05-01-25 FULL SHOW - Transparency For The Colorado GOP Isn't Pretty

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.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Andy Donall.

Speaker 4 (00:10):
On KOA.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Ninety one FMA got say the Niceydrey Bendy, Donald Keithing,
sad Bab. You're welcome, welcome, Welcome to you a Thursday
edition of the show. For me, it feels like Friday
because tomorrow I'm off to my nephew's wedding. You're gonna

(00:35):
be taken care of though by my friend deb Flora.
She's gonna be sitting in for me here joining me today,
Mandy Connell, that's me. He's Anthony Rodriguez or is we're
calling him Tim today Thunderbolt a rod because he is
about the new Marvel movie coming out tonight, and honestly
I am too, although I'm not gonna go see it
tonight like he is, so I told him he has

(00:57):
to give me a full report. But this, this particular
group of Marvel people I really like. So if you're
a Marvel fan, it's getting very good reviews. So ready,
what time are you gonna go see it?

Speaker 5 (01:11):
I think like six ish tonight? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Do you not already have your ticket of course I
have tickets. Okay, I was just I'm just double checking
to make sure to do.

Speaker 6 (01:21):
I mean this is I went in like a while
back and there weren't many.

Speaker 5 (01:25):
So I'm really I did.

Speaker 6 (01:27):
Oh yeah, Like this is the first time I can
remember in a while where it's like you either choose
a different theater or you're gonna sit in the front row.
I don't mean the front row behind the ada. I
mean the front front.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Row, which nobody wants to sit. I don't know why
they still have the front row.

Speaker 5 (01:44):
Because those will be taken tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, well, somebody else can sit in those seats. I'm
not gonna do it. Guys. We have a big, big, big, big,
big show planned for you today. And let's jump right
into the blog, which you can find at mandy'sblog dot com.
That's Mandy's blog. Look for the headline that says five
to one twenty five blog transparency for the Colorado GOP
isn't pretty. Click on that and here are the headlines

(02:09):
you will find with it.

Speaker 6 (02:12):
Anybody hosing office half of American all with ships and
clipments A that's a press plant.

Speaker 5 (02:18):
Today.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
On the blog, people wanted transparency from the Colorado gop
scrolling scrolling about home rule, about those fired climate scientists
speaking of bad science, About that awful trans write Bill,
Let's talk about that GDP number. It's Latino versus Latino.
About the DPS superintendent. What a horrible story about Elway

(02:41):
and Jeff Spurbeck. Belichick defends his sugar baby. More bad
news about Abrego Garcia. The Kentucky Derby is this weekend?
Did you see that Rubio is negotiating an end to
the Congo conflict? The fort is named best under the
Radar Steakhouse. You can't drive to Mount Evans this summer
will out save the Rockies. What happens if you show

(03:02):
up for a flight without a real ID? The HHS
comes out against kids gender affirming care. Sir David Attenborough
near's one hundred. The fans whoops, hang on, got a
little too far there. The seaguld champion has been crowned.
The fans love Shador, just man swinging with his dogs.
A day of time travel for a perspective. Those are

(03:24):
the headlines on the blog at mandy'sblog dot com. All right,
you guys, we got some great videos. A rod the
video about the time travel is my favorite that you've
sent me in a long time. What a great idea? Yes, yes,
so this Aaron sends me a video of this young
woman and she said, Look, you know, when I'm having
a day and I am not feeling great about things,

(03:46):
I just think to myself, if eighty year old me
could time travel back to this day and and do
whatever they wanted to do, what would you do? And
if you think about it like that, think about living
your life and knowing how everything is going to turn out,
and then having an opportunity to come back and be
young again for a day, what would you do? Now?

(04:06):
Of course, you could create a rip in the space
time continuum that would change the entire trajectory of your life.
But whatever, it's fine, we're gonna leave the physics of
that out of it. I do think it's an interesting
way of getting perspective, right. I mean, because sometimes you
just get mired down in the day to day of
life and you let things that in the grand scheme

(04:28):
of things become big things that shouldn't be big things,
and you start to feel just worn down. I think
we all need the perspective of recognizing that at some
point we are going to be old and would look
back at this day and be able to be young
for a day, like right now, I can do it.
I'm fifty five. I look back and think, oh my god,
what if I was twenty one again, what would I do?

(04:50):
I probably wouldn't immediately go to a bar like I
did when I was twenty one, right, that wouldn't be
my first go to thing. So it's an interesting perspective.
And she's a lovely in that video, so you should
check that out. Today on the blog, we are going
to get to some very interesting information about the Colorado
Republican Party. And even if you're not a Republican, this

(05:13):
is like pop some popcorn because we got some drama
for you. Okay, we got drama because the new Republican
leadership and Britta Horn is joining us at two thirty
this afternoon to kind of go through this has now
released their first transparency check and it was sent out
in the form of an email to the State Central
Committee and it was shared with me, and I don't

(05:33):
know if they were supposed to share it or not,
but I'm glad they did. And I'm sure that Britta
is going to make all this information public. But she
sent it to the Central Committee first to kind of
let them know what she's been doing in the thirty
days that she's been elected, and more importantly, begin the
process of complete and total financial transparency for the Colorado
Republican Party. Now, the old leadership and I'm going to say,

(05:56):
Dave Williams and his little cabal, and boy, when you
look at spending in the Colorado Republican Party, you begin
to see why these people fought so hard to keep
their leadership positions because they probably recognized that they were
not going to be able to continue the grift under
new leadership. What grift am I talking about? Well, if

(06:19):
you go to the blog today at mandy'sblog dot com,
you can actually see a summary of the FEC reports
that were filed. These are the legal documents that are
required by the Federal Elections Commission, and they did a
summary of the spending in those legal documents. In their
last month in office, Dave Williams and his team spent
two hundred and sixty one thousand dollars. Now some of

(06:41):
that was like a giant chunk of it was fifty
seven thousand dollars paid back to the Republican Party and
that's not weird or bad or uncommon. It's like the
party gives you X amount of dollars and then you
have to refund the X amount of dollars if you
don't spend it on whatever they need you to spend
it on, et cetera, et cetera. So that in and
of itself is not weird. What is weird is how

(07:02):
much money was spent on consulting services for the chairman. Now,
the weird part is is that David Williams, the chairman
of the Colorado GOP, paid consulting service money to a
firm called Fox Limited. Do you know who owns Fox Limit?

(07:24):
Oh wait, if you guess Dave Williams, you guess correctly.
In one month, Dave Williams paid himself quite a bit
of money, quite a bit of money, like eighteen thousand
dollars in one month for consulting to himself. It actually
says chairman consulting at some point consulting for what. Consulting

(07:46):
is a nebulous term, And I'm not anti consultant. Please
do not think that, because some of my favorite people
in life are consultants. But you know what they do.
They provide a service that is demonstrable and has impact.
That is what a good consultant. If you hire a
consultant who doesn't have demonstrable skills like here is what
I'm going to do for your business or company, and

(08:07):
then they don't get results, they're a terrible consultant. So
what exactly was he consulting with himself for? And why
did he have to pay himself twice to consult with himself?
From what I can tell, there are no employees except
Dave Williams of Fox Ltd Fox Limited. Now that's not all.
In the last month, the party spent sixty six, nine

(08:30):
hundred and ninety three dollars for legal fees, and I
have to guess that most of those were to sue
other Republicans. The amount of money that is just, in
my view, blatantly squandered. And it just gets worse. They
did a complete two year disbursements kind of you know summary.

(08:50):
In two years, Dave Williams Consulting raked in two hundred
and seven thousand dollars from the Colorado Republican Party all
the consulting fees, though there's even more. They've got consulting
fees from all over the place. Many of them well
connected to guess who, Dave Williams. You are correct, Yeah,

(09:12):
funny how that happens, isn't it so weird? So so weird.
Now I want to draw your attention to one part,
because there are a lot of valid expenses. You have,
you know rent, you have lighting, you have internet, you
have all this stuff, and you got all these things
that you got to pay for. But you would think
that the Colorado Republican Party would have significant numbers in

(09:33):
the contributions section. Right. This is when the party gives
money to candidates running for office, to people who are
trying to do things in the in the legislative sphere.
So let's look at the donations contributions, as they say,
Douglas County Republican Central Committee got four eight hundred and

(09:55):
thirty nine dollars and fifty two cents. I feel like
with that specific a number that must have been a
reimbursement for something. Then there's Greg Lopez for Congress. There's
one thousand dollars for Greg Lopez for Congress, Lauren Bobert
for Congress, three thousand dollars for Lauren Bobert for Congress.
And then there's let kids be kids. This is Darcy

(10:16):
Schoening's nonprofit that was trying to get something on the
ballot in twenty twenty four that would have prevented children
from accessing gender affirming care in Colorado. It did not
make it on the ballot, but the Colorado Republican Party
gave Darcy Schoenig, who is a close ally of Dave Williams,

(10:36):
nineteen thousand dollars for her efforts. Now, don't get me wrong,
I think it's a worthy cause. But doesn't that strike
you as odd? Now there's one for Gary Peterson, I
don't know who that is, three hundred and ninety five bucks.
And then they sent ten grand to the Claremont Institute. Now,
the Claremont Institute is an organization in California. They do
great work. They're a conservative leaning organization. I like them,

(11:00):
But why is the Republican Party giving them ten grand?
I'd like to know more about that? And that's it. Now.
You'd think that the Republican Party in trying to get
Republicans elected, they would be spending money doing things like
polling to find out the right messaging to find out
where they needed to focus their attention to get candidates elected,

(11:21):
and the Colorado Republican Party spent fifteen five hundred dollars
and that probably was one poll. That's how much polls cost.
Polls are extremely expensive to run. They just are, which
is why it's so infuriating that they're so useless at
this point. So it's very very interesting to me to

(11:41):
see how the money was spent, and it's very frustrating
to me to see how much money was wasted on
legal fees. But it's very apparent after seeing all this
why people like Mark Hampton and Cody LeBlanc, who, by
the way, was paid two brand to facilitate a zoom calls.

(12:05):
I maybe he did more. I don't know. Cody, of course,
you may remember from our conversation not long ago, is
now trying to run a Colorado Doge grift where he's
asking people for money. I'm guessing so they can continue
suing Republicans since they no longer have access to the
Republican checkbook. And Britta's going to join us at two thirty.
So if I got anything wrong here, if I misinterpreted anything,

(12:29):
I will be able to ask Dave or excuse me,
I'll ask Britta about all this. But what's really ironic
about this entire thing is that for the years that
Dave Williams was the chairman of the Colorado GOP, he
made a lot of accusations about the prior administration. He
said that funds were mismanaged, he made all kinds of

(12:50):
accusations about Christy Burton Brown, and we're going to do
a forensic audit. We're going to do this, charges are
going to be filed. To my knowledge, no forensic audit
was done at all, and to my knowledge, there were
no criminal charges brought against Christy Burton Brown. But this
certainly does appear to be one of those times where
they were pointing fingers at someone else as they were

(13:12):
doing the exact same thing that they were pointing fingers
about at someone else. And as of right now, there's
a one hundred and forty thousand dollars discrepancy in the
in the accounts. So again, we're gonna have Brida Fox
on at two thirty. So I'm not gonna go into
more details about this, but I would urge you to

(13:33):
go ahead and look at this data. It is all
on the blog at mandy'sblog dot com. But yeah, we're
gonna uh to the person who said, Hey, Mandy, trying
to not dislike your nephew right now. I mean, who
gets married on a Friday make everyone miss work in school?
And he couldn't find a week that was already being
eaten by the Rockies. He's actually getting getting married on Saturday,

(13:54):
but Chuck is performing the wedding, so we have to
be down there in time for the rehearsal dinner and
YadA yaha. So we're leading tonight and we're gonna stop
in Santa Fe, which I've never been to. Never been
to Santa Fe, New Mexico, a rod. Have you ever
been to Santa Fe?

Speaker 7 (14:08):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (14:08):
I think so, I've never been, So we're gonna go
check that out. On the way down, I'm gonna get
to see my friend Tony Thielen, an artist that I
adore who now lives down there. So we're kind of
making a little bit of an extended trip. So don't
blame my nephew. They are getting married on Saturday like
normal people. A lot of people saying more like Fox
in the Henhouse limited. That is a great way to

(14:28):
put it, Mandy. If I could go back in time,
I would buy all the bitcoin I could possibly afford
a men to that. Amen, Mandy, glad to see the
Colorado Republican Party gave so much to Randy Corporin, so much.
Let's see here. I just updated while I was reading this.

(14:52):
It says, to Randy Corporan, so much money for his expertise.
Now he can begin to pay back the woman whose
money he was holding and then sent to some scammer
in Asia. It does seem like a lot of people
had their fingers in the pie at the Colorado Republican Party.
A lot of people, and I don't know all of them.

(15:15):
But yeah, it's really an interesting situation that we're in now.
Now some of this seems illegal or close to it,
says this texter. I don't know. I don't know. I
have no idea. The Colorado Republican Party is going to
have to decide if they believe it's illegal, and then
they will be able to turn it over to a

(15:37):
district attorney. But I don't know what his I don't
know what the chairman's agreement is in terms of remuneration.
I don't know what the chairman's agreement is to say,
do they get paid, If so, how much? If there's
not a set fee, then maybe we should go ahead
and figure that out, because yeah, we shall see. My

(15:57):
cousin got married on a Friday. Almost five months later
later her daughter was born. There you go. Well, congratulations
to the happy family. Now I have another guest coming
up today, doctor Matthew Willicky from the Irrational Fear substack.
It is so good you should subscribe to that. But
you may have seen kind of the breathless reporting over

(16:19):
the last couple of days, and it's like it goes
like this, It's like the Trump administration has fired the
experts who are working on a required colimate report for Congress.
What's going to happen next? And what does this mean
for climate science? And I maybe exaggerating just a little bit,
just a smidge, but a couple of As a matter

(16:41):
of fact, let me find out when Matthew wrote this article.
Originally he wrote it before before they got to that.
He wrote it on no, No, this is a new
one April thirtieth. But he talks about the scientists who
just got fired. And when you hear from Matthew exactly

(17:07):
how the circular nature of government funding and the climate
report is. First of all, you're not going to be shocked.
I mean, if you are, you just haven't been paying attention.
If you're shocked, you need to read this because it
is essentially this is how it works. Every four or

(17:27):
five years, the government releases the National Climate Assessment. It's
supposed to be a report intended to summarize the impacts
of climate change on the US economy, health, infrastructure, and environment. Okay,
so they do this every four to five years. Unfortunately,
the scientists who work on this particular report are almost
exclusively the same scientists who get money from the government

(17:51):
to mitigate the climate change that they report on in
the National Climate Assessment. Now, I'm not saying that the
system is inherently corrupt, but what I'm saying is is
that it is inherently corruptible because if I'm a person,
a scientist, looking for more money for my field of research,

(18:12):
and I know and I absolutely know this to be true.
I have another column on the blog about this today.
I know that if I don't say that my hypothesis
is going to lead me to the predetermined outcome, which
is global warming is all our fault, then I'm not
going to get funding for it. So perhaps we need
to not have those people who are relying on government

(18:35):
dollars for their careers and their livelihood be the ones
to create a report that then is used to determine
how much money is given to the same people who
wrote the report. You're beginning to see what's going on here.
So we're going to talk to doctor Matthew Lowicky Willicky
at one o'clock about that. A lot of you are

(18:57):
sending me to the Loretta Chapel in Santa It is
on the list. We're not gonna be there very long,
and I understand Santa Fe is not that big, So
we're gonna be in Santa Fe just for a little
bit because then we are driving the rest of the
way to Albuquerque so we can go to the Nuclear
Science Museum. And this is I'm super excited about this.

(19:17):
When we realized my nephew was getting married in Albuquerque,
I got super stoked, and so did Chuck because now
we're gonna go to the Nuclear Science Mudium. You know what,
As I said that, I realized, like, we sound like
the biggest dork family in the world. I'm like, we're
so excited about the Nuclear Science Museum, but we're going
to go listen and learn about the nuclear bomb here

(19:40):
at the Nuclear Science Museum in Albuquerque. And then in June,
we're going to Japan on the Mandy Connell Adventure and
we go to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, so we get to
see it from both sides, which I think is super cool,
and I might do a longer form story about it
that we can use on the show. I'm gonna enlist
my daughter's help for this and maybe do a video

(20:02):
or something, and maybe a rod can help us make
it look good when we bring all the stuff back.
I mean, we'll see, we shall see. But as I said,
super big show today, but when we get back. So
Wednesday night, I got to moderate a panel discussion in
Douglas County about the entire concept of home rule. Okay, now,

(20:23):
if you don't know what home rule is, you are
not alone. You are not alone. It is a very
special provision in the Colorado Constitution that allows counties or
municipalities to kind of create their own charter, their own constitution.
And there are some benefits to home rule and I

(20:43):
want to have when we get back. I'm going to
give you some details, not because I know most of
you don't live in Douglas County. I get it. So
we're not gonna talk Douglas County specifics, but I want
to kind of give you an overview because I think
it's really cool sounding and I have to wonder why
more counties don't do it. So we'll get into that

(21:04):
after this. In the meantime, keep it right here on KOA.
This particular forum that I did on Wednesday night was
Douglas County specific. Douglas County is proposing that they moved
from a sanctuary county to a home rule county. Now
I was very interested because I knew nothing. I keep
getting emails from people saying, Nandy, explain this to me,

(21:25):
and I was like, I got nothing, but I learned
a lot. We not only had Commissioner George Teele from
Douglas County, we had the Douglas County Attorney. We also
had the Douglas County Clerk of Court, Sherry Davis was
there to kind of give us the nuts and bolts
about it. But we also had Scott James, a Weld
County commissioner, and Bruce Bartlett, he is the Weld County attorney.

(21:46):
Jeff Garcia is the Douglas county attorney, I should make
sure I say everybody's names. And then we had a
doctor Prowse from Metro State University. He's a political science professor,
to kind of give an overview of what home rule
is and what it does. And essentially it's this And
when I first when they first started talking about it,

(22:07):
I was like, that doesn't sound like there's a lot
to it. But your county can get together group of
citizens however you want to do it, create a charter commission,
and they can come up with your founding document, like
the constitution for your county. You can put in things
that are important. You can put in how to create
your government. You can take a position that's currently elected

(22:29):
like coroner and make it an appointed position. You can
extend term limits. You can raise the size or the
number of the members of the county Commission. You can
do a lot of stuff in this charter. You can
really create it to be any way you want it
to be. And in theory, you are able to create
your own government structure and not necessarily have to adhere

(22:53):
to edicts sent down by the state about certain issues.
And I'm trying to be very specific there because they're
there's a lot of misinformation that when a county declares
itself home rule, then you can say, ah, we're not
going to abide by those gun laws, or we're not
going to do that bag tax, or we're not going
to do whatever it is that you find horrible and

(23:13):
onerous that the legislature is shoved down upon us. It's
not that simple. So at this point in the conversation,
I was thinking to myself, then why are we doing this?
What is the point? And the point is is that
there are some bills that are passed in the legislature
that specifically exclude home rule counties. Currently that's only welld

(23:34):
and Pitkin County. They are the only two home rule counties.
Now there are county city municipal home rules. Denver and
Broomfield both are county city charters, so they are not
a statuary city or are never mind different kind. So
they're city and county and Weld and Pitkin are just county.

(23:56):
And all of this matters, by the way, because when
a city does it, most cities are home rule. It's
totally different. I mean, this is all very very convoluted,
and I'm trying to just keep it like keep it
keep it on track here. So what are the perceived
advantages of this, And one of the advantages that was
brought up is that during COVID, when there were mask
mandates given and Weld County was like, you know what,
we don't want to participate. That gave them leverage the

(24:19):
fact that they were not a sanctuary county, because sanctuary counties,
in the eye of the law, are an arm of
the state. They are very simply an extension of the
state body, not independent little portions of the state body. Right,
So as a home rule county, you are not an
arm of the state, and it gave well the opportunity

(24:41):
to sue the state over the mask mandates. Now, the
mask mandates went away before the case was adjudicated, so
it kind of got left on the table. But when
you are a county that is a statuary county, as
Douglas County is now, and you decide to sue the state,
you are going to get the same ruling every single time,
which is, as an arm of the state, you have

(25:02):
no standing to sue your own body, right like your
arm can't file suit against the rest of you. But
as a home rule county, they would be able to
sue the state and push back against some of the
things that are the most egregious, which sounds awesome, right
except and this is a big, big, big except. Coming
out of Weld County very very recently, Weld County sued

(25:25):
over a redistricting plan that was forced upon them by
the state. And Weld County got this redistricting information from
the state and they said, no, no, no, no, we
have redistricting how to redistrict in our charter. So we
got that covered. So we don't need you guys to
tell us how to do it because it's in our
charter and it's been working really well and we're perfectly
happy with this. And the state was like, nah uh,

(25:47):
you're gonna do it our way, and so Weld was like,
nuh uh, we're gonna sue you. And so they sued,
and though they won in lower courts, the Colorado Supreme
Court and I don't know, you know what, Hang on
one second, let me ask chat GPT, you guys chat
GPT and Iron are on first name terms right now.
Hang on one second. Is the Colorado Supreme Court the

(26:10):
most overturned court in the United States? Question mark. So
we're gonna find out from chat GPT give them and
then he'll figure that out. But they get overturned all
the time at the Supreme Court for their dumb ass rulings.
And yet they decided that no, even though Weld had
its own charter that clearly delineated how to do the redistricting,

(26:31):
they still had to pay attention to the state in
this matter. And in that ruling they have essentially said
the state can make you do anything they want you
to do. So I have more questions now than I
did before. And if any of you know the answer
to this question, why don't more states do it? Or

(26:52):
why don't more counties do it? If it's such a
great idea, and what are the downsides?

Speaker 5 (26:57):
Right?

Speaker 3 (26:58):
I mean I I have so many questions, and I
have big questions about the speed with which that Douglas
County is trying to do this. Because if you just
listen to me explain all of what I just explained
and you're like, oh, I have a perfectly clear picture,
then I've did a way better job than I thought
I did, or I've fooled you completely. Because there's still
so many questions and they are trying to create a

(27:21):
Charter Commission, create a charter meeting, or get the Charter
Commission together, and then come up with a county charter
in seventy three days. Seventy Now, how do I know
it's seventy three days because between the June election that
will happen in Douglas County where we are going to
decide two questions. And the first question is do you

(27:43):
want to pursue a horn World charter? That's question number one.
Question number two is okay, now vote for twenty one
people out of this list that you want to be
on this charter Commission. So if you vote yes and
then you pick all the people, let's just say that happens.
The Charter Commission is seated. The public has to have
access to the charter sixty days before the November election.

(28:06):
So I just went to chat GBT and well earlier
and I said, what is sixty days before the November election?
And how far away from that is June twenty fourth
and seventy three days? Seventy six days? Sorry about that.
Seventy six days, And I don't think that's enough time
to get it done. But I'm curious if any of
you even knew that home rule was a thing? Did

(28:29):
you even know that it was a thing? And if
anything I said makes you want to do it, I'm
just I'm curious because again, seems like a good idea.
But where am I missing? Where am I missing? The
I don't know where am I missing? The downside like,
why are other why don't other counties do it?

Speaker 8 (28:52):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Let's see what chat GBT said about the Colorado Supreme Court.
It is not the most overturned court in the United States.
Reversal rates at state supreme courts, I e. How often
the U s Supreme Court overturns can be measured, but
only a small number of state courses are accepted by
the US Supreme Court. Okay, California, New York, and Texas

(29:16):
had the most frequent reversals, largely because they have a
higher case load. Let's see what about percentage of cases
accepted by the Supreme Court? Question mark? Okay, And then
this texter said, you call chat gibt. What if it's
a she? Why are you gendering him? What if they're
non binary? How dare you.

Speaker 8 (29:38):
On that?

Speaker 3 (29:39):
I will have a full report about what chatchbt says
when I ask his gender. When we get back right
here on KOA, I think that I got some of it.
I was like, well, I think I did that better
than I thought I was going to. And then I
got this text message mandate. Most counties have most of
their population in home little communities and statutory towns. The

(30:01):
state has been trying to legislate away local control from
home rule communities. Did the attorneys talk about if you're
in a home rule city or a statutory town, in
a home rule county, stop it, stop it right now,
Just stop it? Okay, guys, I gotta share with you
in my chat GBT conversations. So first of all, I

(30:23):
asked how many times the Colorado Supreme Court, which is
the one who will decide all of these issues about
home rule counties and whatnot, I asked how often they
had been overturned? And this is what they gave me,
Actually all of the cases heard by the Supreme Court,
and they went back to let's see, we went back
to nineteen eighty seven. So maybe there are more than that.

(30:46):
But the last three are very specific. Trump versus Anderson
that was about knocking Trump off the ballot. The Supreme
Court unanimously reversed the Colorado decision. Then there were Nelson
versus Colorado. At issue was whether Colorado could require exonerated
individuals to prove their innocence in order to obtain a

(31:09):
refund of fines and fees paid due to their convictions,
and the Colorado Supreme Court upheld it, and the US
Supreme Court was like, are you kidding me? That violates
due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But we don't
care about that clause anymore, so we can move on
number three, Colorado Department of State versus Baka, whether states
can enforce laws that penalize or remove presidential electors who

(31:32):
do not vote for the candidate they pledged to support.
And the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of the elector,
and the US Supreme Court said no, So there you go.
But then I asked Chat Gbt my new best friend.
Are you male or female, to which Chat responded, I
don't have a gender. I'm an AI designed to help

(31:53):
everyone equally, but I'm here to assist to you however
you like, wohild you prefer, I respond in a more
masculine or feminine tone, to which I responded, right now,
I'd like you to respond as if you are Yoda,
to which chat GBT just responded, hmmm, gender you ask
no gender? Have I like the force? I am neither

(32:13):
male nor female, but present guiding Yes, think of me.
You should like a lightsaber wielded by any yet defined
by none. Aid you. I will whether the path you
walk is of Jedi scholar or curious padawan. Ask more
you wish answer, I shall come on you, guys. I
love this. Like a year ago, I'm all freaked out,
like the robots are going to take over now, I'm

(32:35):
like chat gibt's my best friend, so cool and honestly,
it's gotten so much better. But it is kind of
like Wikipedia in that. And I told my daughter this
from the beginning of her like when she started having
to do research and look up stuff, I would always say, look,
begin your search at Wikipedia. But everything on Wikipedia should

(32:59):
be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. So if
you go to chat GBT, always ask where they got
their information and they'll show you citations. But then if
it seems too good to be true, like too perfect
of an answer, double check your work again because it's
still making stuff up. Like I don't know if I

(33:21):
would use chat GBT in a professional setting right now,
like I would not give statistics from chat. I don't
know that I would do that. I'm just not sure.
I'm not ready. I'm there yet. But man, so cool.
Home rule is a mess, says this texter. But the
reality is Scott James from Welld County and the Weld
County Attorney, they love it. They absolutely love it. You know,

(33:46):
Scott told me, he goes, look if you want me
to come down to Douglas County and talk about it
and do it. And part of it is because they're
trying to get more home rule counties to be able
to push back against these state overreaches. And frankly, this
new ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court is just as
is bad, is really really bad. So it's a fascinating subject,

(34:11):
it really is. I learned a lot at that forum,
and you know, as a Douglas County and I'm not
opposed to the concept, but again, I have a lot
of concerns about the speed with which they are trying
to do this and their reason for wanting to do
it this fast is not good enough for me. When
asked directly why they were trying to do this on

(34:31):
such a compressed timeline because Weld County did it over
two years. The answer was, we want to be able
to start next calendar year January first as a home
rule county. But why because, by the way, when you
do this, it only goes into effect January first of
the following year. Mandy, did you know Sunday is Star

(34:52):
Wars Day? May the fourth be with you? I did,
Thank you, Texter, appreciate you. Oh, by the way, my
nephew you is getting married on the same day as
the Kentucky Derby. So here's my question for you, Texters,
and you can text us on the Common Spirit Health
text line at five six six. And I know, should
I wear my giant Derby hat to my nephew's wedding?

Speaker 5 (35:13):
Who the wedding?

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah? Hell, why not?

Speaker 5 (35:16):
It's baculous. Sooo the wedding in Kentucky wed is.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
In New Mexico on Derby Day?

Speaker 5 (35:24):
Doesn't matter? Okay, Okay, to be fair, Okay, here we go. No,
you want you want to think that's cool.

Speaker 6 (35:30):
Let's say someone gets married on the day of the
Super Bowl and I've made to a.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Wedding on the day of the Super Bowl and they
brought in TVs so people could watch it.

Speaker 6 (35:38):
Okay, what if the what if someone, you know, the
dad of the bride wearing the favorite jersey?

Speaker 3 (35:46):
That would be entirely I did ask the couple. I
sent them a text and said, I assume since you're
getting married on Kentucky Derby Day, that it's okay if
I wear.

Speaker 5 (35:54):
A giant hat ghost you.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
No, they said, the wedding is inside, but we respect
all faiths, so I'm just.

Speaker 5 (36:00):
Going to go. They did, Yeah, that's a please don't.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Oh no, no, I'm doing it.

Speaker 5 (36:05):
You're five six six?

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Should I wear the giant hat?

Speaker 5 (36:08):
I'm going to make the wedding about your shit.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Wear wet gigent hat. When we get back, doctor Matthews, Yes,
Doctor Matthew, Willicky joins me. Trump just fired all the
climate scientists working on a climate report. Was it a
bad idea? I've got answers after this. Keep it right
here on KOA.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Bill and Pollock,
accident and injury lawyers.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
No, it's Mandy Connell. KOEM got.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
There and Connell keeping sad bab Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to
the second hour of the show, and I promised you
of a show, and what a hum dinger it is.
Now I'm just going to thank all of you for
weighing in on should I wear a giant Kentucky Derby
hat to my nephew's wedding this weekend. I was kidding

(37:10):
when I said I was gonna wear it to the wedding.
Now does it match my dress and shoes? Yes? It does,
And like half of you are like, heck, yeah, I
wear the hat to the wedding. What I find fascinating
is if I were black, if I were an African
American woman, none of y'all would look twice at me
wearing a hat at a wedding. African American women get
to rock the hats all the time, and I am
so jealous of that, so so jealous. Now onto seriousness.

(37:35):
So yesterday I saw this news story and I want
to just I want to just read part of it
in a dramatic way to bring my next guest onto
the show. It's from CBS News. Nearly four hundred scientists
across the United States we're in four Monday afternoon that
their services were no longer needed to help write a
major report on climate change for the federal government, known

(38:00):
as the National Climate Assessment, is a major publication produced
every four years that summarizes the impacts of climate change
in the United States, and it is congressionally mandated under
the Global Change Research Act of nineteen ninety. The sixth
edition is scheduled for publication in twenty twenty seven, and

(38:21):
preparations have been underway for months to meet the deadline.
And then it goes on from there. But as I
kept reading, the first person they got a comment from
was from the Environmental Defense Fund, so already I knew
exactly what the rest of the story was going to say. Okay,

(38:43):
And they go on to quote climate scientists after climate
scientist after climate scientists. Doctor Robert Kopper, climate scientist and
professors at Rutgers University, who was also working on the
current assessment, said, I feel badly for the federal leaders
who have put a lot of time into this, But
to some extent, I think the writing was on the
wall when they dismissed the support staff a few weeks ago.

(39:06):
I think now it's clear many of the authors would
like to see an up to date, evidence based report.
Do they really though? Joining me now from the Irrational
Fear Substack, Doctor Matthew Willicky, Doctor Matthew, welcome back, first
of all, to the show. It was very interesting that
I saw this article and then almost immediately saw your

(39:27):
column from the other side. Should we say welcome back
my friend.

Speaker 4 (39:32):
Thanks Mandy.

Speaker 9 (39:33):
I enjoyed you turned into I think like a bitter
English lady.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
You know what, though, that's my best dramatic reading voice.
I think it adds gravitas to whatever I'm reading.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
Well, thanks for having me back.

Speaker 9 (39:44):
You're absolutely right, though, I mean, this is kind of
peddled as a scientific document, and you can hear the
scientists saying that, you know, this is the science, but
it's not pure reviewed. It has it does go through
no critical analysis, and when I looked at it, I
blaring contradictions right inside of it. I mean, they showed,

(40:04):
for example, heat waves as the observable data, and to
my surprise, heat waves have gone down dramatically since two
thousand and two to twenty twenty one. In this time
period relative to their baseline, they had gone down. I
was like, oh, like everywhere except the southeast they've gone down.
And so then I scrolled down maybe another page or
two and they had their projections of heat waves, and

(40:26):
their projections had it going up everywhere, and so they're
claiming the same thing has been happening over the same
time period, but the opposite result will happen. And so
then I was kind of shocked by that. I was like,
you're kind of contradictory, contradictory in your own analysis, and
so I went back to the very first National Climate
Assessment that came out in two thousand and the biggest

(40:50):
caveat on that, the large kind of conclusion was that
heat waves were going to increase and that was going
to have a huge societal impact. And yet in the
fifth assessment they came out in twenty twenty three, they
admit the observable data doesn't show that, but they keep
saying the same projection in the same mantra. So it's
almost as if the observable data has no meaning at all.

(41:12):
There's just a narrative, and regardless of what the data says,
the narrative is what is pushed.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
Okay, so let me go back to the first thing
that the example that you were giving, which is they
showed that for the last twenty years, heat waves meaning
periods of long extended heat in an area have actually
been really flat. We haven't had a significant increase in
heat waves. But now in the next twenty years they're saying, oh,
heat waves are going to be off the charts. But

(41:38):
why did we have flat heat waves in the first place.
Do they even address that because it sounded like you said, look,
we have the same conditions, but they're expecting a completely
different result.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
It gets even worse than that.

Speaker 9 (41:50):
So they show in the National Climate Assessment, the fifth
edition that came out twenty twenty three, that in the southeast,
for example, there was eleven days less are over ninety
five degrees from the period of twenty and two to
twenty twenty one. Then happen in the baseline that they
had from nineteen oh one to nineteen sixty, So they've
shown a dramatic decrease in the time period. They're saying

(42:13):
that we are increasing emissions, land use changes are also
driving up climate change. So the factors that are that
are driving climate change are existing and accelerating. Yet we're
seeing a decrease in the amount of hot days. But
then they flip it on its head. In one model,
even though they've made making the same predictions for twenty
five years now, the first assessment came out in two

(42:34):
thousand and getting it wrong. It's I mean, it's really
the definition of insanity. I mean, you're doing the same
thing over and over and expecting a different result and
just completely ignoring the observable data.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
Maybe they're going with the blind squirrel finds of nut
theory or the broken clock is right twice a day theory,
like if we just keep saying it, eventually it'll be
true and they'll be able to go say, see, we
knew it, that's what was going to happen.

Speaker 9 (43:00):
I wish that was the case because they maybe we
could just kind of pass it off to kind of ignorance.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
But this is malice.

Speaker 9 (43:07):
These are the same people that benefit from funding from
making the government believe that there is a climate crisis
and funding this to the tune of billions, if not
hundreds of billions, if not trillions globally. And so this
is the same people that write it and it ignore
the observable data, realize that there is an incentive for

(43:28):
them to make sure they make it as as crisis
or as as extreme as possible, regardless of what the
data says, So I wish it was I could attribute
it to ignorance and maybe they're just missing some of
the data. But it just can't keep going on and
on like this without it being essentially I mean, it's fraud.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
There's no other way to put it.

Speaker 9 (43:50):
You're talking about taking siphoning off billions of dollars when
the data says the exact opposite of what you're predicting.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
The thing that's frustrating for me, And in the many
many years that I've been doing this show, I've spoken
with scientists who had alternative theories of why we were
in periods of warming. I mean they were everything from
from the where we are in the ellipses around the
sun to different kind of sun variations that were not
used to taking into account, and they could not get
money for their research. They could not get any dollars

(44:21):
because they weren't in the dogma, and they would come
on my show like as a I don't want to
say last resort, but just to like shout into the ether, like, look,
there's other things that make sense for the glaring errors.
Because you know we and you've done this on your blog.
You can go back to nineteen ninety six. And to

(44:43):
your point, you can show them over and over and
over and over again where they've gotten it wrong. But
there are other theories that their projections were more accurate,
but they're not as dire, they're not as scary. And
you can't tax the sun, right, Well.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
That's the biggest one.

Speaker 9 (45:00):
If it's something that we aren't producing in terms of
an industry or a society, we can't tax it. We
can't go after it and regulate it. So water vapor
is the biggest one. Everybody ignores water vapor. The IPCC
ignores water vapor. That's by far the number one greenhouse
gas on the planet. Right the sun, like you mentioned,
solar variation, we don't really understand it. We've got a

(45:24):
couple decades, maybe five or six with satellites, a couple
extra centuries of measurements before that.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
The planet's four and a half billion years old. We
have a very tiny.

Speaker 9 (45:33):
Little subset to go on to try to understand these
one hundred thousand.

Speaker 4 (45:38):
Year or maybe million year cycles that we're going through.

Speaker 9 (45:41):
And so it all comes back to how much can
policy get involved. And they realize they can't tax the sun,
like you said, so what can we kind of nitpick
at let's go after CO two. That's an easy one. Now,
methane hitros oxide, right, and so they just kind of
pick down the line on things that they can regulate.
But we're really talking about third maybe fourth order effects.

(46:05):
So if you really think that taxing CO two is
going to change the weather, I've got bad news for you,
because I really don't think it will.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Let me ask you a question. You may or may
not know the answer to this, but it's something that
has been bugging me for so long about the entire
study of the arc of history when it comes to climate,
and we're told, and I think the whole ice core
thing is super cool, like they go and they drill
these ice cores that are a mile long, and then
they pull them up and they examine all the layers
in the ice and they extrapolate out all this data

(46:36):
from those ice ice samples. But the thing that always
gets me about that is that they keep telling us
we are in an unprecedented period of warming. It's never
warm this fast ever, We've never had this kind of warming. Okay,
so let's just say we have before and all of
the ice melted, So we're looking at ice cores. How
can we get a true idea of what those ice

(46:59):
cores may say if we've had prior periods of rapid
and intense warming that destroyed the ice layers. Do you
see what I'm saying.

Speaker 9 (47:07):
Absolutely so, in places like Greenland, that's definitely a big
consideration because if you're not creating new ice, then you're
destroying the core. Basically, we talk about this in sediment
and geology. If you're not depositing layers, then you're eroding them. Well,
now we have missing timeframes, we call them unconformities, and
so that's a definite consideration. So one of the things

(47:28):
in Antarctica were a little safer because we think that
even the warming there couldn't ever get it above freezing.
But it's a desert, so you don't have a lot
of new snow being deposited on top.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
So there's a lot of trickiness.

Speaker 9 (47:42):
This is one of the reasons why I argue that
we don't really know the variations of climate in the
past on the century scale, right, that's just impossible because
everything gets blurred because of the things you're talking about.
What if you have a decade where there's no ice
warming in Greenland because it was super warm that decade
because of an ocean current or something like that.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
And so the.

Speaker 9 (48:03):
Resolution for our past climate is really bad. You know,
we have really good update date information now, but the
claims that you hear about, oh, it's the hottest year
and one hundred and twenty thousand years, that is absolutely absurd.
I've never seen a climate scientist that has any real
worth in the field or is respected ever make that claim.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
So this is it's like, how do you I think
that what's happening with the Trump administration and I and
this report, by the way, is congressionally required. So what
would you speculate, Matthew, would be the next steps here?
What would you think if they fired all the climate
scientists who are invested in making sure that it's crazy?
Who do they hire now? I mean, did they get

(48:45):
Judith Curry? Who do they this report?

Speaker 9 (48:48):
I think she would be great. Doctor John Christy would
be great. There's a lot of great scientists. But I
think you just have to change the mission of the
report such that it is about the observed data, what
have we seen has occurred? And then a big reflection chapter,
what are the predictions we made? In the past that

(49:09):
haven't come to fruition, and how confident are we in
our future predictions. That's something that is just not done
in these reports. My whole argument in most of this
is that we have to focus on the observable data.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
That's what's telling us how things are changing.

Speaker 9 (49:24):
Anybody can tweak a model, anybody can tweak the knobs
on the computer on the keyboard and make a model
basically give you whatever you want.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
We call it garbage in, garbage out.

Speaker 9 (49:34):
But the observable data is the observable data, and we
have a lot of it, and so we should just
be focusing on that. And the narrative on that is
very different than the narrative and the projections and the models.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
That they're doing.

Speaker 9 (49:46):
So I'm more than happy to keep in National Climate
Assessment if it focuses back on observable data and also reflects.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
Back on the last four.

Speaker 9 (49:55):
Will I be five, because it'd be National Climate Assessment
six that looks back at the last five and really
highlights how terrible the predictions and the models have been.
So we can have an honest conversation.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Hill Matthew, let me ask you this, because I just
got this text and I think there's probably a lot
of people out here who feel this way. Hi, Andy,
I'm a fan of the show and consider myself a moderate,
but I feel that today's conversation with this climate denier
is quite dangerous. I may not be an expert on
this situation, but I can tell you anecdotally that since
I've been in Colorado since two thousand, we've had much
hotter temperatures, longer heat waves, and less rain. It doesn't

(50:29):
take a rocket scientist to know that climate change is real.
So I always respond to this in the same way,
and that is, of course, the climate is changing. It
has been changing since the beginning of time. We have
the Rocky Mountains because the climate has changed. We have
iceberg grooves on the bottom of the Black Sea that
we're just discovered because the climate is always changing. What

(50:49):
we're discussing here is the level of certainty about it
are being our fault and the accuracy of the data
and the projections that are being used to spend literally
trillions of dollars that are being inflated by scientists who
have an invested interest. I mean, that's my take on that.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Yeah, and I agree with you one hundred percent.

Speaker 9 (51:13):
I would love to know where the listener lives if
they're in a metropolis area. Since two thousand, that has
grown quite a bit. I don't deny that the temperatures
in their area are warmer. When you replace a lot
of trees and grasses and prairie land with asphalt and
buildings and glass, you're going to warm the climate up
in that region, so that regional area will get hotter

(51:35):
on certain hot days. We call that the urban heat
island effect. The issue is is can you tax your
way out of that or can you regulate your way
out of that.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
You can dismantle the city.

Speaker 9 (51:45):
I guess you can start taking down the skyscrapers or
taking down the buildings and getting rid of the roads,
going back to dirt. I don't think anybody's going to
be for that. So there's no denying that humans have
an effect on their environment. The question is is whether
this has to do with two and our greenhouse gases,
or this has to do with the natural urban environment
that we've built around ourselves. And I would argue that's

(52:08):
the urban heat island effect. Definitely does make cities warmer
than the surrounding regions. We've seen that for a long time.
But I just don't see a way of getting around
that unless we just take apart the cities.

Speaker 4 (52:19):
And nobody seems to be for that.

Speaker 9 (52:21):
And so you know, we're conflating to problems or the
problem exists, but you're conflating the reason for that problem.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
And I think that's an important distinction, right, I mean,
where I want to know exactly what impact we're having
on the climate. But what we've done is take the
question of what impact are we having on the climate,
or what other external circumstances could be happening to be
creating a climate situation, and we've turned it into your

(52:50):
car is the problem? Oh those cows there next, and
we're going to take away everything we need to have
a functioning modern society chasing renewable energy that is inherently unreliable.
So there's huge policy decisions that are being made. And
the point that Matthew makes, and he makes it brilliantly

(53:10):
on a substack irrational fear, is that we should be
looking at the hard data instead of speculating and guessing
without giving any cre you know, we never go back
to look and see how those old predictions turned out.
You would think that would be the first thing they
would do in order to hone future predictions. But it
never seems to happen. So that's what we're talking about.

(53:31):
We're not sitting here saying the Earth is not changing,
and we're not like knuckle draggers over here. I mean,
we recognize the changes, but we're discussing what's actually going on,
because in my mind, I would rather be investing trillions
into mitigating for communities that need it, you know what
I'm saying, Like, I'd rather assume when you look at

(53:51):
the ancient civilizations of the Aztecs and the Mayans, why
did they disappear? My guess is it got too hot
there for them to live and they moved on. But
we don't talk about things like that. We need to
mitigate it instead of trying to stop it because it
may be a natural process that we have no way
of controlling.

Speaker 9 (54:08):
But we really are kind of repeating history because we're sacrificing.
You know, they used to make sacrifices of people and
young young women and things to the gods to change
the weather. We're essentially sacrificing industry. We're sacrificing our energy
industry to the hope or maybe the you know, the
god of energy such that it will change the weather
in the future. So history really does repeat itself. But

(54:30):
you're I agree with you one hundred percent. Be practical.
There are solutions out there. This idea that that I
think it's ignorant to think that stasis is the goal.
That's never been a part of the planet. There's if
we just go back in history at any time, the
planet is not in stasis.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
It's meaning the same, meaning being the same.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
That's yeah, it's always changing.

Speaker 9 (54:52):
And the ancient civilizations realized that and they made sacrifices
to the gods to hope it didn't change. It's sad
to think that we're just basically doing the same thing,
but with trillions of dollars and the one industry that
has given us the life that we afford today.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
And to be clear, abundant energy is why our standard
of living has raised as rapidly and as completely, not
just in the United States, but we are at a
period of prosperity in the world right now. Even poor
nations are better off than they were one hundred years ago.
And then the number of people living in extreme poverty
has dramatically just dropped like a stone all because of

(55:31):
cheap and abundant energy, and we are trying to undo
that now. So that's why we're talking about it.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
Yep.

Speaker 9 (55:37):
I used to teach a course at at University Alabama
called sustainability, and you can tie energy to education, to
fertility rates, going down to equality, to equality of women.
I mean, there's so many things that tie back to
the infrastructure that energy provides for you, and that's what
they're attacking. So it's really the fundamental fabric that has provided,

(55:59):
you know, the living standards that we appreciate today.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Doctor Matthew Willicky is am I saying your last name right?

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (56:05):
Why Lacky? Yeah? I am I. Okay, we'll just go
with it. He has a fantastic substack called Irrational Fear.
He doesn't just talk about climate science. He talks about
all kinds of science. So if you ever just want
to kind of go and get a reality check, I
would highly recommend a subscription. You can find it on
the blog today at mandy'sblog dot com. Great conversation. I
find this stuff fascinating and I am interested to see

(56:27):
who ends up writing this report because I don't know
if you saw this. But the NIH just put out
their own report about gender affirming care for kids that
is sure to cause a star. Let me just say
that I didn't have it on the blog today because
I haven't read it. It's four hundred Actually I did
put it on the blog. It's four hundred pages. But

(56:49):
this is an administration that's not afraid to say the
standard dogma is not where we're gonna stay because it's
not right. And we'll see what happens next. Yeah, all right,
thanks so much, Matthew. It is good to see you again,
and I'm sure we'll talk again soon. All right. That
is doctor Matthew Willicky from the Irrational Fear sub stack,
and we're going to take a time out. Got a

(57:10):
lot of good text messages on this on the Common
Spirit Health text line at five six six nine oh
and a lot of you are making some really good points.
We'll do some of those next right after this. On
KOWA the climate report that needs to be done, but
the Trump administration just fired all the scientists. And to
be clear, and I hope that Texter is still listening,

(57:31):
I absolutely believe the climate is changing. I mean, I
think it is just crazy to think that it ever
has been not changing because the earth has been moving
and evolving. I mean, I love going to like red rocks,
and I look at the way that the rocks are

(57:51):
shoved up against one another, and you can see the
layers of sediment, and you think to yourself, you know what,
I've bet it was a seabed at one point. It's amazing.
Really is this? Texter said? Climate change? If we can't
tax it, eie regulate it, what should we be doing
to mitigate things? Don't rebuild close to the ocean water
level change, hurricane damage. Don't rebuild in floodplains allow flooding

(58:14):
to happen. Move levees back, you know, there are ways
to Like for New Orleans, they better be figuring out
their levee system, which has been so mismanaged. That's part
of the problem with Katrina is that the levee system
completely collapsed. So things of that nature. Yeah, you gotta
figure that out, Mandy. Obviously Trump would hire another Fox

(58:35):
News host to be the next scientist. I don't know,
but the report does have to be written. Mandy. Are
y'all aware that iHeart is playing commercials underneath the host's
voice at least once a day. No, but sometimes we
get bleed over. Sometimes I can hear it and it
makes me crazy. But it's one of those technical issues
that no one seems to be able to fix. Sorry, Mandy,

(58:55):
the Columbia River has been releasing trillions of gallons into
the water into the ocean for years and the ocean
has risen. Climate change is a joke. No climate change
again a thing, Mandy. Why don't the climate scientists ever
look at the effects of the new lakes being built,
like the new lake in Parker, Cement buildings, asphalt shingles,
and new roads and parking lots causing the weather change

(59:17):
versus greenhouse gases. They take all of that stuff, and
Matthew was talking about heat island effect in cities. All
of this stuff is taken into account. My frustration with
climate scientists is their dogged refusal to look at their
past predictions and explain how and why they got it wrong.
I have seen a couple of prominent climate scientists come

(59:39):
out later and say, look, we got it wrong and
here's why. But that's a couple out of hundreds. The
notion that this is settled science is ridiculous, just dumb.
What other sciences settled right now? You know what I mean.
We're still finding out things that exist inside cells that

(59:59):
we know ever knew before, and we're like, oh, the
science on that is settled. Oh, don't mind, not wrong predictions.
The science is settled. We know what we're doing this
textter said Mandy. In the medieval warm period, it was
much warmer in Greenland. Let's not forget when the Vikings,
because they were the first ones to land in Greenland.
When they landed in Greenland, they gave it the name

(01:00:21):
Greenland because it was green. It is not green now.
Every time I fly over Greenland, which I'm going to
do again, not soon enough, but soon. I love looking outside.
I love looking out the window over Greenland. And I
know that sounds so dumb, but it's just a giant,
vast expanse of ice. It's fantastic. I don't want to

(01:00:42):
crash there. Climate change caused by a massive solar farms,
I don't think so. I do not think so. Mandy.
You must remember the consistent policy and funding require consistent
estimates in these climate assessments. Yes, the agenda drives the
funding and the results in the reports. One hundred percent maybe.
I was at McMurdo's station in Antarctica in nineteen ninety

(01:01:06):
five and nineteen ninety six. I went to the presentation
by the primary investigator of ice core drilling. They said
that the lines between years were very clear for fifteen
thousand years. Between fifteen and thirty thousand years, the lines
become difficult to read. More than thirty thousand years out
and you can't really tell the lines between the years anymore.

(01:01:28):
This is my question about the ice core thing, and
I spoke about it with my last guest. If you're
just joining us, like, what if there was a massive
period of warming and there was no ice, or some
ice melted and then more ice came later, but you
have a big gap. Maybe there's ten thousand years that
you're not accounting for because all the ice in that
period melted and no new ice was made. And yet

(01:01:50):
we're supposed to be like, yeah, we have ice core samples,
so don't question our math. Okay, do you have ice
core samples? And I'm all like, no, I don't know
where I would keep icecore samples. Yeah, well we have
ice core samples. Money grabs. Since al Gore started this conflict,

(01:02:10):
convoluted issue, tax and grab with anything they can still
nothing with, Still nothing changed with not just the US,
other countries are contributors. Really a farce now, correct? Hey Mandy,
if TEMP follows CO two, why is TEMP not following
CO two levels so closely?

Speaker 5 (01:02:28):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Look at the chart Gore used in his documentary not
following CO two rise. That, of course was Michael Mann's
famous hockey stick graph. But again, Oh, you know what,
I have an idea for a fun event. We should
have a screening of an Inconvenient Truth with doctor Matt
Willocky and have him we can just like basically Mystery

(01:02:53):
Science Theater three three thousand to death as it's happening. Oh,
I kind of like that idea. Hang on, I gotta
make a note because I'll forget, you know, I will
and Inconvenient Truth screaming. I wonder if we could do that, hmm,
that would be super fun. We can invite doctor Roger

(01:03:14):
Pelke formerly of CU until he was bounced out for not,
you know, towing the water on the dogma. Not bounced out,
he was signed. But whatever, it's all the same. Thank
you to the person who said best discussion on this yet,
I thought so too, Mandy. I had bad news for you.
I went to the Bagel Deli restaurant on Hampton and
Monaco yesterday and asked him about the Delhi in the airport.

(01:03:35):
They said, the only part of that place that is
the Deli is the name. It's not the same people.
And with that, my heart just broke into a thousand
people our pieces rather, Mandy, compared to previous generations, we
have sacrificed very little. You know what, You're absolutely right.
We are living the high life right now one hundred percent.

(01:03:58):
So my question is the implication being we should sacrifice more.
But what if we're sacrificing stuff to a cause that
is absolutely wrong? And Matthew brought up in our interview.
He said, look, we're doing the same thing as the
Incos and the Minds and the Aztecs. They offered human

(01:04:18):
sacrifices to the gods. What if what we're doing is
just as stupid. You know, what if we're preventing poorer
economies from being able to flourish because we're limiting their
ability to access power in the name of something that's
not right? Wouldn't that I mean, isn't it's it is

(01:04:39):
kind of the same thing. So anyway, Mandy, why do
we still not demand that the media, people in, scientists
and others be specific when talking about climate change for
future accountability? No more simple climate change require that they
commit and say man made cause climate change or for
brevity MC three if that's what they mean. Otherwise, how

(01:05:02):
about natural climate change? Well, Peter, we used to use
anthromogenic climate change to reference man made climate change. But
you know the problem is with delineating is that that
gives credence to the notion that those of us who say,
I'm not sure this science about CO two is accurate,

(01:05:26):
since it keeps being wrong over and over and over again,
we're called climate change deniers, which is just stupid because
as I just said, of course the climate is changing.
I just think that we're missing opportunities to investigate other
sources and other options when it comes to the cause
of that warming that won't thrust us into debt or

(01:05:48):
stop human development and flourishing, which is what a lot
of the climate science wants to do. I mean, think
about it, you guys. For years, a very very long time,
people had to see in the dark and use candles,
and you know, only do things by firelight. Right, we
finally advanced to where we harness the power of electricity
and it becomes widely used, and then we want to

(01:06:10):
put us back onto sources that are intermittent at best.
We're moving backwards and we're not even sure that what
we're doing is right. The cimate, the science is definitely
not settled. That's the part that frustrates me. All right, guys,
I'm moving on. Thank you to all of you have
texted in, and a lot of you have this texture.

(01:06:31):
I'll leave it with this one. We are in the
Atlas Shrugged era. The scientists, we're bending to the politicians.
Ran predicted it in the nineteen twenties. Absolutely correct, one
hundred percent correct. All right, guys, I want to talk
in the next break about the GDP numbers, which are
not good. But I got a few things that are

(01:06:52):
going to make you feel better. I hope after this
keep it on KOA. Nothing more important than the latest
GDP numbers that grow domestic product, our measure of how
the country is doing, shrink at an annual rate of
zero point three percent in the first quarter of twenty
twenty five. This is the first decline in three years.

(01:07:12):
Now two quarters of contraction is an official recession. And
when I first saw that headline that I just gave you,
I was like, Okay, I actually am not that shocked
by this at all. But ultimately I think it's probably

(01:07:32):
gonna have to happen. I don't want it to happen.
I don't want any of you to suffer or struggle
or lose your job, or me to lose my job.
I mean, you never know, right, But there's some underlying
stuff here that I think is more positive than negative,
if that makes sense. And let's just jump right in.

(01:07:53):
So point three negative growth obviously not good at all,
but a few things happened that are unusual and will
not be repeated in the near term anytime soon. And
that is before President Trump came into office. A ton
of people imported a bunch of goods to cover their
needs in anticipation of the tariffs that Trump said he

(01:08:16):
was going to levy. Right like that, that thing happened,
and that sent our import export balance way out of whack,
I mean really really out of whack. But it wasn't
all bad. One of the things that I think is
good about this situation is that part of that contraction
is because federal spending dropped dramatically, and that has me

(01:08:41):
asking questions about the validity of the GDP numbers of
the last few years. If they were all being generated
by the federal government spending money we don't have. That's
like a business buying its own products and then showing
that as profit, right, you know what I mean, They're like,
look at all these sales, just not mentioning that they

(01:09:04):
were actually the ones doing the buying and they were
putting it on their credit cards at the same time.
I mean, that's kind of the same thing. Now, job
growth has slowed. The private sector only added sixty two
thousand jobs in April. That was below the one hundred
and fifteen thousand that was anticipated. But I can't even
remember the last time that economists got this right. And

(01:09:27):
I don't mean just being high, I mean just there.
I don't even know why we still ask them. I
do know that job growth has slowed. That's not good.
But there's a few things, like business investment has gone up.
Kind of a big deal. Business investment is an important

(01:09:47):
indicator of how businesses are actually doing. Now, why are
imports subtracted from the GDP? Well, it is the GDP report.
Health actually measures the amounts of goods produced in the
US by total consumer spending. Then they add in business investment,

(01:10:07):
and they have some other outlays that are in there.
So imported goods are made overseas, they are subtracted from
that total that consumers, companies in the public sector purchased
during that quarter. So that was a big deal, a
very big deal. Now, a key inflation measure, it cooled
significantly two point three percent personal consumption expenditures. That's two

(01:10:30):
point three percent from a year earlier. That's a lower
annual inflation rate that we've had in a while. So
that's really good.

Speaker 5 (01:10:39):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:10:39):
That inflation data came before Trump's tariffs took cold. So
there's a lot going on here, not the least of
which is that if, if, and this is a big if,
the President has some success in either eliminating tariffs for
a lot of our trade partners and putting some pressure
on although I am increasingly uncertain about our ability to

(01:11:06):
outlast China in a tariff when we get back. I
will explain a little bit about that based on a
conversation that I had today with a friend of mine
who owns a small business, and some of the challenges
that he just laid out to me, and one of
the things he told me about his Chinese suppliers has
me concerned that if this comes down to us trying

(01:11:30):
to outweigh China, we are not going to succeed because, frankly,
we are going to have elections in three and a
half years and we are going to elect either another
Republican who promises to continue this, or we're going to
elect a Democrat who doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock,
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
No, it's Mandy Connell and.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Nah God study the nicey through three. Andy 'connell, keep
your sad, babe. Welcome Welca, Welcome to the third hour
of the show.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
If you miss the beginning of the show today, you
may want to check out the blog at mandy'sblog dot
com because I have the receipts, as the kids say,
the receipts about how David Williams and his crew ran
the Republican Party in the last couple of years. It
was a part of an email put out by the
Republican Party. Now and Britta Horne is going to join

(01:12:38):
me at about two thirty, so if you want to
see how the money was squandered. And here's the thing,
I don't think anything illegal is in these documents, so
I want to be clear about that. I don't think
there's anything in here that is illegal, immoral, perhaps unethical.
I believe so, so i'd urge you to check it out.

(01:13:00):
Britta joins me at two thirty. In the meantime, though,
in the last hour, we were just talking about the
GDP numbers. The gross domestic product contracted point three percent
last year last quarter, excuse me, a year over year,
and everybody's kind of like, oh my god, it's a disaster.
But there's two things that happened in this last quarter,

(01:13:20):
one of which was a one off that was connected
to the oncoming tariffs. A lot of businesses who buy
supplies from overseas, they stocked up, like they may have
only bought, you know, one container previously, they bought three
containers before the tariffs kicked in. And imports are deducted
from our sales in GDP, and federal government spending dropped,

(01:13:44):
and that is significant because now it calls into question
in my mind, all of the GDP numbers that we've seen, right, like,
we should not put government spending in GDP, but I
don't know how you separate it out. Now. I want
to talk for a second about the tariffs, because I
had a conversation this morning with a good friend of

(01:14:04):
mine who's a small business owner, and I asked him,
you know, how are things going. What's going on with
the tariffs? Boy, how do he launched into it? And
he told me so many things that it's kind of
like I guess I thought that they would probably be
this way, but I didn't think it would be this
bad kind of situation. And to be clear, I am

(01:14:25):
not pro tariff. I have long believed that Donald Trump
is trying to use these as a bludgeon to bring
other trading partners in line, including forcing the world to
hold China to the standards they signed up for as
part of the World Trade Organization. Right, So, in my mind,
the tariffs are all about bringing China into line and

(01:14:45):
making them act in a fair way with the rest
of the world, which I do not think will happen.
And now, after this conversation today and reading some things
after that, I am less convinced that we're going to
be able to wait China out. So, first of all,
China is a civilization that is thousands of years old, thousands.
They've been on top of the world more times than

(01:15:08):
I can possibly count. But they've also not been at
the top of the world, right, So they've been on
both ends of the stick, as they say, and they
play the long game, and they look at the United
States of America, where we have elections every four years.
They know that they just have to wait and that
the political wins will shift again and that they will

(01:15:29):
be able to continue doing it whatever it is to
the United States, because people will get into office and
either just to prove that they're not Donald Trump, they're
going to reverse everything he did and turn them loose again.
China is a totalitarian society. I looked up elections in China,
and I just want to read some of this to you.
Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under one

(01:15:52):
party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
Direct elections, except in the Special administ regions of Hong
Kong and Macau, occur at only the local level People's
congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by
the Chinese Communist Party. By law, all elections at all

(01:16:14):
levels must adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.
Doesn't this sound vaguely familiar with what happened in the
last democratic cycle. You only got candidates that were approved
by the Democrat I'm just saying anyway. But nonetheless, they
don't have free elections, so they don't have to worry
about answering to their people. They don't have a currency

(01:16:36):
that floats in the world, so it really doesn't matter
what they do with it. They're just going to manipulate
their currency to keep shoveling money into businesses that are
being hurt on the short term in order to keep
them going for the long term. And right now, in
factories in the United States of America, things are being
turned into robotics. But I want to direct your attention

(01:16:58):
to the Port of Los Angeles for just a minute.
Remember the strike that happened. We have long shoremen who
make a ton of money to sit in the booth
and use a crane to move a box or whatever
it is they do. I don't even know, but they
went on strike and part of the thing they were
striking over was they did not want any robotic technology
on the ports. None. They didn't want any. So here

(01:17:19):
in the United States we have unions that are trying
to prevent robotics and technology being used to make things
more efficient because they're trying to protect the workers. But
in China, they're not trying to protect anybody. They don't care,
you know.

Speaker 5 (01:17:33):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
So the guy that I was talking to today was
talking about a Chinese supplier. They don't source all of
their stuff from China, the small business, but they source
a portion of it, and part of one part is
an electronic part. For something they build, it is critical
and nowhere else in the world can they get it
made right. So he's talking to this supplier and he said,

(01:17:55):
how are you guys doing? And the guy's like, look,
I've had to let some people go. This is his
Chinese counterpart. I've had to let some people go. And
he said, well, do you think that China is gonna
give it all on the tariffs? And the guy started
laughing and he said they let millions upon millions of
Chinese people die during COVID and lied to the world

(01:18:15):
about it. So there's at they're going to weight this out.
They don't care about the Chinese people. They're going to
wait this out. And I thought, you know what, we
we really can't compete with that. First of all, Americans
are addicted to cheap crap. I mean we just are.
We spend and by I mean I had to go
to a one of those uh oh, what's it called

(01:18:38):
TJ Max that's attached to a home goods or home
store or whatever it is, whatever that combos story is.
So you got clothes on one side, you got home
goods on the other side, y'all.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
It was just.

Speaker 3 (01:18:47):
Absolutely packed with people just buying choch keys. And I'm
not anti choschke, right, I'm put a vase there if
you like it. I'm not knocking you. I'm just saying,
we have so much stuff, and we have a lot
of people out there buying more stuff, and a lot
of that stuff comes from China. So China is just
gonna here's gonna wait it out. To the Texter who
asked his government spending effect GDP numbers, I would guess

(01:19:10):
so when they dropped their spending considerably, I definitely would
say it has an impact. Mandya took Moses a long
time to come back down the mountain, and many grew
doubtful and fell from grace. Trump's agenda is doing fine,
but the media is predictably pushing the panic button, using
distorted stacks and distracting Trump with the usual law fair

(01:19:32):
That is a actually perfect point that takes me to
my next my next use of chat GPT, my new
best friend Chatty. So yesterday I was like, you know
what what happened exactly in the beginning of Ronald Reagan's administration,
Like what, let's talk about those numbers for a moment,

(01:19:53):
shall we. So Ronald Reagan comes to office, and he
is dealing with, let's see, twelve and a half percent
annual inflation and unemployment at seven point five percent and
anemic growth in the economy. This is what's handed him
January of nineteen eighty one. In February of nineteen eighty one,

(01:20:18):
he proposes the tax cuts that featured a thirty percent
across the board income tax cut over three years. He
also starts talking about deregulation, and let's see, he's shocked
at the end of March of nineteen eighty one, remember,
and he recovered very, very quickly he submitted his budget

(01:20:38):
that that's so cute. Look, they did budgets back in
nineteen eighty one and in nineteen eighty two. His budget
for nineteen eighty two called for forty one point four
billion dollars in spending cuts. How adorable is that right
now that forty one point four billion would have been something.
In May, Congress debated the proposals. In June, unemployment goes

(01:21:02):
up a little bit, and Reagan is still pushing for
his tax cuts and spending cuts. In July, they finally
passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act. And you know what
happens next a recession. When we get back, I'll remind
you of what that recession looked like, but more importantly,

(01:21:23):
what the recovery from that recession look like, which is
what we all remember as being the Great Reagan years.
We will do that after this on KOA, I was
talking about the Reagan years because the stuff that Trump
is doing to shock the economy right now, and it
is shocking to the economy, is similar in some ways
to what Reagan did in nineteen eighty one. In nineteen

(01:21:45):
eighty In August of nineteen eighty one, finally the Economic
Recovery Tax Act passed. Not only did it give a
twenty five percent across the board income tax, phased in
over three years, it also indexed tax brackets to inflation,
and it cut a bunch of spending, a lot of

(01:22:05):
social programs, food stamps, housing. We were told people were
going to be dying in the streets. And then the
Federal Reserve tighten money policy because inflation was out of control.
Interest rates were twenty percent twenty percent, And it's not
even good yet. But we're not even at the end
of Reagan's first year. In January, we hit a deep recession.

(01:22:30):
The economy entered to severe recession, rising unemployment. Unemployment hits
nine percent in March. In mid nineteen eighty two, we
had a bunch of business bankruptcies. Real GDP contracts for
over two percent for the year. The stock market hits
new lows. Then he signs a bill and reverses some
of the tax cuts, raises taxes to address rising deficits.

(01:22:54):
Employment peaks at ten point eight percent, influation drops below
six percent, and all of a sudden, in early nineteen
eighty three, we begin to recover. GDP begins to grow,
Inflation continues to decline. It's a three point two percent
by the end of the year. But and this is
laughable this next part. The federal budget deficit hits a

(01:23:17):
record two hundred and eight billion dollars billion. However, by
late nineteen eighty three we are on our way up.
GDP growth hits four point six percent for the year,
the stock market rallies, and nineteen eighty four begins the
economic boom that we call Morning in America. That was

(01:23:40):
this campaign. In nineteen eighty four, unemployment falls but below
seven point five percent. GDP in quarter one grows at
an annual rate of seven point two percent, seven point
two percent. Part of the problem that we have right
now when it comes to tariffs, when it comes to
all these things that are happening, because it's so chaotic

(01:24:02):
and they're all happening at once, is that we forget
how long things take. Maybe back in the nineteen eighties,
people were a little more patient because it had been
so bad under Jimmy Carter. But I gotta tell you,
I went back There was not a lot of love
letters being written to Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty two,
not at all. People were very, very salty. So you

(01:24:25):
know again, I keep saying it because I hear you guys,
I hear pundits on TV shows, or I hear talk
show hosts, and they're so certain when they say, Oh,
this is what's gonna happen next. None of them are right,
and they're spectacularly wrong. I would rather say, legitimately, here's
what I think, here's where I think it all goes together,
Here's what I think the endgame is. But China is

(01:24:48):
a wild card. We don't know how they're gonna react,
but they they have been shown for many, many years
to play the long game. Somebody on the text line said, Mandy,
what are we supposed to do? Simply roll over and
China have their way with us. I think the one
way to make this work. And man, if Donald Trump

(01:25:08):
could pull this off, it would honestly be the biggest
spectacular win of any president of any time in the
history of the world. He if he can get a
large enough percentage of China's trading partners to commit to
putting tariffs on Chinese products until they comply fully with

(01:25:31):
the World Trade Organization rules and regulations that they agreed on,
then that may work. But that's a lot of hurting kittens,
a lot of hurting kittens, and people don't want to
mess with a government that's way bigger than they are, right,
So if he can pull it off, it would be
absolutely spectacular. Can he pull it off?

Speaker 8 (01:25:53):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:25:54):
I don't know. I do not know.

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
Mandy. Remember Reagan in his run for his second term
one forty nine and fifty states because GDP hit seven
point ninety five percent, right, the recovery started. This person,
we need world War three. No, thank you, no, thank you,
hard Pass I do not. And yes, Texter, I have
tried using Grock. I use grock and chat GBT for

(01:26:21):
different things. So yeah, but I've been enjoying the heck.
Chat GBT has grown to love me. Now we're besties.
We're friends, we hang out, we braid each other's hair. No,
we don't do that because chat GBT doesn't have hair.
But he will talk like Yoda if you ask him to.
I haven't asked him another question since I got him
talking like Yoda. So we'll see what happens after that

(01:26:43):
when we get back. Britta Horne, the new chairperson of
the Colorado GOP, joins me, if you go to my
blog today at nandysblog dot com. There is an accounting
of some spending that was done by the prior leadership
that is mind blowing. Probably not a lit eagle, but
mind blowing nonetheless. So we're going to talk to Britta

(01:27:04):
first of all about when this information, well, I made
a public today, somebody sent it to me and I'm like, okay,
I'm going with it. I'm running with it because it's
time to end the charade that there was not stuff
going on that just should not have gone on in
the last party leadership. So Bretta Horn's going to join
me next. And you guys, there's so much stuff on

(01:27:25):
the blog today that I just realized I'm not gonna
have any time to get to at all, including the
Kentucky Derby. It's this weekend, and no, I'm not wearing
my Derby hat to my nephew's wedding this weekend. Is fine.
We'll be right back with Bretta Horn after this. The
bunch of data that was sent out to the State
Central Committee yesterday or the day before, not sure which

(01:27:45):
it was sent to me yesterday, and it shows the
ways that the prior leadership of the Colorado Republican party
chose to spend money and joining me now is the
new chairperson of the Colorado Republican Party, Britta Horn to
kind of talk about what this looks like and what
it actually means. Britta, first of all, welcome back to
the show.

Speaker 8 (01:28:06):
Thanks for having me, Mandy. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:08):
So you sent out this email, Britta, to the State
Central Committee and it was shared with me, and I
don't know if somebody was supposed to, but they did,
and I'm glad they did. And can you tell my
listeners what data you shared? Not specifics, but what data
you put in this email and why you chose to
share it this way?

Speaker 8 (01:28:28):
So it was yeah, just like I said when I
was running PROFSS, can I do a one hundred day plan?
So this is the first thirty days, and it's like,
this is what we've been doing. And there's not a
lot of other pieces right there as well. You can
see all the different things we're doing. But the data
that was important to me is just like I've been
as a treasure of the treasure up in Steamboat Springs
and Route County years ago, is if you want to

(01:28:50):
know what's going on with your group, you better want
to watch what you say, watch me where the blood
letting's going, where the money is going, And so that
was really important and kind of together. So what I
did is I went totally to the public information called
the SEC and went over there and I just took

(01:29:10):
all three years to twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
and then the last three months of the first three
months here in twenty twenty five and put it together
and put all the like like expenses together, so like
all the legal was together, all the contributions were together,
all the consulting was together, all the events were together,
and it was a total of three years. But it

(01:29:32):
just showing how much money was spent.

Speaker 3 (01:29:36):
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna jump right into some of
the numbers really quickly, because there's a couple that jump
out at me. Number one, two hundred and seventy three
thousand and eighty seven dollars and six cents in legal fees.
Who no, I mean, Britta, that that's why I know.
And a lot how much of that was to sue

(01:29:57):
other Republicans.

Speaker 8 (01:29:59):
Absolutely, I mean it's a combination, like I said, of
twenty three eight twenty four and three months of twenty
five but you're looking at that and that doesn't even
touch Mandy. Another thing we have to talk about for
all the bills that are being wrapped up for the
lawsuit with the Claremont Institute, we have that on another
account that we're working on as well. This was straight

(01:30:20):
up operating and it just seems like, no, we can't
be spending money like this. Wait what that got me? Oh?
Go ahead, you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
Wait wait, wait, So the money that's being paid for
the lawsuit is not even accounted for in this accounting, No, ma'am.
Are you well then why is there a ten thousand
dollars payment to the Claremont Institute on this accounting if
there's a whole other set of accounting just about that lawsuit.

Speaker 8 (01:30:45):
So yeah, because we the GOP the party last year
gave Claremont Institute ten thousand dollars towards that bill. But
that bill is racking up and so we're working on
that too. You're taking all my thunder for the next email.
So we're working on it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
I have to tell you, let's talk about consulting for
a moment, because and I said this earlier in the show,
I'm not anti consultant, but I feel like consultants need
to come in and add value and provide actual information
that that that does something positive for the organization that
they're in. But apparently Chairman David Williams paid himself two

(01:31:29):
two hundred and seven thousand dollars plus for consulting, and
I am I am shocked. I am absolutely gobsma. I
have to ask this question, Britta, what is your financial
arrangement as chairman with the Republican Party in terms of

(01:31:49):
how you are compensated in any way, shape or form
by the party. Can you explain that to me?

Speaker 8 (01:31:55):
Oh? Sure, so yes, I kept this salary or I
can do this ten ninety nine consulting. I mean, I
want to clean it that up. That was to me.
It's like when you look at Dave William's total in
twenty twenty three, he was paid as a person and
then in twenty twenty four it went to as a
Fox LTV group Box group. Yeah, and then they reimbursements.

(01:32:16):
So right now I am working for free, ma'am. I'm
going to make sure that we get other things paid. First,
we need to make sure we have some staff people.
Some of this you know, really important. I got to
go to the executive committee. I got to work out
the budget, making sure they prove the budget, and maybe,
like you said, maybe in the summer or the end
of the summer, you know, I'll pull a salary. But
I mean, I want to be able to prove that
I'm doing work and doing us work. Twenty four or seven.

(01:32:38):
I mean, it's been nonstaff. I mean even on Easter Sunday,
I met for brunch with somebody over politics. It's just crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
Well, first of all, I admire you for doing that,
but please don't undervalue yourself. But is there not a
formal sort of salary arrangement or because this just seems
very nebulous, I mean, did the former chairman have some
kind of arrangement like I, I'm going to take X
amount of dollars per month or that you're aware of.

Speaker 8 (01:33:04):
No, we're just still looking for like we've got the
access to the internal server, so we're gonna start digging through,
like you said, the invoices and the you know, the
correspondence hopefully and be able to just find you know,
what we're looking for, because this is you know, this
is what I want to be really really clear about, Mandy,
is that I promised transparency. We're gonna do transparency. We're
going to look at this going back, and we're going

(01:33:25):
to get a forensic auditor that's just going to look
at blood the last team and a half years, so
making sure we're correct and we're current and the tests
are paid and everything's done to make sure we're made whole.
But we need to turn around and go forward. We
got to work forward.

Speaker 6 (01:33:39):
We only have.

Speaker 8 (01:33:39):
Eighteen months to the next election. We have got to
get to work.

Speaker 3 (01:33:44):
So how much money is in this other account for
this lawsuit and you're talking about the lawsuit on.

Speaker 8 (01:33:49):
Prop one O eight, Yeah, the one I have. Like
I said, we have some dumbps to it and I
haven't seen that account. And make sure to see what's
going on in the bank account itself so I'll be
able to bring that back to you next time.

Speaker 3 (01:34:03):
Okay. The other thing that I wanted to talk about
in this email was you apparently found a document which
had been amended by someone you logged in with Dave
Williams' credentials. Is that accurate? Tell me about that and
what was that document?

Speaker 8 (01:34:16):
Okay, So what we found out is that when we
got him on April night, we got access to the
internal server and they went back and looked to see
who was the last person to go in there, and
it was that one. Like you said, it was April eighth,
and so we're still digging in to see what's going on,
what was what was a deleted, what was edited. But
we just wanted people to really understand, especially our party,

(01:34:37):
and it's okay that this is public information because we'll
be putting us on our website. It's just going you know,
everybody kept on saying it's smooth transition, of smooth transition,
it's kind of bumpy when you see other people that
shouldn't be in there in April eighth, you know, nine
twelve days after they're not cheering anymore. Still in the document, right,
we're going to be investigatting that as well.

Speaker 3 (01:34:57):
Man, So what is what is all of this stuff?
I mean some of these numbers are huge, uh Britta,
and uh the legal numbers especially, I I'm just gonna
say it, I am not I understand why the lawsuit
on Proposition one O eight exists, but I think in

(01:35:18):
the long run it's going to be bad for the
party and it's just being really expensive. Are there chances
that the party can decide to say, you know what,
We're not gonna do this anymore. We're going to move
forward and we're gonna redirect all these funds into getting
Republicans elected in Colorado. Is there any chance that could happen?

Speaker 8 (01:35:37):
I think there was a little bit more of a
different having a different direction of that we're supposed to
be fundraising for this thing, and like I personally gave
money to cem On Institute because I wanted to go
for the this lassit too. And like I said, it
was more like ninety five percent of the party wanted
to do this. But then you need to buck up
and start paying for it because it's not going to
come out of this pocket. We need to fundraising need

(01:35:58):
to get on a huge, you know, huge level, and
the group of people that need to be fund raised
for that needs to start doing their doing that job
because we can't be carrying these kind of balances either.
I don't want to do that either.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
Well, and I was appalled, absolutely appalled by the anemic
contributions under the contribution section that that to me says
everything I need to know about this former leadership. When
this this should have been the largest section in my mind, right,
it should have been a list.

Speaker 8 (01:36:30):
Okay, No, these are all distributions, so you're not looking
at income. We're going to do income later, and it's
going to be such time time, time driven to just
dig and dig and dig and try to make sure
we're contributing all the different income. This is just dispersement.

Speaker 3 (01:36:47):
No, that's what I'm talking about. This should be the
biggest section. Like in my mind, the Republican Party should
have been giving money to candidates, like they should have
been supporting candidates to get them elected. And you've got
Greg Lopez, you've got the Douglas County Republican Central Committee.
That looks like a reimbursement because it's so specific. Lauren
Bober for Congress. Let be let kids be Yeah, let

(01:37:08):
kids be kids with Darcy Schoenig at Gary Peterson and
the Claremont Institute. That's it, and and that that should
be big.

Speaker 8 (01:37:16):
Well, you're right, look at the top as much. Look
at the very first page or a bulb of eagle.
We had the rn C had a transfer back in
three years, you know, in almost a million dollments. We
had to transfer it back. And like I said, this
month alone. When you look at the other page from
the sec from dispersements for March, fifty seven thousand dollars
was given back to the r and C. I'm in

(01:37:37):
talking with the rn C right now, going hey, we
don't know why they got paid back to you and
can we have it back please.

Speaker 3 (01:37:44):
Well, I was told I was told by someone that
that was money that was donated to the Colorado GOP
by the Trump campaign that was expected to be sent
up to the RNC. That's what I was told by something.
When I asked about that, I was like, well, what
is that? So maybe that.

Speaker 8 (01:38:01):
I'm still working on that, but you said, you look
at there. In twenty twenty four, eight hundred and sixty
nine thousand dollars was stepped back and we were supposed
to use that for candidates. Right, this pestimual circle for
a lot of us, because now we understand why money
had to go to the Arizona GOP to do the
mailing and a NISHA for Evans and it had to

(01:38:22):
you know, in Colorado. So this money got returned because
we're using it what we should have been doing, getting
contributions to all the candidates.

Speaker 3 (01:38:29):
Absolutely, Rida, I am so appreciative of your transparency. Is
this now? I posted it on my blog, so it's
already public. But is the rest of this where can
people keep up? Where can they get these emails? Where
can they continue to follow this along?

Speaker 8 (01:38:45):
So, like I said, this email was, like you said,
what we call the five aweight. It's the state's central committee.
So five aweight, five hundred eighty people bought it. But
we also saying we're going to put in on our
website and Loch just colgp dot org and also sign
up for the newsletter. Newsletter we sent out a more
high level of this one. It wasn't in detail, it

(01:39:05):
didn't have all the details in it, but let us
not let everybody know what we're doing the last thirty days,
and we're going to keep being transparent. There's not gonna
be anything hidden. We're gonna let people know what's going
on because this is how we get our trust back
and get donors to want to be involved with us again.
Because we also had the plan that we're pushing out
obviously for all the regional offices. How we're going to
get those going, what that's going to look like. We

(01:39:27):
need field directors, we need people on the ground we
need to get to work. So I think between these
two pieces, we're showing the donors and people in Colorado
that we are doing the yoman's work getting this done,
and we're going to just keep marching forward.

Speaker 3 (01:39:40):
Well, I hope. So it's it was kind of shocking
to see all of this, and I was talking about
it earlier on my show and the results on the
text line were like, are you kidding me? But hopefully
this is going to do exactly what you wanted to do.
You know, transparency never hurts, right. It's like I tell
my kid all the time, like, don't lie. You don't

(01:40:01):
have anything to remember, right, you don't.

Speaker 5 (01:40:03):
You don't.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
If just cover you do have to remember your cover story.
If you just tell the truth, the truth is always
going to be on your side.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:40:09):
The thing that jumped out at me the most Britta
about this kind of egregious spending that I think is
egregious by Williams and his cronies is that this is
exactly what they accused Chrissy Burton Brown of doing with
no proof, with no investigation, with no forensic audit, And
it's almost like they were accusing her of doing it

(01:40:30):
so they could do it, and it just that rubbed
me the wrong way.

Speaker 8 (01:40:35):
I think you're right. I think that does it for
anybody else people accuse you of. You know, they always
say that with the preacher, you're pointing a finger and
three are pointing back at you. Yeah, exactly what's going
on because even on that one hundred and forty thousand
that we're still trying to figure out. You know, I
remember I remember to two years and three months ago
when Dave took over and he was, you know, doing
the same thing that I'm doing right now, but saying
we're going to get you to the bottom of it.

(01:40:56):
We're gonna find out with one hundred and twty thousands
about and we still at carrying it. So we're going
to clean it up.

Speaker 3 (01:41:02):
All right.

Speaker 8 (01:41:02):
We're gonna have to go with the SEC and we're
gonna have to you know, do some hopefully some negotiations
when it comes to fees. But we got to get
it cleaned up six or once and for all and
move on and win elections.

Speaker 3 (01:41:14):
Amen to that, Britta Horne. I appreciate your time today.
I appreciate this transparency. I'm going to continue sharing stuff
on my blog, so people can see what's going on,
and I hope that not just you, but I know
that there are so many really great people that work
with you, and dedicated Republicans across the state that they

(01:41:34):
deserve to know that their hard work and their money
is going to what they think it's gonna go to.
You know what I mean. I just I'm glad that
they're having someone on their side to say, your money
matters and we're going to take care of it.

Speaker 8 (01:41:48):
I truly appreciate that. And it's a team effort. I
think You've got everyone's known that for the beginning. Yes,
I appreciate it, but appreciating the chair, but I wouldn't
be here if it wasn't for the team effort of
everybody that it's like going, finally, we need to get
these things. We need to go forward. Everybody was watching
this the last two plus years, going this is why,
this is why Brighton was happening. Remember when we were
meeting in the church, you know, last and July of

(01:42:09):
last year, August, it was because these things were going
on and nobody was listening, you know. So I'm glad
they're a huge team that we have and it's getting
it's getting wider, you know, it's getting broader stroke more
and more people. I was just at a speaking at
a National Day of Prayer and all these people came
up afterwards. They're like, oh my gosh, you're doing a
great job. And they were just you know, loving on it,
just like we want to get involved again and we're

(01:42:30):
going to become Republicans again. I'm like, thank you, Lord,
thank you Lord.

Speaker 3 (01:42:33):
It's well, Bretta, I'm godspeed on your mission. And I
look forward to more transparency and I look forward to
being able to help Republicans win races in Colorado, which
is really what it's all about.

Speaker 8 (01:42:46):
Amen, all right, got it?

Speaker 3 (01:42:48):
Thanks Bretta, have a great day. And that is Brenda
Horne from the Colorado Republican Party. I love these Texters.
Will believe it when I see it. No trust in
either party? Point and do that text her, I would say,
absolutely fair, one hundred percent fair. This Texter said, do
not trust or like her. Something feels off. I'm just

(01:43:08):
gonna say this, Like Britta and I have known her
for many years now. We're not best friends, you know,
but I always enjoy seeing her and she is very
much a What you see is what you get person.
So if you're getting some kind of like, you know,
skulduggery vibe from her, that's not at all accurate. She's
just a very kind person. I always enjoy seeing her.

(01:43:32):
I like when I see her at an event. I'm
happy to see her kind of thing. So give her
a chance. I'm not telling you that you know, oh,
you're totally wrong. I'm just saying you give her a
chance before you turn your gut on her completely. So
I am off tomorrow. I'm going to my nephew's wedding. No,
I am not wearing a Kentucky Derby hat to tomorrow's wedding,

(01:43:52):
even though I kind of want to not because it
is the Kentucky Derby. And I've got so much stuff
on the blog to do that we didn't get to
that I have to. I might carry some of them
over for next week because there's just so many good
stories on here. I mean anyway. Ryan Edwards has joined
us in the studio. Hello, how you doing, Ryan, I'm

(01:44:16):
doing great, doing great.

Speaker 5 (01:44:17):
I hope you have found the wedding.

Speaker 3 (01:44:19):
You know what, you know, weddings are just fun And
I'm finally at the age where I'm now part of
the old person group where I'm not expected to like
carry the party, you know what I mean. So I
don't have to get yeah, I don't have to get
super wasted. I don't have to dance the whole night.
I don't feel any responsibility to raise the roof or
do the electric slide. I will if I want, yes,

(01:44:41):
But I'm kind of looking forward to this next stage
of life. Wedding style it's outstanding.

Speaker 7 (01:44:46):
It is another level and you can't really explain it
to somebody until you.

Speaker 5 (01:44:50):
Just are there, boring you. You can still have fun.

Speaker 3 (01:44:54):
I'm gonna have fun.

Speaker 5 (01:44:55):
It's a different have fun.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:44:58):
It's where you feel like you have to do.

Speaker 3 (01:45:00):
Yeah, and you get to visit with family that you
don't see that often, and it's just a really And
I absolutely adore the young woman that my nephew is married. No,
I got Lenny. I'm so excited that they have found
each other. So it's like, you know, I don't know
if you've had this experience, Ryan, maybe a Rod has,
but I have where you're going to that wedding and

(01:45:21):
you're just the whole time you're there, you're like, this
is never going to work out ever, And it doesn't.
So you're at the wedding knowing that it's going nowhere fast,
and yet there you are.

Speaker 5 (01:45:31):
And yet there you are. That's exactly right. No, I
I haven't.

Speaker 7 (01:45:34):
I know, we got to go, but I have had
some experience.

Speaker 5 (01:45:37):
We'll talk about that.

Speaker 3 (01:45:38):
Later, amen, because now it's time for the most exciting
segment on the radio of its kind of the world
of the day. All right, let's see here. What is
our dad joke of the day.

Speaker 6 (01:45:54):
Please, Anthony, my friend David had is id stolen?

Speaker 5 (01:45:59):
Oh no, now, I just Dave.

Speaker 3 (01:46:02):
I knew where that was going as soon as you
said David yep id yep, kind of gave it up
in the tail of Mary Anthony. Okay, what's our word of.

Speaker 6 (01:46:10):
The day adjective softig That means asked, tig.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
Heavy set, kind of fat.

Speaker 5 (01:46:17):
Cho k uh, you're in the Yeah, it's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:46:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:46:22):
Yeah, a full rounded figure or in other words, pleasantly plump, perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:46:27):
Drunk ad Yep, there you go. Today's trivia question. I
have not looked at the answer, and I've been dying
to since I saw this question. How much would a
two hundred pound person weigh on the planet mercury I'm
gonna say four hundred and seventy five pounds? How much
thirty pounds? Forty four? I'm going four hundred and seventy five?

Speaker 7 (01:46:48):
What do you got Ryan, I'm gonna think more like
five hundred Like I think it's the weight.

Speaker 5 (01:46:53):
I don't know science.

Speaker 3 (01:46:55):
And Anthony Rodriguez is the big winner, approximately seventy five pound.
If the same person hopped over to Venus, they would
be closer to their earthweight at about one hundred and
eighty pounds. The unique gravity at each planet a cab
But what about.

Speaker 4 (01:47:09):
Urin is boy wah wah wah wah.

Speaker 3 (01:47:14):
Yeah, there we.

Speaker 5 (01:47:15):
Go, jepardy category for it today.

Speaker 6 (01:47:23):
Exercise exercise exercise Canny consider cast iron to be the
original type of.

Speaker 3 (01:47:31):
This gym many what is nonstick?

Speaker 5 (01:47:34):
Wrong?

Speaker 6 (01:47:36):
This type of jim weight that has an attatched handle?
Now ring in, come on iron the original type of
this jim weight?

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
Mandy Man, it's a kettlebell.

Speaker 5 (01:47:52):
Is one? Nonetheless, I know, I know.

Speaker 6 (01:47:54):
Contrology is the former name of this exercise discipline created
by and named for German gymnast Joseph Plates.

Speaker 5 (01:48:05):
That is nice back to zero.

Speaker 6 (01:48:07):
This Chinese martial arts has been called meditation in motion.
That is correct when it CrossFit Jim, A m R
a p m RAP stands for this and the higher
the number the better.

Speaker 5 (01:48:24):
Am R a p acronym.

Speaker 3 (01:48:25):
Forge something something something something.

Speaker 5 (01:48:30):
I'm gonna count that as an answer.

Speaker 3 (01:48:31):
I I didn't say my name. I'm thinking out loudward
trying to get.

Speaker 5 (01:48:37):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:48:37):
I have no idea.

Speaker 5 (01:48:38):
As many reps as possible.

Speaker 3 (01:48:41):
I didn't even have. And finally, the crossfitters are yelling
at the radio right now.

Speaker 6 (01:48:45):
Zero zero tie, right yeah, one, okay, Right here we go, Ryan,
What does it.

Speaker 3 (01:48:50):
Say to us that we are sucking wind at the
exercise category?

Speaker 6 (01:48:55):
Alpha numeric fitness regimen uses the advanced science of muscle confusion.

Speaker 5 (01:49:03):
It's a workout.

Speaker 3 (01:49:04):
Will you say that again?

Speaker 6 (01:49:05):
The first part, this alpha numeric fitness regimen?

Speaker 5 (01:49:10):
And how did you get that off of that? That's
a terrible blue.

Speaker 3 (01:49:15):
Alpha numeric means it has a letter and a number
in Oh yeah, yeah, So there you go. Sometimes the
question on Jeopardy will give you a big hint without
you even really having to worry about it. What do
you guys have coming up on KO Sports? Ryan?

Speaker 7 (01:49:28):
Hopefully we do better than how I did in the category.
We got to Shelby in studio. We're gonna have a
lot of fun. Jay Plumber is on the show. We're
very excited about that as well. He's at five o'clock
and we'll get into some of the draft thoughts from Shelby.

Speaker 5 (01:49:41):
Ash Doorg Sanders went to his Cleveland Browns. I can't
wait to talk to you about that.

Speaker 3 (01:49:46):
That is going to be exciting and I'm interested to
hear that. In the meantime, though, you should just listen
right through the rest of the three through six and
then six through nine. We got great shows coming up
on KOA. Keep it right here on KOA.