06-05-26 FULL SHOW - We Are So Screwed - The Mandy Connell Podcast

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

Speaker 2 (00:04):
No, it's Mandy Connell Andyna KA.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Nine one FM, Got Spat and the Noisy Gus Fred
Andy Connell keeping No Sad Thing.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to a Friday edition of the show.
All together, Now, all right, my friends, we've got a
bunch to do. I've got a couple of guests today

(00:47):
looking forward to that. I watched the Democratic governor's debate,
so you don't have to, although I'm going to ask you,
I'm gonna you need to give it an hour of
your time. And here's why. More than likely one of
these dudes is going to be governor, and you need
to know what's coming. And I'm hoping if you hear

(01:08):
them in their own words describing in great detail, how
they are going to aggressively destroy what's left of the
business economy here in Colorado, how they are going to
make protecting illegal aliens the most important part of their administration.
I mean, I don't know what to do to activate
Republicans to you know, to get something together, because man,

(01:34):
we're so screwed. As a matter of fact, go to
the blog and the headline today at mandyblog dot go. Oh,
by the way, little side, we are so close to
two thousand subscribers, so close, like super super close, a rod.
I'll proper well, I'm going to tell you right now.
I just got to pull it up on my little phone.

(01:54):
Here it is bu uh uh. We are one thousand,
nine hundred and seventy three. So we only need a
few a few people to go ahead and subscribe to
the Mandy Connell substack at mandy'sblog dot com.

Speaker 5 (02:14):
Do you know what I realized? You can do a rod.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
You can hit a little button, the little play button
at the top, and it will read the blog to you.
Saw that, friends, it will read the blog to you. Now,
it's not my voice, but it is a female voice.

Speaker 5 (02:31):
I like it. I like it a lot. So now
imagine this.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
Imagine you're getting in your car, You're getting ready to
drive to work, and all of a sudden, bing, you
get the notification that the Mandy blog is in your mailbox. Fantastic.
You attach your phone to your car, as we all do,
and then you just hit play and by the time
you get to the office, you're gonna have a full
view of the news, sarcasm, snark, whatever. You won't be
able to see the videos, but you can go back later.

(02:57):
Imagine that what a world we live in.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
It's a beautiful time to be alive. Just go to
mandyblog dot com.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Look for the headline that says six five twenty six blog,
way are so screwed?

Speaker 5 (03:10):
Click on that and here are the headlines you will
find within.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
You're melf of American.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
Plan Today. I'm the blog.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
I watched the Democratic governor's debate. The word Trump was
used forty eight times. Of course, Kyle and Marshall were
a disappointment the Medicaid scam in Colorado part two and
they brought a church into the scam. And scams like
this are not new. It's an ask me anything.

Speaker 5 (03:39):
Sort of day.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
How bad a job has Jenna done with our voter rolls?
Shoulda Wori City Councilman Rob Andrews stepped down?

Speaker 5 (03:47):
This kind of Internet fame.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Driven crap has got to stop. Looking for some speedy
fun this weekend.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
The Tamali bill is law now. Guests, who is funding.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
The fight against data centers? I'm pretty sure this is
how skynet started. Big job numbers come in Today. Broncos
are excited about Jalen Waddle. Spielberg says we'll find aliens
in our lifetime. Why being in nature makes us feel good?
The death of the cheap seats. You can't outwork a
bad diet. Trump's name is coming off the Kennedy Center.

(04:18):
Even superheroes are afraid of foul balls. Why isn't water
use an issue for this new build?

Speaker 5 (04:23):
The War of the pot Luck a.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
New song about text from the hoa President. Broncos are
back at it, Broncos OTAs covered by the A to
Z podcast. Those are the headlines on the blog at
mandyblog dot com.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
Tick Tech Toe a winner that was flawless.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
Nancy had to admit right there. Boom and by the way,
no s Mandy blog dot com make a girl's streams
come true. Let's get to that two thousand mark. All right, kids,
well done. Now on the blog today, Oh boy, oh boy,
do we have lots and lots.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
Of really interesting stuff.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
But I'm just going to say a few words about
last night's debate. Because my friend Chris worked longtime journalists
in the area. She's coming in.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
At one o'clock. She watched it too, and We're going.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
To discuss it at depth in the one o'clock hour. However,
I want to give you some just brief impressions of
last night's debate. First of all, I understand if you
didn't want to watch last night's debate. About ten minutes in,
I didn't want to watch last night's debate. Michael Bennett
and Phil Weiser espouse every policy position I oppose, so

(05:35):
I want to start from that position. There wasn't a
single good idea in that entire debate from where I
sit now two Democratic voters, primary voters.

Speaker 5 (05:45):
Maybe there was, but this is.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
The overarching, like encapsulation of what happened last night. First
of all, you heard me mention the headline. We counted
they mentioned the name Trump forty eight times.

Speaker 5 (06:02):
They mentioned the.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
Words affordable or affordability a total of ten times. This
was way too much about you know, Bennett and and
Wiser fighting about did Wiser sue him Trump enough?

Speaker 5 (06:17):
Where was he on this light?

Speaker 4 (06:18):
I could not tell you how little I gave a
rats ass about any of that.

Speaker 5 (06:24):
It was so who cares?

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Who cares?

Speaker 5 (06:30):
Anyway?

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Democrat voters do, so that was a huge chunk of it.
They both talked about how things have gotten completely unaffordable,
without a hint of recognition that it's the policies of.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
Their party that have done a lot of that.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Nothing, no no plan to say, hey, you know what,
we're gonna go, Well, we're gonna go examine the policies
that we passed in the in the last few years
and see what maybe has made things worse instead of better,
which is what we intended. There are ways to do that,
but they did none of it. It was gosh jolly,
everything is so inexpensive. Our kids can't stay here. We

(07:10):
gotta do something about that.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Oh you think every time the word.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
A Democrat says, I'm going to make things more affordable,
I know everything is going to get more expensive. It's
like the alternate universe of statements. Michael Bennett last night
said he was for and going to investigate and bring
forth a public option in Colorado. Medicaid is already one
of our biggest expenses and we can't even manage that budget.

(07:40):
The public option has now been studied, and I mean
millions of dollars spent by state studying the possibility of
doing a public option, and every single one of those
states has dropped it like a hot potato after this
studied it because it is prohibitively expensive. They talked about more.

Speaker 5 (07:59):
Regular on AI.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
They said every single bill that Jared Polis vetoed this time,
they would have signed all of them. They would upend
the Labor Peace Act, they would put new restrictions.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
On AI that would make doing business.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Here really difficult for AI companies. And why would they
stay if you guys don't think they can just turn
it off. You're not paying attention. They can turn it off.
They talk about making things more affordable on the one hand,
and then they just talk about more regulations on the other.
You cannot continue to govern the state like we have

(08:35):
been governing the state and not expect things to continue
in the same trajectory. That's the frustrating part of this
whole thing. And one of these guys is going to
be governor more than likely. It's going to be really
hard for a Republican to pull this off, really hard.

(08:56):
So you know, I am urging you to go watch
this to and again we're going to do a deeper
dive at one o'clock with Chris Rourke.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
I urge you. I had a wee bit of a.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Back and forth with Kyle Clark, not a significant one,
and it wasn't snarkier or nasty or anything else, but
in it I questioned him specifically on the.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
Question about palanteer A.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
Rod and I were talking about this before the show,
and the fact that they started the debate with a
question that was essentially, hey, why don't voters think you're
awesome anymore? I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that was the
question that was literally the question. No, not literally, I

(09:41):
just said, I exaggerated, I'm paraphrasing. It can't literally began
a paraphrase. At the same time, I.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Realized the conflict there.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
But on the blog today I suggested, and I have this,
I just want to I don't normally read from my
own blog, but it just says, of course, Kyle and
Marshall were a disappointment, and I urged the both of
them to go back and say, please check the energy
they brought to the debate For the GOP. It was
confrontational and angry. For the Democrats, it was why doesn't
everyone think you're awesome? For men who I believe consider

(10:10):
themselves journalists unfairly labeled as liberals and inspection of these
performances should help clarify why we all know they're liberals.
This was a shameful display. Look at this hardball by Marshall.
Colorado is an increasingly progressive state putting restrictions on businesses
in the name of consumer and environmental protection.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
Is that driving businesses out of Colorado?

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Mister Bennett. Here's why that's a softball. He's already making
an excuse for the progressive policies by Oh, it's in
the name of consumer and environmental protection. Oh yeah, that's
an editorial comment. It's letting them know, hey, you know what,
they're well intentioned. They're well intentioned. Here's how you could

(10:53):
ask that same question. Colorado is the sixth most regulated
state in the nation, and business owners are leaving or
choosing other states because they say the business environment is
too challenging in Colorado. Many of those regulations were passed
by your own party. How do you plan to fix
the exodus of businesses and bring back Colorado's vibrant business economy?

(11:13):
There you go, that's how you ask the question. It
was super frustrating because I thought that the level of
energy on Tuesday night was aggressive. It was aggressive and

(11:34):
I'm okay with that. For this reason, whoever comes out
of that Republican debate will now have an opportunity. They're
more battle tested, and there were things that needed to
be pushed back on. And I realized that Kylin Marshall
can legitimately say, well, these two candidates don't have crazy

(11:55):
crap in their background, right, Like, look, we don't have
to ask about how many people have you killed or whatever.
We don't have and that is one hundred percent true.
But they each have a record. They have a record
of the failures that we are living under in Colorado
under Attorney General Phil Wiser. No questions about the increase
in crime, no questions about Democrats lowering the punishment rates

(12:18):
for Fentanel. And then Phil Wiser has the nerve to
bring up Fentinel deaths, and nobody asked the question, didn't
your party lower the criminal penalties on Fentinel? These are
the kinds of questions that didn't get asked. And I realized, Okay,
I'm not even looking at the text line yet, and
I already know I'm gonna have a bunch of Mandy.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
You had to see this coming, Mandy, you knew this is.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
How it was going to be, Mandy, I told you
that's how I.

Speaker 5 (12:44):
Was gonna be.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Okay, you know what, in my heart of hearts, I
absolutely knew this is what it was going to be.
But Hope springs eternal. I don't know why. It's like
Lucy in the football I get it. I mean, but
I'm just a relentless optimist and I just want to
believe that with everything that journalism is going through right now,
I mean, this is kind of analogous to what sixty

(13:07):
Minutes is going through at this very moment, because now, guys,
everybody is leaking everything from CBS News and the reality
from the outside looking in. And I certainly don't work
at CBA or at CBS News, so I don't know.
But the reality from what's coming out now is that
there are too many journalists who believe two things. That

(13:28):
they are infallibly right, and that anyone else's opinion simply
isn't as valid as theirs. And that's not journalism. I'm
a freaking talk show host and I get stuff wrong,
and I try to apologize. I try to let you
guys know when I realize I got something wrong. I've
never thought I was infallible. You know why, because I've

(13:49):
screwed up. I've gotten stuff wrong, I've supported the.

Speaker 5 (13:53):
Wrong candidate, I've done all of these things.

Speaker 4 (13:56):
I will never have an air of invincibility because that
would be a complete lie.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
And everyone knows it.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
But there there is that vain in journalism of the
unwillingness to go back and just watch the two debates,
Kyle Marshall, just go back and watch the two debates.
Surely you can see the difference. And I guess I
don't know. Okay, Now I'm gonna go to the common
spirit Ealf text Lin and see what's going on. Five

(14:26):
sixty six nine. Oh, you can text me if you want.
Marx and Bottoms took nothing away from the debate. They'll
be just as stupid at the next one, says this
Texter Mandy. Don't you think they had more whack of
noodle material with the Republican debate?

Speaker 6 (14:40):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (14:40):
I just made that point.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Sadly, the main qualification of being governor in Colorado is
to love abortion and hate Trump. I hate to say it. No,
you forgot love illegal aliens as well. You forgot that,
so you also have to look oh oh wait, oh oh, gosh.
I can't wait to get into this stuff with Chris.
Did you guys hear the question anti Semitism that both

(15:03):
Phil Wiser, who is Jewish, turned into an answer about Islamophobia?

Speaker 5 (15:09):
Did you guys catch that?

Speaker 6 (15:12):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (15:12):
Yeah, they are.

Speaker 4 (15:15):
This is this is a disgusting reality of the Democratic
Party right now. You have a Jewish candidate running away
from his Jewish heritage to embrace Islam. So people forget
he's a Jew because they must know Democratic voters are
they really going to vote for a Jew?

Speaker 5 (15:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
That is really awful. I mean, that's just awful. But
here we are anyway, Mandy. The Democrats playbook is to
not be controversial elections, to control the legislature, then pass
controversial laws without opposition. It's why they don't primary each

(15:57):
other and why they don't get asked hard questions.

Speaker 5 (15:59):
By the press before the election.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
Correct, very astute, Texter, And it works. It absolutely works, Mandy.
We don't give a crap about Trump. We want to
know what they're gonna do for the state of Colorado
when apparently nothing good. All these damn socialist, communist, liberal
Nazi lovers. All they want to do is about Trump's

(16:23):
name and everyone falls over them like Kyle Clarke can't
wait to see how many fees we're gonna have to pay.
We won't have Tabor, our property taxes will go through
the roof. And quite frankly, they're both idiots. But blank
blank Bennett really two losers, and sadly, as taxpayers are
the biggest losers. Yep, yep, Mandy, the Democrats lost my

(16:48):
vote when they said yes to eliminating Tabor. Mandy, fine,
I caved and subscribed only because you said I don't
have to read it and I can listen in the car. Yes,
you can.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
At the top of the blog. There's a little play button.
There you go.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Another fine quality of moving the blog to substack. Anyway, Maddy,
I just signed up for your blog. You guys are awesome.
Maddy Wiser stated, all hatred against other cultures is wrong.

Speaker 5 (17:16):
I watched it.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
You're mistaken. Oh no, no, no, no, Look at the
end of that statement. He here's the thing. Wait a minute,
I have it right here. I printed out the transcript.
I printed out the transcript, and I will find that answer.

Speaker 7 (17:33):
It was.

Speaker 5 (17:33):
It was.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
It was a canned answer. I believe my cant I
mean practiced. There's when you do debate prep with a candidate,
and I've actually done this with a candidate before, and
I think it's super fun. But that's just because I'm
a nerd, right.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
But when you.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
Do debate prep, you ask the questions that you think
may be answered, and then the candidate has a chance
to think about Okay, if this topic comes up, here's
what I'm going to say. So I say, you know
can but it's just a rehearsed answer, and the pivot
from Judaism to Okay, here we go. Let me see

(18:11):
here doing this, I'll find it in a moment. He
pivoted immediately. Okay, here we go, let me see here.
There's anti semitism is the question. In America, Jewish voters
have supported I don't know what that says. Colorado, there

(18:32):
have been multiple protest events for some argued democrats in
charge are tolerating anti semitism. How do you clamp down
on it anti semitism without stifling free speech, mister Bennett.
Mister Bennett says, I think this is a huge problem,
not just in Colorado but our nation, the rise of
anti semitism. We have to fight it and we need

(18:52):
to make sure that we fight it at.

Speaker 5 (18:54):
Every single turn.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
It is metastasizing in ways that it has throughout our history.
At the same time, I think it's really important for
us to recognize that there has been a rise of
Islamophobia to in this state and in this nation, and
we cannot import these ancient hatreds to this country. We are,
as you said at the very outset, somebody died here.

Speaker 5 (19:16):
This is a pluralistic nation.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
This is a nation where we believe in freedom of religion.
That is Michael Bennett. I'll tell you what Phil Wiser said.
He ran even faster away from it when we get
back now. Before the break, and I thought about, guys
on the break, I thought about pulling up.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
The audio, but.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
Do you would you rather listen to Michael Bennett and
Phil Wiser say what they said, or would you rather
me read it. I'm going to lean on I'd rather
read it the only thing I'm gonna read right now,
because we're going to be doing a deeper dive at
one o'clock with my friend and longtime journalist Chris Rourke.
I said, the most gross part of last night's Today

(19:55):
was the way that these candidates ran away from a
question about anti Semitism, and the question was how do
you crack down on anti Semitism without infringing on First
Amendment rights. This is what mister Wiser had to say.
There may be no issue more personal to me than
rising hate and demonization of others. Other ring which can

(20:18):
happen to Jews, can happen to the LGBTQ community, can
happen to immigrants, can happen to Muslims. Is on the rise.
Hating is on the rise. As governor, I will honor
our American ethos e pluribus unum.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
Out of many, we are one. George Washington wrote.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
A letter to Rhode Island Synagogue and said, in America,
this is aspirational. Bigotry has no sanction. He then quoted
from the Book of Micah and said, let everyone live
safely under their own vine and fig tree. It was
actually celebrated in Hamilton. That's what we need to do
for all communities. And we need to let communities speak
and be heard and have dialogue. That's why I showed

(20:58):
up with COVID and Muslim to have a respectful dialogue.
I was the only candidate who showed up blah blah blah.
That is how he turned a question about anti Semitism
into how he showed.

Speaker 5 (21:12):
Up for Muslims.

Speaker 4 (21:14):
That is how gross it is right now in the
Democratic Party that you can't just say, yeah, you know what.
That feels very personal to me because I'm Jewish, but
I also love free speech. But at the same time,
if speech is inciting the kind of violence that we're
seeing where old Jewish people get set on fire, that's
a problem. And the rise of anti Semitism is concerning.

(21:37):
And then if you want to make some other mention
of you know, hate across the board is bad, I
mean that's great, but they didn't even do that. He
ran away from Judaism as fast as he could, and
I just think that is incredibly, incredibly sad and very
very telling. Okay, we're gonna talk more about that in
the one o'clock hour and today at two thirty. If

(22:00):
you did not read part one of David mcgoya's Just
Fantastic series, well it was the first one yesterday about
a medicaid scam here in Colorado. And I think we
caught it early, or at least David caught it early.
And he writes about what is called the program, and

(22:20):
it is about a home health agency.

Speaker 5 (22:22):
And I got to give it to him. Their con is.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
Really good because it wasn't enough that they had a
home health agency where they could scam money from Medicaid.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
They actually created a.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Congregation so they could then use the church as a
front to funnel money to homeless people, so they would
collect their Medicaid dollars. I mean, David mcgoya seems to
have caught them early. They've only gotten about twenty six
million dollars from you and me at a rod and
you know, your neighbor and anybody else who pays taxes

(22:55):
in the state of Colorado. I've got David mcgoya coming
on today to talk about that. But there are three
more excuse me, yeah, three more stories. We got part
two today of the just the overview of the of
the program. Then there's a longer article just on the
fact that this home health agency created a church congregation

(23:16):
so they could launder money back to homeless people to
keep them on Medicaid, and so they could hoover up
funds from the Medicaid system. And here's the worst part.
This is not a news scam. We'll talk to David mcgoya.
He's coming in at two thirty to talk about that
one it is and ask me anything sort of day.
And I know, you guys, this has been so much

(23:38):
politics lately, but we're coming up on a really important election.
And if you missed the beginning of the show, I
put the nine News Democratic Debate on the blog at
mandyblog dot com, and I would urge you to watch
it for one of two purposes.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
Number one, so you can continue.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
To be complacent and go ahead and know what's coming
in Colorado. Or maybe to inspire you to work or
took us off for a candidate that can win a
general election on the Republican side.

Speaker 5 (24:07):
Either or, but those are your options.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
Kind of at this point, I feel like, you know,
before November, if we can just get a non controversial
person over the finish line. By the way, Vic made
not the bee, not in a good way. No, it's
not a good.

Speaker 5 (24:27):
Way, not at all.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
It's quite the opposite, actually quite the opposite. Can we
talk for just a second. I don't want to spend
a lot of time on this a ride, but this
guy who ran onto the court at the NBA Finals,
are you kidding? Me, you know what's gonna happen. This
guy is gonna ruin courtside seats. There's gonna have to
be some kind of barricade, because in all honesty, that

(24:51):
guy could have run up with some kind of shank
and stab someone, and I realized he didn't. He was
just seeking internet fame, which he's getting. But we've got
to stop that. It's I think it's one thing when
you're on like a football field, you know, and somebody
kind of runs onto the field because there's so much
action and those guys are so big, But on a
basketball court, they're not wearing any protective gear. If some

(25:14):
bad actor really wanted to hurt one of these guys,
they totally could.

Speaker 6 (25:17):
This doesn't happen too oft anymore. I think it's more
of an.

Speaker 7 (25:20):
Outlier, like courtside at the NBA is just a really
cool feature. I don't think the league wants to get
rid of now. Granted, if this would have gone a
different directions act, maybe, but it's an outlier. I think
it's a failure on this particular security team in that instance,
because that was really agree really agreeious, like you got
really far and all the way to them and then

(25:42):
a moment or two before he got taken down. Now
that particular fan will never do it again, nor will
some when he was with they got a lifetime band.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Let's be real, if you if you are not paying
for the tickets in your name, how exact here? I
just say this is someone who is I know, I
am not. I'm not proud, but I know multiple people
who have been quote banned for life from Disney World.
Guess what they've been back the Disney police did not
come arrest them.

Speaker 5 (26:09):
How are you going to even enforce.

Speaker 7 (26:10):
That, you know, at every arena, like they literally will
get every bit of his credentials and information.

Speaker 4 (26:15):
He will not.

Speaker 5 (26:16):
But if he doesn't come in under.

Speaker 4 (26:17):
His own name, is buddy buys the tickets, he transfers
the ticket, Bam, there you go.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
I'm telling you.

Speaker 7 (26:22):
It's got to come incognito then, because I believe with
these people they probably have again, especially like in the future,
with like AI and security and the intelligence they'll have,
they'll find a way to keep to keep this person out,
especially because the commissioner was right there at that game
in the arena, like he's like front Row's like, okay,

(26:43):
that guy has never come into a game again, so
they'll try, I mean, you know, and he'll try because
I assume and I've seen nothing about this guy on
if he's like a streamer or something. But obviously the popularity.
Did you see the selfie he got? Victor's so tall
that he didn't even.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
Get his face in it, He just got his neck,
which is such a shit because.

Speaker 7 (27:00):
When Ben Yama smiled for it, you can see the video,
he literally like smiled for it, and the guy didn't
even get it.

Speaker 5 (27:08):
Idiot, just an idiot. Where do you go?

Speaker 4 (27:11):
All Right, when we get back, we may be giving
away a pair of movie tickets, yes we are, but
we're gonna talk about Steven Spielberg's new movie for a moment,
and more importantly, the fact that Steven Spielberg, who has
made some of the greatest space movies we have in
the catalog of space movies, he says he thinks we're
gonna find some aliens, and I gotta tell you, I

(27:32):
kind of I kind of hope he's right. Now, Steven Spielberg,
I do want to see this movie, and this is
probably a movie I will go to see in the theater.

Speaker 5 (27:38):
Because it's a space movie.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
So they asked him about space. I mean he's made
two of the best space movies e T Close Encounters
of the Third Kind, which still stands up. When was
the last have you ever seen that whole movie?

Speaker 7 (27:55):
A run?

Speaker 6 (27:56):
Andy? I told you I have watched that at Devil's Tower.

Speaker 5 (27:59):
Oh that's right, Yes, that movie stands the test of time.

Speaker 6 (28:02):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
It is still so good. Everything about it works still.
So they were asking Steven Spielberg and he they said, look,
do you really think that there's extraterrestrial life out there?
And he said, my view has become more realistic. There's
a lot of mystery and things that are undisclosed, but
I become more optimistic that people are going to be

(28:23):
able to discover things that we've not been allowed to discover.
So of course, this movie says it's about empathy and
bringing people together, and an event like discovering the existence
of aliens would bring people together. I mean, if they're
mean aliens and we have to fight them, it better
bring us together. If they're nice aliens, then we still

(28:47):
need to be prepared, Like how do you like, who
decides do we bring snacks? We need people to bring
together for that, Like, oh my gosh, we're not alone.
And then secretly we're all like, we hope you guys
are doing better than we.

Speaker 5 (28:59):
Are, because things are going great right now.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
Josh O'Connor, who plays cybersecurity expert Daniel Kilner, said the
script immediately resonated with him.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
He said, when the.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Script came through, I read it in one go, in
a rush, and it was thrilling. It felt so needed
as a film about hope and humanity and understanding.

Speaker 5 (29:21):
See, it sounds like a good movie.

Speaker 4 (29:23):
I've gone back and forth about extraterrestrial life, but you know,
one of the things that I find so interesting is
that we have this vast, vast mass mass, vast fast universe.
And yes, there are certain things that happen, repetitive radio
wave beliefs that make us go, wait a minute, that
seems man or or you know, alien made instead of
just naturally occurring. And people are willing to believe that

(29:46):
there are aliens even though we have no proof, but
they often don't believe in God. And I know, please
people of faith hear me out. I'm trying to make
a point here. I'm not comparing God to aliens. I'm
just saying we're talking about faith here, okay, just talking
about that.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
Don't freak out.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
We're going to take a time out here. I've got
the blog is so good today. Did you see the
video that I posted, by the way under the death
of the cheap seats thing? A guy went to Madison
Square Garden. The cheapest ticket at Madison Square Garden for
Game three of the NBA Finals is going for seventy
five hundred and its obstructed view some so far away.

Speaker 7 (30:26):
Just wait until if the Knicks win tonight Game four,
which could clench the whole thing. Dear God knows, will
be over ten k I who can go, Ben Stiller?
I guess, Timothy.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Can you imagine how much those courts side teets the
seats cost?

Speaker 5 (30:41):
Can you even imagine?

Speaker 6 (30:43):
One hundred grand plus?

Speaker 5 (30:44):
Seriously?

Speaker 6 (30:45):
And that doesn't matter to them?

Speaker 4 (30:47):
Et and close encounter sucked? Whoa. I just want to
say that to someone sometime. Mandy, the opposunity what trash?
You just upset my stomach. Also, you're me, Mandy. How
soon do you think the porn will come out if

(31:08):
there's nights aliens?

Speaker 5 (31:09):
You know what?

Speaker 4 (31:10):
I'd love to tell you that was an improper question,
but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:14):
We both know it's true.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
We'll be back in a minute. We're doing a deep
dive on last night's debate between probably our likely next governor.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Bill and Pollock,
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, it's Mandy Connell and KA ninety one FM.

Speaker 8 (31:36):
Got say can the icy three?

Speaker 4 (31:43):
Many Donald keeping the real sad bab Welcome Local, Welcome
to the second hour of the show. I'm your host,
Mandy Connell. That guy over there, he's Anthony Rodriguez. We
will take the station right up until three pm when
the boys of KO Sports, who are all at OTAs
or whatever they're doing during the day, We'll come in

(32:03):
and tell you everything you're missing from the broncos OTAs
that you can't see in the meantime. I'm pleased as
much to welcome to my program officially the first time.
Oh officially, thank you. She used to be a journalist,
but we opinions have dragged her to the dark side.
We were open about our biases and we tell you
exactly working.

Speaker 5 (32:24):
It is liberating, isn't it, Yes, it is. I love
telling people.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
I've gotten a lot of pushback over the last couple
of days. And this is just a perfect example of
one of the comments that I got, and that is,
shouldn't a talk show person be you know, even no,
I am an opinion host, I am not a journalist.
I'm going to tell you what I think. You went
to the Democratic debate last night?

Speaker 5 (32:47):
I did.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
It was really interesting set the scene for those of
us who could only watch it at home.

Speaker 9 (32:51):
Okay, So I went to both debates and the difference
was very interesting, especially in the audience, and I talked
to a lot of people on the audience. We were
talking about this before we came on. The people definitely different.
A lot more students there than were there Tuesday night.
In fact, before the debate Tuesday night, Kyle Clark had
to ask people to move up and fill the seats.

(33:13):
People ended up coming in later in the room did fill,
but there was more students at the Democrats.

Speaker 5 (33:19):
I mean, that's kind of logical, I know, you right, But.

Speaker 9 (33:22):
There was more enthusiasm. They were very knowledgeable about the candidates.
I turned around and because I ended up moving up
into a studentcy because they did have to move some
people up anyway, so I.

Speaker 4 (33:32):
Sat with the kids.

Speaker 9 (33:33):
You know, it was fun and they're all younger than
my kids, right, But I just chatted them up and
I said, look, who do you like? Why are you here?
Did you go to the Republican debate? And a lot
of them didn't, didn't even pay attention. They do think
Republicans are crazy. They I asked one person and I said,
why are you here? And they said, I want to

(33:54):
know who to vote for. And I did sit next
to two young women students and they had turn for
Bennett and they just love Bennett.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Yeah, he does have a very personable way.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
He has a good reputation with staffers and former sam
I've never heard anyone that worked for him or with
him say anything negative, but I.

Speaker 5 (34:13):
Mean it's kind of his personality.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
I described this debate yesterday, and I think I was
spot on as a milk toast bloodbath, certainly not from
Kyle and Marshall, who really were disappointing after the energy
they brought to Tuesday nights debate. That energy was they
must have had a Snickers and a nap. I don't know,
because the energy was completely different, and I know I

(34:35):
should expect it. Blah blahlah, I was what did you expect?
I was hoping you know hope Spring's eternal. I said
that earlier. You are a hopeful pride I am. But Bennett,
who do you think? Who do you think? Who did
you they think? One last night? Did you ask after
the debate?

Speaker 9 (34:52):
I asked them this question, do you think the moderators
were tougher on Bennett than they were Wiser?

Speaker 5 (34:57):
And they both said yes, I agree, thought that too.
I agree, yeah, And that was it was noticeable.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
And they didn't ask bhil Wiser about things like why
is crime going up gone up so dramatically when you're
attorney general? Why did you say that someone would have
to steal three or four cars before you do something
about them? None of those questions were asked.

Speaker 5 (35:15):
No, I agree.

Speaker 9 (35:16):
And the other thing about it was there was this
element that he was so rehearsed, and so phil Weiser.

Speaker 5 (35:24):
Bil Wiser was rehearsed. He stood very still.

Speaker 9 (35:26):
I think Michael Bennett should take a tip because he
fidgets a little bit.

Speaker 5 (35:30):
He gets irritated. It's agitated. It's agitated. You can see it.

Speaker 9 (35:33):
He doesn't lash out, but he definitely gets.

Speaker 5 (35:35):
Kind of ruffled. Phil was just like a statue.

Speaker 9 (35:38):
He delivered his lines, but he came off as overrehearsed,
whereas I think Bennett came off as authentic.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
Well, I agree with you to a certain extent. But
then here's what we saw on TV. When Wiser was speaking, right,
So Wiser was speaking, it made sense that he was
standing still. It made sense, it made him it seem
statesman like. But we didn't get to see what he
was doing in between. And I think what you saw
was unnatural stiffness. But on TV, we didn't see the

(36:06):
unnatural stiffness. We just saw him delivering his points. And
I think the man is wrong about everything. And I
got to tell you, Chris, at the end of that
debate last night, I was like, we are so screwed.

Speaker 5 (36:17):
I had the same thought.

Speaker 9 (36:18):
I'll tell you the moment I had the thought was
when they went through the vetos.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Oh, and I like every single one.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
I said, Oh, can I say crap on the ring?

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (36:28):
I say it all the time. I said, oh, crap,
we are in trouble. Yeah, now go ahead.

Speaker 9 (36:33):
I did like the questioning at the very end, and
Bennett kind of drew me back a little bit when
they talked about how to appeal to the rural areas,
because you know, I reported in a rural area of
Colorado for quite some time have real attachments to the
Western Slope, and Bennett was.

Speaker 5 (36:49):
There a lot.

Speaker 9 (36:50):
And he talked about the Shoshone water rights that they
have just secured for the Colorado River.

Speaker 5 (36:55):
That's that's very significant.

Speaker 9 (36:57):
And then he gave a shout out to Jeff Hurd
and he said, I did that with Jeff Hurd, and
so you know, he talked about how important water is where.

Speaker 5 (37:06):
Bill talked about.

Speaker 9 (37:07):
Going to a conference in Grand Junction and how he
had kind of been a part of it. And I
saw Phil Wiser over in the Western Slope too, but
I really feel like Bennett had has more of a
connection to the rural areas.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Do you think this moved the needle for Democratic voters
who had already chosen their candidate. I don't think it
did for those people, but I do think for people
that were undecided, it's kind of like choose your fighter.

Speaker 5 (37:31):
And on the one hand, I did think.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
The question about you're not going to have the ability
to sue anymore if you're a raven or, because I mean,
let's be real, Phil Wiser is a.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
One trick pony. Yes, yes, very much so.

Speaker 9 (37:43):
As far as moving the needle, I think this primary
is really going to come down to personality. I think
they're they're pretty much a carbon valpy of each other.

Speaker 5 (37:52):
That is, that is just devastating we've got.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
I mean, nobody's ever going to accuse Michael Bennett being
high in No, never, Phil Wiser can come off a
little shrill, yeah.

Speaker 9 (38:05):
Kind of acoustic, maybe a little bit a little late,
a little bidy, yeah yeah. But I think that is
going to define who gets elected. To do the Democratic
voters and an affiliate, it's do they want somebody who's
gonna fight fight, fight, you know, against Trump, or do
they want this other you know kind of uh connecting,

(38:26):
feel good kind of That's how I describe Michael Bennett.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
He really wants to connect with people and show that
he cares. Well. Here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Michael Bennett sat down with us at the DNC and
did so voluntarily, like we didn't have to drag him
over like we did Jared Polis. I must show you
the picture of Jared Poulis at the at the DNC.
You will cry with laughter. The look on his face
is like he's literally taken a poop. I mean, he's
just it's the funniest thing you've ever seen. However, Michael
Bennett voluntarily plopped down. We had a nice conversation. We

(38:56):
had disagreements about policy. It was a fine conversation. It's
the end of it is he's leaving. He's like, that
was really fun. I would do that again. So there
is that personability. But as far as policy, last night,
the one thing that I heard that was a big
different differentiator that I think is absurd. Michael Bennett said,
I want a public option in Colorado, when you and

(39:19):
I both know every single state that has looked at
a public option has walked away from it because it
is prohibitively expensive. We already have out of control Medicaid costs,
which we're not asked about.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
I have issues with Kyle and Marshall's questions.

Speaker 7 (39:33):
I have issues.

Speaker 6 (39:34):
I know you do.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
You know I have real issues and seck and forth.
You know. There was none of the aggressiveness we saw
Tuesday night.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
No, none of it.

Speaker 9 (39:44):
No, And I actually acknowledge. You know some of your
texters brought this up to and I think so too.
They didn't really bring the sensational baggage that the two on.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
The Republican side. I mean, they gave those guys so
much fodder.

Speaker 9 (39:59):
You can't even get policy because we're talking demons, and
we're talking sedition and all these things that really should
be cleared up. They didn't even really get to the
ny gritty of policy. But I tell you what, after
last night's debate, I went back and I looked at
some of our Kirkmeyer's clips's. She's the only one that
if you want change in Colorado.

Speaker 5 (40:19):
She's the only one.

Speaker 9 (40:20):
I mean, she was talking about these three hundred boards
and commissions and that what she would do. She actually
has a plan for making things affordable, and it starts.

Speaker 5 (40:30):
With those commissions.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
One of the things that's driving me crazy about the
Republican primary is that there are a lot of voters
who are super angry. And I absolutely get the anger.
I mean, I one hundred percent understand it, so I
don't want to make that the issue. But they're so
angry that they're getting sucked into the narrative that either
Victor Marx or Scott Bottom's is going to go in

(40:53):
and somehow unilaterally get all of the people who just
voted all these garbage policies in to being to walk
them back. There are so many limits to the governorship
that there aren't to the presidency. And a lot of
these Republicans in Colorado who are just so angry, they're like,
well Trump is doing with executive orders. Executive orders for

(41:15):
a governor are far different in the way they operate,
and they are far more limited in the way they
operate than they are at the the federal level. We
cannot do it alone. And like it or not, whoever
is governor is going to be working with a democratic legislature,
and guys, it could be with a democratic legislature with

(41:35):
a veto proof majority. Democrats are one seat away in
the House, one seat away in the Senate. If they
pick up one seat, they can pass whatever they want,
override the governor's veto, and they can do whatever they want.
So the notion that somehow some Republican savior is going
to come kick the doors down and make everything the

(41:55):
way it should be again is not realistic, not realistic
at all.

Speaker 5 (41:59):
Is not realistic.

Speaker 9 (42:00):
And here's another thing, Mandy, you don't turn an ocean
liner in a sharp turn. We have got the very
far right people. They think that by going further to
the right they're going to come in, swoop in and
change Colorado in one fell swoop. It doesn't happen that way.
Nothing happens that way. A garden doesn't grow overnight. You
don't heal a bad joint overnight. It's incremental changes, incremental

(42:25):
decisions that lead to a better good.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
And the Republican Party does not get that.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
No, and if you elevate Victor Marks to the top
of the ticket, there is no doubt in my mind
that the.

Speaker 5 (42:38):
Down ballot will get killed and.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
Then we end up with that super majority and it
doesn't matter who's governor. But I will say I asked
my listeners earlier. I put the entire debate, the whole thing,
on my blog at mandyblog dot com.

Speaker 5 (42:54):
Subscribe while you're there, pick ups hon a subscribe.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
Thank you, Thank you, subscriber, Thank you. It's it's free
and will always be free. But I need people on
the right to watch this debate because one of two
things is going to happen.

Speaker 5 (43:08):
You're going to put your house on the market and.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Get ready to move right, or you are going to
go wow. I need to engage, and I need to
engage to get somebody elected. That's not either of these
two people, and I'm hoping it's.

Speaker 5 (43:19):
The latter, you know. You know, I think that's why
I've gotten more engaged.

Speaker 9 (43:24):
And I'm kind of a hybrid because I believe that
people make good decisions with information.

Speaker 5 (43:29):
A lot of people were asking, well, why'd you go
last night?

Speaker 9 (43:32):
There is a difference between sitting in the room and
watching it on TV, and you've got to get the information,
You've got.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
To really see it.

Speaker 9 (43:39):
Because I sort of went in kind of like Bennett,
Like I said, I've known him from reporting on the
Western Slope.

Speaker 5 (43:44):
He's a likable guy.

Speaker 9 (43:46):
But then I'm sitting there and I'm watching everything unfold
and I'm hearing what he's saying.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
I'm like, oh, no, we are in trouble.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
Yeah, yeah, we really are in trouble. I mean, if
you think, Paula, this is what I heard last night, Chris,
it was so frustrating to me, and I was super
frustrated that neither Kyle nor Marshall asked a single follow
up question. And they're talking about, you know, we need
more regulations for this, we need public option, but nobody said,
how are you going to pay for that? How are

(44:14):
you going to pay for that when you know we're
the sixth most regulated state in the nation, how are
you going to add more regulations and say you're going
to make it more business friendly because those two things
are antithetical to one another.

Speaker 9 (44:27):
And it's really interesting because he asked about, you know,
what are you going to do about regulations, and neither
one of them really answered that.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
They said nothing.

Speaker 9 (44:36):
They said, oh yeah, regulations are a problem, but they
didn't say they were.

Speaker 6 (44:39):
Going to cut them.

Speaker 5 (44:40):
They didn't say, you know.

Speaker 9 (44:41):
And the volunteer thing was really interesting because he summarized
it by saying, okay, both of you are said that
that volunteers leaving, and they did not say that.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
They said, we are.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
We don't want to see any businesses lead.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
That was the question that got me into a back
and forth with Kyle about that. Yeah, that was the
one question and I actually sent come back what I
have on the blog today. I thought the questions were
borderline ridiculous in some cases, and I used this question
by Marshall Zelleger as an example. Marshall said, Colorado is
an increasingly progressive state putting restrictions on businesses in the

(45:15):
name of consumer and environmental protection. Is that driving businesses
out of Colorado. Mister Bennett. What Here's how the question
should have been asked. Colorado is the sixth most regulated
state in the nation, and business owners are leaving or
choosing other states because they say the business environment is
too challenging in Colorado. Many of those regulations were passed

(45:37):
by your own party. How do you plan to fix
the exodus of businesses and bring back Colorado's vibrant business economy.
That's how you asked that question.

Speaker 5 (45:46):
You should be doing the debate next time. No one
will come.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
You are debate.

Speaker 9 (45:51):
God, have you had a Democratic one?

Speaker 5 (45:54):
No, we have not. I bet you both of them
will come. Well, I'd like to have both of them
on the show. I do think it's.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Important that everyone hears from the Democratic candidates.

Speaker 5 (46:04):
Well, I have.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
Deep sing bdsh coming on Monday. Monday, we're going to
be talking about the civil war in the Democratic Party.
And if you don't know, there is a civil war
going on in the Republican Party that everybody knows about.
So there is a civil war going on in the
Democratic Party that people are going to have to pay
attention to. It is a genuine war for the heart

(46:28):
of the party. On the Democratic side right now, and
it's not in the Republican of the party. Well, I'll
get back to the Democrats.

Speaker 6 (46:36):
Okay.

Speaker 9 (46:36):
So I talked to three people last night, a couple.

Speaker 5 (46:39):
And their friend. They were towards the back of the
room and we just got chatting.

Speaker 9 (46:43):
And the gentleman said that what he views the Republican
Party in Colorado as being ninety percent maga. And I said, oh, sir,
let me help you with this a minute. But one
of the things that they said was they did talk.
They talked about the same things the Republicans do. They
talked about it being unaffordable here, They talked about things

(47:04):
being divided and divisive.

Speaker 5 (47:06):
He talked about why.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
They think everything has gotten so unaffordable. I would have
liked to have known the answer to that.

Speaker 5 (47:11):
A lot of them by.

Speaker 9 (47:12):
The idea that Trump has done it in eighteen months,
but it's been happening ever since Jerry Paula has took office. Yeah,
they have the viewpoint that we need to talk to
each other more.

Speaker 5 (47:22):
And and I'm like, Okay.

Speaker 9 (47:25):
I'm hearing the same thing from Democrats that I hear
from Republicans.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
Why can't we figure it out?

Speaker 9 (47:30):
Why can't we kind of put down arms and find
something bipartisan wise.

Speaker 5 (47:35):
I don't know, you know.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
As well as I do that that well, it's not
just about power, but it is about compromise is now
the new R word, right, I mean compromise of you.
This is what this is what Barb Kirkmeyer is getting
killed for right now. Absolutely, when you talk to Barb,
and I've had conversations with her, obviously on the air
and off the air, she takes her role in government

(48:00):
as it retains to the Colorado and the US Constitution
extremely seriously. And it is so easy when you are
in an overwhelming minority to take a stand and vote
no on a bill that constitutionally has.

Speaker 5 (48:16):
To be passed.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Scott bottoms on the budget, correct, Scott Bottom's on so
many things. Scott loves to talk about not yielding, not
It's really easy when your vote doesn't matter anyway, and
Republicans can't stop anything, They can't get anything passed by themselves.
Every single thing, every single piece of successful legislation that

(48:37):
Republicans have had their fingers on, has been passed in
a bipartisan fashion because.

Speaker 5 (48:41):
They have no choice. They have no choice.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Democrats can pass whatever they want, they don't need a
Republican vote.

Speaker 9 (48:46):
It's interesting in the Colorado legislature because and I've been
kind of dragged into this fight a little bit, but
there are four lawmakers that believe that they have to
be the no vote all the time, and they have
these uber high liberty scorecard, right, and then you have
eighteen of these lawmakers that are working together amongst themselves
and then have to engage with the Democrats to pass

(49:08):
bipartisan bills. And they've been I looked at some of
the stuff they've passed this year. I don't have anything
off the top of my head. They were pretty successful
considering the position they're in.

Speaker 4 (49:17):
Oh, when I saw the liberty scorecard gave Rose Paglici ac,
I knew that I was done with.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
The liberty scorecard.

Speaker 9 (49:25):
Did you read the debunking report about the liberty score
So I did not. So basically, the liberty scorecard does
not take into.

Speaker 5 (49:32):
Consideration if a bill goes.

Speaker 9 (49:34):
Through an amendment process or if it improves or something
like that.

Speaker 5 (49:38):
They just take a stand on it.

Speaker 9 (49:39):
And there are lawmakers that will go and check to
see what the liberty scorecard says about, you know, whatever
bill and they will vote that way. They will not
think on their own. The other thing about it is
it does not wait. Bills like a license plate bill
might have the same weight as a budget bill.

Speaker 5 (50:00):
Got dinged on the Liberty.

Speaker 9 (50:01):
Scorecard because she voted for the budget. Well, constitutionally, a
budget has to be passed. Of course, Scott Bottoms did
not vote for the budget, and he gets a higher
score exactly, So it's not really a fair measure of
whether or not a lawmaker is you know what, is conservative?

Speaker 5 (50:19):
As far as the Liberty score.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
Card find that anymore, it's kind of insane. This text
message from the Common Spirit health text line. You can
text us at five six six nine. Oh, my friend
Chris Rourke in the studio with me. Hey, Mandy. Not
much on roads last night, thought Kyle and Marshall threw
too many softballs.

Speaker 5 (50:35):
I still like Barb.

Speaker 4 (50:37):
Don't know if she'll make it past primary. That's too
bad for the state. Native of Colorado, I'm seriously thinking
about moving to Iowa. My kids live there or Nebraska.
Not too much traffic and great roads. Yeah, I too,
my sisters in Idaho. So Scott Bottoms is a rand
Paul No, Scott Pottams is a Rawn Paul. Yes, and
there's a difference. I realize you guys don't realize that

(50:59):
it trust me, there's a difference between Ron and Rand.
He's a Ron Paul. I want to share a post
that our favorite nerdy statitician, Mike O'Donnell posted on X
last night. He has been digging into voter roles this
as the current Secretary of State is now running for
attorney general. Mike posted this to illustrate how poorly maintained

(51:20):
the Colorado voter role is. Let me introduce you to
a two bedroom unit on Parker Road, where, between July
twenty twenty two and October twenty twenty three, ninety nine individuals,
all with Middle Eastern names, were newly added to the
Colorado voter role. Eighty eight percent were women, mostly aged

(51:42):
in their thirties or forties, none likely ever lived there,
and toward the end of whatever was going on, thirty
one new registrations were rushed through and added to the
voter role in October of twenty twenty three alone, usually
in daily groups of four, five, or six scattered throughout
the month. No one noticed. No alarm bells went off

(52:04):
as of now all having an inactive status on the
voter roll. Everything election related mailed to them has been
returned undeliverable. But if there been any basic checks and
balances in place at the front end, does anyone else
think it might be unusual that six people with different
last names were added to the voter role at a
single residence the day after five other people were added

(52:28):
there none ought to have ever been added in the
first place. Sadly, they will stay on the Colorado voter
role until after the twenty twenty six federal election, three
until after twenty twenty eight. This means that although they
won't be mail ballots, they or someone using their name
could potentially still vote in person at any Colorado election

(52:50):
till then. It is nonetheless unlikely that this was a
fraudulent voter scheme because five individuals accidentally provided a con
tac mailing address that is the secondary practice for national
insurance provider. This tends to suggest a Medicare Medicaid scheme,
where perhaps a service provider is billing Colorado taxpayers for

(53:13):
a plethora of non existent services provided to a plethora
of non existent individuals. But even though evidence of potential
fraud against Colorado taxpayers is hiding in plain sight on
the Colorado voter role. It is unlikely that the Colorado
Secretary of State even noticed or cares.

Speaker 5 (53:31):
Unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
Now I have David mcgoeth from the Denver Gazette coming
on at Q thirty, and he's done a great series
in the Denver Gazette about this really interesting medicaid fraud.
I'm calling it fraud. He doesn't call it fraud yet,
but it is fraud.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
And now we have.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
A similar fraud that is also on the voter roles.
How many of these people do you think are actually
legal to vote?

Speaker 6 (53:53):
None?

Speaker 5 (53:55):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
Yea, Andy, you said we aren't allowed to talk about
stolen elections in voter fraud. Remember we are all idiots. No,
this is what would be called evidence, thank you. That's
the difference. Running around screaming about Tina Peters is not
the same as bringing potential evidence. I'm not just voter fraud,
but also medicate fraud to light.

Speaker 5 (54:17):
There's a difference. There is a difference.

Speaker 9 (54:19):
I don't think anybody doubts that there's fraud in the
election system.

Speaker 5 (54:23):
The question comes down to is.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
That all Democrats believe that it is it is the
gold standard.

Speaker 5 (54:27):
There's there's unimpeachable. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Yeah, these all these people they were just moving in
and then they decided they didn't like it, so they
moved out the next day after they registered to vote.

Speaker 9 (54:36):
Mike o'donald's done a lot of good work on that.
Even when he ran for Secretary of State, he was
making these posts and showing photos and he had you know,
data and and all of it, and it's it's kind
of falling on deaf ears.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
Yep, yep, Mike says in a later post, responding to
another texture. In this case, because of automatic voter registration
and the fact that any federal or state agency has
the ability to for someone to the Colorado voter roll,
I suspect the Medicaid insurance provider may have been the
ones that got them all signed up. Now, if you
are a Medicaid fake provider, if you are a Medicaid scammer,

(55:12):
let's just go with that. Okay, you're a Medicaid scammer.
You get these people signed up, you're getting paid for them.
They're gone now somewhere else. We don't know where they are.
But who are you going to cast those ballots for?
Who are you going to send people in with ID
to go cast ballots for.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
It's not going to be Republicans.

Speaker 9 (55:28):
Dave does good, really good work, and I'm looking forward
to that conversation between you two because I think we
really need to scrutinize Colorado after what happened in Minnesota
and California.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
I mean, the problem with the way that medicaid is
set up is that the money comes through too many
hands and none of them care about the taxpayers. If
they were really and I've suggested this to so many politicians,
if you want to solve fraud, waste, and abuse and
corruption in government, all you have to do is say

(55:58):
to every government, for every amount of fraud that you
bring us, you get ten percent. Okay, if it's twenty
six million, you get two point six million dollars. If
it's fifty million, you get five million dollars. If it's
one hundred million, you get ten million dollars. For ratting
out fraud, wasting, abuse, we would have the squeakiest clean
system in the entire world in like six months, because

(56:21):
I would turn people in.

Speaker 5 (56:22):
For that kind of money, you could.

Speaker 9 (56:24):
Run for secretary Shire Attorney general job.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
Oh, come on, jobs are hard, and there they don't
pay as well. I don't want to take the pay cut.

Speaker 5 (56:34):
I'm not gonna lie. I'm just not.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
But at some point does Jenna have to take responsibility.
I'm deathly afraid she's gonna come out of the Democratic primary.
I'm definitely afraid she is going to be the next
attorney general. Out of every candidate, like Bennett Wiser, what
they're gonna do to Colorado whatever, I get it. It's
all very scared. She really scares me because she has

(56:59):
a competent like the combination of off the charts incompetence
and off the charts Hubris is very dangerous because she
thinks she's smart.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (57:09):
I talked to an unaffiliated voter who has big ties
to you know, the election world, and she is very
concerned about Jennick Griswold. Also, she had information that a
story might be coming out pretty soon. But keep your
eyes a story story, a story story might be on

(57:31):
a channel for.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
See how that works there a story could I don't
deal in rumors though, no never, no never, or gossip.
What were we actually going to talk about this break
that we talked about off the break? We were going
to talk about something I don't remember.

Speaker 5 (57:44):
Jungle primaries California.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
We were going to talk about California, because it is
now I would say everyone in the country is looking
at California and going what.

Speaker 5 (57:55):
Yeah, you can't tell these ballots for over a month.
I'm talking about how how long it takes? Yeah, I
get it.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Yeah, I mean that is that's nuts. And Chris and
I were talking about this before we came on. California
is home to more tech industry, I think than any
other state in the Union. Maybe Washington State has more,
but it's.

Speaker 5 (58:14):
Got to be very close.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
They can't get someone to design a system where these
ballots with the jungle primary and we'll get into that
in just a second, and write choice voting can be
tabulated in a timely fashion. This is ridiculous. You know.

Speaker 9 (58:30):
One of the things I'm gonna push back a little bit.
The population of La alone is bigger than I think
like a lot of states. Did I hear number like
forty or something like that. The population in LA. That's
a lot of votes to count.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
But India has like a billion people and they turn
it in twenty four hours. I heard Michael Brown talking
about this given stats from around the world. Nowhere else
does it take thirty seven days. That is a civilized
first world nation. Did they stagger when votes are in nine.

Speaker 9 (58:59):
I think if they got to that whole needs to
be postmarked by and then we had all these votes trying.
If they had a hard deadline, I think that could
solve the problem.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
The problem is is that aside from the mail in
ballots that are sent out by request, I mean those
should all be in within five days.

Speaker 5 (59:16):
How long? What if one comes.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
In six months? Because the post star that sucks. You
know what I'm saying, Like there should be a hard stop,
like it has to be postmarked by this date, received
five days later.

Speaker 9 (59:27):
I think received date. I think it is up to
the voter to make sure if they want their ballot counted,
it is at the place of counting by seven pm
on election day.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
I don't like this straight You got military ballots that
are coming from overseas, but aren't they sent out early?
They are sent out, No, they're sent out I think
at the same time.

Speaker 5 (59:45):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
I have to find that out early. California has forty
million people. This texture looks it up for you.

Speaker 5 (59:50):
Thank you Texter yep, I love your texture.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
I do too most of them. Some of them suck
really bad. But anyway, we're gonna take quick time out.

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):
We'll be back.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I'm looking to see what we're going to talk about next.
Jimmy Secondberger, our mutual friend, right, wrote a great column
in the Denver Gazette about Rob Andrews, the Aurora City
councilman who just fled guilty to DUI's taking his lumps whatever.
Jimmy makes the case that he should step down off
the council. I actually disagree. We'll talk about that next.

(01:00:23):
I want to talk about Aurora City Council's Rob Andrews.
He was recently arrested in January. He was arrested for DUI.
Not just DUI, but like next level super three times
college limit. Well here's the thing, and this I don't
know this to be true about mister Andrews, but do
you have any of those friends that are you know,

(01:00:45):
they're straight up alcoholics and they can drink and drink
and drink and drink and never seem drunk. I watched
the video of his arrest. He doesn't seem drunk really,
and he blew a over a point two oh whoa.
So that is major, major, And now he pled and
he was he pleaded guilty to one charge of driving
under the influence at two point zero plus blood alcohol,

(01:01:08):
and he was sentence to ten days home detention, twelve
months of probation, forty eight hours of community service, and
his other traffic charges were dropped. I believe automatically. He
also has to have an interlock device on his car
he has to breathe into, so now he has to
I'm not going to make that rude comment about what
that has been anyway. Jemmy Segenberger makes the case in

(01:01:28):
this column that he should resign from the Aurora City.

Speaker 5 (01:01:32):
Council, and I'm not there.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
I do believe he must resign or be removed from
the Public Safety Commission, which he now chairs. He has
absolutely no ability to serve on that in any way,
shape or form when endangering the public as much as
he did by driving that drunk or drunk at all.
But and this is a big butt, you know, I

(01:01:55):
hate the notion that somebody makes a really dumb choice.
And two, I mean, in his defense, as bad as
it sounds, no one was hurt. If somebody had been hurt,
we didn't be having a much different conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:02:07):
Right, No one was hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
I'd like to have the opportunity for Rob Andrews to
go get some help with this, in my mind, clear
alcohol problem, and I'd like him. I'd like to let
the voters decide. That's let the voters decide the next time.
I'm going to say what I say in my car.
A lot of times when I listen to you on
the radio.

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
I agree. I mean, it's logical. People make mistakes.

Speaker 9 (01:02:29):
I don't know him, I don't know the circumstances of
his life or if this is a habit or what
what have you.

Speaker 5 (01:02:35):
People do make mistakes.

Speaker 9 (01:02:37):
I think that some of the things the guardrails that
you're talking about taking them off public safety, that was
a more judgment call.

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):
So he should not be on that. But people do
make mistakes.

Speaker 9 (01:02:48):
And if the voters think it's severe enough that he
doesn't have the good judgment to, you know, be a
policy maker for Aurora, then they can decide.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
One has to think about the recent death of Faith Winter,
because I just thought about that had been she wasn't
she actually like disciplined by the House or the Senate
because she was at an event drums. Yeah, so she
showed up an event drunk, she goes to rehab. Obviously

(01:03:18):
it did not stick, because she ended up dying in
a single car accident.

Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
In her blood alcohol. I don't know exactly what the number.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
Was, but it was very elevated.

Speaker 9 (01:03:25):
Yeah, A lot of people that knew her suspected that
when the accident happened to took a look that I
didn't know her at all.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
But how could you not, you know, how could you not?
So I hope that mister Andrews goes a different path,
a different route, and embraces a healthier lifestyle that doesn't
put you know, other people in danger.

Speaker 5 (01:03:42):
But I just I don't like us saying.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
If you break a law short of murder, that you
should lose everything. I think you work your way through
the justice system, you do your you know your penance,
and you pay your fines and you do that, and
then we have to give people a second chance, and
the voters of Aurora can say we think you don't
deserve this job anymore in the next election cycle.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
Yeah, I agree with that. What about burglary? If you
can make burglary, should juice? I mean, what kind of Burglar.

Speaker 4 (01:04:09):
Are you liking a cat burglar outfit with a.

Speaker 9 (01:04:11):
Mask and everything, or do you just seeing John Hammond,
my friends, your friends and neighbors.

Speaker 5 (01:04:16):
No, I have not. Okay, I have to see I
have to catch up on Mandy Aurora. Voters are stupid.
He should resign. Well, that is one man's opinion.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Chris Burk has been super fun having you in here
as we close on the election. Let's do this again.
I would love to and have you in because I
know you are you always have your finger on the pulse.

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
That's such a compliment.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
That's Chris's finger right there on the pulse. When we
get back, it's an ask me anything Friday. But I
also have some good stuff that has not been tapped
into on the blog.

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
I'm going to check and.

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
See how many subscribers we have and I'll anounce that
we get back for so plase to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Like The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and
Pollock Accident and injury lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
No, it's Mandy Connell.

Speaker 8 (01:05:06):
M saagt wanna stay The Nicety three by Toronto is
sad bab Welcome Baca, Welcome to.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
The third hour of a Friday show and I saw this.

Speaker 10 (01:05:23):
I follow this guy on X and he is name
on X is no Wait Minute, No Banaga, No Banaga,
and it's at Japan Underscore, No Banaga, and he writes
about Japan.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
That's why I started following him when we were going
to Japan. He's a great writer. But now he's been
visiting America and I want to share this with you.
I'm not sharing the whole thing. It's kind of long,
but it's so funny. USA a pot luck, everyone brings
one dish. I have never been so out of depth
in my life. I was invited to a gathering. Just

(01:05:58):
bring a dish to share, they said, simple words. I
didn't sleep for three days because I understood instantly what
this was.

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
A summit.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Every guest a lord of their own house, arriving bearing tribute,
and tribute is judged, tributors ranked. To bring the wrong
dish to the wrong table is to fall in standing
before your peers, possibly forever.

Speaker 5 (01:06:22):
So I prepared. I made my finest dish.

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
I carried it to the door with two hands and
a straight back, braced for the weighing of my worth.
The first lord arrived with a bowl of orange powder, noodles, macaroni,
and cheese.

Speaker 5 (01:06:35):
The crowd roared.

Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
He set it down at the center of the table,
the center. I noted this, the center is the seat
of power. The second Lord brought a tower of small
brown meat orbs in red sauce, meat balls. He announced,
like a man laying down a sword. They were placed
beside the macaroni, a strong showing an alliance.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
Perhaps. I studied the table like a battlefield.

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
Map potatoes said defensive, reliable, old money, A vegetable tray untouched,
clearly a hostage offering no one expected to win. And
then a woman walked in, raised a flat box overhead,
and the entire room turned and cheered.

Speaker 5 (01:07:15):
Pizza.

Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
She'd brought pizza store bought, still in the box. I
was stunned. She had not even cooked it, and yet
the people rejoiced as if a king had entered. I
revised my entire understanding of the hierarchy on the spot.
Effort means nothing. Here, only the roar of the crowd
decides rank. I placed my dish down humbly near the napkins,

(01:07:38):
a peasant's position. I accepted it, and then a man
tapped my shoulder, pointed at my dish and said the
words that changed everything. WHOA did you make this?

Speaker 5 (01:07:49):
This is amazing?

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
Everybody, you gotta try this guy's thing.

Speaker 5 (01:07:53):
The room turned, the room came, the room ate.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
My dish vanished in ninety seconds, the peace the woman
herself took a second helping and looked at me with respect.
I had won the summit by accident, but with a
dish I placed by the napkins. I understand nothing about
this country. I have never been happier. I am hosting
the next one. So tell me, America. Is there a
system to the potluck, a secret rank, a hidden law.

Speaker 5 (01:08:21):
I've decided there's not.

Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
You just bring the thing you love and everyone eats
it and somehow everybody wins. It is the most insane
way to hold a war. I will fight in every
single one. I loved this today.

Speaker 5 (01:08:38):
Hey, Rod, did you know they don't have potlucks anywhere
else but in the United States that I can find?

Speaker 7 (01:08:42):
Really?

Speaker 4 (01:08:42):
Yeah, we had friends here from Costa Rica a couple
of years ago, and we said, look, we're gonna have
a potluck because they have a lot of mutual friends
here as well, and said we're gonna do a potluck,
and they literally like, what is a potluck? And I said, well,
everybody brings a dish and then we all just share.
And they were absolutely perplexed by the entire concept, could
not wrap their heads around it. They're like, in Costa Rica,

(01:09:03):
when you host, you host. I'm like, yeah, but that's expensive.
A potluck is cheap, and people like to bring their dish.
I have things that I like to bring to a potluck,
depending on the crowd, depending on how many people I'm feeding,
depending on what kind of potluck it's bringing. But I'm
from the South, and in the South, a potluck is

(01:09:25):
indeed a war. In the South, everybody has their dish
for the Sunday after church potluck. Everybody has the thing
that they are supposed to make. And do not go rogue.
Do not decide that this weekend you feel like making
baked beans when you are macaroni and cheese. Do not

(01:09:47):
think for a second that you're gonna switch up your
potato salad with some kind of janky veggie plate. And
god forbid, don't bring food from the grocery store that
hasn't been put into a bowl properly. So I found
this this is very funny. Oh are we not broadcasting
right now, check the on air signal.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
Let me do that right.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
Oh well, I can't do it anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
I don't have that anymore. No, we're fine. We can't
hear you.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
Just one person sent me that. Hey, Mandy, what was
the dumbest promotional event you were involved in?

Speaker 6 (01:10:17):
That?

Speaker 5 (01:10:18):
From Ron?

Speaker 4 (01:10:19):
Oh my, oh my? Okay, so one time and it
wasn't my show. It was the first show that I
ever worked on. I was the producer and we were
in Orlando, Florida, and in at the Saint Augustine Alligator
Park that used to be the Ross Allen Alligator Park
when I was a kid. But it's just this massive
alligator park. It's actually kind of cool. I mean it's

(01:10:39):
you know, it's alligators.

Speaker 6 (01:10:40):
What are you going to do?

Speaker 4 (01:10:41):
They had this giant albino No it was an albino
all I can'try. I think it was just a giant
Alligator's name was Gomech and he was like thirteen and
a half feet long. And when he died, they stuffed
him and then they put Gomech in this hut. And
now Gomec has his own hut where he's just the
thing you walk in and there's Gomech just all stuffed

(01:11:02):
in all his giant, enormous alligator glory. And I told
the host on the air, I was like, yeah, they
got this stuff, you know, of this giant alligator, this stuff.
So we created Go Met Trek, and we got off
the air on a Friday night. Did we drive up
that night? I can't remember exactly how it all played out.
We made people enter with a poem, and then we

(01:11:24):
did a field trip. We literally got a bus in Orlando,
took it to Saint Augustine just to go to the
Alligator Park and see go Mech and there you go.

Speaker 9 (01:11:33):
That was it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:35):
That's pretty dumb. And then in Fort Myers, one of
my favorites of all time. I had just gotten my
own show in Fort Myers. I only had it for
maybe nine or ten months, and there was a massive
march in Fort Myers by illegal immigrants demanding rights. They
were demanding rights and it was like forty fifty thousand

(01:11:58):
illegal aliens marching down the street and Fort Myers. So
obviously we had to do something with that. So I
created a thing. We ended up calling the Carl March
Criminals against restrictive laws, and we wanted people to come out,
but we realized our people had jobs, so we had
people rent chairs, and so we set up in this

(01:12:21):
beautiful park in Fort Myers, right on the Kloosachie River.

Speaker 5 (01:12:24):
It was gorgeous.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
We set up like two thousand chairs and hung signs
on all of them that said I'm working, I'm legal,
and I vote. The visual was stunning.

Speaker 9 (01:12:36):
It was so good.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
So that's my favorite.

Speaker 7 (01:12:40):
Mandy.

Speaker 5 (01:12:40):
What's the best thing to bring? It a pot luck?

Speaker 4 (01:12:42):
App main side or dessert? I always asked the host,
and as the host, I am more than likely to
do at least two mains, you know, like I will
handle the mains, and then I'll give you like what I'll.

Speaker 5 (01:12:55):
Ask you what is your expertise?

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
And if you say I make the most amazing coal soot, great,
bring your coalslaw. You just don't want to have too
many of the same thing. Hey, Mandy, do you ever
script your show? Or is your gift of gabs such
as you could improvise anything. The only thing that is
scripted is the blog, And if you read the blog
every day at mandyblog dot com, you know that I

(01:13:19):
am not scripted.

Speaker 5 (01:13:20):
I just have a gift of gab. It is a
gift unless you're my husband.

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
The pot look is the star Wars canteena of the
Food World says, this texture you don't know who and
what is there and what should be friend or foe.

Speaker 5 (01:13:31):
There always a gamble. I mean, that's kind of true.
Oh here's one.

Speaker 4 (01:13:37):
Growing up in Florida, did Mandy Connell ever accidentally encounter
an alligator more times than I can count. When you're
a Floridian, you know that any body of water, any
body of water in Florida, could contain an alligator. The
good news is that up where I'm from, the alligators
maintain a healthy fear of humans because no one feeds

(01:14:00):
them like idiots, and the rednecks will kill them given
the opportunity. So yeah, we have a family cabin on
the Santa Fe River and it's infested with alligators and
we float down it all the time. And you will
be in an inner tube floating down the river. You'll
see an alligator up on the bank and it'll just

(01:14:20):
slide into the water. And if you have people from
out of town, they will freak the blank out. It
is wildly entertaining. Alligators are big, dumb and lazy.

Speaker 5 (01:14:35):
They don't bother you.

Speaker 4 (01:14:35):
For the most part, unless some idiot feeds them, and
where I'm from that does not happen. That happens more self.
So yeah, uh, Mandy, do you like or make meat loaf?
If you do, do you top yours with ketchup or
tomato based sauce. Funny story, I do ninety eight percent
of the cooking in our house. The only thing I
cannot make is meat loaf. But luckily my husband makes

(01:14:59):
a meat loaf, so he's the meat loaf maker in
our house, and he does not put ketchup on the top,
although there is some ketchup in the meat loaf itself.
Someone just hit this about potlucking. Let me see here.

Speaker 5 (01:15:16):
I missed it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
Mandy potluck offering for the wind Chick fil A Nuggets
party tray with Chick fil A sauce.

Speaker 5 (01:15:23):
Of course, that is a good one.

Speaker 4 (01:15:25):
But if you want to bring something to a potluck
that will be gone, you gotta bring pigs in a blanket.
I've said this before. You have to bring an appetizer,
bring pigs in a blanket. This is what happens when
you arrive, especially if it's like a bougie party, like
your friends are pouring different varieties of wine and whatnot,
and everybody's like, oh, I brought stuff from mushrooms. Here's
my humless platter with you know, fresh baby veggies. And

(01:15:47):
then you show up with pigs in a blanket. You
get that immediate like are those pigs in a blanket?
And you're like, heck, yes they are. They are gone.

Speaker 5 (01:15:58):
Woof.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
Andy. As a pastor, I moved to a new congregation.
Apparently people had been told for potlucks to bring enough
for yourself and for someone else. Numerous people would bring
enough green beans or similar for three people. I had
to re educate them. Yeah, potlutz just got to be
And when you're at a potluck, you can't take giant
spoonfuls or something. This is like a giant tasting menu

(01:16:22):
of food you didn't know you.

Speaker 5 (01:16:23):
Were about to eat.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
Mandy, if one were to choose the lesser of Democrat evils,
who would once choose Bennett or Wiser?

Speaker 5 (01:16:31):
Can't believe I may have to vote them.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
For the least negative impact last night. Policy wise, they
were both a disaster, absolute disaster. But I think that
the devil you know, is better than the devil you don't,
and I think that Michael Bennett is more a known
quantity and less of a hardcore ideologue. I think Phil

(01:16:54):
Wiser is more of an ideologue. But again, I urge
you all to go watch the debate, put it on
the blog at mandyblog dot com today because there's a
good chance one of these men will be your next governor,
and you need to understand how bad their plans for
this state really are. When we get back, David mcgoya
of the Denver Gazette joins me. He has been working

(01:17:16):
on a long series about what I'm going to call
twenty six million dollars worth of medicaid fraud. It is crazy.
We'll do that next, a series of stories, one yesterday,
three today by reporter David mcgoya uncovering what I am
going to call blaytant medical medicaid fraud. And now he
didn't call it that in the in the article because

(01:17:37):
he just gave the facts, as a good journalist does.
David mcgoya joins us, now to talk about this, let's
start at the beginning. How did you even begin to
dig into this story?

Speaker 11 (01:17:48):
Well, we had to find out about it first, But hi,
Mandy SENI in a while, and I wanted.

Speaker 6 (01:17:53):
To add a footnote. I love pigs in a blanket.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
Yeah, everyone does. Everyone loves pigs in a blanket.

Speaker 6 (01:17:59):
You can go wrong. This one came to me.

Speaker 11 (01:18:03):
Our lead story yesterday in the Denver Gazette was a
woman named Kelly Swainson. Kelly had actually posted something on
next door, the app that neighbors talk to each other
and I kind of keep track of what's going on there,
and she basically had put out there, I've got this
tale or story about medicaid that you know, if anyone
is interested in knowing that kind of thing. So I

(01:18:25):
sent her a note and I said, you know, I'm
an investigative reporter, happy to talk to you.

Speaker 6 (01:18:29):
And it took I don't know, three four weeks.

Speaker 11 (01:18:31):
This was back in November or so, maybe okay, And
with that I just started listening to what she was
telling me, and it didn't really sound terribly unusual at first,
and then as she better described the homeless, the houses
and all the things going on, then it was piquing
my interest, but not quite enough yet. And then when

(01:18:53):
she mentioned the payments that they were receiving.

Speaker 4 (01:18:56):
Let's not get ahead of the story yet, because the
story that she told you and the story that you
lay out in these multiple stories is that homeless people
are being recruited by a health agency, a home service
health agency, and they're being recruited with the promise of
lodging and not like in a shelter like that. They're

(01:19:17):
being housed in really nice suburban houses in Aurora, far
away from transit, far away from retail. And the only
condition that they are given initially is that they must
be enrolled in Medicaid and they must be a client
of this home health agency.

Speaker 11 (01:19:32):
Correct, Yes, there was an addition in that before that
could happen, they had to.

Speaker 6 (01:19:36):
Go see the very same doctor.

Speaker 11 (01:19:39):
Okay, everyone I spoke with and it was better than
a dozen of them that were part of this program
said they all had to see this one doctor in Aurora.
And it wasn't put to them in that you need
to go see this guy and then you find your
way to him. Right, We're going to take you to him,
oh physically, like everybody in the car and off we

(01:20:00):
go and let's go visit the doctor. So there was
no room for you to do it on your own.

Speaker 6 (01:20:05):
You had to go with them and their prescription was gotten.

Speaker 11 (01:20:09):
You had to have a prescription because the home health
agency what they were doing as part of home health
is they do a medicinal administration.

Speaker 6 (01:20:17):
They count out the pills, so they made sure you
got the prescription.

Speaker 11 (01:20:21):
They went to retrieve the prescription themselves and then administered
the prescription or counted them out. Because it was tablets.
There wasn't injections or anything to the people that were
in the houses. Once you were in this setup, in
order to kind of keep you there, everybody was being
given a fifty dollars payment three times a week, so

(01:20:45):
one hundred and fifty bucks to homeless people that are
typically unemployed.

Speaker 6 (01:20:51):
Et cetera.

Speaker 4 (01:20:52):
So yeah, sure, in a free house and a free housing,
that's right, it starts to get kind of well, shady, shadier.
I guess when you now talk to people who said
they were threatened if they weren't at the house when
the home healthcare workers stopped by, essentially saying you better
be here all the time, that was my impression.

Speaker 5 (01:21:14):
Is that accurate?

Speaker 6 (01:21:14):
That's an accurate impression.

Speaker 11 (01:21:16):
It was made clear that if you wanted to be
in the program, that's what it was called, the program,
and you wanted to remain in the program. You had
to be here anytime the home health nurses or workers
were showing up to administer the medicine or the tablets,
and the money was being handed out.

Speaker 6 (01:21:34):
So if you weren't here, you weren't going to get
your money.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
So tell me about this home healthcare agency because this
is one agency, correct.

Speaker 6 (01:21:41):
That's right, just one?

Speaker 5 (01:21:42):
What's it called?

Speaker 6 (01:21:43):
Ongoing home health Care?

Speaker 5 (01:21:45):
Okay? They started out in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 11 (01:21:49):
Actually twenty nineteen, okay, they were first formed, but they
got their licensures from Medicaid and their certification to bill
around twenty twenty two.

Speaker 4 (01:21:57):
And since then their billing has gone from a couple
million dollars to twenty six million dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:22:02):
Is that what I saw?

Speaker 11 (01:22:03):
That was the total collected was twenty four million over
the period of time that they've been certified, so roughly
three three and a half years.

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):
So the other interesting twist on this, and you've got
to read all the stories, you guys. You must read
all of these stories. There's four of them all together.

Speaker 5 (01:22:16):
Six Oh wait, how did I miss them?

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
I miss some?

Speaker 6 (01:22:20):
I don't know, didn't turn the page.

Speaker 5 (01:22:21):
I'll double check. But the church angle.

Speaker 4 (01:22:25):
Tell me why the same people who own Ongoing Home
Healthcare decided to start a branch of the Seventh day
Adventist Church in Aurora And when did that happen in
the timeline, Well, it wasn't.

Speaker 6 (01:22:37):
The same people they own.

Speaker 11 (01:22:38):
The names are different on each segment of this whole thing,
but they're all interrelated to each other, either very close friends,
members of the same church. This is the seventh sorry,
let me think of it, Maranatha Indonesian American Seventh Day
Adventist Church. Okay, it's a legitimate title of a church.
It's he incorporated. But several of the folks that.

Speaker 6 (01:23:00):
Were involved in with the founders of Ongoing Home Health.

Speaker 11 (01:23:06):
It would have been a church associate, a daughter or
a son in law, a daughter, that sort of thing, right,
They created the church, and the church wasn't actually.

Speaker 6 (01:23:16):
Meeting anywhere, didn't have a location yet.

Speaker 11 (01:23:19):
And they may have been a storefront type of thing,
but it didn't have a permanent home. And what was
being done ostensibly is that the church was providing the
donation money. The Seventh Day Adventist Church as a whole,
part of its religious thinking and part of its desire
is to help the homeless, right, and that's really a

(01:23:40):
founding cornerstone of theirs, that's right.

Speaker 6 (01:23:43):
And so for this church to do that is not
quite so unusual.

Speaker 11 (01:23:47):
But for it to be tied in with the ongoing
health is what made it quite unique, and that's nice.

Speaker 5 (01:23:54):
Unique. That is an interesting way to put that. It
is a unique.

Speaker 4 (01:23:57):
I'll call it fraudulent, but that's kind of gene because
they did not incorporate the church. The church didn't become
a part of it until twenty twenty four. Now here's
how this looks to me. They figured out the medicaid grift,
but they needed to keep the people in the houses,
but they also wanted a legitimate way to pay those
people to take the heat off them. That's how everything looks.

Speaker 11 (01:24:17):
Well, that's why they were calling them donations. Oh yes,
and the fifty dollars and everybody call it a donation.
The workers call it a donation. If you want your
weekly donation, you have to be here, that sort of thing.
Then at some point in time, it was originally all cash.
So several of the nurses or the workers, depending how
you look at and what they were doing, had to
stop at the bank and they were coming in with

(01:24:39):
stacks of fifty dollars bills and said, well, I'm tied
up at the bank.

Speaker 6 (01:24:43):
I can't get there yet.

Speaker 11 (01:24:44):
So there was a lot of text messages going back
and forth between the workers and the money and the
home health folks and the homeless folks.

Speaker 6 (01:24:52):
And the homeless folks are like, look, I can't be
there today, and said well.

Speaker 11 (01:24:55):
If you're not there, you're not going to get your money,
and you need to be there for the donation and
for the worker that shows up. So as this was
progressing along, then somebody realized it was a lot easier
to do this by cash app on your cell phone.
So rather than handle you a fifty dollars bill or
two tens or two twenties and a ten, let's do

(01:25:16):
it on cash app. It was that cash app that
allowed me essentially to do the story and to verify everything.

Speaker 6 (01:25:23):
Yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 11 (01:25:24):
Someone can say I got paid fifty bucks, but how
do you prove that the cash app proceeds And there
were many, many dozens of them, to many people actually
did that, and the app receipts were very clear. Church donation, donation,
weekly donation, and what we did is match those app
payments to the Medicaid payment records of each person that

(01:25:45):
they had retrieved from the state. Anyone who receives medicaid
is allowed to get their own record, and they had
done that. I can't get it because it's Hippa protected.
So once they got that record, I was able to
combine the two together to be sure that they dived
up and said, okay, here's the donation for that particular week.
Here are three donations that they got fifty to fifty
and fifty. Sometimes they showed up only once a week

(01:26:06):
and got one hundred and fifty and a bunch. So
once we piece that together, then you realize the ongoing
home house that's requiring a visit to the doctor, and
they're putting you in the house, and then they're living
in the house.

Speaker 8 (01:26:18):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:26:18):
They said it was owned by the church.

Speaker 11 (01:26:21):
It may be owned by members of the church, but
I couldn't verify that, but it was absolutely not owned
by the church itself. There are no records of any
kind to indicate the church was owner of record. That
became important as they started evicting some of the folks
who were questioning what was going on, right, and they
tell a judge a county judge that hey, the church
with the church and we own that house.

Speaker 6 (01:26:41):
And the judge says, okay, well you've got the eviction.
It's all yours.

Speaker 4 (01:26:44):
And that eviction. That's the key. Because the federal law
of state law, it is prohibited. You cannot bribe someone
to be on medicaid. You cannot bribe someone to use
your services. And providing a free place to live and
then threatening to take it.

Speaker 6 (01:26:59):
Away and you have fifty bucks is right on top
of that.

Speaker 4 (01:27:02):
And I mean, this stinks to high heaven, David, This
absolutely stinks to high heaven. This is this is you know,
we've seen horrible abuses in Minnesota, We've seen horrible abuses
in California. It stands to reason that some kind of
fraud is happening across the country. I don't think that
we would possibly think that we'd be excluded from that.

(01:27:23):
So how many people that you how many people did
you actually talked to.

Speaker 11 (01:27:28):
That were part of the program, the ones who had
lived in the houses, Yeah, well over a dozen.

Speaker 5 (01:27:33):
And there are their stories are all consistent?

Speaker 11 (01:27:35):
Oh yeah, absolutely, every single one of them named the
same doctor. Everybody used the same phrasing. The program prescriptions.
I mean, the methodology was precisely the same for everybody
that's insane.

Speaker 5 (01:27:46):
But this is not a new grift.

Speaker 6 (01:27:48):
I don't understand it question.

Speaker 4 (01:27:49):
I mean you you also have a story today about
where this grift has been done in other states.

Speaker 11 (01:27:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's exploiting. And exploiting is a funny
word because you can take it two ways. Exploiting the
homeless for a gain out of the Medicaid program is
not unusual. It's been going on around the country for
quite a number of years, and in some of them
to many tens of millions of dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:28:11):
Is there any way from your position, because you've done
a lot of research in this, are there any checks
and balances in the Medicaid system that should have caught
that eight unconnected adults are living in one home and
all getting Medicaid benefits and using this home health agency.

Speaker 11 (01:28:28):
Well eight and one home time seven. There were seven
homes that this was going on, and that's the ones
I found out. Are there could be more, but I
don't know that right for the state to have found this,
I don't believe a person's home address is in the
Medicaid system. They may have your personal idea, your soial
security number, that sort of thing, and you have a

(01:28:49):
Medicaid card so that can be redeemed anywhere in anyhow So,
I don't know that you would have known that all
these folks were in the same house. However, the one
thing that would have been concer assistant for them all.
In order to get this home health care, you need
something that's called a plan of care. It's an actual
federal doctument that gets filled out and says, all right,

(01:29:10):
we want this person to have this prescription, this type
of care, and I want me the doctor this agency
to do that. Well, in this case, that doctor, the
same doctor for all of these folks, signed the exact
same plan of care for this home health agency.

Speaker 4 (01:29:27):
We're not even doing individual plans of fake care.

Speaker 6 (01:29:30):
I don't mean to make it sound like they're all different.
They are.

Speaker 5 (01:29:33):
But he's also the medical director.

Speaker 11 (01:29:36):
I didn't know that, and there wasn't any paperwork to
reflect that until I interviewed the administrator of his clinic,
who happens to be his son, had told me that
he's the medical director.

Speaker 4 (01:29:46):
And I said, all right, what is.

Speaker 5 (01:29:47):
The home health agency? Said? What is ongoing? Ongoing home
health said about.

Speaker 6 (01:29:51):
All of this nothing.

Speaker 11 (01:29:54):
They they were moving rather quickly through the courthouse when
I was asking those questions. Actually, they started moving more
more quickly as I started asking questions about the program.
How does it work, why does it exist? Why are
people getting payments? That sort of thing.

Speaker 6 (01:30:08):
I just wanted to know about it.

Speaker 11 (01:30:10):
And the only response I got was an associate who
was the husband of one of the founders of Ongoing
Home Health, and I got a very straightforward look and
a very straightforward question, what's the problem uh.

Speaker 4 (01:30:23):
Oh oh, stealing taxpayer dollars putting people on Medicaid that
may or may not need the medication. I mean, come on.

Speaker 11 (01:30:31):
His explanation was rather straightforward. These are people getting house,
a place to stay, and a little bit of money.

Speaker 4 (01:30:38):
What's the problem and threatened if they left that part out? Okay,
So are where's the state on this? Please tell me
that some investigative body is now looking into this.

Speaker 5 (01:30:49):
Based on this report, there are.

Speaker 11 (01:30:50):
At least two state agencies investigating. One is the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment. They do licensing of
homes and businesses affiliated with Medicare and homelessness and all
that sort of things. So they're they're looking the Colorado
Department of Healthcare Policy and Finance. They're the ones that
actually administer the funding for Medicaid and Medicare in Colorado,

(01:31:15):
so they're digging into it. And by extension, of course,
it's a federal program, so you would presume, they said
so that the FBI would be looking in as good.

Speaker 5 (01:31:24):
I'm glad.

Speaker 4 (01:31:24):
I hope all these people go to jail. I am
so sick of people stealing, especially from Medicaid that you know.
I fully understand people steal from the government all the
time because it's easy, and honestly, people who work in
the government are not as protective of that money as
they would be of their own money.

Speaker 5 (01:31:40):
I get it. I understand all of this.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
But when we're stealing from a program that is designed
to help the poorest of the poor, disabled people, and
this last legislative session we cut spending for disabled care
and we find out that these jackasses have screwed us
for twenty four million dollars, I want them all to
go to jail forever.

Speaker 5 (01:32:00):
And apparently I.

Speaker 4 (01:32:01):
Love the part you put in the story that's where
my this is actually where my head exploded yesterday. When
you talked about all their social media posts, the owners
of this company rolling it, you know, like new cars
and fabulous vacations and living high on the hog.

Speaker 11 (01:32:16):
I had all the vacation of BALI it was a
brand new land Rover in a Tesla elements. The license
plate I liked on one of them was and I
guess to show the affiliation to the church was God
five gft God's gift.

Speaker 4 (01:32:35):
That now I want the death penalty just for the
license plate alone. I don't David McGuire, The work is outstanding,
and I mentioned yesterday, I'm like, this is the kind
of work that I would like to see get fancy awards,
and I hope you submitted for fancy awards, and more importantly,
I hope you get to do a follow up story
talking about the arrest of these scumbags and exactly how
this system has been shut down.

Speaker 6 (01:32:56):
Well now the truth told.

Speaker 11 (01:32:57):
I mean, I'm most concerned right now with the with
the outcome of all of this, is what happens, if
anything everse happens to this program.

Speaker 6 (01:33:08):
These are there are a lot of folks with no
place to go.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
I would certainly hope that the housing industry that we
do have here would be able to work with them
a little more vigorously because of their cooperation on this investigation.

Speaker 11 (01:33:21):
Yeah, my lead source on this, Kelly Swainson, was really
really concerned at the beginning of this.

Speaker 6 (01:33:25):
She was quite worried. She understood the necessity to have
this go public, but she was.

Speaker 11 (01:33:30):
Also quite concerned of what would happen to people that
she'd come to call friends.

Speaker 6 (01:33:33):
It's about in background.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
We'll see if the state can clean up the mess
that they've kind of left. How pervasive this.

Speaker 11 (01:33:39):
Do you think this is as far as outside of
this one outfit? Yeah, you know, you had made a
very good point. I mean, there are a lot of
places that try to maximize their return on government work
over the years. So is there something else? I don't
doubt that there is. Is it as creative as this?
Maybe it is, and that's why we have seen it

(01:34:00):
yet I don't. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:34:02):
At a bare minimum, I hope the outcome of your
investigating is that people start to pay attention to this,
and we find more and we finally do something actual
about waste fraud abuse. But now it's time for the
most exacting segment on the radio of its kind.

Speaker 8 (01:34:17):
In the Who.

Speaker 5 (01:34:21):
Of the Day.

Speaker 4 (01:34:22):
Now, David has graciously agreed to stick around and play
of the Day.

Speaker 5 (01:34:27):
Yes, I will not let you in, but we will pad.

Speaker 4 (01:34:30):
The situation for Jeopardy at little to help you out.
We do that for all first time guests, so we're
not We're not carving you out because we think you're sad.

Speaker 7 (01:34:38):
What is our dad joke of the day? Please, Anthony,
why don't vampires like gambling?

Speaker 6 (01:34:47):
About that?

Speaker 5 (01:34:49):
Hang on, I can't hear him.

Speaker 7 (01:34:53):
There we go. Why don't vampires like gambling? I don't know,
get nervous when the steaks are raised?

Speaker 5 (01:35:01):
Oh god, Yes, that was the perfect reaction. Well done.
Today's word of the day.

Speaker 6 (01:35:07):
Please, it is an adjective, David. You just try to
guess what it means.

Speaker 4 (01:35:11):
Okay, magniloquent, magniloquent correct m A G M magnil n
I l o q u n T correct magniloquent.

Speaker 11 (01:35:22):
Every editor that I've ever known in my career would
have nixed that out of the copy.

Speaker 5 (01:35:26):
No, no magniloquent for you.

Speaker 4 (01:35:29):
I'm going to say it's someone who has a vast.

Speaker 7 (01:35:32):
And large vocabulary, speaking or expressed in a lofty or
grandiose style, A K A.

Speaker 4 (01:35:40):
Magniloquent.

Speaker 5 (01:35:41):
I'll have to remember that.

Speaker 4 (01:35:43):
Another word, another word question today, What does the noun
parasology mean p E R I S S O l
O G Y study parasites. No, that's p A.

Speaker 6 (01:35:55):
I don't care.

Speaker 5 (01:35:56):
It's another word word.

Speaker 4 (01:35:58):
But you more words than necessary to describe something. If
this definition was much longer, it would be an example
of parasology.

Speaker 11 (01:36:05):
I've been accused of that a lot. I write too much,
too long. Yeah, would say it's too parasolic. Yeah, you're
a parasolysist. I don't know if that's an action.

Speaker 6 (01:36:15):
I'll go with that.

Speaker 5 (01:36:15):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:36:16):
Now, in this case, we are going to play jeopardy.
Because you're a first time or I will wait until
the end of the question to shout my name. You
are allowed to answer it any time, although you can't
wait till the end of the question. If you know
the answer, you David, and then you answer in the
form of a question. Follow jeopardy, let's go what is
our chemistry?

Speaker 7 (01:36:33):
By the way, guests all time that are non iHeart
employees are three and eight against Mandy, so you've got
a chance. The category is career day. Oh, God, I'll
describe a career. You tell me the job or line
of work. Mandy has to wait till the end. This
doctor specializes in children and their diseases. Oh man, I

(01:36:54):
got it, Dave. We're going to count that as he
got it. He didn't know to say his name.

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
Game.

Speaker 5 (01:36:59):
Go ahead, answer the form of question.

Speaker 6 (01:37:01):
What it starts with a P not a peddietrists? Come on, pediatrician?

Speaker 7 (01:37:07):
Yes? What is there?

Speaker 6 (01:37:09):
We God.

Speaker 5 (01:37:12):
That you said.

Speaker 4 (01:37:15):
Nice?

Speaker 7 (01:37:15):
Not the automated kind, but the human kind. It's a
clerk at a bank window, that is correct. An actuary
deals with this hazardous possibility. Also the name of a
word conquering Hasbro game, No.

Speaker 5 (01:37:35):
Dang it, and I lose a point for that.

Speaker 7 (01:37:38):
By the way, good because I'm not going to think
about it Hasbro game in an actuary deals with this hazard.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:37:47):
I think is what is fraud? But I don't think
what is risk?

Speaker 7 (01:37:53):
Yes, this type of officer doesn't work for the military,
but helps people get money for cars and mortgages at
the base.

Speaker 6 (01:38:01):
David, loan officer. Yeah, a loan officer.

Speaker 5 (01:38:05):
What is the score? It's two to zero?

Speaker 7 (01:38:07):
Okay, remember David. If you don't know this for sure.
Do not answer, because then you get on a lead. Yeah,
you're sitting on the lead. Let Mandy get it. Despite
the name, those in this job don't go door to
door asking questions. They ascertain property boundaries. Mandy, what's the surveyor?

Speaker 6 (01:38:24):
That is correct?

Speaker 5 (01:38:24):
But it doesn't.

Speaker 4 (01:38:27):
You won see now, are you glad?

Speaker 5 (01:38:30):
Now you can go and rag.

Speaker 11 (01:38:32):
It doesn't feel like a very intellectual win. Quite frankly, you.

Speaker 4 (01:38:35):
Know what, don't talk about the intellectual level of this game.
We got to make da sports is coming in.

Speaker 6 (01:38:40):
What's the old phrase, don't mock the afflicted.

Speaker 7 (01:38:43):
There you go.

Speaker 5 (01:38:44):
We'll be back on Monday. Have a great weekend, everybody,

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06-05-26 FULL SHOW - We Are So Screwed

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