12-9-25 - *FULL SHOW* Helping CO Homeless; CO Gives Day; Farmer Bailout; Cheap Gas

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have a ton to do on today's show, Gina,
and I will remind you about how you can have
a burger with us tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
We've got some guests. We just have a ton of
stuff to do.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
It is Colorado Gives Day, and we hear at KOA
encourage you to show your support for the arts, the environment, education,
curing cancer, any cause that matters to you through the
Colorado Gives Foundation. With thousands of nonprofits to choose from,
you can give today at Colorado Gives Day dot org.

(00:31):
And remember, as I said a few moments ago, if
you don't know what nonprofit you would like to donate to,
Colorado Gives Day dot org is a great way to
actually find one. And of course they have matches also
going on. So every dollar you give will cause more
than a dollar to go to the nonprofit of your
choice Colorado Gives Day dot org. Okay, so Gina, why

(00:55):
don't you remind folks what we're doing tomorrow at almost noon?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yeah, Crown Burger, Yes, at twelve oh one, because you
like prime numbers. I'll be there at noon because I
don't like being a minute late. If you are on time,
you're late in my book. So twelve oh one really
stresses me out.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'll be there at noon.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
You can join us at Crown Burger. We will be
just having lunch. You are buying your own lunch. We
are buying our own lunches. Nobody's buying lunches for anybody.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, so just
come there enjoy lunch. It's on two one nine two
South Colorado Boulevard. This is on the east side of
South I've actually never been there, so east side of
Colorado Boulevard half mile between south of I twenty five,

(01:35):
between Iliff and Evans. You can join us at Crown
Burger tomorrow at noon and we'll hang out and just
have some fun and try what a lot of listeners
have said is the best go to.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Burger in the area. So awesome, put it to the test.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh, and Shannon is joining us.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yes, Shannon's gonna Producer Shanon's gonna show up a little.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Bit after noon.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Unfortunately, Producer Dragon can't join us this time, but we
will will make it work another time. And very well
done channeling your inner Milton Friedman with there ain't no
such thing as a free lunch. Pretty pretty fantastic. Okay,
we have a ton of stuff to do on today's show, National, International, Local,
all of it. Colorado gives Day's stuff going on. We're

(02:15):
gonna be doing it throughout this show.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
This is gonna be one of those shows that just
goes goes really really fast. You know, I actually let
me do this. I'm gonna do a couple of quick things.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
First. I want to follow up on a story Gina
mentioned a moment ago about State Senator Julie Gonzalez, who
was a Democrat from North Denver, who announced that she
would be challenging actually I don't know if it's North Denver,
but anyway from Denver, but she is going to be
mounting primary challenge to Senator John Hickenlooper. And on the

(02:46):
one hand, these horse race things are kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
And you like to see the ins and outs.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Of politics if you're sort of a political junkie like me.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
But and also it's funny.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I got a text yesterday, and I won't say exactly
who it was from, but I got a text from
a staffer for a current Republican member of Congress here
in Colorado. Won't say which which member of Congress, won't
say any of that. But the staffer said, Ross, are
you covering this, Julie Gonzales, you know, primary ing hiccken Looper.
It just shows how much the Democratic Party has lost,

(03:21):
you know, the control of their radical left wing base.
And I wrote back saying, yeah, that's true, but that's.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Not really news.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
And Republicans have their own share of wing nuts, and
it's just it's kind of fun to watch. But I
just so we're clear, I bet you Gonzales loses the
primary to hicken Looper by something like a two to
one margin. I don't think she's going to be a
serious player. I don't think she's going to go anywhere
For Republicans.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
They already know.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
That there are plenty of crazy Democrats, and by the way,
Democrats know there are plenty of crazy Republicans. It's not
a one way street, right. But for me, the more
interesting thing that can happen when you get situations like
this is that sometimes you will see parties, especially for

(04:09):
the incumbent, having to spend money in the primary that
they were hoping to be able to save to spend
in the general election. Now, look, I don't think kick
and Looper is worried about any of this. This is
not like they're running in the eighth congressional district that
is a swing district.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
This is Colorado. It's a blue state.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
So hick and Looper in my estimation, is easily going
to win the primary and easily going to win the
general election. So he's probably not too worried about any
of this at all. But normally, when you see this
kind of thing a primary challenger jump in, especially one
with a little bit of name recognition, which is all
that Julie Gonzalez has. Still you start thinking about, well,

(04:48):
they're going to have to waste some money, which is
kind of a kind of a fun thing to watch.
In fact, we're going to see that on a much
bigger scale in Texas. I'll talk about this later, but
with Jasmine Crockett jumping into the Senate rate in there,
Jasmine Crockett is the Democrats version of Marjorie Taylor Green,
the Democrats version of what Lauren Bolbert used to be.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
She seems a lot more quiet lately.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Every once in a while, she still does something that
makes the news in not such great way, but she's
not all over the news every day doing something wacky
Jasmine Crockett is and she's jumped into the Senate race
in Texas and there's a pretty good chance she'll win
the primary, which is the best possible thing that could
have happened to the Republicans in Texas. We'll talk about
that more a little bit later. So this boat strike

(05:34):
drug boat strike story isn't going away, And we're actually
going to have Andy McCarthy.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
On tomorrow to talk about the.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Legalities or illegalities of what the Trump administration is doing.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
But I want to.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Talk about an aspect that hasn't gotten.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Very much attention.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Well, this is just news in the past twenty four
hours and it's still not getting very much attention.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
So there is one.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Of these so called must pass bills that comes up
every year, the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, and
it is a must pass spending bill that funds our
Department of Defense spending stuff like that. And every once
in a while, not every once in a while, it
happens every time, but not usually in great quantity. They

(06:19):
add stuff, Okay, they add stuff to this bill that
they want to make sure it gets passed. Now, a
lot of times, the most controversial stuff doesn't get added
to this bill. But it's the key is it's a
bill that absolutely positively has to pass. So if leadership
agrees to include a thing in it, then that's a

(06:40):
way to get your thing to pass. It doesn't happen
very often that way, but it does have It does happen. Now,
Republicans and Democrats who are in senior positions on the
relevant committees have seen the video of the September second
strike on this drug boat that resulted in partial destruction
of the drug boat and the elimination of We don't

(07:02):
know how many people from the boat. Okay, it could
be zero in the initial strike. It could be more
than zero. We don't know how many people were on
or at least I don't know how many people were
on the boat to begin with. It probably does show
that in the video, and then we know that, or
we think we know. There were a couple of guys
left in the water, and then they went back and

(07:24):
hit it again and killed those guys.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Now, the story about this keeps changing.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
First they said it didn't happen, Then they said it's
all legit. Then they said the guys were trying to
flip the boat over. Now we're being told it wasn't
even really a boat to flip over. There was just
sort of a part of a boat there, and the
guys were in the water. And now there was a
story yesterday saying, well, these guys.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Were on a government list of terrorists, and.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So the mission ended up being actually to kill those
people as much as it was to take out the
drug boat.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
The story just keeps changing.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I don't know, but when you have Republicans come
out after seeing the video, they're saying, yeah, it looks fine.
It looks like these guys were trying to get back
in the fight. They were trying to flip the boat over,
they were in communication with other NARCO terrorists who were
coming to help them, and so they were legit targets.
And Democrats who've seen the video say it's nothing like that.
These were unarmed people with no communications devices, floating in

(08:15):
the water, holding onto a bit of smoldering wreckage, and
they couldn't have done any harm to anyone at that time,
and they were not legitimate targets. So that's the debate
back and forth, and you and I here in the
public are just sitting around wondering, well, what's the truth.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Who do we believe.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
This is separate from the question of whether you think
the policy is okay. We can debate that separately, but
at least it would be nice to be working from
actual information. So I mentioned the NDAA a minute ago.
What we learned yesterday. This is kind of a small thing,
but it's a big signal. And I'll quote from Politico,
lawmakers plan to withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete

(08:53):
Hegsas's travel budget until the Pentagon provides them with the videos.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Man quietly tucked.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Into the final draft of the Annual Defense Policy Bill
calls for quote unedited video strikes unedited video of strikes
conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility
of the United States Southern Command. So this is interesting.
I mean, leadership had to approve this, and so now

(09:22):
this is going to be in the NBAA. Now, it's
not a big thing. It's not like they're threatening to withhold.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
The budget for weapons systems.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
They're threatening to withhold a quarter of the budget for
Pete hegseth to travel. But still it's a really interesting symbol.
It's also worth noting that President Trump himself has said
he doesn't really have a problem with releasing the videos.
The resistance seems to be coming from Hegseth, So this

(09:51):
pushback is not quite as brave as it seems, in
that it is not necessarily a push against Trump, but
just a push against hag Seth.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
So we'll keep an eye on how that goes.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
One of the other stories I saw yesterday has to
do with former Mason County Clerk Tina Peters, who she
and her lawyers have been pushing for changes in jail
and this and that for quite some time and Gen
and I guess we got an update on that story now,
Gina and Ross, does Colorado Gives Day take a fee

(10:26):
out of each donation? And I actually went online to
look up the exact answer, because it is it is
a great question.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Now they there is.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
There are some small fees involved, but when you make
a donation, there is an optional extern little thing you
can give to make sure that nonprofits get you know,
absolutely everything. But one of the things I really like
about Colorado Gives Day is that they only charge a
two point zero five percent processing fee on credit cards,
which is in most cases less than Colorado Gives Day

(11:00):
is actually paying the credit card processor. It's not a
fee to Colorado Gives Day, right, so they actually absorb
some of the fee, so the nonprofit never pays more
than two point zero five percent. The platform itself doesn't
cost anything for nonprofits to join, for nonprofits to use

(11:22):
year round. So when you donate, you're asked if you
want to cover a fee that's just under four percent,
but you don't. You don't have to, and if you don't,
the nonprofit they'll get two point zero five percent less.
But again that's actually a smaller processing fee than they

(11:43):
would normally than they would normally face. And if you
do decide to pay that three point nine nine percent fee,
that fully covers the credit card processing fees for that nonprofit.
So it's up to you, but it's essentially it's an.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Extremely low fee way.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
For these nonprofits to to get these donations.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Sorry if that was too long an answer.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Gina wants me to remind you to text to us
at five six six nine zero some of your favorite
local nonprofits so we can give them a shout out
on the air during Colorado Gives Day.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
So text us at five six six nine zero.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
And all you need to do is, you know mention
a particular nonprofit and if you want to add a
little more context as to why it's important to you,
you're welcome to do that, but you don't have to.
And again, if you want to give some money today
to a Colorado nonprofit and maybe you're not sure what
organization you would like, if you go to Colorado gives
Day dot org, you can you can find lots and

(12:43):
lots of them. Right, So that's a good thing. Let
me share this story with you. It's kind of an
ongoing thing that I've been following kind of closely, and
that it's it's a don't let the headline shock you
too much. But the way they write the headline over
at Axios Denver seasonation's sharpest drop in home values. But

(13:04):
that's a very misleading headline. Whoever wrote that headline should
probably study writing, study editing a little bit better, because
when you read that headline Denver city is nation's sharpest
drop in home values, you would think, I would think,
based on that headline that what they're talking about is

(13:25):
how much the value of homes has declined, But it's
not what they're talking about. What they're talking about is
based on Zilo estimates the percentage of homes that are
worth less now than they were before. Okay, and according
to this Zilo study, nationally, fifty three percent of homes

(13:49):
are worth less now than they were a year ago.
And in the Denver metro area that number is over
ninety percent, close to ninety one percent. And Axio says
more metro Denver homes lost value over the past year
than in any other major US metro.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
But here's the.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Thing and why I didn't like that headline. All right, again,
the headline says sharpest drop in home values.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
That's just not true. That's just not true.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
It is it is definitely true that home values are down,
and they're down across much of the country, and they're
down across much of Colorado.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Right in terms of Zillow's.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Guess as to what percentage of homes are worth less
than they were a year ago, it's eighty six percent
in Colorado Springs, eighty five percent in Greely, eighty four
percent in Boulder, eighty two percent, and four Collins. So
at ninety one percent in Denver. Yeah, it's worse, but
you know, is it significantly worse. Here's the key, and
we've talked about this a bit on the show. So

(14:53):
many people have these low interest rate mortgages that they're
not willing to give up that if they want to
sell their house unless they have to move.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
The mindset is, I'm only going to.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Sell my house if I can get the price I
really really want, because otherwise, when I'm out of this,
I'm gonna have to swap into a six and a
quarter percent mortgage that'll cost me a lot more.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
So I'm not giving this up.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Unless I sell my house for maybe more than I
think it's worth. Right, So what's happening is they're listing
the homes. They're listing the homes at prices that are
somewhat unrealistically high. Even though they could get away with
that during COVID, you can't get away with it now.
People aren't buying them because the potential buyers are also
facing six and a quarter percent mortgages. But the sellers,

(15:37):
instead of lowering the price, they'll maybe they lower it
a little, but at that point, after they lower it
a little and they say, you know what, I'm not
going to sell for less than this, they're just taking
them off the market.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
So that's what's going on.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
So in any case, if you see this headline Nation's
sharpest drop in home values, you know, take that with
a grain of salt, or maybe a grain of sugar.
Good morning, and welcome to Ross on the News with
Gina and with producer Dragon as well. I'm going to
jump right into just not keep my guest waiting around
any longer. Tim Manilla is a senior constitutionalism fellow at

(16:11):
the Goldwater Institute, which is a great organization and has
been for many many years Goldwaterinstitute dot org. And let
me just set this up by saying, we are going
to talk about a problem at a very specific organization.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
But I want to have.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
This conversation because to me, this is representative of a
much bigger problem across so much of academia and other
parts of our society that impact us. So while on
the surface this looks like a story about a particular
journal that most of you will never read, it's actually,

(16:51):
I think a much bigger story than that.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
It is about.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Something called the American Political Science Review, And Tim and
the folks of at the Goldwater Institute put out a
remarkable report a couple of days ago entitled radical Activists
Hijacked a top political science journal with far reaching consequences,
and the far reaching consequences are the main thing I want.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
To talk about.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
So Tim, welcome to Kowa and thanks for making time
for us.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
I appreciate it. Ross, It's great to be here. Thanks
for having me. Okay, so we.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Had about six minutes, so give me some concise answers
and we'll get as.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Much as we can.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
In first, big picture, why is this particular journal so important?

Speaker 4 (17:35):
The American Political Science Review is one of the top
journals in the discipline of political science. If you get
your article as a political scientist published in this journal,
you're well on your way to getting grants, to getting tenure.
This is a very elite journal that most political science
want want to get their article into, and so it

(17:59):
operates as a kind of de facto gatekeeper of academic research.
If your articles published here, the thing goes well. This
is legitimate, high level, cutting edge research that you should
be rewarded for as an academic. What we found in
this report is that this top level journal so called
was taken over by a group of radical activists that

(18:20):
called themselves the Feminists Collective. That's their term for themselves,
not mine, and they instituted a radical overhaul of the
journal in which they promised to racially discriminate against people
of certain races who are submitting to the journal. They
also favored research in progressive issues, progressive Nichiche issues, race, gender,

(18:48):
sexual orientation. And it shows that the reason is important,
like you just said, is that even if you never
read this journal, this is the standard by which academics
are judge and how they advance in their discipline. And
if this process is corrupt of doing the quality control
for academic research, then we need to question the whole

(19:10):
system in how we advance faculty, how we hire faculty
in higher ed in particular.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
So for listeners.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
And there's this amazing example in Tim's report for the
Goldwater Institute, there was an article published entitled Wages for Earthwork,
And I'll actually quote from a National Review article about
Tim's study.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
In one example, wages.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
For Earthwork, the studies author proposes wages are reparations to
indigenous people's for debt ode to them for their devalued
climate work. I contend the author says that revaluing earthwork
must also be central to projects aimed at decolonializing climate
justice and wider structural transformation of colonial cap Now to me, Tim,

(20:01):
what that sounds like is one of these people who
tries to play a prank on a publication by sending
them an article that is such complete nonsense, gobbledegook, filled
with all the latest buzzwords that means absolutely nothing. But
apparently they actually meant this as a serious article.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
Oh absolutely, And what I find striking about that article,
Like you said, it kind of sounds like a prank,
But the article is about advocating for a very radical
policy of reparations to indigenous groups.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
And it's not.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
About objective analysis of the policy or the issues of
environmental policy. It's I advocate for reparations. That's not just
the only example. We found another article advocates for the
quote unquote socialization of housework. This is the kind of
so called cutting edge political science research that is in

(21:04):
a so called scholarly publication. This isn't Slate, this isn't
The Atlantic, this isn't The New York Times. Even this
is supposed to be an academic journal, And this is
what is getting through.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
We're talking with Tim Manella from the Goldwater Institute. The
website Goldwaterinstitute dot org. Their new report is called Radical
Activists Hijacked a top political science journal with far reaching consequences.
I've got about a minute left here, and what i
want to talk about briefly now. One of my favorite
political economist types is Frederick Bastiatt, and he always talks

(21:39):
about that which is seen and that which is not seen.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
So in this case, that which is seen as.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
A bunch of stupid articles that never should have been
published anywhere except for somebody's personal blog. But how about
what is not seen, like what didn't get published because
this junk did.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's a great point.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
We found that there were a grand total of three
three articles out of over five hundred over five years
that they published that directly addressed the Constitution of the
United States or the constitutions of the fifty States. So
think about that three out of over five hundred. That

(22:18):
compares to over one hundred articles that address race, gender,
sexual orientation, et cetera. This is the kind of research
that is just simply not being done by the elite
ranks of political scientists. Core principles of our system of
government are simply being ignored. That's something we need to

(22:39):
reincentivize in academia, and our policy that we've developed starts
the process towards doing that.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
And I will also note that one of the side
effects of this gang of radicals running this magazine is
or this journal, is that if you were a straight
white guy, you had almost no chance of getting published,
almost from regardless of what you were writing about. Very
very quick, Tim, is this changing? Are these people still
in charge? What's the story?

Speaker 4 (23:09):
So they only had a four year term as editors,
But I think despite the fact that they are no
longer the official editors because their term wound up, it's
still very frightening that they were given free reign over
this journal for four years. And like you said, one
of their promises was, we're going to automatically advance articles

(23:31):
by people of a certain race and by women, and
we're not going to automatically advance papers by white males.
That's the kind of disturbing thing they promised to do,
and they still were given control of this journal. So
it shows how far gone some parts of academia are.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Tim Manila with the Goldwater Institute Goldwaterinstitute dot org. If
you forget any of this, it's all up on my
blog at Rosskimiski dot com.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Tim, thanks for your time, appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
All right, we still a ton of stuff to do
on today's show. Keep it here for all your news,
weather and traffic, and we will be reminding you how
to have lunch with me and Gina tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
We have a listener text.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
It doesn't exactly say this, but I'm going to paraphrase,
and in the future, listeners who are texting in this
kind of thing, please do word it this way because
it doesn't actually say, Gina, you should turn around, but
I'm gonna say that's what it says, Gina, you should
turn around and look at the sunrise.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Okay, Okay, so it doesn't say turn around, but in
the future, when there's a great sunrise, I want everybody
to text in Gina should turn around. Where I'm sitting
the window is kind of sort of in my line
of sight. It's not straight ahead, but just a little
to my right. It's behind Gina, which is why when
you're looking in the window.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
You normally see the back of her head. Right. Okay,
But so I was really.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Worried when you said Gina turned around to what Okay, yeah,
pretty sunrise.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
I love it. There we go.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
So I want to just remind folks please text us
at five six six nine zero with the names of
some of your favorite nonprofits that you maybe would like
to encourage folks to support.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
I'm dura on this Colorado Gifts Day.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Now this next thing I just want to do for
two minutes probably deserves more time, but we got things
to do today. And Gina sent me a piece from
The New York Post diners flocking to happy hour, ordering
appetizers and skimping on entrees as affordability hits US restaurants nationwide.
I definitely do that. I did it recently. What about you?

Speaker 2 (25:26):
I've never related to an article more to be honest. Now,
maybe not the chains.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
They mentioned a lot of chains like Applebee's trying to
do a huge fifteen dollars appetizer deal.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
And a bunch of food.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
But to me, I will always go like we will
select restaurants, local restaurants around our area based on their
happy hours and say, okay, well, what time is their
happy hour, how long does it last?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
What's the deals?

Speaker 3 (25:49):
And not even just the drink deals, like if they
have food specials which are generally appetizers. We're like, we're in,
We'll get a bunch of appetizers and that's perfect. And
so every time we're kind of out and about, we're
usually doing We're going to do it tonight, honestly, because
there's a Christmas bar we want to go to, which
is a little pricier, but they have a happy hour
that will go on with all their appetizers and their drinks,

(26:11):
and they just I always joke that when you see
a drink on happy hour and it's still eight dollars,
that's a problem because sometimes they're like cocktails for eight dollars.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah, that's right. So it's
just more.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
People are wanting to go out to restaurants and still enjoy,
you know, the restaurant experience, and then obviously still tip
like a well, you know a good tip. Yeah, just
because it's cheaper, don't do that. But you're just seeing
more and more people just starting to buy or look
around at the happy hours or look around at appetizers
and say, okay, we can split this and still enjoy
a dining experience, but maybe just not for the price

(26:47):
tag of a full Entrick We.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Did this when I took my kid out to California
to look at some colleges.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
We met up with my dad and we went.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
We did this exact thing a bar, restaurant and happy hour,
and it was you know, probably a third less than
it otherwise would be still expensive though, because restaurants are
just so pricing these days.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
It's kind of remarkable to me.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Like how many people are still going to restaurants with
you know, eighteen dollars burgers plus another few dollars in.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Tip, Like I still say.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
The funniest part was to me was on I was
on a rooftop in New York City overlooking the skyline
beautiful and most people get sticker shock in New York, sure,
And I was drinking probably a seventeen dollars cocktail, and
I said, I've spent the same price at a bar
in downtown Denver with no view, and I'm like, I
have reverse sticker shock when I look at it and go,

(27:37):
why is this the same price of what I'm what
I'm getting back home?

Speaker 1 (27:40):
I'd love to we'd love to know from you if
you want to text us at five six, six nine zero.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Are you down with this? Are you doing more? Of this.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Are you going to more happy hours, ordering more you know,
appetizers and stuff and trying to find a way to
go to restaurants without spending as much money as it
would be if you ordered the way you used to order.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Texas at five six six nine zero.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Tell us anything you like there, and also especially if
you live in Denver, Texas with some of the places
you love the best for this, because Gina needs new place.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
That's exactly what I was gonna say. That's why I
turned my mic back on. Here. You have a good
happy hour location, let me know. I'm gonna write them down.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
All right, We're gonna do something a little different when
we come back. I had a chance to visit a
nonprofit that just opened and it really kind of struck
a chord with me. And we've got some folks joining
us in studio with what I think is a.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Wonderful and worthy story.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Hey, would you have a look at this really fantastic nonprofit?

Speaker 2 (28:36):
And I said, sure, anything you want. Mike and I went.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Out to visit the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, which is
operated by Advance Pathways, and I saw it before they
actually opened, But this is a really big place it's
a former hotel and convention center, and their aim is
to help thousands of homeless folks each year, up to

(28:59):
six hundred at a time. And I was just so
unbelievably impressed with not just what they're doing, but the
commitment of the folks who are there doing it. Joining
us in studio. Jim is the CEO of Advanced Pathways.
Sam is a community member who has been so helped
by Advanced Pathways. So let me actually just start with

(29:19):
Sam and kind of set up this context a little bit,
just kind of briefly, you know, we're in radio time here. Sam,
just tell us a little about your story and what
Advanced Pathways has meant to you.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
I was homeless for some years and went through a program,
had an apartment, went back out, was on the verge
of homeless this again and came in contact with Advance,
and Advance helped me maintain some mobilities and enhance some
abilities and get me to where I've now maintained my
stable housing and married and kids and still business now.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yes, correct, one more question.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
I want to go to Jim, and we'll just go
back and here in the time that we have, how
did you first encounter Advanced Pathways.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
How did you come to know that they exist?

Speaker 5 (30:08):
Through another as the Second Chance Program. One of the
directors over there was like, Hey, yeah, there's these guys
that are just starting up. They're looking for some community members.
They might be able to help you. And that's when
I met Jim and Marcy and I've been knowing Jim
ever since.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
And Jim your CEO of Advanced Pathways. And Sam was
the first person that you helped when you got going.
So you guys aren't new with this anymore, which is
why you've taken on a project of this scale. So
tell us a little bit about what you're doing at
the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, which I should mention just
before I was there a day I think a day

(30:43):
before I was there, the Mayor of Aurora was there,
the governor was there.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
This is a big deal, it is.

Speaker 6 (30:49):
We're so excited to be the operator of the campus.
What we're doing there is something different. It's actually the
first in the country that we're aware of at this
scale to be able to work with individual is coming
off the street and have a tiered housing system. Tier
one is people coming right off the streets. Tier two
those who want to work. They want to see a
case manager. They want to be able to engage in

(31:11):
the workforce, and we provide some training in house for them,
whether it's janitorial training, landscaping, or hospitality. And then tier
three is the former hotel rooms. This is where someone
can live for at least a year, maybe up to
two in a tax paying job, where they continue to
receive case management and life skills training and they have

(31:32):
the motivation to continue to be able to live a
self sustainable future for themselves. We're all about creating paths
towards personal highest level of self sufficiency.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
It's a remarkable thing to see and understand. And again, folks,
it's called the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, but Advanced.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Pathways are the folks operating it.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
And if you go to Colorado Gibbs Day dot org
you can donate two advanced pathways and I very much
encourage you to do that. And at the risk of
being a little bit to sort of numbers and process based,
there is some special stuff going on today. Then make
it particularly useful if folks donate. Now, right, that's correct.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
We have a match of six thousand dollars for everyone
who gives today on Colorado Gives Day.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
We want to be able.

Speaker 6 (32:23):
To really create an amazing experience and an environment for
people to be able to thrive, going from just surviving
into a space of thriving. And what makes our particular
model unique ross is that we are responsible for seventy
five percent of the budget. The budget's about eleven million dollars.

(32:45):
This is not a government project. This is a government
contribution to making a difference in the community. They help
buy the property, but we're the operator of an eleven
million dollar budget. We're responsible for the majority of the funding.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
And I just want I want folks to understand again
the scale of this. Right the Aurora, the Aurora Regional
Navigation Campus, and you don't have to be like from
Aurora for them to help. You can can help six
hundred people at a time at a time, and their
goal for next year is to help somewhere between three
and four thousand people.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
So again, if you donate today on.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Colorado Gives Day, the first six thousand dollars of those
donations we had doubled. You donate a dollar you needed
one hundred dollars, they'll get two hundred dollars and then
also real quick because I want to ask Sam another question.
What's the story with this particular tax credit.

Speaker 6 (33:37):
So, anyone who gives one thousand dollars or more, we
are a part of the Colorado Homeless Contribution tax Credit.
That means that you qualify for a twenty five percent
state tax credit, allowing donors to make a larger impact
while significantly reducing their Colorado state tax bills.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Okay, so if you donate one thousand bucks, you get
two hundred and fifty dollars credit towards your state tax,
plus whatever you might get off your federal tax if
you itemize and claim and claim charitable contributions. That way,
let me let me go back to go back to
Sam and the first community member who Advanced Pathways helped
if if and I've only got about a minute here, Sam,
and then we'll talk again next hour. But if you

(34:17):
had to name one thing that Advanced Pathways got you
to realize about yourself and make a change, and I'm
sure there there's.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Probably more than one thing.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
But what what what do you think is the main thing,
the main switch that they sort of helped you flip.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
I think it was the need for community. Uh, they
provided a.

Speaker 5 (34:39):
Need for community and my realization that I do need
other people that are in the same boat or have
been through the same things. And they have a lot
of staff over there that are able that they can
understand and empathize with some of the things that I've
been through. And I still have been in contact with
a lot of the staff over there, and so I
think that was pretty phenomenal and instrumental in me being
to get to the point where I'm at.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, being alone is a really bad thing. It's a
really bad thing.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
So we're gonna have these guys back in studio in
the next hour and then and then Gina.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Will be involved or you know, Gina.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Gina will be a big part of that conversation because
she's got, you know, different ways that she thinks about
these things as well. I want to encourage you to
go to Colorado gives Day dot org and can and
consider a contribution to Advanced Pathways. And let me just
also say, if there's some other nonprofit that is very,
very that is close to your heart you want to
donate to that, do that.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
But that's what today is for.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
So all right, we're gonna we're gonna bring you now,
your your news, your weather, or your traffic. We're gonna
come back with the story that I promised Gina yesterday
and she's been waiting for it for twenty four hours
now about the definitely about the trade's condom text. Tell
you about that after this and after we learn.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
More from Gina as well. Happy Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
It is Colorado Gives Day, and please do show your
support for the arts, the environment, curing cancer education a
cause that matters to you. Through Colorado Gives Foundation, thousands
of nonprofits to choose from, including some that we're mentioning
on the show today. We just had Advanced Pathways in
studio with us. You can give today at Colorado Gives

(36:13):
Day dot org.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
I do have a ton of texts.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
From listeners about the nonprofits that you love, and I
just want to share a couple of names.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
But please keep those texts coming.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Step Denver is something that's kind of similar to Advanced Pathways.
It's and it's a wonderful program. I love step Denver
and they're sort of the og of this. They are,
you know, if you're talking about Advanced Pathways in comparison,
as this listener was, Step Denver is quite a bit smaller,
and also step Denver only helps only works with men.

(36:49):
But I still I love step Denver. I absolutely love them,
have for a long time. Let's see Colorado Horsepower in
Castle Rock on my screen.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Keeps moving, all right, let me hit this thing here.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Colorado Horsepower and Castle Rock equine programs for veterans, active
duty and first responders. Denver Dream Center helping support men
coming out of the Colorado correctional system get set up
for successful life out of prison. Fraser Valley Hockey Association
last week our fourteen year old team won a qualifying

(37:22):
tournament and we'll be traveling to Canada in January where
a small hockey club in Fraser and definitely need any
financial support we can get. So this gives you a
sense of kind of very large scale, wide ranging, smaller scale, right,
helping people, animal stuff, sporting stuff. I mean, this is
the thing with Colorado gives day you can help in

(37:43):
any way you want. All right, I owe you the story,
And I know Gina was really upset with me for
not bringing in to you yesterday because she sees this
as one of the most important stories in a long
long time or something.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah, No, I don't think that was said. I actually
know nothing about this story.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Uh huh. It was only you gave the headline at
the end of.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
The show yesterday and I was like, what and that
was it?

Speaker 1 (38:08):
That was it as much as I'm done. Okay, here's
the headline. This is from eurownews dot com. China to
tax condoms for the first time in thirty years.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
This is actually kind of a serious story. Why do
you think China would put a tax on condoms when
condoms are currently sold tax free in China? Gina, you
got a guess you want to hazarded guests as to
why China would tax condoms.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Now to encourage more babies. Yes, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
China is China is so desperate and they're not the
only ones who have this problem.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
You know, we.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Oftentimes in this part of the world, we think about
Europe and to a lesser extent, the United States is
having these low birth rate issues. But check this out.
China has got over a billion people. It's estimated that
by the end of this century, so seventy five years
from now now, they'll have only around half a billion people.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
So it's still an enormous population.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
But they are having so few babies in China that
their population is going to absolutely crash. Japan is in
a similar situation. South Korea might be worse, believe it
or not, so in any case, now China is going
to have a thirteen percent tax on condoms. But here's
here's my take, and I don't follow this very very closely,

(39:25):
but China and these other countries have offered women, offered
families outright cash handouts to have more babies, and they're
still not. So I don't think making birth control cost
twenty five or fifty cents more is going to solve
the problem happy hour places. One is a place I've
actually been interested in trying for a while called the

(39:46):
Ginger Pig. It's not that near where you live. It's
like forty something and Lowell, but Ginger Pig. It's I
thinks Chinese. And it was listed in Michelan as you know,
one of the excellent, one of the excellent restaurants, Ginger
Peak Ormond let's say.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
There, oh, there you go.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, So that was one that people mentioned as a
potential happy hour thing.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
I haven't read a bunch more. I don't know if
you had a chance to go through any of the texts,
But the.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Question for listeners in case you're wondering what we're.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Talking about, is.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
There have been a lot of folks, including Gina and
including me, but Gina even more going because she's young
and gets to have more fun going out to restaurants
at happy hour because drinks are cheaper, food is cheaper,
and actually I kind of dig it, not just for
the cost savings, but I actually like, you know, you
get a bunch of appetizers and you get to taste
lots of different things, so I actually dig it anyway.

(40:42):
But Gina was looking for some insights for places that
she and her husband or friends or whatever can can
go and do that, so text us and I kind
of would like them too. Actually five six six nine zero.
Gina is more of a city girl. I'm more of
a South Suburbs kind of guy, and we would both
like to know places that you like for that happy
hour kind of thing. So text us at five six

(41:05):
six nine zero. Now, also, Gina, and I would love
to have lunch with you tomorrow at Crown Burger, right, Gina.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, except I won't be having a burger, right.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
You'll be having some wacky veggie thing that they will
custom make for you because you're special.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
I hope they don't have to.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
To make it.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
I don't want that to happen. Every vegetarian is special. No,
it's on the menu, it's on the menium, or at
least there's a vegetarian option for me. People.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, So, Crown Burger, east side of Colorado Boulevard, maybe
half a mile south of I twenty five, between Islefft
and Evans on the east side of Colorado Boulevard. Twelve
oh one pm tomorrow. Okay, twelve oh one pm tomorrow.
Gina and I are not buying your lunch, and you're
not buying our lunches either. We're going Dutch, as they say,
So Crown Burger tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Just to make it easy, we'll.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Call it noon, right, Gina, prefer you prefer noon?

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yes? Yeah, yep.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
I'm always I like to be early for things because
to me, early is on time.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
On time is late. From twelve oh one, that really
throws me off.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
So just call it it, all right, that's some good
parenting that you believe that, all right, Gina, you sent
me this piece from Denver seven downtown Denver foot traffics.
He's slow, but steady climb two months after sixteenth Street reopening.
And this is actually a thing you and I have
talked with the mayor about a fair bit. It's obviously
incredibly important to Denver. The Channel seven Denver seven dot

(42:32):
com says the latest report from the Downtown Denver Partnership
shows that November downtown foot traffic reached ninety two percent
of November twenty nineteen levels as city leaders work to
attract more people to the area. And Mayor Johnson did
mention that put to that data point to us as
well on Friday when when we had him on. So yeah,

(42:53):
I mean again, you're in the city, You're downtown more
than I am.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
So what's that vibe feel like to you?

Speaker 3 (43:00):
So, speaking of restaurants, usually sixteenth Street is the one
that I'm like traversing to find places that have good
happy hours and things like that. And we'll even go
to the movie theater on sixteenth Street and we have
been even during the construction, and the construction was a mess,
Like just major props to any businesses who were truly
able to stay afloat during the construction, because there were

(43:22):
just so many that were not even able to find
their doors because you had to just try to cross
all these different barricades and all this construction and everything
torn up along sixteenth Street. But now we went to
a happy hour at a restaurant on sixteenth Street and
it was busy. There was people actually like waiting to
grab a table. And I think one thing that really

(43:44):
helps is the convention Center bringing a lot of people
from out of state to different conventions, different meetings, whatever
they're coming for, and then just walking along sixteenth Street.
But I will argue that it is a vast difference
of what we've seen. Sure you're still going to see
homeless individuals, Sure you're still going to see some trash.
You're still going to see, you know, your basic city

(44:05):
shenanigans that people really frown upon. But I see way
more patrols out and about. Police are constantly walking up
and down, more art installations, more things that they're trying
to do to attract I even saw some holiday art
installations that look like they're up for the season, And
it just really seems like the revitalization.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Is hopefully kidding there. Now. Mind you, I've been here
three years. I can't talk about what it looked like
a decade ago.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
And I know so many people say, well, back in
the day it was great and next y and see,
I can't really talk about that. But still empty businesses,
still empty storefronts. Yeah, that's why the mayor and the
city is trying to buy the Denver Pavilions to try
to revitalize a lot of those ones in the mall
part of the mall.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
So it's still got some work to do.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
But I saw this article and I was like, there's
at least some encouraging numbers of foot traffic coming back
because your feet can be along Sixteenth Street now you
don't have to navigate through fences and these little, tiny
tight quarters, which I even was like, this is very
unsafe when we have these giant barricades that are blocking
all the construction in sixteenth Street. Now it is fully

(45:11):
open and they're really trying to get some people back.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
So in this Denver seven piece that we're looking at
here does show a slow but steady trend of increased
foot traffic in all of downtown pedestrian traffic. The chart
is titled overall Activity, slow but steady growth. And that's
a great thing. And I keep coming back to this
thing about office buildings right. Of major cities in the

(45:36):
United States of America, Denver has had among the slowest
or maybe the slowest in terms of return to the
numbers of people working downtown as compared to before COVID
just and more people in Denver still either working from
home or businesses went and took space in the suburbs.

(45:57):
But I think it's mostly working from home. We have
a lot of high tech kind of stuff in and
around the Denver metro area, and a lot of tech
kind of folks. You know, they can pretty easily work
from home. And so you've got this issue that I
just keep returning to in my mind, the chicken and
egg or horse and cart or whatever like. Do you

(46:17):
need more people to come back to the offices in
order to really boost that foot traffic on Sixteenth Street
and have more businesses show up there and open in
those vacant storefronts that Gina was talking about, Or do
you need there to be more businesses open and more
attractions on sixteenth Street mall and we don't call it

(46:39):
mall anymore, just sixteenth Street, and you need all of
that to be better in order to attract people back
into the office buildings.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
And I don't know the answer, Gina.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
And when I look at that, me personally, I like
to have more unique places to walk along the Sixteenth
Street mall. I'm not going to go to a chain
restaurant when I'm downtown walking the mall.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
And that's what a lot of sixteenth Street was for
a while. I think a Texter asked about.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
The hard Rock I believe that closed in like twenty
twenty three because there was a hard Rock Cafe.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
There's all of.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
These chains that they thought maybe the tourists would be
intrigued by and open and be there. And I know
that it's so much harder for a small business to
try to stay afloat on the sixteenth Street mall.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
And that's why we see a lot of these chains.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
But I'm not sure if that's even going to be
the thing that's going to bring a lot of people back.
I'll be honest, some people are just going to have
a bad taste and never come back.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Indeed, And that you're right. Hard Rock Cafe closed in
July of twenty three. Yeah, and they were one of
the first like original tenants in Denver pavilions, right. And
then I also saw I noticed this. The smash Burger
down there on Sixteenth Street closed recently, and that was
just in my head because we did a remote broadcast
from that smash Burger like just a year ago.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
But you know what, we all should want Denver to succeed.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
It's our capital city, it's our biggest city, it's our
most important city. We want tourists to come to Colorado,
whether it's to you partly to Denver and then go
somewhere else or whatever. We want them bring in their
tourist dollars here in supporting our economy and also for
those of us who live here, right, for those of
us who live here, we want these cities to just

(48:16):
be as good as they can be because we want
to be able to go out and have some fun
and go to the happy hour without having a trip
over too many homeless people or needles or whatever. And
it is so much better than it was, and hopefully
it'll keep getting better from here. You want to discover
nonprofits that suit the kinds of things that you are

(48:38):
interested in supporting to make our world a little better,
you can go to coloradogibs dot org. There's matching going on.
They can help you find a place to donate too.
And I'll mention also, and I think these folks are
not on the Colorado Gives website, but since I've been
a little bit involved, I'm just gonna mention. My friend

(49:00):
Todd his his first wife who had UH who passed
away from from cancer. But before she passed away, there
was a thing that she really loved doing, and she
started this this thing where they would deliver points set
of flowers a little you know, small potted up or
not flowers, but plants. Point set is to nursing homes

(49:23):
and the website is Carriescause dot org c A R
R I E. S Cause Carriescause dot org and we've
actually joined with them donated a few dollars. But also
I brought my wife and maybe both of my kids,
I don't remember, maybe it was just one kid, and
and we helped deliver the point set is. And you

(49:45):
go to these nursing homes and typically they'd be nursing
homes for lower income folks, and you're bringing these little
point sett is around and you knock on the door
and they open the door, and they never they don't
get very many guests. Maybe family members show up sometimes
maybe not it's so it's so infrequent that they have
just a chance to speak to a new person, and

(50:06):
it's just a wonderful thing.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
You spend time talking with these.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Elderly men and women and you can just see how
happy they are to see you, and you leave them
this beautiful flower or this beautiful plant, and it reminds
them of the conversation and brings a little extra beauty
into their lives. So, anyway, that's a cause that's close
to my heart and to that of one of my
best friends as well. Anyway, carries Cause c A R

(50:32):
R I E S Cause dot org. That one I
think is not on the Colorado Gives site, but you know,
you support Carrie's cause. But also there's literally hundreds, maybe
thousands of other nonprofits that you can find on Colorado Gives.
So just whatever suits you, Okay, whatever suits you. I
would like to take a moment and talk about this

(50:53):
story that Gina's mentioned a couple of times regarding in Nvidia,
and I know that some folks are gonna not be
too pleased with me on this, but I have a
very very strong view on this, and that is I
don't like this story at all. And in case you

(51:14):
missed the story, So here here's the idea there are.
Because of national security reasons, there have been limits on
the types of AI chips, the specific computer chips that
are used as the basis of artificial intelligence systems.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
And the world's leading producer of these kinds.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Of chips for now at least and probably for a
while to come, although others are trying to catch.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Up, is in Video.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
And as with any technology company, they have different levels
of stuff that they make. You know, even whether you're
talking about a car company, right even within let's just
pick a brand, you can buy anything from like an
eighteen thousand dollars, you know, like a Chevy Tracks or
something like that, all the way up to the fan Corvette.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
For one hundred and some thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Every company has a range of stuff that they sell
and also always developing new stuff, especially in technology, and
the newest AI chips.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Have been deemed by the United States government to be so.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Sophisticated that we don't want them to be sold to
China because we participate, because we view China as somewhere
between a competitor and an adversary. Now in Nvidia has
these chips that are called H two hundred, and they're
very good chips, but they're not in Nvidia's best chips.
They are, we believe, better than anything China makes, and

(52:37):
they are being restricted from being sold to China because
the United States government decided that it was in our
national interest to not give China these very advanced AI chips.
That's a separate discussion as to whether you think that's
a good policy idea or not, and I actually don't
have a strong opinion about it. But in any case,
what we learned yesterday is that the Trump administ is

(53:01):
now going to allow in Vidia to sell these H
two hundred chips to China, or at least to approved
commercial customers in China, which I think is nonsense in
the sense that the idea that some so called approved
commercial customer in China won't just come have those chips
taken by the Chinese government and given to unapproved military.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Or government customers in China.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
It's ridiculous to think you can sell anything to China
without having it just show up in places where you
don't want it to show up. This is an absolute nonsense.
But Trump has said now that okay, in Vidia, you
can sell these things to China, but we want twenty
five percent. By the way, here's how it's actually going

(53:48):
to work. In Video makes the chips in Taiwan. The
in Vidia factory in Taiwan is going to send them
to the United States for security checks as well as
functionality checks to make sure that they don't do things
they're not supposed to do, that they're still safe to
send overseas and that kind of thing. Right when they
come into the United States from Taiwan, they will be

(54:10):
hit with a twenty five percent tariff, right so the
so Nvidia will pay that tariff and then I'm sure
they will pass it along that month to wherever their
Chinese customer is. So chip made in Taiwan, sent to
the US, tariff paid sent back to China.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
And I want to say, I hate this.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Either these things should be allowed to be sold to
China or not. It should not be It's outrageous, really,
the idea that a president of the United States can say,
if you bribe the government with twenty five percent of
the value of your sale, will let you sell it.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
It's it's extortion.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
And I know a lot of people are not gonna
like this, but I'm gonna say it anyway, the textbook
definition of economic fascism is where you have theoretically nominally
private companies, but they're are forced to operate for the
benefit of the national government in the way the national
government wants.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
I hate it.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
I'm always gonna hate it. I've always hated it. That's
what this is. This is a form of economic fascism.
Either let Nvidia sell them to China or don't. But
the United States government should not be in the position
of extortion. Colorado gives Day. Colorado gives dot org a
great place to go look for nonprofits you might want

(55:28):
to support, whether medical, environmental, helping veterans, helping kids, whatever
it might be.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Joining us in studio.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
One of the nonprofits you will find on Colorado gives
dot Org Advance Pathways. Jim is the CEO of Advanced Pathways.
Sam is the first community member who Advanced Advanced Pathways
helped and they Advanced Pathways is now operating the Aurora
Regional Navigation Campus, which is a really remarkable thing that

(55:57):
I had a chance to visit recently. Anyway, I spoke
with Jim and Sam a lot about an hour ago,
and I thought it would be fun and interesting to
have Gina jump into the conversation because she's got different
thoughts and questions and all that.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
So Gina take it away.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
Yeah, Jim, I know you touched on this a little
bit earlier, but can you explain a little bit more
about the tiers of how this works, because it is
truly a really different setup when it comes to a
homeless shelter. We talk about the ones in Denver all
the time, being like this one's for beat females, this
one's for males, families, you name it.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
But the TEARS is something unique?

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Did you base Is this based off of anything else
that we've seen in maybe other states.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Or other areas.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
Thank you, Gina. So we work with adult home homeless.
That is our focus, and this is a unique model.
It is based upon some of the work that the
Springs Rescue Mission has done in addition to step Denver,
when we look at providing opportunities for people to be
self motivated in order to be able to then be

(56:52):
accountable to achieve and work towards milestones that are important
to them. So this TEARS system is really looking at
human motivation. When we see someone else getting something, the
question is well, how do I get that? And that's
the question we encourage people to ask, how can you

(57:12):
do something to improve your situation in this moment, and
that's where the tears come.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
In.

Speaker 6 (57:17):
Tier one is people coming right off the street in
whatever condition they are in, all or welcome. But in
tier two people begin to notice, hey, there's a private
bed there with private storage. Why are they getting this
type of treatment? And it's not treatment, it's all about, hey,
you're doing something different so that you get more, You

(57:37):
earn more, you do more, you get more, and that
then brings us into tier three. You have a full
time tax paying job. This is over the table, not
under the table, because we want self sufficiency be the focus.
We want to end homelessness one person at a time,
not a short term band aid solution. So you work
full time, you get then a private entrance to a

(58:00):
private room, you get private parking. Why do you get
these other incentives because you're doing something You've earned it.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
It's an incredible setup because I know wrap around services
are something that people are always looking for and there's
a lot of misconceptions when it comes to those on
the streets or those who become homeless Sam, maybe this
is a question for you if you can think of
what are some of those misconceptions that people might have
when it comes to just shelters in general and helping
those homeless individuals in our cities.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
Yeah, so I would say that some of the misconceptions
being that they're all the help lies just right there
readily available. I know whenever I first became homeless, like
well where do I even go? And then trying to
ask people that aren't are they don't work with those services,
and so they have no idea, And then there's a
broad swath of folks that you're looking for services. You

(58:50):
know you need the services, but you're unable to find
them anywhere. And so being able to find places like
the Navigation Campus where individuals be able to go and
be able to find the wrap around services on site,
that's that's real helpful. And just being able to navigate
to one place for all the things that you need,
it's beneficial.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
What was maybe one thing that really stood out to
you with the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus that was like, wow,
I haven't seen this and other shelters and other setups
in the past.

Speaker 5 (59:16):
With the tiered with the tiered system definitely a couple
of the other missions that I had experienced when I
was homeless. It was just it was a bit it
was that the house first model, and uh that was
I mean, okay, you're inside for tonight, but what are
you going to do beyond that? Beyond today? And so
at advanced pathways, the navigation campus up there, you know,

(59:37):
being able to go, Okay, we're off the streets and now,
oh there's other avenues. I can get off the streets
and then actually look a little higher and go from
homelessness to hopefulness and be able to look a little
bit further beyond the horizon.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
I love that, Jim, when we talk about this, that
that tier one is really special because there's a lot
of shelters that make their you know.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Homeless individuals come in completely clean. And that's huge struggle
for people to just.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Go from being off the streets and having to follow
so many strict guidelines and rules. When it comes to
this navigation campus, what are some of just the safety
and security measures and just the protocols that people might
have concerns about anytime when we talk about shelters in
our neighborhoods.

Speaker 6 (01:00:17):
Absolutely safety and security is one of our utmost priorities,
particularly for women coming off the street. We want to
make sure we're creating an environment where people feel like
they truly are being taken care of, and so we
have a security company that we contract with, Dominant Security Services.
They are able to be able to provide that level

(01:00:37):
of security for us throughout the thirteen acres that we have.
We have two hundred and eighty five thousand square feet
of indoor space that we manage, so we check bags
on the way in. We want to make sure that
there's no drugs or no weapons coming in. We regularly
evaluate to make sure that we're creating a safe environment
for people to be able to make different choices because

(01:00:59):
they know that it's okay to be a little bit
vulnerable in order to be able to address whatever those
behaviors are that contributed to them being homeless. We want
to help them in their recovery. We broadly define that
something happened, something that is preventing you from being able
to be self sufficient? What is that? And let's have
that conversation. But you can only do that if you

(01:01:21):
feel comfortable and safe.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
We're talking with Jim CEO of Advanced Pathways and Sam
one of the first community members that Advanced Pathways helped,
and they Advanced Pathways is now operating the Aurora Regional
Navigation Campus.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
It's enormous.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
It's a former hotel and a convention center together in
Aurora and they aim to help or they can help
six hundred people a day and aim to help three
to four thousand people a year. This is going to
sound kind of like a softball question, but I want
to ask this of you because after Kristen and I
visited the Navigation Campus, this was the first thing that

(01:01:59):
can out of my mouth.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
All right, and so why do you care so much?

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
I mean we all all of you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
Andrew's sitting in studio with us as well, every person
we met on that tour. The amount that you care,
the degree to which you care about people you never
met and with whom.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
You have a little maybe in common.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Why do you care so much that you're spending all
day every day helping people?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Ross?

Speaker 6 (01:02:31):
Thanks for that question. For me, it's I just believe
that so many of us, we're just being humans on
this earth.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Is we're broken and lost.

Speaker 6 (01:02:41):
So many of us, there's just stuff in our bass
that our struggles and I believe that each of us
is made for more. And if we can create an
opportunity where homelessness is not a period at the end
of that sentence, it's a chapter. It's something that's only
in the past. Could we create some thing that's unique
and different where people feel like they are respected for

(01:03:05):
who they are, not judged for what they've done, and
they can create a pathway forward. I think we build
a stronger community. I think overall we end up living
in a safer neighborhood when we have our homeless taken
care of and they're being self sufficient.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Sam, I know you talked about the community that you
really felt there. Is it a community both with the
workers and with those who are being assisted in these homes,
because it's a situation where you want both and sometimes
people can feel pushback, or they could feel looked down on,
or they can feel, you know, like you said, not
able to be vulnerable in their situations.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Is it a connection of community throughout Absolutely? Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Plenty of the staff, there's no shortage of staff that
you can sit down and have a conversation with them.
They've been through it, or they are close enough to
it that they felt the fire from people going through
that are experiencing a lot of the same things, and
them having gone down that path as very helpful in
able to have that community and then everybody be on
the same page and understanding like, hey, you're going through this,

(01:04:05):
but you're not here forever. This is this is a
temporary stop on the path.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
That's your own. Jim, what has since the opening?

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
How many people have you helped, how has it been
received from the community, from city leaders, from everybody, And
then maybe just remind people again they go, Okay, how
much how much am I paying for this?

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Or how much is this for me?

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
People want to know anytime we talk about these services
the cost surely.

Speaker 6 (01:04:29):
So we started on November seventeenth. We've had on average
almost three hundred people per night coming in to be
able to reservices to receive services. And when people enter
the building, the first experience that I hear is wow,
because they're going into an open area, the ceilings are
forty feet high, there's natural light coming in, there's a
piano that was left over from the purchase from the

(01:04:52):
convention center, and they're throughout the day consistently they're un
housed guests who are playing music, not banging on the keys,
they're actually playing music. So it's quite beautiful and creates
this calming, relaxing environment. Your question about funding seventy five
percent of the eleven million dollar operating budget is the
responsibility of advanced pathways. This is a public private partnership.

(01:05:16):
This is not a government program. The City of Aurora
contributes a couple of million dollars towards our safety, security
and the facilities, but we're responsible for all the services
that are being provided there. Seventy five percent is our responsibility.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
And obviously we're talking about this on our Colorado Gives
Day Colorado gives dot org. Jim, I assume is it
Advance Pathways that you search when it comes to Colorado
gives dot org. Is that the best way or is
there other resources you'd like to give listeners if they
want to help in any way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
That is correct.

Speaker 6 (01:05:47):
Advancepathways dot org is our website and also the way
you can look for us for Colorado Gives Day's donations.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
And I'll just remind folks the first six thousand dollars
donated today, we'll get a one hundred percent match. If
you go donate. You know, one hundred bucks. They're going
to get two hundred bucks. So go to Colorado Gibbs
dot org and and search for Advanced Pathways and and donate.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Thanks so much to both of you for being here.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Jimi's CEO of Advanced Pathways, Sam, congratulations on your your
success and marriage and business and completely turning your life around.
I just love these stories and that's why I love
what you guys are doing.

Speaker 6 (01:06:24):
It's wonderful to be here, and I just say, you know,
behind every person we serve is a future worth fighting for.
Thank you for having us this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Thanks guys, appreciate it, love it, absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
All right, Just a quick couple minutes here of news,
weather and traffic and then we'll be right back to
more conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Keep it here on KOA.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Just oh burger even, Oh my god, all right, I
was just thinking about that last conversation, like, how's that
all right?

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Anyway?

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Yes, have a cheeseburger with me and Gina Crown Burger, Gina,
I think they still have it and you're not gonna
eat it, but they do a brisket burger, like a
burger with layers of brisket on top, and it's it's
one of my wife's favorite burgers in the in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
Listener told me that I need to get the grilled cheese,
which that generally is never something I get at a
restaurant because you can make a grilled cheese very plain
and simple. But they said Chromeburger has one of the
best grilled cheeses.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Well, and the upside of that is that you wouldn't
have to eat vegetables, So there's a that's kind of
a bonus.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Really, are you not a vegetable guy at all?

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Well, I eat him because I have to, like to survive.
I eat him first that I get it over with, right, right,
I know what, Dragon, that's too true.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
But like, are you going to have like tomato, lettuce, onion,
all that on your burger? Yeah, So if it's like
at least sandwich between, you're gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Eat the vegetables. You won't have them separately. And I'll
specifically add tomatoes. Tomatoes are good on a burger. Lettuce
is good on a burger.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
I'm more of a raw onion guy than a cooked
onion guy on a burger.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Dragon, what about you?

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
You got Burger Opinion fifty were either or I mean
I'll take you. Yeah, okay, So Gina, you think you
might get the grilled cheese, then are you thinking about it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
I don't know. I'm looking at the menu now, Oh
are you really?

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:08:11):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Yah?

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
What are we talking about here? Folks?

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
Tomorrow you can meet me and Gina and a bunch
of other KOE listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
And we have no idea, by the way, how many
people will show up.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I've done this kind of thing multiple times in the past,
and sometimes half a dozen people have shown up, and
sometimes three dozen people have shown up. You just never know,
you don't. We're not making reservation or anything. But it's
lunch with me and Gina tomorrow. We'll call it noon,
just so I don't make Gina's head explode.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
We'll call it noon right at Crown Burger.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Just south of I twenty five on the east side
of Colorado Boulevard, between islef and Evans on the east.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Side of Colorado Boulevard.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
It's kind of an iconic place, but it's not very
close to where Gina lives, so she hasn't been there before,
so this will be her first time. And again noon tomorrow,
just come meet us for lunch. We are not buying
your lunch. You are not buying our lunch. Do you
want to add anything to that? Gina?

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
And you're real are you like you're really focused here? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:09:02):
Looking at the menu, Well, they had a specials tab
and we were talking happy hours, so I have to
see what they had.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
Well, the special is a four quarter pound.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Burgers with cheese or four grilled ham and cheese sandwiches
for sixteen bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
Oh that's not bad these So what are those specific hours?
When is that all day specials? Wow? From ten to
noon or from three to close?

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Then they have other special rights, which I love a
restaurant that does different happy hours, early and late happy hours.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Yeah, that's a bonus.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
So were you able to find the vegetarian hero thing
on the menu or because I think that's something.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Like it might not even be on the man It
just sets zero, it doesn't say veggie.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
Oh I was told they do a veggie version for
people like you. But someone also recommended the grilled cheese.
Yeah all right, but if this is.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
Also right, the grilled cheese is only a dollar forty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Wow? Wow? So all right then I'll splurgeon by your lunch. Wow.
Nice yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Yeah, yeah, all right, So tomorrow tomorrow at noon at Crownberger,
please come join me and Gina. Here's a wacky little story.
This is not an important story, but I'm gonna share
it with you because it makes me laugh. So in
I guess this was in Iran, they did some kind
of tech conference, tech expo. You know, you have a

(01:10:23):
convention center and some kind of industry goes there and
all these different companies are demonstrating their wares. And this
was actually not from this year, it's like from a
year and a half ago, but the video just surfaced
and it was really hilarious. So there's this company that
apparently is making advanced robots AI robot, AI powered robot

(01:10:47):
kind of stuff, and they were demonstrating their.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Capacities at this expo.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
Actually, you know what, one article says that this is
from twenty twenty three, and another thing says it's from now,
so from this year. I'm not sure which it is,
but in any case, it is so funny, and it's
up on my blog at Rosskominsky dot com. And this
company is making robots, so they're demonstrating their robots, a

(01:11:14):
male and female version of their robots. They look very
human like they're wearing human looking maybe futuristic sort of
clothes that have ones and zeros on them, like it's
all binary. Well, it turns out these are actually people
dressed in like robot looking costumes and trying to move
like robots and trying to talk a little bit like

(01:11:35):
robots and talking about themselves as.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
You know, being in you know, some kind of here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
They they talked about being in a binary world and
being creatures of code and stuff like this, but they
were actually human beings. And it is one of the
funniest things, Like who did they think they were gonna fool?
But on the other hand, maybe they did. Maybe they did.
All right, we're gonna do something different in the next segment.

(01:12:01):
You've probably heard of Patrick to Han. He's maybe the
nation's leading expert on oil and gasoline prices as far
as interfacing with the public and explaining gas prices. We're
going to talk with him next about not only why
are gas prices coming down so much nationwide, but did
you know that Colorado has some of the lowest gas

(01:12:22):
prices in the country.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
We'll get a handle on why that's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
That's coming up after your traffic and your weather and
Gina with your news headlines. Patrick de Haan waiting right now.
And when I see a headline like why Denver has
some of the lowest gas prices in the country and
at a time when gas prices are going down nationally
as well, I.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Know who I need to talk to.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
We need to talk to Patrick to Han from gas Buddy,
and he has his own sub stack called Fuel Insights.
But if you go look for Patrick to hand e
Haa and substack you can find that. You can find
his own website as well. And I was really happy
to notice that Patrick liked one of my tweets yesterday.
It's good to talk to you again. Patrick, it's been

(01:13:07):
a while. Thanks for doing this. Hey you betcha. Thanks
for having me back.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Yeah, glad to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Before we get to the local Denver and Colorado stuff,
I saw a headline, I saw a story over it
over at your sub stack, average US gas prices see
weekly dip again, fresh multi year low reached. So tell
us a little bit about you know what the pricing is,

(01:13:34):
and you know when you say multi year low, how
many years and how are you thinking about the significance
of this.

Speaker 7 (01:13:41):
Yeah, you know, seasonally, this is something we see almost
every year, gas versus declining as we get into the
cooler weather, Americans do not get outside as much, especially
as the snow starts to fly. I know they are
the holidays, but demand for gasolings relatively low.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
So that's why you know where we are.

Speaker 7 (01:13:57):
Where we are the national average two ninety three gallon.
You know, for the last three years we have gotten
so close to the national average falling below the three
dollars a gallon mark. Last year we did it for
a couple of days. In fact, a year ago the
national average was two point nine nine nine. It's about
seven cents lower today. But it's been nice to see

(01:14:17):
the decline this year has gotten a little bit more
steam that his price is falling just a bit more
this year than the last couple of years. A lot
of that due to additional oil production that Opec, who
has increased output for much of this year, has added
to global supply, and that's why prices are moderately lower today.
Now in Denver, just about everything is going right that

(01:14:39):
can go right, and that's why you're seeing the lowest
gas prices in the nation. In fact, a lot of
stations in the area engaging at a bit of a
price war.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
At a dollar sixty nine.

Speaker 7 (01:14:49):
A gallon, your refinery and Commerce City handles cheaper Canadian oil.
The price of that Canadian oil today about forty seven
dollars a barrel. You know, we're seeing lower demands seasonally,
we're on the winter blend of gasoline. That's not actively
reason why prices are lower or pushing them lower, but
that's one of the reasons prices are so low to

(01:15:09):
begin with. But you just look across the board, everything's
going right. This gasoline that comes out of your refinery
and Commerce City can't really be exported, so the only
way to get rid of it is to discount the
heck out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
And that's what we're seeing.

Speaker 7 (01:15:22):
In fact, Denver some of the lowest average prices in
the nation, with the lowest individual stations, like I think
there's probably two dozen stations at the dollars sixty nine
and areas as a metro.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
So just really nice to see all the factors align.
One of the things, Ben Patrick, we got about three
minutes left here.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
One of the things I've long wondered about regarding the
gas station industry is do they or how much do
they attempt to compete based on the price of gas.
You go to some intersections where they got gas stations
on diagonal corners or whatever, and you can see the
prices are just the same. Sometimes you'll see the prices
are quite different, although I usually see that in places

(01:16:00):
where it's a very large intersection. So depending on where
you're going, it might be hard to get to the
cheaper station. But is there really competition in gas prices?
The other thing is like you'll see let's say two
dollars and nineteen cents, and then not across the street,
but three blocks down the street it's two dollars and
eighty nine cents.

Speaker 7 (01:16:22):
Yeah, I mean to your point, you know, we're seeing
these factors. The ultralo price is happening primarily because competition
is so high. You're seeing new stations coming into Denver,
companies like quick Trip.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
You know, there's been a lot of talk about BUCkies.

Speaker 7 (01:16:36):
These big gas stations that have a lot of locations
are kind of new entrance to Denver. And the best
way to get people to see that you're on the
map is say, hey, we got a dollar sixty don
gas come on swing buy. So Denver is very unique
to some other areas like Ohio, where there's just really
intense competition through some of the names of these big
brand retailers, and that's why prices are so low right now.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
But competitions, it's sole a huge factor.

Speaker 7 (01:17:01):
Some gas stations simply much more aggressive because they want
you to realize that, hey, we're in the market, whereas
other stations, well they may not be competing at as
high of a level as some of those big box
stores that are coming into the area.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
One quick follow up on that, when gas stations are
aggressively lowering the price of gasoline, how much of that
is do you think is because they want you to
know they exist and come back later? How much of
that is because they want you to stop and come in.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
And buy something in the store.

Speaker 7 (01:17:29):
Well, all of the above, and maybe even sign up
for their loyalty program. Absolutely, you know, so all of
those factors could be pushing prices down because do enjoy it.
I will say those stations at the dollars sixty nine today,
they are not clearing much, if any profit, So a
lot of this is a price for But you know,
when businesses don't make money. It's generally hard to say
in business. So I don't know how long those ultralow

(01:17:51):
sub two dollars prices are going to last, but you know,
maybe get out there and fill your tank up while
they do.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
We're talking with Patrick Aahan, head of petroleum analysis for
gas Buddy, his own website, Patrick d'han dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
That's d E h A A.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
And I have literally just less than a minute here, Patrick,
When is the last time, if ever, that you have
seen such a huge gap between the price of diesel
and the price of unladed gasoline.

Speaker 7 (01:18:18):
Well, you know, probably during the pandemic, or I should
say shortly thereafter. You know, the two fuels, though they
both come out of the refinery, they're very different. Consumers
drive less in the winter, there's less gasoline demand, But
on the diesel side of things, diesel demand peaks in
the winter because diesel and heating oil are the same thing.
So you talk about the cold weather right now in

(01:18:39):
areas of the country, the Northeast getting hit with some
extremely cold weather that actually spurs demand for diesel, and
of course the economy. Trucks, trains, you know, planes use
a subset of diesel. Jet fuel is very similar, so
you talk about just completely different dynamics for gasoline versus diesel.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Patrick d'han petroleum analysis for gas Buddy. It's got his
own substack called Fuel Insights, which is awesome and I
subscribe to that. Arguably the nation's leading public expert on
oil and gas and diesel prices.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
So good to have you on the show again.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Patrick, thanks for being here and thanks for liking my tweets.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me. I always appreciate it too.

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
All right, that's awesome, Gosh, this show is absolutely flying
by take a couple of minutes here for some news
and traffic and weather, and then we'll just get in
as much more information as we can, including a story
about which zip code in the Denver metro area is
in the top ten zip codes of Americans moving.

Speaker 3 (01:19:41):
Too, Death Clock opening the Aman Clock Conquest is what
the tour is called.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
Junkyard, Denver, May nineteenth of next year.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
Oh my gosh, all right, we got to work that out.
Maybe we'll see if we get some listeners to meet
us there. I've never been to a concert or anything
even vaguely like that. Will you mosh well, I'm mosh, gosh,
I'm not beyond that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
Okay, I'm not beyond that. Well, CrowdSurf, I'm not beyond
that either. I've never known either of it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
But the closest I got was probably a Red Hot
Chili Pepper's concert at a small venue in Chicago before
they got famous and all that stuff was going on,
and I got bounced around a little bit because I
was kind of upfront.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
That was pretty cool. Tomorrow noon, meet me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
And Gina and producer Dragon for lunch at Crown Burger.

Speaker 2 (01:20:30):
So there's that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
A producer Shannon, producer Shannon, a producer Shannon. Dragon's me
another time, producer Shannon for lunch at Crownburger tomorrow. I
also want to make sure you know we are doing
our annual.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
Think a Veteran thing. I want to make sure you
know how.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
To do this because it's a big deal. You can
thank a veteran or an active duty member of the
military or a first responder with twenty five hundred bucks
not from your pocket, not from your pocket, but from
Common Spirit, Health and Fix at twenty four to seven
who are presenting this through February first, you can submit
your nomination name and the reason that your nominee deserves
to win this twenty five hundred dollars. You go to

(01:21:07):
koacolorado dot com slash contest.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
It's called a Heroes Thank You.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
That's the official name Heroes Thank You Koacolorado dot com
slash contest.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Okay, I have.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
Literally one minute here, so let me throw this out
as a question. Then I'll tell you the answer. I
won't ask you for the actual zip code number because
you won't know that you don't necessarily the zip code.
But what area of the Denver metro area do you
think is fastest growing in terms of population as a
percentage of the population that's already there, Right, So, like,

(01:21:37):
for every thousand people who already live in this area,
you know x number of people, like I don't know,
fifteen new people per month or whatever. Which area is
fastest growing in the Denver metro area. I think Dragon
sent me this this article, and there was a survey
done by a company that's in the moving business, and
they're looking at which zip code seem to be most

(01:21:59):
in demand. And actually, of the top six, five of
them are in places with no state income tax. Warm
places with no state income tax right. Five of the
top six are Texas, Florida.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
And Tennessee. Are cities in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
The one that's here in Colorado where that is the
fastest growing. And I didn't think of it, but then
once I read it, it makes perfect sense. I'll and
I'll give you a clue. I'll give you a clue.
Have you driven to the airport lately and seen the
traffic on Panea Boulevard. It's nuts And that's part of
the reason they're looking at a project to widen Paania

(01:22:35):
Boulevard now. And so the zip code that is the
only one in Colorado that is in the top ten
of where people are moving two is it's eight zero
zero one to nine. It's northern part of Aurora and
it's basically east of Penia Boulevard. All that stuff out there,
kind of like by the Gay Lord and all that
that used to just be farmland. It used to be nothing,

(01:22:55):
and now it is just full of town homes and
restaurants and supermarkets and that hotel and whatever else. That
is in the top ten fastest growing zip codes by
percentage of population in all of the United States. And
when you think about if you've driven to the airport,
you know, for some number of years and you're used
to seeing nothing out there and now is just full.

(01:23:17):
I guess that makes perfect sense. All right, that was
another wonderful show, I think. Thanks Gina, you're allcome awesome
as always. Thanks Producer Dragon, you're awesome as always. And
we'll be back tomorrow with well whatever we got going on,
and again, don't forget. Join me and Gina and maybe
producer Shannon for lunch tomorrow at Crown Berger at noon.