12-18-25 - *FULL SHOW* Trump Speech; CO Economy Weakens; Border Searches

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I did put the trash out without Dragon having to
tell me to, which is an unusual thing. I'm Rawson
Studio with Gina, who has a big sweater on for
the third day.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Sweater and that's long. Are you sure your your trash
isn't going to blow away? I'm not sure. It's pretty
windy this morning. You know there's almost trash can in
the parking. No, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
He's half a block away. I couldn't hear you, Dragon.
Oh you heard my paulle night yours. I got the
wrong button here. Yeah, but what would you say? Yeah,
it's it's like half a block away. It's in the
other complex park.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah. I hope you all survived the wind. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
So what I did, though, and I hope this will
work out fine, is I put the trash can, Dragon
and the recycling out, and then I taped an envelope
to each with fifty bucks for the drivers, the recycling
driver the recycling. The recycling driver left a Christmas card
on the recycling can the last time, which is a

(01:00):
very smart way of the recycling driver to remind people
to give him a tip. Right, so if the Christmas
card costs him, let's say ten cents each and if
one out of every twenty Christmas cards gets him a
twenty dollars tip, and I bet you it does better.
I bet you it has better return than that. Then

(01:20):
he's spending ten cents a card to get a dollar
a card return.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
But you know, and I and I left out fifty
bucks for him.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
So living in an apartment complex part of my ignorance.
But people still tip their Do you tip your mail carrier?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
No trash and recycling a lot of people, Oh dragon
shaking his head.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Oh, I only put my trash up every other week now,
so you get a week off every other week.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
So I just wasn't a tip if the routes really
stayed the same where you're getting the same person every
single time.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Did you just tip someone who it's his first day?

Speaker 1 (01:55):
And oh, neighbor, I don't know, I don't know. Well,
let's ask listeners. Text us at five six six nine
zero and tell us do you tip your trash driver?
And and if you have recycling to you tip that person?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
They are definitely separate truck. And what's the appropriate TIPNT?
How much do you trash truck driver, ycle or mail carrier?
Because I remember back in the day.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
That's what my parents used to do, but that was
because it was the same person every single time.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Nowadays, I feel like.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Their routes change so often that you're not really getting somebody.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
That's yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
And also, I guess, just in my brain, I don't
really think of tipping government employees.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Good point, you know, but oh wow, look what we
stumbled upon.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
So anyway, I was saying, I like, I hope I
texted the texted. I hope I taped the the envelopes
down well enough that they don't.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh, so here's the other thing.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
And now that everybody knows that you got.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So here, but here's the other thing.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
So definitely two different trucks, and usually they don't come
around the same time, right Often one of the trucks
will be in the morning and one of the trucks
will be in the afternoon. And so what I'll be
interested to see what Let's say I get home and
I find that the trash truck has been there already,
the recycling truck hasn't. What if the envelope with the

(03:16):
check is gone.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Off of both cans? Right point?

Speaker 1 (03:20):
So that's kind of a sociological experiment that I'm engaged
in right now.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
It's like when Amazon people, like, if you get a
lot of deliveries, people like to put out snacks and stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Here Amazon, thanks for dropping off my holiday packages.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
And then you always see the ring doorbell cameras of
the guy taking every single snack off the little cart.
I see them all the time. People are trying to
do like a thanks for delivering our holiday packages. So
they almost put out a take a water, take a snack. Take,
But generally it's like trigger treating, leaving the.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Bowl out in the honor system. It's all gone by
the first person.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
If you were an Amazon driver, would you take an
a random snack left outside?

Speaker 4 (03:55):
My son isn't the older son is an Amazon driver. Yeah, yes,
he loves when he sees the snacks and the waters
and everything, and he's an honest kid, so he only
takes you know, one snack.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Wait, so people are leaving snacks outside for Amazon drivers, Yeah,
more often in the summer that that happens for your
cool waters.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
I almost wanted to say that's more common than tipping
your trash.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Is okay?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
And what a concept, by the way, an Amazon driver right,
like like a driver for a company delivering just that
company's the stuff that company sold, because not that long
ago there were only UPS drivers and FedEx drivers which
were delivering packages for thousands of different companies. But now

(04:40):
one company is so big that they have their own drivers. Okay,
all right, I'm going to broaden this question out. Who
do you tip? Yeah, who do you tip? Not counting
restaurants and stuff?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Right?

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Who who is it you know who might be a
service provider to you over the course of a year.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Who do you tip? And how much?

Speaker 4 (04:57):
Five?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Six, six nine zero? Text? Oops?

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Ross's next, time to turn the channel. That's not very nice.
That's not very nice. Plus it doesn't have anything to
do with how much you're tipping. Come on, come on,
Oh you know that person is so committed to changing.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
The station when I come on that he texted it
in twice. Nice. That's violating the Kevin rule. Anyway. Why
do you think that's nice? I don't think that's very nice.
He's like, just in case he didn't see it right exactly? Ross,
You said, what if they took Oh?

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Did I say no? Did I say check? I meant
to say envelope? I don't know if I said check. Look,
I've been up since one fifty this morning. All right,
so if I'm a little weird today, that's why. Anyway,
textas at five sixty six nine zero, we got multiple
questions all around the same thing. Who do you tip?
And specifically do you tip your trash truck driver into
a recycling driver?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
And for any of that, how much do you tip
the people that you tip.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Let me do a couple of minutes here on pray
and Trump's speech last night.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
It started like this, good evening, America. Eleven months ago.

Speaker 5 (06:07):
I inherited a mess, and I'm fixing it.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
And that was his best line of the night, his
opening line. Now what I'm going to do here, I'm
on the YouTube machine and I've got his video, and
I'm just going to scroll to any random part in
the video.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Really, this is random.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
I have no idea where I've just I just moved
it up to what does it say? Eight minutes and
twenty eight seconds? That's not prime. I can't do that.
Eight minutes and twenty nine seconds, that's probably prime. So
I can do that. And let's just listen.

Speaker 5 (06:39):
Hottest country anywhere in the world, And that said by
every single leader that I've spoken to over the last
five months next year. You will also see the reason.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Remember this part. I'm going to get back a couple
of seconds.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
Ready to fail totally is ready to fail even remotely possible.
There has never, frankly been anything like it. One year
ago our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our
country is ready to fail, totally failed. Now we're the
hottest country anywhere in the world.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Okay, So that gives you actually a very good sense
of the speech. Just that little clip right there. The
speech was very much like that, and I have some
thoughts about it that I want to share with you.
And if you're a huge Trump fan, you probably won't
like these thoughts very much, but.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
I'm going to go anyway.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
And I really wanted him to give a great speech,
and I really wanted him to do something that I
thought would reassure the American voter, the American people. I
wasn't sure whether he would attempt more to appeal to.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
His base, which it does seem.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Like he was doing, versus appealing to the center of
the country and swing voters and sort of ordinary suburban
voters who maybe don't care too much about politics but
are very concerned about the cost of living.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
And he did not seem to try to appeal to
those people.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
So I just want to talk literally for ninety seconds,
and I'm going to split this in terms of the
content of.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
The speech and the delivery of the speech.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
The content of the speech he touched on an immense
number of topics, but I think for a goal of
trying to reassure the American people, I think he was
too scattered.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I think he was all over the place.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
He did talk about cost of living a bit, but
not enough. He talked about tariffs, he talked about Venezuela,
he talked about energy, he talked about immigration, he talked
about drugs, he talked about all kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
And it was somewhere between.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
A list of what he thinks are his accomplishments and
a festivus airing of grievances.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
It was kind of in there, and I just thought
it was.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
So muddled that I doubt that within one or two
days from now, I doubt anybody will be able to
tell you anything he said in that speech except for
announcing this one thousand, seven hundred and seventy six dollars
bonus for members of the military, which is fine, But
it was not a memorable speech in that sense. Also, now,

(09:09):
I think the tone and the delivery was more important
than what was in it, especially because not very much
was in it that was interesting or new. And to me,
this was the Trump equivalent of a hostage video.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
And what I mean by.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
That is it sure seemed like he didn't want to
be there and didn't want to be giving the speech.
When I was listening to him, I kind of felt
like I was watching a video where I had put
it on one point two five speed playback. I'm not
trying to be sarcastic. I've never heard him talk that
fast for that long. It was like he was just

(09:45):
trying to get through it, and it gave me the
feeling that he.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Didn't want to be there.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And also his tone, even when he was talking about
things that were nominally positive, where he was saying I
got this done and I got that done, his tone
sounded very angry, and I just I don't know if
he was trying to appeal to the base. Maybe it
helped a little a little, But actually, his rally speeches

(10:11):
are better, and I've been to a Trump rally. His
rally speeches are better. He modulates his voice more and
he throws in a joke and that sort of thing.
He didn't do that, So I don't think it helped
him with his base, and it definitely didn't help him
with people outside his base because he didn't focus on
what the American people are really focused on. And he
just sounded too angry. He looked too angry. It was

(10:33):
sort of incongruous having this guy yelling at us, almost
from standing in front of a giant Christmas wreath with
ornaments on it. All in all, I just think it
was a lost opportunity.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
I really really do. It just popped up on my phone.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
I see that CNN had it maybe less than an
hour ago, and just updated it a few minutes ago.
This this is crazy. Okay, you are aware. I'm sure
of Donald Trump's social media company. It's called truth Social,
and it's Trump mostly Trump owned company. It trades publicly too,

(11:09):
so he owns a lot of it, but the public
and investors own a lot of it. And it's sort
of his competitor to Twitter, primarily more than a competitor
to Facebook or Instagram or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
The parent so that's called truth Social, and the parent
company that owns it in the same way that, for example,
the company that owns Facebook is called Meta, Right, So
the company that owns Truth Social is called Trump Media
and Technology Group, And it's kind of amusing. Actually, the
ticker symbol for the stock is DJT, the president's initials.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Anyway, check out this story. This is crazy, gine. Have
you seen this. It just came out.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Trump's social media business is merging with a nuclear fusion company.
I did not see the truth Social parent because the
CNN Truth Social parent company. Trump Media and Technology Group
announced a deal on Thursday that's now to merge with
a nuclear fusion company called TAE Technologies, the company. The

(12:15):
companies said the all stock transaction is valued at more
than six billion dollars and will create one of the
first publicly traded fusion companies.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
After the deal closes.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Each side would own about half of the combined company.
That's not always that way, by the way, for those
who you know, maybe don't follow this stuff very much.
So let's say that let's say that producer Dragon owned
Dragons widget factory, and it's the biggest widget factory in
the world. And let's say I start a widget factory

(12:51):
and mine is just a very small pale comparison to
Dragons Widget Factory, and and I only make a ten
percent as many widgets.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
And then suddenly there's a news announcement, right.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
The Dragon Widget Factory and Ross Widget Factory are merging.
But just because it's merging doesn't mean we'll each own half. Right,
So at the end, based on how many shares my
shareholders would get versus how many shares Dragon shareholders would
still own, it doesn't have.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
To be fifty to fifty. In fact, usually it isn't.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Usually it isn't fifty to fifty, but this looks like
it's going to be at least about fifty fifty. The
news comes as Trump Media share price has plunged this year.
So before the news, yesterday's close, Trump Media and Technology
Group DJT was about ten and a half dollars a share.

(13:42):
I will note that in the pre market right now
it's trading a little bit over thirteen dollars a share.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Now.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Six months ago it was eighteen eighteen and change dollars
a share. And at the beginning of the year, right
after the inauguration, when a lot of people either thought
that this platform would be usually successful once Trump became
president or people just wanted to own a share of

(14:10):
a stock with a ticker symbol DJT to show their
support for the president. So a lot of people flooded
in to buy the stock shortly after the inauguration, and
the stock traded forty one dollars a share or so briefly,
very briefly. And what I said at the time when
that happened is anybody who's buying DJT stock should understand that,

(14:31):
in my opinion, they were at least ninety percent likely
to lose money, and that they should only be buying
it the way you would buy a souvenir, not the
way you would buy an investment.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I wasn't being sarcastic.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
I just thought that was a stupid stock price at
forty dollars a share. Now it's about ten, looks a
little over thirteen this morning.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
This is actually a very interesting story, right.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Fusion is a I mean, it's not just a concept.
Fusion is a real but being able to commercialize fusion
to generate power that, as CNN puts, it could theoretically
be clean, safe, and cheap, using essentially the same process
as the sun, smashing hydrogen atoms together to release energy.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
This is not.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Something that has been yet demonstrated to be something that
can be commercialized. The company that's merging with DJT says
they're poised to be able to do that, with plans
to start construction of the first utility scale fusion power
plants in twenty twenty six at a yet to be
determined location. So to me, this is just it's a
it's a big bet, it's a it's a crazy bet

(15:40):
to go anywhere. If this thing succeeds, the stock could
be worth a lot more in the future. On the
other hand, I think that it's more likely that they're
unable to commercialize it and run out of money.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
And the people who bought the you know, bought this thing.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
And we're just hoping to own a social media platform
and now they own a fusion thing too, are probably
going to end up wishing this deal didn't have But
I hope I'm wrong. Big Sweater Gino over here, Dragon
in his hoodie behind the glass. We have a ton
to talk. This is one of those days. I have
so many things I want to say. First, let me
respond to a couple of listener texts. One listener asked,

(16:15):
has fusion so far fusion on Earth, not in the Sun,
ever produced more energy than it used to make it happen,
like in a university, in a lab experiment, And best
as I can tell, if you only count the energy
that is put right in at the last.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Moment for the fuel, then yes.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
But if you count all of the energy that they
needed to get it going, like they had lasers or magnets,
and they had air conditioning to cool the whole thing down,
and they had electronics to control the system, then no,
the fusion produced less energy than was used to create
the fusion.

Speaker 4 (16:55):
Yes, Dragon, I'm pretty sure we had a professor Paul
Buhle in our old time slot talk about that shortly
after it had happened.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
We definitely did.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
I don't know if he got to this specific question, though,
which I do think is a really interesting question. So
maybe we should get Paul back to talk about it.
So another listener text I want to respond to. Let
me just let me just read this on the air. Okay,
listener text, Gina, I asked my wife about the battery
organizer and she looked at me confused. Why would we

(17:28):
need that? Gina, What do you have to say about this?
Listener texting you about the battery organizer.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
I'm also looking at them confused because I have no
idea what they're talking about.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
And producer Dragon, what did you say about the battery organizer.

Speaker 4 (17:41):
I think there was a big debate on the Mandy
Connell Show yesterday about the battery organizer.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
I think she really loves it.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
If I recall so to that listener, all women on
the radio are the same.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Is that what we're saying? Yep, Yeah, I mean I'm flattered.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
But I will say for the record, I'm kind of
a fan of the battery organis.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
What's a battery organizer.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
It's a it's a little case that you can buy
and zip close. You open it up, and it's got
like a foam inside, that kind of gray foam that
you can cut holes out of, and it'll have little
holes for double A batteries, triple A batteries, nine volt batteries,
So you can get your batteries and.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Just put them all in this thing.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
And you can carry all your batteries around in one thing,
or leave them in the closet one thing.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
And just open it up and pull them out.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Okay, Yeah, And sometimes it comes with a little a
little electronic dude that you can put the battery in
it and it'll tell you if.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
A batteries good. So you don't so.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
If you take a battery out of something that isn't working,
you test the battery on the battery dude, and and
then you'll know if the battery is bad or if
your device is bad.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Because you can test the battery, why don't you just
hold it up to your tongue. You could do that
with a nine volt.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Uh, you'd have to have a hell of a tongue
to do that to both sides of a double A though.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
You'd have to be Gene Simmons to do that. Right, Dragon,
you were just about get there. You were just about
to sad. I can see it. I can see the
Gene Simmons going on in your brain. That's impressive.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Gosh, one of those surgeries where you split your.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Tongue in half.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Ross, I know Gena didn't talk about it. I wanted
to see if you guys think it's a neat.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Gift or lame? What do you think for a gift?
For a gift? No, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
I mean unless you have somebody who's a battery enthusiast
who uses a lot of batteries.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
And needs them organized. But that kind of feels like
a lame gift.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Or if it's a gift with the batteries in it,
now that's a hot commodity gift because if you're just
giving me a box and then I have to buy
all the batteries, well, the batteries the expensive part.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
So yeah, I do think the person needs to be
a big battery fan.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
What dragon, it's not like the batteries come in a
package that hold the batteries themselves. Or if you're giving
them a handful of batteries, then sure, a battery organized it.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Would be great.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
But if you give them a pack of batteries, it's
like eggs. Why would you ever take eggs out of
the carton and put it in that little shelf in
the in the in the door of your refrigerator.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Okay, they comment apart, and okay.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I typically buy my batteries in send bulk from Amazon,
like usually forty or forty eight or fifty batteries at
a time, and they.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Come in this really annoying kind.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Of plastic wrapping that's around each four or eight batteries
and once you open this stuff, it's just all tears
in the batteries are just loose in there, and it's
real annoying.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
And so I like the battery holder for that. Aren't
you this I had a problem with the tearing the
starting roll of the toilet paper, worried about the paper
always tearing. Aren't you that same guy that had a
problem with that?

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, maybe I think that was just a bad role
of toilet paper for people who are listening on AM
right now, which would be everybody who's listening on the air.
We are aware that our FM signal is off the
air right now, and I actually just checked with our
head of engineering about that, and the reason, I am

(20:55):
told the reason is that where the FM signal comes
from is in an area where Excel has turned off
the power and that's why for right now, our FM
signal is down. So there's that, all right. So gosh,
so much to do, so much to do? All right,
let me do this story. I've had this story for

(21:15):
a couple of days and I haven't gotten to it,
and it only needs.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
A few minutes.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Ago I said I was going to do something for
ninety seconds dragon and.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
A listener yelled at me, you know why ninety seconds
isn't prime.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Ninety seconds isn't prime, So I'm going to do this
for some other number of seconds that is prime, like
seventy one seconds or something like that.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
From the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Joe Biden has raised little of what he needs to
build his presidential library. A new report finds the subad
the Former President's Library Foundation, has four million dollars on
hand and expects to raise far less than what a
traditional presidential library would cost. By the way, the four
million dollars that Joe Biden's Presidential Library Fund has on

(22:00):
hand was money that was transferred into it after Biden's
inauguration in twenty twenty one. The former President's aides have
suggested their vision for a library could cost two hundred
million dollars. Are you kidding me? In any case, it

(22:20):
just seems like there are no donors for this. Democrats
don't want to donate money. Democrats are mad at Joe Biden.
Democrats blame Joe Biden for not getting out of awe
of the election soon enough, keept dropping his campaign and
let someone else take over soon enough, and also for
making some bad decisions as president. But many Democrats blame

(22:43):
Joe Biden for Donald Trump being president now, and I
wanted to share with you what I thought is one
of the best.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Quotes I've heard in a long time.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
This is from a guy named John Morgan, who is
a long time donor to the Democratic Party, about these
fundraising problems for Joe Biden's presidential library. And he said,
and I quote, He'll be lucky to have a bookmobile.
I think if if folks missed the very very beginning
of the context of the question and the way I

(23:13):
worded it would have been a little bit confusing. So
we were talking this morning about the fact that I
put out the trash this morning, and I put an
envelope out there on the trash cans and has fifty
bucks in the envelope and its taped.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
To the trash can. And we were talking about.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Tipping people, and then and then I asked, well, who
do you tip and how much? But I really meant
it in the context of like a once a.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Year holiday gift. I didn't mean it.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
You know, because like some people said, well I tip
my my barber or my hairdresser.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
I get that, but it's not what I meant.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
So I think I confused the situation by using the
word tip or not being sufficiently specific.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Gina, because we could start the debate of who to
tip and what to tip and how much to tip
forever for Yeah, but we're talking holiday tip, holiday tips
once a year, once a year holiday gift. If parents
generally give anything to their students, teachers, sometimes they give
a little maybe not money, but maybe a little gift
thanks for dealing with my crazy kid or whatever. If

(24:13):
you do it for uh, postal carriers or garbage carriers,
like pick.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Up any anybody like that.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
I'm actually kind of running out of any other ideas
of people.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Who you would tip on an annual basis. Yeah, yeah,
your radio show producer.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
There you go. There's one.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Nice, there's one. So that's that's what we want to know.
Five six six nine zero. Who do you give a
something like a tip to? Right, So it's not a
Christmas present to someone you know and love, it's something
like a tip, but it's once a year.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Who who do you? Who do you give that to?

Speaker 1 (24:46):
And Gina, before you just add the next thing, I
do want to note a listener text that says, hey,
I drive for Amazon snack houses are the best?

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Nice? Yeah, yep, I was gonna say. Now I'm looking
at it.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
People say like landscapers, pool cleaners, handymen, door men, any
type of building.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, a doorman.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
If you live in a place with a doorman, do
you does your building have a dormant or no?

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, we have like someone at the desk. But that's
the thing. It rotates all the time.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
If I go to people that I love the most,
that maybe I would say, hey, or if you're working
on Christmas, which they sometimes do, that would be nice
to give to them.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
But it really it's really difff.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
You gave a tip to one dorman at your building,
would you feel like you needed to give a tip
to all of them?

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Or I wonder if they share. I don't think they
would share it. I don't think they would share it.
Are better than others?

Speaker 6 (25:36):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (25:37):
I think I would be okay with saying, hey, you're
good at letting we know when I have.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
A package Christmas? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:43):
All right, dragon, you got any anything come to mind
for you? Somebody you quote unquote tip once a year. No, no,
easy enough, that's that's easy enough. I would like to
add one other thing. Our friend Rick Lewis from The
Fox and from the Broncos broadcast sent me a text
a little bit of ghost saying, Ross, did I leave

(26:03):
a bag of mints? A little a bag of white
mints up here in the studio. I guess he was
up here yesterday doing the sports show according to Dragon,
And I said, oh, so you're calling the mints now, huh.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's what I was gonna say, because he said a
little bag of white what yeah?

Speaker 2 (26:17):
And I'm like and I said, no, that's called crystal meth.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
And then he said no, and he sent me a
link to Amazon for these mints that have a little
bit of caffeine and B vitamins and he said, you know,
you wake up too early, you're a little tired. They
give you a little kind of spark. And I'm like, oh, dude,
that sounds kind of good. And then I went on
Amazon and looked at him and they're thirty four cents

(26:41):
per mint. I'm like, no, that's why he wants his
mixed Bagragon.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
This morning meth would be way cheaper thirty four cents
a mint, homie. Don't play that.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Ross on the News can be acronymed as rotten r
ot N so oh please, and thanks to Mandy for that.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
By the way, for calling us.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Rotten, you can text us at five six six nine zero.
When you do in the mornings, we are sharing a
text line with another radio station, So if you text
to us at five six six nine zero, please do
us the favor. It's not a requirement, but it'll just
help us. If you start your text with whoever you're
addressing it to, so Ross.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Or Gina with a J, or Dragon with a J.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
You could do Ross with a J as well, or
just put Rotten at the beginning r OTN and that
way we'll kind of know that you're sending.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
A text to us.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Now I do want to I have to do some
serious stuff in a second, but before I do, I
just want to add.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
This one other thing.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
So I went on this little rant in the last
segment of the show about Rick Lewis looking for these
mints and there are these mints that he buys that
have caffeine and B vitamins on him and they're thirty
four cents a mint. Now I in my mind, I said,
that's that's extremely expensive. But I was thinking about them
as a substitute for just regular mints. Because I like mints.

(28:01):
I don't drink coffee. I do drink tea, but I
don't think it's very high caffeine. And I'm not somebody
who has ever, you know, had three cups of coffee
in the morning or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
So I'm not really a caffeine guy.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
So when Rick was talking about these mints, I was
thinking of it, and you know, comparing it to altoids, right,
and thirty four CENTI mint is really expensive. But a
bunch of listeners said, and then I think Gina said, like,
if you're comparing it to a cup of coffee or
going to Starbucks or something, it's it's actually kind of cheap.
This one listener says, at thirty four cent of mints,

(28:33):
I could have ten per day for the price of
a plane Starbucks coffee.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yeah. Are you a coffee drinker?

Speaker 3 (28:41):
I am for the caffeine, yeah, but I don't really
like coffee.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Like, if I can get a really is their coffee
and the coffee in there? Yeah, so we just have
our coffee.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
If you just hold that up so people who are
looking in and see there you go, no, turn it
towards the window.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
They can't see it. When you're holding it that way. Yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
We just have a coffee and automatic coffee cot that
starts at two am and pours coffee, and I drink
one cup a day, and that's probably we make it
a little strong. Yeah, it's probably around one hundred one
twenty ish caffeine caffeine content.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yes, so these mint they come the forty, eighty and
one hundred, and Rick likes the forties.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
He says the eighties and the hundreds are too strong
for him in a single mint. In a single mint, okay,
your cup of.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Tea is maybe sixty maybe. Okay, So if you're looking
for a good caffeine content, I would probably go with.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
The mince because the B vitamins which give energy too. Right.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
I've tried caffeinated chocolate, which, like obviously chocolate, has a
little bit of caffeine, but it's actually a little piece
of chocolate that has about ninety in it. And I've
also tried caffeated gum, which does not taste good, but
it is just chewing the gum. Eventually you get the
caffeine from the gum, and that's around the same as
a cup of coffee too.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I don't want to get addicted to caffeine. Yeah, don't. Yeah,
so that's probably why I would stay away from the minutes.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
But I will just say in my initial sarcasm about
the mints, saying, homie, don't play that at thirty four
cents a me nd. I definitely don't if I'm having
them as mints. But if you are having them as
an energy thing instead of coffee or instead of a
red Bull or whatever, it's actually maybe kind of cheap.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
I also hope there's a disclaimer on the mints that
you're not just having them as mints and you're like
popping a couple mints here and there after breakfast, after dinner,
because that's a lot of caffeine content.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
After a while. Yeah, all right, so there you go.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
I actually, also, if I might, I want to clarify
something yesterday. I think I was a little hasty or
a little snarky or something yesterday, and I'd like to
slightly reword something. When we were talking about the news
that the Trump administration is going to sort of break
up in car in Boulder, my initial reaction was to say, well,
I support it, although I said it with a caveat,

(30:56):
but I'd like to kind of I'd like to take
that back.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
To whatever extent that's.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
A place where smart people can get together in a
building and talk about actual science, whether it's climate science
or any other science. There's some benefit to that. And
if the Trump administration is going after it just sort
of out of a political thing.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
They don't like Boulder, they don't like Jared, they don't like.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
Colorado, they don't like any talk about climate, then it's
probably a mistake. There probably is some climate research that's
worth doing. There's a lot of climate research that's just junk.
It's just it's just quote unquote scientists or maybe real
scientists chasing grant money and saying that we're all going

(31:41):
to die because of climate change and all this stuff
that they've been wrong about forever. And I very very
very much oppose that kind of stuff, and I oppose
all government funding for that kind of nonsense. But in
CAR can't be doing only that. So I would like
to withdraw my statement that I support of breaking up
end CAR and redistributing its pieces out to other places.

(32:05):
What I really support is kind of like the way
the Trump administration has worked to get DEI out of
the military and out of other parts of government.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
That's what I would like to see. I would like
generally to.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
See scientific organizations that get government funding. Right, private organizations
can do whatever they want with their own money, but
organizations that get any government money, whether they are actually
government organizations like end CAR or private labs that are
taking a lot of government funding. I don't want quote

(32:42):
unquote science that is just chasing grants and chasing this
nonsense climate change.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
I want science that is really designed.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
To benefit the country and the world and the species,
and climate change isn't that.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
But if you can rid.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
These scientific organizations of the scientific version of wokeness or
dei and focus on things that really matter, I think
that's separate from the question of whether government should be
funding science at all, which is a different question. But
assuming government's going to fund science, then you know, fund
that kind of stuff, strip out the woke nonsense that

(33:26):
has caused more problems than any benefit it has ever created.
But you probably don't need to destroy en CAR to
do that. So I would like to take that moment
to revise and extend my remarks.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Keep it right here on KOA. We got news, weather
and traffic right now.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
I have a few minutes in this segment, and I
intentionally want to talk here about sort of my most
serious topic of the day, because I only.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Want to do it for a few minutes and it's
kind of heavy.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
So I keep thinking about what happened in Australia at
Bondai Beach.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
My wife is Australian.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
My wife woke up in the middle of the night
and started talking to me about it, about how upset
she is that it seems like the Prime Minister of Australia,
who's basically their version of Joe Biden that they are
talking about, you know, how these guys were or inspired

(34:26):
by ISIS, and you know they're using terms like terror cell,
even though there isn't evidence really of a terror cell
that these guys are part of. It just seems like
a father and son kind.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Of pair of lone wolves. Can you be a lone
wolf pair?

Speaker 1 (34:38):
I don't know, But in any case, and my wife
is really upset because by attributing it to inspiration by
ISIS or something like that, it really lets the government
off the hook, the Australian government, And the reason I
know most people don't listen to this show don't care

(34:59):
about the Australian government.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
So the reason I'm.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Talking about is I think there are lessons that apply
in many other places, including the United States, including Europe.
The Australian government, much like the Biden administration but worse,
was spineless and suffered from a lack of moral clarity
that descended upon them when they started becoming afraid of

(35:23):
their anti Semitic left wing base.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
And so.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Recently the Prime Minister of Australia announced that Australia was
going to recognize a Palestinian state. Well, that would be like,
you know, recognizing some you know, some benefit for the
Third Riot after they attacked Europe and killed millions of Jews.
Why on God's green Earth would you recognize a Palestinian

(35:51):
state after those people murdered twelve hundred Israelis, mostly civilians,
and said they would like to keep that every single
day if they could. What an incredible piece of moral cowardice.
And then you had Joe Biden saying, you know, we're
gonna withhold some weapons from Israel because he was appealing

(36:12):
to the left wing part of his base, which is
very anti Semitic. And yes, we know there there is
an increasing anti Semitic section among the conservative movement right now,
especially among Tucker Carlson fans, which is unfortunate. Well, unfortunate
isn't nearly a strong enough word. It's disgusting. But there's

(36:37):
a point that i just want to re emphasize. And
I've said this many times before, I would much rather
have America's immigration problem than Europe's or Australia's. Australia has
met has allowed a very very large number of Muslims
into their country, and Europe even worse. And I want

(37:00):
to make something two things clear. On the one hand,
it is possible for a Muslim immigrant to a country
to be a good citizen of that country, to be
a good American, to be a good Frenchman or Englishman
or Australian.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
It is possible.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
But it's also absolutely critical for these governments to understand
that Islam as defined in its own book, the Qur'an.
And I've read about a quarter of.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
It and I felt like, all right, I got the gist.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
I'll be done now. But I read quite a bit. Islam,
if you take the book seriously, is an inherently violent,
intolerant religion that is incompatible with democracy. Because Islam is
not just a religion, it's also a political structure, and

(37:55):
it is different from any other major religion in that way.
And so countries that are going to allow that kind
of immigration need to be very careful and they need
to do everything they can to make sure that immigrants
from countries where they have not grown up with any
kind of respect for freedom or democracy learn about it

(38:16):
and assimilate in that way and don't go on thinking
that they can continue with their anti freedom in primitive
ways once they get.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
To civil society.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
I am talk radio hosts, so I'm supposed to talk
about things going on in our neighborhood. So that's one thing.
I'm also an econ nerd. That's another thing. I'm I'm
you know that was basically my minor in college was economics.
And well we're here in Denver, so I and in Colorado,
so I care a lot about the fact that the

(38:48):
University of Colorado Leads School of Business recently put out
this year's well for next year, but twenty twenty six
Colorado Business Economic Outlooks. So joining us to talk about
it is rich who is the man behind this report,
and senior economics researcher at the Lead School of Business,
and it's.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Always a fascinating report.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
And I've read this, you know, multiple times over the years,
but I don't know that I've talked to you about it.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
Rich.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
So welcome to the show. It's good to see you.

Speaker 7 (39:18):
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
So I'd just like to start.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
With the kind of high level thing, and then Gina
and I both will have some questions for you as
as we head in, But I would like you to
give as much of a qualitative as quantitative answer as
to how you see the state of the economy in
Colorado or the business economy in Colorado as compared to
what we have experienced the last year or two, where

(39:44):
it seemed to me like the economy has been here good,
but maybe not as good as we have been used
to in this state.

Speaker 8 (39:53):
Yeah, that's definitely true. The twenty five economy actually is
somewhat low, and up through say twenty twenty three, from
post global financial crisis, this state was booming. We were
top five in almost every economic category twenty twenty four

(40:14):
twenty twenty five sload even a little bit more, but
consistent with sort of the national economy in twenty twenty
five and we're sort of projecting the same thing going
forward to twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
So in the report or in your own mind, whether
or not.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
It's in the report, to what do you attribute the
slowing economy in Colorado?

Speaker 8 (40:38):
Well, it's a question that everybody gives you a variety.

Speaker 7 (40:43):
Of things, to be honest, you know, but you know one.

Speaker 8 (40:47):
Of them is we surged into recovery after COVID and
hired a tremendous amount of high tech workers and now
that sector is repositioning itself with you know, less demand
as more of that that service has been provided. And
so we see major consultants and tech people in slow

(41:09):
down mode nationally and certainly Colorado was sharing and we
shared in the overgrowth and were sharing any undergrowth. The
questions about affordability, I still, as an economic development person
think about that a lot, and what's creating the affordability
or lack of affordability, and you know the issues.

Speaker 7 (41:29):
Behind that as well. But you know, some of.

Speaker 8 (41:32):
It is attributable to slower population growth as well, and
that you know, and we had a very interesting transition
in our population growth. And this is not a political statement,
this is a factual statement. We are population in migration.
Our domestic domestic migration as they call it, was largely

(41:58):
the in migration up through twenty two twenty three tended
to always overshare in people coming from other states as
opposed to other countries. Up to twenty three and twenty
three and twenty four that flipped completely and we had
far more immigrants that were international.

Speaker 7 (42:15):
Immigrants into the state.

Speaker 8 (42:17):
And so in that process of that change or transition,
now with a slowdown and international migration just you're going
to see a pretty significant slowdown in population.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
So lots of variety of factors of why we could
see a slowing in our economy coming up next year,
some in our control, some out of our control. But
I think I want to start with the first thing
that you mentioned talking about the slowing of the tech sector.
What are some of the pretty much driving job sectors
in our state, what continues to be what will we

(42:53):
see in twenty twenty six as some of those major employments.

Speaker 8 (42:58):
So the big employment cards I mentioned in the tech
sector in our report, and I want to make this
very clear. We put this out every year and we
use a lot of onometrics and so on, but we
have one hundred and thirty committee members from all these
different sectors who contribute to this booklet, who tell us
about you know, feet on the ground kinds of views

(43:19):
of what's going on. And so that's why the report
is so voluminous and has so much qualitative information in it.
But what we're seeing the tech folks still think that
twenty twenty six will be an adjustment year, and we
have a decline in jobs again and professionals and business
services PVS, which is the high tech sector. But we

(43:42):
have you know, pretty strong growth in trade, transportation and
utilities and some other areas. So we wind up having
eight sectors with job growth out of the eleven sectors,
and stronger job growth overall than this year, although it
still very tepid job growth.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Talking with Rich Wabikin from the cu Leads School of Business,
so I'm an econ nerd, as I said, and as
I think about all these things you're talking about, in
a sense, my mind just thinks this is how markets work,
right in that Colorado is.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
A place lots of people want to live.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
People move here over a long period of time, it
gets more crowded, it gets more expensive, and as it
gets more expensive, homes are more expensive and such things
like that. It's a price signal to other people who
are thinking about moving here, Hey it's not so cheap anymore, right,
just like the price of anything else might dissuade buyers,

(44:39):
And at some point you're going to have you know,
maybe net population outflow for a while until various things
balance again.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
I think one thing that's a little bit.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Different with a state versus a normal market is that
normal market forces maybe if prices, if something went up,
you'd get a new factory that's reading those things and
driving the process down. But here in Colorado, for example,
with the price of housing so high, we still have
all kinds of regulatory barriers and things like that that

(45:11):
are preventing normal market forces from potentially lowering these costs.
So how's that for an econ nerd comment.

Speaker 7 (45:21):
I think it's very accurate.

Speaker 8 (45:22):
And you know, we people from the outside say, well,
everybody's coming to this state because it's a beautiful state and.

Speaker 7 (45:29):
Has all these amenities and stuff.

Speaker 8 (45:31):
But if you look at the migration to the state
over time, over the long haul, we didn't have good
migration into the state when the jobs weren't plentiful, And
now even more so with what the comment you just made.
If you don't have plentiful kind of high wage jobs,
then it's a very difficult transition for someone to make.

(45:52):
If they come here and they get a higher wage job,
then they can you know, deal maybe with a little
bit more with the affordability issue, but an absence that
it makes it tough to get people to move in.
And you know, without geeking out on the data in
the book, we are one of the highest average annual
wage states. We are one of the top ten per
capita income states.

Speaker 7 (46:12):
We're not a poor state.

Speaker 8 (46:14):
We're well to do state, and prices are sort of
matching that.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
One last thing for you, Richie, I'd like one minute
here and again I'm a nerd, and what I was
wondering when you were talking about with the international migration
to Colorado, are those mostly high skilled workers or most
of the most skilled workers.

Speaker 7 (46:34):
Well, you know, we don't know the sort of description
of that.

Speaker 8 (46:37):
Historically, we have brought in a lot of high skilled workers,
you know, with with you know, immigration visas and work
visas and so on, because we had a lot of
high tech jobs. And this is true you know for
the US as well. You know, in terms of nationally,
but I think you know pretty much documented in.

Speaker 7 (46:58):
Those couple of years, there were a lot.

Speaker 8 (47:01):
Of immigrants that came into the country from other parts
of the globe that were, you know, political refugees, if
you will. And I don't think necessarily had this sort
of and total had the same sort of skill sets.

Speaker 7 (47:16):
You know, that's not necessarily bad because we.

Speaker 8 (47:19):
Need people in a lot of those jobs too, So
don't no, I don't want to be making it sound like, well,
we only need people with PhDs. We need a lot
of people to do a lot of different jobs, and
a number of the industries where those people have gone
to work are industries that have had difficulty finding workers.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Rich wabikin at to see you, Lead School of.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Business, the main guy behind the Colorado Business Economic Outlook
Report for twenty twenty six. They're sixty first annual such report.
You can find it online or you can easily find
it at my blog at Rosskiminsky dot com. But again,
if you just search for the Colorado Business Economic Outlook,
you will definitely find it.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Rich. Thanks for your time, Thanks for the interesting information.
We'll talk again, my pleasure.

Speaker 7 (48:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
All right, that was kind of interesting gene anything jump
jump out of that for you.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
First off, he's really good at flushing information out from
one hundred and eighty page document previewing everything. But the
factors that he gave of why we're seeing us slowing
economy in our area don't surprise me by any means.
The high cost of living and everything, but we're also
just seeing migration levels slowing nationwide, including here in Colorado,

(48:35):
and like you talked about, the cost of living, still
trying to match at least the salaries.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
But it's been slowing.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
And it continues to slow, and we'll see what twenty
twenty six looks like.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, and I'll add one other thing.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
We've had lots and lots of new regulations and laws
in the past couple of years, and some other studies
show Colorado declining in terms of business friendliness, So we
will see how that all plays out. Anyway, that was
about CU but there's another university that's been in the
news quite a bit lately, and Gina has more on that.
That's the problem. Being a professional, you read the things

(49:08):
that are put in front of you. I don't have
that problem, right.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Okay, So this is a topic that.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Gena actually found and Gina's comment was, really the day after,
so what do you introduce your topic here, because you
know a lot more about Christmas trees than your Jewish
colleague does.

Speaker 5 (49:29):
Well.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
I thought it was funny because we got a press
release from the City of Lakewood that talked about their
Christmas tree recycling program. And there's plenty of cities and
towns that do some type of free recycling, so you're
not stuck ditching in on the side of the road
and trying to collect it with your trash.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
And things like that.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
But the Lakewoods one starts on December twenty sixth, which
I thought was crazy because you can't just throw your
fully tinseled tree out on the curb or drop it
off at Lakewood. It has to have all the lights off,
all the bulbs off, all the tensil, anything like that.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
It has to be just a bare, real tree.

Speaker 3 (50:03):
And so I was like, are you spending your Christmas
taking down all the decorations and stuff and then ditching
the tree literally the next day? Because I believe Denver
starts the following Monday, which makes sense, but then you
get into the argument of Christmas lights for the Denver area.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
If you know the stock show rule, if you're supposed
to get that, you're.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
Supposed to keep your Christmas lights up until the stock show.
You are the whole idea of the cowboys coming into
town and you light the way.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
There's way more to it than mine, all right, little.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
Recap of it.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
But I'm just curious of how long people keep their
Christmas tree up because there is a sweet spot of Obviously,
if you have a real tree, don't keep it up
too long because it becomes a fire hazard if it
dries out and you're not keeping it watered and whatever.
But also, are you truly pitching it at a tree
recycling center the day after Christmas?

Speaker 1 (50:56):
I see the link you sent the City of Lakewood's
own website. The City of Lakewood will offer tree recycling
from seven am to three pm on Friday, December twenty sixth.
It would be kind of like if if the Grinch
or Scrooge was married to somebody and that somebody said
we have to have a Christmas tree, absolutely have to,

(51:18):
and then Scrooge or Grinch said, oh God, all right,
gonna have one, or getting rid of it as soon
as possible.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
What's on your mind. Dragon. Well I think I'm safe.
I don't think missus Redbeard has left for work yet.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Okay, but she's in charge of all the decorations inside
the house. Yes, so yes, on the twenty sixth, she
will have us take down the tree and put away
all of the Christmas tree tree.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Same with Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
As soon as Thanksgiving is over, with boom, Christmas stuff up.
I mean, she's onto the next holle is a real tree. No,
we did not do a real tree, so okay, still
take it down right away, immediately, All right, Christmas is over,
let's go.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
I will say.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
So, my wife is not Jewish. She was raised Anglican,
which is sort of a very kind of light sort
of Christianity, like Church of England, that sort of thing.
And so when we lived up in by Netterland, we
had forty acres that was mostly pine trees. So we
would just cut down our own tree and we'd bring

(52:18):
it in and kind of call it a hanic at
bush or whatever, and and so we would we would
have a tree. But it smelled nice and it looked nice,
so we kept it for way longer than just the
day after Christ.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
No, that's like the start of every Hallmark movie is
like the family that lives on the Christmas Tree farm
cuts down?

Speaker 2 (52:39):
What about you and your husband? Tree? No tree? Real tree?
Fake tree? Right now, we have no tree.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
We do have a little tiny fake tree, but we
just don't have the space to really have a real tree.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Plus the cat may Yeah, we've never really knew about
the cat. We've got a cage around our tree because
we really Yeah, it's funny. Look, it's always fun to
watch the video. What does the cat do with the tree?
They climb it, climb it. Yeah, yep, that would be amazing.
You should take video of that. You want the cat

(53:12):
to climb the tree? Of course it is expensive tree.
I'm letting my cat in a tree? Or if you
have you have a plastic tree? Will a cat climb
a plastic tree? Yes? Yeah? Yeah? How tall is your tree, Gina,
it's probably not even five foot and dragging? How tall
is your trees? Seven? Maybe eight? I want videos of
your cat's climbing the trees. Oh, he's twenty pounds. I'm

(53:33):
not gonna let it. This fat cat.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
He's not that fat, but he's you know, a fat
little orange's No, yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
That kind well, Also, it's one thing to climb the tree,
and then they're knocking down like the family heirloom ornaments
that you have on said tree, and they're smashing and
then they're eating the pine wheat needles with really bad
and uh so, no, I.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Know I'm the wrong religion for that.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
But you guys seem to be both very very sure
of yourself.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
So what is your question for listeners? Then?

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Associated with this topic, how long do you keep your
holiday decorations up?

Speaker 2 (54:05):
There? You go five six six nine zero.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Please text us your answer to genus question, how long
do you keep your holiday decorations up?

Speaker 2 (54:12):
Five six six nine zero? And do you do the
stock show rule?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Because the stock show generally is until the end of January,
so that's a long time if you have outdoor decorations.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
That seems like way too long.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, when we come back, a really interesting interview with
an attorney who's representing a dude who's an American citizen
went out of the country and when he came back,
Customs and Border Patrol would not let him into the
country until he unlocked his phone and laptop and let
them snoop through them. So joining us from Pacific Legal Foundation,
a wonderful organization. I have frequent guests from a Pacific

(54:47):
Legal Foundation. Pacific Legal dot org is Amy Peakoff. And
although it would be a great conversation for another day,
I will just say my son's middle name is rand.
So I know your last name quite well, and it's
pleasure to talk to you for the first time. And
we'll do all that ran stuff some other time maybe,

(55:07):
But tell us about your clients.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Wilmer Tavaria.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
I hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, because this
is a fascinating story.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Yeah. So he is a US citizen.

Speaker 9 (55:19):
He's been naturalized since twenty eighteen. He came to the
United States first in two thousand and eight as a
college student, and then he had various legal statuses here
in the United States up until becoming naturalized citizen in
twenty eighteen. Throughout this whole stretch of time, he has
been a frequent international traveler, going back to his native

(55:42):
Nicaragua to visit his mother and other family members.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
So, the way he says it, it's.

Speaker 9 (55:47):
Been hundreds of trips back and forth over all these years.
And then for the first time in July of this year,
he was stopped in Houston Intercontinental Airport on the way
back from Nicaragua. And even though you know, he had
global entry status which had gone you know, he gone
through an additional layer of betting. He was stopped and

(56:08):
then taken into some sort of intimidating high security area
deep within you know, the building there, and for hours
he endured all sorts of interrogation and intimidation, the point
of which apparently was that the officers and agents of
the US government wanted to have access to his electronic devices.

(56:33):
They took the devices from him fairly quickly.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
He didn't have control over those.

Speaker 9 (56:37):
You know, I couldn't even see what time it was
for all these hours that were passing. But what then
they really wanted was the passwords so that they could
access the content on those devices. And like you and
I might be, you know, if we weren't educated about
this at all, we think we have a Fourth Amendment
that protects us in our person's houses, papers and effects.

(56:58):
And so did Wilma Chavaria. And he asserted those rights
as a reason to refuse the demands for these passwords.

Speaker 7 (57:07):
And they basically laughed at him.

Speaker 9 (57:10):
And they also said that by asserting what he believed
to be his Fourth Amendment rights. He was somehow inherently suspicious,
and they threatened him with reporting him to the FBI,
that he was going to lose his job, et cetera,
et cetera. And he endured this for hours before he
finally relented and handed over the passwords on the assurance

(57:34):
that those officers would at least not try to access
student data on the laptop. Wilmer is a superintendent of
the Windisky School District in Vermont, and he was concerned
about the confidentiality of data that was either on the
devices or accessible from the devices, and he wanted assurance.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
That that would be accessed at least. So they did
go through all the devices.

Speaker 9 (57:57):
They did it out of his presence, so they don't
know what, you know, Wilmer doesn't know what they got
off the devices, what they looked at precisely, et cetera.
They finally gave it back to them and let them go,
but nearly five hours had passed during that time.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
The other thing that I believe I read when I
was reading about the case, and I want to ask
you to make a very specific kind.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Of point of law here.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Border Patrol arguesed and I think they have some basis
in law that there is like a border zone inside
you know, as soon as you cross the border that
theoretically for some number of miles. As odd as that seems,
you have fewer rights than you otherwise would.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Yes, I mean.

Speaker 9 (58:41):
There is this hundred mile border zone, and it you know,
in searches that are happening, say ninety miles within a
border or a coastline of the United States, those are
typically vehicle searches that they can do without any suspicion whatever.
But at ports of entry, when people are coming in
through the airport or even leaving the airport, they, according

(59:02):
to their own directives, their own policies, have the ability
to request your devices and the passwords, and you are obligated,
that's their word. They use a word obligated to hand
over these devices. Supposedly, they say, the traditional so called
border search exception encompasses not only the physical items in

(59:23):
your luggage and everything else, but also the digital contents
of these devices.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Okay, so two questions now for you. Yeah, I'm not
a lawyer, but I like reading a lot of constitutional
law and reading these things. I'm fascinated by it. So
it seems like you could have at least two arguments.
One is the question of whether this border zone thing
applies a lot more than one hundred miles from the border,

(59:50):
like when you're at customs and border Protection coming into
the country with a passport, is that effectively the border?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
So that's one question.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Does that apply when you're not actually near what people
normally think of the or And then the bigger question,
I think is the one you just raised. Does the
Fourth Amendment protect digital information on a phone or on
a laptop the way it might protect a folder or
a book.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Or a notepad. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:00:16):
So as to your first question, I have not done
all the calculations as to whether all of the airports
you know, where these international flights come in fall within
the one hundred miles et cetera. But regardless, if it
is a port of entry where people are arriving from
international flights or departing on international flights, then it would

(01:00:38):
count for purposes of the authority to search these devices
under the you know, the applicable directives As for the
Fourth Amendment, generally, does it apply to the contents of
the devices? Yes, so you know, persons, houses, papers, and
effects the devices would be effects the you know, you know,
the contents of them, the documents, the files, the media,

(01:01:01):
your videos, your photos, whatever, those I think would count
as papers. Maybe effects in certain circumstances. But yes, there
is a case called Riley versus California, and the Supreme
Court decided in twenty fourteen that the typical search incident
to arrest exception did not apply to the contents of
these devices.

Speaker 7 (01:01:22):
Even if you.

Speaker 9 (01:01:23):
Were under arrest, presumably for a legitimate reason, the police
would have to get a warrant to additionally search the
contents of your electronic device.

Speaker 7 (01:01:33):
And part of that, of course, is.

Speaker 9 (01:01:35):
Just the common sense realization that the things that that
exception traditionally applied to, which is weapons that could be
used to harm the officer, etc.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Aren't going to be found on the device.

Speaker 7 (01:01:48):
Right.

Speaker 9 (01:01:48):
The device doesn't pose that sort of risk, and only.

Speaker 7 (01:01:52):
In a marginal.

Speaker 9 (01:01:52):
Circumstance would a destruction of evidence excuse be applicable, etc. Right, So,
all the traditional rationale for the exception didn't apply to
the digital contents of these devices, and so the usual
Fourth Amendment presumption, which is get a warrant would apply.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
So we just have one minute left and we're talking
with amp COF from Pacific Legal Foundation Pacific Legal dot org.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
So is your primary claim then that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
They had no right to access the digital information on
those devices and that the border exception for the search
doesn't apply to those They could have searched a physical
notebook that he had, but they couldn't search his phone.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Is that the claim?

Speaker 9 (01:02:34):
Well, and then the contents of different papers and stuff
remain to be seen, and we're going to be looking
at analogies there.

Speaker 7 (01:02:40):
But we do not believe that the traditional.

Speaker 9 (01:02:43):
Border search exception rationale applies to the contents.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Of the digital devices.

Speaker 9 (01:02:48):
And the rationale of that case Riley versus California, which
I just explained, applies equally to the traditional border search exception,
we think, and there's scholars who agree with us.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Okay, last, real quick thing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Is it any part of your case whether or not
they have to have a legitimate basis to consider him
suspicious and to search him to begin with or is
that not part of what you're arguing.

Speaker 9 (01:03:12):
So we think that they should have to get a
warrant that reasonable.

Speaker 7 (01:03:15):
Suspicion wouldn't be enough.

Speaker 9 (01:03:17):
It is true that in some jurisdictions currently reasonable suspicion
is the standard for doing a so called basic search
on these devices. But if people want to look into
these details more, if they go to Pacific Legal dot org,
like you say, and find out our write up on
the Chavarria case, you'll read more detail about it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Amp Coff, attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation Pacific Legal
dot org. Great to talk to you for the first time.
We'll keep in touch on this case. Very interested to
see how it plays out. Thank you, Thanks very much.
All right, imagine that. Imagine that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Imagine coming in to the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
You're an American citizen, You've done this trip one hundred times,
and then they stop you and demand to to the
password for your phone and your laptop. I don't know,
you know, I'm very much a civil libertarian, and that
whole thing rubs me the very very much the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yesterday, when we were.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Talking about the problems with the wind, we're mostly talking
about northern Colorado, But of course when you got wind,
you got warm days, you got dry weather, you can
get problems, you know, wherever that's going. And Gina, it
seems like we got some problems more towards the eastern plains.
Now or Eastern Colorado for those just joining. In a
previous segment of the show two segments ago, Gina was

(01:04:36):
a little bit concerned about people in Lakewood because the
city of Lakewood is offering tree recycling starting seven am
the morning after Christmas, and Gina is concerned that people
are getting rid of their Christmas trees too soon and
not having as much fun with them as they should.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Right, it's accurate.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
We got We got actually quite a lot of listener texts.
I'll just start with the easiest one first, Ross, Are
you unaware of the stock show rule?

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
Yes, yes, I admit it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I am unaware of that, and I am still unaware
of the stock show role is that the stock show rule.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
Is that holiday decorations have to stay up through the
end of the stock show, which this year is technically
January twenty fifth, and it's a way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
To welcome all the cowboys into town.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Okay, stock show role. I'm not against it. I just
didn't know it. Yes, Dragon, I'm not. Just texters are
texting about this. So we have a coworker and I
will not name him. I don't want to throw them
under the best. But he said his wife was very
similar to mine that as soon as the Christmas is over,
everything is down and gone.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Wow, I think you need to tell us who that is. Nope.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
On air, a bunch of people say Epiphany, which I
guess is, you know, one of the holiday days associated
with Christmas. I don't know, like the twelve Days of
I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I just I don't know,
but Epiphany must be guessing it's some number of days
after Christmas. Maybe you can look it up, Dragon, or
maybe a listener can can tell us what a bunch

(01:06:06):
of people said that keep this stuff up until Epiphany.
Another one Gina, we keep the tree up until New
Year's and we take it down. We switched to a
fake tree after the real tree tried to kill me twice.
Now you're looking at listener texts too, what so I
know that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
It's like the Blucifer of Christmas trees.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
I lake's the one that said I treat our Christmas
tree just like a good party in early and out
Early there was also someone who said they have four
Christmas trees, the main tree and then themed trees, a
Harry Potter tree, Star Wars and an ere tree. The
main one comes down right after New Year's the others
sometimes they don't ever come down. Star Wars comes as

(01:06:47):
it's in the main hall in the basement, the others
in their own themed rooms and may only come down
if the furniture gets moved around.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
I think Dragon got very excited at a Star Wars tree.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
We have a similar situation we do.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
We've got a Nightmare before Christmas tree, so it's a
black pencil tree that we put all the Nightmare before
Christmas ornaments.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
That sounds more like Missus Redbeard's doing than yours.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
As well as a Grinch tree, so it's the Doctor
Seusan inspired so it's a green pencil tree that's kind
of hung over on the top.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Yeah, and of course the big seven foot so you
have three trees. Maybe Epiphany is.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
Christian holiday on January sixth.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
I believe it's Jesus's baptism is what it's usually marking.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Okay, all right, Ross and Gina, and by the way,
thanks to everybody who's.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Spelling Gina with a J. Now that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Our HOA wants lights down by January tenth. They are
aware of the stock show thing. But I was given
an unsightly conditioned notice last year because we left the
lights up too law Alright, all right, there we go,
All right, tell you what I just I want to
get a little bit of serious stuff in here for
a second. Not that Christmas trees aren't fun, but I
just wanted to take two minutes, okay, and talk about

(01:08:08):
Donald Trump's speech last night, because I talked.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
About it more than two hours ago.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
I didn't talk about it in the seven o'clock hour,
and it's kind of big news, so I just want
to go over it a little bit. So it was
about eighteen minutes long, and I'm not going to play
audio for it. You probably heard it, and if not,
you can just go to my blog and it's right
up there at ross Kominsky dot com. And look, I
wanted him to give a really interesting and excellent speech,
but instead, what I thought he gave was a speech

(01:08:34):
where he talked much too fast and seemed angry the
whole time, not quite yelling, but almost, And for me,
I thought he bounced around on topics too much. I
understand what he was trying to do when he talked
about Venezuela and stopping drugs and controlling the border, and
he talked some about affordability and the price of eggs

(01:08:56):
coming down. He also said, well, the price of everything
is coming down with I think is a dangerous thing
to say because everyone knows it's not true, and as.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
A politician, you shouldn't say things that everyone knows and
not true.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
But anyway, he was all over the place, and I
don't think being all.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Over the place was really what he needed. It was
in content, like the kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
You would get at a Trump rally, And I think
in content that type of thing where you've touched on
fifteen different things is better for a rally. It wasn't
so good for a speech. Also, at a rally, Trump
modulates his voice. He talks slower, he talks faster, he
talks higher, he talks lower.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
He tells a joke. But he didn't do any of
that last night.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
So for me, the content of the speech wasn't very
good and the delivery of the speech wasn't very good.
And I'm not saying this just to criticize the guy.
I really wanted to hear a good, interesting speech that
we could talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Who was moved by that and who's like, you know,
a little leaning a little more towards supporting Republican candidates
in the midterm than before that speech.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
But I just don't think it worked.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
It wasn't the worst speech ever, but I do have
to say, as Donald Trump's speeches go, I think it
was one of his worst because it came across as
if he just didn't want to be there. So we'll see,
we'll maybe get public polling or we'll see if any
public opinion polls change. But for me, the speech, as

(01:10:27):
I said a little earlier, was a missed opportunity play
a song about electricity.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Two very very quick things.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Before we talk about electricity and one of the worst
business decisions of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
First, Gina, have a look at that. Oh, this is
the battery What is this? The battery organizer, the battery organizer.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
So that's a listener texted that in when we were
talking about it. That's his battery organizer. So now you
see what it looks and it has the little dude
in the middle with the tester. You see the little
tester thing in the middle.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Of Yeah, the battery daddy, the battery daddy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
So maybe it's a better gift than you think, although
if you and your husband don't have a lot of batteries,
then maybe not so now now you know what.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
So listen.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
I didn't know the stock show rule and Gina didn't
know the battery daddy, So we're even, or we're both
dumb or whatever the other thing is Gina. A whole
bunch of listeners texted in to say that epiphany is
when the three Wise men the mage I went to
visit Jesus, and I guess Jesus didn't get baptized until

(01:11:27):
he was old, until he was an adult.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
But anyway, I didn't know either.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
Make sure my Christian mother that my Lutheran childhood is
not listening right now?

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Did you go to church a lot as a kid? Yeah,
all the time. I thought I actually had that one.
If there's fifty two, If there's fifty two.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Opportunities to go to church on Sundays, put aside Christmas
and all that in a year on average, how many
times would you have gone to church in a year
as a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
As a kid. Yeah, as a kid, every single every
single Sunday? Really yeah? Yeah, wow, every single Sunday. Interesting?
All right, listening though? Sorry? Yeah, I know I won't
follow up on that. But that's that's definitely interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Let me let me do the the electricity thing. Wait, dragon,
was that Ozzy or Black Sabbath or news.

Speaker 4 (01:12:16):
System's really weird with labeling some of the kind of stuff.
So sometimes Sabbath stuff is labeled at Ozzy. Sometimes Ozzy
stuff is labeled.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
I didn't know that. Obviously, I recognize a voice and
the sound, but I didn't know it is labeled in
our system as Sabbath, as Black Sabbath. Okay, all right,
so let me share with you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
This is from I think it was twenty twenty one.
Ford the car company, put out a big press release
and the CEO of Ford, I forget his name, Farley
maybe you know, came out and with all this splashy
stuff and they were talking about Ford. This is actually
a slide like a PowerPoint. Ford goes all in on

(01:12:52):
electric vehicles. Okay, Ford goes all in on electric vehicles.
And they have a little segment where they talk about
commercial vaicles like panel vans and stuff. And then the
lower half, the part I want to talk about today
is passenger vehicles.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
So that could be a car, it could be an suv,
it could be a pickup truck. And what they are
saying is that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
One hundred they expect one hundred percent of their sales
of passenger vehicles to be all electric by twenty thirty.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
That's that's four years from now. They expected that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
All of their vehicles would either be all electric or
hybrids by the middle of You're ready this coming year
twenty twenty six, like six months rund So what they
put this out in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
They put this out, you know, four or five years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
They said, by the middle of next year, now all
of their vehicles would either be all electrical plug or
plug in hybrid, and four years from from now, all
all of their passenger vehicles would be all electric.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
So headline from the Wall Street.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Journal from a couple of days ago, Ford takes nineteen
point five billion dollar hit in Detroit's biggest EV bust. Wow,
subhead Automaker is shifting to hybrid gas and electric vehicles. Now,
let me just say, and I said this many times,

(01:14:30):
I don't hate electric vehicles. They're cool technology, they're they're fast,
They've got so much torque in those electric motors. The
industry overall, the entire ecosystem is not quite ready for
prime time for basically one and a half reasons, well
one main reason charging under that kind of two reasons,

(01:14:54):
not enough charging stations available out there in the world
away from your home, and charging takes too long. So
if you're driving your regular old vehicle and your low
on gas and you need to go another two hundred miles,
you pull into a gas station and literally within two
minutes you have enough gas in your car to go

(01:15:14):
another two hundred miles. It's not like that with evs,
and that has caused them to be slow to pick
up kind of consumer acceptance, also because they became sort
of a matter of faith, almost a matter of a
faith of religion. On the political left, what you have
found is that by far the biggest uptake of electrical

(01:15:38):
vehicles is in very liberal places, and many conservatives still
say because they kind of feel like this stuff has
been shoved down their throats, many conservatives still say they'll never.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Buy an electric vehicle.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
I would, in the right circumstance, I would buy an
electrical electric vehicle. I think they're kind of cool, but
I think the best is the hybrid. I realized a
little more complicated because you've got to do everything you
do for a gas car, and you got to do
many of the things you do for an all electric car.
But I drive a hybrid right now. I really like it.
It's way more fuel efficient than the non hybrid version

(01:16:13):
of this car. It's much faster off the line if
I want to accelerate than the non hybred version.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
So anyway, I spent too long on that. But here's
the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Ford said just this past Monday that they are going
to take a nineteen and a half billion dollar charge
against their earnings, a massive hit I'm quoting from the
Journal as the automaker retrenches in the face of sinking
ev demand to sum is among the biggest impairments taken
by a company, not just a car company, but any
company ever for anything, and marks the US auto industry's

(01:16:45):
biggest reckoning to date that it can't realize it's electric
vehicle ambitions anytime soon. In the interesting time. I'm going
to stop there, but all this, at least on that article.
All this stuff is on my blog at Roskominski dot com.
We also have a link to a piece by Robert
Bryce about this, and it's Robert Bryce's piece. Ford's thirty

(01:17:07):
five point one billion dollar ev fiasco. That thirty five
billion dollar number is the total impairments so far. The
nineteen and a half billion is just the latest one.
And Robert Bryce starts his piece with this sentence. Electric
vehicles are the next big thing and they always will be.
That is a great line.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
By the way, By the way, just recently.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
General Motors also took like one point six billion dollar
hit for evs, but Ford went all in and their
money is all gone. It's time for this year's heroes
thank you where you can thank a veteran or an
active duty member of the military or a first responder
with twenty five hundred bucks. And you do not have

(01:17:49):
to write the check yourself, because through February first, you
can submit your nominee's name and their deserving reason for
twenty five hundred bucks at kowacolorado dot com slash contests.
All right, and that's nominate someone, give a reason and
maybe they'll get a twenty five hundred bucks presented by
Common Spirit Health and Fix It twenty four to seven.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Michael Brown, if you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
Can hear me out there in the newsroom, please come
in because I have a question for you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Gina.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
You learned something about the Christian holiday of Epiphany. Do
you want to just update us on that real quick
before I get to Michael oh Man.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
Well, listeners are totally right in saying that Epiphany is generally.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
The coming of the Wiseman and the Magi visiting Jesus.
It comes on.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
January sixth, was is twelve days after Christmas. But then
I was confused why I was getting it mixed up
with the baptism John the baptizing Jesus. Apparently Western Christianity.
Let me see if I get this right. Western Christianity
focuses on Jesus's baptism on January sixth. Eastern Christianity focuses

(01:18:59):
on the man of Spaci of God and the coming
of the Magi. Did I mix those up? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Western Christianity is the Magi and then Eastern they.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
Do the Baptist.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
No, he wasn't baptized when he was a little baby.
He was baptized when he was older, by job of
the Baptist. But there is technically two things celebrated on
January sixth.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
There you go in different you were kind, you were
kind of right, and one other very quick thing. Listener
text ross, what's your favorite type of potato. The answer
is mister potato head. All right, So Michael Brown comes
and joins me in studio.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Thanks for coming in.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
So I had a guest on the show. We got
about a minute a half here. I had a guest
on the show earlier from Pacific Legal Foundation who's got
an interesting case.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
And a listener.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Texted didn't saying, I think Michael has talked about this
kind of thing before. Her client is an American citizen
who naturalized American citizen, but American citizen who coming back
into the United States of America, was stopped by Customs
and Border patrol and they demanded the passwords to his
phone and his laptop.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
He's superintendent of a school district.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
You didn't want these people looking at private student data
and so, and there was nothing incriminating, wasn't doing anything wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
But you're an attorney.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
And and the listener said they thought you had talked
about like how maybe you travel with a different phone
or something. So I just thought i'd bring you in
and see if you had anything to say about any
of that.

Speaker 6 (01:20:21):
I don't travel with a different phone, but I would
I would never hand my phone to a law enforcement officer,
because that's essentially giving consent to search my phone. And
so if, for example, Colorado says, you can now put
your driver's license and your state ID and everything on your.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
Phone, Yeah, your nuts if you do that.

Speaker 6 (01:20:40):
And then if the cop asked, well, show me your
idea on your phone, I'm just like, no, No, you
need a warrant for that. You need a Fourth Amendment
search warrant because you've wants the reasonable suspension. What's the
probable cause? Yeah, so what was the story behind the
superintendent or this cooper.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
They didn't give a reason why they thought he was suspicious.
They argue that, and you're probably well aware of this.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
I'm sure you are.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
So there is some provision within federal law or at
least policy, that within some distance of a border, you
have fewer Fourth Amendment protections and they can search stuff
and they count you know, the border at an airport,
even if it's not near the physical border of the
United States as that, which is fine. But their argument is, well,
if you're at a border, we can search you.

Speaker 6 (01:21:27):
Well, I'd have to see that case, because searching searching
at some things, which searching one hundred miles within the
border searching a truck or a car or something, that's
one thing, But searching a person, you know, I got
I got a.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Problem with that.

Speaker 6 (01:21:43):
Right If if whoever that was is listening, can text
or email Dragon or me or somebody, I'd love to
find that case.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
I'll send you the links for the case. Okay, and
if you're interested, we'll get to that. My free legal advice,
which is worth nothing. Never hand your phone to a cop.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Well okay, just real quick, I don't want to make
your show late. But if you were at if you
were coming in the country, by the way, this guy
had global entry at past that level.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
He had global entry.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Yeah, and so but if you're at the border and uh,
and the customs guy says I want to see your
phone or I'm not letting you into the country. What
does Michael Brown say, Oh, you're not seeing my phone. Yeah,
and then you'll fight it out in court later eventually.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Yeah, yeah, all right, Michael Brown's coming up next.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
Thank you, Gina, Thank you dragging another great day on
the radio. Keep here on KOA News, traffic and weather
coming up right now.