02-03-25 FULL SHOW - Trump Starts A Trade War! Or Does He?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am your host for the next three hours. Mandy
Connell and in master control for Anthony Rodriguez. Is the
lovely and talented Zach are feeling Zach? Do you use
your first sand last name on the air? Normally I
just call you Zach, but I didn't you know A
rod Us.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm good with first and last name.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Zach mob only not spelled the same way.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, like if there were a gaggle of them, Like
if you had Bob, Peyte and Corey are a group.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Of there you go. Zach Siegers is sitting in for
a Rod because A Rod is in New Orleans and
if you want to see just I already know I
don't even have to see what he's going to produce
for our social media channels. It's going to be amazing
because a Rod is incredibly talented and exactly he's at

(00:49):
the super Bowl this week and we'll be feeding us
lots of content. He's going to be joining us on
the show in the next couple of days to talk
about what's going on. I will say this, Zach, have
you ever been able to go to the run up
to the Super Bowl? Have you ever been in the
same town as the super Bowl week.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
No, but that's a bucket list item for me, even
though it seems like a bit of a cluster.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
I've been to the Super Bowl three times without ever
going to the game, right, because when you work in
radio or media or whatever, you don't get tickets to
the game, but you get to go for the bigger
run up of the week. And what people don't know
is there are parties every night. There's like all of
these different companies are having these huge parties and it's

(01:31):
like the most fun atmosphere leading up to the Super Bowl.
So there's a lot of stuff that's happening. And aer
Rod's gonna have a chance to talk to athletes and
all this stuff. So he's going to be our man
on the ground in New Orleans, and Zach is going
to be here for most of the week keeping us
on track or at least trying to. And I want
to start today's show by asking this question and you

(01:52):
can text me and answer at five six six nine zero.
Is there some non specific illness that doesn't make you
very sick, but it just SAPs you of your energy?
Because whatever that is, I think I have it right now.
Like I am a busy person when I am home.
I am not one to sit and watch television all day.

(02:16):
Like the concept of binge watching for me is like
two episodes, right. I mean, I'm not the person who's
gonna sit on the couch all day. And Saturday I
could not get out of my chair. I mean I
felt like I felt like I was just like I
was walking in mud. And then yesterday I felt a
little bit better. And today I did something I never, ever,

(02:37):
hardly ever ever do I quit on a workout, Like
I got forty five minutes into an hour long workout
and said I can't do it anymore. I just I
can't do it. And my daughter's been super tired. She
had a bad cold last week. But now our cold
has gone, but she's still like exhausted. And I'm thinking,

(02:58):
is this some weird it's like mono like illness, And
if so, how does how long does it last before
I get my energy back? I'm just curious because I'd
like to know. So if you could text me at
five sixty six, and I know on the Common Spirit
health uh a text line, I'd be appreciative of it.
Holy crap, another weekend, Another five thousand things have happened.

(03:21):
Let's jump on the blog and find out what's going
on there. All you have to do to find the
blog is go to mandy'sblog dot com. That's mandy'sblog dot com.
Look for the headline that says two three twenty five
blog the trade war has begun. Plus the DEA pops
in to talk drugs. Click on that and here are

(03:41):
the headlines you will find within.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
Anyone's listening off with halpen ergon all with ships and
clippas and say that's going to Press Clatch.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Today. I'm the blog. Follow KOA social media channels for
full Super Bowl coverage, DEA Agent and charge pops in complete.
Colorado dot com gotta glow up. Trump starts a trade war.
It's too expensive to retire in Colorado? Could Canada cut
off oil to the US? Scrolling scrolling violence comes to

(04:10):
wash Park. A new campaign on pot has some folks mad.
Sanity comes back to the Air Force Academy. Colorado policy
will not fix climate change. High poesy pop may be limited,
but children can consent to share their medical records. The
failure of DEI Panama chooses the United States. A former
cost Co executive defends its policies. Caldera calls out the

(04:33):
racist Buffs team who owns the swastika adored window. Illegal
immigrants can't be evicted. Larimer Street is back open for cars,
Ugly Tweaks, Doom the first trans woman Oscar nominee. When
crazy actions make a huge difference? Why fly the flag
of the country you escaped? How your phone affects your
brain and motivation? A phenomenal ad from Chense's brand, What

(04:57):
your Skin tells You about your health. Welp, it finally
happened at the Grammys. Those are the headlines on the
blog at mandy'sblog dot com. Okay, guys, we are going
to uh And by the way, to the person who
texted the Common Spirit health text line, it's called old age.
I refuse to accept that. And I know people. I

(05:21):
told my trainer this morning, I was like, I feel
like I have mono. I had mono when I was young.
It was a quick case, lasted like four weeks. One
of my classmates had it for like eight months, so
that is kind of what it feels like. But I
don't think I have mono. I mean, who gets that? Now?
Come on, allergies. I take allergy medicine. Attempting to have

(05:43):
an intelligent conversation with a liberal usually exhaust me. I
don't have that problem, uh, Mandy, I was sick like
that last Wednesday and Thursday flew no fever like there's
and Chuck said, what's wrong with you? There's nothing wrong
with me except I feel like I could lie down
and go to sleep right now, which is not me Anyway.
Mandy tells Zach good luck keeping the show on track.

(06:04):
Should we call him on track? Zach? Maybe we'll see
how on track? I stay. Are you up for the challenge, Zach?
Are you up?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll try and hurt
some cats.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Okay, Oh, here's one. It's called totally intense tired syndrome.
Only women get it nice anagram there or acronym there.
Totally intensely tired syndrome. Only women have that, get it,
get it Manby about six months ago, I had something similar,
no symptoms other than having all the energy completely sucked

(06:38):
out of me. Lasted about a week and a half.
What the heck? What the heck? I don't know. I
was just hoping that there was like, you know, like
easy answer, like oh yeah, you've got crapolophas disease. Yeah, yeah,
that's it. I gotta start. I'm going to talk about
the Trump's hair stuff, because there's already been a development

(06:59):
with Mexico. We're gonna into all that stuff, but I
have to start at last night's Grammy Awards. Zach, do
you watch the Grammys? You're young, you're youthful. You know
where these people are.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
I caught a good bit of the Grammys last night.
It was I was happy with the show personally.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Okay, so let me ask you this. Did you happen
to see Kanye West's wife, Bianca Sensory walk the red carpet?
Did you happen to see this coverage?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeaha sensorty, you know after last night?

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I mean, okay, so I've said for a really long
time that all of these award shows, the little starlets
trying to get attention have gotten more and more riskue
You'll see like their dresses slit up past their of
a JJ's and I just I'm like, Okay, someday somebody's
gonna show up and walk the red carpet naked, and
then it's gonna be like all bets are off well,

(07:50):
Last night was the night Kanye WEF's wife, who who
honestly seems like she has Stockholm syndrome. Like she's like
like she's mentally aptured by Kanye West. She shows up.
They go to the what they call the step and repeat,
which is where you walk down the red carpet. You stop,
That's where all the photographers take the pictures. You turn,
you spin, you kiss whatever, and then you keep going right.

(08:13):
That's called a step and repeat. They get to the
step and repeat. She's got on this long black fur coat.
She turns around and she drops the fur coat, and
she is wearing a and I'm putting air quotes around
this dress that is made out of nothing, literally nothing,
and and and she turns around. She is buck as

(08:37):
naked on the red carpet. And we have reached a
new low. We have reached a new low. And I
just thought to myself, and wait a minute, hang on,
let me find this Jaden Smith State Jaden Smith, Will
and Uh and Pete at Will and Will and Jada
Jaden Smith Grammys. He wore a giant rodeblocks looking helmet

(08:59):
on his head. He literally wore a castle on his head.
Remember when you were a toddler and you got some
kind of castle that was like maybe you know the
little people castle, and you decided to put it on
your head to see if it would fit like a hat.
Jayden decided to do that last night before the Grammys,
but his date. His date had to be infuriated because

(09:24):
he was with a woman who was wearing nothing but
a bra and panties and a fur coat. And here
comes Byanka Sen sorry, like, oh yeah, I'll see your
bron panties, hold my beer, hold my beer while I
walk naked right across the red carpet. Now the most
ridiculous part. And by the way, all of you were like,
where can I find this? I'll put a link to

(09:46):
the uncensored version because I'm here for you. I'm here
for you. And if she wanted everybody to see the
uncensored version, then oh gosh, by golly, I want to
give it to you anyway. Anyway, So, oh, Mandy, it
could be COVID mildcase super tired. Maybe I don't know.

(10:07):
I have no idea. Many it felt like that for
the last four days. Exhausted, feel better day. Isn't that weird?
I'm gonna give myself a COVID test on the break
and see if I have COVID, because if this is
what COVID has become, really, oh you have COVID, you
better seal. And I was tired for four days. I
didn't think I was gonna make it. It was just

(10:27):
exhausted for four days. Nonetheless, I just I absolutely, I
just thought to myself, that's it. We've hit it. We've
now hit peak insanity. Maybe maybe maybe someone made her
a dress and told her that only the best quality
people could see the dress, like in the Emperor has

(10:50):
no clothes, and she just thought she couldn't see the
dress but you. And by the way she drops the coat,
she's got her back to the cameras she drops the coat,
and she takes a moment to address the quote hem
of her dress. And I was like, oh, is that
riding up on you, Bianca? Don't what look at him
right up on you in your transparent dress. I cannot

(11:11):
wait for her book about how she was controlled by
Kanye West. Cannot wait. I'll even watch the Lifetime movie
about it. Man Man From one Zach to Another, Never
forget Zach Lives Matter. Mandy. The woman was Jaden Smith,
Jaden's sister. Jaden is his name, Willow is his sister?

(11:37):
I mean, is that another what have they done to
their children? What if will Smith and Jada Pinkett done
to their kids.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
That's a weird one where they've kind of named them
after themselves. But it's yeah, it's like they flipped them.
That one's always kind of puzzled me.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Okay, so let me see here. Oh it is sister
Willow and she's just wearing underwear and a long leafe.
She must have been super pissed off at Bianca to
show up naked when she just showed up in her underwear, y'all.
I'm just gonna say this. I grew up in a

(12:14):
time when modesty was expected. It was just the way
we did things. And there were times when I would
go out of the house in high school, like I
was going to cheerleading practice or something, and that was
when remembering, guys everywhere my age are gonna be like, oh,
remember dolphin shorts. They're the kind of shorts that the

(12:36):
girls wearing hooters. We all wore those in the eighties.
We all wore those in the eighties. And my dad
would see me wearing those shorts and they're like running shorts,
and my dad would go, oh no, oh, no, you
are not going in. I'm like, Dad, No, I am
going to cheerleading practice, and this is what we wear,
so going out. Like if my dad's dead and if

(12:58):
I walked out in any of this crap, he would
come back from the grave just to yell at me
about embarrassing the family. But yet it seems like this
is what we do now, Like, how can you be
the most exhibitionist? I just don't. Mandy. The uncensored version
on x is gone. Sorry sorry, sorry, even the when
I'm gonna see if I I because I put a

(13:20):
let's see, No, it's not the one that I linked
to you on the blog today at mandy'sblog dot com
is still there. Mandy way to drive web traffic by
posting the uncensored version can't get in though. Don't have Twitter.
Sorry about that, you guys. I'm just gonna say this,
and my husband hates social media, but I'm about to
make him get a Twitter account for the sole reason

(13:42):
of following different news organizations, because during breaking news, there
is no place better than Twitter or X dot com
whatever you want to call it to stay up to date.
During the plane crash on Saturday, that horrible plane crash
in Philadelphia, an ambulance ambula is playing crash into a neighborhood. Terrible,

(14:02):
terrible crash. The mainstream news wasn't even on it before
X had everything. So if you want to set up
an X account and just follow news organizations and reporters
that you like and stuff like that, that is the
best use of Twitter. And for stuff like this, Mandy,
you have to leave a little room for the imagination, right, Well,

(14:24):
that was what I think. That's what she was doing
by adjusting her hem at the bottom of her imaginary dress.
That little tiny stripe of him, that's where she's leaving. Oh,
there's just one line of imagination. What I don't get
is that. I mean, don't get me wrong. Chuck is
proud of me. He thinks I'm awesome, he thinks I'm beautiful,

(14:47):
he thinks I'm all of those things. Zero percent chance
he would want me trotting around like that. And I
realize everybody's different. I get it, everybody. Some guys love
it to have everyone staring at they're women. I get it.
But what what? What?

Speaker 4 (15:05):
What?

Speaker 1 (15:07):
I just I don't know. I don't know, Mananda. The
Bianca dress was no more than a giant translucent pantyhose. Yeah, exactly,
Yeah I met see through dress still probably cost five grand. Oh,
one hundred percent, one hundred percent modesty. Surely you jes

(15:30):
says this texteror. I know, I know, Mandy. I have
given up on most sports and all the word shows
has become nothing but exhib exhibitionism and over hyped shows.
We got some scandal about the oscars. We're going to
talk about a little bit later. Mandy. Have you been
tested for sleep appiat? No, guys, I'm getting great sleep.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
That's the worst part.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
I'm I'm you know now that I don't eat. According
to my Garmin, I got a score of eighty one
last night on my sleep plenty of remy yeah, fifty
seven minutes of deep sleep, four and a half hours
of light sleep hour and fifty two minutes of m
I mean, I'm sleeping. And trust me, if I were snoring,
my husband would tell me because I made him get

(16:14):
surgery on his vocal on his uh as a uvula
to make his snoring stop. Okay, let's do this. We've
got a lot of stuff on the blog today that
has nothing to do with the Grammy Awards. I just
I was so I don't know. I mean, I guess
I'm getting old, but dang, I don't want little girls

(16:35):
to aspire to this. I really don't. For a time
when women are supposed to be, you know, taken seriously,
and they're supposed to be in powerful positions and CEOs
and all of this stuff, I feel like we're sliding
backwards when it comes to women. I do not think

(16:58):
that walking around naked at the Grammys empowering. I don't
think that having an OnlyFans page is empowering. I think
you're just feeding into, as the feminists like to say,
the male gaze. Because guess who benefits by a naked
woman walking down the red carpet more than the naked
woman walking down the red carpet. That would be the

(17:18):
dudes who are banking that image for something later. And
I'll just leave it at that. When we get back,
We've got so much stuff on the show today. We've
got at one o'clock we are going to talk to
DEA Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Mullen of the Rocky
Mountain Division. The DEA has been super busy as of late.
That's coming up at one and we're going to talk

(17:41):
to an editor of Complete Colorado dot com, Mike Krause.
They've done a glow up at Complete Colorado. It's a
website I use every single day, and I mean every day,
and they've done a nice little update. So we're going
to talk to Mike about it a little bit later
when we get back. Trump starts a trade war, but

(18:01):
did he because Mexico has already come to the table.
We're going to talk about that next when we get back.
Keep it right here on Kowa, guys. I just got
word and I don't even know if it's public yet,

(18:22):
but Vicky Lawrence's show that I was so looking forward
to if the paramount has been canceled, and I don't
know why that. They just reached out to me and
let me know. So if you have tickets to that,
I'm sure you're going to be getting your money back
at some point. I don't know again why she did,
but here we are. So when Donald Trump was talking

(18:44):
about tariffs during the campaign, I said repeatedly, I think
tariffs as an economic policy are terrible, but I never
really thought that he was using them to be an
economic policy. I always thought he was going to use
the tariff as a legend. So imagine my surprise this
weekend when he levied twenty five percent tariffs on Mexican goods,

(19:08):
on most Canadian goods, ten percent tariffs on Canadian energy,
and ten percent tariffs on China. So I was like, okay,
and let me just share with you what I wrote
on the blog this morning, because there have been developments
since I wrote this on the blog. It says I've
been giving Trump a lot of latitude because unlike last time,

(19:31):
where I thought he was just throwing stuff against the
wall randomly, this version of Trump two point zero came
in with a plan. His zillion executive orders have been
flying in this weekend. He levied tariffs on Canada, China,
and Mexico because they haven't done enough to stop the
flow of immigrants and drugs into the US. Mexico says
they'll respond with something, but we don't know what that is.

(19:52):
The tariffs. The tariffs are supposed to take hold tomorrow,
and it doesn't seem that the Trump administration has been
very clear about any demands to stop them from going
into place. He just said Canada has been very abusive.
As he points out the myriad of American products not
allowed in Canada. Canadians are very confused, which I understand.

(20:13):
I've long thought tariffs were a bad idea, but a
negotiating tactic by Trump. Will see what happens next, So
here you go. What's happened next is the president of
Mexico and Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, our secretary of State,
have been chatting, and it appears that a deal has
been partially struck. As I just heard Keenan talk about

(20:38):
in his news, Donald Trump announced Monday a one month
pause on the twenty five percent tariff on Mexico while
the two countries negotiate issues at the southern border. Already,
the president of Mexico said she would send ten thousand
troops to the border with the United States in an
effort to bring down the rate of illegal immigration and

(21:01):
drug crossings. In exchange, she's asking the Trump administration to
slow the stem of high powered weapons into Mexico, which
empower the drug cartels. So already we see that this
was perhaps just a negotiating tactic. We don't know it

(21:24):
would be like Trump to do this, which is why
I said. I always thought it was a negotiating tactic.
Now I'd say the balls in Canada's court because Canada's
outgoing lame duck Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced competing twenty
five percent tariffs on one hundred and fifty five billion
dollars worth of US goods in retaliation, which really makes

(21:45):
him look bad compared to Mexico. Now, Trump said he
spoke with Trudeau Monday morning and will again later in
the day. I'm not sure. I mean, maybe he's arguing
for better access to Canadian markets for some American goods.
Any threat that Canada has and is making about selling

(22:06):
their oil to other people is going to be really
challenging because you know where all their pipelines go to
the United States. Their East West pipeline that they were
trying to build, the Energy East Pipeline got canceled by
environmentalists in Canada, and that would have taken their oil
from the western part of Canada where most of it is.

(22:27):
It's just like the United States. I mean, when you
look down the Colorado Rockies and then the Rockies all
the way up to Canada where they become the Canadian Rockies.
All of that area is the area where most oil
exploration is taking place. And every one of those pipelines
comes right down into the United States. They have one
one that comes into Puget Sound, and that's the closest

(22:50):
to Canada that they've been able to build. All of
the other ones, the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Trans Mountain
and Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline, the Energy East Pipeline, they
were all canceled by environmentalists in Canada. So the only
way they can get their oil to market is to
bring it through the United States of America. I mean,

(23:10):
that's a real kick in the pants, isn't it. And
oh jeez, I posted that twice and didn't mean to.
I also have a video on the blog today and
I was gonna play it, but he's got two curse
words in it, and I was too lazy in my
weekend state to go back and pull them out. But
there's a guy who works in oil and gas and
explains why Canadian crude oil can only come to the

(23:32):
United States, and it has to do with the kind
of oil that it is, and how much toxins are
in the oil, and how difficult it is to refine.
So there's a lot of bladder going on right now.
But I am really taking a wait and see approach because,
as I said in my blog posting, Donald Trump one

(23:53):
point zero, especially the beginning of his administration was sort
of marred by a lack of institutional knowledge of how
things happen and how things get done. That is not
the case this time. Donald Trump two point zero does not.
And I know this is gonna sound crazy to people
on the left when I say this, but hear me out.

(24:16):
It doesn't feel nearly as chaotic as the first administration.
It feels focused, and it feels like everything they're doing
they have some kind of end game in mind, right,
They're not just doing stuff to do it. There is
a purpose. So obviously over the weekend, Trump announces sees

(24:37):
these tariffs. Today, he's already kind of deal with the
President of Mexico, He's already talked to the Prime Minister
of Canada. Once he's gonna talk to him again. I
don't think these tariffs are ever actually gonna happen. I
just think that he's using the threat of tariffs to
bring people to heal And while we're at it, did
anybody else see what the Panama, what the country of

(24:57):
Panama did this weekend. So you know, Trump ran basically saying, look,
we're taking back to Panama Canal. We're just gonna take
it back because we gave it to Panama for them
to run, and they have essentially outsourced the Panama Canal
to China, our geopolitical foes. He's absolutely right about that.
By the way, China has been working really diligently in

(25:20):
Latin and Central America as part of their Belton Road initiative.
China is trying to build around the world a relatively
uninterrupted means of having access to the entire world using
the Belton Road initiative. And I've long talked about the
soccer stadium, the built in Costa Rica that happens still

(25:41):
look like a satellite dish, and the fact that they're
running the contracts for the Panama Canal. These are incredibly
important choke points, especially the Panama Canal. I mean, if
you don't go through the Panama Canal, you have to
go around South America, you have to go through the
Drake Passage, which is like a nightmare. It takes so
much longer, unnecessarily. So what we're seeing right now is

(26:05):
Trump delivering on his campaign promptses in a big way.
And what we're also seeing is people responding. Let me
get to what Panama actually did this past weekend. So
Panama's president vowed Sunday to end a development deal with

(26:26):
China after meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and
after complaints from President Donald Trump that the Latin American
company had seated control over its critical shipping canal to Beijing.
Jose Raoul Molino, Panama's president, set his nation's sovereignty over
the fifty one mile waterway, which connects the Pacific Ocean
in the Caribbean Sea, will remain unchanged, but he said

(26:50):
he would not renew a twenty seventeen memorandum of understanding
to join China's Belton Road global Development Initiative, and that
Panama would instead look to work more closely with the US.
And now's the point where we have to follow through.
I think that not investing in Central and Latin America,

(27:14):
and I don't mean the government going in there and
telling them how to live their lives. I'm talking about
encouraging American companies to look to do business in these
countries now, they have problems. A lot of them are
wildly corrupt when it comes to doing business. I mean
wildly corrupt. But that being said, if we can, through
free freedom and free markets in make their economies better,

(27:40):
then our legal immigration problem drops dramatically because people will
be able to say and make money in their own countries.
The problem is is that we've not been doing a
good job with that. We've opened it up, we're trying
to come in and establish a foothold, and now we're
playing catch up, going back in time, trying to fix
the problem. So you know, we'll see what happens with

(28:02):
the tariffs. We'll see what Canada brings to the table.
But I'm not convinced that Trump really is a huge
tariff guy. I just think he's a use a tariff
as a bludgeon guy. And it seems to be working.
We'll be back right after this. Keep it on, KOA.

(28:25):
A lot of you are weighing in on our common
spirit health tech sign Mandy, Mexico and Panama back down.
Seems like the art of the deal is working. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Texter, Mandy,
He's had four years to plan. I hate to say this,
but Biden did him a favor. He had a plan,
and he's executing those plans. I saw a super interesting

(28:46):
thing on XI. As a matter of fact, I might
have retweeted it, and it was a guy who said,
you know, if they had not done what they did
to undermine Trump's campaign, and if he had one re
election for a second term, we would not be getting
any of the stuff that we're getting right now. It
would have been another four years of kind of Democrat investigations,

(29:09):
policy slogs, things of that nature. But because they conspired
to keep things from the media, like the stuff about
Hunter Biden's laptop, and because they conspired to change the
rules around the country about how elections worked without proper
legislative approval, Donald Trump got pissed. And he had four

(29:32):
years to sit in his lair and sit there, probably
stroking a cat, while making his evil plans of what
he would do in his first one hundred days of office.
So this monster administration. And I say that with not
any animosity in my heart or at all. But you guys,
what's happening right now the last two weeks, the speed

(29:55):
with which Donald Trump is doing everything, and by the way,
a lot of people are super salty about the fact
that Donald Trump can just levy a tariff. They're like,
that's not right. Congress is the one that's supposed to
negotiate tariffs according to the Constitution, which is correct, except

(30:15):
for years and years and years, Congress has been seeding
its responsibility to the executive branch. They've been giving the
president more and more and more and more power, and
now you have a president who's using it and everybody's like, wait,
he can't do that. We'll know he shouldn't have been

(30:36):
able to do that for a long time. But man,
it's been kind of ridiculous because ultimately this entire administration,
I believe, I feel like you know when you watch
a football game and you know that both teams have
their entire first drive already mapped out. They already have

(30:59):
the plans to they already know the places they're going
to run, They already know what they're gonna do for
that first drive. Right, Donald Trump is mapped out his
entire first drive, and he learned a lot the last time.
He is not giving the Democrats time to congeal around
any attack points, and you're seeing it. The Democratic Party

(31:19):
and Democrats are absolutely flailing right now. They are struggling
so hard right now because they are not used to
any Republican working like Donald Trump is working. It's just
astounding the speed with which he is doing what he
is doing. And so you know, Mandy, Trump's plan is

(31:42):
called Project twenty twenty five. Wait and see translates to FAFO.
Blame for all of this BS rest with the idiots
who voted for the freak. Thanks you guys. Uh wait,
blame or credit because a vast majority of what the
president has done so far I'm in favor for. I
don't like tariffs. I think they're dumb. I think they're

(32:05):
bad economic policy. But I never really believed that he
was going to actually do it. I thought he was
going to use them as a weapon to force people
into better deals, and that certainly appears today what he
seems to be doing. You say, blamed you guys. There's

(32:27):
at least half the country who's openly cheering what the
man is doing. So it's kind of interesting to see
people on the left. There's a guy who keeps emailing
me and William if you're listening today, William emails me
every day with the fact that Trump is starting, he's
taking over. He's going to become a dictator. Blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah. No, no he's not. But

(32:51):
he is getting stuff done that he wanted to do
last time and couldn't get done because congressional Democrats blocked
him at every single term. By the way, did you
already know that there's a group of Democrats who are
already working to figure out what they're going to investigate
the president for if they get back into office and
they take over the House in the midterm elections. They're

(33:12):
already planning this. They're not planning solutions, they're not planning answers,
they're not planning policy boom. You know, they're just planning
to investigate the president. I mean, it's just Mandy. Please
enlighten us on what happened to the rule of law
in the United States. Well, that is a loaded question.

(33:33):
But in terms of this, if I say, if people
are angry about Donald Trump using the powers that have
been given to him by Congress to do things they
don't like, they should have been angry about Congress seeding
their responsibility years ago, like many on the right have been.
And you know, what I've always said. You know what
I've always said, It's finally coming true. You may love

(33:55):
it when your guy does it, like when Joe Biden
decided to unilaterally cancel student debt, but you sure don't
like it when the other team does it, now, do you. Well,
now the other team's in charge. When we get back,
we have Special Agent in Charge of the Rocky Mountain Division,
Jonathan Mullen coming up. The DEA has been busy and
we're going to talk to him about some of the

(34:15):
stuff that's happening right here in the Denver Metro and
Colorado and Wyoming and what the DEA is up to.
And it's a lot, you guys, it is a lot.
We'll be back right after this on KOA. Joining me

(34:37):
now is DEH special Agent in charge of the Rocky
Mountain Division, Special Agent Jonathan Pollen. Welcome to the show.
First of all, how does that title fit on a
business card?

Speaker 5 (34:47):
Like?

Speaker 1 (34:47):
How big are your business cards? Are they three by five?
What are we looking at here?

Speaker 5 (34:51):
Yeah, we're talking three by five sized business cards. It's
a big, long title.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Well, I gotta say the DEA has been in the
news as of late, because you guys have been making
some really big, high profile busts. Tell me about some
of the stuff that you guys have, and really I
feel like this is all investigations coming to fruition. Is
that accurate?

Speaker 5 (35:12):
Right? Yeah, that's right. I mean there was some one
offs last week where we went after some targets of opportunity,
but pretty much what you've seen over the course of
the last seven or eight days has been cases that
we've been working for months and targets that we've been
tracking for months.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
So when you guys are taking drugs off the streets,
what are we talking to mounts? What are we talking about?
You know, how much are we taking out of the
supply chain?

Speaker 5 (35:37):
Well, so last Monday we seized we executed a search warrant,
and we seized one hundred and thirty thousand DEFENDANTL pills.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
In one hit.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
So that's an incredible amount of FEDEL. So if you
think that five out of ten of those pills has
a deadly ghost for you and me, that's you know,
I wasn't a math major, but I think that's sixty
five thousand pills taking off the streets of Denver that
could have killed killed regular citizens.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
So I mean I'm guessing that though that sounds like
a huge amount of pills, is that just like one
regular shipment? How many pills are actually making their way
into Colorado and into our streets now?

Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yeah, Unfortunately, seeing one hundred thousand pillars at a time
has become more of the norm for us here in Colorado.
You may know that last year in twenty twenty or four,
we broke the record for Colorado for the most amount
of fednyl ever sees. We had over three million pills seased.
So that's an absolutely enormous amount of fedyel coming into
our state.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
So where's this coming from? I kind of know the question,
but I'm gonna ask anyway, where is the fentanyl coming from?

Speaker 5 (36:41):
Well, it's a fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, So like
heroin is an opioid, right, but so is an OxyContin
pill that your doctor may prescribe you if you had
back pain or back surgery. But a fencanyl is purely synthetic.
It's only made from chemicals, right, And so those chemicals
are sourced in China, their shipped to Mexican cartels, and

(37:02):
it's all made within Mexico and Mandy. They make it
for so cheap. They can make one fitnel pill for
two cents in Mexico and by the time it hits
the streets of Denver, that same pill could sell from
between two to four dollars.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Oh my god, the profit margin. You know what. The
Democrats should go after them for gouging. No, I'm sure
I was a joke for my audience. Yeah, you guys
are not working alone though. There's a lot of coordination
happening between federal authorities. Tell me about that.

Speaker 5 (37:27):
Yeah, and that's kind of unprecedented really. I mean the
Department of Justice, which is you know, DEA atf FBI.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
US Marshals.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
You know, we've really been embedded in the last week
or two weeks with the Department Homeland Security Agencies, which
is Homeland Security Investigations and ICE and really sort of
using all of the resources from all those agencies at
the same time. We've always worked together and worked to
join cases, but this is sort of on a whole
another level really at the direction of the new administration.

(37:57):
And I got to be frank with you, it's making
a huge difference.

Speaker 6 (38:00):
Right.

Speaker 5 (38:00):
So when my teams are out like they're out today,
we got an atf guy on board with us, We
got ICE agents on board with us. We're doing it
sort of as a big joint federal task force. It's
pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
I mean most of the time, though, it would seem
that I'm guessing you don't find many drug dealers without guns,
and I'm guessing right now you're probably seeing a lot
of people involved in this trade that are here illegally. So,
I mean, it makes a lot of sense to put
you all on the same thing. At the same time,
it's actually refreshing to hear you say that under this administration,
this is how things are going. Now, let me ask

(38:32):
you about it about a local law enforcement because Mayor
Mike Johnston has caught a world of self imposed crap
by talking tough about protecting illegal immigrants, and then he said,
you know, local law enforcement is very involved in all this.
How much do you work with local law enforcement on
these large operations?

Speaker 4 (38:51):
Quite a bit.

Speaker 5 (38:52):
I mean, you know, the thing we have to protect
local law enforcement from is you know, Colorado state law
prohibits them from being involved in the immigration piece. So
when we're going out work in a drug case, you know,
we're not asking them to be involved in the in
the investigation or the movement of potential illegal aliens into
the hands of ice. We're handling that as the federal

(39:15):
agents and then they still but the state and local
cops who are with us, they work the drug case,
right or they work the money laundering side of the case.
So we're being careful to sort of protect, you know,
protect them in that space. But they're with us, and
they're definitely been a big part of our success lately.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
So tell me about the relationship that you guys have
with federal prosecutors, because one of the issues that I
have been really frustrated with a lot of people have
been really frustrated with at the local and district levels
is that some of our prosecutors are not necessarily interested
in prosecuting. And how are federal prosecutors different And will
we expect people to actually pay a price for breaking

(39:54):
these laws in the United States?

Speaker 5 (39:57):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, listen, everybody has resource constraints.
I mean, the United States Attorney's Office here, they need
more people, they need more money, just like all the
agencies do. So I mean that's one factor. But the
thing for our sort of cases, the DEA works is
that they go out of state really quick, right, or
they go out of the country really quick. The suppliers

(40:17):
for a lot of the fentanyl that comes in here
we build directly with people in Mexico a lot of times. Right.
So once we identify that guy, we can charge him
in federal court here in Denver and then reach out
and touch him in Mexico. But we really need that.
We're really the support of the US Attorney's office to
do that, and largely we've had it.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
So I don't know if you saw this, but today
the Mexican president, in response to Donald Trump's tariffs that
he levied over the weekend, has already come to the
table with Donald Trump to say, look, we're going to
send ten thousand troops to the border to help stem
the tide of both fentanyl and illegal immigrants. Do you
have confidence in the Mexican government and the Mexican military

(40:59):
to follow through on those promises? Because I've heard a
lot about corruption. It's hard when you're making no money
as a Mexican cop to not take the money from
the cartels. What has your experience been in those relationships.

Speaker 5 (41:14):
Yeah, so I've worked in Mexico over the years quite
a bit, and I can tell you that I think
there's a distinction between what maybe local Mexican cops they're
sitting in the state of Sineloa and they have to
deal with the Sineloa cartel literally as their neighbors, the
sort of reaction that you'll get from there, or maybe
the level of corruption from local cops. There's a difference

(41:36):
between that and what we see in the federal police
and the military there. For many years, we've had really
great partnerships in Mexico at the higher levels, and I
think that that's what's going to come through now in
this new administration, and I'm really encouraged by it. I mean,
I think I think we have an opportunity, really with
focus on both sides of the border, to make a

(41:57):
huge difference in the amount of drugs end up on
our street.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
Well, I hope.

Speaker 5 (42:00):
So.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
I have a friend who lives in the Sinaloa area
of Mexico and hearing his stories about like when the
cartel activity gets geared up, everybody just goes in their
houses and stays there until it's over. Like people in
Mexico are living in a terrorist state because of these cartels.
Is there any hope that you see on the horizon

(42:22):
to really bring some of these massive cartels to check
in any significant way in Mexico.

Speaker 5 (42:27):
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's got to be
pressure from both sides, and you're seeing that now. I mean,
we're already sort of hearing from sources that the Mexican
cartels are pretty nervous based off of what's happened just
in the last seven to ten days. We're hearing that
they don't want to send stuff across the border because
they know that the US, the US border has been hardened.
And so to hear that coming from down south is

(42:48):
pretty incredible after just a week's worth of work. But
it's also going to take walk on the south side, right,
The Mexicans are going to have to do their part
to keep those guys in check. But listen, Mandy, you're
talking about multi billion dollar businesses here at these bartels, right, So,
I mean they're worth fifty to sixty billion dollars per year,
So they have the money to fight a Mexican army, right.

(43:09):
I mean you're talking armored vehicles, and they get all
the weaponry you can imagine. So it's not like it's
not like it is in the United States. They're literally
dealing with an armed insurrection.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I got one question from the text line that I
actually think is a really good one. How do you
guys dispose of all these pills?

Speaker 5 (43:27):
Well, we we incinerate them. Okay, So that's really the
way we do it. And we have a few places
around the country. Once the cases are adjudicated, and it's
not just the pills all it's all of the drugs
and evidence that we get, they go and they're incinerated.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
All right, Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Mullen from the DEA.
I appreciate your time today. Keep doing what you're doing.
I mean, it's kind of exciting to pick up the
paper and see one thing after another after another, and
I'm enjoying it. I'm not gonna lie. So keep up
the good work and we'll check in with you and
there's more to report in the near future. All right,

(44:02):
thank you. That is Special Agent in Charge of the
Rocky Mountain Division, Jonathan Mullen of the DEA. So Mandy oops,
he needs to be fired. He stated that all agencies
don't have enough money. Federal government has bloated, as President
Musk has observed. Yeah, but some agencies are more bloated
than others, that's for sure. And I am here's the thing.

(44:25):
When the DEA is effectively getting drugs off the street,
how can you say that they have too much money?
You know what I mean? I just think when we're
getting results, and I think this is a really important,
very important thing. I'm okay, Mandy, they have to get
rid of the demand. Also, you know what, I agree
with you, but that is one of those kind of

(44:48):
I hate to say it, Pollyanna views of the world.
Since the beginning of time, people have been looking for
ways to escape reality. And that's just a fact. And
I don't think that we're ever going to clear, you know,
get rid of all the demand. I just don't, because

(45:08):
when one attic dies, another attict pops up to take
the place. I mean, the only thing we can do
is make it so fewer people get started in the
first place, I think, and one of the ways to
do that is to get as many pills off the
street and disable as much as we can, and maybe
the cartels take their business elsewhere. One can hope, One

(45:30):
can absolutely hope. All Right, I've got a couple things
sort of related to this that I want to do
a little bit more on. One of them has to
do with Mexico. And the reason I asked him about
you know, Mexican police and then Mexican federal police, and
then you know, because the old administration in Mexico was

(45:53):
accused of a lot of corruption. And I know, I'm
not going to pretend like I pay close attention to
every in and out Mexican politics. This is like big
picture stuff. The new president was elected not with the
promise of of you know, basically getting all the cartels
under control. Because you just heard from the special Agent.

(46:13):
These are billion dollar industries. These are not a couple
guys selling you know, drugs on the corner. These these
are massive international operations. But can we just stop some
of the violence that occurs, because the violence is where
the Mexican people get caught in the crossfire. And imagine
living in a small town in Mexico without a lot

(46:36):
of opportunity, without you know, a lot of opportunity to
make money. Maybe you're living on four or five thousand
dollars a year, and here comes the cartel to offer
you a ton of money to either grow something or
work here or do I mean they've got a lot
of people working for them that otherwise would not be

(46:57):
involved in a cartel, except there's not other good opportunity
for them in Mexico, which I don't understand. I just
you know, there's so many I don't know, it's super frustrating.
I'm reading what's happening in South Africa right now. I
don't know if you guys are following along with what's
happening in South Africa, but South Africa has now decided
to repatriate farmland away from white people and give it

(47:21):
to quote natives of South Africa, and this is going
to be an abject disaster. It's going to be the
exact same thing that happened in Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabi
replaced all of the white farmers who had been feeding
Africa for decades with Africans who were not farmers, took
their farms away, gave them to political insiders, and then

(47:45):
Zimbabwe went from being the bread basket of Africa to
having a famine that they had to deal with. So
it's like, you look at all these countries around the world,
and you know what is jack up as you might
think the United States of America is can we take
a moment to appreciate some things about the United States
of America. We still have private property rights. That matters

(48:05):
one hundred percent. We still have the ability to speak
freely without being arrested. That matters. We have the ability
to create a business in this country and possibly become very,
very wealthy. If we have a great idea and a
clever way to solve a problem that nobody has ever
solved before. You can become a billionaire in the United

(48:27):
States of America. And more importantly, for the most part,
we all like to talk about corruption and the deep
state and everything that's happening with Donald Trump. But I
don't think my local government is corrupt. Do you do
you think your town council is corrupt. I don't think
my city commission, even though I'm not fond of two
of the city commission members. I don't think they're corrupt

(48:48):
until proven that they are. If there's a possibility there,
but I don't know for sure. But overall, like when
you go to get a driver's license, you don't expect
to have to pay a bribe to someone to get that.
But for the most part, all of our government, at
the immediate levels that we're around, we don't have to
worry about the stuff they have to worry about in Mexico.

(49:09):
In Sinamoa, where the cartels run everything, I mean everything,
and if you accidentally run up against somebody in the cartel,
they will just murder you. They don't care. They murder
people all the time. You're disposable. Mandy, the Mexican president
may be a bit worried as she's bending to Trump's

(49:30):
will and not doing the cartels bidding. You know, here's
the thing. Mexican imports in the United States are significant.
A lot of cars are built in Mexico. A lot
of stuff is built in Mexico now, and I actually
think that's a good thing. I think Mexico is the
perfect place for factories to be for two reasons. Number One,
we can build everything cheaper in Mexico than we can

(49:52):
build it here. Like it or not. Our standard of
living is high, and I'm okay with that, But that
means we can't pay factory workers, you know, two dollars
an hour to go work in factories. But countries that
have a lower standard living absolutely can. So Mexico is
an incredibly important part of our trade alliance here but

(50:14):
Trump is going after them for not stopping illegal immigrants
and not stopping the flow of fentanel. Those are the
two issues that now have come to the forefront after
the Mexican president negotiated with Donald Trump to stop the
tariffs for at least a month. Okay, so that's where
we are now. But every time I think, oh God,
the United States is turning into a hellhole, I then

(50:35):
really read about like actual hell holes, actual places where
you can't get We have to take this this Oh god,
what is it called, zach If you had to take
the ethics training at.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
What is it called, it's FCC.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
No, the SEC is different training that we have to
take that's coming up now. No, it's it's it's not ethics,
it's something like that. But we have to corporate culture.
I don't know what it is. Is some class we have
to take and they actually have a little part where
they're like, say you're doing business in a foreign country
and someone tells you that you have to pay a
bribe to get something done. Are we allowed to do that?

(51:11):
The answer is no, by the way, but think about that.
If you're a multinational corporation, you better understand you better understand.
So I don't know. Oh yes, code of conduct training,
that's it, Thank you, Zach. Code of conduct training so boring.

(51:32):
Some of us don't need to be reminded to be
good people. Thank you, iHeart. I'm just saying, anyway, Mandy,
do you think that any elected officials in Texas or Arizona. Wait,
it's just updated Texas or Arizona are getting nervous. Maybe
they're in on the deal. It is altogether possible that
there is corruption along the southern border one hundred percent.

(51:53):
And I'm hoping that everything that's happening right now, Uh yeah,
is going to change that. This person said, I wonder
where the cartels get all their guns, which is why
the Mexican president has asked in return that the US
do something about that, which would be fine with me. Anyway,
let's take a quick time. I would know. We're not

(52:13):
yet yet, We're not out yet. Just lost the time, Mandy.
I couldn't agree with you more. I'm just saying. The
president of Mexico was damned that she does, but damned
that she doesn't. She's in a tough spot, Yes she is.
Would you want to be president of Mexico because I wouldn't.
There are countries like I would be president of Sweden
if they had a No, not Sweden. Right now they're
having a terrible migrant crossis I would be president of

(52:36):
Switzerland if they had I would do that. That seems nice. Mandy,
did you see the news on the USAID getting exposed
and shut down? Yes? Indeed I did. Yes, indeed I did.
By the way, the Grammy dress is not on Mandy's
blog dot com, but the story at the bottom of

(52:56):
the blog, the very bottom, scroll all the way down
to the bottom, right under the video and what your
skin can tell you about your health, It says, well,
but it finally happened. There's a link in there. You
click that link and you can see Bianca Sensory all
naked at the Grammys last night.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
And to be clear, when you say scroll all the
way down to the bottom, you mean the bottom of
the blog and not the bottom.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Of the blog, not the ads. It's right under the
video about what skin can tell you about your health,
You guys are bottom. Yeah. I can't. I can't. I
can't post the pictures on my blog because it goes
against the iHeart Code of Conduct training that I was
just talking about but I can post the link your
girl has got you on that one. Hey, Mandy, what

(53:40):
became of the animal attack in southern Colorado last week?
Haven't heard another word, nor have I nor have I
not at all. Wonder why we don't know because no
one's talking about it. I will reach out to some
of my peeps in Colorado Parks and Wildlife and ask
about that they know anything else about that would be interesting? Mandy.

(54:04):
Why isn't Mexico paying a minimum wage of eighteen dollars
and eighty one cents because they're not stupid? Oh? Funny
story about that. Bertie Sanders posted something on X the
other day about how in Denmark they have family leave
and they have this, and they have that, and they
have twenty two dollars minimum wage. And I pointed out
to Bertie that Denmark does not have a forced minimum wage.

(54:27):
That's their average minimum wage that the government did not
decide to make. So, yeah, Mandy, who would win in
a standoff, the Mexican military or the cartels? I gotta
tell you, I wouldn't bet on either, just saying at all,
and yes, conduct training, and most training is not to

(54:49):
train you. It's to Cya the company when you do
violate it correct, Okay, people are saying the link does
not work. Let me look one more time. It was
working earlier. Boom and yeah, it works when I do it.
You guys, I don't know why it's not working when
you do it. I'm trying to help you out here.
Go to Twitter and just go Bianca Sensory and look

(55:10):
and see what pops up there. You go, trying to
help you out. We'll be back right after this. Keep
it on. Kowa are back. Don't forget you guys. This
is the week. If you do not follow Koa on
our social media channels, this is the week you're gonna

(55:31):
want to because a Rod is covering the super Bowl
for us in New Orleans. We're gonna have him on
the show from New Orleans over the next couple of days.
But he's gonna be posting a ton of videos on
social media. So follow our social media. I put on
the blog today at mandy'sblog dot com. Put a link
to Facebook X and TikTok. If you've agreed to let

(55:52):
the Chinese take all your info from everything you do,
so there you go. You got that going for you.
That's all there. I can't wait to see the stuff
that he is gonna putting up from the super Bowl.
Looking forward to that so exactly. So, I want to
talk about something that happened over the weekend at washing
at wash Park. And if you're new to Denver and

(56:13):
you haven't made it over to Washington Park, it is
a delightful, absolutely delightful city park that is always teeming
with people. Whenever the weather is night nice, you can
go to wash Park, like I meet a friend there
to go on a walk, Like we used to meet
for a happy hour. Now we meet there to go
on a walk. And it's just really a beautiful place

(56:36):
and it's always packed with people. And this weekend there
was a shooting in wash Park. Oh no way, your
girlfriend was at wash Park, Zach, when this happens. So
tell me what happened.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
She went for a walk with a friend of hers.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
I was actually here at the station working the CU
Buffs basketball game, and yeah, she texted me she was
at wash Park wrapping up a you know, hanging out
with her friend. And yeah, actually I think she had
just left and then just barely missed the shooting, like,
oh wow, three minutes before it was yeah, she said
it was full of families.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
It was, like you said, a.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Very virus, like a full day of all on the weekends,
it's packed with people. I mean, it's just it's a
delightful place to go in the summer. It's elbowed elbow,
I mean, that's a little bit of an exaggeration because
it's like one hundred and fifty acres. But on Saturday
there was a shooting. It appears that the shooting, from
what I can glean from social media, it was a

(57:33):
young i'd say twenty eight year old man that's been
arrested for the shooting. And according to some things that
I've saw a scene on social media about this, it
may be a domestic dispute between this man, this twenty
eight year old man and his father. That is what

(57:55):
I'm seeing now. The suspect has been identified as Ryan Eggleston.
He has a LinkedIn page, you know, I mean, seems
super normal. When officers arrived, they located a man suffering
from an apparent gunshot wound. The victim, who has not
been identified officially, was taken to a hospital and is

(58:16):
expected to survive. The shooter was involved in a verbal
interaction with one person that escalated to a shot being
fired as that person walked away. The police said that
person was not injured. Then Eggleston reportedly fired a second shot,
striking the man, who was ultimately taken to the hospital.

(58:40):
The investigation is ongoing. But the reason I bring this
up is because I don't know if you guys remember this,
but not that long ago, Denver banned firearms in city parks.
So obviously this story is a complete fabrication because surely
a criminal who was intent on doing harm would follow

(59:03):
the rules that Denver laid down at a city park.
I'm being sarcastic, of course, because criminals never follow gun laws.
That is not what they do. I'm interested to see
what else happened in this story. A lot of people
have gone to this guy's LinkedIn page and are trying
to sort of, you know, figure out what's going on

(59:25):
with this guy. I think that that's a little bit
of a fool's errand although he did sort of have
one weird sort of post on LinkedIn about it was
just strange, just strange. So we'll have to wait and
see what happens. Here's the other thing that I'd like

(59:46):
to know about the people that are in Washington Park
that day on Saturday. And I'm not saying that everybody
in Watch Park is a liberal, because obviously I go
there and so I, you know, bring down the average
when I'm there. But I will say this, a vast
majority of people who live in that area probably lean left.
What is their reaction to this, to make guns even

(01:00:09):
more illegal at city parks, to demand more gun control
even though our gun violence rates have gone up, or
I can't say that like that they have not declined
at the speed with which other cities have seen a decline,
even though we keep passing these gun control bills. Or
do they finally recognize gun control only controls law abiding people?

(01:00:34):
And what if this guy had been a mass shooter
and just decided to open fire on everybody in the park.
Who would have been there to stop him? I mean,
maybe another criminal. But if we're not allowed to carry
firearms in wash Park and yet we have a shooting
in Wash Park, we would probably have to admit there

(01:00:54):
was a failure there. Somehow something didn't click, something got
lost in the shuffle, as they say, And I don't
know what you do at that point. We're seeing a
lot of stories out of California right now, And we
haven't really talked about the aftermath of the California wildfires
because there's I'm trying to think of the best way

(01:01:18):
to say this and not seem heartless. California has to
sort out their own business.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
First of all.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
I am still quite salty about the fact that people
in North Carolina are still living in tenths right now,
and everybody in the world seems to have pivoted to
do fire aid for the people in California and just
basically leaving the people whose entire lives were wiped out
by a hurricane with nothing. And I'm a little bit

(01:01:45):
annoyed by that. I don't have anything against Hollywood, per
se or California. I'm just annoyed by that. And I'm
interested to see what happens in California because we're seeing
more and more and more stories coming out of people
who are putting the blame exactly where it belongs, which
is on government and mismanagement. And now they're trying to

(01:02:07):
just get people there to inspect so they can move forward,
and they can't get that done. So what are the
things that change people's political viewpoints? Cause if you've been
voting for all this stuff over and over and over
and over again in California kind of on auto, like,
because if you want to be part of the cool
club in California, you must be a Democrat. It is required.

(01:02:30):
That has not happened here in Colorado, not yet. I
know a lot of super cool Republicans. I know a
lot of young, very cool Republicans, so we haven't lost
the cool factor completely here. But in California, the Republicans
are just a non starter. They really are. They're not cool.
So all these people have just been voting automatically, voting

(01:02:51):
on to people in wash Park, voting automatically, At what
point do you go, wait a minute, voting automatically is
not getting it done. Comment I saw from a news
story about the shooting that really irritated the crap out
of me was a guy who was like, Yeah, you know,
this kind of stuff happens all the time all over
the place. There's not really anything you can do about it.

(01:03:13):
Partly true, but doesn't it miss the big picture? Doesn't
it miss the big picture that I'm not sure in
the entire time I've been here, anyone's ever been shot
at Wash Park? So it doesn't happen all the time everywhere,
and if we adopt that sance, then nothing will ever
ever change, because why would it if they're willing to

(01:03:35):
accept this, Why would we do something for the voters.
Why would we do something on public safety if the
people are just going to vote automatically for the same team.
Something to think about, my friends, Something to think about
when we get back. You gotta talk about Costco for
a minute. Costco is catching a heap of crap right

(01:03:58):
now because they refuse to back down from their diversity,
equity and inclusion policies. But guys, this has been Costco forever.
I'll explain why you need to leave them alone right
after this. Keep it on Kowa, all right, you guys. Okay,

(01:04:22):
So I am on record many many times about my
love of the Costco. Okay, Costco provides me great stuff
at great prices. Everyone who works there is very friendly.
At every Costco I've ever been to, it is one
of my favorite places to shop, period, full stop. And

(01:04:43):
now they are catching a rash of crap from people
who did not know until recently that Costco was owned
by progressives. It is always been owned by progressives and
here's the thing, you guys who care. I don't care
what a private company does. I don't care as long

(01:05:06):
as they continue to deliver great customer service, good prices,
and give me the shopping experience that I want. I
don't care what the ownership there does with the money
that I make for them. And this has long been
my standard. But now we have these people, and for
lack of a better way to describe them, I'm going

(01:05:27):
to call them what I just saw another pundit who
I don't know if it was Constantine Kissen or someone else,
he's calling them the woke. Right, They're not woke in
the sense that they want you know, DEI or all
this crap. They're woke in the sense that they have
now adopted the same tactics as those on the left

(01:05:48):
to get people to capitulate to their demands. And when
it comes to Costco, I have Costco's back. And here's why.
Former Costco International Division Senior vice president Rodger Campbell was
on with Fox News Digital. He worked at the company
from from nineteen eighty six. He started as a store
manager trainee and worked his way up to Costco International

(01:06:13):
Division Senior vice president. So dude is a dedicated Costco employee.
He explained what Costco's diversity, equity and inclusion policies really mean.
They've had him in place well before the term DEI
ever existed, and listen to what Costco does and why
we all need to just take it down a notch.

(01:06:35):
The whole idea, he says, was taking care of the employee.
Our whole idea was a very simple thing. If you
hire good people, pay them good wages, and give them
good benefits, then likely good things are going to happen.
I mean you guys, you guys. Costco has always had

(01:06:57):
a policy always that they want to ensure that the
employees at their warehouses and stores reflected the communities they
were located in. Demographically. Costco's never had trouble achieving this goal.
They've never had to have a hiring quota. Diversity was
a word that was used, but it was never my gosh,

(01:07:18):
we need to get a program, we need to train diversity.
They did promotions based on merit, not race or gender.
He had never heard anyone complaining that they had lost
an opportunity because they were a white man. However, he
did concede that when he decided on promotions, he would
take race into account if both candidates were equally qualified
for the job, and he said, maybe there was a

(01:07:41):
couple of times. You know what, I need to give
this diverse person an opportunity instead of holding them back.
Is that truly that objectionable to treat employees right. Try
to hire the best people in the community that look
like the community they serve. So I guess it's all
suburban white women at every Costco. I know, I know,

(01:08:01):
I mean, you guys, come on. Costco has long been
a place with high employee satisfaction. Although they are now
facing a potential strike from unionized employees in some of
its stores, it's always been very pro worker. They lay
claim to about an eight percent turnover rate. That's insane

(01:08:24):
eight percent. Its average hourly rate is thirty one dollars.
I mean, come on. By the way, this guy that
went on Fox News Digital, he's like, I'm a conservative.
The leadership donate a crap ton of money to democratic packs.
You know what, I don't care. Just make sure that

(01:08:46):
I have the same shopping experience at Costco and I
will continue to give me. Give you my money, and
then you can do whatever you want with your ill
gotten gains, where you treat people well and encourage a
workforce that looks like the communities that you serve. This
sounds awful. I am. I was not a fan of
cancel culture when it came to the left. I am

(01:09:07):
not a fan of cancel culture when it comes from
the right. So from now on, when anybody decides that
they are going to be the end all, be all
decider about who gets to stay or be popular, I'm
just going to look at him and say, welcome to
the woke right, because that's what they are, the woke right.
When we get back, I got a lot of stories

(01:09:28):
that I want to jump into here.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
We're looking to limit high potency pot for people under
the age of twenty six, and I'm going to tell you, uh,
we have people arguing the opposite sides of the age coin,
and I'm going to point out their hypocrisy. In just
a minute, and in the next hour, we're going to

(01:09:54):
talk to Mike Krousees, the editor of Complete Colorado dot Com.
It's going to be a busy hour stick around. We'll
be right back on ca away. Yeah, I'm sorry. On
the break, I just saw something so so interesting. And

(01:10:16):
I use that word on purpose, Zach, Are you aware
of the dead horse that we keep in the closet?
So if I need to flog the Republican Party for
something silly, we just drag out the dead horse.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
I'm not, but I can try and get familiar quest.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
It's usually back in that closet right behind you. It'll
be fine, It's no big deal. I just need you
to possibly open the door to the dead horse. I'm
not going to beat the dead horse, but I have
to hand it to current Colorado GOP chairman Dave Williams
because his ability to ignore his own malfeasance while accusing

(01:10:49):
others of doing exactly what he has done over and
over and over again is pretty presive. He sent out
a challenge to the congressional delegation, and I just want
to read I'm not reading the whole thing. I will
not torture you like that. Rather than resorting the personal
ad hominem attacks in a divisive letter against state party leaders,

(01:11:13):
Let's have a merit focused debate in front of the
entire membership. If the party's congressional delegation is unwilling to
have an honest discussion, in front of everyone without engaging
in personal attacks. That that speaks more to their true motivations.
To that end, I challenge the entire Republican congressional delegation

(01:11:34):
to a rational debate on the merits of these proposals
in front of the committee. Before that, he's still trying
to change the rules to benefit him and his little
CaAl of people. And the divisive letter that he's talking
about was a letter where the Colorado Republicans who are
in Congress right now laid out the many ways that

(01:11:57):
Dave Williams not only didn't help them win, what actively
worked against three of them in the primary. That's I mean,
you guys, but you know what. In the comments section
under this post on Facebook, all of Dave's minions showed
up on que because apparently none of them have jobs

(01:12:20):
to keep them off Facebook. I don't know. Actually that's
probably not nice. They probably all have jobs, most of
them anyway, maybe they're retired. But I would just like
to say one thing to those folks who are still
supporting Dave Williams after everything he has done to divide
this party from the depths of my bowels. I just

(01:12:42):
asked you to consider that you might be wrong if
you're still supporting the man whose candidates would have surely
been schwacked. By the way, there was a zero percent
chance that Janish Joki was going to win the eighth
congressional district. There was a zero percent chance that Lauren
Bobert was going to win the third. Sheam over to

(01:13:04):
the fourth. And who do they support Ron Hanks, who
was as polarizing a figure as there ever has been
in Colorado. I mean, you guys, and now he's like, oh,
why can't we have a civil conversation. Well, you know what,
when you paid for negative mailers against your opponent in
the primary using party funds, that pretty much blew any

(01:13:25):
sense that I have that you are a good and
decent person that is worthy of having such a conversation.
But hey, you know what, I got a hinted to him.
He's got to have stones the size of candelopes to
send out that. I mean, really, it's patently absurd. Okay,
we got to revisit something that we talked about a
couple of weeks ago. So there's a building on Congress Park,

(01:13:47):
the Congress Park building at Colfax and Josephine. A couple
of weeks ago, somebody noticed that some idiot had put
a swastika in one of the windows. There was some
discussion about it on Facebook, and someone threw a rock
through the window, smashing it. Okay, fine, I mean, not legal,

(01:14:08):
not nice, but fine. Whatever. So now, even as the
window is still boarded up, they have put another swastika
on a different window. And there's a big article in
the in the Denver Gazette about it, and it's about
how moderators in the comments are asking people not to

(01:14:28):
bust out the windows. Protesters outside the shop, the poor
barber shop that's on the floor, on the floor is
they've called the police. There's nothing you can do. It's
freedom of speech, all this stuff. But not once in
this article do I see the answer to this question,
which I think is significant. Who owns that window? Does
the owner of that building or apartment live in that apartment?

(01:14:49):
If so, let's name them. If it's a renter, Where
are the owners of this building in all of this,
because right now they're on the hook for a window.
Probably a couple more after this, But I mean, don't
you think it's time to stop talking about what's going
and find out who is responsible for that building. Zach,

(01:15:10):
I'm going to see you seem good at research stuff.
Find out who owns the building at Congress and Josephine. Okay, Congress,
park Building, Congress and Josephine. Let's find out who owns
that building and get to the bottom of this once
and for all. And by the way, I believe very
much in freedom of speech. If you want to be
an idiot and put a swastika or a Confederate flag

(01:15:33):
in your window and let everybody know who you are,
that's perfectly fine. But if you don't own the place
and you're getting windows broken, don't you think it's time
for something to be done. Now here's the problem. Colorado
Democrats have made it impossible to kick anyone out of
a property in Colorado. I'm not even kidding you. They
can put a swastika in the window and they can stay.

(01:15:55):
According to Colorado Democrats, not a good enough reason to
a victim. There is a editorial on the Denver Gazette
that is so infuriating, absolutely infuriating. Listen to this. Consider
the case of John Doe and Jane row As named
by the acou of Colorado, who are behind forty two
hundred dollars on rent for their unit in Aurora's Nordic

(01:16:18):
Arms apartment complex. Landlord claims at least ten men also
live in the two bedroom apartment and play loud music
throughout the night. The couple's ACOLU lawyer agrees they owe
months of back rent, but there's a law called the
Immigrant Tenant Protection Act which says a landlord shall not

(01:16:39):
bring action to recover possession of a dwelling unit based
solely or in part on the immigration or citizenship status
of a tenant. Now, apparently this tenant, this apartment complex
manager made a comment about knowing that these people are
here in the country legally, and now the ACOU was saying,

(01:17:03):
you cannot evict them. This is why I'm selling my
rental property in Denver at the earliest opportunity, because I
Am not going to put up with that kind of crap.
When we get back a couple of interesting stories. The
Air Force Academy has dropped a minor. Isn't enough to
bring them back from the woke ledge they've been dancing

(01:17:24):
on for years? Probably not, but I'll talk about that next.
Keep it right here on KOA, because Zach, we've tracked
down the property manager and we're gonna go McCall and
just ask them, like, what's gonna happen here, because somebody
is responsible for breaking out a window and they did

(01:17:45):
the exact same thing again. I do want to share
this comment from our text line, the swastika is actually
a good luck charm from Native American and Middle Eastern cultures.
Are we sure that the swastika was not intended for
that or is intended to symbolize the Nazis? Of course
I have no idea based on what we know so far,
because you guys know everything I know right. We know

(01:18:08):
windows have been broken, we know another one's been put
up there. But I have this viewpoint there's two symbols
that this works for, really, really well. One is the
Nazi symbol. The swastika has been used not just in
Middle Eastern cultures and Native American cultures. It has a
long religious history in various religious traditions, so it has

(01:18:31):
been around for a lot a long long time. Unfortunately,
for all of those religions and the symbol itself, it
was commandeered so completely by the Nazis that it is
impossible at this point for most people to separate those
two things from one another. So you can say, yeah,

(01:18:55):
it's this or this, but unfortunately we all know it
from the Nazi regime, and therefore it is really challenging
to sort of make that argument. That argument is maybe accurate,
but it's kind of a little too late at this point.
The second is the Confederate flag. I mean, I'm from

(01:19:18):
the Deep South and a lot of people in my
hometown when I was growing up flew the Confederate flag
and they want to tell you it's for heritage, not hate,
but unfortunately it was flown during an insurrection against the
American government that led to the Civil War. So that
flag as well represents what the Civil War was about,
which was enslaving black people. So you can try to

(01:19:41):
tell me it's about heritage not hate all you want,
but the reality is a vast majority of society views
it specifically as a sign of hatred and racism. So
it's you can say it all you want, but it's
like that ship has sailed right. The Air Force Academy
has driven it's diversity and inclusion studies minor from their

(01:20:04):
website after Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the
Department of Defense from promoting diversity equity inclusion programs. US
Air Force Academy officials would not confirm nor deny whether
the miner is no longer offered to cadets, it has
been removed from the website along or it was previously
listed along with nineteen other minors. And I mean minors

(01:20:28):
as not your major in college, not your minor, you
know that kind of thing, apparently says this text are
on Reddit. The tenant is a mentally disturbed Nazi, allegedly,
So we're going to ask the property managers what's happening there.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
Zach is on it straight to voicemail on the.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
First try, so try and more, Okay, you leave a
message or straight to sorry, please call back the.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
Person you're trying to call camp be reach now and
then you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Okay, okay, So like the cell the cell phone situation
in there, do you know what, maybe I'll bring my
property manager on and ask her what could be done,
because I bet she knows the problem is. In Colorado,
it's almost impossible to kick somebody out, even if they're
a Nazi, which I find hilarious, not that you got

(01:21:19):
Nazis living in Denver now I'm talking about the fact
that Colorado Democrats, in their zeal to you know, make
it impossible to kick people out when they don't pay
their rent, may have created a situation where horrible people
are now going to be able to abuse that lawns day.
That would be that would be very funny if the
Democrats made it easier for Nazis to nazi. So there

(01:21:40):
there you go. So the US Air Force Academy sent
a statement to to one of the news stations. The
Department of Defense will fully execute and implement all directives
outlined in the executive orders issued by the President, ensuring
that they are carried out with the utmost professionalism, efficiency,
and in a alignment with national security objectives. We will

(01:22:02):
provide status updates as we are able. Here's my follow
up question for the Air Force Academy. How in the
world does a minor in diversity and inclusion studies help
someone get a job when they get out of the
Air Force. I mean, if I was at a university

(01:22:23):
that was currently struggling, this is what I would do.
I would go through every single major, every single miner,
and say, is this going to help somebody get a
job when they graduate? Nope, okay, it's out cut the program.
We don't care. So there you go. There you go, Mandy.
Not that I approve of either, but showing a swastika

(01:22:45):
is no different than extreme socialist communists showing the Soviet
sickle and hammer. I agree, I agree, one hundred percent.
There you go. All right, we are going to take
a very quick time out when we get back. There
has been a glow up at Complete Colorado dot com,
a website I use every day that is from the

(01:23:08):
Independence Institute, and I just updated my blog today to
add that link. Although it is just complete Colorado dot
com really that simple. We're going to talk to Mike Krousey,
editor when we get back about what you can expect
from the new site and Complete as well. We'll do
that right after this we are back, and if you

(01:23:35):
like me, a first thing in the morning, you go
to Complete Colorado dot com every day to see what's
happening at the Independence Institute and get a good news roundup.
You have noticed it has gotten a little glow up.
And joining me now is the editor of Complete Colorado
dot com, Mike Krause. Mike, welcome back to the show.
I was expecting you to be in a tuxedo or
something for this interview, because you know, you guys have

(01:23:57):
dulled up the joint so well over there.

Speaker 4 (01:23:59):
I should have lamed up just a little bit.

Speaker 6 (01:24:01):
And by the way, I appreciate that we were always
curious who that person is who goes to the site
every morning.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
Well, now you know it's me. I.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
Yeah, we need to find this person. Have some kind
of award.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
Oh, I would like a prestigious award. Just make it
shape like a leg lamp. Okay, there we go, so
complete Colorado. How long have you guys been around? Let's
start there.

Speaker 6 (01:24:23):
Complete is Oh man, let me think when we first
started it was the second or third iteration of trying
to kind of come up with our own news operation.
But the original aggregator, the Drudge style aggregator that so
many people were so familiar with. It's at least fifteen
years that we've been doing that, and we cockted it
off of Drudge. Back then Drudge was a thing, like

(01:24:45):
a real thing, yeap, and not so much anymore. And
then we added the page too, maybe about nine years ago,
for our own content so we could aggregate. And it's
just kind of a ball that way.

Speaker 4 (01:24:56):
We ended up with.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
Two sites, and I have to tell you a lot
of people that I talked to, even if the ones,
even the ones that use complete Colorado dot Com to
do the news aggregation, because every day and people always
ask me when I use the word aggregator, it is
just a gathering up of the news that seems interesting,
all in one place and with links to the original stories.

Speaker 6 (01:25:15):
That's what it aggregated through a variety of different news sources, right,
human curated is the important part there, and then the
other important part is that you're trying to get stories
from all over the state that individually it would take
you all morning to go find if you went trying
to hunt down that many news sources. So we can
try and get something from the eastern plane, hopefully something

(01:25:37):
from the western slope, southern Colorado, obviously the Denver metro area,
the capital, et cetera, so we can cover as much
of the state as possible. And then the other trick
to this is that this all needs to be pay
well free. Yes, yes, that people don't have to pay
for anything or sign up, and that is an ever shrinking, yeah,
a pool of stories available to us, So you really

(01:25:57):
have to go hunting down stuff that have. Once in
a while, something slips by and you know you might
have to sign up for it, but that's not the intent.

Speaker 4 (01:26:04):
The intent is free aggregated news from all.

Speaker 6 (01:26:07):
Over the state that will get will tell you what
you need to know for the day in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
I had tried for years to avoid paywald stuff on
my blog, but to your point, it is getting harder
and harder and harder. And to be clear, everybody's trying
to make money to survive. So I'm not mad at him,
but voy is it inconvenient?

Speaker 5 (01:26:26):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:26:28):
But if I accidentally so, if I would have asked.
I used to still link to the Denver Post once
in a while because it would open for me right
on my browser, so I would link to it and
then I get an email from somebody saying, why are
you trying to get me to subscribe to the compost?

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Yeah, everything is paywalled at the Denver Post.

Speaker 6 (01:26:45):
Now it'd be so mad at me, Yeah, because they
went to a Paywald Denver Post story and I'd be like,
I get it, I understand. So we really try hard
to find you know, to do an update twice a day,
once on the weekends, and make it, make sure it's.

Speaker 4 (01:26:59):
All it's freely available to right, well, might slip by
because my browser might open something that someone else's browser.
I don't know how the.

Speaker 6 (01:27:08):
Paywalls work necessarily, but because we're free, but once in
a while it's the spy. But the intent is for
you to be able to go click through and read everything,
or watch.

Speaker 4 (01:27:17):
Or listen to like we linked to Mandy Connell show.
You know when you and you're great.

Speaker 6 (01:27:23):
One of the things about your show is you're great
about putting up individual clips of specific interviews with people
about specific topics.

Speaker 4 (01:27:30):
Which is what we love. We love linking to things
like that, and people like listening to it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Well. One of the things that was wrong with the
old model where you had complete Colorado was the aggregator
and then you had page two. Even people who use
the aggregator often didn't know the page two existed. And
page two is where all of your eggheads at the
Independence Institute get to write incredibly nerdy, often very funny,
sarcastic articles when Caldara and Amy Oliver Cook write. But

(01:27:58):
that's where there's a lot of really good policies stuff happening.
So now it's all on one page, so that makes
things a lot nicer.

Speaker 4 (01:28:04):
Yeah, we also have investigative reporting.

Speaker 6 (01:28:06):
And the problem is, and the thing we always face
is that people come to complete but we had to
go send our page two content out.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
To them, right.

Speaker 6 (01:28:14):
It was like a push and a pull. And what
we were waiting for is we were waiting for for years.
We wanted to do this, but we were really waiting
for a moment to come where we felt like, between
Complete Colorado and the indepenitence Tooth's digital media podcasts.

Speaker 4 (01:28:28):
TV show, et cetera, we were.

Speaker 6 (01:28:29):
Generating enough content to justify one site that would change
often enough that people would keep coming back to it, and.

Speaker 4 (01:28:35):
We felt like we were there.

Speaker 6 (01:28:37):
And plus the frankly, our old site, the dredge style aggregator,
was steadily falling.

Speaker 4 (01:28:44):
Apart back end. You're just putting the baster area, man.

Speaker 6 (01:28:50):
I mean it was just you know, every once in
a while, like one time it just disappeared.

Speaker 4 (01:28:54):
Okay, I had to go. I had to go have
the company that hosts it rebuild it from the day before.

Speaker 6 (01:29:01):
Oh god, when they you know, And so yeah, it
was a real having an old you know, having a
website from twenty years ago could be problematic.

Speaker 4 (01:29:09):
Frankly, well today.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
Having a website from five years ago, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:29:13):
It was time and we were real happy to do it.
I'm really happy with the site. Yeah, and we've got
a lot of good feedback. We've gotten people who are like, hey,
you know, I really liked the old look, and I'm like,
it's you know, unfortunately it's it's gone. But you know,
we wanted to give people something that's a little cleaner,
a little more modern looking, and frankly, we hope easier
to navigate and to find everything all in one place,

(01:29:35):
because you were right, we wanted to have We wanted
to have our content front and center, so that's the
you know, we wanted that to be the main gist
of the site.

Speaker 4 (01:29:42):
And then the.

Speaker 6 (01:29:43):
Aggregation, which is what we were really known for, is
still there, it's just underneath.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
I like the fact that now you have Independence Institutes
videos on the front as well. So the Independence Institute
has a bunch of different shows. I mean, you've got
The Devil's Advocate with John, You've got Power Gab where
they just talk about energy and environment. Those are super
super interesting. And I know when I say they have

(01:30:09):
a show where they just talk about energy and the environment.
You're like, well, next time when I can't sleep, I'll
turn it on. But I promise you super super interesting
stuff happens on that show. So it's really nice that
you can go to Complete Colorado and see if those
shows have new episodes and you can just pop right
in there. Who does the F you? Podcast? Right here?

(01:30:31):
Who does?

Speaker 4 (01:30:31):
So?

Speaker 7 (01:30:31):
The F you is Freedom and Affiliated podcast, of course,
of course, and really what that is that is simply
a stream of the audio version of all of our
other stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:30:42):
So Devil's Advocate, Power Gab, you know, Complete Colorado stories
are read, and then it's just an audio stream of
our other content. And then so that's Freedom and Affiliated.
And we're always looking for more content to stream as
audio because people like to listen to it in their
car when they can't watch. You can't watch forty minutes
of Caldera on Devil's Advocate, you can listen to forty minutes,

(01:31:06):
you know, while you're commuting.

Speaker 4 (01:31:07):
To work or whatever you're doing.

Speaker 6 (01:31:10):
And then we have what right now, we have one
more audio podcast. It's Constitutional. It's our constitutional scholar Rob
Natlson talking about the Constitution, which is again like the
Energy podcast super nerdy but super interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Where is that? Because I love Rob Natlson, and I
think when you.

Speaker 4 (01:31:27):
Go and just click on the podcast tab, it's, oh,
there wasn't enough.

Speaker 1 (01:31:31):
You know, what's to happen the podcast tab, Mike, there's
a tab now for podcasts.

Speaker 4 (01:31:37):
There's a tab for podcasts.

Speaker 6 (01:31:38):
Because what's going to happen is as we add more
video and audio content, more podcasts, there's not going to
be room for all of them. So but the two
main ones right now, or the three main things are
Few Power Gab.

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
And Devil's Freedom Unlimited. Of course, is what the f
you stands?

Speaker 4 (01:31:57):
Affiliated?

Speaker 1 (01:31:57):
Freedom on affiliated? Sorry, so let me us this question.
What kind of is?

Speaker 6 (01:32:01):
Because which is because the majority of Colorado voters are
now unaffiliated?

Speaker 4 (01:32:05):
Yeah, and so we're we're right there with them.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
What is? What do local news outlets like I love
it when you link to my stuff, but what do
local news outlets do they ever give you thoughts or
opinions on being linked to on Complete Colorado? Or do
you guys just exist in your own space.

Speaker 4 (01:32:22):
It's a little bit of both.

Speaker 6 (01:32:23):
There's people who send me stuff as saying, hey, have
you seen this to consider linking to if it's if
it meets the criteria. We have people who send us
things that they have generated, and then other people don't.

Speaker 4 (01:32:37):
They I think they kind of kind of they like
getting links.

Speaker 6 (01:32:41):
To because they get traffic from it and they get
an audience to see their stuff. But at the same
time they they kind of try and pretend like we
don't really exist in some ways because we're not part
of the well, we have credentials through the Colorado Broadcasters,
but we're not technically from their perspective, we're not part
of the credential media.

Speaker 4 (01:33:01):
So they might they might like the.

Speaker 6 (01:33:02):
Traffic and the visibility, but they kind of look a
scans at the idea of Complete Colorado simply because it's
tied to the Independence Institute, which has a point of view.

Speaker 4 (01:33:12):
Frankly, I got.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
To tell you John Caldera's column, you guys don't have
it yet. You'll have it like in a couple days,
because I know they published it elsewhere. First, his column
on the racism of the c Buff's football team made
me laugh out loud. I mean, it is. It is.
If you've ever wanted to see sarcasm actually dripping off

(01:33:33):
of your computer screen, I have linked to this column.
It's currently in the Denver Gazette. They'll have it on
Complete in a couple of days. It's just typical John Caldera.
And that's my next question is about what is John
Caldera and the Independence Institute's vision for what Complete is
going to do and what you're hoping to achieve here.

Speaker 6 (01:33:53):
So Complete, So this goes back to many many years ago, right,
we were at the Independicent Student. I've had many many
roles at Independensen Stuit over the years, and I was
always an editor, but among other things.

Speaker 4 (01:34:08):
But you know, we were talking.

Speaker 6 (01:34:09):
About going out and like, you know, begging a newspaper
for a little tiny slice of their editorial space, or
please do a story on our new issue paper, or
please publish our op ed. And one day we said, hey,
why don't we just become our own media? And Complete
Colorado was the was what was born out of that.

Speaker 4 (01:34:28):
And so the.

Speaker 6 (01:34:29):
Vision for Complete is to be a one stop shop,
right people to go to and find all of your
Colorado specific state and local political news and views in
one place. So it'll be journalism, it'll be investigative reporting,
it'll be op eds and commentary, it'll be video podcasts,
audio podcasts.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
And you'll be able to find something for everybody there.

Speaker 6 (01:34:54):
And we're really reaching out to you know, the majority
of Colorado voters now are unaffiliated yep. And they might
lead one way or another, and they might still vote
one way or the other, but they're not tied to
a party, and neither are we. So we want to
be a part of that future, that unaffiliated future in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Well, I think it's a really smart move. I do
like your coverage of the twenty twenty five legislative session.
It has its own tab, so it's one easy way
to sort of just keep up on what they're working
on in the legislative session because I am one of
the areas where I don't feel like most news media
in Denver does a good job is covering the legislative

(01:35:35):
session because it is dense. There's a lot going on
in there. They don't have the manpower to send multiple
people to the capital to sit in multiple committees. So
the fact that you guys are sort of bringing light
and let's be real, most of the things you're bringing
light to are things that definitely are things that people
who are in the center or center right are going

(01:35:56):
to find incredibly interesting or something they want to pay
attention to you.

Speaker 4 (01:36:00):
So who all you find interesting are something they're very
angry about?

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
Yeah, yeah, there you go. You've also got some new writers.
Corey Gaines seems to be writing quite a bit. He
has had a substack for a while now. Sherry Pife,
of course, does a great job for you. Arry Armstrong
makes me yell at my computer on a regular basis.

Speaker 6 (01:36:18):
So you job, yes, exactly, that is. Ari Armstrong's job
is to make you go to shake their fists a
little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:36:25):
Yeah, but everybody gets their opportunity to also agree with something,
he says. You know what I mean, he's one of
those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:36:30):
Oh yeah, I mean there's usually something in every column
I agree with and something that makes me go very seriously,
what are you doing?

Speaker 4 (01:36:36):
So?

Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
What's your traffic like on Complete Colorado dot Com?

Speaker 4 (01:36:41):
Well, we I think so.

Speaker 6 (01:36:42):
Over the years, what has happened is the traffic to
our page two content was steadily growing, right, Well, the
traffic to the aggregator was stagnant. That was not growing, right,
And an interesting thing happened. Then we got tagged. We
got tagged as for some interesting odd reason, we got
tagged by the folks who run Rhino Watch as being

(01:37:03):
a part of the an Shoots.

Speaker 4 (01:37:06):
Rhino media empire.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
Oh wow, that would be cool for you, even.

Speaker 4 (01:37:09):
Though we're not. Well, I mean, I thought it was
cool except that, except.

Speaker 6 (01:37:12):
That, you know, we're not owned by and I think
by the an Shoots Corp. But we got tagged by it,
and I could watch our traffic drop off a little
bit as people stopped watching complete But I would say,
you know, I think if I remember right from last
year about I think we had about six hundred thousand
people to our page two content and about eight hundred

(01:37:36):
thousand to the aggregator.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
That's not too shabby and at least yeah, you.

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
Know, No, here's what I like to say, Mandy Week.

Speaker 6 (01:37:44):
We actually punch above our weight because we're not we're
just a little media operation of a.

Speaker 4 (01:37:50):
Of a you know, of a think tank.

Speaker 6 (01:37:51):
And if you if you know John well, you know
we run on a shoe string for the most part,
and that's you know, that's reflected in his wardrobe and his.

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
Car lifestyle choices.

Speaker 4 (01:38:02):
So we punch a little bit above our way.

Speaker 6 (01:38:03):
But here's the thing is that we put out consistent,
good content and people like that.

Speaker 4 (01:38:06):
And by the way, it's always free and it's always available.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
That's why I love it. Free and available, two things
that I love. Mike Crass, thanks for your time today,
great job on the redo of Complete Colorado dot Com.
And guess what I'll be there tomorrow morning. First thing,
I'll all right, thanks Mike. Okay, guys, now I have
my my, my dearest, my darling husband. Hang on, I gotta,

(01:38:32):
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta wait. I gotta turn
your volume up here, I gotta turn this up. Okay here,
stop wait, hang on, you're you're louder than me. Okay,
you can't be louder than that. Stop at your pull
that back just away just a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:38:46):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
Okay, are you good? All right? Because now it's time
for the most excited political and now it's time for
the most exciting segment on the radio of its guide
the day? All right? That what is our dad joke
of the day, please, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
Dad Joke of the day. I got a good one
for you guys today. I got one second here, Dad
joke of the day.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
What's blue and not very heavy?

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
Blue and not very heavy? Uh? The sky?

Speaker 2 (01:39:22):
That's pretty close. Light blue. Oh god, but I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):
Whoo boo hiss boo boo boo. What's our word of
the day, please, Zach?

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):
I thought that one was especially terrible. Uh sarcotha gus
is the word.

Speaker 2 (01:39:41):
Of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:39:42):
Oh that's where they put mummies inside.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
Of Yeah, pretty much. Sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
Coffagus refers to a coffin, and specifically a stone coffin.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
A stone coffin. There you go. All right, today's trivia question.
I know the answer to this, and I just checked
to make sure to Blasi is the capital of what country?
To bleasy tbi LSI, you want to take a shot
at that, Zach.

Speaker 3 (01:40:06):
I feel like I should know it. I have definitely
heard TOBLEASEI before. Why not they nothing lose Lebanon.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
No, not even remotely. Who's beck to stand closer? How
about Georgia the country, not the state, the country of
Georgia to Bleasey, all right, what's our deputy category? And
Zach promised to pick us an easy one, babe, easy
for both of us.

Speaker 3 (01:40:29):
I think this one's pretty easy, okay, previewed the questions
here the NBA history, it's it's you know, I think
it's some bas you're asking the wrong people. Well, I
think you guys will be able to get this one.
Maybe I chose Portlo.

Speaker 1 (01:40:42):
Okay, let's see.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):
In the nineteen nineties, this Chicago Bull's gone baby.

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
Who is Michael Jordan?

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
That is correct?

Speaker 1 (01:40:51):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:40:53):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:40:54):
In June two thousand and two, this Wakers coach became
the all time leader in playoff victories by winning his
one hundred and fifty sixth game.

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
Today, I've never known a Lakers Mandy. Who is pat Riley?

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
Oh close? Phil Jackson?

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
Oh yeah, we're tied to zero. We're doing great, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:41:12):
In two thousand and one, the Vancouver Grizzlies relocated to
this US city.

Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
Mandy, where's Memphis?

Speaker 2 (01:41:20):
That is correct? Back on the board, we'll backhead.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
In nineteen ninety five, this Houston Rocket center scored a
then record one hundred and thirty one points in a
four game NBA Finals.

Speaker 4 (01:41:33):
Don't answer, she already won.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Mandy to Kemo Matumbo?

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
Oh Noma won?

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
Oh yeah, back to zero?

Speaker 5 (01:41:40):
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:41:41):
It all comes down to this. The star is one.

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
Sorry for the guys, I chose about category. The NBA's
Coach of the Year Trophy is named for this longtime
Celtics coach.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
I have no idea. I'm so sorry, shooting, I have
no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:41:59):
Red I think.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
That's yes, well it so really ha zero to zero.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
You got to find another category, all right, let me
get you a queer.

Speaker 2 (01:42:08):
How about just desserts.

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
That might be can't be any worse than that, So yes,
just dessert sounds good.

Speaker 3 (01:42:14):
In this Bible book that children of Israel were departed from.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
Man, it's a snare, that's right. How about this kitty lit?
Kitty lit?

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
Okay, kitty lit, Okay, there we go.

Speaker 3 (01:42:25):
Eighteen eighty five. Book is subtitled Tom Sawyer's.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
Comrade manby what is Huckleberry Finn?

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
That is correct?

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
Man? Finally I lost that one bit.

Speaker 4 (01:42:38):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
Yeah, I'm sorry. Many.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
Yeah, you're not gonna You're not gonna get us on
one of those sports categories, Zach. It's pretty much never
gonna be a winner for this one good sport. No. No,
I stopped watching the NBA when Shack loss On left
the Orlando Magic, and I was still I'm still mad
about that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
So the Celtics that I like some, well, no, we
went to a we went to a Nuggets game when
we got here.

Speaker 1 (01:43:05):
It just wasn't awesome there. Okay, Tomorrow on the Big Show,
we have a few things planned. Thomas Friar Futurist is
coming up tomorrow, and I'm sure that we're gonna have
more news about Trump's tariffs, whether or not they're going
to end effect or not, and everything else. But right now,
we're gonna hand the station over to the kids at
Kawa Sports. As a matter of fact, they're probably gonna

(01:43:27):
be able to get those NBA questions. I bet if
you ask Ryan Edwards he would be like, yeah, I
know all those questions. I'm sure, I'm positive ask him
after this. Okay, Zach, we'll see tomorrow. Keep it on,
Kowa