05-22-24 FULL SHOW - Just How Is RTD Doing Plus Weather Wednesday and More

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It is gorgeous outside today. It'sone of those days where it's like,
can I just drag the microphone rightout there? If we had a door
in here, that would be amazing. We just have a window that taunts
us by allowing us to see thisbeautiful outside space. We should have chairs
set up out there, Jeff,We should. We should have loungers,
you know. That'd be awesome.We could have snack time out there and

(00:20):
all kinds of stuff would be reallygood. But instead, dang it,
dang it, we're inside. Now, let's talk about what's on the blog
and where to find it. Soweird thing just happened. I went to
go to Kowa Colorado dot com togo to my blog site, and it
said our servers are down. Butweirdly, when I went to mandy'sblog dot

(00:42):
com, no apostrophe, mandy'sblog dotcom, it took me right there.
So go to mandy'sblog dot com toget to the blog. When you get
to the main page, look forthe headline that says five twenty two twenty
four blog just how is RTD doing? Plus weather Wednesday and more. Click
on that and here are the headlinesyou will find within. I think you're

(01:02):
in office South American all with shipsand clipments of sansa press plant. Today
on the blog weather Wednesday was Foxthirty one's Dave Frasier. So how is
RTD doing anyway? Its Mental HealthAwareness month? Elections have consequences Denver,
addition, course Field will be surroundedby cops today. The You says they're

(01:23):
done with the encampment. European countriesrecognized non existent. Palestinian state Egypt screwed
up the ceasefire deal. It costsa lot more to be middle class in
Colorado now. Home owners insurance isgetting tough for those in the mountains.
Joe Biden still illegally canceling student debt. The homeless, hotels and migrant centers
are costing a fortune in security costs. The upcoming presidential election is the battle

(01:48):
of who is hated least Americans stillsupport Israel and have lost faith in Joe
Biden. Do this before you eatcarbs. Do this croissant crawl in Denver.
You are twice as likely to berun over by an electric vehicle.
Yes, Jeopardy contestants are allowed tosit. Newsmax is being accused of destroying
evidence. Did you know break dancingis now an Olympics sport? Want to

(02:10):
dine outside in the metro A basinwill be open into June. I love
this guy. Those are the headlineson the blog at mandy'sblog dot com.
Robbed us and who's in the mastercontrol right now? Did they clean out
the encampment at DU? Do weknow? Do we have an update?
So? Last night they were givena nine pm get out order, and

(02:35):
I you know, I was expectingthe University of Denver to be a little
tougher about this, and we'll seewhat they actually do, but they were
giving them an ultimatum. And whathappens with an ultimatum, You know,
if you don't follow through on theother side of the ultimatum, they're just
empty words. And that's what we'veseen over and over again in the Array

(03:00):
campus, just idle threats. It'sjust a miracle that the pro Hamas protesters
at the Au Area campus just decidedto leave. I mean, there's really
they did nothing to stop that.So DU is now responding and asking that

(03:24):
they leave. We'll get into thata little bit later. I got a
few things on the blog today,but I want to give you an idea
of who's coming up weather Wednesday.Coming up at twelve thirty five, our
man Dave Frasier from Fox thirty one. We'll take your weather questions. And
I don't have anything to bark abouttoday about today's weather. It's just beautiful,
absolutely beautiful, I think, Ihope, and maybe I'll ask him

(03:45):
this question. I hope we're throughthe most chaotic part of spring. When
people always ask me when they shouldcome to visit Colorado, I say anytime
except spring, because spring is sounpredictable and the weather can be amazing and
it can be disgusting. It's like, there's no way. So if you
want the best of Colorado, summer, fall, winter, those are the

(04:08):
times to come visit us. Andspring is just like unless you want to
have a vacation where you could bestuck inside all day. You know whatever,
It's fine anyway. So we've gotFox thirty one's Dave Fraser coming on
at twelve thirty and then at oneo'clock Kelly Bruff, who should be the
mayor but is not shame on you, Denver rights. She is now with

(04:30):
the Common Sense Institute as a fellowand she oversaw the commission of a large
report on the Regional Transit Department RTDour mass transit system. Now we all
know that there was a big shakedownfor oil and gas this last legislative session
at the behest of the governor,and they're going to use the shakedown funds
that they are shaking down oil andgas for to work on more light rail.

(04:56):
Not light rail like we have now, but passenger rail on the front
range. This is no one isclamoring for this, no one is begging
for it. That there's a certainamount of let's just say, I don't
want to use the word glamor that'sthe wrong word. There's a certain amount
of gravitas that democratic cities like tothink is implied by having some kind of

(05:19):
passenger rail system. And if itwere effective, and if it were the
kind of thing that somebody really wantedto take on a daily or weekly basis,
then yeah, it would be fantastic. But the reality is is that
mass transit does not remotely cover thecost of mass transit. We could almost

(05:42):
buy everyone who rides mass transit acar for less money than we're actually spending
on mass transit. And I'm notkidding about that so Kelly has the results
of this study, which are notgood, and we're about to pour even
more money into this losing operation.And the real kick in the pants is
is that when light rail was soldto people on the front range, we

(06:05):
were told it was going to berevolutionary for the rest of us who still
had to drive because light rail didn'treach where we lived. Right, this
was going to be amazing. Peoplewere gonna hop on light rail. We
weren't gonna have train. You weregonna be able to just drive in multiple
lanes on I twenty five because therewas so much space. Not a single
bit of that has come to pass. And yet, instead of recognizing that

(06:27):
we should look in a different directionhere, maybe consider replacing light rail with
buses that go fast and get youwhere you want to go, we are
engaging what's known as the sunk costfallacy. It's almost like, oh,
we've already spent all this money.We can't stop spending money now, even
though the money that we've spent hasnot been effective in any of the goals

(06:48):
that we laid out when we toldyou we were going to spend all of
this money. And when you hearhow much per mile light rail has cost
us. I almost show on mycoffee this morning. I almost passed out.
It was crazy, absolutely crazy,and we're looking to do the same

(07:09):
thing and expand it. Now.Does anybody believe that the governor is going
to ride any passenger rail anywhere?Anyone? No? Mean neither does anybody
believe that any of our legislators,maybe maybe one or two are going to
ride light rail? No, theydon't. I got an email a couple
of weeks ago from a guy whosaid, my car's in the shop,
so I have my bike, andI figured I would just ride my bike

(07:29):
to the light rail, take thelight rail to downtown, and then ride
my bike to work. Except whenhe got on the train, there was
someone on the train in the carwith him smoking Sentinel, So that doesn't
exactly give you a warm and fuzzyanyway. I've got today's CEO of Aurora
Mental Health and Recovery, doctor KellyPhillips Henry. She's coming on to talk

(07:51):
about how they are addressing the mentalhealth needs of the Aurora community and the
fact that everyone has so much moreaware of mental health than they ever have
been before, to the point whereand I know that I'm gonna be slammed
for saying this, but I'm gonnasay it anyway, because I talk about
mental health a lot. I havesignificant mental illness in my family. And

(08:13):
I'm not just talking about, youknow, depression. I'm talking about schizophrenia.
I'm talking about serious mental health issuesin my family. So it's very
important to me. But i gottatell you, guys, my now fifteen
year old daughter and all of herfriends have diagnosed themselves and everyone in their
family with various mental illnesses, sometimesmultiples. Jeff, you're laughing. You

(08:37):
are laughing, But this is howthey talk to one another. They're like,
well, you know, she's justan ultra narcissist and probably has borderline
personality disorder. Like they're literally talkingto each other in those terms. And
one of them says, well,I'm pretty sure I'm a sociopath. I'm
like, oh, if you've murderedany kittens, I don't think you are.

(08:58):
I don't think you are, Like, you know, are you plot?
Like what have you stabbed anyone inyour No, I don't think you're
a sociopath. So we have nowswung the pendulum in so far the other
direction when it comes to mental healththat now people are wearing their mental health
diagnoses like badges of honor, liketheir girls scout badges. I was diagnosed

(09:22):
with depression and BPD, and theydon't even say borderline personality sort they just
say BPD. So if you're notin the know, you have no idea
what they're talking about. I mean, we have wrecked these kids. We
have absolutely wrecked these children, andit's all the adult's fault. It's not
their fault, it's the adult's fault. There's a big chasm between Hey,

(09:45):
if you're feeling blue, reach outfor help, and you have teenagers self
diagnosing their friends with all kinds ofmental disorders because that's all people talk about.
And I've said this to friends thatare struggling with mental health issues.
My big frustration is this, ifyou have a mental health disorder, that
is not who you are. Thatis part of your personality, right,

(10:09):
that is part of who you are, but it does not and should not
define you. And now people leadwith it. You know, Oh God,
my anxiety was off the charts.I just couldn't manage, you know,
as a bipolar person, I juststruggle so much in certain situations like
I don't care about any of that. I really don't. Now, if

(10:30):
you're a complete ahole to me becauseof some kind of mental break, then
if you come back to me andsay, I'm really sorry, but I
was having a terrible day. Istruggled with this and I'm sorry I took
it out on you, that isa completely different situation. But if you
are just leading with that, like, here's what's wrong with me? I
was thinking about this. It's like, imagine if we all did that all
the time. Imagine if I introducedmyself to just Jeff the first time I

(10:54):
met him. Hi, Just Jeff. My name's Mandy Connell. I have
one leg that's slightly longer than theother. I have really bad chronic insomnia,
and sometimes I can't shut my brainoff, Like what is the point?
What is the point of that?So we've got to sort of get
back to some sense of normalcy here, because we sure don't have one now,

(11:16):
not at all. So it hasbeen Uh, anyway, I didn't
mean to go on that side here. We are going to talk about mental
health today because again it is important, but I think we've just won the
pendulum too far in the other direction. So We'll talk to doctor Kelly Phillips
Snry about that a little bit later. I want to start today. I'm
going to jump right into this.There's a new poll. There's actually a

(11:39):
pole they do every year, Magellan'sStrategies does a poll and they kind of
count it as a one year reportcard for the new mayor. And let's
just say, Mayor Johnston's approval issliding now if you take his margin of
victory as his approval rating, rightlike, okay, he was elected by

(12:03):
fifty five percent of the voters inDenver, but right now he is sitting
at forty three percent approval. That'squite a slide. Half of voters disapprove
of his performance to date, withanother seven percent undecided. This what By
the way, this survey was paidfor by the city council. Fifty five

(12:24):
percent of survey respondents believe Denver ison the wrong track. Forty two percent
say it's on the right track.Now, this was an online poll,
so I don't know, and I'mnot in any way saying that Magellan Strategies
doesn't know how to conduct an onlinepoll. I'm just unaware of how they
conduct an online poll. That isn'tself selected. If you guys understand what

(12:48):
that means. Like, if Isee a poll from a company that I
hate, I'm going to be like, heck, yeah, I'm going to
do this poll. One hundred percentI'm doing it. So I don't know
what the methodology is behind this survey, but I'm gonna assume they know how
to weed that out. But fortythree point three percent say they approve of

(13:09):
Mayor Mike Johnston. Only thirty fivepoint seven percent approve of the City Council.
Now, Rob Dawson has been coveringall the back and forth between the
Mayor's office and departments and the CityCouncil, and things are starting to get
tense. What's funny is they vacillatebetween wanting to change direction on some of

(13:31):
the stuff that they've pretty much supportedhim on so far and just wanting credit
for the ideas that they've had thatthe mayor's office is pretty much taken over.
So there's been a little bit oftrouble between the City Council and Mayor
Mike Johnston, especially when it comesto the amount of money being spent on
the homeless population and now the illegalimmigrant population. You heard yesterday when Rob

(13:52):
was talking about the the bevy ofbenefits that are being given to illegal immigrants
while we're justusing homeless people and hopingfor the best because when you and maybe
it's changed. I sure hope ithas changed. But what about the availability
of drug and alcohol treatment at thehomeless hotels? What about moving people into

(14:15):
some kind of treatment or into somekind of self sufficiency with job training and
things of that nature. Why aren'twe doing what we're about to give illegal
immigrants, Why aren't we doing thatfor the homeless population that we've currently warehoused
in hotels? And I kind ofknow the answer. I hinted it this
yesterday. The answer is is thathomeless people are addicts, and homeless people

(14:37):
have other significant issues that need tobe addressed. Yeah, that's probably a
lot of it. So this,this survey, this survey certainly doesn't bode
well for the mayor. Now,this council commissioned the poll to gauge voter

(14:58):
opinion for shorter term limits, andthis could be a good thing. They
were to reduce them from three termsof twelve years, well a total of
twelve years, to two terms ofeight years. Seventy four percent support two
terms for the mayor and city council, meaning the language may make it to
the ballot in November. So interestingstuff going on, very interesting stuff going

(15:22):
on, and I certainly hope youpay attention. I'm doing something real quick
to send to Jeff. Okay,Jeff, it's on the way, my
friend on the way anyway. SoI said this to Rob in the hallway.
Does anybody else feel like the mayorhas just been spending money hand over

(15:46):
fist, trying to deal with thehomeless crisis, trying to figure out a
way to treat I legal immigrants likethey're the prodigal children of Denver, and
trying to buy up so much propertyin the desire to find a place to
put people. Where's all the moneycoming from. Some of it is URPA

(16:07):
money, which is a joke becauseURPA money was of course supposed to be
spent during COVID and on COVID relatedthings. None of this crap is COVID
related, not a single bit ofit. And by the way, all
that money is gonna run out.That money is not an ongoing stream of
revenue. That money is finite,and yet the problems are certainly not finite.

(16:30):
So it's gonna be very interesting tosee. But I'm you could read
some of this as as voter regret, and if that is the situation,
you guys should have listened to thisshow and voted for Kelly Bruff. Just
throwing that out there because I thinkher place And here's the kicker on the
mayor. He is doing exactly whathe campaigned on exactly. So if you

(16:56):
don't like what the mayor is doingand you voted for the mayor, although
I can't imagine that a ton ofpeople in this listening audience, although if
you live in Denver, you hadto vote for someone, but he is
doing exactly what he campaigned on.So if you are upset, shocked,
unhappy that he put a homeless hotelin your neighborhood and you voted for the
mayor, this is what you votedfor, but you thought you were voting

(17:18):
to put it in someone else's neighborhoodwhen in reality, he was talking about
yours. When we get back,it's tide for Weather Wednesday with Fox thirty
one meteorologist Dave Frasier. It's abeautiful weather day, but we'll find out
if there's anything else we need tobe worried about coming up next? Where
we ask our crack meteorologist Dave Fraser, Fox thirty one, all kinds of

(17:41):
questions. Good afternoon, sir.I have nothing to complain about the weather
today today. Okay, yeah,Oh it's glorious outside. If I could
do my show from outside on thebalcony, I sure would? You know
what? Everybody take lests and gooutside for a little bit. Well,
I'm gonna jump right in because ifI don't ask this question now, it
might roll off the bottom of thetext line. Hi, Mandy, please

(18:03):
ask Dave Saturday afternoons forecast. Mywife and I are hosting a wedding reception
in our backyard. Thanks Mandy,love the show. Where they are?
Did they say where they are?No? No they did not. Okay,
well, if they're listening in therealong the front range, yes,
I would prepare for storms on Saturdaywe have I'll just lay out the forecast

(18:29):
as is. Friday, we havea cold front coming in so early morning,
so we'll be like sixty eight toseventy really a pleasant day and a
low low chance of a shower thunderstormon Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Do
have slightly better chances, and Saturday'sa little higher than Sunday. And to
put it into perspective, I'm talkingthirty forty percent chance for scattered storms at

(18:52):
a decent percentage, believe it ornot, and then on Sunday it's more
like thirty percent. So there willbe wet weather up and down the front
range. Looking at possibility of severe, it doesn't appear that that's the setup
that we have, so it wouldbe showers, thunderstorms, you'll get rain.
The biggest problem with outdoor venues atthis time of the year is the
gusty wind that might come with themif you're dealing with a tanter you've got

(19:12):
decorations or something like that. Alwaysa problem for graduations at this time of
the year where families want to beoutside. So yeah, I would caution
anybody Saturday or Sunday to have abackup plan for any outdoor activities between two
and about seven two to a typicaltimeframe. Monday right now is looking well.
Monday. Monday's a funny one becauseI was just sitting here looking at

(19:33):
the forecast and I'm looking at chances. I kept Monday Drive the last few
days and I'll you can play forecastwith me. Then Okay, I've got
I've got a low humidity levels aboutseventy two to seventy five, and the
computer models that I've been looking atvary between four and about twelve percent chance
a very tiny, tiny chance forstorms. I played the forecast dry.

(19:59):
I'm thinking of keeping drive to acya and add in a ten percent chance.
You know, I would just saya small chance, like a tiny
chance, but you're still sounds likewe're still going to be a yeah,
because Memorial Day, We're still goingto be able to enjoy our barbecue or
outdoor any of that stuff, right, Yeah, So we may add in
a ten percent chance on on Monday, just to account of that, because

(20:21):
it is a holiday, because alot of people do celebrate and have outdoor
activities. Because I don't want somebodyto think it's completely dry and then get
caught up guard. And while thechances are very very low, sometimes you
have to air on the side ofweb. I'd rather be wrong at ten
percent, right, you know,or wrong at ten percent than to say
you're not going to get rain,and it rains. They are in Denver.
But let me ask, are thesegoing to be kind of like we've

(20:44):
had over the last few days,like passing storms where you may have some
rain, then a break, thenrain. Okay, so it's going to
be a little bit of that.Yeah, it's yeah. Sometimes what will
happen is you'll get one storm andanother one will form and come in your
direction. And we saw this yesterdaywith the cooler atmosphere, so you get
the rain showers and then the suncomes out, but the humidity is still
high and that tun actually heats upadditional showers. So we'll kind of be

(21:07):
in that environment where you're you're notgoing to get just one and done.
You may get one and then anotherone and another one. But it's the
scattered nature of the storm. Soif you're in the Denver area, they'll
come off the foothills and kind ofhead east onto the plane. So let
me ask you about what I experiencedyesterday. So I had, of course,
my daughter, her birthday was yesterday. She got some gift cards that

(21:30):
were burned in a hole in herpocket. So off we go to Target.
I come out of Target, itis it's not raining, it's not
snowing. As I walked quickly tomy car, I was pelted with what
felt like super soft snowballs. Okay, it's not tiny gropple snowballs. Those
are hard and those kind of hurtsometimes. This was like they'd hit you
and go spoosh like that. Whatis that? It was probably groppled,

(21:56):
but it was lighter instead of beingspongy and squishy. Because I could see
on radar I was tracking stuff onthe south side, we actually had a
patch of hail that kind of wentacross Castle Pines and RidgeGate Parkway and then
over towards Parker, and on theradar I could see the reflectivity was showing
me what looked like snow. Soit was probably just wet snowflakes, a
flushy snowflake, maybe on the borderof Gropol a little bit harder. You

(22:19):
may have been in the point whereit was kind of a melty snowflake and
a hitching its splat, and that'swhat you got. Well, they clearly
looked like snow on the radar.They were bigger than a snowflake, can
you know what I mean? Theywere like little, They weren't tiny.
They were bigger than groppel. Butsomebody just asked on the text line,
ask nave Off. His model canpredict Groppel, so you can see it

(22:41):
when it's happening, But can youpredict that that could be coming down the
pike. Yes, and no,it's not about the models being able to
pick up on that. It's aboutwhat the atmosphere looks like as far as
temperatures. So you know, freezingstuff is the ground is cold, and
so the moisture hits and it freezeson contact, and then you've got sleep
where the colder air is just abovethe ground a little more, and so

(23:06):
the rain freezes before it hits theground, and so now you've got the
ice eleoton it's bouncing. Groppel wouldbe a temperature profile where maybe not cold
enough to get it all the wayto a snowflake, but also not cold
enough to freeze it completely. Andso it depends on the temperature profile.
So you know, if it's warmall the way to the ground, then
you've got rain all the way down. So it just depends on that profile.

(23:27):
So as we look at things,we do look at temperature profiles from
the ground up, so we knowwhat kind of an atmosphere we're dealing with.
And radar sometimes will show the reflectivitythe radar technology is just fantastic.
I mean, I was watching thosebig storms out in northeast Colorado on Monday
night, the severe weather and stuff, and we have the ability to what

(23:48):
we call scope the storm, andwe can see rotation in the center of
the storm. We can see thehail. And while we can see the
estimated size of the hail a lot, sometimes it melts on the way down
because we can't see down at thesurface. But I was sitting there watching
this thing play out, and thosebig storms started producing this large hail and
then they just kind of stalled out. So those poor people in yeah Huma

(24:10):
especially and Akron and Otis and Eckleyand Ray on the eastern plains, those
storms ramped up, they started dumpinghuge hail. Then they got to the
point where they were doing the littlehail which always clogs the drains and then
piles up in the streets. Hehad a couple of feet deep. And
the storms were just stalled out andthey were just proficient at cranking out a
lot of hail. And while wehad a tornado watch on Monday night,

(24:32):
and we had tornado warnings or rotationthat we could see on the radar.
Nothing ever touched down. We hada couple of funnel reports and that was
it, thankfully. But the hail, Yeah, I'm wondering how the farmers
like where they are in their cropcycle right now and how damaging that was.
Because I know my friend Greg Rophihe just planted his watermelons, but
I can't imagine they'd be more thansprouts right now. So I saw the

(24:56):
pictures of some of the hail andit was up halfway up the side of
car. I mean, it wasjust it was crazy and the big stuff,
obliterated windows, shredded siding off thesides of homes. We had one
of our reporters, Graay Theetto,out there standing live. He was in
front of one of those PVC kindof white fences right the thing was completely
completely bombed out and broken and shattered. Wow, And it just goes to

(25:21):
yeah, so, yeah, there'sgoing to be crop damage. There's probably
I haven't heard anything about livestock deaths, but I imagine. I actually read
something this morning that some horses andcows were killed. I don't know how
many, but I did see thatthat horses and cows have been killed.
One more question before we got tolet you go this from our text line.
Are the weather radars used by Daveshared with the FAA, because I

(25:45):
think that's a really good question.Where does the FAA get their weather information
before deciding, as they did yesterdayon a groundstop situation or something like that.
Do you guys share the same radarsor how does that work? We
do? We do. It's thenatural weather radar top of radars. It's
a network across the country and allof that information is shared. We have

(26:07):
now what we call dual pole radars, where with the radar scans both vertically
and horizontally, so we can seemore of what type of precipitation we're dealing
with and how large the hail orthe rain drops are and that can help
us estimate how much rain is longLike we have rain vision on radar now
where we can show an estimate ofwhere the rain fell and how much approximately

(26:29):
fell to the ground. So theradar is very sophisticated. It can see
rotations, We can see outflow boundaries, which is fantastic because in our climate
we get these storms that go eastof the metro and then as they kind
of collapse or fall apart, youget that gush of wind that kind of
comes across the ground and it cancome back towards Denver, and that could
be an initiating point for additional showersand thunderstorms. And we could watch that

(26:52):
stuff in real time. And youcan see windflow. On calm days,
I can turn the radar on andI can see which way the wind is
blowing outside to day, what directionis coming with. It's very sensitive.
I can even see snowflakes, notfalling snow, but snow being blown over
the ridges of the mountains. That'show sensitive it is. So the FAA
and the National Weather Service, obviouslygovernmental properties work in conjunction to keep the

(27:14):
information flowing. One last comment fromthe text line, but this doesn't require
an answer. This person says,why do you keep calling him the cheap
meteorologist Dave Fraser? Maybe he's justfrugal. Well, I'm actually saying,
Chief Chiefs. We've had a womanI don't know if it's the same woman.
We've had a woman email in severaltimes over the last few years with
the same comment. She says,why are you guys calling day chief think

(27:38):
not? You know? Does henot buy lunch? He prefers thrifty.
Thank you. Yeah, he prefersthrifty as I do. Dave Fraser Joy
as always. We'll talk to younext week, my friend. Happy Memorial
Day weekend. Everybody? All right, you too, buddy. We'll be
right back, Mandy. I workedon a crew that installed all that stuff,
the Doppler radar. It went fromsingle polarization to dual polarization. It

(28:03):
was a cool install. Looks likea big satellite. Well, I would
hope that it would look like abig satellite because it's looking at the sky.
I have a question just Jeff,for you and our listening audience,
and you can text me your answersat five sixty six nine. Now do
you ever, first of all,do you use cash when you pay for
things? Sometimes? Okay, whenthey are giving you change? Do you

(28:26):
ever want the pennies? Sometimes ifthey just kind of hand them to me
and I'm in a rush, I'lltake them. But otherwise no, oh,
I give him back. Okay,I literally go no, I don't
want these. I don't want thesethree pennies. So I'm in seven to
eleven and the seven eleven that Istop at. They'll occasionally like round up
to give you change, like theyowe you forty three cents, they'll give

(28:48):
you forty five cents. Guy infront of me, he, I don't
remember what has changed exactly was we'lljust use forty five cents as an example.
So it's forty three cents he's supposedto get back, and they hand
him forty five cents and he's,no, I want my pennies. And
the woman behind the counter, who'sreally nice and has been at the seven
to eleven for forever, looked athim and goes, you're kidding, right,
And he was like no. Shegoes, well, I just gave

(29:11):
you two cents more than you weresupposed to get back. I didn't short
you. He goes, oh,I know, I want the pennies.
And there was like this weird standoffthat happened where she was looking at him
like you're just yanking my chain andhe was looking at her like, I
want my pennies. And then toher credit, she was like, okay,
you're serious, give me the dimeback and I will give you eight

(29:33):
cents and we'll call it a day. And he did, and that's what
happened. But the whole thing,there's like six people in line with me,
right, and we're all looking ateach other, and then I look
at the guy behind me. Iwas like, and I kind of did
that? Do you ever take thepennies? And he was like, God,
nobody wants some pennies? Who wantspennies? What do you do with
pennies? Is it going to likea wishing fountain? That's I could not
figure it out. What would youspecifically want pennies for so much that you

(29:59):
then asked the girl to reopen thedrawer to give you less change than she
already gave you. It was themost. And then I thought, well,
maybe there's like a penny racket thatI don't know about. You can
text me at five six six,and I, oh, is there a
good reason to accept the pennies?Now? If I'm feeling generous, if
I you know, if I'm feelingfrisky, sometimes I'll drop a quarter into

(30:23):
that take a penny, need apennything? Sometimes like a couple of dimes,
Like I'll drop some silver into thattray because i'm feeling like, you
know, Scrooge McDuck gone gone right. Anyway, I did get this message
to the texter, Yes I did. Let me, let me text back,
Yes I did, so I'm justtexting that when people text, did

(30:44):
you get this message? Yes Idid, I did, But what I'm
honestly, But then I went onlineand I said, crafting projects that use
pennies, okay, And apparently youcan make like an entire floor that is
coated with pennies, right, soin lines like thousands and thousands of pennies

(31:07):
and then they just put an epoxyover it. And I will say it
looks kind of cool, But wouldn'tyou just go get rolls of pennies?
Like why are you gonna jock thelady at seven to eleven? Why?
This person said numismatics? But again, if you, I mean, pennies
are what you collect, what areyou looking for? People who collect pennies

(31:30):
have books that they're trying to fillwith certain dates. But also with coin
collectors, aren't they usually looking formint condition coins? That was always my
my thing, like if you gota really dirty because you know, you
find a buffalo nickel every once ina while. But I was always well,
it's really dirty and gross and reallyworn, so it doesn't have any
value. I don't know. Ralphsays older pennies are worth more than face

(31:51):
value as they are wet diagnabit itjust updated as the copper value is higher,
sometimes quite a bit more. Iuh, whatever, Then go get
rolls of pennies like this is thething. I mean, I guess it's
more of like just a randomness ofgetting a valuable penny. I have no
idea, but then I thought thelast time, I just don't. Oh,

(32:15):
this person said, some people createart or flooring or countertops out of
pennies, but again, you needlike thousands of them. Just go get
the rolls of pennies. Pre nineteeneighty three pennies are copper too, so
I guess, yeah, you wouldbe getting you'd be getting something that had
some value. But how many penniesthat you have to find that were minted
before nineteen eighty three before it becomesworth it to have enough pennies to go

(32:37):
sell them for copper? I don'tknow. Just seems super odd to me.
I almost wanted to ask him aboutit, but then I was like,
you might punch me in the face, so I'll I'll just ask my
radio people instead. We'll do thatinstead. When we get that Kelly Bruff
should have been mayor is now witha Common Sense Institute. She's got a

(32:59):
new report coming out about RTD.The numbers are kind of bleak just as
we begin to throw more money atit. We'll talk about that next.
Speaking of information, I am joinedin the studio now by a Common Sense
Institute fellow, Kelly Bruff, whohas worked with two others, DJ Summers

(33:20):
and Eric gam to create a reportcalled Fork in the Railroad RTD's Ridership Dilemma,
where they did a deep dive onRTD, the budget, the ridership,
the expectations. Have those expectations beenmet? Just as we are about
to pour another crapload of money intomore trains, light rail, whatever that

(33:44):
nobody wants. I mean, I'mjust gonna they didn't say that. I'm
just going to say that. ButKelly, welcome back to the show.
It's good to be here. Mandy. Well, you know, tell me
a little bit about how this reportcame about. What inspired this report?
And I am surprised by nothing inthe report, nothing, not one thing.
But how did this report come about? Well, we were talking about

(34:06):
could we study in this space ofkind of urban development, urban economic activity,
and one of the fundamental pieces ofit is transportation and what does it
look like? And so we prettyquickly said it might be worthwhile to look
at how are we doing with ourtransportation system and is it delivering a return
on the investment that we've made asresidents of the Regional Transportation District. So

(34:30):
that's what we did. We lookedat the numbers, and the numbers are
ugly well. And I don't knowif you did this in the full report.
I just looked over the key findingsand your history. Do we know
how the numbers that were sold tothe voters to bring in light rail,

(34:51):
how they compare to the actual numbers. Did you dig into those specific numbers?
Yeah, I mean, well,ridership has really dropped and we'll talk
more about that because of the pandemic. But certainly we expected to be able
to build this system for less thanit's cost us to build it, and
we ran into some glitches that youknow, we're not RTD's fault. The

(35:13):
two thousand and nine, the GreatRecession, you know, really impacted their
revenue collections and ability to build thesystem. So the system hasn't been built
out yet, and we've spent significantlymore than we expected, But for me,
this was really about listen, whetheryou thought we should build this system
or we shouldn't, we decided asvoters we wanted to do it right.

(35:35):
So I really wanted to ask thequestion, how do we maximize the return
we're getting for what we've built?And what is really clear is the number
one measure here is are people usingit? Yeah? And if we're not
using it, we're not maximizing.And boy, we are not using compared
to other cities. Randal O'tool fromthe Independence Institute I was. I read
a column by him several months agonow, and he said that ridership,

(35:58):
the number of people have a percentageof people who use mass transit has not
changed at all since the advent oflight rail and everything else we've done.
It's like four point four percent forthe Metro. So four point four percent
of us are using it on aregular basis. Yeah, I mean.
So one of the ways we lookedat this is what's the percentage of revenue

(36:22):
URTD gets from fair collections? Right? And in January of twenty four it
was four point four percent. Thatsaid in twenty eleven it was twenty one
point six percent. That was ourhigh mark. You know, we had
a law on the books in Coloradothat required thirty percent of our TD's revenue,
Oh my god, to come fromfair collections. We've never met that.

(36:44):
But other cities do much better evenafter COVID with the return and so
we spent a lot of time tryingto figure out, Okay, why are
people not on it, what arethe barriers, and then making some recommendations
around how we could address those barriers. I do think that we have a
significant issue in Denver Boulder, ColoradoSprings because we do have a highly educated

(37:07):
workforce that are able to stay homeright we have our jobs are easily made
remote and so a lot of peoplehave not come back to the office.
So what kind of impact have weseen just you know, from pre COVID
to now in terms of ridership.Yeah, well, we were seeing drops
in ridership even before COVID, wewere starting to see a decline, but

(37:28):
we saw massive declines after COVID.You know, we were dropping from fifteen
percent in collections of fairs to coverthe operations at URTD to down to four
percent. Now that said, Ithink a big part of this about half
of our workforce by the way ourjobs you have to come in for right.
And so while we do have,you know, like you said,

(37:49):
Mandy, an educated workforce who probablyhas some more flexibility than other regions,
it's we're still nowhere near the kindof numbers you'd expect to see. And
what really struck us is how oftenwhen we were doing our interviews people talked
about not feeling safe. Yeah,and so we pulled the data and we
looked at two sources of data.RTD has a police force. We looked

(38:10):
at their data, and we lookedat the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and
it tells two different stories. Weprobably have to get a little more consistent
on our data, but I'm goingto tell you there's a reason you don't
feel safe. Crime has significantly goneup, but even if it was perfectly
safe, we have not addressed people'sperception of safety, and I think that's

(38:31):
just as important. The good newsis there is no question RTDs committed to
addressing this issue and working hard todo it. They've increased their police force
significantly, and I think coordination withlocal police departments and removing some of the
barriers that allow people to kind ofcross a line into RTD versus the district,

(38:52):
the city therein. Those kind ofthings might help improve safety as well,
and RTD's doing that. I gotan email for the listener maybe two
weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, that said his car was in the
shop. So we hopped on hisbike, rode down to lightrail, hopped
on the train and there was someonesmoking Fentuanel in the car with him,
and he said, this is whatI'm supposed to do on a daily basis,

(39:14):
So that kind of stuff has tobe addressed super aggressively. And you
know, to your point about changingthe perception of people, I would honestly
say, if I'm RTD, thisis what I would do. Every time
I arrested someone for something. Iwould put out a press release. I
would talk about the arrests that arebeing made, the trouble that's being stopped.

(39:35):
I would continually promote the fact thatthat police force is so much bigger,
and yet they seem to almost wantto go in the other direction and
say no, no, no,everything's fine, when we all know it's
not. It's just it's a prstrategicy that I just find baffling. You
know, tell me about when peopleare getting arrested. I'm gonna feel better
about things. Yeah, I mean, I do think we're gonna have to

(39:58):
take this one head on. AndI also think the more of us that
are on it, Yeah, that'ssafer you feel even if there's activity happening
where you're like, well if thatshouldn't be happening. If there's ten or
twenty more of me sitting there,I don't feel quite as at risk as
when I'm the only person in thatcar with other people who The New York
subway system is a perfect example,Yeah, because there's crazy stuff happened on

(40:22):
subway trains every day all the time. But New Yorkers don't have the perception
of I'm going to get killed ifI get on the subway because they do
I'm not alone, Yeah, exactly. It's strengthen numbers, yeah, yeah,
and so I think that is partof it too. So when we
talk about RTD's budget, the budgethas gone up as ridership has gone down.
Could you guys figure out why thatschism is happening. Let's take out

(40:44):
the security portion, because they didjust increase the budget for the RTD police,
which is necessary. But where elseis their excessive growth. Yeah.
I mean, well, this istough because we've had a lot of growth
in the budget in the last fewyears and try to understand, you know,
where it's going. What you realizeis whether there's one person on that

(41:06):
bus or on that train, thecosts don't really change. And so this
is really where not having writers isjust, you know, a terribly bad
strategy because costs don't go down,and like everybody else, RTD has experienced
increases. We are we compared totwenty two other metros who have transportation systems,

(41:30):
train systems, and here's what's interesting. We're in the top half in
terms of operational efficiency. So wecould do better, but we're not devastatingly
bad. I think part of thechallenge in RTD is we are a massively
large geographic area and I think oneof the things we could do is get
clear on what the local government doesfor transportation and what RTD does. And

(41:52):
I think there's too big of adisconnect between our local governments, our mayors
and city councils decisions they're making,and that RTD board where I just don't
think the communication is a strong.I've met with mayors all over this region
who would say it has to beimproved the coordination and you know this isn't

(42:13):
in our report, but it's fromme personally. I think thinking about the
governing structure for OURTD that allows forthose local governments to have direct responsibility and
accountability for the decisions of representation.Yes, because decisions. I think that's
I mean, we just saw thisin the last legislative session, A big,
old land use package went through thelegislature and in a way that I

(42:36):
don't think has ever been done inColorado because Governor Polis is really focused like
a laser in increasing density around transitcorridors. But what we've heard, and
what I've heard from multiple mayors andcity council members is for their community,
it doesn't make sense, right,So they don't feel like they have a
say in this. Yeah, youfeel like it's being inflicted upon them instead

(42:58):
of how can we partner with youto make this work for our citizens?
Yeah, I mean most I thinkmost city governments would tell you there is
committed to density around those transit stationsand we have to do it. We
know this will increase ridership. Itmakes it the easy choice. But we
also have some laws that we don'tbuild condos right this state because of liability

(43:19):
issues, and you know, hey, listen, you need some for sale
product around those as well. SoI think we got to fix some of
those issues to allow that development andhelp support those local governments and getting it
done. So what did you didyou guys come up with any suggested solutions
specifically for RTD. Yeah, firstwe said, let's get our story straight
on public safety, and then let'sget really clear on strategies of how we're

(43:43):
going to improve safety. And oneof the things that really struck me is
you see different levels of ridership indifferent parts of our region, which really
highlights you've got to have different strategiesin different parts of our region to get
people on the train. In someplaces, loan piloted. You know,
could we have an on call whereyou can call somebody to pick you up

(44:04):
and take you to the train.Those kind of pilots are critical, and
in South Denver metro area, theyare so prepared to run pilots and to
test new ideas. But often ifwe can't do it system wide, we're
less likely to do it. Ithink we got to blow out pilots all
over the place, trying new ideasand letting people run as fast as they
can. One of my big issueswith RTD is that they don't seem to

(44:30):
be responsive to the kind of surgeridership that people like me are more likely.
I'm going to hop on RTD togo to a football game, or
I'm gonna go to a baseball game. But if I want to hop on
RTD to go to a concert atball Arena, which would be incredibly convenient
because it's right there, there's onlyone train running at night after the concerts
out, So it's like, inmy mind, it would seem like there

(44:52):
would be an opportunity there to makeit more convenient for people to ride on
those one offs, because then itputs that habit in your system, like
it puts you in the mindset of, Oh, I've got to go downtown.
I don't want to sit in traffic. I'm just going to take the
train because it's easier, instead ofam I going to be able to get
home without waiting an hour because thefirst train was totally full, which is

(45:13):
the last time I took the trainto a concert. Yeah, I think
that's such a good point that thatis similar to another recommendation, and that
is, let's keep it free forevery high school and college kid in this
region because you start to form thebehavior and habit of taking the train,
and that's that's exactly it. Youhave to you have to make it doable.

(45:36):
And I don't care. It seemsso stupid to say some people are
afraid of doing something they don't understandright the first time you go. And
I personally despise the ticketing system withthe fire of a thousand suns, like
I hate that so much. Whycan't we have an app? Why can't
I just do it on my phone? Why do I have? You can't?

(45:57):
Oh, I can't see? Noone told me that. I know.
That's the other thing, though,I think it's a barrier even.
Why don't we make it super cheapfor every employer, public, private,
or nonprofit to buy a pass fortheir employees so you just don't even have
to worry about it, right,we all just have passes and we move
away from this kind of How doI pull it down? What is my

(46:19):
fare? Am I in zone one? Right? Or? Are? Who
knows? And listen, the furtherout you are, the more we want
you on that train and the moreexpensive it is. It's cheaper for me
to drive downtown, pay for parking, and then drive home than it is
for four people to go from thefurthestop south to downtown. That's not At
what point do you say this doesn'tmake economic sense? And so if we

(46:43):
all just had passes, you'd belike, oh, this is the easy,
cheap option for me now. Butyou have to help people get over
that hurdle of being afraid of thesystem, like not understanding the system and
then getting on the train and realizing, Okay, this is pretty cool.
But I think I've got a lotof comments on the text line and I'd
like to share some of those withyou. Mandy, I drive for Uber
and Lyft. I picked people uptwo to three times per week at one

(47:07):
of the lightrail stops because someone onthere is smoking something that every one of
my customers says they smells like rubberburning. So they're getting off the train
calling an Uber or Lyft because theydon't want to be on the train with
someone smoking drugs. That's the safetyissue. Yeah, yeah, we don't
use it. It's slow and fasterto drive. Plus we live in Castle

(47:28):
Rock and have to pay for parkingat the RTD station. I'm like the
RidgeGate station. You don't pay.You don't have to pay for parking there.
I don't think so, I neverhave. And that's the Furthest South
station as of right now. Butconvenience wise, RTD was the first in
the nation to partner with Uber.You can purchase your fare on the Uber

(47:51):
app. Say, I didn't knowany of this, didn't know a single
bit of it, but it highlightsMandy, right, that kind of knowledge
that we're making it easier to beable to access the train or the bus
needs to get out. Well,this one said. My fiance stopped writing
the G line daily to work becausesecurity wasn't sufficient. My son and another

(48:13):
guy got assaulted by a homeless guywith a knife on the W line.
Yeah, so these are huge issues. The safety issues are huge. Listen.
There was an article a month agoor so about people not wanting to
become drivers. Listen, if youcan't pay someone to be on those buses
and trains, you could imagine therest of us are not going to choose

(48:37):
it. And so that safety issueis real, and I think we got
to take it head on if we'rereally going to change our habits. I'm
wondering about, did you guys diginto any of the projected lines, the
Longmont Boulder line that still hasn't beenbuilt yet. We talked to someone and
I can't remember who it was,to tell you the truth and talked about
the fact that from the Longmont lineyou would have to go long wont to

(49:00):
Boulder Boulder to Union Station and thencatch the A line to the airport.
That is not convenience. That's terrible, yea. You know now if we
had a bus that went straight fromLongmont to the airport that This is my
issue, and this is not justabout Denver's light rail system. This is
about light rail across the country becausethey never perform the way they are promised

(49:23):
to perform. But if we investeda fraction of that money in dedicated lanes
and used buses to go everywhere weneeded to go. First of all,
they're super flexible. So if youhave a giant new neighborhood that gets built
up over here while another neighborhood isin decline, you can shift that usage.
Why can't we move to a better, more flexible system. What is

(49:45):
it about the sort of I don'tknow glow of light rail that sucks people
in. Yeah, we do likesomething about the train itself. That said,
probably one of the highest ranked routeswas the bus that runs from Boulder
to Denver. People loved it,and Urt Deal tell you that it is

(50:08):
extremely challenging for them to figure outhow to build out the rest of the
system financially. There has been somediscussion about as we expand into additional train
lines, could you put that routein some of those strategies and some of
that funding for the others. Listen, I think we got to figure out

(50:28):
how do I get you on thattrain, what does it take, what
does it look like, how doI make it the easy choice? And
how what do you do when youget off the train? That's the other
big problem, Yeah, because wedon't have a vibrant bus system. Ye
right, we don't have If youget off at Union Station or you need
to be an East Denver downtown Denver, it's not a convenient option to hop
on buses. And I just hadthe experience of being in Switzerland where the

(50:52):
trains are magnificent, absolutely magnificent,but when you get off the train,
you have multiple mass transit options toget you where you want to go,
and they all run consistently all thetime. So if you're waiting, you're
waiting no more than fifteen minutes.Yeah, that you don't have that?
Yeah. Well, and this iswhere I feel like technology can really assist

(51:13):
us, like Uber and Lyft andyou know, choices that we never had
when we were building this system,and that first and last mile, that's
where our local governments really can stepin and help shape what does it look
like to get you from these mainroutes to the specific place you're going with
ease. Yeah. Kelly Bruff iswith the Common Sense Institute as a fellow

(51:35):
now, and this report is very, very good. If you don't read
anything else, just go read thekey findings. It's disheartening. But here's
the thing. We've got this systemright. It already exists, so the
fact that it's failing is just causingthe taxpayers more and more and more money.
So to your point, Kelly,I would love it if they could
clean up the trains because I've beenhere eleven years now and when I first

(52:00):
got here the trains, I waslike, this is great, this is
fantastic. Hopping on at RidgeGate Stationriding up to go to a baseball game.
It was glorious. Now I wouldnot want my fourteen year old,
fifteen year old daughter or be onthe train. Yeah yeah, as you
just turned fifteen, I wouldn't sendher on the train by herself. Yeah,
you know, so you're not anycase, Mandy. You do have

(52:20):
to pay for parking at RidgeGate ifyou live out of district. We've been
ticketed before for not paying. Welive in Castle Pines. That's weird.
How do they know you live outof district? Doesn't make any sense to
me. I'm not questioning you texther. I'm just saying that it is
very different. Bye, Mandy.I lived in Golden and took the bus
to the light rail to my officedowntown. I rode the bus all the

(52:42):
way back at night, all theway down Coalfax. It was super sketchy,
but I never really feared for mysafety. The atticts generally weren't aggressive
towards me. I stopped because Idid the math and it was cheaper to
drive. And that's another huge problem. That is And listen, it's you
know, it's getting more challenging.We all know that the price as gas

(53:02):
goes up. People look for otheralternatives. As the price of parking goes
up, people look for other alternatives, and then certainly congestion and you know,
build investing in this system. Ifwe can make it work, the
return on it is not just foryou and I in terms of our pocket
books books, but our air qualitycan improve our you know, the use

(53:27):
of water, how we grow anddevelop. If we grow a little more
densely, we use less water whenwe grow that way as a region,
all of that has long term benefitsfor our region. I hope other people
live in high density because I don'tlike it. But that's the point,
right, Yeah, it's not myfavorite getting all of us in high density
at different stages in our lives,even that maybe what we want versus what

(53:51):
we don't want. Kelly, Iso appreciate your time and great job on
this report. Please thank you.Give your co writers my compliments as well.
It's very well done and I thinkit I hope I hope that the
RTD Board, the city council,anybody involved. I hope they take this
seriously. And what I've seen isa propensity for elected officials to look at

(54:13):
anything that common sense does and decideit's wrong without actually demonstrating how it's wrong,
instead of saying, this is auseful piece of information that we should
look at and take take to heart. So, yeah, I appreciate you
coming in today. All right,we'll be right back about the RTD conversation.
And I had no idea that youhad to pay if you lived outside

(54:37):
of the RTD district, which manypeople do. So the castle rock texture
and again I hope I didn't makeit sound like I didn't believe you,
but the castle rock texture was right. So if you don't live in an
area that it pays into RTD,you have to pay for parking, which
is again confusing, Right, Imean that that in and of itself is

(55:00):
confusing. And that's my big issuewith RTD because I can go to a
foreign country where I don't speak thelanguage, and I can figure out the
bus system pretty easily, right,really can. And yet you know,
you get to buy a ticket forRTD, and it's like, oh,
what zone are you? I haveno idea, are you a one time

(55:21):
customer or not? I again haveno idea. I don't know, I
have no clue. So a lotof you weigh in on that A lot
of you are weighing in on thefact that RTD does not feel safe and
that people are using drugs on RTD, which is a huge issue of course,
and it's one of those things thatit feels almost like a chicken or

(55:45):
an egg situation, right, likehow do you fix RTD with And Kelly's
right, if there were tons ofpeople on the train at all times of
the day, you would feel saferjust because safety and numbers. But the
reality is is when you get onthe train and there's not a single other
soul on it except you and somesketchy dude who may or may not be

(56:06):
high on drugs, it can bevery very intimidating. Now currently, right
this minute, it is Mental HealthAwareness Month and a lot of talk about
mental health and how to help thecommunity has been going on for a long
time, and I'm thrilled to havethe CEO of Aurora Mental Health and Recovery,
doctor Kelly Phillips. Henry, thankyou so much for joining me today.

(56:30):
Hey, thank you so much forhaving me. This is an important
month to really recognize mental health.So thanks for having me working in Aurora.
And I'm assuming that a lot ofthe problems you deal with in Aurora
are the same as they are throughoutthe metro. What are you seeing in
terms of mental health needs from thecommunity? Is Are there any areas that
stand out as areas that need focus? Yeah? I think let's first start

(56:55):
by saying there is such a demandfor mental health regards of age, regardless
of need. But we are seeingsome particularly high estilitty There is one is
pain and use risk for depression,for anxiety, very very high levels of
suicide ribs kinder than we've ever seenbefore, especially coming out of the pandemic.

(57:21):
Our old population is another population veryisolated, many times very high levels
of loneliness which also create real risk. And so those are two areas that
we really are trying to do alot of outreach and service to that,
I would say for all of uscoming out of the pends on it.
Many love books are struggling with stress, with anxiety, with depression, with

(57:46):
past grama and it's okay to ask. See It's almost like, in some
weird way that we kind of forgothow to socialize, We forgot sort of
those basic human interactions that are socritical because we're pack animals. And now
that we're back in the world.We've lost those skills. Is that kind

(58:07):
of go along with what you're seeing. You know, it's interesting when you
say pack animals, but we reallyare. We are social beings by nature,
and we're a lot of all loveand care to really help us through
tough times happens is in interactions,and so you know, there was a

(58:27):
weird isolation factor that occurred during thepandemic. And I think what some folks
realize is, in some weird,lazy way, it's easier to stay in.
It's easier not to reach out toask for help. Sometimes even conversation
seems from and it's so important wedo just that. It's so important that

(58:50):
we have those important people in ourlives to share not only when things are
good, but when things aren't well. You guys have some pretty interesting stuff
going on, whether we're mental healthand recoures. Tell me about some of
the stuff that you guys are workingon, you know, I would say
the biggest thing is last Monday,we've broke around on a new twenty four
to seven care facility that will reallyallow us to expand services across Aurora and

(59:16):
the metro area, which will includea Detoxification unit will be expanding our beds
up to forty five beds to reallyhelp folks that are staying from alcohol or
any former drug aduction. It's areally rough three to five days when folks
go through that process, and wewant to have that oversight to make sure

(59:38):
it goes okay. The other thingis we'll have a sixteen bid crisis Stabilization
moving to this new location off Potomac. And this is for folks that are
going through a hard mental health challengeand so many times we need to help
them do a short term stay sothat they're not at risk to hurting themselves

(01:00:00):
than not at risk to hurting someoneelse. And we can help take a
full assessment, try to get asense of well counseling, health and medications
help. How do we get astable and then get them into outdationing tour?
How do you have a walking crisisteam as well? Yeah, have
you seen now that we're focused muchmore on mental health than we ever have

(01:00:20):
before? Has this provided more funding? Are people beginning to realize the value
in having those long, longer termbeds for people to be in. Is
this making it easier for you guysto get the kind of funding that you
need. Yes, demand is high, and I would say our community has
really responded. So we have hadsupport from our City of Aurora City Council,

(01:00:47):
from both of our counties at Adamsas well as a rapid hood county
fissioners. We've had support from Congressmanpro from the puberal level of our senators
to can look for a Benett.We've had Fuddles support as well as from
the state from our THEA Health Administrationand Governor Fullest and so lots of funds

(01:01:08):
have been raised that way as wellas through all part in the signal that
we will hope that helps find anyof our substitutes programs, and they are
continuing to fundraise to keep with thatfinal goal. But what is happening in
our country is certainty for growing awarenessto his command and me, Well,
if people are outside of your servicearea, can they call you? Can

(01:01:31):
you direct them to maybe similar servicesif they need help? Because you know,
we cover a huge area and Iknow that there are people in Aurora
who are probably never knew you existed. But how does someone who's not in
Aurora? Can they call you andyou direct them to where they need to
go absolutely, you know, reallynow in the state of Colorado, we

(01:01:52):
can serve anybody if they are inthe state of Colorado, and that's pure
license. Uh. And so wecan do tell whole services if you live
in Durango or if you live inLa Hunta, and so we can help
direct if someone doesn't in person careor serve me over the firmer through telehealth
and so that is simply by goingonline to a law MHR dot or and

(01:02:17):
we can get that started with GOUT. I will say telehealth is probably one
of the upsides of COVID because nowit is so much easier to access either
a therapist or a psychologist or whateveryou might need without having to be in
the office. I also put alink on the blog to the Aurora Health
and Recovery website so people can goto mandy'sblog dot com and find it easily.

(01:02:42):
Doctor Kelly Phillips, Henry, thankyou so much for joining me today
about this important topic and hopefully wewill talk to you again soon. Absolutely,
thank you Andy for your support.Have a great one you too,
Thank you so much. You know, this is an issue that, like
I said, we got to talkabout it. This person is mental health
care a result of bad diet andbad food choices as well as obesity.

(01:03:07):
I personally believe that having a crappydiet affects you in a myriad of ways,
right, in a cascading series ofways. But I will also say
that since I have dramatically cleaned upmy diet because of the soda weight loss
plan and subsequently keeping the weight off, I not only feel better physically,

(01:03:28):
I sleep way better and I feellike I have better mental clarity that I've
had for years. So to yourpoint, do I think that's the cause.
No? But do I think itcan add to the problems? Absolutely
great question. We'll be right back. We'll just file this in the least
surprising News of the day category,Okay, because when you hear this,
you're going to know it's accurate.Because we're all spending so much more money

(01:03:52):
here in Colorado. Coloraden's now haveto make fifty percent more than they did
in twenty twelve to qualify as manyclass. Now, what is middle class
in Colorado? In twenty twelve,it was anywhere between thirty eight thousand,
eight hundred and twenty nine dollars andone hundred and sixteen thousand and four hundred

(01:04:14):
and eighty eight dollars. Ten yearslater, in twenty twenty two, that
range went up to fifty eight thousandand change and one hundred and seventy five
thousand and change. Now here's thekicker. This was the third highest ten
year jump among the states. Weexceeded the rise experienced in states like Colorado,

(01:04:34):
or California or New York. Thestudy took data from the twenty twelve,
twenty seventeen, and twenty twenty twoAmerican Community Surveys, and they then
figured out the household median income ineach state. Because the twenty twenty two
median income in Colorado was estimated eightyseven thousand, five hundred ninety eight,

(01:04:56):
and amedian income is not an averageincome, you guys. A media income
just means that half of the peoplemade less than that, half of the
people made more than that. Itis the dividing line between, you know,
between whatever the salaries are on eitherside. The five biggest ten year
rises in what is considered middle classNumber one Oregon, Who's in charge in

(01:05:20):
Oregon? Mm progressives? Number two? Washington, Who's in charge in Washington?
Progressives? Number three Colorado. Who'sin charge. Progressives California again,
Progressives Idaho and Idaho went up becauseguests who moved there Californians, and they've

(01:05:41):
driven up the costs of real estateso dramatically in Idaho it's not even funny.
Now. If you want to justget by on a little bit of
money, you got to move toMississippi. But then ultimately you would have
to live in Mississippi. And I'mnot saying that Mississippi doesn't have good qualities,
because it does, but it doesn'thave enough to make me want to

(01:06:04):
live there. The only reason Iwould live in Mississippi is so I could
have a house renovated by Aaron andBen on Hometown. If you don't watch
Hometown on HGTV, you have noidea what I'm talking about. They live
in Laurel, Mississippi. That beingsaid, Colorado is one of seventeen states
where people have to make over fiftygrand to be considered at the low end

(01:06:26):
of middle class. So there yougo. If you think everything is more
expensive, you're not crazy. ThankGod that the Democrats who have been in
charge since twenty nineteen have been workingto save us money. I can only
imagine what it would be like ifthey hadn't. And that's sarcasm, by
the way, because pretty much everyissue that we have in Colorado, whether

(01:06:46):
it's a lack of housing, canbe traced back directly to punitive laws that
were signed and passed by the Democratsin this state. We can't build condos,
which are usually entry level homes forpeople, because of the construction defects
legislation that they have not fixed.And I love it when people say,
you know what, developers are justgreedy. They just don't want to build

(01:07:10):
the houses they can't make a lotof money on. There's a thing called
insurance that in order for a developerto be able to get the funds to
build a new project, they haveto be able to ensure the project.
They cannot get insurance to build condosbecause of the construction defects rules. And
that's not me making that up.That's pretty well known. And yet instead

(01:07:32):
instead of fixing that, they argueabout how to make it more difficult for
you to be a landlord in Denver. That's their idea, raising taxes,
but they call them fees so theydon't have to ask our permission, taking
over land use zoning decisions in citiesall throughout the front range. I mean,

(01:07:53):
this is all the stuff that ismaking it more expensive, Matt said,
it best red to blue, makingthings progressively worse. Yes, yes,
indeedy. My husband is a teacherand I'm a school district ot.
According to those numbers, our collegeeducated income is not middle class. You're

(01:08:14):
being priced out of the market.We all are. We all have the
same issue. Now when we getback, I have a big fat,
two minute drill. I can't believeit's already two o'clock. What happened to
the show? Big fat two minutedrill. And then I've got some polling
data about the presidential election that I'mgoing to sort of unfurl at two thirty.
This election, and I've jokingly saidthis so many times in the past

(01:08:39):
during presidential elections, This election maygo down as the most ointment or suppositories
election I could possibly imagine. Okay, nobody likes these candidate. Well,
I take that back, small percentagesof people like these candidates. But I'll
share some of the most shocking pollingdata that has to have the Iden campaign

(01:09:00):
scared to death. But there's noway to fight against this. These perceptions.
I'll explain all that in the nexthour. So stick around may have
heard that ski season is over,but not at a Basin. A Basin
and the Mary Jane's side of winterPark is going to go well into late
May. Summit County Ski Area ABasin announced it is extending its season to

(01:09:20):
at least one more weekend in June. They're getting lots of snow, so
they'll be closed during the week,open Friday, Saturday and Sunday at least
until June ninth. Skiers, youhave a place to go it too.
This story is actually kind of abig deal that may become a bigger problem

(01:09:42):
in something that I think the stateof Colorado needs to start addressing, and
that is some people in some mountainareas are having trouble getting homeowners insurance.
The risk of wildfire, even withmitigation, has proved too much for some
homeotor insurance companies. They are nowpeople and they're having trouble getting a replacement.

(01:10:03):
This is a huge deal, onethat I've already lived through in Florida,
and nothing can be more frustrating thanfinding out that you can't get homeowner's
insurance when your mortgage requires it.This is a very big deal, and
I think that Colorado needs to startlooking into reinsurance help in order to shore
up these companies so they will stillwrite business here and we can still all

(01:10:26):
own our homes even if we livein an area prone to wildfires to drill
it too. So remember that ceasefirethat was going to happen between Hamas and
Israel and then it fell apart.Well it fell apart because Egypt, which
is run by corrupt morons, didthis. They went to Israel and they're
like, hey, we think thiswould be good for a ceasefire. Look

(01:10:46):
at these terms, and Israel waslike, great, those look good.
Take it to Amas. Then theywent to Hamas and we're like, yeah,
those terms that Israel agreed to,We've added some stuff without telling them,
but we feel like this is goingto be a good deal for you.
So they literally changed the terms ofthe ceasefire between their conversation with Israel
and their conversation with Hamas. SoHamas agreed to a deal that was not

(01:11:09):
on the table from Israel. Ifind nothing surprising about this. I'm not
saying that there aren't wonderful, upstandingEgyptians out there, but my own personal
experiences have told me that this countryis run by corruptocrats. And I'm guessing
that this person thought somehow he wasgonna slide this by Israel. But let's
just get them out of the negotiatinggame completely. The drill it too.

(01:11:32):
Here's a new thing to worry about. You are twice as likely to be
run over by an electric car thana gas or diesel one. Why because
they're so quiet. People are apparentlywalking out in front of electric vehicles.
Because the uh fatality rate, thepedestrian excuse me, pedestrian casualty rate for

(01:11:55):
electric cars was five point one pointsix per one hundred million miles driven.
Now what is it for gas guzzlers? Two point four per million miles?
So it's roughly double your chances ofbeing hit by an electric vehicle. Now,
two things are blamed on this one. The cars are quieter, so
people don't necessarily hear them before theystep out in the street. But younger

(01:12:20):
people might be attracted to electric vehicles, which have greener credentials, but they
also tend to be worse drivers.And I don't disagree with that. But
another reason to be well aware ofyour surroundings because if an electric cars come
in, you better pay attention ittoo. Now, if you guys watch

(01:12:41):
Jeopardy like I watched Jeopardy at nightand I do, so you may have
noticed that during the Jeopardy Masters tournamenta couple nights ago, Amy Schneider sat
down for Jeopardy. And I don'tsee it every night, so I didn't
know that another contestant had already beenseated during the Master's tournament. Now we
don't know why Amy had to sitdown, but apparently the other Jeopardies champion

(01:13:04):
has a really bad back and hesaid, look, I need a chair.
Well, here's the news flash.Jeopardy will provide a chair if a
contestant asked no questions asked, butI got to tell you it looked weird,
and Amy got Amy's ask kicked inthe final, Jeopardy really lost badly.
And additionally, Amy Schneider sat andswiveled back and forth in the chair

(01:13:27):
like thiscouver like this. How annoyingis this swiveling back and forth? Just
get a stationary chair. But yeah, apparently Jeopardy contestants can sit down,
although it doesn't seem to help theirperformance too. So you may have been
following. Along with the various lawsuitsthat have been filed by voting machine firm
Smartmattic and Dominion Voting Systems, they'vebeen suing members of the media and organizations

(01:13:55):
that ran with the narrative that hasnot been proven to be true that these
voting machines actually changed votes and theyswung the election for Joe Biden. Now
Dominion has already taken a big fatsettlement from Fox News, and Smart Maattic
is now suing Newsmax, and theyare now saying that Newsmax is engaged in

(01:14:15):
a cover up and has been erasingtext messages and emails between executives that were
actually saved by other people who havebeen subpoenaed. And now they're saying Newsmax
is destroying evidence. These lawsuits aredevastating, and these lawsuits are being won
or at least settled out of court. Fox News settled for over seven hundred

(01:14:39):
million dollars rather than go to trialand talk about their coverage of the election
after it was over. You know, if you cannot with some sense of
certainty talk about something controversial without knowingthat you are true with some certainty,
you really don't need to do it. We have to do this dumb training

(01:14:59):
at iHeart every single year about slanderand libel. This is an absolute case
study in slander and libel. Andall of these companies are gonna have to
pay big someone. We're gonna goout of business. We'll see what happens
with Newsmax next. And finally,if you have ever dreamed of being in
the Olympics but didn't really think youwere good at sports, now you've got

(01:15:23):
a new sport. This summer inParis, breakdancing will officially be an Olympic
sport. Yes, breakdancing. Now, before you think this is crazy,
is it any more crazy to judgesomeone on their breakdancing than it is to
judge someone on their gymnastics skill,or their figure skating skill, or some
other skill that is scored randomly bya panel of judges. I actually think

(01:15:45):
this is kind of cool, especiallybecause there is a forty year old Japanese
woman who has long been a trailblazerfor be girls, those are women who
break dance, and now she isgoing to be have her opportunity to live
her Olympic dream by probably representing Japanat the Games. Forty years old.
She's been doing this since she wastwenty one, and now she could be

(01:16:09):
an Olympic champion. And that,my friends, is your two minute drill.
So got a lot of stuff there, uh in my head? Oh
this person said love how trans peoplelive rent free in Republicans heads. Really,
you've got your nickers in a notovera hair. I don't care that
Amy Schneider is trans. What Icare about is that Amy Schneider rocked back

(01:16:30):
and forth in a very distracting way. And I'd never seen anyone in a
chair before, never seen anyone onJeopardy, and I've watched Jeopardy for years.
Have you ever seen anyone in hisshare on Jeopardy? So it wasn't
anything if any other If it hadbeen James Holdsauer, if it had been
anybody else, I would have saidthe same thing. The annoying rocking is

(01:16:50):
what drives me crazy. Whenever somebodycomes in to do the show and they've
never been on the radio before,I always tell them, like, the
worst thing you can do. Andthis is probably inappropriate, but I call
it the Stevie Wonder maneuver. Cooperback me up on this. When people
don't wear headphones, and they're likethis, they're on Mike, they're off
Mike. They they're moving their heads, They're doing this. They're on Mike,

(01:17:10):
they're off Mike. They're on Mike, They're off Mike. Drives me
crazy, And that's kind of whatit reminded me of. The swiveling of
the chair sounds like so it soundslike some of the ohst here, some
of the oh welshoush. We're notsupposed to talk about that or not,
may Mandy, where's the lawsuit againstMSNBC for all their faulty coverage of Trump
being a Russian asset? If Iwere Trump, I would assue. But

(01:17:33):
it is incredibly difficult to prove libelof slander if you're already famous. Smart
Maatic and Dominion were not famous.They were just regular businesses doing their business.
They were not famous. It's mucheasier to get a judgment against somebody
in that case, especially if youcan prove that you've damaged their reputation and

(01:17:53):
therefore damaged their ability to do business. So yeah, no, the other
guy in the chair already got bouncedout by the way to the Texter said,
yes, there's a guy in achair currently he already got kicked out
or lost. Rather, I shouldsay, you don't get kicked off Jeopardy,
you lose Jeopardy. Just put thatin there. We'll be right back
and I got a lot of stuffto talk about, but I want to
jump right into this one because it'skind of a big deal. So several

(01:18:17):
European nations, Norway, Ireland andSpain have recognized a Palestinian state. This
is huge, so big, there'sno room for the ah As you can
imagine, Israel is apoplectic. Thatbeing said, listen to this logic.

(01:18:38):
Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said onWednesday it was coordinated with Spain and Norway.
An historic and important day for Palestine. Several other European countries have in
the past weeks indicated they plan torecognize a Palestinian state, arguing a two
state solution is essential for lasting peacein the region. Now, I would

(01:19:00):
love to see a two state solutionas long as Israel's security can be guaranteed.
That would be the ideal situation.We can stop making the Palestinians victims.
They can then figure out their ownmess. We could get rid of
the UN refugee program, let themfigure out their own way, desalinate their
own water, create their own electricity. But the problem is is that they're

(01:19:24):
currently led by a terrorist organization wholaunched an attack on October seventh where women
were violently raped and murdered, childrenwere murdered, heads were cut off of
Israeli citizens who had the misfortune ofliving close to the breach point where they
came over the lines. Now,we talked yesterday about the fact that the

(01:19:44):
Palestinian people still support Hamas, andto be clear, Hammas spent I don't
even know. They probably several billiondollars of World Aid not to support their
people, the Palestinian peace people,but to build tunnels, specifically with the
intent of both attacking Israel from thosetunnels and also hiding from Israel in those

(01:20:09):
tunnels. We already know this.This is not anything new. So until
Hamas is replaced, until Israel hassome certainty that they will not constantly have
to be worried about being attacked againlike they were on October seventh, a
two state solution is off the tablefor me. And let's be real,
do you know who has blocked thetwo state solution every time? It's been

(01:20:29):
negotiated. It wasn't Israel, itwas Hamas. It was the Palestinian people.
Actually, Hamas has never had theopportunity to turn down a two state
solution, but it has always beenthe Palestinian people. It was Oh my
god, his name just went rightout of my head. Arafat Yasir Arafat
turned it down multiple times, evenas Israel offered them pretty much everything they

(01:20:53):
wanted. The thing that is themost infuriating about this stance by Norway,
in Spain and Ireland is that theyare rewarding a terrorist attack. They are
saying, you know what, afterwhat they did on October seventh, we
think they deserve their own state.Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket.

(01:21:15):
We think that's what should happen.So what do you think is going
to happen the next time some insurgentorganization decides that they want something more than
what they have. I'm all forit. Give them the West Bank,
give them Gaza, and let themcreate their own societies. But if I
were Israel, I would not letone single Palestinian come across into my territory

(01:21:39):
to work to do any of thethings that Israel has let them do.
For years because you can't ensure yoursafety. We already know that the people
that Israel had given work permits tobecause there was no real work in Gaza,
because amaspent all the money on thetunnel so they can attack Israel.
We already went over that. Butwe already know that the people that came
over to work side by side Israeliswere the ones that gave Hamas the information

(01:22:01):
so they could massacre them later.And you want to make them good next
door neighbors. What indication have youhad from Hamas, from the Palestinian people
that they will not just launch attackafter attack after attack from their sovereign nation.
So this is liberals capitulating to theoppressor oppressed narrative, and there's no

(01:22:24):
other excuse for it. There reallyisn't. Now. The good news here,
the American people are still on theside of Israel, no matter how
many young skulls full of mush taketo college campuses to destroy the greenery there.
The American people still believe that Israelhas a right to defend itself when

(01:22:46):
it is attacked viciously war crime likelike it was on October seventh. So
good news in that respect, asa matter of fact, that came from
a new heart Harris Pole that hasthat information in it. But holy cown
is it has some even more information, interesting information about how people view the

(01:23:10):
two candidates for president this year.We're going to jump into that next and
tomorrow we have a super short show. I have a message for my Norway
travelers. If you are getting readyto go with us, wait, hang
on. I should have looked thisup before the break because it's so important
to all of my Norway travelers.If you are going to Norway with us
in fourteen days, two hours,fifty six minutes and twenty six seconds,

(01:23:31):
yeah, I have a count downon my phone. Then look in your
email for an email from the bigtime traveler. That is me and Chuck
and we have created a Facebook groupfor our Norway travelers. It's a great
way to connect before and after thetrip, so look at that. If
you are not part of the Norwaytrip, we actually check whoever wants to

(01:23:55):
be in our private group against themanifest of the trip itself, so you
can not get into that group unlessyou are a traveler. So another benefit
of being on a Mandy Connell tripis you get to be in our little
private fun Facebook group. So lookfor that Norway Travelers and it's the big
Time Traveler email address. So thereyou go. Now, I want to

(01:24:15):
talk about a hair of a HarvardHarris pole for a hot minute. And
there's a lot of stuff in thispoll. I mean a lot of stuff.
And they ask a lot of politicalquestions, so I'm not going to
talk about all of it, butI want to talk about a couple of
the questions that were asked that Ithink are super interesting. First of all,

(01:24:41):
which party do you think has ahigher approval rating right now? Like
if I said, do you thinkRepublicans or Democrats have a higher approval rating
right now? What would you say? Well, if you said Democrats,
you'd be wrong. They are sittingin about forty six percent approval, while

(01:25:01):
GOP not much better but better atfifty percent approval. Now, if we
scroll down and we start looking atthe job, you know, approval,
this is the one that jumped outat me. This is this is a
big deal. I mean, thisis this is I think it's a really
big deal. If I were JoeBiden had curse about it right now.

(01:25:23):
You remember he talked about Obamacare beinga big fan deal. Only he didn't
say half and anyway. So theyasked the question, do you approve or
disapprove the job that Donald Trump didas president? Fifty five percent approve,
thirty six percent strongly approved. Thoseare all Republicans. Nineteen percent said someonet

(01:25:47):
approve, and then it goes downfrom there. Fifty five percent say they
approve of the job he's doing,which is much higher than Biden's forty four
percent say he's doing a great job. I thought that was kind of interesting.
Now. Ex presidents often get kindof the haze of you know,

(01:26:09):
when people look back, especially nowbecause we've dealt with so much inflation and
everything is so much more expensive.People look back and I'm like, look,
he may have been an a holeon Twitter, but my gas was
cheap. I could afford groceries,you know. So yeah, I think
he did a pretty good job,even with the mean tweets. So that's
a very interesting outcome. One third, one in three voters approve of Congress.

(01:26:32):
That's not surprising. Woppen thirty twopercent. This is one of my
favorite questions they asked. So theyasked the favorability of political figures. Okay,
and the favorability of various political figures, and then they looked at like
favorables versus unfavorables and they call thatnet favorability. The higher that gap is

(01:26:59):
in the positive, the better offyou are meeting more people like you than
don't like you. Do you knowwho's number one? Number one? Donald
Trump? Fifty percent of people havea favorable opinion of him, forty six
percent have an unfavorable opinion of him. That's a four percent gap, which

(01:27:20):
is why the headline is Elon Musk, RFK Junior and Tim Scott enjoy the
highest net favorability because Tim Scott comesin with a net favorability number of ten
percent, even though he only hasa favorable number of thirty five percent twenty

(01:27:41):
five percent unfavorable because most people don'thave an opinion on him. Do you
know who came in second? ElonMusk. Elon Musk came in at forty
eight percent favorable, thirty five percentunfavorable. Then it goes R. F.
Kennedy Junior, Ron DeSantis, JoeBiden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton,

(01:28:03):
Nikki Haley, Benjaminette Nahu, MarcoRubio, and on and on and
on. I found that fascinating DonaldTrump has the highest favorability out of all
of those people. They asked questionsabout the most trusted institutions in the country.
I'm not going to get into allthat stuff, but what do you

(01:28:23):
think the number one issues for votersare? And it's not even close to
you, guys. The two topissues facing voters right now are price increases
in inflation and immigration. And inboth of these categories, the Democrats are
doing a terrible job. Do youknow where January sixth falls? There's maybe

(01:28:47):
probably fifteen twenty options on this.Do you know where January six falls?
It is sixth from the bottom.Political correctness, can't culture, seventh from
the bottom. All of the areaswhere Democrats should shine are all at the
bottom. Climate change comes in atabout the middle, with ten percent of

(01:29:11):
voters saying it was the top issuefor them. Thirty five percent set inflation,
thirty two percent set in immigration,twenty three percent said the economy and
jobs. So we can actually kindof put that with the top issue right
there, and then it goes crimeand drugs, national debt, federal budget
deficits. I'm surprised that the nationaldebt came in at fifteen percent. I

(01:29:34):
mean that's women's rights came in atfifteen percent, healthcare fifteen percent, taxes
fourteen percent, guns thirteen percent.That's down four percentage points, by the
way, and then it goes onfrom there. But you know, these
numbers have to be making the Bidenadministration be very nervous because it when asked

(01:29:57):
the question inflation, which of theseissues, whose is most important to you
personally? Forty one percent said inflation, sixteen percent said immigration, eleven percent
said crime, ten percent set abortion. So, I mean, these numbers
are not good for Democrats. Butlisten to this. Let me let me

(01:30:18):
scroll down here, because this stuff'scrazy. Biden versus the GOP nominee horse
race. If the twenty twenty fourelection for president were held today and it
was between Donald Trump the Republican andJoe Biden, the Democrat, who would
you vote for? Forty nine percentsaid Trump, forty three percent said Biden,

(01:30:42):
eight percent said I don't know.And when they ask leaners, what's
your first choice or which way doyou lean? Trump still wins with fifty
three percent. Biden wins with fortyseven percent. So how does RFK Junior
come into this a lot of peoplehave said, Oh, I think RFK
Junior hurts Trump. No, no, he doesn't. Because if they asked

(01:31:04):
if it were held today between DonaldTrump, Joe Biden, and RFK Junior,
who would you vote for? DonaldTrump forty three percent, Joe Biden
thirty nine percent. Now just remember, just above this, he was at
forty three percent and twelve percent,said Robert F. Kennedy. So in

(01:31:27):
theory, he pulled six percentage pointsfrom Trump and four percentage points from Biden.
But Trump still wins if you hadto choice. They asked first leaners,
and again Trump comes out on top, so that's going to be a
huge problem. They asked who,well you would like to see as Trump's
vice president? Can it Ron DeSantiscame in first. Tim Scott came in

(01:31:53):
second. But when you look atthe numbers for which of these people would
make you more likely to vote forthis candidate? Tim Scott far and away
draws more people to the Trump campaignthan any other candidate. Vivik Ramaswami comes
in second. I think I don'tthink the veke has a chance because he's

(01:32:15):
too like Trump, and Trump doesn'twant somebody who's trying to out Trump Trump,
It's just not not really you know. Oh wait a minute, I
had that backwards. You guys.The Veke gives Trump the biggest lift at
plus fourteen percent. I had thatbackwards. My apologies, Tim Scott plus
thirteen. So uh, seven toten voters have made up their mind about

(01:32:40):
who they're going to vote for.Almost half of independence are undecided. Trump's
base is very consolidated, Bidam's basenot as much now. They asked about
presidential debates, Do you want JoeBiden and Donald Trump to debate each other
in the lead up to the presidentialelection? Nine percent said yes. So
I was talking to my brother lastnight, and my brother said, look,

(01:33:04):
if I were Donald Trump, thisis what I would do in the
debate. I wouldn't talk about policy, I wouldn't attack. I would just
say things like, hey, Joe, you've talked about playing football in college.
Who is your coach? Hey Joe, you got grandkids in college?
Where do they go to school?And ask him questions that he should know
the answers to, because honestly,do you really believe he knows the answers

(01:33:26):
to these questions? He's proven timeand time again he can't remember anything.
Just the other day, he said, Barack Obama sent him to Detroit to
handle the pandemic. I mean,that's like, how do you even make
that mistake? I am terrible withdates. I just had this conversation with
my daughter. She asked me something. Actually, Koover, I'm gonna ask
you this question and see if youknow it. If you don't know it,

(01:33:48):
it's gonna make me feel better,by the way, So don't feel
compelled to, like, you know, stretch yourself on this. So she
asked me when CD burning became athing? Do you remember, like,
was that early two thousand or wasthat late nineties? When was that?
I want to say probably, Isaid late nineties is when I said,

(01:34:11):
because that's when napster became a thingand people were burning CDs, you know,
they were stealing music. But sheasked me, you know why,
she asked me this, why?Okay, So I'm driving her and her
friend home from Target yesterday. Theyjust bought new vinyl Okay, so they
got new vinyls. So I'm alreadyhaving a flashback to my childhood. And
she says to her friend, youknow, did you know that we could

(01:34:33):
burn CDs? And we could likemake you know, like a CD with
all of our favorite songs, andI'm like, it's called a mixtape.
But that is what my fifteen yearold daughter now wants to do. She
wants to burn mixtapes onto CDs,and I was like, well, I
can get you some cassettes and youcan try and record it off the radio
like we had to do back inolden days. But I have to agree

(01:34:54):
with my brother that I think thateverybody wants to see the debate because they
want to see how Joe Biden's goingto do, which leads me to my
next category, Biden confidence, andthis is where things get devastating. The
question was is Joe Biden mentally fitto serve as president of the United States

(01:35:17):
or do you have doubts about hisfitness for office? The answers are he
is mentally fit or I have doubtsabout his fitness. Forty six percent of
people think he is fit for office. Fifty four say no. Do you
think Joe Biden is showing he istoo old to be president or do you

(01:35:39):
think he is showing he is fitto be president? Sixty three percent said
he is showing he is too oldonly thirty seven percent think he is fit
to be president. Then they asked, do you think he's getting worse,
better, or staying the same aspresident? Forty nine percent said he's getting

(01:36:00):
worse, Twenty eight percent said he'sgetting better. That has to be all
Democrats. Twenty three percent said he'sstaying the same. Are President Biden's public
lapses if any more or less frequentthese days? Sixty three percent said more
frequent if electing a president who raisesquestions about age, failing memory, or

(01:36:23):
lapsed concentration potentially dangerous for the country, or such fears being overblown politically,
fifty nine percent of people said,yeah, it's a big deal. These
numbers are terrible, absolutely terrible.Three out of four voters say Hunter is
guilty of tax fraud. Sixty percentof voters say that Joe Biden helped Hunter

(01:36:45):
Biden in his business dealings. Nearlythree and four say Hunters should serve jail
time if convicted, And they askedthis devastating question, do you think that
if Joe Biden was working with hisson and brother to help bring in multi
million dollar fees from China, Russia, and the Ukraine while he was Vice
president would you consider that an impeachableoffense or not impeachable? Seventy three percent

(01:37:10):
of people said impeachable. I'm shockedthat this poll is not getting more play.
Now. They ask different questions aboutDonald Trump. Do you think Donald
Trump has committed crimes for which heshould be convicted? Or has he not
committed any crimes? Fifty five percentsay he's guilty. This is interesting.

(01:37:31):
Do you think Donald Trump is athreat to democracy if his elected president?
That one was fifty to fifty.Most voters field Democrats are using the legal
system in a biased way to takeout a political opponent. Fifty five percent.
Our country's in a mess right now, and that's not all. I

(01:37:51):
put a link to this on theblog if you want to do what I
did and just doork out and readevery single page. Because they ask about
a bunch of different topics, andthey ask about the Israeli Hamas war,
and Americans are staunchly in in thecamp of Israel protecting itself, which makes
me very happy. And more importantly, seventy seven percent of voters, seventy

(01:38:15):
three percent of voters say they arefollowing this war very closely, which is
not how Americans do things. Wetend to just pay attention to the beginning
and then kind of check out.So the fact that people say they are
following somewhat closely or very closely,I feel I'm encouraged by that they still
summort Israel against Hamas, and twoand three voters say they would only favor

(01:38:35):
a conditional cease fire after hostages arereleased and Hamas is removed from power.
So, like I said, lotsof super interesting stuff in this poll.
I put a link to the actualpoll on the blog today if you want
to check it out. But tomorrowwe have a short show half hour trying
to think Kathy Walker's coming into Playof the Day today. What do you

(01:38:58):
think we should do for a halfhour, Kathy? Should we just do
a half hour of I don't know. You know, I'm going to do
a blog because I do it everyday. It's like I'm like Pavlod's with
the blog. But I was readanything like, what fun thing could we
do for a half hour? Idon't know. I think it should be
fun exactly? Are fun? Justso people are traveling here over Memorial Days,

(01:39:19):
so you're such a good travel insider. That's maybe we'll just do maybe're
we go? What should we do? It was an hour tomorrow I got
a whole hour. Yeah, becausethe game's at one thirty seven. Perfect.
Well, never mind, then Ihave a whole hour. I don't
know what I'll do, but we'llhave to find out tomorrow. We'll just
have to find out, because ifI don't know, you don't know.
That's the rule.