02-11-25 FULL SHOW - Let's Check In With Newly Minted Congressman Jeff Crank

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
No, it's Mandy Connell and Dona KOA, n FM, god.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Wady Cantyrey Many, Connell, Keithing, Sad Babe Well for Local
Welcome to a Tuesday edition of the show.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
I'm your host for the next three hours, Mandy Connell.
I am joined by my Looney Tunes friend Anthony Rodriguez.
You can call him a Rod. And today if you
go to KOA Colorado dot com, if you just do
this right now, and I want you to do it
a Rod, because I want to see if the same
story about the Super Bowl reporter's death is on there.

(00:52):
Because this picture I glanced at it, I thought it
was a Rod and then I went to the headline.
I'm like, oh no. Somebody asked on the text line
the other day if you had run into that guy
or whatever, and I'm like, no, I don't think he did. No,
there's so many media there, you guys can't even imagine
how much media is there.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
But I think he was. He might have been there
an opening night.

Speaker 6 (01:14):
I'm not entirely sure, but we definitely probably cross pasted
and realized one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
And the sad, sad story of that is it looks
like he hooked up with this woman who then drugged him,
and that may have killed him so she could rob him.
She has a long history of drugging men and stealing
their credit cards. And that is just And his wife
had died in a car accident like a year before,
so he's a lonely young guy now a single dad.

(01:41):
Now this child has no one. What a terrible sad sort.
Oh gosh, what a downer to start the show on.
But Dan, you looks just like a rod anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:50):
Yeah, I've heard the same on just a really.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Really sad story. All right, let's do the blog because
I got interesting and not as sad stories on the blog.
I mean, some of them are, but most of them aren't.
You go to find the blog by going to mandy'sblog
dot com. That's Mandy's blah, the Mandy's yeah, thank you.
Go to mandy'sblog dot com. That's Mandy's blog dot com.

(02:16):
Look for the headline that says two eleven twenty five
blog Let's check in with newly minted Congressman Jeff Crank.
Click on that, and here are the headlines. You will
find within tech to do a winner, and youven with
Liss in office half of American all the ships and
clipments and say that's going to.

Speaker 5 (02:31):
Press Flint.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
Today on the blog. I bet it's been busy in DC.
Do elections matter this? As Colorado begs for its federal money,
Colorado joins the sue Trump pool. He doesn't care Colorado Senate.
The penny is going the way of the Dodo bird,
then it and hit air on the side of the
illegal immigrant criminals. Yes, school districts should get to decide

(02:54):
on library books. Millions are eligible now for deportation. Recreational
pot will be on a spring ballot in the springs.
Cameras being used to case houses. Yes, Deep Seek is
sending your data to Chinese communists in defense of selfishness.
Is Tom Brady's watch really this big of deal? The
bond market is interesting right now. Yes, airlines can kick

(03:17):
you off the plane for no good reason. Yes, we
need to put drug dealers in jail for much longer.
Share us are fighting Colorado's sanctuary state laws. The ex
diatribe I can get behind things. Frugal people gave up
in twenty twenty four did Philly break mahomes? A new
mom shouldn't have to do this when the pre planned
celebration goes awry. And now part two and Part three,

(03:41):
people in developing nations will think the chiefs one now
what leaving a political party looks like. And Netflix drives
to save Amelia Perez. Whoo, I'm dizzy. Those are the
headlines on the blog at Manday's blog dot com. Lot
of headlines there. I really put my up back into
it at this morning, apparently I when it started at

(04:02):
the bottom, we got to talk about Amelia Perez. I
finally watched the rest of it this weekend. Aaron Aaron
loved this movie and said he thought it should be
best picture. I haven't seen any of the other movies
that I know of, maybe I've seen one other one,
but I will say that this movie was incredibly good.
It is original, It was well executed. I saw it

(04:25):
described by someone and I don't remember who, as almost
being the film version of an opera. Not in the
sense that people sing throughout the movie. They do sing
at random, weird times, so you just got to kind
of go with it lean in. But no. In the
arc of the story, which I'm going to tell you
nothing about because there's so.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
Much going on.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
And I went in completely blind. I had no idea
what this movie was about. I knew that there was
a trans actress who was in it, who played Amelia Perez.
I knew Zoey Saldano was in it. She plays an attorney.
That was all I knew. I went in totally blind,
and I think that's the best way.

Speaker 7 (05:05):
To do it.

Speaker 6 (05:06):
The best compliment I can give this movie is it
is so great that the singing is not great. And
what I mean by that is it feels like it
is normal. People think how you would hear them singing,
the cry, singing the emotion. You're not gonna sound like
a Grammy Award winning singer. You're gonna sound like that.
And it was real and it was emotion and it

(05:28):
was fantastic.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
It is just it's a very I'll give you this
tiny little bit. Zoe Saldano is living a boring life
in a law firm going nowhere when she's approached by
the kingpin of a drug cartel who asks for her
for help to change genders. Now, it's a very quick
part of the story. There's no like transa agenda there's

(05:50):
I mean, honestly, there was no sort of politicking about it.
It was a thing that happened and then the rest
of the movie unfolds after that. That is all you
need to know.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
It is.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
It was outstanding. The performances were outstanding. Uh, the trans
woman who plays the lead was outstanding. Zoe Saldana was outstanding.
It was just really really good. Selena Gomez was outstanding.

Speaker 6 (06:14):
I think I read recently that she finds it hard
to go back to music now that she's kind of
really broken into acting this strongly.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
Yeah, which is I mean, yeah, I think she's got
it was.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
It's a really good film. Now it's also in Spanish,
completely subtitled, and it's hard. It's weird.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
It's mixed a little like, there's some English, not very much.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Not.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
If you're not a subtitle person, you're not gonna be
able to hang in this movie. H That being said,
I think there's a lot of people who would not
like it, who would think it was too weird and
too strange, and uh, I wouldn't want to get all
the way through it. But I think that for me,
I'm a pretty good judge of a weird movie. I
don't like, and I can say if it's a weird
movie that I don't like, I could still say, but

(06:54):
it was an interesting movie that had quality and value.

Speaker 6 (06:58):
And in this context typically you can say I didn't
like it, but you can see how it wins Best Picture.
Very rarely for me to those a line where I
love the one that wins Best Picture coda a couple
of years ago is the only one that ever really has. Yeah,
this is going to be another one. Well, it was
my favorite and I think it'll win.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
This has been very controversial now because the trans star
of the movie, somebody mined her x feed and found
some unflattering comments about Islam and about George Floyd. And
I gotta tell you, guys, I went and looked at
her comments, and I'm not saying I agree with all

(07:34):
of them, but I'm not saying I disagree with all
of them. That's why they were wildly unpopular. And oh dang,
and I forgot to link to the other story. I'll
find it. So she apologized for her comments, which we
were included Islam was becoming a hotbed of infection for

(07:58):
humanity that urgently needs to be cured, you know, depending
on the context there was that right after a big
attack in Spain, perhaps, and also wrote that the religion
is incompatible with Western values as it's practiced in some
Muslim nations. I agree. She described George Floyd as a
drug addicted con artist.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Also not wrong.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
And she said that the Chinese vaccine, in addition to
the mandatory ship, comes with two spring rolls, which I
actually think is kind of funny. So all of these
had She's now been bounced out of the supporting actress category,
which was controversial in and of itself because this is
a trans woman, so you know, originally a dude, she

(08:49):
looks like a woman to me. I think I probably
would have figured it out, but I think she does
look like a woman at this point. The whole situation
is like undeniably ridiculous. But Netflix is trying to save
the movie now, and I have to say I agree
with a Rod it is worthy of a serious consideration

(09:10):
for an Oscar, not even if it's weird, Even if
you don't watch it. I mean, I'm telling you it's
It's a very well done movie and just the originality
of it was impressive.

Speaker 6 (09:19):
Do not let that one song going viral steer you away. Yes,
it's strange, Yes it's weird. Yes, the lyrics is the
song you really come on the song?

Speaker 4 (09:30):
No, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm
not kiddying.

Speaker 6 (09:32):
Zoe's Aldana is in the with all the doctors and
they're doing the song about sex shame.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
That song is taking everyone thinking that this movie's dumb.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
That whole scene, that's like the whole transgender scene right there,
that's it. Yeah, in the movie. Yeah, the rest of
it just doesn't matter.

Speaker 6 (09:48):
But people are watching just that, not watching the movie,
and go, how could this ever be dominated?

Speaker 7 (09:53):
Right?

Speaker 4 (09:53):
I'm telling you I I watched the first third and
I was intrigued enough to go back and watch the rest.
It's very opera in its story arc. It's very operatic
in the development of the characters. The day New Mall
is very operatic. I mean, it's a lot going on
in this movie. Lot going on in this movie. So

(10:14):
I liked it. I gotta tell you, I would give
it a thumbs up with warnings that yes it's subtitled
and yes it's weird, but there you go. If you
like weird, if you're open to weird and subtitles don't
bother you check it out, and I hope it does
well with these words. By the way, you know who
hates this movie apparently Mexicans for some reason. They say

(10:36):
it only reinforces the negative stereotypes of Mexican people. And
I'm like, well, it is about a drug lord like ultimately,
but there's a redemption arc in there as well, so.

Speaker 6 (10:49):
If I may, Yes, the husband of a Hispanic woman, yes,
she definitely thought there were some issues. I won't give
it away, but the last scene, what they're doing on
the street there, yeah, that's they don't just do that
for anybody like that. That's right, that's that was crossing
a line. The uh the broken Spanish is pretty brutal,
apparently according to Hispanic wife, and Selena Gomez got a

(11:14):
really bad rap for her Spanish being really bad. It's
it wasn't as bad as advertised going into it.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
I'll say that. So other than that were there were
some issues. There were some issues from that point of view.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
The movie is Amelia Perez and it was put out
by Netflix and Netflix. Remember when we were talking the
other day and we were just talking about the Oscar campaigns,
and I said, all the studios have entire departments. Netflix's
department that all they do is promote their stuff for awards,
has sixty employees. That's how big a deal this is.

(11:48):
And Netflix has gotten nominated a ton of times, but
they haven't won a ton of times. So they're really
pushing this and now hoping people will overlook the comments
that are a little too republican sounding. I think four
people in Hollywood, and we'll see. We'll see what happens.
But it was very, very good. No, it's not NPR.
I'm telling you. We're not NPR, but we do talk

(12:11):
about things that are interesting, and I'm telling you it
was an interesting movie. Now, let's get back to what
we're gonna talking about today. At two thirty, we've got fresh.
He's so fresh, he still smells like new Congressman Jeff
Crank from the fifth Congressional District coming on the show.
We're just going to talk about his first three weeks
and what a whirlwind. I'm dying to get his sort

(12:32):
of finger on the pulse response to what are you
guys in Congress to doing with all these executive orders?
So we'll talk to him at two thirty now about
executive orders. This is now we're seeing what is short
is what is sort of shaping up to be the

(12:54):
Democratic strategy to deal with Trump two point zero. Because
Trump two point zero has caught the Democratic Party so
flat footed they are almost unrecognizable. And I say this,
I was saying this to Ross before he left, you know,
the Democratic Party for the last I don't know. I
feel like since the Clinton administration has been a very

(13:17):
finally tuned machine in the sense that when leadership decides
what the messaging is, what the attack points are, everybody
stays on message, and everybody circles the wagons and does
what they gotta do. It's been a very very successful strategy,
extremely successful, And though it's been frustrating for me being

(13:38):
on the other side of the aisle, to watch them
have such great success with that, I have to tip
my hat and admiration for the strategy alone, because it's effective.
So to see what has happened to the Democratic Party,
it's almost the same as what's happened to the Republican
Party here in Colorado. I heard a rumor and I've

(14:01):
not been able to confirm this yet, but I will
that the Jefferson County Republican Party actually elected a convicted
felon as the chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party,
and I'm like, wow, did you need another kick in
the balls? What are we doing? What are we doing?

(14:21):
But at the national level, the Democratic Party feels like
it is in that kind of disarray. The leadership is
certain doesn't feel like leadership. Hakeem Jeffries is no Nancy Pelosi,
that's for sure. And they haven't been able to sort
of find those attack points that are going to work.

(14:42):
And in the meantime, they've wandered into these kind of
little policy traps that the Republicans used to wander into,
traps that have been laid out perfectly by Donald Trump.
By defending the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, they have
put themselves at direct odds with a vast majority of

(15:06):
Americans who want these people deported, even if they don't
fully want their neighbors who are law abiding other than
the fact that they broke into the country, they don't
necessarily want to see those people go, but they definitely
want to see the criminals. But the Democrats have jumped
in too soon, and now they're in the position where
you have John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennett supporting a bill

(15:30):
that would allow criminal illegal aliens to hide in schools
or churches to avoid deportation. Now, that's not what the
bill says. It says that those kind of arrests will
not take place in those places. But if I'm here
and I've committed a crime, and I know that I'm
going to be deported, where am I going to go
hang out?

Speaker 5 (15:50):
Do you really think?

Speaker 4 (15:51):
I mean, come on, You're just inviting chaos with this.
So between that and this insane defense of USAID, I mean,
that has just gone off the deep end. I am
consistently seeing more and more people who have been absolutely
read pilled by this USAID spending and the Democrats trying

(16:15):
to claw it back. I have a great column that
I saw. I actually texted it to myself because I
saw it right before the show, right before the show started.
I want to share part of it with you because
it directly has to do with what we're talking about
right now. Does Africa really need USAID? Spoiler alert?

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Hell no.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
This is written by a woman, and I believe her
first name is Magata, but I'm not positive magat Wade
or Wayde not sure. She writes a column called Africa's
Bright Future on Substack, and she starts out by I'm
not gonna read the whole thing, so I'm gonna skip
ahead to this point where she just says foreign aid

(16:58):
is not the solution to poverty. In many cases, it's
actually part of the problem. For years now, we've been
sold the idea that aid from organizations like USAID helps
lift Africa out of poverty. But here's the truth. If
foreign aid worked, Africa would be the richest continent on
Earth by now. Foreign aid is taking money from the

(17:19):
poor people of a rich country and giving it to
the rich people of a poor country. Ron Paul said
that walk through Dakar's street, she continues, and you'll see
exactly where your aid money goes. The city is filled
with foreign residents working for the un various NGOs and embassies.
They live in a parallel economy, one that most Senegalese

(17:41):
can only observe from the outside. These aid workers enjoy
lives of luxury, fine dining at expensive restaurants, driving new SUVs,
occupying the best departments in town, employing multiple household staff,
all courtesy of and paid by taxpayers, money from donor
nations aka foreign aid money, and hosting lavish parties. Oh

(18:05):
and by the way, they receive hardship pay for their
supposed sacrifice of living in what they consider a faraway
place filled with malaria, tropical diseases, and tough climates. This
creates a devastating ripple effect throughout our local economy. These organizations,
flush with seemingly unlimited budgets, inflate the cost of everything

(18:28):
from housing to basic services. A local business owner like
myself has to compete with these inflated prices while running
a real business with real constraints. We can't just throw
money around because we're dealing with actual market forces, not
endless streams of free money. These organizations also poach our
best and brightest talents with salaries that no local business

(18:50):
can match. Instead of building businesses, innovating solutions, or creating
real economic value, our most capable people are diverted into
bureaucratic jobs, papers and writing reports that rarely translate into
meaningful change. And that's just the beginning.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
This is a column.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
I just read it before the shows started. I'll go
back and put it on the blog because it's outstanding,
but it gives you a completely different perspective, and yet
it is the same aid that Democrats are trying to
tell you is absolutely necessary, every bit of it, or
everyone's going to die. Except the truth is starting to

(19:29):
come out. The world is getting smaller, and it's getting
harder and harder for this elite managerial class that has
had their way with the federal government for decades to
continue to do what they do outside the public eye.
Because they stopped trying to hide it a long time ago.
They just expected us not to ask any questions. That's

(19:50):
the problem. When we get back, I want to talk
for a second about some of the legal challenges in
the way the Trump administration is responding. Talk about the
reactions of some of the people who seem to have
forgotten the very long time ago when a president ignored
the Supreme Court at what happened. Talk about that next,

(20:13):
going back to my conversation about the Democrats in complete
disarray right now, But now they seem to be congealing
around the courts right and they are going to find
someone to sue. States are getting together. I believe Colorado
is engaged in like six different suits with different states.

(20:37):
Some of them are our business, meaning that the state
of Colorado has been promised X amount of dollars through
the appropriations process or a giant omnibus bill or whatever.
But that was Congress's job. And now the President is saying, look,
we're going to freeze all spending. But that money has
been committed, it's already been spent. They're already workers doing things,

(21:00):
people that have already done things that need to be paid,
et cetera, et cetera. So Colorado is suing to have
those federal dollars released. And I actually think Colorado has
a pretty good leg to stand on. I think some
of the stuff Donald Trump is trying to do does
not necessarily fall under the executive branch, and when it
comes to spending and money that is that is Congress

(21:22):
all the way. Now, an argument could be made that,
as the overseer of the executive branch and all these
agencies that fall below him, perhaps he could say, we've
decided we're going to save that money and not send
it out, and that's my prerogative. I could just give
it back to the Treasury, right But I don't even
know if he could do that depends on how delineated.

(21:44):
It all was in legislation. I'm guessing not very much,
because the bureaucratic state has been left to its own
devices for so long. But that being said, the Democrats
have nowgon we're just going to sue over everything. And
here's the thing, I don't think that's a winning strategy
because Trump is going to win on some of these
and some of them can be really significant. So it's

(22:07):
just it's a weird situation. I mean this, you guys,
last three weeks have been nuts. Never experienced anything like
this in my lifetime. Now, don't get me wrong, I
don't hate it. I recognize that some of this stuff
is not going to stick. Some of it will. But

(22:27):
the extremely unconventional nature of Trump two point zero I
like in it on Twitter the other day, and I
like this analogy. It's like he'd grabbed the cage that
is everything Washington, DC and picked it up and just
shook the hell out of it. Just shake it up.
You guys don't want to do things the right way, well,

(22:48):
then let's do things my way. What's going to be
really fascinating is to see how quickly Congress claws back
some of the powers that they have abdicated to the
executive branch over the last forty years that are now
all being used correctly by Donald Trump to do whatever

(23:08):
he wants. But see, their guy was president when they
gave those powers away. And by the way, that applies
to both Republican and Democratic congresses. Congress loves to abdicate
its responsibility because then voters cannot hold them responsible when
big decisions are made by the president. It's the most

(23:29):
cowardly sort of legislation, and legislators both parties have embraced
it until now we could see the biggest move to
get back and control executive branch power that we've ever seen,
simply because they don't like the guy who's using it now.

(23:51):
So I just feel like we're I mean, I've always
felt like I guess it's cliche to say that you're
living through history. Of course you are. Some history is excited,
some history is boring. This history feels more consequential in
some ways. I feel it's consequential because after having things

(24:12):
sort of chip away and ship away and ship away
for years, when it comes to liberties, when it comes
to the protection of our students, when it comes to
a parent's rights, all of a sudden, in three weeks,
we have a guy who has come in to pretty
much undo all of it. And it's been fascinating to

(24:34):
see people just stand there with their mouth of gog,
trying to figure out what to do next, when in reality,
I think a lot of the stuff that he's doing.
What you guys, The President of the United States took
a hot minute out of his day to pass an
executive order banning paper straws.

Speaker 8 (24:52):
Now.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
That has got to be the most master lever trolling
that I've ever seen in my life. Because no one
in the entire universe likes a paper straw, Ayron, have
you ever met anyone in your entire life that liked
a paper straw? Hell no, you know why, because they
don't exist. They're imaginary people who like a paper straw. Here,

(25:18):
I'd like to drink my drink through a wet napkin.
Ooh yeah, what excitement of a paper Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (25:26):
No.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
And and the President just just is like a flex
just was like, yeah, we're not doing that anymore. He
got another paper straw a restaurant. He's like, Nope, we're
not having this anymore. Do you know why we actually
repealed prohibition because FDR liked to have a beer with
dinner and bye, gosh, by golly, it was like, that's

(25:46):
not working for me anymore. Bye bye. So I would
not surprise me. It's it's just what we're living through
right now, this sort of great undoing of so much
the alleged progress that progressives have pushed us to that
doesn't feel like progress on the other side. You know,

(26:07):
hindsight is amazing because you're never wrong in hindsight, right,
I mean, you can clearly see the outcome of what's
going on. Hindsight would have led us, I hope, to
different choices about the pandemic, and would lead the city
of Denver to different choices about homelessness. But we don't
get to have hindsight when we're going forward. So I'm

(26:29):
not going to sit here and pretend that I think
that everything Donald Trump is doing is fantastic and perfect,
because history will write the tale of whether it was
fantastic and perfect regardless of what he says. But I
think a lot of what he's doing is fantastic, and
I hope it works. Am I certain no still out
and the jury's out on this whole Steel terraff thing.

(26:51):
I just have come to the conclusion that I don't
think we remotely know the endgame when it comes to
what we're doing with those tariffs. If they want to
play a game of chicken, I'm sure Donald Trump will
be happy to let them go into effect and let
them figure that out. But the possibilities that I'm seeing
right now in terms of actually getting the government under
control in some way, shape or form, it's super interesting

(27:17):
and feels very important, you know what I mean, Mandy. Unfortunately,
for most of history, says this Texter. Once Congress allocates money,
it was up to the president to spend. In the
late seventies, Congress passed a lot to take that power
away from the president. However, it has not been challenged.
A challenge might favor Trump. That is an interesting tidbit

(27:39):
I was not aware of.

Speaker 6 (27:41):
Hm.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
I don't know this person says, I only like plastic
straws that are wrapped in plastic. Yep, yep, yep. No
one in the world likes plastic straws. Mandy, my son
always wants a straw, unless it turns out to be
a paper one. He's doing it wrong, though, because the
coldest part of the drink is at the top where

(28:03):
the ice is. Well, you can You're just gonna have
to take that up with your son. It's not something
I can can argue with you about. There is now
a series of judges. A federal judge has determined that
the Trump administration is violating his order lifting the blanket
spending freeze on federal grant programs. This order is interesting

(28:25):
because the Trump administration, who by the way, is appealing
this order. Uh, they're arguing that this order has to
do with an executive order that he gave that they've
then rescinded. So it's almost like when the other team
decides what they're going to attack on, the Trump administration
is like, yeah, no, we've got something for that. Trump

(28:46):
two point zero really a different administration this time than
the last time, very very much. So, all right, we're
gonna take a very quick time out. Got to talk
about a couple of things. But for I want to
talk about useless gestures that mean absolutely nothing and are

(29:07):
solely designed to make the people that do them feel
good about themselves. I'll explain after this. The Denver Gazette
headlines Colorado Senate condemns January sixth Pardons, and it's exactly
what you might think. The Colorado Senate took time out
of their busy day to propose, write up, and then

(29:30):
discuss on the floor of the Senate a resolution criticizing
President Trump for his role on the attack on the
US Capitol, saying he used rhetoric that ginned up these
rally goers. Now, the reason, the only reason I bring

(29:51):
this to your attention is because this is yet another
sort of yell into the ether moment that I was
talking about before. It's like, what are you even bothering
to do here, Colorado Democrats? Don't you have another way
to charge us taxes without our permission? Or aren't you
busy trying to figure out how to make life more

(30:11):
expensive and more miserable. You're in Colorado, don't you have
plenty of time to do that. No one cares about
this resolution. No one, not a single person in Washington, DC,
is going to, first of all, even find out about
this resolution, and if they do, their entire reaction is
going to be somewhat between May and Yeah. No, no

(30:36):
one cares this kind of stuff, These resolutions supporting things
or condemning things that are outside of the scope of
what their business is are just for show. I hate
it when Republicans do it. I hate it when Democrats
do it. Now, if they wanted to pass a resolution

(30:57):
condemning bad behavior of someone in the Colorado said it, well,
now we could be talking. Now, we might be onto something,
because that's something that matters to the people's Colorado. But
this is just political posturing for their next election cycle
because they think it'll benefit them. By the way, you'll
be shocked. Shocked, I tell you when I tell you

(31:20):
that no Republicans voted for this. And I don't even
know if there's an accompanying statement that no one cares
about in the House of Representatives or if they actually
are too busy doing work to worry about such a nonsense.
As I get older, you know I used to be
when I was in college. Let me back this up

(31:40):
for a second. So I grew up with my dad,
who was to write a Rush Limbaugh conservative, and I
did what a lot of young people do. I went
to college and I rebelled by becoming a dirty foot
hippie liberal, just complete idiot. And I spent a lot
of time in college, probably way too much based on

(32:00):
my transcripts, which I got to tell you, I remember
being better at school than that. But nonetheless, I apparently
spent way too much time on the state steps of
the Capitol, because Tallahassee is where the Florida State Capitol
is and also Florida State University. And I protested all
kinds of stuff, and I went and we sang songs,

(32:21):
and we had signs, and we chanted, and do you
know what kind of impact I had?

Speaker 2 (32:28):
None?

Speaker 4 (32:29):
Absolutely none. What I've learned in the many years since
then is that I would have done far better sending
an email, a written letter, and a phone call to
my elected representative and then rallying other people to do
the same. That is an effective form of having your

(32:49):
voice heard. But with a few exceptions, very few people
are swayed when someone stands there and yells at them.
I mean, when was the last time when yelling in
your face about something changed your mind. It's kind of
like the protests that we've seen here in Colorado and
across the country this week, where a bunch of people

(33:09):
who we're told had to escape their country of origin
in order to come to the United States to make
a good living for their family because the place they
left was such a hellhole that any minute now they
were going to die if they stayed there. But then
they're at immigration rallies waving the Mexican flag. I mean,
you guys, come on, how do they not know? And

(33:36):
yet it just seems to happen over and over again.
And I'm just at the point now where it's like,
ineffective forms of protest are just performative, they're not effective.
And I'm at a point in my life where I'm
I don't have a lot of free time, and the
little free time that I have, I don't want to
do something that doesn't matter. And hey, you know what,
maybe your goal is just to vent your spleen. I've

(33:59):
gone to protest before just because I wanted to yell
at somebody about something, and you know what I did,
and by gosh, by golly, I felt better, and then
I went home, but I made no actual difference. Don't
kid yourself. So when I see stuff like this, it's like, guys,
could you imagine how great the country and the state
would be if we just stopped with the performative nonsense

(34:23):
and just got cracking on the business that really matters.
And that's the business of let's get out of the
way so Colorado can thrive. That's not what's happening under
the gold Dome. Now, they're trying to find new ways
to make living in Colorado more expensive, and then they're
gonna be surprised about it. But then they're gonna tell us, hey,
this price gouging bill where zero people are probably ever
going to be convicted. That's what we're going to pass

(34:44):
and tell you that we're here to save you money.
Imagine if they just went to work on great ideas
to unleash our economy and get out of our way.
A girl can dream, Girl can dream. Coming up in
the next segment, I want to talk about a school

(35:04):
district's rights and responsibilities to make decisions about what kids
can access in school libraries, because the little old school
District of Elizabeth, Colorado is now being attacked by the
ACLU for doing exactly what I think they should have
done in the first place. We'll talk about that next.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
No, it's Mandy Connell, Many Connell.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
Nine FM, God.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
Say the Nicety three Vndyconnell Keithing sad Bab Welcome, Uncle, Welcome.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
To the second hour of the show. I'm your host,
Mandy Connell. That guy over there is Anthony Rodriguez. We
call him a rod. I must repet on to a
Texter who just said, Mandy, could you please remind your
news guy that Colorado State University also plays basketball tonight.
The reason we focus on CU Buffalo's is because we
are the CU Buffalo's station, and it affects our programming.

(36:16):
That's why we always tell you that CU bufs are
playing tonight. No offense to our friends at Colorado State,
but we are not the official CSU RAM station. That's
why a little bit of a disparity to the text
rausd House Chuck gonna feel about somebody romancing you. He
knows he's got nothing to worry about. Come on, come on,

(36:38):
have you met the man?

Speaker 5 (36:39):
Come on?

Speaker 4 (36:40):
Anyway, this is a really interesting text, and I'm gonna
get to the story that I was going to get to.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
I also added a link to the column on Africa
written by an African woman that I read from earlier
in the show. Super interesting, but she's essentially saying enough,
we don't need any foreign aid. You're destroying our economy,
You're preventing us from flourishing. No more foreign aid. Really
really interesting take. She's not talking about humanitarian aid. That's different.
Foreign aid totally different. You should read it, Mandy. Have

(37:09):
you ever played the game Civilization? The basic premise is
that you are a certain civilization like Egypt, Russia, the
United States, et cetera. The goal is to eventually take
over the world. The interesting part of the game is
that obviously you can conquer cities and territory by using
the military, but you can also take over a city
or country by expanding your cultural reach. So in theory,

(37:34):
you could conquer an entire area culturally. I always think
about this and how it might relate to real life.
Is there any place that has been invaded culturally? Have
borders ever changed culturally? It is very very interesting. I
don't know about borders changing, but I do know that
you would You have to be pretty blind to have

(37:55):
seen the impact that the United States of America culturally
has had on a lot of the rest of the world.
Outside of totalitarian dictatorships, where people have freedom, they have
the freedom to want to be like Americans. It's why
American artists are famous all over the world. It's why

(38:16):
American fashion is exported all over the world. When I
was a flight attendant in the early nineties, I had
flight attendant friends who would fly this trip that went
Moscow Saint Petersburg and they would take Levi's genes that
they had thrifted from the thrift store over there because
they could sell them at a profit. I mean, I'm
sure that the Statute of Limitations is up on that now,

(38:38):
so our outsize impact is still being felt. And then
you could argue that the British Empire culturally changed a
lot of nations. Yeah, I mean a lot, and not
all for the bad, right, So yeah, I think the
cultural takeover. I really believe that if the United States

(39:00):
of America had been more isolationist when it came to
other conflagrations after World War Two, that we would still
be an undeniable, maybe the only undeniable world power, because
everyone would still want to be like us. Well, we've
now dipped our toes into too many things that were
not our business. Instead of letting the chips fall where

(39:23):
they may and being a shining beacon on the hill,
we've sullied ourselves and our image around the world. Not
so much that people aren't, you know, walking across the
southern border to get here, but I think that culturally
we were winning. I've joked for a long time that,
you know, we worry about China invading us, but we've
pretty much crippled China with KFC by making their people

(39:45):
fat and unhealthy. You know, we're even now. I mean, jeez,
Louise just keep sending them junk food. I don't get them.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Now.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
I want to get to this story about Elizabeth School
District because this is really interesting and unsurprising that the
ACO you would choose to attack the Elizabeth School District.
The issue here is that the ACLU is challenging the
Elizabeth School Board's process for reviewing library materials. After a

(40:21):
review process that was proposed by the board, approved in
a public setting by the board, and then those rules
and guidelines were followed through a process that took public input.
They did everything they said they were going to do
the way they said they were going to do it,
and now the ACOU says that they don't have the
right to do that. And this kind of stuff really

(40:45):
drives me crazy for two reasons. Number one of course,
school districts have the right to keep potentially offensive material
out of their libraries. Of course they do. What is
a school district in a heavily Muslim area started flooding
the library with books pro Judaism, pro Israel, pro you know, Zionism,

(41:11):
And they're perfectly fine books if you believe that, that's okay,
but they're obviously very inflammatory. A school district has the
right to determine what books kids have access to. Unfortunately,
more than one book that has to do with gender
identity or homosexuality has been deemed too graphic. And before

(41:32):
you say, come on, Mandy, have you seen these books,
because if you have it, you need to seek them out,
it is cartoon pornography, graphic cartoon pornography, and that's not
okay for kids. It's not You would not hand a
fourth grader a penthouse forum, would you, And you're not
going to hand them these books. But the ACOU is

(41:53):
somehow arguing that it is necessary for elementary school age
children to be exposed to pornography because it deals with homosexuality,
as if somehow that absolves a school district of any
responsibility to making sure that kids are not exposed to
stuff before their time. Their maturity level makes sense for

(42:15):
them to be exposed to stuff, and every kid is different.

Speaker 6 (42:18):
I get it.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
Some parents are very open and scientific with their children
from a very young age. I've had friends who always
use the correct names for everything, and when their kids
asked and where babies came from, they gave them an
age appropriate but very you know, clear, no euphemisms were
used kind of thing. But then I know other families

(42:42):
who are not that comfortable and want to wait till
their kid is a little bit older to have those conversations.
I sure hope in today's day and age, that we're
not just waiting until a certain age to have the talk.
I mean, it's an ongoing conversation. But that being said,
why are they attacking Elizabeth? According to the superintendent, this

(43:05):
is a column he wrote in the Denver Gazette. After
extensive consideration, including soliciting and reviewing community feedback, the school
board determined these few titles eighteen less than point zero
five percent of the district's library collections eighteen books. The
board determined these few titles lacked educational value or were

(43:29):
not age appropriate because they included graphic sexual content. Detailed
descriptions of suicide, depictions of school shootings, or other content
not suitable for a school setting, and the ACLU decided
to sue. The aco u's law or a lawsuit is

(43:52):
trying to undermine the school board and the district's authority
by arguing that students somehow have a First Amendment right
to access this inappropriate material, preventing local school boards elected
by their citizens from deciding how to use their library collections.
No one is telling a twelve year old that they
can't go to the library and check out any of

(44:14):
these books.

Speaker 6 (44:16):
You can go to the.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
Library, the public library. You can order them from Amazon.
Your parents can order them for you if you're if
they're that necessary. No one is saying ban the books,
burn the books, make sure these authors never write again.
This should never be seen anywhere on the planet. All
they're saying is, you know what, maybe little children shouldn't
see graphic depictions of oral sex, no matter the gender,

(44:38):
who's performing it and who's receiving it. Maybe that's inappropriate.
So it's just sad that Elizabeth is dealing with this.
And I thought about asking you, guys, what books were
you told not to read that you, of course went
read when you were younger. For us, it was Judy

(45:03):
Blooms Forever, gen X, Where are you at right now?
Everybody went to the library to check that book out,
but we never checked it out because our parents would
let us so we would just sit in the back
and all you had to do had been so well worn.
You just open it to the juicy part. But it
wasn't in our school library. And you know how many

(45:23):
of our parents complained. Let me think none. None. Your
school library has I think a responsibility to offer a
broad selection of reading material at age appropriate ranges, but
it doesn't need to be sex education. I don't think
we had a single sex sided book in our entire
library when I was in school. I just don't now

(45:45):
the public library did. You could go there and check
it out. But I don't know why people are so
hell bent on making sure that children have access to pornography.
When you say it like that, it's gross, right when
you say, of course, Mandy, they're not trying to help
them have act says to pornography, except it is.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
Mandy.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
The acou is okay with keeping a Bible out of school,
yet pornography is okay as nine. Can you even get
a copy of the Bible in a school library. I
mean I would think you could. You could probably get
a copy of the Quran, maybe a copy.

Speaker 9 (46:23):
Of a Torah.

Speaker 4 (46:26):
I doubt it though. That's one of those things where
the librarians are like, it's just too controversial, let's put
this gender porn book up here instead.

Speaker 5 (46:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (46:34):
I shouldn't disparage school library. It's some of my favorite
people are school librarians. When I was a kid, I
always loved the school librarian. I always knew my librarians.
The library was like my refuge. I was having a
stressful day. I would just go into the library and
sit for a little bit in the quiet. Mandy gen
X here was never told not to read any books.

(46:55):
Our library had all of Judy Bloom's books, never had
any issues. I grew up in the Bible Belt, and
you know what, we just we did it our way.
We don't need to be told by adults that we
could do something. We just did it Jaws in the
sixth grade. No way were you told you couldn't read
the anarchist cookbook that was big back in the seventies.

(47:16):
The anarchist cookbook Mandy had a number of years ago,
I stopped dating a woman that thought my eleven year
old needed to be exposed to that illustrated porn.

Speaker 5 (47:26):
Good move, Good move.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yep, Judy Bloom felt like such a rebel. The ACOU
has become an ideological arm of the progressives that from
Andy and Denver. Yeah, they really have. And that's just
kind of sad because the American Civil Liberties Union, their
mission is so noble, but they have gone so far
away from their mission that it's just kind of sad. Mandy,

(47:56):
please feel free to remind the texture from CSU is
quite proud of their team's success in the Mountain West
that see you beat them by seventeen. The rams are
welcome to try and replicate their success in the Big ten.
Now is that nice? Is that nice? I don't think
that is nice. Buffalo fan, say you're sorry, Mandy. Exporting

(48:19):
US culture we call it cultural imperialism. But see the
difference between actual imperialism and cultural imperialism is that cultural
imperialism is voluntarily adopted by a population.

Speaker 7 (48:33):
Right.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
I've mentioned before that we went to Switzerland, y'all. It
was hilarious to me that you will find high fashion
shops on the streets of major cities in Switzerland that
sell Carhart products. Carhart, you know the stuff, are people
where to go work outside? It's like a fashion brand
in Switzerland. That is cultural imperialism. But the Swiss decided

(48:55):
who what they were going to be imperialized by, and
who knew it was going to be Carhart, And yet
it is. And by the way, I love Carhart. Please
don't take anything I just said as anything other than
admiration that Carhart gulled themselves up in another country, whereas
you can buy them at Walmart here in the States.
That's a rags to richest story if I've ever heard one.

(49:19):
So cultural imperialism is a voluntary exchange. By the way,
I have a story on the blog today about how
Deep Seek the Chinese chat Ai that is supposed to
be so amazing. They have discovered in the code that
all of the information on your phone can be sent
to the Chinese Communist if you download that app. So

(49:41):
if you're just like throw caution to the wind y'all,
get what you got on me? Look about poor in history,
I don't care, go ahead and download that Playboy in
the seventies, nothing from the school was ever pornography that
we had to worry about. Playboy, isn't it? And this
isn't funny haha. But Playboy, by today's standards of what's
available on your phone, is almost cute, right. It's almost like, ah,

(50:06):
look at that she likes long walks on the beach, sunsets,
and champagne, compared to now where you have women on
cameras seeing how many men they can sleep within an hour.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
H gool.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
Mandy. Of the books we were told to read, but
apparently no one did common sense. You know what book
we were told not to read? In my honors English
literature class in high school, we were told not to
read The Handmaid's Tale in Chaucer's Oh God, what is
that Chaucer's Oh no, my late English teacher's yelling at

(50:46):
me from heaven right now because I can't remember the
Handmaid's Tale was one of the Butcher's Tale?

Speaker 5 (50:51):
What was the whole thing?

Speaker 4 (50:53):
Wait a minute, hang on, we got to stop the
show cause I gotta remember this, even though I haven't.
You Canterbury Tales. Oh phew. They literally told us we
were not allowed to read The Handmaid's Tale. No, not
the Handmaid's Tale. There's another one. Handmaid's Tale is the
story about Margaret Atwood. My brain's just a jostle right now.

(51:17):
Mandy got in trouble in the sixth grade in nineteen
ninety two for doing a book report on John Grisham's
book The Firm. Apparently, a novel about a Memphis mob
law firm, was not appropriate reading for a sixth grader.
I had seventy two hours to do a book report
on an age appropriate book. They asked where I got
the book. My mom bought it for me at Walmart.
I too often did book reports on advanced books. My

(51:40):
daughter is still super salty about something that happened to
her in high school last year. Because she went to
a charter school. They challenged the students in middle school
and they had them read Night by Elie Wiesel about
his experiences during World War Two in concentration camps. It's
a tough book, but it's a book everybody should read.
She read it in ninth grade and me eighth grade,

(52:01):
and then she got to ninth grade in high school,
and her English teater was taken aback that a school
would have the students read something so advanced, and I thought, well,
if that isn't the problem with public schools, is it?
You think that's too advanced, you don't even challenge students.
And I'll tell you, reading that book is the reason
that when we went to Washington, d C. We all

(52:23):
picked a museum that we wanted to go see, and
of course I picked the Spy Museum, right because that's
like the fun Museum. And my daughter, who's thirteen, is like,
I want to go to the Holocaust Museum because of
that book, The Canterbury Tales. Yes, people are now saying
that The Canterbury Tales Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews. Yes, yes,

(52:46):
one hundred percent. I'm sixty three. All the nudity we
needed was in National Geographic. Yeah yeah, Mandy. My buddy
and I got in trouble in the third grade for
looking at the topless Tribal Women and Nowtional Geographic magazine. Mandy,
the closest thing we had to a sex book in
the school library was The Canterbury Tales. My teacher clearly

(53:08):
told us what tales not to read, So Texter, I'm
assuming you read them all, as did everyone in my
honors class back then. Yeah, Mandy, Preblo just built several
brand new schools and did not put a library in
any of them. What that can't be right. That can't

(53:29):
be right anyway. Hustler really bad. Yet, No, no, you
don't read Hustler. I mean really, there's not even the
At least Playboy gave you the appearance of respectability by
putting the articles in. Oh, I only read it for
the articles. Yet no you don't. That's that's just such

(53:51):
a lie.

Speaker 5 (53:53):
Mandy.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
It wasn't a book. But I wasn't allowed to watch
Married with Children on Fox. Got my butt beat when
I got caught. I still feel like I'm doing wrong
when I see reruns. Wow, your your family was hardcore.
That's that's not gonna work anyway, Nandy. How about the
Lathe of God? The Miller's Tale? Thank you Texter, you

(54:15):
are correct. The Miller's Tale is fifty shades of gray
in the out of the library or in just saying
if you're talking about middle school or elementary school, I
would say out it was given up to me. I
would say out. I mean, you, guys, fifty shades of
gray is just poorn for suburban housewives. You can call

(54:37):
it literature or whatever. And don't get me wrong, I'm
not judging. I'm just saying call it what it is,
be honest about it, because that's what it was. That
is no business high school. Eh, you know, you can
make an argument what I prefer that it wasn't, Yes,
because I think here's the horrible truth about that is

(54:59):
that kids today now probably see way worse on their
phone on a regular basis than anything they're going to
read in a book in the library. It's incredibly, incredibly
sad but true.

Speaker 7 (55:12):
Mandy.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
My teacher told us not to read the Miller's Tale,
then went in to tell us the other tales not
to read. She was smart, really really smart. My junior
English class was denied One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
That is not one of my favorite books. The movie,
in my opinion, way better than the book there. But yeah,
that was pretty That was pretty bold to try and

(55:34):
do that in a high school class, Mandy. I went
to the Holocaust Museum. Very interesting, although I have grown
up learning and knowing about the Holocaust, so I'll never
go back there because super depressing and all it said
was never forgetten by golly, this world has forgotten already
and they're trying to make people not even know about it. Correct,
very very sad and very very true. Mandy, my kid's

(55:58):
new high school does not have a library. What hmm hmmm,
which high school, Texter. I won't stay it on the air,
but I'm curious. Text me back with which high school
doesn't have a library? Because that, I mean, that's just sad. Oh,
Mark Fogel in a Russian prison for several years.

Speaker 5 (56:22):
Now, what did he do?

Speaker 7 (56:23):
Well?

Speaker 4 (56:23):
He was a dumbass, and I'm just gonna say it.
I mean, you're not supposed to blame the victim, but
he entered Moscow in twenty twenty one with roughly zero
point six ounces of cannabis. Now a family doctor or
family lawyer said it was prescribed by a doctor in
the United States to treat chronic pain, but it is

(56:46):
not allowed in many other countries around the world. And
I just you know, I'm sorry if what works for
you isn't allowed in other countries. But either don't take
it and suffer, or don't go. My friend Dahlia was
telling me a story the other day of a guy

(57:08):
who flew into the United Arab Emirates UAE, and he
didn't bring any with him at all. But when he
was in the UAE, he had an appendicitis attack I believe,
something that precipitated immediate surgery. They tested his urine when
he was having surgery and arrested him for having THHC

(57:28):
in his system. What we do here in the United
States when it comes to the legalization and lucy goosey
nature of some of our drug laws not the same
in other countries, not even remotely. He was sentenced by
the way to fourteen years in prison. In June of
twenty twenty two. Trump met his family at the rally

(57:50):
in Pennsylvania before he was shot, and he promised this
man's mother that he would get him out. And today
he has gotten him out. Mister Fogel is on an
air plane right now as we speak, flying back to
the United States of America. But the State Department seems
to be confirming that this is just the first step

(58:13):
in negotiating a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Let me see here, Let me find out the first
name of this person before I give them the wrong name,
And I don't know who that is. Someone named Waltz
with the UH with the State Department had this comment

(58:37):
to make someone confirmed on x that the US and
Russian negotiated in exchange. Blah blah blah. His full statement
is Today President Donald J. Trump and a Special envoy,
Steve Witkoff, are able to announce that mister Witcoff is
leaving Russian airspace with Mark Foegel, an American who was
detained by Russia. President Trump, Steve Witcoff, and the President's
advisors negotiating in exchange. That serves as the show of

(59:00):
good faith from the Russians and a sign we are
moving in the right direction to end the brutal and
terrible war in Ukraine. Since President Trump's swearing in, he
has successfully secured the release of Americans detained around the world,
and President Trump will continue until all Americans being held
are return to the United States. By tonight, Mark Fogel
will be on American soil and reunited with his family

(59:22):
and loved ones thanks to President Trump's leadership. His mother,
by the way, is about to be ninety six years
old and she will see her son again. But again,
this is the kind of story where it's like, really,
you shouldn't need the American government to rescue you when
you do something so profoundly stupid. And this is profoundly stupid,

(59:49):
like mind numbingly, mind blowingly dumb. But he's finally been released.
Good for him. Yeah, ninety foreign countries don't operate under
u US laws, but here we should, Mandy. So Biden
was able to get that dude grinder out for the
same thing, but not this guy out. Dude grinder, Oh,

(01:00:11):
you're talking about Britney grime. She's not a dude, she
just plays one in her relationships. Hey, Mandy, here's one
for censorship. Growing up Catholic school, the nuns did take
advantage of the free Gideon Bibles. They would then black
out anything that we were not supposed to read in
the Catholic Church. Of course, being the good little Catholic
kids we were, we would hold those up to the
sunlight or other lights and try to read what they

(01:00:33):
didn't want us to know. Yeah, there you go, there
you go, and a lot of you are weighing in
several high schools and schools around, not just in Colorado
but the country are they don't have libraries anymore. And
someone said, Mandy, they don't put libraries in New Squaye

(01:00:54):
to hang on a second. It was essentially, I can't
find it now, the text has already gone, But it
was something as essentially that said, look, you can download
a library app, and all of this is true. By
the way, you can download a library app and you
can access every book right there in the palm of
your hand. There's a thing that I've always referred to
as incidental discovery. And there might be an actual word

(01:01:15):
for it, but I like the phrase incidental discovery because
sometimes when you're going to look for a book, like
you know an author that you're going to get, or
you know a subject that you're trying to find out about,
and you go to that section of a library, standing
there in the library looking at all of the various books.
There have been so many times in my life where
I stumbled upon something. I stumbled upon a gem that

(01:01:38):
it would have never stumbled upon if I wasn't standing
there at the shelves looking at this huge number of books.
It's the same thing. When I was a kid, we
had the Encyclopedia Britannica. You know, kids today don't even
understand that someone used to walk through the neighborhood and
sell us books that weighed like a billion pounds and

(01:01:59):
your parents had to pay over time. But then after that,
from that point on, from when she got a to
Z and the almanac, right, your parents, you'd ask him
a questions like, go look at the encyclopedia, Go look
it up, go look at look it up in the encyclopedia,
and you pull out the right alphabet number and you'd
open it up and you'd start looking, and inevitably you

(01:02:19):
would learn something else from looking up something in the encyclopedia.
Same with the dictionary. Whenever we would ask my mom
what a word meant, she said, go look it up.
So you're looking up the word conundrum, right, and you're
like looking up conundrum, and all of a sudden, there's
all these other coo words that you've never seen before,
and you have all this incidental discovery, all of this
incidental learning that happens just because you're placing yourself in

(01:02:44):
the right place to be able to see all of
these other undiscovered things. Yes, my daughter does have a
library in her school, one hundred percent. So yeah, Mandy.
I was briefly detained in the Dubai Airport jail for
being drunk after playing in a rugby game. Many inmates
were European kids who accidentally had a pot seed from Thailand. Yeah, dude,

(01:03:09):
check the bag. Check the bag. What's remarkable is that
we expect them to have leniency. That's crazy, Mandy. So
we had to learn the Dewey decimal system for nothing. No,
your life was enriched by knowing the Dewey decimal system.
I'm not going to pretend that I still remember what

(01:03:30):
each category is, but I know how to find stuff
once I know the categories. Collateral knowledge.

Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
Oh, I like that as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
I like that.

Speaker 7 (01:03:39):
I like that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
I like incidental discovery because it can mean a lot
of different things. It's like when you go to the
store shopping for something specific. Right, you want to go
in and you want to buy a white blouse, So
you go and look for a white blouse. Well, you
might in the process discover other things that you like.
I mean, that's the whole strategy, right, incidental learning, incidental shopping.

(01:04:04):
But the fact that kids don't even have that opportunity.
And you know, when I was a kid, my mom
was an English teacher when we were really little, so
reading in the library that was a huge part of
our life. But as I got older, I realized that
there were a lot of kids who had never been
to a library except for the one in the school.
Their parents never took them to the library. They just

(01:04:25):
didn't read. They didn't have that opportunity, that access. So
it makes me kind of sad that we've now taken
that away from kids who otherwise probably would never go
into a library. Every time we walk by a library,
I just look at it and go, look at that
big box of knowledge. Look at it. It's amazing. And
I realized I can look stuff up on my phone.
But let me ask you this, how often do you

(01:04:48):
remember the words of the day that we do here
on this show at the end of every day as
part of of the day. How often do you commit
them to memory and learn them and start using them
in your daily lives. Now, some of them are ridiculous,
and I get it. I don't remember any of them.
You know why, because if I don't write down the definition,
it just bounces off And no. Texter Hamas does not

(01:05:10):
love the Dewey decimal system. Peter Good, Gravy, Mandy look
it up in the dictionary. It took me two weeks
to find the correct spelling for xerox. It's a little
challenging kind of going to know where to start. Anyway, Mandy,
the Saudi Arabia visa forums were in black and white
except one line in red. Drug traffickers will be executed.

(01:05:34):
That from Illinois farm boy, and I wonder how many
dumbasses still brought drugs to Saudi Arabia. Tom Brady's watch,
we are anyone. We are a nation of greed and envy,
and that is not good. They're two of the deadly
sins for a reason. So Tom Brady wore a watch
that I guess is insanely rare, a seven hundred and
forty thousand dollars watch for his time as a Super

(01:05:57):
Bowl commentator, and Pete, people are losing their minds over this.
Let me give you a little perspective.

Speaker 5 (01:06:03):
I looked it up.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Tom Brady's worth about three hundred million dollars, right, And
if Tom Brady spent seven hundred and forty thousand dollars
of his three hundred million dollars, do you know what
a percentage of his entire fortune that is? That' zero
point two four percent. Now, to use it as an example,
if you had one hundred thousand dollars and that was

(01:06:27):
your worth, and you bought a two hundred and forty
dollars watch. It doesn't seem like that big a deal.
But man, people were upset about this. Some men love
gaudy watches, and I'm just gonna say it, this watch
I don't. I don't like watches like this. I this
watch screams new money to me. It's screams will look

(01:06:49):
at me, look at me, I'm rich. Now that being
said as some women love to have handbags that cost
seventy five thousand dollars, which even as I say that,
it is absurd to me that somebody would buy a
purse I don't care how big or how leathery it
is for seventy five thousand dollars. But for some men

(01:07:09):
these watches are are their status symbol, and for Tom
Brady obviously he's one of those guys. But people got
super upset about it. You know what I love when
people see rich people spending money as rich people do,
and then you inevitably get somebody on X that's like,
do you know how many poor people that watch can feed?
Do you know how many children could be lifted out

(01:07:32):
of poverty with that kind of money. As if Tom
Brady is gonna go, you know what, I don't need
to watch. I'm just gonna give everything to charity instead.
And don't get me wrong, maybe he donates a crap
ton of money to charity. I have no idea. Maybe
he's gonna keep every penny of it until he dies.
It's his prerogative. The dude beat the crap out of
his own body for decades for that money. If he

(01:07:54):
wants to spend it on gold chains and hookers, more
power to him. What I find irritating is that people
are mad about it. Nothing in the world, nothing in
the world is stopping you from buying a seven hundred
and forty thousand dollars watch, except maybe you don't have
seven hundred and forty thousand dollars. But in the United

(01:08:16):
States of America, if you work your ass off, you
come up with a great idea, you solve a problem,
and you put it to market, you too, can be
a gazillionaire with a little bit of luck too. We're
not all going to be Tom Brady all. We're not
all gonna be worth three hundred million dollars. Some of
us are gonna be worth three hundred thousand dollars, some
of us are gonna be worth thirty thousand dollars, and

(01:08:38):
some of us aren't gonna be written aren't gonna be
worth what the check is written on. We're all different,
we all make choices every single moment of every single day.
And Tom Brady chose to be the absolute best player
in the world and sacrificed relentlessly to stay there, and
now he's spending his money. I say, more power to you,

(01:09:00):
jealous much. I have a friend who does extremely well,
extremely well. Talking to him yesterday, set out things are going, said,
I just got a new car. I'm like, go, what'd
you get? A Rolls Royce? And you know what I
said to him, and I met it with every fiber
of my heart. I am so happy for you for that.

(01:09:22):
I'm so happy because I know how hard you've worked,
and I know that you've just sacrificed an incredible amount
to have this level of success, and I know how
excited you are, and I'm so thrilled for you that
you're able to do that. Congratulations. Wouldn't it be nice
if that was our response to Tom Brady's watch, or
to the next door neighbor who just bought a new car,

(01:09:45):
or to your buddy who just bought golf clubs or whatever,
or you're insane friend who spent seventy five thousand dollars
on a purse. If we were all just gracious and
happy for other people's life would be so much nicer,
so much nicer. So we shall see, Mandy, I think

(01:10:06):
we need to talk about how the man looked like
a skeleton during the broadcast. Yikes. I gotta tell you.
I normally would not comment. I try not to comment
on people's personal appearances, but I have to agree with you.
He does not look good. He's too skinny, his cheeks
are soaken in. He's always been one of those guys
who has always maintained a super restrictive diet, and I

(01:10:29):
think that you can easily go from a super restrictive
diet to having food issues, especially if you're someone who's
always in control. And he kind of looks a little sickly.
I agree with you on that, Like you just wanted
to go, Tom, would you like a sandwich with your watch,
cup of soup popsicle to wash it down? Just you know,

(01:10:53):
I actually don't think he would eat any of those
things I just said. Anyway, we're going to take a
very quick time out when we get back. I got
a bunch of stories on the blog. You know what,
I think I'm gonna give a two minute drill. Yes, yes,
indeedy a two minute drill is coming up right after this.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
No, it's Mandy Connell, Mandy ton on klamnem God.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Say can the nicety three Mandy Donald keeping you sad babe?

Speaker 5 (01:11:37):
The two minute drill at two? Hey, we go to
two minute warnings, rapid.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Fire stories of the day that we don't have more
time for play tip, let's call this so it'll take
longer than two minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
Are up.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Here's Mandy Condall.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
All right, you guys, there's been a video making the
rounds of a woman wearing a mask with two sleeping
children next to her being asked to leave an aircraft,
and so many of you sent this to me that
I decided to go ahead and just address it. Yes,
my friends, an airline can remove you from an airplane
at any time. Back in the day when you had
a printed ticket. Your ticket contract was on the back

(01:12:13):
and it actually said if the airline needs your seats,
they can take you off the plane. What happened here
is they had a crew that had to fly because
they were being sent to take an airplane somewhere else,
and unfortunately they chose this mom and these two little
kids as the people to remove. Now, airlines will try
to get people to volunteer off the airplane, but I
have been the flight attendant trying to get people to

(01:12:35):
volunteer off the airplane and there are no takers. Usually
they'll keep up in the offer, meaning financially, until someone
gets off the plane, but in this case no one did.
So before you get mad at the airline, this can
happen to you on any airline at any time. It's
just the way it works. And sorry about this mom's luck.

(01:12:56):
I think it's appalling they chose the mom with two
little kids, but it's not that crazy in the grand
scheme of things. It too with a lawsuit under way,
the Teller County Sheriff's Office is already working with Immigration
Customs Enforcement. Not only do they help hold criminals for
ICE after they have been charged with something some of

(01:13:18):
his u from some of his employees are also contract
employees with ICE. Now, the ACLU sued him. The case
went all the way to the Supreme Court the state
Court of Appeals, which narrowly ruled that local law enforcement
cannot hold people for longer than their sentences at ICE's request,
But the court also stipulated that the county can continue

(01:13:41):
to work at the federal government's request in the so
called two eighty seven G program. Why do I bring
this to you if you don't live in Teller County
Because Colorado's sanctuary state laws are under attack and it's
going to be things just like this one sheriff standing
up and saying we're going to do this anyway to
finally roll back, hopefully the policies that have been an

(01:14:03):
absolute magnet for criminal aliens to come to Denver and Colorado.

Speaker 5 (01:14:10):
Too.

Speaker 4 (01:14:11):
I do not understand the Colorado legislature and their you know, uh,
their tendency to favor the criminals over everyone else. In
a four to three vote, a bill that proposed harsher
criminal penalties related to fentanyl was postponed indefinitely Monday night.
Senate Bill forty four was introduced on January eighth, and

(01:14:34):
The bill aimed to increase the penalties for people accused
of manufacturing, selling, or distributing, or possession with intent to
do so anything that contained fentanyl, car fentanyl, and benzimazidal opiate.
If passed, people accused would face a level one drug
felony that requires an eight year minimum prison sentence. You guys,

(01:14:58):
I'm all for it. We're not gonna to be able
to continue to arrest addicts. We have to make the
penalties significant enough that drug dealers maybe decide to move
to another state where the penalties aren't as bad as
they are in Colorado. That's gonna be the only thing
that we're gonna be able to do to chip away
at the drug that is killing young people indiscriminately, and
it's absolutely terrible. We've got to do something, but the

(01:15:21):
Democrats for some reason block this. I truly don't get it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:24):
I really don't get it too.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
Have you ever wondered what happens to the merchandise that
the Super Bowl when the team loses, Because you've noticed
at the immediate end of the game, they're handing out
the hats super Bowl champions in this case, Philadelphia Eagles
super Bowl Champions. But what about all those hats and
T shirts that they printed that say super Bowl Champions

(01:15:48):
Kansas City Chiefs. Well, rest easy. If you ever go
to Ukraine, Mongolia, this country of Georgia, Estonia, or Latvia,
you may be seeing those Kansas City Chiefs super Bowl
Champion shirts because through a charity, about fifteen hundred pieces
of apparel and five hundred pieces of headwear are sent annually. Now,

(01:16:11):
going back to that comment or the column that I
read in the first hour about foreign aid, this organization
says they work to not disrupt the local economy, making
sure the T shirts go to people who desperately need them,
but without creating more problems just because they donated these
T shirts. Now here's my question. My question is this,

(01:16:34):
do you think the people in these countries will now
think that the Chiefs won? I won't they be surprised
when they come visit. I mean, I would think.

Speaker 6 (01:16:47):
It too.

Speaker 4 (01:16:48):
You want to know something, I'm a little too excited
about the continued release of classified records when it comes
to the JFK assassination, the RFK assassination, the attempts on
Donald Trump's life, all of those things that the government
has been quote protecting us from for so many years. Well,
now the FBI has discovered about twenty four hundred new

(01:17:10):
records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Now,
before you assume this is because the FBI was just
fitting on these records, that's not it at all. In
twenty twenty, the FBI began collecting closed cased paper files
from FBI field offices all over the country. They were

(01:17:31):
digitizing the records and putting them in the Central Records
Complex in Virginia. Now, using technology and automation, they can
cone through and find records. As a result, much much
faster in the record keeping processes. So that explains twenty
four hundred new pieces of information about the JFK assassination

(01:17:54):
still waiting for area fifty one. That's really the one
that I wanted to hundred percent. And if you missed
it because you haven't listened to it yet, it's time
finally to go find out if a Rod and Zach
think that maybe, just maybe the Eagles broke my homes

(01:18:16):
He certainly seemed to be broken at the Super Bowl.
Is he broken long term or just temporarily broken? They
break it down in the new A Disney podcast that's
on the blog today as well. Check it out. I
got a lot of good videos on the blog today,
and you can bring that musical because I'm done. Oh
not totally done, because I want to read something, but
I'm done with that done ish you can just leave
that off. I saw a post on X today that

(01:18:41):
spoke to my soul, and I don't normally feel that
way about a post on X, but I just want
to share this with you. This was done by guy
Robert Sterling. I don't know the man personally. I don't
even know why I follow him. I don't even know
if I follow him. Now that I'm saying, oh yeah,
I'm following him. He wrote this to say, and I

(01:19:01):
just want you to know this is how I feel,
with every fiber of my being. I don't want to
connect my coffee machine to the Wi Fi network. I
don't want to share the file with one drive. I
don't want to download an app to check my car's
fluid levels. I don't want to scan a QR code
to view a restaurant menu. I don't want to let

(01:19:22):
Google know my location before showing me the search results.
I don't want to include a team's link on the
calendar invite. I don't want to play fifty different monthly
subscription fees for all my software. I don't want to
upgrade to Turbotext Platinum plus audit protection. I don't want
to install my WebEx plug in to join the meeting.
I don't want to share my cars breaking data with

(01:19:42):
the actuaries at State Farm. I don't want to text
with your AI chatbot. I don't want to download the
Instagram app to look at your pictures. I don't want
to type in my email address to view the content
of your company's website. I don't want to text message
with promo codes. I don't want to leave your company
at five star Google review and exchange for the chance
to win a twenty dollars Starbucks gift card. I don't

(01:20:03):
want to join your exclusive community in the metaverse. I
don't want AI to help me write my comments on LinkedIn.
I don't even want to be on LinkedIn in the
first place. I just want to pay for a product
one time, and only one time. I know that it's
going to work flawlessly. Press zero to speak to an
operator if I need help, and otherwise be left alone

(01:20:26):
and treated with some small measure of human dignity. If
that's not too much to ask anymore. I feel you, Sarah,
I feel you. If you want to know how crazy
the world has gone, I want to share this exchange,
and I believe I'm trying to find out what network

(01:20:46):
it is. It's obviously a British network, trying to see
if I can figure out who it was. Let me
see here. Journalist Yvonne Ridley tries to tell a woman
named juh Yeah that the hostages were treated well in
this exchange on either it's got to be a British station.

(01:21:08):
But I just can I have my audio eron, Let
me at my audio. Let me just play this and
I'm not even going to play all of it. You
really should. I'm going to retweet this in just a second.
Go look at the woman's expression of incredulousness as this
reporter is making the case for Hamas.

Speaker 8 (01:21:26):
Let's go back to what Hamas has said. They believe
that terms as if seas I had been breached, They're
not going to release any more hostages. Donald Trump has
said all the hostages out by twelve on Saturday. We
within givings midday, all the hostages, not just the next three,
all the hostages out or all hell breaks. Lucy said,
that's what he would do. He's been back eng Ish. Weell,

(01:21:47):
do you think that wouldn't that what focus minds? I mean,
there's no reason why Hamas couldn't release all of the
hostages on Saturday?

Speaker 10 (01:21:55):
Could that?

Speaker 4 (01:21:55):
I mean all of them?

Speaker 8 (01:21:57):
Was there any argument that you, as someone who desperately care,
it's about innocent people? Those hostages are innocent people, are
they not? Is there any reason why Hammas couldn't and
shouldn't release them all.

Speaker 10 (01:22:09):
Once the hostages go, and every act of kindness that
has been shown to Israel has just.

Speaker 8 (01:22:17):
Been sorry, sorry, every act of kindness?

Speaker 4 (01:22:22):
Yes, are you kidding me?

Speaker 5 (01:22:25):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 4 (01:22:26):
You should really see the vice?

Speaker 8 (01:22:27):
What were the acts?

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
Do tell me what the acts of kindness were?

Speaker 8 (01:22:31):
The pitchure bread once every three days for those men
kept in a tunnel for sixteen months?

Speaker 9 (01:22:36):
How generous? How kind?

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
I'm not focusing on the three men, feel me?

Speaker 8 (01:22:41):
We if we look at the women, oh oh you're
going to go there, you're going to go there? Didn't
they look well and healthier?

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
Vonn didn't they look well, they.

Speaker 8 (01:22:50):
Must have had a wonderful time at that holiday camp
that Hammers ran for them for the last sixteen months.

Speaker 4 (01:22:57):
This television ever by the talent them.

Speaker 8 (01:23:00):
You were fed, you had cigarettes, you know, you were
looked after. You weren't in fear for your life. Those women,
those men, the children, the elderly, the city, they lived
every day.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
In an Israeli prison, that's for sure.

Speaker 9 (01:23:16):
I mean, its abject nonsense.

Speaker 10 (01:23:19):
We had a doctor who was raped to death and
then the Israelis called it self defense.

Speaker 8 (01:23:25):
When did rape there are well, yeah, you tell me,
let's ask your friends in her massive on. So I'm
not saying there are an atrocities committed by some Israeli
forces and some of them end up in court, and
rightly so.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
And they should all end up in court.

Speaker 8 (01:23:40):
I'm not defending any atrocities that are committed by any side.
I want to know what were the acts of kindness
that Hamas did to the that have been being thrown
back in their face by Israel.

Speaker 4 (01:23:50):
What were those acts of kindness? Well, they gave them
goodie bags.

Speaker 10 (01:23:56):
I don't know what was it, but they gave them
good They give the little mementos Palestinian mementos, the acts.

Speaker 8 (01:24:05):
Of kindness from your hostage taker, from the man who's
kidnapped the Bernie's kidnapped you and terrified you have starved
you for months.

Speaker 4 (01:24:14):
The film What's Happened to You? What's happened to You? Well,
I'll tell you what's happened to Von Ridley. She was
captured by the Taliban in two thousand and one, after
the events of nine to eleven and before the start
of the US War. Then she converted to Islam and
now she is an avid critic of Israel and Western media.

(01:24:36):
She is celebrated in the Muslim world. She was voted
the most recognizable woman in the Islamic World by Islam Online.
This past weekend, I was driving along and I was
listening to my friend Peter Boyle on a competing station,
and he had a woman on who was a Palestinian doctor.
And I had to turn it off after a bit

(01:24:58):
because my good friend Pete gave her pass on multiple things.
When asked about the atrocities of October seventh, this is
what they do. Well, you can't judge us by one day, Yeah,
I can. In that one day you started a war
by murdering, mass murdering, raping, cutting women's breasts off with

(01:25:18):
box cutters while they were still alive before you shot
them in the face for the crime of being Jewish. Yeah,
I'm gonna judge you by that day. It's not like, yeah,
I had a bad day and got a speeding ticket.
They just glossed right over it. And she actually said,
with a straight face, they gave them goodie bags. Well,

(01:25:40):
unless they're oscar level goodie bags, it's a daylight and
a dollar short. Hey, run, Do you and your wife
share bank accounts? What is your bank account situation the
two of you.

Speaker 6 (01:25:49):
We each have individual we have a shared we each
have access to them, all of them mostly check and I.

Speaker 4 (01:25:55):
Only have shared accounts. And there was an article in
the New York Times about it. But let me see.
I think I'm admitting the congressman to the meeting right now.
So let's see if he shows up, we'll get him
situated in there. Oh there, he is just looking confused.
Right now. I'm looking at Congressman Jeff Crank and his

(01:26:15):
hair is just blown straight back from all the activity
in Washington, DC. Right now. Congressman, first of all, welcome
back to the show as Congressman. I don't think you've
been on since you were sworn in.

Speaker 9 (01:26:27):
I have been many thanks bring having me back.

Speaker 4 (01:26:30):
I gotta say, you know, there's an old curse. May
we live in interesting times. Not a person in the
United States of America would not say that the last
three weeks have perhaps been the most interesting three weeks
of governance since the founding. As a brand new member
of Congress, What has this been like for.

Speaker 9 (01:26:49):
You, Cole wir Win.

Speaker 7 (01:26:52):
I mean it's very exciting, for sure. You know, it
does seem like every day. It'd be crazy if it
was any president. But to have Donald Trump, I mean,
he's so I like to call him the asymmetrical President.
I mean, you think he's gonna come at you, you know,
from the left or the right, and precon he comes
down from the sky or up from the bottom of

(01:27:13):
the earth.

Speaker 9 (01:27:15):
He's always doing something. And you know that's a good
thing because I think we do need that right.

Speaker 7 (01:27:21):
Now when you're fighting gigantic government that defends itself at
you know, no matter to the costs.

Speaker 9 (01:27:29):
I think it's great to have someone like Donald Trump
and the White House fighting for us.

Speaker 4 (01:27:33):
So right now we are seeing a flurry of executive
orders covering everything from birthright citizenship to clawing back money
that's already been spent, to one basically saying bring back
regular straws. I mean, it's been everywhere, but I keep
saying on this program, an executive order is like a
pie cress promise, easily made, easily broken. What is Congress doing?

(01:27:58):
Are you guys having conversations about how to codify some
of the stuff into actual legislation that will last beyond
the Trump administration?

Speaker 9 (01:28:06):
Yeah, we are. First of all, I love the straw one.
That might be my favorite executive order.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:28:14):
But look, yeah, there's no doubt about that. Manny. There's
a lot that the president can do. But thankfully, executive
power in America is limited.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:28:24):
George Washington, uh, you know, wanted to give up that power,
and it's it's good that our founders made it limited,
and so I want to respect that too. And obviously,
I think the president's doing things right now to reverse
some of the excesses of the Biden administration, and that's great.
But at the same time, Congress has a role to

(01:28:44):
make many of these things permanent, to to to to
fix things. And there were some executive orders as an example,
on drilling and on you know, we're unleashing the.

Speaker 9 (01:28:56):
Power of energy in America.

Speaker 7 (01:28:58):
But Congress has to pass enabling legislation to fix some
of the permitting excesses.

Speaker 9 (01:29:05):
We've passed some things already in the House. They're over
in the Senate.

Speaker 7 (01:29:09):
Our biggest problem legislatively is that you require sixty votes
in the US Senate to get anything done, and Republicans
don't have that.

Speaker 9 (01:29:17):
They have fifty three votes.

Speaker 7 (01:29:19):
So we're going to have to do a lot of
this through the reconciliation process.

Speaker 9 (01:29:23):
That's going to be, as the President calls it, one big,
beautiful bill.

Speaker 7 (01:29:28):
But it's really important that we get to that because
if we don't get that done, all of this stuff
can be reversed the next time a president comes in,
like Joe Biden, and so it's very important that we
codify a lot of this. We passed the bill just
last week that would forever prohibit the president from coming

(01:29:48):
in and banning fracking.

Speaker 9 (01:29:50):
It leaves it to the states to decide on fracking.
That's great. We got it through the House. We've got
to get it through.

Speaker 7 (01:29:57):
The Senate because again, a president can come in and
throw out Donald.

Speaker 9 (01:30:02):
Trump's executive order. We got to make sure that that
doesn't happen.

Speaker 4 (01:30:06):
Jeff, I want to ask you a little inside baseball
question about the mood of the Democrats in DC, because
I talked about it earlier in the show. In my lifetime,
I don't recall seeing the Democratic Party in this level
of disarray. I don't feel like they have the strong
leadership that they had forever with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumers.
I mean, he's ancient, and you know their leadership is

(01:30:29):
in disarray behind the scenes. Have you experienced or seen
any willingness to say, hey, look, I know you guys
have your priorities, let's negotiate, let's maybe work on making
some of this stuff a little more palatable. Or are
they in as much disarray from your perspective as well.

Speaker 9 (01:30:49):
I think they're in total disarray.

Speaker 7 (01:30:51):
But you do see at the margins where they do
they maybe read the tea leaves of the election, And
we saw that on the Lake and Riley Act. You know,
we had you know, about fifty Democrats in the House
who crossed over and voted for the Lake and Riley Act. Obviously,
we couldn't have gotten Lake and passed through the Senate
without having some Democrat senators come to the table and

(01:31:13):
help break the filibusters. So we did have some movement there,
but by and large, I do think they're kind of
rutterless right now.

Speaker 9 (01:31:20):
They you know, they played this game that finally I
think caught up with them.

Speaker 7 (01:31:25):
It's the racial politics, it's the politics of division.

Speaker 9 (01:31:29):
But you know, you only do that so long.

Speaker 7 (01:31:31):
When you have like labor unions pitted against environmentalists and
you're the Democrat party.

Speaker 9 (01:31:37):
Those two can't stand for very long.

Speaker 7 (01:31:40):
And you know that that friction finally, I think broke
in this election, and you saw the labor union say, well,
we're kind of done with you, and so many of
them voted for Trump. So I think they're trying to
figure out who they are, and you know, it remains
to be seen, but they don't have anybody to come
in and step in and pick up the pieces. They
thought it would be, you know, Joe Biden's vice president,

(01:32:04):
but she didn't do well in the election. So who
is the leader of that party? Even ideologically? Who is
the leader is not Barack Obama anymore. Yeah, I think
you're in real trouble, right now to kind of find
their ideological way.

Speaker 4 (01:32:17):
I am afraid that the hardcore left wing of the
party is going to end up being the party head
and the only positive there is. I think that that
would be repugnant to the American people. I think that
is what they rejected in the Democratic Party in this
last election cycle. And honestly, Jeff, not to bring up

(01:32:38):
a source subject, it's reminiscent of what the Colorado GOP
is doing right now. That's my comment. I will not
ask you to comment on that. I will ask you
to comment on what you would like to see worked
on right this second. What do you think, out of
everything that the president has done, do you think is
the most critical thing that Republicans have to rally behind

(01:32:58):
and get done right now?

Speaker 9 (01:33:01):
Either when I.

Speaker 7 (01:33:01):
Think tax cuts, we've got to extend these tax cuts,
because we've got five and a half trillion dollar tax
increase coming this year if Republicans don't extend the Trump
tax cuts, and so to me, that's very important. Now. Obviously,
we promise the American people that we were going to
do border security, and I think the President's done a

(01:33:24):
great job of that through executive orders.

Speaker 9 (01:33:26):
But there's a lot we can do there.

Speaker 7 (01:33:29):
Much of this has to be done through the reconciliation
process because.

Speaker 9 (01:33:32):
We're not going to have Democrats helping us, and so, you.

Speaker 7 (01:33:35):
Know, undashing energy, sealing the border or securing the border,
some of these tax cuts, so many of these things
have to be done through reconciliation. And it's a really
delicate balance, Mandy, because as I say, you know, we've
got fifty three votes in the Senate, but is an
even thinner majority in the House. We've got a two

(01:33:56):
seat majority here out of four hundred and thirty five,
we need to undred eighteen votes to pass anything.

Speaker 9 (01:34:01):
So you know, we're going to have to stick together.

Speaker 7 (01:34:04):
And I will just say I think activists are going
to have to understand that. You see the left for
a while when President Trump came in, they were stopped.
I don't think they knew what to do, and you
just saw them like no resistance for about a month,
a month and maybe a couple of weeks.

Speaker 9 (01:34:22):
But now they're resisting.

Speaker 7 (01:34:24):
Right now, they're showing up at the Department of Education
and trying to block you know, go in and things
like that.

Speaker 9 (01:34:30):
So we're seeing him pushback. We need the same kind
of energy on.

Speaker 7 (01:34:36):
Our side from people who believe in a limited role
for government to show up and say, look, I'm here,
remember me, I'm the taxpayer. And if we get that
from the American people, and we get that sense of
sticking together as a team from President Trump, from the
House Republicans, and from the Senate Republicans, we can do
great things and we can save America.

Speaker 4 (01:34:56):
What do you mean for my listeners who don't understand
the reconciliation versus normal order, what does that mean and
why is it? Obviously the margins are so small that
you've got to do something extraordinary. But explain what reconciliation
and what that process is.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:35:12):
I never thought I would explain reconciliation to anyone and
not have them fall asleep.

Speaker 9 (01:35:16):
But I'll try and do it as quickly as I can. Mandy.

Speaker 7 (01:35:19):
I mean, it's basically because of the Senate. Right in
the Senate, we have this cloture rule that it requires
sixty votes. But there's a process called budget reconciliation.

Speaker 9 (01:35:30):
It was created many years ago.

Speaker 7 (01:35:32):
And if something has to do solely, solely pretty much
with spending, you know, with taxing or spending, you can
put it into this process called reconciliation, and you don't.

Speaker 9 (01:35:44):
You can't fill a bus for that in the Senate.
So it only requires fifty votes to pass.

Speaker 7 (01:35:49):
It's literally the only thing in the United States Senate
that only requires fifty votes to pass legislation wise, So
we have to roll it in there.

Speaker 9 (01:35:59):
But it's it's things that has to be more spending
than policy. So we can't just put in a.

Speaker 7 (01:36:05):
Policy into reconciliation that says, for instance, we're going to
we're gonna seal the border. That's a policy that's not
something that's going to fit in reconciliation. And the Senate parliamentarian,
who holds a lot of power in this process, would
likely rule, hey, you can't put that in reconciliation. But
if we say we're going to change a certain status

(01:36:26):
of migrants coming here and that that's going to have
a budgetary impact and it's going to spend more money
or spend less money, that does become something that can.

Speaker 9 (01:36:37):
Fit into reconciliation. So it's a very delicate balance.

Speaker 7 (01:36:40):
It's going to be a gigantic reconciliation bill that comes together.

Speaker 9 (01:36:45):
And there's gonna be things in it that I don't like.
There's gonna be things in it that gave Evans isn't
going to like.

Speaker 11 (01:36:50):
But you know, it's our one chance to work with
this president to pass things that he's doing right now
through executive order that we can put in the law
and won't be changed unless Congress comes back in and
changes them again.

Speaker 4 (01:37:05):
I'm just going to say it. I hate this. And
I understand everything about what you said, I absolutely understand it.
But when you started talking about reconciliation earlier on, I
was like, Ah, for those of us that are screaming,
and I know, I know you're one of these guys, Jeff,
like screaming for regular order on budgeting, screaming for regular order.
I mean, it just feels like this is trying to

(01:37:29):
think of the best way to put this. It feels like, well,
I just.

Speaker 5 (01:37:33):
Don't like it.

Speaker 4 (01:37:34):
I wish that we could have this sort of I
hate that.

Speaker 9 (01:37:39):
I hate the process.

Speaker 7 (01:37:40):
I hate all of the rules that are here, but
they are the rules that we have to sort of
use to make this change.

Speaker 9 (01:37:47):
And we've got to really, I mean, the key point
of this.

Speaker 7 (01:37:50):
Is we've got to stick together, Yeah, as a Republican
team from the election through all the way to getting
these bills passed.

Speaker 9 (01:37:58):
We've got to stick together a team, or we're not
going to get there. It isn't you know. The election
didn't end and we didn't win the super Bowl on
election night. We're going to win when we fundamentally change America.
And we're not there yet. We've got to stick together.

Speaker 4 (01:38:13):
So, Jeff, aside from the reconciliation part of all this
and seeing the stuff that Donald Trump has done and
his priorities and how he's laid them out, I sort
of use the analogy earlier in the show that I
feel like he's grabbed the cage that is Washington, d C.
And just shaking it really hard. What can we as

(01:38:33):
people on the right take advantage of in this created
crisis because people on the left leave everything is a crisis, right,
and we know from rom Emmanuel never let a crisis
go to waste. So what things do you feel like
we can actually gain significantly here?

Speaker 7 (01:38:50):
I mean, I think obviously on some of the woke
policies and stuff, I really think that's just the America
of Donald Trump kind of finally broke the media right,
the mainstream media on a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:39:04):
And I think, you know, the woke stuff.

Speaker 7 (01:39:07):
You think back six months ago, a year ago, they
would have fought back so hard on some of this
woke stuff that Trump is going after. But they really
are broken on it. I mean, they realized that the
American people aren't with them on it. So for me,
we've got to really figure out a way to never
go back to where we were shamed into not being

(01:39:29):
able to discuss issues for fear of being called a
racist or for being called a sexist and things like that.
I mean, I just think there's a lot there that
the American people. Now, it's a gift really that's been
given back to us. It's liberty, it's freedom. It's the
ability to talk about things that maybe we haven't been
able to talk about for the last four or eight years.

Speaker 9 (01:39:49):
And it's just kind of like, you know, this weight
lifted off of America's chest. And so to me, that's
one of the things that we really need.

Speaker 7 (01:39:58):
To focus on, is that free express the liberty to
talk about these things again and to have open an
honest discussion.

Speaker 9 (01:40:05):
So I'm super excited about.

Speaker 4 (01:40:07):
That last question before I have to let Congressman Jeff
Crank go for the day. I have seen more people
in the past couple of days or past week on
X being red pilled in real time, by the discoveries
of what USAID has been spending our money on. When
we talk about some of the government waste that is
out there, I think that may be the best thing

(01:40:30):
to happen to the Republican Party in a long time,
because you can't hide anymore. What is your overall feeling
on what DOGE is doing and how much of that
should be codified into law going forward?

Speaker 9 (01:40:41):
Yeah, well, I love what dose is doing.

Speaker 7 (01:40:43):
And you know, you can tell how much the American
people love it by the reaction from the left right
when the left goes crazy over Elon Musk and they're, oh,
you got access to to you know, the trade three. Well,
you know, we need to have a protections so that
people's personal data is protected from the government. I'm actually

(01:41:04):
as concerned about the government having it as a big
tech or anybody like that, and so those protections need
to be in there. But isn't it interesting how the
same people who are concerned about that, they don't seem
to be bothered by the fact.

Speaker 9 (01:41:17):
That we were wasting billions of dollars on these things.

Speaker 7 (01:41:21):
We're being pulled out of their pockets and given to
foreign country through these.

Speaker 9 (01:41:25):
This this web of organizations and things like that. So
to me, I love what Dosa's doing.

Speaker 7 (01:41:33):
They need to double down on it, and we should
shouldn't just be usaid, it should be you know, the
Department of Education, the Department of Defense.

Speaker 9 (01:41:41):
For goodness sake, there is waste all over this government.
We need to do everything we can to root it out.
And I'm thrilled. You know, obviously, we need to make
sure that we're doing it in the right way and
that we're following the law, and I do believe that
they are right. I think, you know, Elon Musk works
for the president in the United States.

Speaker 7 (01:42:02):
Not every person who works for the president has to
be approved by the US Senate and confirmed by them,
and he wasn't. But there's lots of people. The National
Security Advisor wasn't confirmed by the Senate. But still they
play a critical role here. So I just hope they
keep going and keep pushing and keep changing America.

Speaker 4 (01:42:22):
Congressman Jeff Crank, thank you for your time today. We'll
check in again soon. And wow, hang on, it's going
to be a bumpy ride.

Speaker 7 (01:42:30):
You got it.

Speaker 9 (01:42:30):
Mandy, thanks so much, appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (01:42:32):
All right, that's Congressman Jeff Craik from DC and Rubducean
has joined us. Hey, because now it's time for the
most exciting segment on the radio of its.

Speaker 9 (01:42:44):
Guide in.

Speaker 4 (01:42:49):
Down be there of the day? All right? What is
our dad joke? It is today? Cardigan Tuesday, Grant give
bolo time. Thursday is a Cardigan Tuesday. Yes, Cardigan Tuesday's
totally got his mister Rogers Cardigan on right now, rocking
it as Grant does. All right, what is our dad
joke of the day?

Speaker 5 (01:43:08):
Please?

Speaker 6 (01:43:08):
I adopted a dog from a blacksmith. As soon as
I brought him home, he made a bolt for the door.

Speaker 4 (01:43:16):
H that's funny. I like blacksmith Joe, So I can't
help it. What's today's word of the day? Please?

Speaker 5 (01:43:22):
Word of the days a verb? It is weather?

Speaker 9 (01:43:26):
Weather?

Speaker 5 (01:43:27):
W U T h E R weather, hunker down?

Speaker 7 (01:43:31):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (01:43:31):
Does it mean like weather?

Speaker 10 (01:43:35):
Is it?

Speaker 6 (01:43:35):
Is it uh?

Speaker 4 (01:43:37):
Breezy?

Speaker 7 (01:43:38):
Is it?

Speaker 5 (01:43:38):
Is it weather to blow fiercely?

Speaker 3 (01:43:44):
Weather?

Speaker 5 (01:43:45):
I was getting there the wind well, I was trying.

Speaker 4 (01:43:48):
To get to Wuthering Heights. I was trying to get
some connection there to figure out what it was, okay,
who designed and operated the world's first commercially viable steamboat,
steamboat Willie. Not No, I'm gonna say the Dutch India
Trading Company. Oh, We're so stupid. I actually knew this answer. No,
it's the guy who invented them. Do you remember who

(01:44:10):
invented the steamboat Willie? Now I don't know, Okay, that
would be Robert Fulton.

Speaker 5 (01:44:13):
Okay, it was gonna say.

Speaker 4 (01:44:14):
I actually did know that. It's gonna say Mark Twain
even though he's not there, because I just think of
steamboat is steamboat. The Claremont made its grand debut on
the Hudson River in New York in August of eighteen
oh seven. So there's the thing, you know, now, all right?
What is our category?

Speaker 5 (01:44:28):
Three letter words?

Speaker 4 (01:44:29):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (01:44:29):
Three letter words?

Speaker 6 (01:44:31):
An actor takes one during his curtain Manny, what's a correct?
Throw away your oven and join Woody Harrelson in the
movements for this type man, what's raw correct? He was
in a lot of commercials, by the way, Yeah, Muhammad
Ali stung like a bee with this short straight.

Speaker 4 (01:44:51):
What's Jeb correct? Rob Robbie playing.

Speaker 6 (01:44:54):
Rob a politician taking the low road is said to.

Speaker 5 (01:44:58):
Sling man rough was it me?

Speaker 4 (01:45:01):
That is correct?

Speaker 1 (01:45:03):
Mud was the man the.

Speaker 6 (01:45:04):
First name of British plotter something in sesame street game
show host Smiley, Whose guys sweet guy?

Speaker 4 (01:45:14):
The rooms smile youa Fox Smiley and he's ringing a
hand before you know anything? Rob, Do you know anything
at all?

Speaker 5 (01:45:25):
Rob is smarter than that suggestion.

Speaker 2 (01:45:27):
No, I do, I do mind.

Speaker 4 (01:45:28):
I just can't get it fast enough.

Speaker 5 (01:45:31):
A couple who was right there.

Speaker 4 (01:45:32):
I was watching Jeopardy Tonty. What was their character named Monty?

Speaker 5 (01:45:36):
But go ahead?

Speaker 4 (01:45:36):
It was a character nam Monty. But guy Smiley was
the host. So last night I'm watching Jeopardy Tournament of Champions.
Let me tell you something.

Speaker 5 (01:45:45):
What are you going on?

Speaker 4 (01:45:46):
Nothing will make you feel dumber than watching the Tournament
of Champions. Chuck and O are sitting there like one
out of every ten, one of us would shout it out.
They were like high five and because we got one
out of ten, but they played triple rhyme time and
I was terrible.

Speaker 5 (01:46:01):
At it about getting you on.

Speaker 6 (01:46:03):
I know I don't want to do.

Speaker 4 (01:46:04):
It because I think I would freeze up. I don't
think I would do it.

Speaker 6 (01:46:06):
Well, everyone that's played against you of the day, will
smile just a little watching you get pummeled.

Speaker 4 (01:46:11):
Well, okay, maybe bring them joy in my pain kind
of thing. Everyone that's ever played tunder consideration. I'll ignore it,
but I'll take it under consideration. All right, Tomorrow we
obviously have weather Wednesday. It's going to be a snowy
day tomorrow, so that's a perfect time for that. We're
also going to talk about the arc Thrift Stores, which
I absolutely love. They have a big benefit coming up

(01:46:34):
on Thursday night. I love what they do and their deals.
We'll talk to their CEO tomorrow as well, So keep
it right here in the meantime on KOA