentally focused transportation grants for Colorado.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
The subhead and.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
This is actually a quote from the Department of Transportation
rather than Energy. These projects did not align with President
Trump's ambitious America First agenda or were redundant, so they're
canceling a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
There was some stuff for.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Fort Collins regarding electric vehicle charging infrastructure up there and
allowing the city to buy more electric vehicles. There is
another one up in Fort Collins where they were looking
to build what they call it, and this is again
from the Colorado Sun, a transit station and roundabout at
the intersection of West Elizabeth Street and South Overland Trail
(14:46):
as part of a bus rapid transit initiative. So that's
eleven million dollars they're canceling. The other one's almost twelve
million dollars they're canceling. Canceling another eight and a half
million dollars for statewide stuff regarding a electric vehicle charging.
And then this is an interesting one, canceling sixty six
and a half million dollars that was going to pay
(15:07):
for real improvements in northern Colorado, including the installation of
something called positive train control, which is a safety thing
we heard. Gosh, when was this. It was probably around
a year ago. There was a there's a pretty big
train derailm and I don't remember where it was. I
don't think it was the one in East Palestine, Ohio.
I think was after that, but anyway it was. It
(15:28):
was a train operator error. But there's a system called
positive train control that can slow down the train even
if the person running the train is making a mistake.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
And I guess that's one of the things that was.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Going to be done up here in northern Colorado with
this grant money that has now been canceled. So there's
that then what we learned, And this seems like kind
of a big deal. And I have to say, I
don't hate it. I might be I'm not quite alone
in this, but I'll probably be in the minority in this.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I do not hate this. The Trump administration is announcing.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And I'll quote here, and this is from Russ Vought,
who directs the OMB, the National Science Foundation, will be
breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in CAR
in Boulder. This facility is one of the largest sources
of climate alarmism in the country. And that's true. That
second thing is true. Now, I do want to be
(16:24):
careful with this to the extent that the federal government
is going to do science research, you know, if you
think they should, then you should have the best science
research done that you can have done. And to the
extent that in CAR is good at actual science research,
if breaking it up might make that worse, then they
should be careful about that. But they are absolutely right
(16:46):
that in CAR has been a source of climate alarmism,
propaganda and nonsense for a long time, and they so.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
They need to be really careful about this. In general.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's not so much that I'm in favor of breaking
it up, but I am in favor of making sure
that they stick with the science. So we will see
how this all plays up. But in any case, it
is a big, big deal for Boulder five six six
nine zero.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Where are the scorpions from?
Speaker 6 (17:16):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Okay still have a ton of gina? Do you know
the answer to that? By the way, Oh, it doesn't
seem like right in your wheelhouse. You know where Katy
Perry is from?
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Though.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, we learned a couple of things yesterday from Chad.
What did we learn about Katy Perry? Not that I care,
but it was funny that he's a music encyclopedia walked
in and told us.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Some things like, you know, Katy Perry's real name is
not Katy Perry.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I think it was Catherine Hudson.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Hudson, Yeah, which we.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Already have a Kate Hudson, so that's why she changed it.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Oh, he said she used to be a Christian singer.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yes, yeah, there you go, You're Katy Perry.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Facts of the day.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
We still have a ton of stuff to talk about
on the show, so much that I'm not even.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Sure where to start, but I'll start here.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
President Trump sent out another social media message yesterday. I
say another because earlier in the show I mentioned his
post announcing that he was going to be doing an
addressed to the nation from the Oval Office tonight. I
want to say that seven pm R time. Do you know, Gina,
what is that?
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Seven PMR time?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Okay, So he sent out another one, and this a
little bit long, but I'm going to share it with you.
Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled
in the history of South America. It will only get bigger,
and the shock to them will be like nothing they've
ever seen before, very trumpy, right until such time as
they returned to the United States of America all of
the oil, land and other assets that they previously stole
(18:41):
from US.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
What maybe you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Nationalizing oil fields in Venezuela. I'm guessing maybe the illegitimate
Maduro regime is using oil, okay from these stolen oil
fields to finance themselves drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and
kidnapping for the theft of our assets and many other reasons,
including terrorism, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. The Venezuelan regime
(19:05):
has been designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Therefore, today I'm ordering.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
A total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil going
into and out of Venezuela. The illegal aliens and criminals
that the Maduro regime has sent into the United States
during the week and inept Biden administration are being returned
to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow criminals, terrorists,
or other countries to rob, threatn or harm our nation,
(19:31):
and likewise will not allow a hostile regime to take
our oil, land, or any other assets, all of which
must be returned to the United States immediately. Thank you
for your attention to this matter. Okay, so this is
actually a very interesting situation. So I don't know how
many ships Donald Trump has down there around Venezuela, but
quite a few.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
And you will recall that the United.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
States Coast Guard, I'm under a warrant issued by a
federal judge, by the way, took control of a large
tanker called I think it's called Skipper Skipper.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
I believe that was the name of the ship.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And I see some news casts now that say the
oil on that ship is estimated to be worth about
ninety five million dollars. Now, there's a bunch of these
ships that are currently in Venezuelan ports. Some of them
already have Venezuelan oil on them, some of them don't.
But the owners of these ships now have some pretty
(20:33):
significant decisions to make. Axio says they're about seven hundred
and twelve vessels globally on a list called the Specially
Designated Nationals List, And I guess that's a list you
don't want to be on if.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
You're a ship.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And according to a guy who follows this stuff, of
the seven hundred and twelve, about forty are currently in
Venezuelan waters, about eighteen have Venezuelan oil on them already.
And basically, what Trump is saying is that any of
these ships that comes out of Venezuela, We're going to
(21:11):
take it. Now, it's unclear whether he will actually go
like sell the oil and keep the money or what.
He's putting an immense amount of pressure on the Maduro regime,
which is a terrible dictatorial regime that is not legitimate
they're not legitimate. They want it's it's kind of like
the Hamas thing from two thousand and seven or two
(21:33):
thousand and eight. It's is one man, one vote, one time, right,
they win one election because people are frustrated with whatever
the previous government was. These new people are, you know,
the not quite revolutionaries but almost populist in their own
way and representing something other than what's been going on.
So people vote him in because they want to change.
(21:55):
And then they become the dictators and they either don't
allow another election or they have fake elections in which
they just make up whatever vote numbers they want to
make up, and that's what they've been doing in Venezuela.
So in any case, Venezuela is certainly a source of drugs.
It's probably not much a source of fentanyl. Probably is
a source of cocaine. And yeah, the trendy Iragua gang
(22:20):
that came to the United States and all that.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
So look, it's an interesting Here's what I think is
most interesting about it. You can talk about all the.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Foreign policy stuff, and you can talk about should the
United States be or not be in the business of
trying to overthrow a regime in South America or anywhere
else that hasn't always worked out very well for us.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's one conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
The other conversation that I think is more subtle, hard
to put a finger on, is how does this play
for Trump politically? Trump is a master at getting Democrats
to take positions that the public composes, Like Trump will
take a position that he knows Democrats are against, where
(23:04):
he knows the public is on his side, like men
and women's sports or boys in girls sports. It's an
eighty twenty issue, with eighty percent of the population saying
it's not fair to girls and women to have boys
and men competing against them in competitive sports where strength
and speed matters and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Right, But because the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Hate Trump so much, they will reflexively just take the
other side of his position, and it causes them to
take positions that are politically unpopular. And maybe he's doing
that here. It's a little hard to tell. This is
not like boys in Girls sports? Do the American public
really care that much about drug boats coming out of Venezuela?
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Do you really think if you stop the drug.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Boats coming out of Venezuela that somehow the drugs won't
find a way to get here anyway? Do you think
it's a good use of American time and money. We
haven't lost any lives doing it yet, and maybe we
never will.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
But still, and here's the other thing that.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Just jumps out at me that I want to mention briefly,
and that is much of Trump's base is quite isolationist,
more isolationist than Trump is. With Trump spending all this
time talking about Venezuela, talking about Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Taiwan,
all of these places where Trump is so so heavily
(24:17):
involved overseas, is he turning off some of that base
who wanted him to just turn inward and be focused
on America. And if he is turning them off, how
will that play out in the midterm elections. I think
that's a very interesting question.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Don't forget.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Coming up less than two hours from now, at about
eight thirty four, Governor Jared.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
Polus joins the show.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Right now, keep it here for your news, traffic, and weather.
Two listener things I want to address about music. First
listener text says, I've heard more about Katy Perry in
the last two days than I did all year, and
I'm torn on that between saying Dragon's usual thing when
we get it, which is, what do you normally say?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
You're welcome? You're welcome?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Right, So that's one and the other thing that also
Dragon says a lot about when we tell you something
that you know you didn't expect, but.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Maybe more importantly you don't care about.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
What do we say about that to listeners like, what
are we doing here?
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Wasting time? We are wasting your time.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
For folks who are new to this show, and especially
to Gina who is a professional and not used to
intentionally wasting people's time, this is what she's dealing with
now a producer, Dragon and I it's somewhere between a
vocation and a hobby. Oh, wasting people's time on the radio. Nice,
So you're good with that. You can go along with
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And it takes some time to get used to.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Sure, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And then the other thing was we asked listeners where
the Scorpions from, and the Scorpions are from Germany and
if you want to get really in the weeds, there
from a city called Hanover in northern Germany. Anyway, my
favorite German rock band, in part because they're the only
German rock band. I know there's probably one of these
craft Work German. They're not really rock though, do you
know craft Work? I saw craft Work?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Did you really Steamroller? What did you really? When was that.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Last this year? Well they're not dead, no, yeah, they're
still around.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
They're like ninety.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
No I think.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
No, they can't be that all.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
Yeah, definitely not rock. They can't be that form of
edim like the start of ediom.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yeah yeah right, so uh yeah, pretty, let me let.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Me do something for thirty seconds here, because I don't
have a lot.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
To add, but I want to make sure you know
the news.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So there's some talk now that the US and Ukraine
have come up with a plan, a war ending plan,
a peace deal kind of thing, that they are going
to be ready bless you gena, that they are going
to be ready to uh to present to Russia pretty soon.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
So I wanted you to be aware of that.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
My expectation is that just as Ukraine wouldn't even consider
Russia's peace proposal, which is really what the US gave
Ukraine the first time around. Basically, they just took Russia's
dream list and gave it to Ukraine, which was a
pretty significant failing by the United States team actually, but
now the United States team is working with Ukraine and
(27:12):
they're trying to draft something that I suspect will be
much better and much more reasonable than the original draft.
But I still think it's something that Russia will say
no to when we come back. Doctor April Steel, who
has been for the last ten years or so, but
not for much longer, the CEO of Humane Colorado.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
Don't forget. We got Governor Polis coming up at eight
thirty four. Very pleased to have joining the show.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
April Steel, Doctor April Steel, And that's ap Ryl and
for nearly eleven years now, but only for a few
days more. She is the CEO of Humane Colorado. And
first of all, April, it's very good to have you here.
Thanks so much for spending time with us. And was
that dumb Friends League before.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Good Morning?
Speaker 7 (28:02):
And yes it was dumb Brindsley before we rebranded in
March to Humane Colorado.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
All right, I have questions, Gina has questions.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We've got about six minutes, so let's try to do
a lot of things. One thing I want to ask
you about, and then we're going to talk about your fund.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But once I want to ask you about. Is something
I was talking.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
About during COVID when there were lots of people adopting animals,
and I said on the show, please don't adopt in it,
or please don't go get an animal wherever you're getting
it from. Please don't go get an animal from a
breeder or a pet shop or whatever unless you're pretty
confident you're gonna want to keep that animal. And I've
seen anecdotally some data that a lot of people have
(28:39):
been turning it as dogs, especially into animal shelters. Is
that true and if so, would you like to say
anything about it?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, So it's slightly more complicated than that.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
I think right after the pandemic people were really able
to keep their animals. We didn't see the math turn
and that a lot of anecdotal reports showed. However, what
we do know is that when dogs, especially reach about
two years of age, they reach their social maturity and
most of their behavior issues manifest then. So they you know,
(29:14):
a lot of puppies that were adopted during the pandemic
and then stayed home and had their people home all
the time didn't really learn the confidence of being alone
in their home and have developed some behaviors that are
bothersome and those are the dogs that when they reach
two years of age start getting turned back into shelters
because people don't know how to manage those behaviors. So
(29:36):
it's a little bit of a delayed thing that we've seen,
but we have been seeing many more dogs coming to
the shelter.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Very interesting insight, Doctor Steele.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I'm curious.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
I know it's hard to talk about yourself and look
back at your career and things like that. I get it,
But for a decade, over a decade here, how has
just animal welfare and just like the standard care of
pets really change.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
In the last decade?
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Is what you've seen at Cumane Colorado and a CEO.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Lovely question and it's fun to talk about because it's
the team, it's not me.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
But there's so much that we have seen evolve.
Speaker 7 (30:12):
I think people are valuing animals more and so it's
no longer acceptable to say only people with the most
privileged can have a relationship with the animal. We know
that animals help people's mental health, emotional health, physical health,
and I don't want to imagine a society where people
and animals don't have positive relationships.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
And help each other through life.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
So as we start honoring that in a different way,
we also have to understand our responsibility in making sure
these animals are cared for. And that's where the subsidized
veterinary care has really come into play. Is you know,
just as positive as that human animal bond can be
to help people get through life, it can turn just
as devastating if an animal gets sicker and injured and
(30:56):
someone cannot afford the care that that animal needs to
And so being a veterinarian and knowing that healing is
my calling. Increasing our service to the community in this
way and creating our venary hospital at CSU Spur where
we help sick and injured animals with subsidized venary care,
has been exceptionally rewarding. We actually served more animals that
(31:21):
are owned and in the community last year than we
did in our shelters, but it was pretty close. It
was about twenty thousand in the shelters and about twenty
three thousand in the community.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
That really is a remarkable thing.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I love that someone When my dog got hurt, someone
told me about the Spur and I said, look, I
can afford to pay for my dog's care, and so
I don't want to even think about, you know, draining
that resource.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
So yeah, that's a that's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
And and the April Steel Fund for Veterinary Care. Is
this going to be a full time job for you
or what? You know, how are you approaching this?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 7 (32:02):
So it's definitely an honorary title that the organization and
our Border Directors has done to really make, you know,
honor the work and the healing passion that I have
had for the last decade. And so they've created this
fund that helps serve the veterinary needs of animals within
(32:23):
our shelter and at our subsidized veterinary hospital in the community.
So whether it's a low cost vaccine or sicker.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Injured animals, it's going to do both.
Speaker 7 (32:33):
And I'm just incredibly honored that they have done that,
and you know, hopefully more and more animals will get
healed because of that. And I just wanted to say
real quick, thank you so much for commenting on you
could afford the care so you didn't use that resource,
because we have so much more need for this resource
than we have availability, and that's why the fund's important.
(32:54):
And that's also why people that can afford veterinary care
should use one of our excellent veterinarians in our Cay community.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Doctor Steele. Real quick, about thirty seconds here. If you
had to give one piece of advice for the future
CEO Katie Parker, what would you give her?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Well, first of all, she's amazing.
Speaker 7 (33:10):
He needs little advice from me, absolutely outstanding. But my
advice would be just remember that compassion is the best
way to make decisions. And while passion can motivate you,
compassion is what makes the biggest difference.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I think that answer helps you understand why doctor April
Steele was such a great CEO of Humane Colorado, which
many of you probably remember his dumb friends lye, because
it was that for many years until recently. Congratulations on
a wonderful tenure as CEO and on the fantastic legacy
of the Doctor April Steel Fund for Veterinary Care. What
(33:47):
a great thing to be remembered by, a great way
to be remembered by.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Thank you, and thank you for your partnership. You guys
are lovely.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Thanks so much. We'll take a quick break. We'll be
right back on KOI it's.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Time to thank a veteran or an active duty member
of the military or a first responder with twenty five
hundred bucks to No, you don't have to write the check,
so from now through February first, you can submit your
nominees' name along with your reason why you believe the
person you're nominating deserves twenty five hundred bucks. And the
(34:20):
way you do it is you go to Koacolorado dot
com slash contests Koa Colorado.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Dot com slash contests.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
This is a Heroes thank you presented by Common Spirit,
Health and fix It twenty four to seven.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Speaking of heroes, I mentioned this to you yesterday. I
think it was yesterday.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
This guy, Ahmed al Ahmed, who is a fruit stand
or fruit shop owner near Bondai Beach, born in I believe,
Syria and then moved to Australia some years ago. I
think he's an Australian citizen now.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Based on reporting that I've seen.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Anyway, an immigrant to Australia almost certainly Muslim jumped in
and tackled one of the shooters at Bondai Beach. And
as horrific as the outcome was, there was there it
could have been much worse if that guy hadn't done
what he did. And I mentioned to you that a
go fund me had been started for this man, and
(35:15):
it's not often when you see gofund me is because
this guy did get shot as when he was I
think the other gunman shot him, if.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I understand, because that's what it looked to me like
in the video.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Often when you see these kinds of gofundmes, it's let's
raise money to cover his medical expenses. He's in Australia,
and he's not badly wounded.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
He was shot in the arm in the hand.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I think now, I wouldn't want to be shot in
the arm in the hand, so for me that would
be badly wounded, I guess. But you get my point.
He's not gonna have very very big medical bills. Again,
in Australia, a lot of that stuff is covered by taxpayers.
And instead, what they're really doing with this go fund
me is just trying to reward him for being a hero,
(35:58):
for jumping in, for saving lives. And I just wanted
to let you know that they are almost at two
and a half million dollars US two and a half
million US dollars and that is probably more money than
this guy would would have earned in a lifetime.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
I think it's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
Do you mind if I mention another GoFundMe as well?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Go ahead. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
I don't know if you saw the one for Sofia
and Boris German. They were the couple that reportedly tried
to tackle the.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Gunman when he stepped out of the.
Speaker 5 (36:31):
Car to begin with the first people before he was
actually able to disarm them. They unfortunately were killed. So
there's a GoFundMe for that couple. It's now raised almost
five hundred and sixty thousand dollars. The goal is a million.
It's a it's a really sad story. I mean, they
were married for thirty four years, they were approaching their
(36:53):
thirty fifth wedding anniversary. Sophia's sixty second birthday was going.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
To be on today, So that is for you can.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
Search GoFundMe dot com and Loving Memory of Sofia and
Boris German g U R M A N and be
able to donate to some of their funeral expenses there
as well.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
So I just looked that up as you were talking
about it, and I see that Bill Ackman, who I
mentioned yesterday as having donated one hundred thousand dollars to
the Ahmed all Ahmed gofund me has also donated one
hundred thousand dollars to this go fund me, which is
(37:33):
called in Loving Memory of Sophia and Boris German.
Speaker 6 (37:37):
Well.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
I somehow hadn't heard that story, so thank you for
sharing that, Gina.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
And wow, what a tragic thing there is.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
There is heroism all around us, and sometimes it works
out very well for the heroes, and sometimes, as with
these two wonderful people, it didn't. But in any case,
now you know about bo of these gofundmes and you
can do whatever feels right to you.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Gina had this story the.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Other day and I didn't know about it until I
heard it from Gina, And now I see an update
on it that I just thought i'd share with you.
This is from Axios, Colorado finishes North America's.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Largest wildlife overpass, and I.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Have to say, the thing that bums me out about
this is they had to caveat it with North America's
largest rather than the world's largest, because apparently India just
build a wildlife overpass.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Well not just they actually did. There's a few months ago.
That's bigger.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
So it's America's biggest North America's biggest wildlife overpass. So
what are we talking about? If you can see a
picture of this thing up on my blog at Rosskiminsky
dot com, and we've got by the way every day
that I have a show, you got to blog up
there at Roskiminsky dot com that has links to stories,
links to guests and all kinds of stuff, and it'll
it's a redirect.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
To my KOA page.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
You can also find standalone blog posts for almost.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Every interview we do, and standalone.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Podcasts as well as the whole show podcast. The producer
Dragon gets up there, so if you want to catch
up on something that you missed, especially with a guest,
it's all there anyway. So there's this picture of this
massive thing going over I twenty five and if at
first it's a little bit hard to tell how big
it is, there's some pictures of cars and even looks
like maybe a school bus nearby.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
And this thing is insane.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
It is two hundred and nine feet long and two
hundred feet wide, so imagine two thirds of a football
field in width. The overpass again from Axios dot com
spans six lanes, right, Well, it goes across the six
lanes of I twenty five covers an area of nearly
an acre between Larkspur and Monument. So this is called
(39:50):
the Greenland Wildlife Overpass. And the thing that I wanted
to mention about this, just a little bit of an
add on to the to the basic story, is that
this is near where.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
The proposed BUCkies is.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
And I think this sort of helps might help you
understand a little bit why there's so much opposition to
the BUCkies. Right, if you're in an area where you
need a wildlife overpass over the highway because there are
so many deer and elk and antelope and an occasional
mountain lion or a bear walking somewhere, Right, if you've
(40:30):
got that much wildlife around, and you've got these billionaires
John Malone bought a whole bunch of this area to
keep at pristine. I think that's part of the reason
that folks are really concerned about a Bucky's very near.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
There.
Speaker 5 (40:43):
One thing I hope they do with this wildlife overpass,
because I know a lot of people were like, we're
making an overpass for wildlife. Well, yeah, this is something
that's been done in the past. Utah Dot posted a
video back in September from their Wildlife Overpass. It's the
coolest video where it actually has cameras hooked up where
you can see the animals crossing, and they said that
(41:06):
there was a seventy seven percent reduction in wildlife vehicle
collisions with Utahs Wildlife Overpass, and they have so many
videos of like moose crossing it and things like that,
So I don't know if they're going to have cameras
hooked up or if they can monitor what is actually crossing,
but it is pretty.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Fascinating to see that.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
But we made the joke in the newsroom earlier of
they completed it, and we had the story about it
being completed last week.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Now they opened it, and I was like, did they
do a ribbon cutting? How do they just like allow
the animals to be like you can cross now because
there was completed earlier, But then everyone picked.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
Up on the story of.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
It now being open, and I was like, how did
they But it sounds.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
Like they might have even like I don't know, started
bating it or something to allow the animals to like, wow,
to learn where it is and things it's a.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Great idea with the cameras because that could get the
public because I remember when you did this story, which
was only a week ago, but a listener texted in
saying something like, wait, are you telling me they spent
fifteen million dollars on an overpass that isn't for people
to use? And that is yes, although the money mostly
came from the federal government. Although money from the federal
government comes from our children, right, But anyway, it was
(42:12):
about fifteen million dollars. It was apparently on time and
on budget, which is which is kind of nice.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
But I love the idea of the of the cameras.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
And they're claiming and that the Utah data point that
you mentioned, Gina goes a good.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Distance in this direction.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
They're hoping that this will cut wildlife vehicle crashes by
maybe ninety percent around there. And I'll tell you what,
if if it were to reduce car crashes with animals
by even a modest fraction of that, it's going to
be worth that fifteen million dollars really really fast in
what it saves, not just in vehicle damage but in
(42:53):
medical costs, right and in death.
Speaker 4 (42:56):
I mean in the Utah.
Speaker 5 (42:57):
One, they said moves successfully crossed one hundred percent of
the time.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Can you imagine hitting.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
It hitting a moose.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah that if a car hits a moose, the moose wins.
I mean, it's shocking how much damage gets done to
a car when it hits a deer, and a moose
is probably eight or ten times the weight of a deer.
It really is unbelievable. All right, So that's a fun story.
Let me do a this is a DC story. Let
(43:23):
me just do a couple of minutes on this thing,
so you you will recall that a few years ago,
actually I guess it was largely during the first Trump administration,
but there was sort of an ongoing conversation about removing
statues of Confederate General's, Confederate leaders all.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
That, and it became a big movement.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I don't know that I would go so far as
to call it woke, because normally when I call something woke,
I think it has.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
Essentially no legitimate underpinning.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
I think there is something potentially legitimate about removing some
statues of some you know, Confederate general.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
I will also note one other thing.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Actually, many of these statues that were I don't know
how many people know this. Many of the statues that
were removed of Confederate generals were actually put up, like
thirty forty fifty years after the Civil War, with the
(44:28):
specific intention of trying to remind black people to stay
in their place and to remind and these some of
these things were put up by people with ill intent,
by racists, and they weren't put up like right after
the Civil.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
War to honor Robert E. Lee as a brilliant general.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
And I thought that whole thing was an interesting conversation,
and I actually thought, I'm not one of these guys
who both sides things, but I actually thought both sides
had pointed there. Right.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Some of these are historical figures that were worth knowing.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
About and worth talking about, even if they weren't good.
But also some of it is just sort of an
in your face reminder that in the United States we
used to allow some people to own other people. Now
in the United States Capital there is a statuary hall,
(45:24):
and every state is allowed two statues, although I think
some of them aren't kept in the hall, some of
them are kept in a couple other places, but basically
within the capital collection of statues, every state is allowed
to and the states choose their own, and so for
a long time, maybe unsurprisingly, one of Virginia's statues was
(45:47):
Robert E.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Lee, a son of Virginia who fought for Virginia. And
I'm sure Robert E.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Lee, in his mind was fighting for Virginia, because that
was the mindset back then, right, It was about the
states more than it was about the country even then,
even then, ninety years, eighty five years after the Revolution
and eighty years or whatever after the Constitution.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
But of course Robert E.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Lee was also fighting to keep a system that allowed
some people to own other people. Virginia decided they're going
to remove their Robert Lee statue from Statuary Hall, and
yesterday was the unveiling of the new statue, and it
is of a woman, well, a girl named Barbara Rose John's.
(46:33):
Barbara Rose Johns Barbara's Johns is an African American at
the time, a black sixteen year old in nineteen fifty one,
born in nineteen thirty five, black sixteen year old in
nineteen fifty one, and she led a strike for equal
education at a high school in a place called Farmville, Virginia,
and her fight there became one of the lawsuits that
(46:57):
was then consolidated into the Brown Versus Board of Education
Supreme Court decision a few years later, which said that
separate but equal quote unquote public schooling is unconstitutional. And
I actually think it's a lovely evocative statue of a
of a teenage girl with fairly long hair holding up a.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
Book and kind of waving it.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
And I actually think this is kind of cool, and
so I just thought I should add with you. If
this were April Fools, what I would say is, I'm
I'm here. I need to report to you some important
news about KOA.
Speaker 4 (47:33):
Again.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Let me insort a caveat this would be an April
Fool's joke. It's just what I would do if it
were April Fools, that KOA is changing our format and
instead of news and talk in sports, we are going
to be all German.
Speaker 4 (47:47):
Rock all the time.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
What what's is Chad?
Speaker 6 (47:52):
There?
Speaker 4 (47:52):
I heard the laugh out there.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
You know, back in the day, stations used to do
April Fools jokes where they would just switch, like we
would go down to our friends at the Fox and
they will come up here. They do their show on
our station, we do it on theirs.
Speaker 4 (48:06):
Those du That's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
It doesn't really happen much.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
No, it doesn't happen much anymore. I'm not a big
April Cools joke kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Hello, no one even took me for.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
A second, Folks, don't forget.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Coming up in the forty five minutes, Governor Jared Polus
will join the show. Gina and I have a bunch
of questions for him. I've got let me just go
through a few more quick newsres.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
Actually, let me.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Mention this I mentioned at the top of the show,
but it's important and one of these things I think
I need to mention more than once during a show,
and that is President Trump is going to address.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
The nation tonight at.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Seven pm Mountain time nine pm Eastern time from the
White House. He hadn't said from what room, but you
gotta figure it'll probably be from the Oval Office. And
he's got a little bit of work to do. President
Trump's approval ratings are not great right now.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
In fact, let me look up.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
One good website is realclearpolling dot com, which is just
an offshoot from RealClearPolitics dot com. President President trump job
approval is the first thing that comes up, and right
now is job approval on the average of polls, it
looks like forty three and a half percent, approximately, and
(49:23):
that's up a bit from forty two and a half
percent a month ago, but it's down quite a bit
from let's say the middle of this year, when he
was more around forty seven.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
So he needs to fix that up.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
And as I mentioned earlier, you might say, why does
he need to fix his own job approval ratings since
he's not running for office again, And the reason is
that midterm elections are referendum on president on the president always, always,
and so one of the best indicators of how the
(49:59):
party of the president does in the midterm is the
president's approval ratings, and generally a president needs to be
somewhere in the high forties, probably forty seven ish in
order to feel like you will, you know, at least,
not lose very many seats. And of course, the Republicans
(50:21):
don't have very many to lose. They only have a
three or four or five seat majority, depending on who's
who's actually there at any given time and who's resigning
and all this stuff. So Trump needs to fix this
up because he doesn't want to lose the House, because
if he loses the House. He will not get any
other important piece of legislation through the entire time that
he's presidents unless there's some miracle of some kind of
(50:43):
bipartisan legislation. I think that's not very likely because I
think generally Democrats are not going to want to give
the rep give Trump any kind of win, even if
it's a bill they would support. So Trump really wants
to try to help Republicans keep the majority. I don't
think he'll succeed, but he's got to try. And then
also he wants to minimize losses in the Senate. The
(51:04):
Senate looks better than the House does for Republicans, but still,
if there were a big blue wave, you never know.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
And Trump is trying to prevent the big blue wave.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
So he needs to come out and tell people kind
of like a Bill Clinton sort of way, I feel
your pain.
Speaker 4 (51:19):
He has not been good at that.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
He was not good at during COVID either, And let
me just be real clear on this. During COVID, when
he mobilized the private sector to create COVID vaccines faster
than anybody thought a vaccine could ever be developed. And
I'm not here to debate with you whether you like
the vaccines or not, that's irrelevant for this conversation. He
got that done infinitely faster than anybody thought would be possible.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
It was incredible.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
But the way he talked about COVID, he talked about
it as if don't worry about it, it's not that serious,
It'll be fine, don't be scared, YadA, YadA, YadA. It
was kind of the way that Joe Biden later talked
about in in People's Economic Anxieties. They both said, it's okay,
you're not really afraid. I'm telling you you are not
(52:08):
really afraid, and then they both lost.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
So what Trump needs to do is to.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Make people believe that he understands them and that he
knows what's important to them, and that he's gonna focus
on it. And that will probably be his goal tonight.
It's not a rally, right, this is going to be
on a teleprompter, and I'm sure his team is hoping
as much as they can hope that.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
He stays on message.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
But whatever he says, we'll talk about it tomorrow morning.
Kind of ironic, perhaps that we are talking about the
power going out today in parts of northern Colorado. Given
our next guest, SARP oz Can, which is one of
the coolest names I've ever heard, is the director of
Energy Analysis at Inverus Market Intelligence, So they're affirm that
(52:56):
does all kinds of data analysis and consult and so
on on energy markets.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
E n V E r US, Sarp, Welcome to KOA.
It's very good to have you here.
Speaker 8 (53:07):
Thanks Ross for having me back on again.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
I gotta ask you.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
I don't know if I asked previously, but Sarp oz
Can is one of the coolest names ever. Where is
that name from. I really have no idea. I'm thinking
like Armenia or something. I have no idea.
Speaker 8 (53:24):
Originally Turky Sross.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Okay, not far. I wasn't that far far. You're very close,
very very close. Okay.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
What I would like to talk with you primarily about
today is data centers. It's a huge issue everywhere. Electricity use,
which we're going to talk about, water use, space, you know,
the land use. I mean, there's a big data center
actually going up in Denver, and there's a little bit
of controversy about that. I heard a lot, you know,
(53:52):
you hear a lot of stories that try to play
up the use of data. And I'm not saying they're
overstating it, but I would like to explain in a
way that we can all understand the scale the scope
of electricity requirements of data centers.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (54:11):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 9 (54:13):
Data centers are absolute power doustlers, and it's the most
important input into their processes. And to put it in context,
one megalot of power can go to.
Speaker 8 (54:26):
Power about eight hundred homes.
Speaker 9 (54:30):
Let's say small data centers today are about one hundred megaalots,
so we're thinking about eighty thousand homes. And in a
lot of cases these can go up to a gig
a loot so times ten, so there's a lot of power.
And to also add to that, these things are using
power twenty four to seven, so it's not like a
(54:53):
home where we sometimes go to sleep. Data centers don't
sleep either, So it's a very very steady demand on
the grid that's enough to power whole cities.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Okay, I think the way that a lot of people
think that food comes from supermarkets, many people think that
power comes from those little holes in the wall by
And I'm not being sarcastic. What I mean is I
think that most people think that it doesn't matter how
many people have, how many things plugged into how many
(55:26):
holes in the wall, there's always going to be enough power,
which might be true in big cities before there's any
data centers maybe, but even that might not be true,
like when everybody's trying to run.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
An air conditioning at the same time.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
So in that context, what is the risk posed to
existing electricity infrastructure by the addition of a data center
to an area.
Speaker 9 (55:51):
Well, first of all, we have to consider that we're
talking about the biggest machine on earth. The grid is
actually the biggest machine on earth, and it's a very
very old and rickety one that we work off in
the United States today, and that machine needs to be
in a place where it's balancing the supply and the
demand at all points in time, at all locations. It's
(56:14):
a wonder that it even works the way it does
as well as it does today. So when you start
to add these very very large demand centers onto a
grid that hasn't seen an increase in demand for decades
in the past and is now experiencing this huge increase
in power pool from its infrastructure, it certainly causes some
(56:39):
reliability issues, and that's why utilities need to spend the
money to upgrade their systems. So that the reliability for
both the data center as well as all of us
remains stable.
Speaker 1 (56:54):
So if a utility needs to upgrade, either to support
reliability or to just support basic demand levels, doesn't that
mean then that I, as a rate payer, will be
paying somewhere between a lot more and a hell of
a lot more.
Speaker 8 (57:14):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 9 (57:16):
So what utilities need to do is to recover their
costs from US consumers at a rate that is set
by their regulators, and the regulators approve the spending that
they need to do for these upgrades, and that those
upgrades are recovered through all of our rates and other
(57:39):
people's rates, including the.
Speaker 4 (57:40):
Data including the data center.
Speaker 6 (57:41):
Right.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
So there are some places, some utilities, maybe some state
governments passing laws about this, that are trying to make
sure that the burden of these higher costs actually go
to the data center, right. And they're trying to make
sure that the data center pays for some stuff upfront,
pays you know, as they're going, or the electricity, and
has some kind of contract where if the data center
(58:04):
closes down, that they still owe money for a while.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
Right.
Speaker 8 (58:08):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 9 (58:09):
And this is to make sure that there is an
equitable way that we pay for it versus what the
data center pays for their portion of the upgrades. And
these rates are ensuring that they have a longer term contract.
Speaker 8 (58:26):
Usually a decade or more.
Speaker 9 (58:28):
There's a ramp up period so not all the demand
is imposed on the grid at one time. Making sure
reliability is safe for everybody else utilizing the grid. It
requires that they have to pay all of those costs
back even if they don't use the power or they
decide to exit the area, and it requires a lot
(58:49):
more collateral as well as cash up front for the
equipment that's going to be used, so we don't have
stranded costs that then end up being recovered from others
that are not the data center.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
We're talking with starpos Can, director of Energy analysis at
Inverus Market Intelligence.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
STARp if you were king, would you, I don't.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
Even know if this is possible, but would you say
that any data center greater than with greater than an
x number of megawatts or gigawatts or whatever power requirement
needs to have its own dedicated power supply and maybe
not even be on the grid at all.
Speaker 9 (59:30):
Well, today we're seeing that a lot of data centers
are already doing that themselves, just due to the fact
that there's not a lot of ability to connect to
the grid and have that grid be able to support
you with the generation on the grid, and it takes
a period of time to be able to connect new
generation to the grid. That can take between three and
ten years in different jurisdictions, and these data centers don't
(59:52):
have the time to wait around for that. So what
they're doing is taking their generation behind the meter. So
that's why we're hearing about a lot more these projects
having and sporting their own power needs through behind the
meter natural gas, fire power plants, battery, energy storage, some solar,
or a mix of all of those different generations.
Speaker 4 (01:00:12):
So if I can just reword what you said, just
to make sure I understand it, Such and such data
center would like to have its own small modular nuclear
reactor powering all its needs. But if they're lucky, they
will have that in five years or whatever some number.
But they want to open.
Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
The data center next year, and therefore their only source
of power is the current grid, so they got to
do that even if they're going to transition later.
Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
Is that right or no? Or once the other way around?
Oh go ahead, Go ahead, It's the other way around.
Speaker 9 (01:00:45):
Actually, they would rather have their small module reactor on
site because they might not be able to get the
power off of the grid because that grid needs to
add that new generation on site and upgrade to get
it to them today. So they might choose to build
it on site now and then connect to the grid later.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Okay, I get that, But my question was, if they
were going to choose to build an SMR on site now,
can they build an SMR quick enough that they could
open the data center.
Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
When they want. That was the point I was making.
Even if they wanted SMR, they're gonna.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Have to go get the regular power first because it's
gonna take too long to get the SMR built.
Speaker 8 (01:01:22):
That's absolutely right.
Speaker 9 (01:01:23):
SMRs are already still a technology that's in ascent stages
of starting to come up to curve cost.
Speaker 8 (01:01:30):
There's not a lot of them in production today.
Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
Today.
Speaker 9 (01:01:34):
They're looking at more of the ready technologies like natural
gas fire power power plants, turbines, and other things like
battery energy stored solar diesel power generators for pack up,
et cetera.
Speaker 8 (01:01:49):
SMRs still have a little while to go before I
we can get any of that on site.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
This is an issue that's not going to go away,
so we'll definitely have you back and talk about it more.
Sarpos Can, director of an Analysis, is at Inverus Market
Intelligence E n V E r US dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
Thanks Sar, good to talk to you again. Thank you.
Speaker 6 (01:02:07):
Ross.
Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
All right, it's all German rock all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
What are you doing on our first day in our
new format playing Jimmy Hendrix who is most certainly not German?
Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
How did this whole German artist thing even start?
Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
How did it start?
Speaker 6 (01:02:19):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
We played a Scorpions songs and then I said where
are the Scorpions from?
Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
Exactly?
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And then our program director Dave Tepper thought that was
so good that he decided over breakfast this morning to
make koa all German Rock all the time instead of
news talk sports. Nice, So that'll be starting like in
the next five minutes, all German Rock all the time.
Because we would never play an April Fool's joke on
December seventeen.
Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
No, we would never. We would never never do that.
And you know, I do think just just as a
thing though, Dragon, like.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
If you're going to be programming this like, I don't
know if Tepper told you to choose all the songs
on Kowa's new all German rock, all the time format.
But just as an example, I was listening to a
station and this isn't a joke now, It's like it's
the Tom Petty station, right, But what they'll play sometimes
is songs that Tom Petty liked that weren't Tom Petty songs.
(01:03:14):
So you do have a little bit of leeway, so
you know, maybe you can play some songs. You know,
some band that's super popular in Germany, even if they're not.
Like remember how big David Hasselhoff was in Germany.
Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
I mean, and his with that name. I'm sure his
ancestry is Germany is German.
Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
But like you could probably get away with playing Golden
ear Ring, which is I really love Golden Earring.
Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
But they're from Holland next to Germany. Well I'm pretty
sure Jimmy Hendrix has heard of Germany. So I think
we're there, you go, there.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
You go, and maybe you can find songs where Gina,
what are you what? That's right, that's the reaction we want.
That is exactly the reaction we want. When I even
get Gina, just just like what that is going on here.
You're welcome, You're welcome, You're welcome. That's what we're here for,
(01:04:05):
all right. I do want to remind you. Coming up
in less than fifteen minutes now, Governor Jared Poulos is
going to join the show. Let me actually we're talking
about data centers, and let me just do sort of
a nerdy tech story for a moment with you.
Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
There's an immense.
Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Amount of talk about artificial intelligence, and I bring this
up a lot on the show.
Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
It's sort of a Bostiacht kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
My favorite political economist, this French dude who died in
eighteen fifty. His name is Frederick Bostiatt, and he talked
about that which is seen and that which is not seen.
I won't get into all that stuff right now, but
you can go look it up, that which is seen
and that which is not seen, and I encourage you
to read it. In any case, it's very very easy
to imagine how artificial intelligence may destroy a bunch of.
Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
Jobs, right if they are a job. And I'll actually,
how about this.
Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
I was having a late breakfast yesterday with a guy
who you to use a what you'd call the person
a graphic designer. For different logos and social media stuff
for his company and now, and he would pay that
graphic designer something like one hundred and fifty dollars an hour.
(01:05:16):
And now he uses chat GPT and he tells, it
make me a picture of this kind of animal doing
this kind of thing with this kind of in this
kind of setting, and chat GPT makes the perfect image
for him. And if it's not perfect, he just tells
him to do it again until it is perfect. And
it costs him twenty dollars a month. And so he's
not hiring that graphic designer anymore, and that's bad for her,
and probably lots of her clients are like that. But
(01:05:37):
I wanted to share with you a headline from Axios
because what I've said is it's obvious how AI is
gonna kill quite a few jobs, but we should also
understand it's probably gonna create quite a few jobs. And
here's the headline I wanted to share from Axios. AI
is creating more work, countering the doomers for now, and then,
(01:05:59):
just briefly, here's.
Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
Something to tell the AI doomers.
Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
There's new evidence that instead of bringing on a job apocalypse,
AI is creating more work and yes jobs, there's a
more nuanced and optimistic story at play when it comes
to AI and the workplace. So you can read the
rest of that article on my blog at Rosskominsky dot com.
Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
What I want to do is take a quick.
Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Pause here for news, weather and traffic, and when we
come back, if all goes according to.
Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
Plan, Governor Jared Polus will join the show.
Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
You're listening to Ross Kiminski on the News with Ginagondek
and producer Dragon behind the Glass. And I am very
pleased to welcome back to the show Governor Jared Poulis.
When I first asked Jared to come on, there was
a specific education issue I wanted to talk to him about,
and I still do.
Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
But there have been a lot of things in the
news since then, so we're going to get to as
much as we can.
Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Jared, welcome back to the show, and I will ask
you to give relatively brief answers so we can get
to a lot of things.
Speaker 4 (01:06:56):
Okay, is that good? Welcome?
Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
Welcome? It's going to be, and I make sure everybody
be careful with the waite's out there that should be
picking up this morning, so just drive carefully everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Absolutely, I only want to spend a moment on this,
but I do want your reaction to all the stuff
the president has been saying about you, the names he's
been calling you, the Tina Peters stuff, anything you want
to I decided not to play that audio because I
just I really didn't like what he said.
Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
But do you want to say anything about that?
Speaker 6 (01:07:23):
Well? You look, the more he focuses on, you know, me,
rather than making life more affordable and the issues people
liketed him for, the more his popularity is gonna plumb it.
I mean, he does these personal obsessions and he needs
to focus on governing. And you know that's that's what
I do for Colorado. Whether you agree with your different disagreement,
agree with me, and we need a president that does
the same, that focuses on making life better.
Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
One very very quick follow up. He's really focused on
Tina Peters.
Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Is there anything that's going to change regarding Tina Peters's
status in prison here?
Speaker 6 (01:07:55):
Well, I mean, you know, first of all, I don't
think he has a great understanding of the American justice system.
She's not my prisoner or his prisoner. She's in the
custody of the state, of Colorado is an inmate because
she was convicted unanimously by a jury of her peers.
She was, of course prosecuted by a Republican DBA in
a very Republican area of the state, and I talked
to Republicans there regularly, and they feel very wrong by
(01:08:16):
her because frankly, she risked throwing out election results that
were very favorable to Republicans. So I've tried to explain
that to the President as well. I don't think he
sees it that way, But you know, the type of
identity conspiracy, to commit identity fraud that she committed. It
could have been an insurance agent at bank, the county clerk.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Wherever it is.
Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
That's against the long Colorado and she was prosecuted.
Speaker 5 (01:08:38):
Governor's new news this morning the Trump administration moving to
dismantle en CAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
calling it green new scam research activities. Your overall reaction
to this and the future of what could take place
for in car's seven hundred and fifty employees that we
have in the Bolder area.
Speaker 6 (01:08:56):
Well, it's really sad news, and it's sad for everyone
because I think again he misunderstands what they do. I
understand they don't want people doing this direct climate sign stuff,
which I think people should we should always do increase,
but they do so much more. I mean, they literally
support the work we do around our fire pions and fire.
Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
Forecasts, around flooding.
Speaker 6 (01:09:18):
I mean, this is an agency that puts out very
good scientific data that's absolutely critical for public safety. So
I mean, if that does get disbeled, we use Colorado's
and Americans will be less safe.
Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Yeah, I'm hoping that what they'll do if they go
down that road is not stop all the science, but
you know, maybe put it in a house, it elsewhere
so it still gets done. I want to ask you, Jared,
about the thing that I actually emailed you about several
days ago.
Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
The reason I asked you on the show education.
Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
So in the Big Beautiful Bill, I think it was
the Trump administration has created a tax credit that some
Democrats don't like, I think just because it's Trump, some
teachers' unions don't like because they're teachers' unions.
Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
Give us a moment on what this thing is and
why you are taking a different position than many Democrats are.
Speaker 6 (01:10:10):
And by the way, and I don't like as a
budget hawk. By the way, this single blow a hole
in the federal deficit. But that's not our problem. Here's
what this will do. Not for the taxes you're preparing
next day, well those are for twenty twenty five, but
for the following year, so we're talking about your twenty
six taxes. Every Colorado and every American will be able
to donate seventeen hundred dollars to a charity of their
(01:10:31):
choice that helps kids in certain parameters and they will
get literally that seventeen hundred dollars refunded to them by
the federal government one hundred percent. So with no out
of pocket costs, you can support you and your wife,
thirty four hundred and one person seventeen hundred can support
a charity of your choice, and those are afters who activities,
scholarships for kids, summer programs, they can they have to
(01:10:52):
serve middle and low income kids. And it's great. It's
got a free money. From the state perspective, and then
to be clear, from the federal budget perspective, not for this,
I mean again, states are one, but because this will
blow the deficit by several hundred million dollars, because I
think most people will do it because they get the
money back. But of course we're going to take the
money and do what we can and support our kids.
Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
Just one quick follow up to me, this seems obvious
to me, not as a partisan thing, but as a governor.
Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
You have to say yes to this. Why do you
think you're getting.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Pushback from Democrats and teachers unions about free money? This
is not a voucher program, which by the way, I
support and you don't. But it's not that anyway.
Speaker 6 (01:11:32):
No, you know, I think everybody's going to get their ross. Honestly,
I think just stepping down as one of the first it,
you know, sometimes takes a little bravery, a little strength,
and you take a few arrows. But no, I agree
with you Ross. I think nearly every state and every
governor will get there. And I mean, if for some
reason one or two down't there, they're really leaving free
money they can help their kids on the table.
Speaker 5 (01:11:54):
Governor Pool has lots to cover when it comes to
the world of AI, both on a national level local level.
President Trump issued that executive order to curb AI regulations.
At the state level, now, Colorado does have that AI law.
If I'm understanding this correctly, it's not going to be
implemented until June of twenty twenty six. But my question
is what would you want to see from Congress in
(01:12:15):
order to better regulate AI?
Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
And then if they don't, would.
Speaker 5 (01:12:20):
The state legislature continue to try to push for AI
regulations or is that a hard stop now from Trump's order?
Speaker 6 (01:12:27):
You know, it's really the wrong direction for states to
do it. I mean, if you think about this from
a small startup or a small company's perspective, how can
you comply with fifty different compliance regimes. We need to
have one for the country. That's not something the president
can do. Only Congress can do that. Obviously the president's signature,
Congress needs to preempt states from doing this kind of regulation,
(01:12:48):
and whatever types of protections we have as consumers really
need to be national. We do that with intellectual property
through the Digital Millennial Property Right at We need to
do it for AI and other technologies to encourage innovation
and better make sure the consumers are able to access
the technology that we want.
Speaker 5 (01:13:06):
So, if you are against states having all different regulations,
why did you sign the law from Colorado legislature? Just
starting with the AI regulations that we could see coming
up next year.
Speaker 6 (01:13:19):
Well, in my study letter, I called for federal predemption.
We need the federal government do this. I mean, it's
not a Colorado, California has that. There's Republican states, Texas.
There are dozens of states that are doing this, and frankly,
I think it'll take a number of states doing wacky
things that hurt consumers for Congress to act. So that
pressure's building. There's a lot more states that are doing
(01:13:41):
it and congressates act.
Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
But let me just follow up on Gena's follow up.
You're you're about as tech savvy a governor as there is.
You've been in tech for longer than many people. So
Gena's specific question to you was why did you sign
that AI bill?
Speaker 6 (01:13:59):
I think to put a dish pressure on the federal government.
Speaker 4 (01:14:01):
To make it invalid. Interesting, Okay, I mean they're going
to get there.
Speaker 6 (01:14:06):
They will, you know, whether they get there this year
or in three years. But like, the sooner the better,
and frankly, the more states do stuff that hurts consumers,
the sooner.
Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Yeah, all right, I mean I think that's a tricky one,
signing a bill that's going to become law. That's going
to have impact on Colorado to pressure the federal government
that may or may not do anything, it's pretty risky.
Speaker 6 (01:14:25):
Bet, it's not just Colorado. If I thought it was
just Colorado, Ross, I probably wouldn't have signed it. But
knowing that there were dozens of states doing this, that's
the kind of pressure that Congress responds to and acts
sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Okay, last question for you, on a completely different subject.
Speaker 4 (01:14:41):
It's been some.
Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Time since I've seen kind of significant conversation from the
state government about pine beetle, Like that issue kind of
declined for a while, did totally go away. You've sent
out a tweet about and I'll quote a proactive all
hands on deck response to the growing pine beetle outbreak
across the Front Range.
Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
Can you elaborate for us please.
Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
Yeah, they're back in a big way. We release some maps.
I encourage you to look at those that are on
our website, But effectively they're in the western Front Range
down so I think western Larimer, Jeffco, Boulder, al Paso counties.
They're a lot closer to population centers than ever before.
It's in the early stages of this outbreak, and there's
patches of infected trees, but where there are patches, it
(01:15:26):
will likely be near universal for ponderosa pines, very close
to one hundred percent mortality.
Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
For mature trees.
Speaker 6 (01:15:34):
So we are starting early on this particular outbreak, given
THEMS close to the front range, given the fire risk,
and really subbling everybody.
Speaker 4 (01:15:40):
Together to make sure that we can get through this.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Is there anything for individuals to do other than maybe
report to some government agency that hey, I think I've
got an infected tree, or is this you know, as
far as dealing with the problem, is it something that
government has to do?
Speaker 6 (01:15:58):
So you can't you can't you know what, You can't
help on the problem on your own private property. But
if you have particular trees you like that are ponderos
And by the way, this is not going to affect aspens,
very rarely affects blue spruces. We're really talking ponderos is here.
If there's a few lodge poles in the area, affects
them too. So if there's a few trees that you
want to keep, you can protect them, you can treat them.
There's no forest level treatment because if we're talking, you know,
(01:16:20):
this could cost one hundred dollars a tree. But if you,
as a private property owner, have six trees that you're
really fond of, you can protect them. But that doesn't
pencil out at a forest level. There's no treatment for
tens of thousands of trees, undreds of thousands of trees.
Speaker 4 (01:16:35):
Governor Jared Poulus, thank you so much for making time
for us. As always, thank you to take care you too.
All right, a lot there. We got a lot of
questions in.
Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
He actually did a very good job of giving pretty
short answers so we could get to a lot of stuff.
I'll tell you what, Why don't we just pause here
for some news, weather and traffic For listeners. If you
want to comment on anything the governor said, text it
in at five six six nine zero. Maybe Gina and
I will go over anything you have to say.
Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
In our last few minutes together.
Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
Today, another wind song from producer Dragons, So I think
Dragon must have gotten that message from from Dave Tepper
and I must, I must apologize to listeners when I
said that we were changing the station from news talk
sports to all German rock all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:17:22):
We're not doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
We are changing it to half German rock and half
songs about wind, so there'll be a lot more variety
of music than you think. Thank you to folks who
tweeted in or no text it in at five six
six nine zero about our conversation with Governor Polis. One
(01:17:44):
quick thing, So the AI bill, I thought was a
very interesting topic. And a listener asked, if this bill
is so bad, you know, can you please explain to
us what's in it? And you know what, I might
do that, but not today. But in short, it's a bad,
unworkable bill that is likely to cause not just AI
companies to not want to be in Colorado, but to
(01:18:05):
cause any companies that use AI to not want to
be in Colorado. It is really, really a terrible bill.
I will say that when Governor Polus, in answer to
Gina's question and my follow up, said I signed this
bill because I wanted to try to force Congress to
take action at the federal level.
Speaker 4 (01:18:25):
I was wondering if he was making that up now
as a as.
Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
A way to cover for signing a bad bill, But
he actually texted me his signing statement back when he
signed this thing into law. Whenever that was I should
have the I should have the date here may of
twenty twenty four. In the signing statement, it says, I'm
trying to force the federal government to do something.
Speaker 4 (01:18:45):
So we've got about a minute here, Gina.
Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
I just wanted your takeaway from doesn't have to be
ai from any part of that conversation with the governor.
Speaker 5 (01:18:51):
Well, it was very nice to have some clear, concise answers,
because sometimes we get some long winded ones. So that
that was nice, hitting a bunch of different top the
Tina Peters. Tina Peters one is never going to go away.
It's something that's always going to be very interesting. And
he is right in saying that obviously President Trump has
zero control. But now I've seen some reports of you know,
January six Ers saying that they're going to storm the
(01:19:14):
state prisons in order to try to free Tina Peters,
and drestment will continue to have the name calling of
the governor. So I'm just curious to see what's really
going to unfold. He sounds like he will do nothing
when it comes to just leaving her obviously in state prison.
Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
There's not going to be a pardon or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
But if you just answer that question, I asked him
a change and he didn't answer.
Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
And so we've I think the back and forth isn't
going away anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Yeah, all right, one listener text Hi Ross and Gina.
I'm an arborist and I operate a tree company in Evergreen.
Preventative insects praise average about twenty five dollars a tree.
There are forest level treatments, but they aren't conducive with
the current approach to forest inning and fire mitigation.
Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Anyway, we did get into a ton of stuff with
the with the governor.
Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
We got into education, Ai Trump calling him names, Pine Beetle,
Tina Peters, really a lot of stuff. So, as Gina said,
thank you to the governor for joining us, and thank
you to the governor for giving us shorter answers than
he normally does so that we could get to a
lot of stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:20:16):
I hope you found that informative and interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
The Governor does not go on a lot of talk
radio shows, so we are pleased to be able to
bring you those conversations here on KOWA. Michael Brown coming
up next after your news, weather and traffic,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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