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 (00:05):
No, it's Mandy Connell and Don on KOAM ninety one FM.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Got study the nicety.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Many Connell keeping your sad baby.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Classic classic classic.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
You know what this means.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell. A rod behind
the glass here on k O A a rod. Brother,
I gotta tell you, I hope the sanging.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Is burger in today.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
Brother, Yes, Brother, the sang his burgering, Brother, it better be.
If it doesn't bend, we've got problems. If you got
a problem, you better get it together. Or if you've
got a problem with something, I say, text me on
the KOA commic spirit health text line at five six six.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Nine zero, every text with brother. I know.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
In fact, we should begin with a little tribute to
Ull Cogan. Look, I'm not a wrestling guy, but everybody,
whether you are a wrestling fan or not, knows who
Hulk Hogan now was as he passed away at the
age of seventy one, and knows him by reputation, can
(01:43):
tell his voice, can tell what he looks like, and
you probably remember when he was at the Republican Big
Rally in Madison Square Garden and also at the Republican
National Convention when President Trump took the nomination. And these
(02:04):
two clips I have might be a montage for both events,
or they might just be from the Madison Square Garden.
I'm not sure, but regardless, Hulk Hogan was a spectacular
individual or to come out and speak on behalf of Trump.
And it was the first time that we've really seen
(02:24):
so many different luminaries, different stars of this caliber and
Republican conventions, at least in my memory, or Republican rallies,
but there was Hulk Hogan.
Speaker 7 (02:34):
What you gonna do about the border invasion? What's she
gonna do about in place? What you gonna do about
keeping her mouth a safe? Brother? And what you're gonna
do I'm putting out, putting God in our homes, in
(02:57):
our country and our schools.
Speaker 8 (03:03):
Huh Look Chapa media, dumb y'all, brother, Lopa media. Ooh again,
look trapa meda nice oa cry again.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
I believe that was at the RNC if I recall correctly.
The electricity is just so palpable, and I think that's
the sort of thing that President Trump was always good
during his rallies at bringing out but having somebody like
hul Cogan was extremely unique. He was, indeed, as everybody's saying,
a larger than life personality. He had a successful career
(03:46):
in the ring as well as outside of the ring.
According to Fox News, he died after suffering a possible
cardiac arrest at his home in Clearwater, Florida. First reported
I Believe by as they Say TMZ Sports emergency personnel
reportedly rushed to his home and he was being carried out,
(04:07):
seen being carried out of it in an ambulance. WWE
released the statement later. WWE is sadin to learn a
WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan has passed away. The
company wrote, one of pop culture's most recognizable figures, Hogan
helped WWE achieve global recognition in the nineteen eighties, and
(04:31):
they extend their condolences as well to Hogan's family, friends,
and fans. Clearwater Police Department and Clearwater Fire Department also
releasing a statement saying they'd responded to a medical call
at nine to fifty one am today and that the
nature of the call was for a cardiac arrest. A
(04:53):
seventy one year old resident Terry Boela Bola, also known
as Old Cogan, was treated by Clearwater Fire and Rescue
Cruised before being taken by SunStar to Morton Plant Hospital,
where he was pronounced is ceased.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Old Cogan.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
May you rest in peace, and may you be bringing
that energy, that enthusiasm, that electricity into the next life,
that larger than life personality as well. It really is
another loss, especially after Ozzy Osbourne the other day, massive
loss to the music business, to pop culture there. It
(05:35):
is always sad and tragic when you lose pop culture
icons like these two gentlemen who made such waves in
their own ways and in their own fields. It's something
where look, I was at Fan Expo Denver earlier this
month and now is a weekend where people are dressed
(05:56):
up in costumes as characters from all kinds of different franchises,
could be Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, Harry Potter, you
name it. If there were fandoms, there was a Bob
Ross Deadpool, which was fantastic. Hey, Rod, I got to
show you the picture of Bob Ross Deadpool. All sorts
of fandoms represented in different ways because they relate, they connect,
(06:20):
they love it They're all about how you can make
a big difference in their lives or how people's lives
are impacted in these ways and how personal they are
from Hollywood's stars that you know, a lot of times
(06:40):
you think the politics, okay, well there are some left wingers,
but then there are others who are just wanting to
entertain and to make an impact in their own way.
So that was Hulk Hogan, and we saw him at
the end get more political, particularly because of his longtime
friendship with President Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
And here we are.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
At this moment in a another loss to pop culture
and to.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
America's fabric of.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
I mean, I don't know. It's just been in a
reflective mood this month about a lot of things, including
fandoms and the ways in which our pop culture is
accentuated and everything, and.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
It's just it makes a difference for people.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
A lot of times you can find fans who go
through difficult times and you know, Luke Skywalker helps shepherd
them through that difficult time and makes a real impact
and difference on their lives and sometimes you just don't
see it or recognize it, but it's there. Rest in peace,
Hulk Hogan, as well as the Osborne this week, and
(08:02):
I talked about him on Monday. Let me add in
when I filled in for Us Kaminski. Let me add
in At Folner, founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation,
who passed away at the age of eighty three over
the weekend, one of the most impactful conservatives of the
modern conservative movement. A lot of losses going on of late.
(08:26):
I'm Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell in. Look,
there's so much that has been going on lately regarding
the saga of twenty sixteen, coming back into the spotlight
of twenty sixteen being the focus again in the political discussions,
(08:51):
and look, we'll get to the claims Tulci Gabbert is
making some of the assertions from President Trump little later
in the program. But I think that there is a
real risk that Republicans are running at this point in time,
and that President Trump is running at.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
This time when it comes to.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
This situation of twenty sixteen, because he's losing out on
opportunities and now he's making this a fight between him
and Barack Obama, who Look, I dislike Obama intensely. I
think he is one of the worst presidents in American history.
I do believe he's worse than Joe Biden, which is
(09:34):
crazy to say, but I believe it's true because the
impact of policy, I think from Obama is more significant.
I think he did a slew of things that leave
behind a legacy that isn't worth being proud of. But
despite that, he's very popular. He is very beloved by
(09:56):
a lot of Americans who look back in retrospect and
they're like, you know what, Obama was pretty decent, or
they look back and they say, you know what, I
kind of liked him as a person. And so for
President Trump to now try and take a fight against
Obama years later, I don't know how wise that is.
(10:16):
And some folks like Dan Turntine on the left are
getting pretty excited about all this.
Speaker 9 (10:23):
You woke up Barack Obama, which is awesome, Okay, the
game Obama took it. Michelle is still incensed that the
party took it for ten years while Trump smacked him around.
If this gets Obama up to start, the only person
who's ever effectively punched Trump in the face is Barack
(10:45):
Obama at the White House Correspondence dinner when he mocked
him to his face, and the whole crowd was laughing
at Trump. So for me, bring it, get Obama off
the sidelines.
Speaker 6 (10:57):
I love this.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Get Obama off the sidelines.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I love this. And his enthusiasm continued on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You wonder what if this is what we get to
talk of.
Speaker 9 (11:07):
He's not talking about the Big Beautiful Bill, he's not
talking about the real lives of real people. He is
trying to relitigate ten years ago like a temper tantrum
two year old, like.
Speaker 10 (11:17):
I really did it, I really did it.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
This is awesome.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
And one more thing from Tarentine about that point, really
putting a pin on it again from the left perspective
that the GOP is totally being distracted from touting or
talking about trying to reframe the Big Beautiful Bill as
some kind of positive legislation when it is very controversial,
very much disliked by frankly people on both sides of
(11:42):
the aisle all across the country, and other things that
the president could highlight as far as his achievements in
the past six months, but they're not really going to
answer those questions. Instead, it's going to be a different
set of questions.
Speaker 9 (11:55):
Republicans have been saying during August, with Trump's help, they
were going to go home and sell this. If you're
a Republican and you go home right now, the first
two questions you're likely going to get are, if you're
a House member, are you going to vote to release
all the Jeffrey Epstein files? And what do you make
of this? You know now this other conspiracy theory. You're
(12:16):
not going to get to the big beautiful bill for
the first twenty minutes because you're going to answer all
this nonsense.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Here's a question for you. Five six six nine zero.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
The KWA Common Spirit Health text line was President Trump
backed into a corner on Epstein and taking so much
heat over Jeffrey Epstein, a conspiracy theory that he was
never too involved in, too hyped up about, but he
did say some things to pay lip service to it
(12:46):
and give a lot of folks at MAGA land who
wanted Epstein addressed and records released and so forth a
little bit of hope that it was going to happen.
And then he hasn't delivered on that. And plus Tulci Gabbard,
(13:07):
Trump was not too pleased with her over Iran and
some of the things that she had said, and he
was getting questions saying, well, Tulci Gabbert said this as
Director of National Intelligence, So why are you believing that?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
So?
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Is this in part an attempt from Tulci Gabbert to
sort of redeem herself in the eyes of Trump? Is
this in part an attempt for President Trump to change
the discussion among the magabase, to go back to Russia
Gate and the nonsense that was spewed and be able
to say, oh, look at the Russia Russia Russia hoax.
We now have more stuff, and look, Obama is the
(13:44):
real villain in this story, which we pretty much.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Knew these things already, by the.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Way, is that what this is a big giant distraction
from Epstein that is in effect distracting everybody from discussing
the big beautiful bill or other achievements of the first
six months of the Trump and administration. It's a question
that Susan Page asked over on Fox News.
Speaker 11 (14:11):
You know, I'm not saying it's not serious, and we
need to have trust in our intelligence operations. We need
to have trust in what our president tells us there
that our intelligence operations have concluded. I just find this
a mysific mystifying line of inquiry. You know, the president
has good economic numbers to talk about, he's got trade deals,
(14:33):
he's got a AI regime now that he's unveiled today. Uh,
he has a lot of talk to talk about, and
much of it is very positive for the first six
months of his term.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So what is the uh?
Speaker 11 (14:46):
Why is he talking about this?
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Why is he talking about this?
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Look, it is worth pursuing to some extent, but I
think it would have been more worth pursuing during his
first term than trudging this up in his second term.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Years removed.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
And it's not like the revelations are really that substantial.
We did know most of the facts that had previously
been uncovered. But the problem now for Republicans is that
President Trump has really taken to bring out the notion
of Obama being the villain, to the point of saying
(15:30):
he's guilty and throwing out the word treason.
Speaker 12 (15:33):
But the leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack
Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? And except for
the fact that he gets shielded by the press for
his entire life, that's the one they.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Look He's guilty?
Speaker 12 (15:48):
Is that a question?
Speaker 4 (15:49):
You know?
Speaker 12 (15:49):
I like to say let's give it time.
Speaker 13 (15:53):
It's there.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
He's guilty.
Speaker 13 (15:55):
They this was treason, This was every word you can
They tried to steal the election, they tried to upfuscape
the election.
Speaker 12 (16:06):
They did things that nobody's ever even imagined. Even in
other countries. You've seen some pretty rough countries. This man
has seen some pretty rough countries, but you've never seen
anything like that. And we have all of the documents,
and from what Dulci told me, she's got thousands of
additional documents.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Coming, thousands of additional documents coming. Guilty, treason again, drudging
up the past here and look again, there may be
some merit to laying this out, But does this help
him politically? I really don't know. I tend to think
(16:48):
it doesn't because you're distracting from issues. But you're also
setting up a fight of Trump versus Obama, and quite frankly,
I don't think that's a fight Trump should want to
engage in.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
Especially a lot of times former.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Presidents years removed from office, they are looked back at
as you know, okay, they.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
Seem like a pretty good guy.
Speaker 6 (17:12):
They don't necessarily remember as much from their administration how
terrible Obama was. But They will remember the attitude he brought,
the history making that he had by getting elected. They
will remember that he was affable enough. Maybe they think
they were millennials who were in college as I was,
(17:36):
although I was outspoken against him in college as I
was when he ran the first time, and so they
looked positively. I think this is unwise, and I worry
that it's a distraction that will cause a slew of problems.
Sean Spice are also critical of the rollout.
Speaker 14 (17:55):
What upsets me about this is another is the rollout again,
It's it's the Edsteine equivalent of Binders. If you're going
to come out and talk about this and roll it out,
then don't throw out some crap on on Newsmax and
call it a day.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Sit out there and.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
Say, here's the evidence. We got these guys dead to right.
We're referring it to doj for prosecution.
Speaker 14 (18:16):
But if you're gonna get my hopes of that you
finally got these guys and you come out by throwing
out some you know, the willy nilly.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Stuff, that's not going to cut it. And I kind
of think that's what they're doing here.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
At this point. We'll have to see there's certainly a
lot more that President Trump is going to want to
roll out from this with Tulca Gabbard, and we'll see
how it all goes. Coming up on the other side,
we're going to take a break and we'll be joined
by two CU regions for the next two segments. Kali
(18:47):
Renaisson is the chair of the CU Board of Regents
from Boulder, Colorado, and a Democrat. Ken Monterra, vice chair
of this Board of Regents, he is from Colorado Springs
and a Republican, and they are both speaking out now
in an a exclusive conversation together about the saga of
(19:12):
Wanda James. You've heard me talk about on this program.
And Wanda James is the CU regent who was censured
last month for trying to gut censured and sanctioned for
trying to gut funding for a public health awareness program
on high potency THCHC that she accused of being racist.
(19:37):
And even after the university complied and took down these
images she thought were racist or said we're racist, she
still persisted to try and cut the funding. And now
the consequences have come and she's not letting it go.
We'll talk with regents Kali Renisson and Ken Montera. On
the other side right here Jimmy Segenberger and for Andy
(19:58):
Connell and KOA.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
A very important.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
Saga that is out of the University of Colorado, which
I don't think has gotten nearly enough attention, certainly in
terms of giving out the facts and the reality of
what has in fact been going on with the story
of the censure and sanctions of Wanda James, the CB
(20:25):
one first Congressional District regent for the University of Colorado.
Of course, there's a eight member, nine member board of Regents,
eight elected for each congressional district one at large, and
Wanda James had, going back to late January, begun a
crusade to defund entirely a public health awareness program to
(20:51):
educate kids and pregnant mothers, in particular on the risks
of high potency th that central ingredient in marijuana. Wanda James,
in addition to being a CU regent, is a prominent.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Marijuana shop owner.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
In fact, or claim to fame in that regard is
that she owns the first black owned legal marijuana dispensary,
and that was a big thing when she ran for
CU regent and when this campaign was out there, put
out by the Colorado School of Public Health, which is
at three universities, but particularly here the University of Colorado,
(21:36):
she claimed that their t on THHC program, done by
the School of Public Health and Nishim Health, a public
benefit corporation, that what they had put out in images,
these medical illustrations of children in utero and older, were
(21:58):
racist because they were of black children. Never mind that
there were white children in identical images as well. But
she decreed that it was racist and made a protest
and they were taken down within like forty eight hours.
Those images were taken down, but she continued to persist
in trying to defund the program and got in contact
(22:20):
with her friends at the Governor's office to try and
make this happen. Ultimately, she was censured by her colleagues
in a by partisan vote after an investigation that was
initiated in a bi partisan way by my two guests
here on KOA. I am joined by Cali Renaissan, the
Chair of the CU Board of Regents, a Democrat from Boulder,
(22:42):
and Ken Monterra, the Vice chair of the CU Board
of Regents, hailing from Colorado.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Springs, a Republican.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
They both join me now in the kind of bipartisan fashion.
I think folks will start to expect more of and
more of out of the CU Board of Regents.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Welcome regions, Thank you both so much for joining me.
Speaker 15 (23:03):
Thank you very true ready to be here.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
I would welcome the chance to start with you. Regent
Chair Renaissan, how do you look at what has evolved
over time? Because not only had Wanda James, your colleague,
accused this program of being racist even after the images
were taken down, but there have been accusations lobbed against
(23:26):
all of you who voted in a majority vote and
a bipartisan fashion two centsurre and sanction region James saying
that what you all did in that was racist. How
do you respond and what do you look at this
vote in terms of its implications and the message sent.
Speaker 15 (23:43):
I think several things. One, what we did was the
best for CEU. We're upholding our oaths, and we're following
through and holding people accountable who break our policies, just
as we would for a student staff or faculty member.
It's part of our job as a self governing board.
I think the continued continued behaviors that we've seen in
(24:05):
actions are in an unfortunate distraction. They've earned a lot
of time, a lot of people's time, which at this
day and age, we don't really we need that time
to do other things. I'm happy to say the board
continues to work together very well to address the important
topics taking see you so I continue to be pleased
with our board and how everybody puts to you first.
Speaker 6 (24:28):
At the start of the censure meeting at the end
of last month, Wanda James said the following.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Today is not.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
About a censure.
Speaker 16 (24:39):
It is about censorship and retaliation. I was elected by
the people of Colorado. I was not hired by this board,
and I will not be silenced by its traditions or
afraid of this vote. I am being targeted for raising
my voice against a campaign that demeaned, dehumanized, and harmed
the black community. They think I violated my duties by
(25:04):
speaking out against racism.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
Vice Chairman Ken Montera, talk to me for a moment
about the way in which your colleague, Regent Wanda James
has characterized this whole thing from the start, including that
censor vote and since then, but particularly in the context
of what you believe the more bored majority was going
for with this vote.
Speaker 17 (25:28):
Yeah, well, thank you, Jimmy. First of all, I think
it's important to recognize that when Regent James brought up
her objections to those illustrations, as you mentioned, they were
taken off almost immediately. I think it might have been
twenty four hours actually, So we responded to that very quickly.
And as you said, there were other images that were
both of brown people and white people which were not
(25:52):
didn't seem to be as offensive to her. But the
fact is is that we reacted to her concern she had,
and she continued to escalate and elevate the situation on
a daily basis for a long time, said that we
did not react and take down those images, and she
continued to press forward by trying to get the entire
program defunded, which was approved by the legislature and funded
(26:15):
by the Joint Budget Committee to educate Colorado relative to
the impact of ITC and developing minds. And as she
continued to try to discredit the research that was done
and the work that had been done at the School
of Public Health and even go to the Governor's office
to ask them to take down, the takeaway the funding
(26:36):
and divert it to minority owned businesses. It continued to
in our minds move forward relative to our reach of
responsibility fuduiciarily to the University of Colorado, only causing harm
to the university and creating an issue that I don't
think anybody on the board believe exists. Our strategic plan
specifically states so we will represent the universe the state
(26:59):
of Colorado at all of our campuses. Whether you're black, brown, country, urban,
wherever you may come from. We believe that there's an
opportunity for you at one of our campuses, and we
welcome you. And there is in no way that since
I've been on this board that we have done anything
but try to support that strategic plank and try to
offer the University of Colorado to every Colorado and that
(27:22):
may want to go to one of our campuses.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
That's well said.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
We are joined by the Chair and Vice Chair, respectively,
the CU Board of Regents, Cali Renaissance, and Ken Monterra.
I should note that this program was directed by the
Colorado State Legislature several years ago. The t on THHC
campaign is the result of that instruction. And it is
funded by marijuana tax dollars. And speaking of the science here,
(27:47):
this is one other thing that Regent Wanda James said
during the meeting just before the center vote regarding the
scientific piece.
Speaker 16 (27:56):
This was a two million dollars state funder campaign which
CEU's name all over it, targeting the black community with
tire tropes, recycled drunk junk science.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Of course I spoke as a regent.
Speaker 16 (28:09):
I had a duty to do so. And what did
CU's leadership do. They stalled, they debated, and not one
of you regents responded to my text when I asked
for your health.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
Chaerir Cally Renison, I want you to respond to that
second piece about the communications and what sort of went
on in that regard when complaints were made, because it
seems to me like the university reacted quickly. But also
there is that academics piece, the academic freedom piece, that
you're supposed to allow scientists and professionals that are working
at these institutions like CU to do.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Their job.
Speaker 15 (28:46):
Exactly right. I learned about the event doing with the
illustrations after they were already down, and that was about
twenty four hours later, several hours after that she texted
to me and wanted to know if I was going
to join her in dealing with it. I didn't return
the text because it was already solved. She also texted
to a few of the other Democrats, one of which
(29:08):
wrote back in Guana at that time told her don't worry,
it's taken care of and another one was.
Speaker 10 (29:14):
Busy at work.
Speaker 15 (29:15):
So when she says she texted everyone, that's not true.
She did not text the Republicans, just the Democrats. So
that's again just something that is actually not true, and
that evidence is in the report that's available online.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
The extensive report as well.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
We have to take a quick break, but on the
other side, we will pick up our conversation with Calli
Renison and Ken Monterra from the CU Board of Regents
and talk a little bit about the work that they're
doing in a bipartisan fashion and the example I think
that's being set by this board for others throughout Colorado.
As we continue, Jimmy sang In Berger in from Andy
(29:50):
Conno Kioway, joined by two CU Regents, a Democrat and
a Republican respectively. The Chair of the Board of Regents,
Cali Renaissan of Boulder and Chair Ken Montera of Colorado
Springs talking about the recent censure vote and sanctions of
their colleague Wanda James, and before we get back to
our guests, I do want to play snippets wanted James,
(30:13):
Democrat from the first Congressional District, of two other Democratic colleagues,
Elana Spiegel and Elliott Hood and what they had to
say before casting their votes.
Speaker 18 (30:23):
One of the most challenging, dangerous challenges I feel we're
facing today is not disagreement over values or policy. It's
the contesting of basic facts. When that happens, we lose
common ground and weaken the University of Colorado system at
so many students, researchers, faculty depend on to build their future,
(30:44):
support the public good, and provide for each and every
one of their families.
Speaker 19 (30:49):
The bottom line is, regardless of your personal feelings or interests,
there was simply no justifiable reason to publicly and continuously
smear this research program, attempt to the research of our scientists,
and advocate to pull their funding. That is especially true
today when university research programs face significant funding uncertainty, and
(31:10):
over hostility from certain corners of the government. Our scientists
need our support now more than ever.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
They do not need.
Speaker 19 (31:18):
Their elected leaders casting unfounded doubt on the integrity of
their work.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
I couldn't agree more with both of them.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
Regent chair Calli Renaissan and the contesting of basic facts
that Alana Spiegel mentioned there, I think was especially important
because you need to be grounded in facts in order
to have a real meaningful discussion. Talk to me a
little bit about that perspective, and if there's anything that
you think is lacking in terms of knowledge or understanding
(31:45):
about some of the critical facts in this matter.
Speaker 15 (31:49):
Oh yes, thank you. Being a transparent board like we are,
we have all of this information available online. Is includes
the reason behind the center, which have nothing to do
with the illustrations. It also has to do with what
the sanctions involved with the center include. There's a lot
of misinformation being shared about what those sanctions are and
are not. For example, it's said that she's not allowed
(32:11):
to go to football games, and that's nonsense. Anybody can
go to a football game. What she's lost is three
football tickets. She's also stated she can't go to graduations.
That is untrue. That is part of her job as
a regent. She is still an elected regent, and so
she is engaged in the work of regents. She just
doesn't get the extra perks. And I would encourage people
(32:32):
to go to our web page and read those documents.
And one last thing I want to say is that
several times it's been stated that Todd Solomon, President Solomon,
has voted on the center or is behind it or
encouraging it, and I just want to put a stop
to that. That is simply not true. The Board is
President Solomon's boss. We talked to Todd about what happens,
(32:52):
not the other way around. He did not vote. It
was not his pushing that made this happen. This is
a board action.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
And when we're out of Vice.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Jerk Ken Monterra talk to me a little bit about
the bipartisan collaboration on this issue and more generally. But
I think it is important to note that this process
of the investigation began because you, both of you our
guests paired up and said, okay, we need to look
into this, and then ultimately you had a bipartisan vote
with seven members of the Board of Regions, including both
(33:22):
Democrats and Republicans, voting yes.
Speaker 17 (33:26):
Yeah, Jimmy, thank you. I think that's probably the most
clear example of bipartisanship that you could have on a
board was the vote that we had in the comments
that you heard from Regent Spiegel and Regil Elliott. I
think that you know, when Kelly and I were first
elected chair and vice chair, which I think Kelly was
two and a half years ago now, the first time
(33:46):
that we were boot a.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Chair, we made a commitment to each.
Speaker 17 (33:49):
Other that we would run this sport from a bipartisan standpoint.
We talked to the regions on a regular basis, We
get their viewpoint. We make sure that everybody's voice is heard,
and it's heard clearly, and we don't try to push
our regents one way or the other. They have clear voices,
they have clear mandates from their constituency, and I can
tell you and of them clearly believe that putting the
(34:12):
University of Colorado first is what's most important. And I
could go to every one of those regents and hear
the same thing that above all that what makes the
university a more productive organization, serves more people from Colorado,
and allows us to build a future for this state
is paramount in their mind. And I think that's why
(34:32):
This has been a difficult thing to deal with because
I feel we're dealing with a very partisan individual that
has one viewpoint and does not have a bipartisan view
on how she wants to see and lift the University
of Colorado. And it's showing as we go through this process,
and as Kelly's mentioned, we have spent way too much
time focusing on one individual versus the University of Colorado
(34:55):
and the thousands of students that we serve on a
daily basis.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
Cher Kelly Rannison about thirty seconds for a final word here,
maybe piggybacking on that discussion of bipartisanship and how functionally
you guys really are as a board with this unfortunate
distraction for the past six months.
Speaker 15 (35:11):
Great well, firston, I want to thank you for having
me on. I really appreciate it. Second, I want the
public to know that even though we've had this distraction,
we're still working very hard for the people at Colorado
and see you, and we're still doing it in a
bipartisan manner. I think that people can trust that when
we're making decisions, looking at policies or other things, we're
doing it with them first in our mind.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
Kudos to you both and to the Board of Regions
for holding your own accountable, and especially Chair renn us
In to you and Region Spiegel and Hood because it
is not easy to challenge and to hold accountable a
member of your own political party, and that that's what
you're doing here. And I think that is both to
(35:53):
the credit the three of you and to the board
at large, but also to recognizing that this can and
should be done in a state like Colorado, where it
does seem like sometimes there's just one party running the show.
It's it's just a great message. So thank you both.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 17 (36:10):
Thank you, Thank thanks. Jeremy, appreciate you having us on.
Speaker 15 (36:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
Jimmy Sang and Berger filling in for Mandy Connell will
pick it up on the other side as we continue
on KOA.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
No, it's Mandy Connell Man on KOAM ninety four one FM.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
God Say Kevin Nynald.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Sad Babe.
Speaker 6 (36:56):
Time now for the second hour. Jimmy Sang and Burger
for Mandy Connell. I don't know that was that day
from last year.
Speaker 11 (37:07):
A rod.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
When that happened live, I hear on Kowa or I
pulled out my harp and you came in recorded. It
was a blast. It was one of those things that
you have to just keep out there. It's like I
got my own little mini theme song whenever I'm in here,
and it is great to be with you. By the way,
the Jimmy Junior Blues Band is playing at the Genesee
(37:29):
Pub and Barbecue this coming Sunday, the twenty seventh, from
three to six pm, genese Pub and Barbecue Afternoon show
yours truly on harmonica doing some vocals too.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
It'll be a great time.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
Come on out if you feel so inclined for some
great music and good times on a weekend afternoon will
be out on the patio. So in the last couple
of segments, second half of the last hour, we were
joined an exclusive interview by the leaders of the CU
(38:08):
Board of Regents, Chair Cali Renaissan and Vice Chair Ken Montera,
a Democrat and a Republican, respectively. And I just want
to offer a couple of thoughts real quick, because this
has been on the story of Wanda James, who tried
to gut a program called t on THHC. It was
all about educating the public, particularly kids and pregnant women,
(38:33):
on the risks of high potency THHC. And she accused
the program of racism because of some medical illustrations that
were taken down after her complaint almost immediately, and then
continue to persist and try to bring in her friends
in the Governor's office and so forth to defund the program. Thankfully,
I think they were unsuccessful, but the governor's office still
(38:56):
tried to do it on her behalf. Get the joint
budget committed need to cut all the money from a
program that was established by the state legislature and funded
through marijuana tax money. And Wanda James, in addition to
being a sea region for the first Congressional district in Denver,
she's also a pioneer in legalized pot with her pot
(39:23):
shop simply pure. And she had characterized the vote to
censure her for what she did in this way.
Speaker 16 (39:30):
Today is not about a censure. It is about censorship
and retaliation. They think I violated my duties by speaking
out against racism.
Speaker 6 (39:44):
It's all about racism. What we just heard in the
last half hour was something quite the opposite. I encourage
you to check out the podcast if you missed it. Well,
you have a CU board of regents that are modeling
bipartisanship in the right kind of way, holding their own
accountable misdeeds.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
And that is not an easy thing to do when.
Speaker 6 (40:03):
You are the Democrats in charge of a Democrat majority board.
But she recognized that something is so egregious that you
have to do something about it. And that is literally
exactly what happened here. And Wanda James is making a
massive stink about it smells worse than pot of the concert.
In fact, a couple days ago she put out on
(40:24):
linked In, they have the facts wrong. I was not
found guilty of a conflict of interest. I was found
guilty to have had any I was not found guilty
to have any fiduciary conflicts. My crime was simply that
I did not show care and loyalty to see you. Also,
the images had nothing to do with high concentrate THHC
(40:45):
and the developing brand.
Speaker 12 (40:47):
Uh huh.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Right.
Speaker 5 (40:49):
I have always, with the.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
Last sixteen years, fought to protect children from cannabis, except
for that one time that you failed the underage background,
underage check, pot shop check, and you got your buddy
Hashim Coach to try and get the Attorney General involved,
and you were crying racism. And four months later you
got to slap on the risk promising, promising, I will
(41:12):
not break the law again. We will follow the law.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
And that was it, with no fines.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
A nice special treatment for Wanda James, always fighting to
protect children from cannabis, even while trying to gut a
program to educate kids and parents about the risks of
hygh POTENCYHC. You should be protecting children. It's all about
the children, she goes on. That was the entire point
(41:38):
of legalization, the entire point. Really, huh. I really wish
reporters would pay attention before they put stuff out. And
just for the record, Elana Spiegel, that's one of the
other Democrats is lying. I've never used this office to
do anything else except to be one of the best
regents at the University of Colorado has ever had. I
(42:02):
just can't keep a straight face whenever I hear one
to James talk or read anything that she says, because
it's really impossible to take her seriously. She's not a
serious person. She's not a serious person. Now, I do
want to as we move on. Go to listener. Text
(42:24):
five sixty sixty nine zero koa commic spirit health hotline.
I did this interview in the last segment, last half
hour and Tony from Denver text and this boring CU
region story is beneath you, Jimmy, and it frankly comes
off as an attempt to deflect away from larger real
issues like Trump and the disaster that he and his
local sycophants are. You know, on our talk radio show,
(42:45):
you walk in chew Gum. At the same time, you
can talk about any range of issues, but I wanted
to actually read this text because the fact is that
you can't just say his local sick Vince Trump's local
sick ephants. What about the part is in Democrats that
are engaging in self dealing in Colorado where the state
(43:10):
is run completely run by Democrats, you need to talk
about it and hold them accountable. And it is essential.
You can't just shrug it off and be like, oh
my gosh, we're not going to talk about this. It's
something that needs to be spotlighted more, especially when you
(43:32):
have somebody who's super ambitious like Wanda James, wanting to
do a heck of a lot in the future, and
may this saga undercut that make it impossible for her
to seek higher office at some point, as I believe
she would like to do. Jimmy Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell. Okay,
(43:53):
let's turn to Trump for a moment, because with this
whole story about Tulsey Gabbard in twenty sixteen, you have
a lot of things that are brought up and brought
in here, and it's not just twenty sixteen. In allegations
about Russia and Russian disinformation that was being spread, and
(44:18):
then the idea that Russia was influencing the elections and
trying to make it that the Russians were big time
behind President Trump and backing his run for the presidency,
when I think it's more well established that they were
trying to disadvantage Hillary Clinton. I do think this is
something that's true, is that you had and I think
(44:43):
Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary, pointed this out
that Democrats were making this out to be something like
Donald Trump was getting the backing of the Russians, when
really it was about the Russians wanting to sort of
undercut Hillary Clinton if she got into office.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
That was the original thing.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
And there's also is a big difference between whether you're
trying to influence an election through social media posts and
so forth, or you're hacking an election, And they did
indeed sort of conflate the two, but that's what Tulsey
Gabbert is also doing. Just take a moment to listen
(45:31):
to some criticism, a critique of conflating hacking an election
in interference that has been presented to Tulsa Gabbert.
Speaker 20 (45:39):
How do you respond to critics like former President Obama
and also others on the Hill who say that the
administration is conflating apples and oranges here, conflating allegations of
actual hacking of voter machines and allegations of interference.
Speaker 21 (45:53):
Generally, I think it's a disservice to the American people
that former President Obama's office and others who are criticizing
the transparency that is being delivered by releasing these documents,
they are doing a disservice to the American people and
trying to deflect away from their culpability in what is
a historic scandal and negative action towards the American people
(46:18):
and our democratic republic. The answer to that statement can
very clearly be found throughout all of the documents that
we have released, again showing that Russia has took action
to try to sew discord in the election, but showed
no preference for or against any singular candidate.
Speaker 6 (46:38):
I think that was more widely understood except among some
Democrats already. And that's the thing. This is not new information,
and we talked earlier in the program about, for the
most part, it isn't We talked earlier in the program
about the distraction that this is for President Trump and
his administration. Maybe intentional trying to distract from the Epstein
(47:00):
story and the failure to release stuff on Epstein, the
files and client list or whatever's out there, but it's
also distracting from highlighting, spotlighting his agenda. Well, Kevin O'Leary,
mister Wonderful himself from Shark Tank, was on CNN and
(47:21):
he made a point that quite frankly I agree with.
You're an American.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
You're at home in Champagne or band of Illinois right now,
and you.
Speaker 19 (47:30):
Are creating seventy percent of the jobs with your family business,
five to five hundred employee businesses.
Speaker 5 (47:35):
And here we are debating how many fairies are on
the top of this pin.
Speaker 10 (47:39):
I swear to you, I guarantee you, because I am
their advocate.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
They don't give up, you know what. And so we
can talk about this to the cows come home.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
This is not on top of minding.
Speaker 6 (48:00):
What someone is talking about all these irrelevant things. O'Leary's
talking about Epstein and Russia Gate, basically saying the American
people don't care about it, and I think for.
Speaker 5 (48:09):
The most part they don't.
Speaker 6 (48:10):
I mean, obviously, you have to talk about this when
the presidential administration is trotting all of this out and
you have a lot of intrigue. What in the world
is happening with Jeffrey Epstein and the deputy Attorney general
is meeting with Gislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend, on again,
off again girlfriend and associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
You have to talk about these things.
Speaker 6 (48:35):
But I think he's right that most Americans care about
the kitchen table issues, not whether the election, the conspiracy
theories that the election was stolen in twenty twenty or
going way back to twenty sixteen, or accusing the former president,
a former president of the United States, of treason. It
(48:57):
just it doesn't fit like something that makes sense for
the average American to listen to and to want to
hear the president of the United States, the sitting president
talk about. Quite frankly, it's a bad idea for Trump
to get into a battle with Barack Obama, who, for
(49:19):
some reason is a very popular former president. And I
say that as somebody family opposes Obama thinks he's one
of the worst presidents in the history of this country.
But that doesn't mean that he's not one of the
best communicators that we've ever had in the history of
this country, because he is. And I don't know that
(49:41):
Trump wants to get into the ring with Obama for real,
for real. So the question has come in if Trump
is setting up for a third term against Obama, that
would be interesting. Well, obviously that's not going to happen,
be because neither of them could run again. They're both
(50:02):
term limited. But it is fascinating to sort of see
almost as if Trump wants to run a quasi election
against Obama. But I mean, you're six months into your administration.
Why in the world do you want to do that.
Tulci Gabbard was also asked, I think a valuable question
about weaponization of the justice system, which has been a
(50:25):
significant complaint, rightfully so from President Trump, from the tenure
of Joe Biden in particular, but also Obama. And it's
a fair question. Here was Tulsi's response.
Speaker 20 (50:36):
To the question and opponent of weaponization in government, how
do you respond to criticism that referring Obama administration officials
and even potentially the former president is just more weaponization
and this is a potential race to the bottom.
Speaker 21 (50:49):
I think that's a very disrespectful attack on the American
people who deserve the truth. They deserve to have faith
and trust in the integrity of our democratic republic, which
is undervent, which has been undermined by President Obama through
his direction of this manufactured, fake intelligence document, knowing that
it was filled with lies, and knowing that it would
(51:12):
and could then be used for all of the actions
that came after.
Speaker 6 (51:17):
Yeah, okay, but going after a former president over something
like this and suggesting treason could be at issue.
Speaker 9 (51:28):
Based on what you now see, do you believe President
Obama is guilty of treason?
Speaker 21 (51:34):
I'm leaving the criminal charges to the Department of Justice.
I am not an attorney, but as I have said previously,
when you look at the intent behind creating a fake,
manufactured intelligence document that directly contradicts multiple assessments that were
created by the intelligence community, the expressed intent and what
(51:56):
followed afterward can only be described as a year's long coup,
and the treason is conspiracy against the American people are
republic and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration.
Speaker 6 (52:06):
Look, it was partisan spin and it's not something that
a president should do, fair enough, But treason death penalty
that's implied in saying treason. I just that that just
strikes me as a bridge too far. Now, in other news,
this is fascinating. Columbia University, this from the Wall Street
(52:31):
Journal announced yesterday that it will pay over two hundred
and twenty million dollars in total to the.
Speaker 5 (52:38):
Trump administration as part of an agreement.
Speaker 6 (52:41):
That result restores federal funding to the Ivy League school,
which has been accused of failing to discipline anti semitism
on campus adequately, which is not just an accusation.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
I would argue it is true, patently true.
Speaker 6 (52:54):
Columbia University was one of the most egregious of all
the universities at allowing anti Semitism, outright jewe hatred to
spread infest the university and to obstruct Jewish students for
being able to get access to the education that they're
duly paying for. Well now, the university is expected to
(53:15):
pay a two hundred million dollars settlement over three years
to the federal government and an additional twenty one million
dollars to settle investigations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The deal also results in the closure of more than
half a dozen civil rights investigations, which is a a
(53:37):
good thing for Columbia to have sort of those things
out of the way. The acting President, Claire Shipman of
the university, saying, this agreement marks an important step forward
after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty.
The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that
(54:00):
define us and allow our essential research partnership with a
veteral government to get back on track.
Speaker 5 (54:06):
I just love the spin here.
Speaker 6 (54:09):
You're basically agreeing that you're going to address anti semitism.
More like, that's it. It's costing you a hell of
a lot, but I think appropriately so, And this is
the kind of thing that President Trump should be touting
rather than diving in so much to twenty sixteen and
making this a stink about him versus Obama.
Speaker 5 (54:29):
You should be highlighting things like this. This is a
big deal. This is a good development, and kudos to.
Speaker 6 (54:36):
The Trump administration for getting it sorted out, because now
universities will think twice before they engage in a policy
approach of letting antisemitism run amok in the way that
they did, the visceral way that they did. Speech is
one thing that has been done at Columbia and other
university's entirely different story. I'm youb saying in burger in
(55:00):
for Mandy Condall. On the other side, we'll talk with
Ron McLaughlin, founder of the pro Police Rally Colorado, which is,
in the words of West pomp seeker right get out
of Denver, getting out of Denver unfortunately after ten years,
basically been forced out. What's going on here? Why can't
law enforcement just get supported in the city of Denver.
(55:21):
We'll keep it right here on KOA. What's done is done,
and it ain't too much fun. That's what the late
great Greg Almon was just about to sing in that
great tune from the legendary Almond Brothers band. And you know,
sometimes what's done is done.
Speaker 5 (55:37):
It ain't too much fun and you got to move
on and make a change.
Speaker 21 (55:40):
Right.
Speaker 6 (55:41):
Sometimes that happens with great pain because you've poured a
lot of money, heart and soul into something and over
time it just becomes untenable to continue doing it, or
at least to do it the way that you have
done it. You may recall five years ago this month,
(56:02):
there was a pro Police Rally Law Enforcement Appreciation Day
event downtown Civic Center Park and ANTIFA extremists swarmed and
surrounded and stormed the Civic Center Park, disrupting everything, shutting
down the event, causing chaos, Fights broke out and more.
(56:23):
I was sitting in with the band, the Low Becker Band,
on harmonica and we barely got into the second song
fulsome Prison Blues, when everything went to bleep. And now
five years later, for the second year in a row,
the event was canceled. And now the organizer of Pro
Police Rally Colorado, who's been doing this since twenty fifteen,
(56:47):
inspired from twenty fourteen, Ron McLaughlin has said, you know
enough with Denver.
Speaker 5 (56:52):
We're getting out of Denver.
Speaker 6 (56:53):
We're making a change, and he joins me, Now, good afternoon,
my friend. Welcome Chaoway.
Speaker 10 (56:59):
Oh hey, Jimmy. I mean, it's very difficult for me
to hear you. You turn the volume up.
Speaker 6 (57:04):
I am not sure why you can't hear me, Ron,
Can you hear me at all so we can talk?
Speaker 5 (57:09):
Or is it?
Speaker 9 (57:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 10 (57:11):
I can, but it's just really really soft, and my
volume's up the side as it goes.
Speaker 6 (57:15):
Okay, well, we cannot do anything with the volume on
our end. Brother, I apologize, but yeah, let's say do
your best here to listen into what I'm saying as
we go. Paint a picture both of five years ago,
what happened and why you started pro police rallied Colorado
in the first place.
Speaker 10 (57:35):
Well five years ago. It was a combination of a
lot of very enabling a lot of very poor behavior
leading up to five years ago. You got to remember
you weren't there in fifteen, but think you were there
in sixteen or seventeen. I'm not sure exactly how to
the events, but in fifteen Denver stood by the police
(57:56):
as Denver Occupy which is now Denver Commune Party ran
sacked the stage. They ransacked it again and twenty sixteen,
they came back and wearing black outfits on twenty seventeen
at Antifa. It's just the more you enable poor behavior
and not make people to be accountable for what they
(58:18):
are doing, it expands. Then by the time we got
to twenty with all that was going on with George Floyd,
it was just an excuse to create havoc. That's unfortunate.
And did it happen to anyway? Denver? Chicago took a city,
any city. We shouldn't have the First Amendment right as
(58:41):
you know, you've got the Constitution a gazillion times. Does
not give you the privilege of shouting somebody else down
so they can't be heard, or bludgeting people so they
can't speak. That's not part of our First Amendment rights.
And that's not what a protester really is. That's more
of an anarchist and people being used by the political
(59:02):
machine for whatever reason. The political machines want you gotta
be careful what kind of croppy plant because it's going
to bear fruit, And that was what happened in twenty
a lot of bad fruit.
Speaker 6 (59:15):
Ron McLaughlin, let me ask you whether it is in
Denver or it is Douglas County, where my band played
this year, or some of the other places that you've
held these events. Why what has inspired you to celebrate
and show support for our law enforcement? Why have you
started Why did you start this in the first place.
Speaker 10 (59:35):
Well, in the very beginning, I had my own concerns
about what was going on in our society. You had
Baltimore burning on TV, except was going on in Ferguson,
going back to Trayvon Martin, the rise of Black Lives Matter,
when it should have just been every life matters in
regardless of a code of someone's skin is. From my perspective,
(59:56):
all that was going on. And I was a single parent,
and I asked my daughter and my son while Baltimore
was burning on TV, how they felt about law enforcement.
And they were trying to give me the answers they
thought I wanted to hear. And my father was the
kind of guy that would rather just go do than speak,
(01:00:16):
and so I thought I'd take a page out of
his book, and I went down to the wet building
and went to a bit of permit. But I wanted
to show my children how important a relationship, a healthy
relationship of law enforcement in the community in which they
serve is to our community. And that's how it got started.
And then they had never heard of that in down
(01:00:37):
at the wet building. Nobody ever pulled a permit to
do something positive for law enforcement at that time. It
back in twenty fifteen, and eventually I got vetted by
a guy from Hancock's office and they over time got
the permit and put the first one on and it's
been growing ever since. Once you start something like this,
(01:00:58):
it's kind of hard to just do one and done. Yeah,
you get to meet people and the reasons why glow. Yeah.
The longer you get involved with something, the more you
learn about the constitutional rights and why we have our
the municipalities in which we do, the difference between being
the United States of America and being just America in
(01:01:20):
our checks and balances, and how important a law enforcement
community is to that checks and balance as for our
country as a whole. And so it's grown and it's
continued to grow since then.
Speaker 6 (01:01:31):
And so let's go to Denver from last year and
this year, just very briefly, what are some of the
costs and impediments that the city put in place to
make it that made it impossible for you to continue
this event, which was supposed to happen, by the way,
this past Sunday for your Denver event.
Speaker 10 (01:01:51):
It's well after twenty and then after twenty one. Actually
you'll remember a week before the event, the city came
with the head to put a fence up around you know,
the park. They gave me a week. I mean the
process starts in September the previous year, and that became costly. Now,
(01:02:13):
these are free events. I don't charge people to come
to them. I just don't. So it's a gift for
the community. It's not meant to be something where I
recoup money for myself or anybody else the city. This year,
the fencing from last year when I'm forty, this year's
costs for me to do this roughly hit about fifteen
thousand dollars defense alone and double fence and twelve foot gap,
(01:02:36):
and not the whole park, which I actually have access to,
but just around the Amphitheater was just under eleven thousand dollars.
And then you start adding on your insurance band, gosh,
portal potties, any kind of adversement, any kind of marketing,
because you know your your return is on the marketing
you know, and I can't even get people that I've
(01:02:58):
had to come out in the fast put up boots.
People don't want to be not that, they don't want
to be associated with standing with their law enforcement community.
They don't want to put up with the garbage that
comes with doing that in Denver, the risks, and when
you've got a Royal Community College, Emily Griffith, TC Bank,
Navy Center, Credit Union, Albert's Mothers against trunk Drivers and
so on that have come out and want to be
(01:03:20):
a part of this. Gosh, Liberty, Liberty, the Liberty Institute
that you were with. Liberty did come out putt pamphlets.
We did, didn't give up constitutions, Ron McLaughlin. People don't
want to be associated with an argument.
Speaker 6 (01:03:35):
Yeah, no, exactly a lot of fun and not just
an argument, but disruptions and chaos and the potential for
getting hurt. I mean, in that event five years ago,
you were hit in the head with a long board
by one of these so called protesters. I can picture
it now, the blood dripping down your from your forehead
right down your face. It was terrible, which leads me
(01:03:57):
to my final question before we let you go, And
I do feature you and talk a little bit about
this as part of my column tomorrow, No place for
political violence Left or Right in the Denver Gazette.
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
That's the headline. Ron McLaughlin.
Speaker 6 (01:04:13):
I've only got a minute, so as briefly as you
can talk to me about political violence, whether it's on
the left or the right, and just how it is
so totally, completely, utterly unacceptable.
Speaker 10 (01:04:26):
It's beyond unacceptable. These are supposed to be leadership people,
leadership roles. When you resort to violence to get your
point across, you're showing how much you're not a leader.
We get to have to get to a point where
we can agree to disagree that were therefore we can
go forward. But at this point nobody wants to speak
to each other. They just want to argue and to fight.
(01:04:48):
How does that help us grow as a community, as
a country. It doesn't. It stifles us and our leadership,
if you want to call it that. We have to
get past the pop clarity contests and get the right
people involved for those positions. Is going to help our communities,
our counties, our cities, our states, and our country. And
(01:05:10):
I think we really need to check up from the
neck up when it comes to our politicians, we have
to it's got to take big money out of it
and get back to bass taxes and work with the
people that put you in that position and do what
they want their will of the people. We need to
get back to we the people, not need a demographic
and then have an argument to try to say or
(01:05:31):
a fight. Yeah, as opposed to a conversation and growth.
It's not right for our country and it's not healthy.
Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
That is very true and well said lead organizer Pro
Police Rally Colorado. Working on what to do differently next
year instead of the Denver event for the Colorado Law
Enforcement Appreciation Day that happens every third Sunday in July.
Really appreciate it, brother, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 10 (01:05:58):
Hey Jimmy, thank you so much. As was this a
pleasure gaking a chance to talk with you. I have
a wonderful day.
Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
Back at you once again. Ron McLachlan joining us here
on KOA. Check out my related Denver is that Colin
tomorrow no place for political violence left or right. Keep
it here Jimmy and for Andy on KOA. Jimmy Sangenberger
in for Mandy Connell on this Thursday the twenty fourth,
and I have to tell you it's kind of crazy.
(01:06:24):
I'm a New York Giants fan, so like originally that's
we're back east, so it's New York Giants and Denver Broncos,
my two football teams, and now the Giants of Russell Wilson.
Like this is it's kind of crazy dig up from
you know, having been with the Broncos and then now
(01:06:46):
with the Giants is just kind of a crazy topsy
turvy world to me go figure that this would happen.
Is he's the undisputed quarterback now for the Giants heading
in to this incoming season, which is pretty crazy to
think that we are getting underway now with football and
training and then preseason and then full on the swing
(01:07:07):
of things. I just it's, uh, it's pretty time is
just flying right on by. I enjoyed my conversation with
Ron McLachlan in the last segment of my column tomorrow
and the Denver Gazette No Place for political violence left
or Right talks. Also, in addition to some of these
pro police rallies being disrupted by radicals on the left
(01:07:31):
engaging in violence, have you followed it all? The story
of the man accused of fire bombing election equipment in
Archiletta County. He appeared in court yesterday charged with two
counts of arson and one count of using an incendiary device.
(01:07:59):
He overnight one night attacked a office, the county office
in Archiletta County. And it's a small county, and they
got twelve thousand registered voters. Like it is a small
county in the San Juan Mountains, and so it's a
little different. They didn't have the kind of security that
(01:08:20):
you need in terms of windows. They got to work
on this because the guy managed to throw the fire
bomb through the window basically and catch Dominion election.
Speaker 5 (01:08:29):
Equipment on fire.
Speaker 6 (01:08:30):
Now, this is a guy who ran for sheriff of
Archiletta County, William Wayne Bryant, seventy one years old, back
in twenty twenty two, and he lost, and he claimed
the election was stolen and he was urging to get
rid of Dominion machines and so forth. Clearly a radical
on the right who now stands accused. He's the suspect, accused,
(01:08:54):
innocent until proven guilty, accused of doing this fire bombing.
And it appears that the motivations would be because of
that the dominions, stolen election, conspiracy theories, and that's it's scary,
but that is an example of some right wing violence.
Speaker 5 (01:09:11):
And that's why I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna
condemn it, right or left.
Speaker 6 (01:09:14):
Let's make it clear there is no place for political violence,
full stop. Police have not given a motive, but he
is on the record as having said all kinds of
things about stolen elections and getting rid of dominion equipment
and going hand counting, and how the election in twenty
twenty was stolen from Trump, the election in twenty twenty
(01:09:36):
two was stolen from him when he ran for sheriff.
It's just we got to be careful with the rhetoric
and it can incite violence, and so we all have
to be careful with what we say and how we
say it, especially those of us whether you're on the
radio or you are a politician or what have you
with megaphones. Got to be careful.
Speaker 5 (01:09:57):
I'm Jimmy Sangenberger.
Speaker 6 (01:09:58):
Filling in for Mandy conn We've got another hour up
ahead five six, six nine zero the KOA Common Spirit
Health text line.
Speaker 5 (01:10:05):
Keep it here as we continue on KOA.
Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
The Mandy Connall Show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
No, it's Mandy Connell and on KOA ninety one FM
song god Way.
Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
The Noisy three Many connell.
Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Sad Babe.
Speaker 5 (01:10:45):
Time is brying on by third and final hour.
Speaker 6 (01:10:48):
Jimmy Sangenberger covering from Mandy Connell today here on ko A.
And the couple of.
Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
Editorials yesterday and.
Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
The Wall Street Journal giving praise and not so much
praise to President Trump that I think are worth mentioning.
Bringing up one of them is positive Liberation Day for
American AI. Credit the Trump team for trying to keep
America's latest golden goose alive, which is artificial intelligence. AI
(01:11:25):
is crazy, just the things that you can do now
with AI, as difficult as it may be to pinpoint
what exactly is it to some extent, there's so many
crazy things with artificial intelligence these days. Well, the White
House proposed, as the editorial says, a hodgepodge of policies
(01:11:46):
to ensure that China doesn't steal an AI march. The
goal is to liberate innovators from burdens and regulation, bulldoze
impediments to new data centers, and hyper scale private investment
to borrow an industry buzzword, and it talks about substantial
investment already from Alphabet, the parent company of Google, from Meta,
(01:12:09):
the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, from open Ai.
We are talking hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars
among these companies. Open ai is the purveyor of chat GPT.
By the way, well, Biden antitrust cops sought to chill
(01:12:29):
this AI competition with whale hunting expeditions into open Ai
and Microsoft. The Trump Report that was issued by this
administration recommends the Federal Trade Commission drop investigations begun under
Biden chair Lena Kahan that quote advanced theories of liability
(01:12:50):
that unduly burden AI innovation.
Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
And to modify agent orders that do.
Speaker 6 (01:12:56):
In other words, let's get the all knowing, all powerful prisumtive,
the knowing of everything that's all knowing federal government from
getting in the way of the private sector and its innovation.
The report also recommends the federal agencies established exclusions under
(01:13:16):
the National Environmental Policy Act for data centers, which will
reduce the permitting rigamarole that can delay products projects, though
legislation will be needed to prevent endless litigation. How about
an action plan for Congress. In other words, the Trump
administration is doing what they can to try and foster
(01:13:39):
more innovation and AI. Get out of the way, Get
out of the way instead of impeding as the Obama
administration is. Okay, did I can't speak this segment. I
don't know what's going on. On the other hand, you
(01:13:59):
have a different editorial from the Wall Street Journal yesterday,
same day, the Price of Winning the Trade War. Multiple
trade deals announced by President Trump yesterday rather on Tuesday,
including Japan. It is good news, as the editorial board
(01:14:24):
points out, and that you have some of the cessation
of hostilities and escalation. But as they point out, if
this is winning a trade war, we'd hate to see
what losing looks like. And this is true again. The
trade policy is an example of government getting in the
(01:14:46):
way of the private sector and private sector innovation, explicitly
contrary to what the Trump administration is trying to do
on the AI side of things. As the editorial reads,
mister Trump held the pact with characteristic modesty as perhaps
(01:15:07):
the largest deal ever made. Details remain sparse, but the
core appears to be a Japanese commitment to invest five
hundred and fifty billion dollars in the US while reducing
barriers to imports of American agricultural products such as rice.
In exchange, mister Trump will reduce his reciprocal tariffs on
(01:15:27):
Japan to fifteen percent from twenty five percent, including apparently
on automobiles. Now, this is good news to see the
terrifray go down from twenty five percent to fifteen percent,
but it's still a fifteen percent tax on Japanese imports,
which goes to a point that the editorial reads, which
(01:15:51):
I think is exactly spot on.
Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
Don't believe the White.
Speaker 6 (01:15:54):
House spin that Japanese exporters will pay this tax. They
might absorb some of it on the product and the competition,
but American businesses and consumers will pay more to and
thus be either less competitive or have a lower standard
of living. And they point out something very important, as
(01:16:15):
the Trump team tries to categorize this deal as some
kind of major victory for the United States of America,
that five hundred and fifty billion dollars in new Japanese
investment also sounds better than it may be once we
know the details. The Prime Minister of Japan suggest that
(01:16:35):
Tokyo will offer government loans and guarantees to support these
investments with the aim to build resilient supply chains and
key sectors. But that raises the prospect that the money,
if it actually comes through, will get caught up in
Japanese industrial policy, which means that it's going to be
(01:17:00):
a little more difficult to make sure that the money flows.
Trump even said that Japan will make these investments at
my direction in the US will receive ninety percent of
the profits. Yikes. Indeed, who is the the federal government
or the President of the United States to have any
role in deciding what investment flows happen from the private sector?
(01:17:26):
I just these are not wins. Are they better than
where things were? Okay, slightly, but only better than where
things were. With Trump putting these policies into place, and
these tariffs and so forth into place, we're not really
getting good or better trade deals on the whole.
Speaker 5 (01:17:44):
And that is deeply unfortunate.
Speaker 6 (01:17:46):
Now, if you disagree, five six six nine zero is
the koa common spirit health text line, Shoot me a
text and let me know. So we got to run
to a break, but we've got some time on the
other side as we continue. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger in for
Mandy Connell. Right here, I'm Koe real quick on the
trade issue. We're talking about this from a guy by
the name of Spencer Hakimian. Toyota is up plus eight
(01:18:12):
percent on the news. This was yesterday or a couple
days ago, on the news of a fifteen percent tariff.
Why it's simple, Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other
American manufacturers are going to be paying fifty percent more
for their steel, fifty percent more for the copper, twenty
(01:18:33):
five percent more for their Canadian production, twenty five percent
more for their Mexican production, and fifty five percent on
their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay fifteen percent
more and they're done with all the shenanigans. Ford has
to pay much more than that, a lot more. In fact,
(01:18:54):
we're giving a Japanese car company an advantage over American
car companies, all in the hopes of bringing auto jobs
back to America.
Speaker 5 (01:19:07):
Zero D chess.
Speaker 6 (01:19:10):
Look, this is one of those issues where as you know,
I vehemently disagree with President Trump. Andre Jimmy Sangenberger and
for Mandy Connell, that's sort of the vocal or the
vocal position that I take economically and have from the
beginning from before he ran for president, and I disagreed
(01:19:31):
with Trump on trade, and this is such an important point.
American auto manufacturers are going to have their costs higher
for production in the United States because of the increased
cost of steel coming in to America, copper coming into America,
and then for the components that they need created in
(01:19:54):
Canada and Mexico and China. Because if you've ever read
eye pencil, you know that even in a pencil, you
have different components on the manufacturing.
Speaker 5 (01:20:06):
Chain all across the globe.
Speaker 6 (01:20:09):
The rubber for the eraser, and the metal and the
lead and the wood, and on and on it goes.
And that can be components from all across the globe,
including Canada, Mexico, China in the case of a vehicle,
and different components being manufactured there. This is a costly endeavor.
It ain't a win, and I just I can't buy
(01:20:33):
into the spin on this. And it's unfortunate to see
because when it comes to tax policy and so many
other things, President Trump is right on, but on this
one he's just consistently left the mark, consistently left the mark.
I'm Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell on the
(01:20:53):
other side here on KOA, I'll be joined in studio.
Speaker 5 (01:20:57):
She's already here.
Speaker 6 (01:20:58):
By Priscilla Ron, educator extraordinair, author of a very important book,
Restoring Education in America. We'll talk about it on the
other side as we continue in KOA. Priscilla Ron just
so happens to be in studio with me, and not
just on any day, but on her birthday. Nonetheless, happy birthday,
and as we talk about your new book, welcome to
(01:21:21):
the show.
Speaker 22 (01:21:22):
And also Darren always kicks ass. Well, it's so great
to be on with you, my friend. Thank you for
the birthday wishes.
Speaker 6 (01:21:28):
Absolutely good to have you here in studio, your first
time on KOA. You've got a new book out, it's
on Amazon, Restoring Education in America, an inspirational teacher Toolbox.
And look, let's introduce folks to you for a moment,
because you're about to enter your thirty second year of education,
(01:21:49):
which is.
Speaker 5 (01:21:50):
A remarkable feat. Tell us a little bit about your background.
Speaker 22 (01:21:54):
Sure, I am graduated from Texas Christian University in Fort
Worth and I started teaching in Humble Texas, which is
a northern suburb of Houston. And then I after two
years of teaching, I came to Colorado and I've been
in Colorado ever since.
Speaker 5 (01:22:10):
I'm a music educator.
Speaker 22 (01:22:12):
But in between that thirty two years, I was a
school principal, two years of principal in Alaska, one year
in Brighton twenty seven j and a few summers in.
Speaker 5 (01:22:21):
Denver public schools.
Speaker 22 (01:22:23):
And I was also a full time teacher evaluator in DPS.
And I love doing that, traveling all around to different schools.
And you know, education has changed in three plus decades.
We've been through nine to eleven, We've been through COVID,
We've been through so many different iterations of what policies
(01:22:48):
look like. Yeah, so that's the cliff notes version. And
I was inspired going into what will likely be my
last year of teaching this year to leave my legacy,
so to speak, and to share what I've learned with
other educators.
Speaker 5 (01:23:03):
You know, it is remarkable to think about.
Speaker 6 (01:23:06):
And this is the first time hearing that you're looking
at retiring, you're from education after thirty two well we'll
be thirty two years. You are, you have the status
of what's called a Master teacher. What does that mean?
What does it take to get there?
Speaker 22 (01:23:20):
So less than one percent of Colorado teachers have a
designation of Master Educator. And one way that you can
get that designation is to become a National Board Certified teacher.
And it's a very very rigorous process. About forty percent
of teachers nationwide who go through the process become National
Board Certified teachers in their first try.
Speaker 5 (01:23:42):
So it's very rigorous.
Speaker 22 (01:23:44):
You have to videotape your teaching, you have to answer
a lot of questions and write essays and reflect on
your practice. And so you once you pass that National
Board certification, you submit it to the state and then
they give you a big fancy designation as you have
become a Master teacher.
Speaker 6 (01:24:03):
What that shows is just sort of adds to the repertoire,
if you will, what you have brought in education. Which
is why when I saw that you were bringing out
this book Restoring Education in America, I thought I need
to talk to Priscilla, because so much, as you say,
has changed in education, but there are also so many
problems with it. I mean, I have seen the rise
(01:24:25):
in disciplinary issues that has gotten worse and worse. We
talked about this during COVID and especially in Denver Public
Schools where you are where the school district has just
been so terrible in terms of its policies on and
enforcement of discipline. You also have school safety issues that
have over the decades just gotten worse and worse in
(01:24:45):
a variety of different ways, and the quality of education
has absolutely cratered, especially for black and brown students that
say at school district like Denver Public Schools says, hey,
we want to make our policies toward advancing black excellent
and so on and so forth, and those things are
not happening when you actually look at the data, If you,
through your lens of thirty two years in education, look
(01:25:08):
at and sort of diagnose what's happening big picture in
our K through twelve system that needs to be repaired.
Speaker 5 (01:25:14):
How do you look at that?
Speaker 22 (01:25:16):
Well, what we've seen is the low expectations that I
have a whole chapter talking about how we've become so
biased in how we address discipline issues, especially in city
schools where we're talking about black and black and second
language learner students and brown students, where we've lowered expectations
(01:25:38):
and we view students in a deficit mindset and not capable.
I mean it came from the federal government when we
had President Biden who didn't think black people knew how
to get an ID or use the computer. Those are
the types of soft bigotry that have bled into public education.
And I saw it in my colleagues, but more pointedly,
(01:26:00):
I saw it in our professional development, where they actually
taught us how to be that discriminatory towards black and
brown students. It went from bad to worse, and we
started seeing it in the declining standardized test scores. And
we see it across the nation where we have entire
school districts where you can't find a single student on
(01:26:22):
grade level in math and literacy. And so it's because
of the focus from strong pedagogy and master teaching to
social justice issues, and that is what we have been
bombarded with the last five years.
Speaker 6 (01:26:37):
Look, I think what the last couple of years, if
you look at the scores even for Asian students in
Denver public schools have actually gone down, which just shows
how morbid and sordid the situation is.
Speaker 22 (01:26:50):
I've tried to explain this to the school district. They've
asked me Priscilla because I'm Asian, my mom is Korean,
my dad was black. And how is explained to me
how it is that Asian test scores are dropping and
we're losing Asian educators. And I said, this is simple.
There's no meritocracy in this district. You've lowered standards, you've
eliminated competition, high level courses, advanced level courses. And Asian
(01:27:16):
parents they're taking their eighth graders and sending them to
Littleton Cherry Creek other school districts where their kids can
go to a high school that's more competitive. And DPS
in particular, has spent so much time quote unquote training
educators about black educators, they forgot to teach them about
Asian educators. And Asian educators were being insulted, scored low
(01:27:38):
on their teaching practices, and so they decided to leave.
So we've declined in the number of Asian educators even
in our school district.
Speaker 6 (01:27:46):
Priscill leron joining us here in studio, author of the
book Restoring Education in America, An Inspirational Teacher Toolbox, and
I do have to note that you have a pretty
prominent forward author, which is Colonel Alan West. Talk to
us a little bit about both getting him involved in
this project because I know you've been friends with him
(01:28:07):
for a long time, but also about sort of his
the fire in his ballet for education because he's not
a teacher, but he has wealth of experience in the
military and politics and more areas.
Speaker 22 (01:28:19):
Sure, for the folks who don't know who Lieutenant Colonel
Alan West is, he's a former congressman and he's a
Christian Conservative speaker.
Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
Very notable.
Speaker 22 (01:28:29):
I met him at Western Conservative Summit while I was
still vice chair of the Colorado GOP, and you know,
full disclosure, I was like, ooh, there's a black Conservative.
Speaker 9 (01:28:38):
And I made a.
Speaker 22 (01:28:39):
Beeline and I introduced myself and I gave him my
card and I'm like, I'm not like a stalker or
crazy person. I just I'm the vice chair of the
party and I just wanted to introduce myself. And he
was so gracious and took a picture with me and
gave me his personal number and said, if you need anything,
let me know. And it just he became my mentor.
(01:28:59):
He literally came my mentor. Anytime I call him, he
picks up the phone. And when I started talking to
him about this idea, I said, you know, I have
this idea to write a book. He said, tell me
what you're thinking, what it's about, and so I told him,
and then he said, who's writing your forward? And then
I just said, you are so like, Wen, do you
(01:29:20):
need the forward by? And I'm like, oh, in a
couple of weeks, I had it within twenty four hours. Wow,
they had it. And he's he's so supportive and he's
part of what I talk about in my last chapter
about you know, when you rise up and you're successful,
don't pull the ladder up behind you.
Speaker 5 (01:29:35):
Help other people, mentor other people.
Speaker 22 (01:29:38):
And he's been such a rich resource for me, so
much wisdom and just a very comprehensive person to be
in my life.
Speaker 6 (01:29:48):
This brings up a I think an important question, a
rather interesting one, and we've talked over the years since
I first met you. When you were you ran for
a Sea regent and a Republican primary, were unsuccessful, but
it was your first bid for anything like that, and
at the time you were heavily involved in the Teachers
Union in Denver. You were one of the people that
was involved in funding decisions on campaigns and so forth,
(01:30:10):
and a few years ago you left the Teachers Union
after just all the craziness, I mean, especially in COVID
and the failure to advocate for students and so forth,
and you have now in this book that is meant
for teachers who aren't traditionally thought of as like conservative,
although you yourself certainly are the likes of Lieutenant Colonel
(01:30:33):
Alan West doing your forwards so on and so forth.
Just for a moment, talk to us about your political
journey in the last several years and the political nature
of both education and teachers at this moment. Is you
have a book that isn't you know, it's no holds
barred in terms of your viewpoint and where you're coming
from with your worldview. But yet you have this discussion
(01:30:56):
that is meant primarily for the teacher audience, so.
Speaker 5 (01:31:00):
Well the audience.
Speaker 22 (01:31:01):
You know, I grew up with a military father, and
I grew up conservative. My father was very patriotic. So
when I turned eighteen, I was a registered Republican in Texas.
I believe I vote. My first vote was for Bush,
who became governor of Texas. So I didn't know any
different than a conservative viewpoint. But I was a young
(01:31:21):
teacher and everybody said you have to join the union.
And at that time, thirty plus years ago, being in
the unionment you got a publication every week, you got
discounts on your car insurance, and you know, you got
to go to professional development and learn and be with
your colleagues. It obviously has changed, and over the years
I learned all of my activism through the teachers Union,
(01:31:44):
how to door knock, how to write letters, how to
talk to your congress person and lobby. So everything I
learned about politics I learned as a union activist. But
then I started to see the demise of education and
the quality of teaching, and I started going into our
executive meetings talking about this is what we need to
(01:32:04):
start doing, and no one would listen to me, and
I got more and more frustrating. And that's when I
got introduced to the Colorado GOP. I met the former chairman,
Steve House, and I met with him and I said,
you know, I'm a teacher, but i'm a Republican and
I'm really frustrated with education policy. And he started mentoring me,
(01:32:24):
and that's when he said, you know, we at the
time they didn't have a candidate to run for CU
regent in CD six, he said, you know, that would
be a perfect place for you to run, you're an educator,
and I filed and then COVID hit don't recommend running
a campaign during COVID, but that was the start. And
when I didn't win, he said, Priscilla, that's okay, you
(01:32:45):
should run for vice chair of the Colorado GOP. Which
I really thought he was crazy at that point, because
again I didn't have the language you and I met.
I didn't sound like a Republican. I had all of
the public education liberal left linging lingo, but I wasn't
a liberal.
Speaker 5 (01:33:02):
I was a conservative.
Speaker 22 (01:33:03):
So that was the start of my journey to understand
how to match what I believed was what I was saying.
Speaker 6 (01:33:11):
Wait, so then, how Priscilla Ron, do you evaluate the
teachers unions in twenty twenty five, especially, I mean, now,
there is a push by some including coridangelists who joined
me on this station on Monday when I filled in
for Ross and others, who are pushing to get rid
of the national Charter that apparently the National Education Association
is the only union that has a federal charter giving
(01:33:33):
them all sorts of privileges and so forth. Then you've
got the American Federation of Teachers and so forth. So
how do you evaluate the teachers' unions at this moment.
Speaker 22 (01:33:42):
Well, look, Becky and Randy, who are the leaders of
both of those teachers unions, are making eight and a
half times more money than the average teacher. They're making
five hundred thousand plus dollars a year to yell and
scream and gaslight educators into what's happening.
Speaker 5 (01:33:59):
And so I can no longer.
Speaker 22 (01:34:02):
Defend a system that is hurting kids, that is keeping
especially the students that they claim to be helping down,
because there's just no evidence of them helping black and
brown and second language learners or standing up for American
citizens to begin with. So I'm all for, we don't
need a teachers union. I look, seventy dollars a month
(01:34:25):
is what I was paying. I gave myself a seventy
dollars a month raise. I can put gas in my car.
That was, and that was right in the middle of
you know, the inflation. I'm like, oh, now I can
actually put gas in my car and focus on the
things that I that I can impact more.
Speaker 6 (01:34:41):
Let's talk more about the book Restoring Education in America
and Inspirational Teacher Toolbox. Why, after thirty two years in
education going into thirty second did you decide that this
book was necessary and fundamentally what is it about.
Speaker 22 (01:34:58):
I thought it was time because President Trump signed his
two executive orders to NDI and to decrease the size
of the Department of Education. I hope he's successful in
eliminating it because that will bring all of those decisions
and the money back to the states and back to
local school districts where we can actually use that money.
(01:35:20):
We don't need to spend billions of dollars in a
system coming out of DC. I think we have very
smart district leaders right here, and we need the money
locally for our kids in the classroom and.
Speaker 5 (01:35:33):
To pay teachers more. That would be great.
Speaker 22 (01:35:36):
But I was looking, or I have been looking at
the professional development that I've been provided, and it's been
very ineffective.
Speaker 5 (01:35:44):
After three decades.
Speaker 22 (01:35:46):
You've got to give me something that's going to inspire me,
an additional tool. You cannot give a professional development that's
for the lowest common denominator, which is a young educator.
You have veteran educators who don't need any more icebreakers.
We don't need to hear any more about you know,
creating for equity and all of this stuff. I'm like,
(01:36:09):
this is a practical tool and I can't wait for
somebody to do it. I have thirty plus years of
experience in all levels, and I should be the one
to tell the story.
Speaker 5 (01:36:19):
And I'm going to do it.
Speaker 6 (01:36:19):
And like twenty seconds real quick on this question. You
are actually offering. This is a course coming up for
teachers where they can actually get continuing education credit.
Speaker 22 (01:36:30):
Yes, if you are in Colorado or any other state,
you can get a certificate at the end of my
course that you can use towards your professional development, towards
renewing your license.
Speaker 6 (01:36:39):
That is fantastic, Priscilla Ron, just a few minutes left
with you, and I want to ask you this question
because obviously this book is primarily for teachers in the
K three twelve system, but also for homeschool parents, So
keep that in mind if you're a homeschool parent. But
when you think about a book like this, I think about,
especially as a radio host with a broad audience, lessons
(01:37:00):
in takeaway excuse me, everyday people can get from a
book like this. What do you hope they can take
away if they were to say, you know what, I
want to check out this book by Priscilla.
Speaker 22 (01:37:10):
We need great candidates to run for school board all
across the nation, but you've got to know what's been
going on in the school district. We want everyday people
to know how to have a great relationship with their
child's teacher, or their child's principle, or their child's superintendent,
how to go and talk with your legislator about things
that are going on in policy.
Speaker 5 (01:37:31):
So this book is a tool for everybody.
Speaker 22 (01:37:33):
There's reflective questions at the end because it'll grow you
as a human being, how you interact with other people.
And I think there's no loss to buy in this book.
And when you're done, give it to a teacher that
you know or someone in your neighborhood, a homeschool, charter school,
private school, Catholic school, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 5 (01:37:51):
I appreciate that idea too.
Speaker 6 (01:37:54):
Read the book, pass it on because these are tips
that teachers are not, like you said, getting in professional development.
And that's no surprise when you see the quality of
declining caliber of education that we've got.
Speaker 5 (01:38:09):
One final thing.
Speaker 6 (01:38:11):
You don't see as much faith representation, especially in public schools,
but that's clearly the worldview you come from, a Christian worldview,
but bringing some faith into this book, but also into
how you sort of approach your teaching.
Speaker 5 (01:38:23):
Talk to me about that for a moment.
Speaker 22 (01:38:25):
So for me, when I read my Bible, it says
God says, apart from Me, you can do nothing. And
if we're going to do great things, we do it
with the creator of the universe, the guy who designed
everything that we see and is the source of inspiration
and faith and sustenance and the one that I go
to when things get really really bad and I want
to quit.
Speaker 5 (01:38:44):
He's my source.
Speaker 22 (01:38:45):
And so every chapter is based on a biblical concept.
This is not a Christian book per se. It's just
it's embedded. And I want people to know that if
you're a person of faith, no matter what your denomination
is or religion is, there is an element of truth
that will help sustain you beyond just what we see
(01:39:06):
in the policies that we see, because we need more
than just policies. We need principles, we need values, we
need character, we need all of these things that will
help ground us into the why. And each scripture is
a why behind why. I'm sharing this concept and why
it works.
Speaker 6 (01:39:24):
Yeah, the book is Restoring Education in America, an inspirational
teacher toolbox. The author on her birthday, joining us here
in studio, Priscilla Ron, Happy birthday, my friend, and thanks
so much for joining us.
Speaker 5 (01:39:37):
Very interesting conversation. Thank you, Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (01:39:39):
And we'll see where K through twelve education goes moving ahead,
but so many changes and reforms need to happen as
we wrap up the program.
Speaker 5 (01:39:47):
Two quick things. One, make sure.
Speaker 6 (01:39:50):
Twenty four seven three sixty five you can check out
what I've got going as far as content and reach
out to me via email from my website Jimmy Sangenburger
dot com. Keep it, there's no AI or you in Sangenburger.
It's all ease, all the time, once you know that
Sangenburger is easy.
Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
Plus.
Speaker 6 (01:40:10):
This coming Sunday at the Genesee Pub and Barbecue, the
Jimmy Junior Blues Band will be performing from three to
six pm. Come on out have a good time if
you feel so inclined for some great blues and some
rock and roll in the mix. Really looking forward to
all that is coming on Sunday, And as we go
(01:40:33):
out to you might as well a little bit of
harmonica Jimmy Sangenberger in for Andy Connell today. Thank you
so much for joining us, and make God bless America.
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
No, it's Mandy Connell and Don on KOAM ninety one FM.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Got study the nicety.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Many Connell keeping your sad baby.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Classic classic classic.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
You know what this means.
Speaker 6 (00:40):
Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell. A rod behind
the glass here on k O A a rod. Brother,
I gotta tell you, I hope the sanging.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Is burger in today.
Speaker 6 (00:57):
Brother, Yes, Brother, the sang his burgering, Brother, it better be.
If it doesn't bend, we've got problems. If you got
a problem, you better get it together. Or if you've
got a problem with something, I say, text me on
the KOA commic spirit health text line at five six six.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Nine zero, every text with brother. I know.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
In fact, we should begin with a little tribute to
Ull Cogan. Look, I'm not a wrestling guy, but everybody,
whether you are a wrestling fan or not, knows who
Hulk Hogan now was as he passed away at the
age of seventy one, and knows him by reputation, can
(01:43):
tell his voice, can tell what he looks like, and
you probably remember when he was at the Republican Big
Rally in Madison Square Garden and also at the Republican
National Convention when President Trump took the nomination. And these
(02:04):
two clips I have might be a montage for both events,
or they might just be from the Madison Square Garden.
I'm not sure, but regardless, Hulk Hogan was a spectacular
individual or to come out and speak on behalf of Trump.
And it was the first time that we've really seen
(02:24):
so many different luminaries, different stars of this caliber and
Republican conventions, at least in my memory, or Republican rallies,
but there was Hulk Hogan.
Speaker 7 (02:34):
What you gonna do about the border invasion? What's she
gonna do about in place? What you gonna do about
keeping her mouth a safe? Brother? And what you're gonna
do I'm putting out, putting God in our homes, in
(02:57):
our country and our schools.
Speaker 8 (03:03):
Huh Look Chapa media, dumb y'all, brother, Lopa media. Ooh again,
look trapa meda nice oa cry again.
Speaker 6 (03:21):
I believe that was at the RNC if I recall correctly.
The electricity is just so palpable, and I think that's
the sort of thing that President Trump was always good
during his rallies at bringing out but having somebody like
hul Cogan was extremely unique. He was, indeed, as everybody's saying,
a larger than life personality. He had a successful career
(03:46):
in the ring as well as outside of the ring.
According to Fox News, he died after suffering a possible
cardiac arrest at his home in Clearwater, Florida. First reported
I Believe by as they Say TMZ Sports emergency personnel
reportedly rushed to his home and he was being carried out,
(04:07):
seen being carried out of it in an ambulance. WWE
released the statement later. WWE is sadin to learn a
WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan has passed away. The
company wrote, one of pop culture's most recognizable figures, Hogan
helped WWE achieve global recognition in the nineteen eighties, and
(04:31):
they extend their condolences as well to Hogan's family, friends,
and fans. Clearwater Police Department and Clearwater Fire Department also
releasing a statement saying they'd responded to a medical call
at nine to fifty one am today and that the
nature of the call was for a cardiac arrest. A
(04:53):
seventy one year old resident Terry Boela Bola, also known
as Old Cogan, was treated by Clearwater Fire and Rescue
Cruised before being taken by SunStar to Morton Plant Hospital,
where he was pronounced is ceased.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Old Cogan.
Speaker 6 (05:12):
May you rest in peace, and may you be bringing
that energy, that enthusiasm, that electricity into the next life,
that larger than life personality as well. It really is
another loss, especially after Ozzy Osbourne the other day, massive
loss to the music business, to pop culture there. It
(05:35):
is always sad and tragic when you lose pop culture
icons like these two gentlemen who made such waves in
their own ways and in their own fields. It's something
where look, I was at Fan Expo Denver earlier this
month and now is a weekend where people are dressed
(05:56):
up in costumes as characters from all kinds of different franchises,
could be Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, Harry Potter, you
name it. If there were fandoms, there was a Bob
Ross Deadpool, which was fantastic. Hey, Rod, I got to
show you the picture of Bob Ross Deadpool. All sorts
of fandoms represented in different ways because they relate, they connect,
(06:20):
they love it They're all about how you can make
a big difference in their lives or how people's lives
are impacted in these ways and how personal they are
from Hollywood's stars that you know, a lot of times
(06:40):
you think the politics, okay, well there are some left wingers,
but then there are others who are just wanting to
entertain and to make an impact in their own way.
So that was Hulk Hogan, and we saw him at
the end get more political, particularly because of his longtime
friendship with President Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
And here we are.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
At this moment in a another loss to pop culture
and to.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
America's fabric of.
Speaker 6 (07:21):
I mean, I don't know. It's just been in a
reflective mood this month about a lot of things, including
fandoms and the ways in which our pop culture is
accentuated and everything, and.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
It's just it makes a difference for people.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
A lot of times you can find fans who go
through difficult times and you know, Luke Skywalker helps shepherd
them through that difficult time and makes a real impact
and difference on their lives and sometimes you just don't
see it or recognize it, but it's there. Rest in peace,
Hulk Hogan, as well as the Osborne this week, and
(08:02):
I talked about him on Monday. Let me add in
when I filled in for Us Kaminski. Let me add
in At Folner, founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation,
who passed away at the age of eighty three over
the weekend, one of the most impactful conservatives of the
modern conservative movement. A lot of losses going on of late.
(08:26):
I'm Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell in. Look,
there's so much that has been going on lately regarding
the saga of twenty sixteen, coming back into the spotlight
of twenty sixteen being the focus again in the political discussions,
(08:51):
and look, we'll get to the claims Tulci Gabbert is
making some of the assertions from President Trump little later
in the program. But I think that there is a
real risk that Republicans are running at this point in time,
and that President Trump is running at.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
This time when it comes to.
Speaker 6 (09:11):
This situation of twenty sixteen, because he's losing out on
opportunities and now he's making this a fight between him
and Barack Obama, who Look, I dislike Obama intensely. I
think he is one of the worst presidents in American history.
I do believe he's worse than Joe Biden, which is
(09:34):
crazy to say, but I believe it's true because the
impact of policy, I think from Obama is more significant.
I think he did a slew of things that leave
behind a legacy that isn't worth being proud of. But
despite that, he's very popular. He is very beloved by
(09:56):
a lot of Americans who look back in retrospect and
they're like, you know what, Obama was pretty decent, or
they look back and they say, you know what, I
kind of liked him as a person. And so for
President Trump to now try and take a fight against
Obama years later, I don't know how wise that is.
(10:16):
And some folks like Dan Turntine on the left are
getting pretty excited about all this.
Speaker 9 (10:23):
You woke up Barack Obama, which is awesome, Okay, the
game Obama took it. Michelle is still incensed that the
party took it for ten years while Trump smacked him around.
If this gets Obama up to start, the only person
who's ever effectively punched Trump in the face is Barack
(10:45):
Obama at the White House Correspondence dinner when he mocked
him to his face, and the whole crowd was laughing
at Trump. So for me, bring it, get Obama off
the sidelines.
Speaker 6 (10:57):
I love this.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
Get Obama off the sidelines.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
I love this. And his enthusiasm continued on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
You wonder what if this is what we get to
talk of.
Speaker 9 (11:07):
He's not talking about the Big Beautiful Bill, he's not
talking about the real lives of real people. He is
trying to relitigate ten years ago like a temper tantrum
two year old, like.
Speaker 10 (11:17):
I really did it, I really did it.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
This is awesome.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
And one more thing from Tarentine about that point, really
putting a pin on it again from the left perspective
that the GOP is totally being distracted from touting or
talking about trying to reframe the Big Beautiful Bill as
some kind of positive legislation when it is very controversial,
very much disliked by frankly people on both sides of
(11:42):
the aisle all across the country, and other things that
the president could highlight as far as his achievements in
the past six months, but they're not really going to
answer those questions. Instead, it's going to be a different
set of questions.
Speaker 9 (11:55):
Republicans have been saying during August, with Trump's help, they
were going to go home and sell this. If you're
a Republican and you go home right now, the first
two questions you're likely going to get are, if you're
a House member, are you going to vote to release
all the Jeffrey Epstein files? And what do you make
of this? You know now this other conspiracy theory. You're
(12:16):
not going to get to the big beautiful bill for
the first twenty minutes because you're going to answer all
this nonsense.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Here's a question for you. Five six six nine zero.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
The KWA Common Spirit Health text line was President Trump
backed into a corner on Epstein and taking so much
heat over Jeffrey Epstein, a conspiracy theory that he was
never too involved in, too hyped up about, but he
did say some things to pay lip service to it
(12:46):
and give a lot of folks at MAGA land who
wanted Epstein addressed and records released and so forth a
little bit of hope that it was going to happen.
And then he hasn't delivered on that. And plus Tulci Gabbard,
(13:07):
Trump was not too pleased with her over Iran and
some of the things that she had said, and he
was getting questions saying, well, Tulci Gabbert said this as
Director of National Intelligence, So why are you believing that?
Speaker 7 (13:22):
So?
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Is this in part an attempt from Tulci Gabbert to
sort of redeem herself in the eyes of Trump? Is
this in part an attempt for President Trump to change
the discussion among the magabase, to go back to Russia
Gate and the nonsense that was spewed and be able
to say, oh, look at the Russia Russia Russia hoax.
We now have more stuff, and look, Obama is the
(13:44):
real villain in this story, which we pretty much.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
Knew these things already, by the.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Way, is that what this is a big giant distraction
from Epstein that is in effect distracting everybody from discussing
the big beautiful bill or other achievements of the first
six months of the Trump and administration. It's a question
that Susan Page asked over on Fox News.
Speaker 11 (14:11):
You know, I'm not saying it's not serious, and we
need to have trust in our intelligence operations. We need
to have trust in what our president tells us there
that our intelligence operations have concluded. I just find this
a mysific mystifying line of inquiry. You know, the president
has good economic numbers to talk about, he's got trade deals,
(14:33):
he's got a AI regime now that he's unveiled today. Uh,
he has a lot of talk to talk about, and
much of it is very positive for the first six
months of his term.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So what is the uh?
Speaker 11 (14:46):
Why is he talking about this?
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Why is he talking about this?
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Look, it is worth pursuing to some extent, but I
think it would have been more worth pursuing during his
first term than trudging this up in his second term.
Speaker 5 (15:02):
Years removed.
Speaker 6 (15:06):
And it's not like the revelations are really that substantial.
We did know most of the facts that had previously
been uncovered. But the problem now for Republicans is that
President Trump has really taken to bring out the notion
of Obama being the villain, to the point of saying
(15:30):
he's guilty and throwing out the word treason.
Speaker 12 (15:33):
But the leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack
Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him? And except for
the fact that he gets shielded by the press for
his entire life, that's the one they.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Look He's guilty?
Speaker 12 (15:48):
Is that a question?
Speaker 4 (15:49):
You know?
Speaker 12 (15:49):
I like to say let's give it time.
Speaker 13 (15:53):
It's there.
Speaker 12 (15:54):
He's guilty.
Speaker 13 (15:55):
They this was treason, This was every word you can
They tried to steal the election, they tried to upfuscape
the election.
Speaker 12 (16:06):
They did things that nobody's ever even imagined. Even in
other countries. You've seen some pretty rough countries. This man
has seen some pretty rough countries, but you've never seen
anything like that. And we have all of the documents,
and from what Dulci told me, she's got thousands of
additional documents.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Coming, thousands of additional documents coming. Guilty, treason again, drudging
up the past here and look again, there may be
some merit to laying this out, But does this help
him politically? I really don't know. I tend to think
(16:48):
it doesn't because you're distracting from issues. But you're also
setting up a fight of Trump versus Obama, and quite frankly,
I don't think that's a fight Trump should want to
engage in.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
Especially a lot of times former.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Presidents years removed from office, they are looked back at
as you know, okay, they.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
Seem like a pretty good guy.
Speaker 6 (17:12):
They don't necessarily remember as much from their administration how
terrible Obama was. But They will remember the attitude he brought,
the history making that he had by getting elected. They
will remember that he was affable enough. Maybe they think
they were millennials who were in college as I was,
(17:36):
although I was outspoken against him in college as I
was when he ran the first time, and so they
looked positively. I think this is unwise, and I worry
that it's a distraction that will cause a slew of problems.
Sean Spice are also critical of the rollout.
Speaker 14 (17:55):
What upsets me about this is another is the rollout again,
It's it's the Edsteine equivalent of Binders. If you're going
to come out and talk about this and roll it out,
then don't throw out some crap on on Newsmax and
call it a day.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Sit out there and.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
Say, here's the evidence. We got these guys dead to right.
We're referring it to doj for prosecution.
Speaker 14 (18:16):
But if you're gonna get my hopes of that you
finally got these guys and you come out by throwing
out some you know, the willy nilly.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Stuff, that's not going to cut it. And I kind
of think that's what they're doing here.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
At this point. We'll have to see there's certainly a
lot more that President Trump is going to want to
roll out from this with Tulca Gabbard, and we'll see
how it all goes. Coming up on the other side,
we're going to take a break and we'll be joined
by two CU regions for the next two segments. Kali
(18:47):
Renaisson is the chair of the CU Board of Regents
from Boulder, Colorado, and a Democrat. Ken Monterra, vice chair
of this Board of Regents, he is from Colorado Springs
and a Republican, and they are both speaking out now
in an a exclusive conversation together about the saga of
(19:12):
Wanda James. You've heard me talk about on this program.
And Wanda James is the CU regent who was censured
last month for trying to gut censured and sanctioned for
trying to gut funding for a public health awareness program
on high potency THCHC that she accused of being racist.
(19:37):
And even after the university complied and took down these
images she thought were racist or said we're racist, she
still persisted to try and cut the funding. And now
the consequences have come and she's not letting it go.
We'll talk with regents Kali Renisson and Ken Montera. On
the other side right here Jimmy Segenberger and for Andy
(19:58):
Connell and KOA.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
A very important.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
Saga that is out of the University of Colorado, which
I don't think has gotten nearly enough attention, certainly in
terms of giving out the facts and the reality of
what has in fact been going on with the story
of the censure and sanctions of Wanda James, the CB
(20:25):
one first Congressional District regent for the University of Colorado.
Of course, there's a eight member, nine member board of Regents,
eight elected for each congressional district one at large, and
Wanda James had, going back to late January, begun a
crusade to defund entirely a public health awareness program to
(20:51):
educate kids and pregnant mothers, in particular on the risks
of high potency th that central ingredient in marijuana. Wanda James,
in addition to being a CU regent, is a prominent.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
Marijuana shop owner.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
In fact, or claim to fame in that regard is
that she owns the first black owned legal marijuana dispensary,
and that was a big thing when she ran for
CU regent and when this campaign was out there, put
out by the Colorado School of Public Health, which is
at three universities, but particularly here the University of Colorado,
(21:36):
she claimed that their t on THHC program, done by
the School of Public Health and Nishim Health, a public
benefit corporation, that what they had put out in images,
these medical illustrations of children in utero and older, were
(21:58):
racist because they were of black children. Never mind that
there were white children in identical images as well. But
she decreed that it was racist and made a protest
and they were taken down within like forty eight hours.
Those images were taken down, but she continued to persist
in trying to defund the program and got in contact
(22:20):
with her friends at the Governor's office to try and
make this happen. Ultimately, she was censured by her colleagues
in a by partisan vote after an investigation that was
initiated in a bi partisan way by my two guests
here on KOA. I am joined by Cali Renaissan, the
Chair of the CU Board of Regents, a Democrat from Boulder,
(22:42):
and Ken Monterra, the Vice chair of the CU Board
of Regents, hailing from Colorado.
Speaker 5 (22:48):
Springs, a Republican.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
They both join me now in the kind of bipartisan fashion.
I think folks will start to expect more of and
more of out of the CU Board of Regents.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Welcome regions, Thank you both so much for joining me.
Speaker 15 (23:03):
Thank you very true ready to be here.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
I would welcome the chance to start with you. Regent
Chair Renaissan, how do you look at what has evolved
over time? Because not only had Wanda James, your colleague,
accused this program of being racist even after the images
were taken down, but there have been accusations lobbed against
(23:26):
all of you who voted in a majority vote and
a bipartisan fashion two centsurre and sanction region James saying
that what you all did in that was racist. How
do you respond and what do you look at this
vote in terms of its implications and the message sent.
Speaker 15 (23:43):
I think several things. One, what we did was the
best for CEU. We're upholding our oaths, and we're following
through and holding people accountable who break our policies, just
as we would for a student staff or faculty member.
It's part of our job as a self governing board.
I think the continued continued behaviors that we've seen in
(24:05):
actions are in an unfortunate distraction. They've earned a lot
of time, a lot of people's time, which at this
day and age, we don't really we need that time
to do other things. I'm happy to say the board
continues to work together very well to address the important
topics taking see you so I continue to be pleased
with our board and how everybody puts to you first.
Speaker 6 (24:28):
At the start of the censure meeting at the end
of last month, Wanda James said the following.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Today is not.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
About a censure.
Speaker 16 (24:39):
It is about censorship and retaliation. I was elected by
the people of Colorado. I was not hired by this board,
and I will not be silenced by its traditions or
afraid of this vote. I am being targeted for raising
my voice against a campaign that demeaned, dehumanized, and harmed
the black community. They think I violated my duties by
(25:04):
speaking out against racism.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
Vice Chairman Ken Montera, talk to me for a moment
about the way in which your colleague, Regent Wanda James
has characterized this whole thing from the start, including that
censor vote and since then, but particularly in the context
of what you believe the more bored majority was going
for with this vote.
Speaker 17 (25:28):
Yeah, well, thank you, Jimmy. First of all, I think
it's important to recognize that when Regent James brought up
her objections to those illustrations, as you mentioned, they were
taken off almost immediately. I think it might have been
twenty four hours actually, So we responded to that very quickly.
And as you said, there were other images that were
both of brown people and white people which were not
(25:52):
didn't seem to be as offensive to her. But the
fact is is that we reacted to her concern she had,
and she continued to escalate and elevate the situation on
a daily basis for a long time, said that we
did not react and take down those images, and she
continued to press forward by trying to get the entire
program defunded, which was approved by the legislature and funded
(26:15):
by the Joint Budget Committee to educate Colorado relative to
the impact of ITC and developing minds. And as she
continued to try to discredit the research that was done
and the work that had been done at the School
of Public Health and even go to the Governor's office
to ask them to take down, the takeaway the funding
(26:36):
and divert it to minority owned businesses. It continued to
in our minds move forward relative to our reach of
responsibility fuduiciarily to the University of Colorado, only causing harm
to the university and creating an issue that I don't
think anybody on the board believe exists. Our strategic plan
specifically states so we will represent the universe the state
(26:59):
of Colorado at all of our campuses. Whether you're black, brown, country, urban,
wherever you may come from. We believe that there's an
opportunity for you at one of our campuses, and we
welcome you. And there is in no way that since
I've been on this board that we have done anything
but try to support that strategic plank and try to
offer the University of Colorado to every Colorado and that
(27:22):
may want to go to one of our campuses.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
That's well said.
Speaker 6 (27:25):
We are joined by the Chair and Vice Chair, respectively,
the CU Board of Regents, Cali Renaissance, and Ken Monterra.
I should note that this program was directed by the
Colorado State Legislature several years ago. The t on THHC
campaign is the result of that instruction. And it is
funded by marijuana tax dollars. And speaking of the science here,
(27:47):
this is one other thing that Regent Wanda James said
during the meeting just before the center vote regarding the
scientific piece.
Speaker 16 (27:56):
This was a two million dollars state funder campaign which
CEU's name all over it, targeting the black community with
tire tropes, recycled drunk junk science.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Of course I spoke as a regent.
Speaker 16 (28:09):
I had a duty to do so. And what did
CU's leadership do. They stalled, they debated, and not one
of you regents responded to my text when I asked
for your health.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
Chaerir Cally Renison, I want you to respond to that
second piece about the communications and what sort of went
on in that regard when complaints were made, because it
seems to me like the university reacted quickly. But also
there is that academics piece, the academic freedom piece, that
you're supposed to allow scientists and professionals that are working
at these institutions like CU to do.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Their job.
Speaker 15 (28:46):
Exactly right. I learned about the event doing with the
illustrations after they were already down, and that was about
twenty four hours later, several hours after that she texted
to me and wanted to know if I was going
to join her in dealing with it. I didn't return
the text because it was already solved. She also texted
to a few of the other Democrats, one of which
(29:08):
wrote back in Guana at that time told her don't worry,
it's taken care of and another one was.
Speaker 10 (29:14):
Busy at work.
Speaker 15 (29:15):
So when she says she texted everyone, that's not true.
She did not text the Republicans, just the Democrats. So
that's again just something that is actually not true, and
that evidence is in the report that's available online.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
The extensive report as well.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
We have to take a quick break, but on the
other side, we will pick up our conversation with Calli
Renison and Ken Monterra from the CU Board of Regents
and talk a little bit about the work that they're
doing in a bipartisan fashion and the example I think
that's being set by this board for others throughout Colorado.
As we continue, Jimmy sang In Berger in from Andy
(29:50):
Conno Kioway, joined by two CU Regents, a Democrat and
a Republican respectively. The Chair of the Board of Regents,
Cali Renaissan of Boulder and Chair Ken Montera of Colorado
Springs talking about the recent censure vote and sanctions of
their colleague Wanda James, and before we get back to
our guests, I do want to play snippets wanted James,
(30:13):
Democrat from the first Congressional District, of two other Democratic colleagues,
Elana Spiegel and Elliott Hood and what they had to
say before casting their votes.
Speaker 18 (30:23):
One of the most challenging, dangerous challenges I feel we're
facing today is not disagreement over values or policy. It's
the contesting of basic facts. When that happens, we lose
common ground and weaken the University of Colorado system at
so many students, researchers, faculty depend on to build their future,
(30:44):
support the public good, and provide for each and every
one of their families.
Speaker 19 (30:49):
The bottom line is, regardless of your personal feelings or interests,
there was simply no justifiable reason to publicly and continuously
smear this research program, attempt to the research of our scientists,
and advocate to pull their funding. That is especially true
today when university research programs face significant funding uncertainty, and
(31:10):
over hostility from certain corners of the government. Our scientists
need our support now more than ever.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
They do not need.
Speaker 19 (31:18):
Their elected leaders casting unfounded doubt on the integrity of
their work.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
I couldn't agree more with both of them.
Speaker 6 (31:25):
Regent chair Calli Renaissan and the contesting of basic facts
that Alana Spiegel mentioned there, I think was especially important
because you need to be grounded in facts in order
to have a real meaningful discussion. Talk to me a
little bit about that perspective, and if there's anything that
you think is lacking in terms of knowledge or understanding
(31:45):
about some of the critical facts in this matter.
Speaker 15 (31:49):
Oh yes, thank you. Being a transparent board like we are,
we have all of this information available online. Is includes
the reason behind the center, which have nothing to do
with the illustrations. It also has to do with what
the sanctions involved with the center include. There's a lot
of misinformation being shared about what those sanctions are and
are not. For example, it's said that she's not allowed
(32:11):
to go to football games, and that's nonsense. Anybody can
go to a football game. What she's lost is three
football tickets. She's also stated she can't go to graduations.
That is untrue. That is part of her job as
a regent. She is still an elected regent, and so
she is engaged in the work of regents. She just
doesn't get the extra perks. And I would encourage people
(32:32):
to go to our web page and read those documents.
And one last thing I want to say is that
several times it's been stated that Todd Solomon, President Solomon,
has voted on the center or is behind it or
encouraging it, and I just want to put a stop
to that. That is simply not true. The Board is
President Solomon's boss. We talked to Todd about what happens,
(32:52):
not the other way around. He did not vote. It
was not his pushing that made this happen. This is
a board action.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
And when we're out of Vice.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Jerk Ken Monterra talk to me a little bit about
the bipartisan collaboration on this issue and more generally. But
I think it is important to note that this process
of the investigation began because you, both of you our
guests paired up and said, okay, we need to look
into this, and then ultimately you had a bipartisan vote
with seven members of the Board of Regions, including both
(33:22):
Democrats and Republicans, voting yes.
Speaker 17 (33:26):
Yeah, Jimmy, thank you. I think that's probably the most
clear example of bipartisanship that you could have on a
board was the vote that we had in the comments
that you heard from Regent Spiegel and Regil Elliott. I
think that you know, when Kelly and I were first
elected chair and vice chair, which I think Kelly was
two and a half years ago now, the first time
(33:46):
that we were boot a.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
Chair, we made a commitment to each.
Speaker 17 (33:49):
Other that we would run this sport from a bipartisan standpoint.
We talked to the regions on a regular basis, We
get their viewpoint. We make sure that everybody's voice is heard,
and it's heard clearly, and we don't try to push
our regents one way or the other. They have clear voices,
they have clear mandates from their constituency, and I can
tell you and of them clearly believe that putting the
(34:12):
University of Colorado first is what's most important. And I
could go to every one of those regents and hear
the same thing that above all that what makes the
university a more productive organization, serves more people from Colorado,
and allows us to build a future for this state
is paramount in their mind. And I think that's why
(34:32):
This has been a difficult thing to deal with because
I feel we're dealing with a very partisan individual that
has one viewpoint and does not have a bipartisan view
on how she wants to see and lift the University
of Colorado. And it's showing as we go through this process,
and as Kelly's mentioned, we have spent way too much
time focusing on one individual versus the University of Colorado
(34:55):
and the thousands of students that we serve on a
daily basis.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
Cher Kelly Rannison about thirty seconds for a final word here,
maybe piggybacking on that discussion of bipartisanship and how functionally
you guys really are as a board with this unfortunate
distraction for the past six months.
Speaker 15 (35:11):
Great well, firston, I want to thank you for having
me on. I really appreciate it. Second, I want the
public to know that even though we've had this distraction,
we're still working very hard for the people at Colorado
and see you, and we're still doing it in a
bipartisan manner. I think that people can trust that when
we're making decisions, looking at policies or other things, we're
doing it with them first in our mind.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
Kudos to you both and to the Board of Regions
for holding your own accountable, and especially Chair renn us
In to you and Region Spiegel and Hood because it
is not easy to challenge and to hold accountable a
member of your own political party, and that that's what
you're doing here. And I think that is both to
(35:53):
the credit the three of you and to the board
at large, but also to recognizing that this can and
should be done in a state like Colorado, where it
does seem like sometimes there's just one party running the show.
It's it's just a great message. So thank you both.
I really appreciate it.
Speaker 17 (36:10):
Thank you, Thank thanks. Jeremy, appreciate you having us on.
Speaker 15 (36:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
Jimmy Sang and Berger filling in for Mandy Connell will
pick it up on the other side as we continue
on KOA.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
No, it's Mandy Connell Man on KOAM ninety four one FM.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
God Say Kevin Nynald.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Sad Babe.
Speaker 6 (36:56):
Time now for the second hour. Jimmy Sang and Burger
for Mandy Connell. I don't know that was that day
from last year.
Speaker 11 (37:07):
A rod.
Speaker 6 (37:07):
When that happened live, I hear on Kowa or I
pulled out my harp and you came in recorded. It
was a blast. It was one of those things that
you have to just keep out there. It's like I
got my own little mini theme song whenever I'm in here,
and it is great to be with you. By the way,
the Jimmy Junior Blues Band is playing at the Genesee
(37:29):
Pub and Barbecue this coming Sunday, the twenty seventh, from
three to six pm, genese Pub and Barbecue Afternoon show
yours truly on harmonica doing some vocals too.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
It'll be a great time.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
Come on out if you feel so inclined for some
great music and good times on a weekend afternoon will
be out on the patio. So in the last couple
of segments, second half of the last hour, we were
joined an exclusive interview by the leaders of the CU
(38:08):
Board of Regents, Chair Cali Renaissan and Vice Chair Ken Montera,
a Democrat and a Republican, respectively. And I just want
to offer a couple of thoughts real quick, because this
has been on the story of Wanda James, who tried
to gut a program called t on THHC. It was
all about educating the public, particularly kids and pregnant women,
(38:33):
on the risks of high potency THHC. And she accused
the program of racism because of some medical illustrations that
were taken down after her complaint almost immediately, and then
continue to persist and try to bring in her friends
in the Governor's office and so forth to defund the program. Thankfully,
I think they were unsuccessful, but the governor's office still
(38:56):
tried to do it on her behalf. Get the joint
budget committed need to cut all the money from a
program that was established by the state legislature and funded
through marijuana tax money. And Wanda James, in addition to
being a sea region for the first Congressional district in Denver,
she's also a pioneer in legalized pot with her pot
(39:23):
shop simply pure. And she had characterized the vote to
censure her for what she did in this way.
Speaker 16 (39:30):
Today is not about a censure. It is about censorship
and retaliation. They think I violated my duties by speaking
out against racism.
Speaker 6 (39:44):
It's all about racism. What we just heard in the
last half hour was something quite the opposite. I encourage
you to check out the podcast if you missed it. Well,
you have a CU board of regents that are modeling
bipartisanship in the right kind of way, holding their own
accountable misdeeds.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
And that is not an easy thing to do when.
Speaker 6 (40:03):
You are the Democrats in charge of a Democrat majority board.
But she recognized that something is so egregious that you
have to do something about it. And that is literally
exactly what happened here. And Wanda James is making a
massive stink about it smells worse than pot of the concert.
In fact, a couple days ago she put out on
(40:24):
linked In, they have the facts wrong. I was not
found guilty of a conflict of interest. I was found
guilty to have had any I was not found guilty
to have any fiduciary conflicts. My crime was simply that
I did not show care and loyalty to see you. Also,
the images had nothing to do with high concentrate THHC
(40:45):
and the developing brand.
Speaker 12 (40:47):
Uh huh.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Right.
Speaker 5 (40:49):
I have always, with the.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
Last sixteen years, fought to protect children from cannabis, except
for that one time that you failed the underage background,
underage check, pot shop check, and you got your buddy
Hashim Coach to try and get the Attorney General involved,
and you were crying racism. And four months later you
got to slap on the risk promising, promising, I will
(41:12):
not break the law again. We will follow the law.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
And that was it, with no fines.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
A nice special treatment for Wanda James, always fighting to
protect children from cannabis, even while trying to gut a
program to educate kids and parents about the risks of
hygh POTENCYHC. You should be protecting children. It's all about
the children, she goes on. That was the entire point
(41:38):
of legalization, the entire point. Really, huh. I really wish
reporters would pay attention before they put stuff out. And
just for the record, Elana Spiegel, that's one of the
other Democrats is lying. I've never used this office to
do anything else except to be one of the best
regents at the University of Colorado has ever had. I
(42:02):
just can't keep a straight face whenever I hear one
to James talk or read anything that she says, because
it's really impossible to take her seriously. She's not a
serious person. She's not a serious person. Now, I do
want to as we move on. Go to listener. Text
(42:24):
five sixty sixty nine zero koa commic spirit health hotline.
I did this interview in the last segment, last half
hour and Tony from Denver text and this boring CU
region story is beneath you, Jimmy, and it frankly comes
off as an attempt to deflect away from larger real
issues like Trump and the disaster that he and his
local sycophants are. You know, on our talk radio show,
(42:45):
you walk in chew Gum. At the same time, you
can talk about any range of issues, but I wanted
to actually read this text because the fact is that
you can't just say his local sick Vince Trump's local
sick ephants. What about the part is in Democrats that
are engaging in self dealing in Colorado where the state
(43:10):
is run completely run by Democrats, you need to talk
about it and hold them accountable. And it is essential.
You can't just shrug it off and be like, oh
my gosh, we're not going to talk about this. It's
something that needs to be spotlighted more, especially when you
(43:32):
have somebody who's super ambitious like Wanda James, wanting to
do a heck of a lot in the future, and
may this saga undercut that make it impossible for her
to seek higher office at some point, as I believe
she would like to do. Jimmy Sangenberger in for Mandy Connell. Okay,
(43:53):
let's turn to Trump for a moment, because with this
whole story about Tulsey Gabbard in twenty sixteen, you have
a lot of things that are brought up and brought
in here, and it's not just twenty sixteen. In allegations
about Russia and Russian disinformation that was being spread, and
(44:18):
then the idea that Russia was influencing the elections and
trying to make it that the Russians were big time
behind President Trump and backing his run for the presidency,
when I think it's more well established that they were
trying to disadvantage Hillary Clinton. I do think this is
something that's true, is that you had and I think
(44:43):
Caroline Levitt, the White House Press Secretary, pointed this out
that Democrats were making this out to be something like
Donald Trump was getting the backing of the Russians, when
really it was about the Russians wanting to sort of
undercut Hillary Clinton if she got into office.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
That was the original thing.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
And there's also is a big difference between whether you're
trying to influence an election through social media posts and
so forth, or you're hacking an election, And they did
indeed sort of conflate the two, but that's what Tulsey
Gabbert is also doing. Just take a moment to listen
(45:31):
to some criticism, a critique of conflating hacking an election
in interference that has been presented to Tulsa Gabbert.
Speaker 20 (45:39):
How do you respond to critics like former President Obama
and also others on the Hill who say that the
administration is conflating apples and oranges here, conflating allegations of
actual hacking of voter machines and allegations of interference.
Speaker 21 (45:53):
Generally, I think it's a disservice to the American people
that former President Obama's office and others who are criticizing
the transparency that is being delivered by releasing these documents,
they are doing a disservice to the American people and
trying to deflect away from their culpability in what is
a historic scandal and negative action towards the American people
(46:18):
and our democratic republic. The answer to that statement can
very clearly be found throughout all of the documents that
we have released, again showing that Russia has took action
to try to sew discord in the election, but showed
no preference for or against any singular candidate.
Speaker 6 (46:38):
I think that was more widely understood except among some
Democrats already. And that's the thing. This is not new information,
and we talked earlier in the program about, for the
most part, it isn't We talked earlier in the program
about the distraction that this is for President Trump and
his administration. Maybe intentional trying to distract from the Epstein
(47:00):
story and the failure to release stuff on Epstein, the
files and client list or whatever's out there, but it's
also distracting from highlighting, spotlighting his agenda. Well, Kevin O'Leary,
mister Wonderful himself from Shark Tank, was on CNN and
(47:21):
he made a point that quite frankly I agree with.
You're an American.
Speaker 5 (47:26):
You're at home in Champagne or band of Illinois right now,
and you.
Speaker 19 (47:30):
Are creating seventy percent of the jobs with your family business,
five to five hundred employee businesses.
Speaker 5 (47:35):
And here we are debating how many fairies are on
the top of this pin.
Speaker 10 (47:39):
I swear to you, I guarantee you, because I am
their advocate.
Speaker 5 (47:45):
They don't give up, you know what. And so we
can talk about this to the cows come home.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
This is not on top of minding.
Speaker 6 (48:00):
What someone is talking about all these irrelevant things. O'Leary's
talking about Epstein and Russia Gate, basically saying the American
people don't care about it, and I think for.
Speaker 5 (48:09):
The most part they don't.
Speaker 6 (48:10):
I mean, obviously, you have to talk about this when
the presidential administration is trotting all of this out and
you have a lot of intrigue. What in the world
is happening with Jeffrey Epstein and the deputy Attorney general
is meeting with Gislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend, on again,
off again girlfriend and associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 5 (48:32):
You have to talk about these things.
Speaker 6 (48:35):
But I think he's right that most Americans care about
the kitchen table issues, not whether the election, the conspiracy
theories that the election was stolen in twenty twenty or
going way back to twenty sixteen, or accusing the former president,
a former president of the United States, of treason. It
(48:57):
just it doesn't fit like something that makes sense for
the average American to listen to and to want to
hear the president of the United States, the sitting president
talk about. Quite frankly, it's a bad idea for Trump
to get into a battle with Barack Obama, who, for
(49:19):
some reason is a very popular former president. And I
say that as somebody family opposes Obama thinks he's one
of the worst presidents in the history of this country.
But that doesn't mean that he's not one of the
best communicators that we've ever had in the history of
this country, because he is. And I don't know that
(49:41):
Trump wants to get into the ring with Obama for real,
for real. So the question has come in if Trump
is setting up for a third term against Obama, that
would be interesting. Well, obviously that's not going to happen,
be because neither of them could run again. They're both
(50:02):
term limited. But it is fascinating to sort of see
almost as if Trump wants to run a quasi election
against Obama. But I mean, you're six months into your administration.
Why in the world do you want to do that.
Tulci Gabbard was also asked, I think a valuable question
about weaponization of the justice system, which has been a
(50:25):
significant complaint, rightfully so from President Trump, from the tenure
of Joe Biden in particular, but also Obama. And it's
a fair question. Here was Tulsi's response.
Speaker 20 (50:36):
To the question and opponent of weaponization in government, how
do you respond to criticism that referring Obama administration officials
and even potentially the former president is just more weaponization
and this is a potential race to the bottom.
Speaker 21 (50:49):
I think that's a very disrespectful attack on the American
people who deserve the truth. They deserve to have faith
and trust in the integrity of our democratic republic, which
is undervent, which has been undermined by President Obama through
his direction of this manufactured, fake intelligence document, knowing that
it was filled with lies, and knowing that it would
(51:12):
and could then be used for all of the actions
that came after.
Speaker 6 (51:17):
Yeah, okay, but going after a former president over something
like this and suggesting treason could be at issue.
Speaker 9 (51:28):
Based on what you now see, do you believe President
Obama is guilty of treason?
Speaker 21 (51:34):
I'm leaving the criminal charges to the Department of Justice.
I am not an attorney, but as I have said previously,
when you look at the intent behind creating a fake,
manufactured intelligence document that directly contradicts multiple assessments that were
created by the intelligence community, the expressed intent and what
(51:56):
followed afterward can only be described as a year's long coup,
and the treason is conspiracy against the American people are
republic and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration.
Speaker 6 (52:06):
Look, it was partisan spin and it's not something that
a president should do, fair enough, But treason death penalty
that's implied in saying treason. I just that that just
strikes me as a bridge too far. Now, in other news,
this is fascinating. Columbia University, this from the Wall Street
(52:31):
Journal announced yesterday that it will pay over two hundred
and twenty million dollars in total to the.
Speaker 5 (52:38):
Trump administration as part of an agreement.
Speaker 6 (52:41):
That result restores federal funding to the Ivy League school,
which has been accused of failing to discipline anti semitism
on campus adequately, which is not just an accusation.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
I would argue it is true, patently true.
Speaker 6 (52:54):
Columbia University was one of the most egregious of all
the universities at allowing anti Semitism, outright jewe hatred to
spread infest the university and to obstruct Jewish students for
being able to get access to the education that they're
duly paying for. Well now, the university is expected to
(53:15):
pay a two hundred million dollars settlement over three years
to the federal government and an additional twenty one million
dollars to settle investigations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The deal also results in the closure of more than
half a dozen civil rights investigations, which is a a
(53:37):
good thing for Columbia to have sort of those things
out of the way. The acting President, Claire Shipman of
the university, saying, this agreement marks an important step forward
after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty.
The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that
(54:00):
define us and allow our essential research partnership with a
veteral government to get back on track.
Speaker 5 (54:06):
I just love the spin here.
Speaker 6 (54:09):
You're basically agreeing that you're going to address anti semitism.
More like, that's it. It's costing you a hell of
a lot, but I think appropriately so, And this is
the kind of thing that President Trump should be touting
rather than diving in so much to twenty sixteen and
making this a stink about him versus Obama.
Speaker 5 (54:29):
You should be highlighting things like this. This is a
big deal. This is a good development, and kudos to.
Speaker 6 (54:36):
The Trump administration for getting it sorted out, because now
universities will think twice before they engage in a policy
approach of letting antisemitism run amok in the way that
they did, the visceral way that they did. Speech is
one thing that has been done at Columbia and other
university's entirely different story. I'm youb saying in burger in
(55:00):
for Mandy Condall. On the other side, we'll talk with
Ron McLaughlin, founder of the pro Police Rally Colorado, which is,
in the words of West pomp seeker right get out
of Denver, getting out of Denver unfortunately after ten years,
basically been forced out. What's going on here? Why can't
law enforcement just get supported in the city of Denver.
(55:21):
We'll keep it right here on KOA. What's done is done,
and it ain't too much fun. That's what the late
great Greg Almon was just about to sing in that
great tune from the legendary Almond Brothers band. And you know,
sometimes what's done is done.
Speaker 5 (55:37):
It ain't too much fun and you got to move
on and make a change.
Speaker 21 (55:40):
Right.
Speaker 6 (55:41):
Sometimes that happens with great pain because you've poured a
lot of money, heart and soul into something and over
time it just becomes untenable to continue doing it, or
at least to do it the way that you have
done it. You may recall five years ago this month,
(56:02):
there was a pro Police Rally Law Enforcement Appreciation Day
event downtown Civic Center Park and ANTIFA extremists swarmed and
surrounded and stormed the Civic Center Park, disrupting everything, shutting
down the event, causing chaos, Fights broke out and more.
(56:23):
I was sitting in with the band, the Low Becker Band,
on harmonica and we barely got into the second song
fulsome Prison Blues, when everything went to bleep. And now
five years later, for the second year in a row,
the event was canceled. And now the organizer of Pro
Police Rally Colorado, who's been doing this since twenty fifteen,
(56:47):
inspired from twenty fourteen, Ron McLaughlin has said, you know
enough with Denver.
Speaker 5 (56:52):
We're getting out of Denver.
Speaker 6 (56:53):
We're making a change, and he joins me, Now, good afternoon,
my friend. Welcome Chaoway.
Speaker 10 (56:59):
Oh hey, Jimmy. I mean, it's very difficult for me
to hear you. You turn the volume up.
Speaker 6 (57:04):
I am not sure why you can't hear me, Ron,
Can you hear me at all so we can talk?
Speaker 5 (57:09):
Or is it?
Speaker 9 (57:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 10 (57:11):
I can, but it's just really really soft, and my
volume's up the side as it goes.
Speaker 6 (57:15):
Okay, well, we cannot do anything with the volume on
our end. Brother, I apologize, but yeah, let's say do
your best here to listen into what I'm saying as
we go. Paint a picture both of five years ago,
what happened and why you started pro police rallied Colorado
in the first place.
Speaker 10 (57:35):
Well five years ago. It was a combination of a
lot of very enabling a lot of very poor behavior
leading up to five years ago. You got to remember
you weren't there in fifteen, but think you were there
in sixteen or seventeen. I'm not sure exactly how to
the events, but in fifteen Denver stood by the police
(57:56):
as Denver Occupy which is now Denver Commune Party ran
sacked the stage. They ransacked it again and twenty sixteen,
they came back and wearing black outfits on twenty seventeen
at Antifa. It's just the more you enable poor behavior
and not make people to be accountable for what they
(58:18):
are doing, it expands. Then by the time we got
to twenty with all that was going on with George Floyd,
it was just an excuse to create havoc. That's unfortunate.
And did it happen to anyway? Denver? Chicago took a city,
any city. We shouldn't have the First Amendment right as
(58:41):
you know, you've got the Constitution a gazillion times. Does
not give you the privilege of shouting somebody else down
so they can't be heard, or bludgeting people so they
can't speak. That's not part of our First Amendment rights.
And that's not what a protester really is. That's more
of an anarchist and people being used by the political
(59:02):
machine for whatever reason. The political machines want you gotta
be careful what kind of croppy plant because it's going
to bear fruit, And that was what happened in twenty
a lot of bad fruit.
Speaker 6 (59:15):
Ron McLaughlin, let me ask you whether it is in
Denver or it is Douglas County, where my band played
this year, or some of the other places that you've
held these events. Why what has inspired you to celebrate
and show support for our law enforcement? Why have you
started Why did you start this in the first place.
Speaker 10 (59:35):
Well, in the very beginning, I had my own concerns
about what was going on in our society. You had
Baltimore burning on TV, except was going on in Ferguson,
going back to Trayvon Martin, the rise of Black Lives Matter,
when it should have just been every life matters in
regardless of a code of someone's skin is. From my perspective,
(59:56):
all that was going on. And I was a single parent,
and I asked my daughter and my son while Baltimore
was burning on TV, how they felt about law enforcement.
And they were trying to give me the answers they
thought I wanted to hear. And my father was the
kind of guy that would rather just go do than speak,
(01:00:16):
and so I thought I'd take a page out of
his book, and I went down to the wet building
and went to a bit of permit. But I wanted
to show my children how important a relationship, a healthy
relationship of law enforcement in the community in which they
serve is to our community. And that's how it got started.
And then they had never heard of that in down
(01:00:37):
at the wet building. Nobody ever pulled a permit to
do something positive for law enforcement at that time. It
back in twenty fifteen, and eventually I got vetted by
a guy from Hancock's office and they over time got
the permit and put the first one on and it's
been growing ever since. Once you start something like this,
(01:00:58):
it's kind of hard to just do one and done. Yeah,
you get to meet people and the reasons why glow. Yeah.
The longer you get involved with something, the more you
learn about the constitutional rights and why we have our
the municipalities in which we do, the difference between being
the United States of America and being just America in
(01:01:20):
our checks and balances, and how important a law enforcement
community is to that checks and balance as for our
country as a whole. And so it's grown and it's
continued to grow since then.
Speaker 6 (01:01:31):
And so let's go to Denver from last year and
this year, just very briefly, what are some of the
costs and impediments that the city put in place to
make it that made it impossible for you to continue
this event, which was supposed to happen, by the way,
this past Sunday for your Denver event.
Speaker 10 (01:01:51):
It's well after twenty and then after twenty one. Actually
you'll remember a week before the event, the city came
with the head to put a fence up around you know,
the park. They gave me a week. I mean the
process starts in September the previous year, and that became costly. Now,
(01:02:13):
these are free events. I don't charge people to come
to them. I just don't. So it's a gift for
the community. It's not meant to be something where I
recoup money for myself or anybody else the city. This year,
the fencing from last year when I'm forty, this year's
costs for me to do this roughly hit about fifteen
thousand dollars defense alone and double fence and twelve foot gap,
(01:02:36):
and not the whole park, which I actually have access to,
but just around the Amphitheater was just under eleven thousand dollars.
And then you start adding on your insurance band, gosh,
portal potties, any kind of adversement, any kind of marketing,
because you know your your return is on the marketing
you know, and I can't even get people that I've
(01:02:58):
had to come out in the fast put up boots.
People don't want to be not that, they don't want
to be associated with standing with their law enforcement community.
They don't want to put up with the garbage that
comes with doing that in Denver, the risks, and when
you've got a Royal Community College, Emily Griffith, TC Bank,
Navy Center, Credit Union, Albert's Mothers against trunk Drivers and
so on that have come out and want to be
(01:03:20):
a part of this. Gosh, Liberty, Liberty, the Liberty Institute
that you were with. Liberty did come out putt pamphlets.
We did, didn't give up constitutions, Ron McLaughlin. People don't
want to be associated with an argument.
Speaker 6 (01:03:35):
Yeah, no, exactly a lot of fun and not just
an argument, but disruptions and chaos and the potential for
getting hurt. I mean, in that event five years ago,
you were hit in the head with a long board
by one of these so called protesters. I can picture
it now, the blood dripping down your from your forehead
right down your face. It was terrible, which leads me
(01:03:57):
to my final question before we let you go, And
I do feature you and talk a little bit about
this as part of my column tomorrow, No place for
political violence Left or Right in the Denver Gazette.
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
That's the headline. Ron McLaughlin.
Speaker 6 (01:04:13):
I've only got a minute, so as briefly as you
can talk to me about political violence, whether it's on
the left or the right, and just how it is
so totally, completely, utterly unacceptable.
Speaker 10 (01:04:26):
It's beyond unacceptable. These are supposed to be leadership people,
leadership roles. When you resort to violence to get your
point across, you're showing how much you're not a leader.
We get to have to get to a point where
we can agree to disagree that were therefore we can
go forward. But at this point nobody wants to speak
to each other. They just want to argue and to fight.
(01:04:48):
How does that help us grow as a community, as
a country. It doesn't. It stifles us and our leadership,
if you want to call it that. We have to
get past the pop clarity contests and get the right
people involved for those positions. Is going to help our communities,
our counties, our cities, our states, and our country. And
(01:05:10):
I think we really need to check up from the
neck up when it comes to our politicians, we have
to it's got to take big money out of it
and get back to bass taxes and work with the
people that put you in that position and do what
they want their will of the people. We need to
get back to we the people, not need a demographic
and then have an argument to try to say or
(01:05:31):
a fight. Yeah, as opposed to a conversation and growth.
It's not right for our country and it's not healthy.
Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
That is very true and well said lead organizer Pro
Police Rally Colorado. Working on what to do differently next
year instead of the Denver event for the Colorado Law
Enforcement Appreciation Day that happens every third Sunday in July.
Really appreciate it, brother, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 10 (01:05:58):
Hey Jimmy, thank you so much. As was this a
pleasure gaking a chance to talk with you. I have
a wonderful day.
Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
Back at you once again. Ron McLachlan joining us here
on KOA. Check out my related Denver is that Colin
tomorrow no place for political violence left or right. Keep
it here Jimmy and for Andy on KOA. Jimmy Sangenberger
in for Mandy Connell on this Thursday the twenty fourth,
and I have to tell you it's kind of crazy.
(01:06:24):
I'm a New York Giants fan, so like originally that's
we're back east, so it's New York Giants and Denver Broncos,
my two football teams, and now the Giants of Russell Wilson.
Like this is it's kind of crazy dig up from
you know, having been with the Broncos and then now
(01:06:46):
with the Giants is just kind of a crazy topsy
turvy world to me go figure that this would happen.
Is he's the undisputed quarterback now for the Giants heading
in to this incoming season, which is pretty crazy to
think that we are getting underway now with football and
training and then preseason and then full on the swing
(01:07:07):
of things. I just it's, uh, it's pretty time is
just flying right on by. I enjoyed my conversation with
Ron McLachlan in the last segment of my column tomorrow
and the Denver Gazette No Place for political violence left
or Right talks. Also, in addition to some of these
pro police rallies being disrupted by radicals on the left
(01:07:31):
engaging in violence, have you followed it all? The story
of the man accused of fire bombing election equipment in
Archiletta County. He appeared in court yesterday charged with two
counts of arson and one count of using an incendiary device.
(01:07:59):
He overnight one night attacked a office, the county office
in Archiletta County. And it's a small county, and they
got twelve thousand registered voters. Like it is a small
county in the San Juan Mountains, and so it's a
little different. They didn't have the kind of security that
(01:08:20):
you need in terms of windows. They got to work
on this because the guy managed to throw the fire
bomb through the window basically and catch Dominion election.
Speaker 5 (01:08:29):
Equipment on fire.
Speaker 6 (01:08:30):
Now, this is a guy who ran for sheriff of
Archiletta County, William Wayne Bryant, seventy one years old, back
in twenty twenty two, and he lost, and he claimed
the election was stolen and he was urging to get
rid of Dominion machines and so forth. Clearly a radical
on the right who now stands accused. He's the suspect, accused,
(01:08:54):
innocent until proven guilty, accused of doing this fire bombing.
And it appears that the motivations would be because of
that the dominions, stolen election, conspiracy theories, and that's it's scary,
but that is an example of some right wing violence.
Speaker 5 (01:09:11):
And that's why I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna
condemn it, right or left.
Speaker 6 (01:09:14):
Let's make it clear there is no place for political violence,
full stop. Police have not given a motive, but he
is on the record as having said all kinds of
things about stolen elections and getting rid of dominion equipment
and going hand counting, and how the election in twenty
twenty was stolen from Trump, the election in twenty twenty
(01:09:36):
two was stolen from him when he ran for sheriff.
It's just we got to be careful with the rhetoric
and it can incite violence, and so we all have
to be careful with what we say and how we
say it, especially those of us whether you're on the
radio or you are a politician or what have you
with megaphones. Got to be careful.
Speaker 5 (01:09:57):
I'm Jimmy Sangenberger.
Speaker 6 (01:09:58):
Filling in for Mandy conn We've got another hour up
ahead five six, six nine zero the KOA Common Spirit
Health text line.
Speaker 5 (01:10:05):
Keep it here as we continue on KOA.
Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
The Mandy Connall Show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
No, it's Mandy Connell and on KOA ninety one FM
song god Way.
Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
The Noisy three Many connell.
Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Sad Babe.
Speaker 5 (01:10:45):
Time is brying on by third and final hour.
Speaker 6 (01:10:48):
Jimmy Sangenberger covering from Mandy Connell today here on ko A.
And the couple of.
Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
Editorials yesterday and.
Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
The Wall Street Journal giving praise and not so much
praise to President Trump that I think are worth mentioning.
Bringing up one of them is positive Liberation Day for
American AI. Credit the Trump team for trying to keep
America's latest golden goose alive, which is artificial intelligence. AI
(01:11:25):
is crazy, just the things that you can do now
with AI, as difficult as it may be to pinpoint
what exactly is it to some extent, there's so many
crazy things with artificial intelligence these days. Well, the White
House proposed, as the editorial says, a hodgepodge of policies
(01:11:46):
to ensure that China doesn't steal an AI march. The
goal is to liberate innovators from burdens and regulation, bulldoze
impediments to new data centers, and hyper scale private investment
to borrow an industry buzzword, and it talks about substantial
investment already from Alphabet, the parent company of Google, from Meta,
(01:12:09):
the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, from open Ai.
We are talking hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars
among these companies. Open ai is the purveyor of chat GPT.
By the way, well, Biden antitrust cops sought to chill
(01:12:29):
this AI competition with whale hunting expeditions into open Ai
and Microsoft. The Trump Report that was issued by this
administration recommends the Federal Trade Commission drop investigations begun under
Biden chair Lena Kahan that quote advanced theories of liability
(01:12:50):
that unduly burden AI innovation.
Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
And to modify agent orders that do.
Speaker 6 (01:12:56):
In other words, let's get the all knowing, all powerful prisumtive,
the knowing of everything that's all knowing federal government from
getting in the way of the private sector and its innovation.
The report also recommends the federal agencies established exclusions under
(01:13:16):
the National Environmental Policy Act for data centers, which will
reduce the permitting rigamarole that can delay products projects, though
legislation will be needed to prevent endless litigation. How about
an action plan for Congress. In other words, the Trump
administration is doing what they can to try and foster
(01:13:39):
more innovation and AI. Get out of the way, Get
out of the way instead of impeding as the Obama
administration is. Okay, did I can't speak this segment. I
don't know what's going on. On the other hand, you
(01:13:59):
have a different editorial from the Wall Street Journal yesterday,
same day, the Price of Winning the Trade War. Multiple
trade deals announced by President Trump yesterday rather on Tuesday,
including Japan. It is good news, as the editorial board
(01:14:24):
points out, and that you have some of the cessation
of hostilities and escalation. But as they point out, if
this is winning a trade war, we'd hate to see
what losing looks like. And this is true again. The
trade policy is an example of government getting in the
(01:14:46):
way of the private sector and private sector innovation, explicitly
contrary to what the Trump administration is trying to do
on the AI side of things. As the editorial reads,
mister Trump held the pact with characteristic modesty as perhaps
(01:15:07):
the largest deal ever made. Details remain sparse, but the
core appears to be a Japanese commitment to invest five
hundred and fifty billion dollars in the US while reducing
barriers to imports of American agricultural products such as rice.
In exchange, mister Trump will reduce his reciprocal tariffs on
(01:15:27):
Japan to fifteen percent from twenty five percent, including apparently
on automobiles. Now, this is good news to see the
terrifray go down from twenty five percent to fifteen percent,
but it's still a fifteen percent tax on Japanese imports,
which goes to a point that the editorial reads, which
(01:15:51):
I think is exactly spot on.
Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
Don't believe the White.
Speaker 6 (01:15:54):
House spin that Japanese exporters will pay this tax. They
might absorb some of it on the product and the competition,
but American businesses and consumers will pay more to and
thus be either less competitive or have a lower standard
of living. And they point out something very important, as
(01:16:15):
the Trump team tries to categorize this deal as some
kind of major victory for the United States of America,
that five hundred and fifty billion dollars in new Japanese
investment also sounds better than it may be once we
know the details. The Prime Minister of Japan suggest that
(01:16:35):
Tokyo will offer government loans and guarantees to support these
investments with the aim to build resilient supply chains and
key sectors. But that raises the prospect that the money,
if it actually comes through, will get caught up in
Japanese industrial policy, which means that it's going to be
(01:17:00):
a little more difficult to make sure that the money flows.
Trump even said that Japan will make these investments at
my direction in the US will receive ninety percent of
the profits. Yikes. Indeed, who is the the federal government
or the President of the United States to have any
role in deciding what investment flows happen from the private sector?
(01:17:26):
I just these are not wins. Are they better than
where things were? Okay, slightly, but only better than where
things were. With Trump putting these policies into place, and
these tariffs and so forth into place, we're not really
getting good or better trade deals on the whole.
Speaker 5 (01:17:44):
And that is deeply unfortunate.
Speaker 6 (01:17:46):
Now, if you disagree, five six six nine zero is
the koa common spirit health text line, Shoot me a
text and let me know. So we got to run
to a break, but we've got some time on the
other side as we continue. I'm Jimmy Sangenberger in for
Mandy Connell. Right here, I'm Koe real quick on the
trade issue. We're talking about this from a guy by
the name of Spencer Hakimian. Toyota is up plus eight
(01:18:12):
percent on the news. This was yesterday or a couple
days ago, on the news of a fifteen percent tariff.
Why it's simple, Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other
American manufacturers are going to be paying fifty percent more
for their steel, fifty percent more for the copper, twenty
(01:18:33):
five percent more for their Canadian production, twenty five percent
more for their Mexican production, and fifty five percent on
their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay fifteen percent
more and they're done with all the shenanigans. Ford has
to pay much more than that, a lot more. In fact,
(01:18:54):
we're giving a Japanese car company an advantage over American
car companies, all in the hopes of bringing auto jobs
back to America.
Speaker 5 (01:19:07):
Zero D chess.
Speaker 6 (01:19:10):
Look, this is one of those issues where as you know,
I vehemently disagree with President Trump. Andre Jimmy Sangenberger and
for Mandy Connell, that's sort of the vocal or the
vocal position that I take economically and have from the
beginning from before he ran for president, and I disagreed
(01:19:31):
with Trump on trade, and this is such an important point.
American auto manufacturers are going to have their costs higher
for production in the United States because of the increased
cost of steel coming in to America, copper coming into America,
and then for the components that they need created in
(01:19:54):
Canada and Mexico and China. Because if you've ever read
eye pencil, you know that even in a pencil, you
have different components on the manufacturing.
Speaker 5 (01:20:06):
Chain all across the globe.
Speaker 6 (01:20:09):
The rubber for the eraser, and the metal and the
lead and the wood, and on and on it goes.
And that can be components from all across the globe,
including Canada, Mexico, China in the case of a vehicle,
and different components being manufactured there. This is a costly endeavor.
It ain't a win, and I just I can't buy
(01:20:33):
into the spin on this. And it's unfortunate to see
because when it comes to tax policy and so many
other things, President Trump is right on, but on this
one he's just consistently left the mark, consistently left the mark.
I'm Jimmy Sangenberger filling in for Mandy Connell on the
(01:20:53):
other side here on KOA, I'll be joined in studio.
Speaker 5 (01:20:57):
She's already here.
Speaker 6 (01:20:58):
By Priscilla Ron, educator extraordinair, author of a very important book,
Restoring Education in America. We'll talk about it on the
other side as we continue in KOA. Priscilla Ron just
so happens to be in studio with me, and not
just on any day, but on her birthday. Nonetheless, happy birthday,
and as we talk about your new book, welcome to
(01:21:21):
the show.
Speaker 22 (01:21:22):
And also Darren always kicks ass. Well, it's so great
to be on with you, my friend. Thank you for
the birthday wishes.
Speaker 6 (01:21:28):
Absolutely good to have you here in studio, your first
time on KOA. You've got a new book out, it's
on Amazon, Restoring Education in America, an inspirational teacher Toolbox.
And look, let's introduce folks to you for a moment,
because you're about to enter your thirty second year of education,
(01:21:49):
which is.
Speaker 5 (01:21:50):
A remarkable feat. Tell us a little bit about your background.
Speaker 22 (01:21:54):
Sure, I am graduated from Texas Christian University in Fort
Worth and I started teaching in Humble Texas, which is
a northern suburb of Houston. And then I after two
years of teaching, I came to Colorado and I've been
in Colorado ever since.
Speaker 5 (01:22:10):
I'm a music educator.
Speaker 22 (01:22:12):
But in between that thirty two years, I was a
school principal, two years of principal in Alaska, one year
in Brighton twenty seven j and a few summers in.
Speaker 5 (01:22:21):
Denver public schools.
Speaker 22 (01:22:23):
And I was also a full time teacher evaluator in DPS.
And I love doing that, traveling all around to different schools.
And you know, education has changed in three plus decades.
We've been through nine to eleven, We've been through COVID,
We've been through so many different iterations of what policies
(01:22:48):
look like. Yeah, so that's the cliff notes version. And
I was inspired going into what will likely be my
last year of teaching this year to leave my legacy,
so to speak, and to share what I've learned with
other educators.
Speaker 5 (01:23:03):
You know, it is remarkable to think about.
Speaker 6 (01:23:06):
And this is the first time hearing that you're looking
at retiring, you're from education after thirty two well we'll
be thirty two years. You are, you have the status
of what's called a Master teacher. What does that mean?
What does it take to get there?
Speaker 22 (01:23:20):
So less than one percent of Colorado teachers have a
designation of Master Educator. And one way that you can
get that designation is to become a National Board Certified teacher.
And it's a very very rigorous process. About forty percent
of teachers nationwide who go through the process become National
Board Certified teachers in their first try.
Speaker 5 (01:23:42):
So it's very rigorous.
Speaker 22 (01:23:44):
You have to videotape your teaching, you have to answer
a lot of questions and write essays and reflect on
your practice. And so you once you pass that National
Board certification, you submit it to the state and then
they give you a big fancy designation as you have
become a Master teacher.
Speaker 6 (01:24:03):
What that shows is just sort of adds to the repertoire,
if you will, what you have brought in education. Which
is why when I saw that you were bringing out
this book Restoring Education in America, I thought I need
to talk to Priscilla, because so much, as you say,
has changed in education, but there are also so many
problems with it. I mean, I have seen the rise
(01:24:25):
in disciplinary issues that has gotten worse and worse. We
talked about this during COVID and especially in Denver Public
Schools where you are where the school district has just
been so terrible in terms of its policies on and
enforcement of discipline. You also have school safety issues that
have over the decades just gotten worse and worse in
(01:24:45):
a variety of different ways, and the quality of education
has absolutely cratered, especially for black and brown students that
say at school district like Denver Public Schools says, hey,
we want to make our policies toward advancing black excellent
and so on and so forth, and those things are
not happening when you actually look at the data, If you,
through your lens of thirty two years in education, look
(01:25:08):
at and sort of diagnose what's happening big picture in
our K through twelve system that needs to be repaired.
Speaker 5 (01:25:14):
How do you look at that?
Speaker 22 (01:25:16):
Well, what we've seen is the low expectations that I
have a whole chapter talking about how we've become so
biased in how we address discipline issues, especially in city
schools where we're talking about black and black and second
language learner students and brown students, where we've lowered expectations
(01:25:38):
and we view students in a deficit mindset and not capable.
I mean it came from the federal government when we
had President Biden who didn't think black people knew how
to get an ID or use the computer. Those are
the types of soft bigotry that have bled into public education.
And I saw it in my colleagues, but more pointedly,
(01:26:00):
I saw it in our professional development, where they actually
taught us how to be that discriminatory towards black and
brown students. It went from bad to worse, and we
started seeing it in the declining standardized test scores. And
we see it across the nation where we have entire
school districts where you can't find a single student on
(01:26:22):
grade level in math and literacy. And so it's because
of the focus from strong pedagogy and master teaching to
social justice issues, and that is what we have been
bombarded with the last five years.
Speaker 6 (01:26:37):
Look, I think what the last couple of years, if
you look at the scores even for Asian students in
Denver public schools have actually gone down, which just shows
how morbid and sordid the situation is.
Speaker 22 (01:26:50):
I've tried to explain this to the school district. They've
asked me Priscilla because I'm Asian, my mom is Korean,
my dad was black. And how is explained to me
how it is that Asian test scores are dropping and
we're losing Asian educators. And I said, this is simple.
There's no meritocracy in this district. You've lowered standards, you've
eliminated competition, high level courses, advanced level courses. And Asian
(01:27:16):
parents they're taking their eighth graders and sending them to
Littleton Cherry Creek other school districts where their kids can
go to a high school that's more competitive. And DPS
in particular, has spent so much time quote unquote training
educators about black educators, they forgot to teach them about
Asian educators. And Asian educators were being insulted, scored low
(01:27:38):
on their teaching practices, and so they decided to leave.
So we've declined in the number of Asian educators even
in our school district.
Speaker 6 (01:27:46):
Priscill leron joining us here in studio, author of the
book Restoring Education in America, An Inspirational Teacher Toolbox, and
I do have to note that you have a pretty
prominent forward author, which is Colonel Alan West. Talk to
us a little bit about both getting him involved in
this project because I know you've been friends with him
(01:28:07):
for a long time, but also about sort of his
the fire in his ballet for education because he's not
a teacher, but he has wealth of experience in the
military and politics and more areas.
Speaker 22 (01:28:19):
Sure, for the folks who don't know who Lieutenant Colonel
Alan West is, he's a former congressman and he's a
Christian Conservative speaker.
Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
Very notable.
Speaker 22 (01:28:29):
I met him at Western Conservative Summit while I was
still vice chair of the Colorado GOP, and you know,
full disclosure, I was like, ooh, there's a black Conservative.
Speaker 9 (01:28:38):
And I made a.
Speaker 22 (01:28:39):
Beeline and I introduced myself and I gave him my
card and I'm like, I'm not like a stalker or
crazy person. I just I'm the vice chair of the
party and I just wanted to introduce myself. And he
was so gracious and took a picture with me and
gave me his personal number and said, if you need anything,
let me know. And it just he became my mentor.
(01:28:59):
He literally came my mentor. Anytime I call him, he
picks up the phone. And when I started talking to
him about this idea, I said, you know, I have
this idea to write a book. He said, tell me
what you're thinking, what it's about, and so I told him,
and then he said, who's writing your forward? And then
I just said, you are so like, Wen, do you
(01:29:20):
need the forward by? And I'm like, oh, in a
couple of weeks, I had it within twenty four hours. Wow,
they had it. And he's he's so supportive and he's
part of what I talk about in my last chapter
about you know, when you rise up and you're successful,
don't pull the ladder up behind you.
Speaker 5 (01:29:35):
Help other people, mentor other people.
Speaker 22 (01:29:38):
And he's been such a rich resource for me, so
much wisdom and just a very comprehensive person to be
in my life.
Speaker 6 (01:29:48):
This brings up a I think an important question, a
rather interesting one, and we've talked over the years since
I first met you. When you were you ran for
a Sea regent and a Republican primary, were unsuccessful, but
it was your first bid for anything like that, and
at the time you were heavily involved in the Teachers
Union in Denver. You were one of the people that
was involved in funding decisions on campaigns and so forth,
(01:30:10):
and a few years ago you left the Teachers Union
after just all the craziness, I mean, especially in COVID
and the failure to advocate for students and so forth,
and you have now in this book that is meant
for teachers who aren't traditionally thought of as like conservative,
although you yourself certainly are the likes of Lieutenant Colonel
(01:30:33):
Alan West doing your forwards so on and so forth.
Just for a moment, talk to us about your political
journey in the last several years and the political nature
of both education and teachers at this moment. Is you
have a book that isn't you know, it's no holds
barred in terms of your viewpoint and where you're coming
from with your worldview. But yet you have this discussion
(01:30:56):
that is meant primarily for the teacher audience, so.
Speaker 5 (01:31:00):
Well the audience.
Speaker 22 (01:31:01):
You know, I grew up with a military father, and
I grew up conservative. My father was very patriotic. So
when I turned eighteen, I was a registered Republican in Texas.
I believe I vote. My first vote was for Bush,
who became governor of Texas. So I didn't know any
different than a conservative viewpoint. But I was a young
(01:31:21):
teacher and everybody said you have to join the union.
And at that time, thirty plus years ago, being in
the unionment you got a publication every week, you got
discounts on your car insurance, and you know, you got
to go to professional development and learn and be with
your colleagues. It obviously has changed, and over the years
I learned all of my activism through the teachers Union,
(01:31:44):
how to door knock, how to write letters, how to
talk to your congress person and lobby. So everything I
learned about politics I learned as a union activist. But
then I started to see the demise of education and
the quality of teaching, and I started going into our
executive meetings talking about this is what we need to
(01:32:04):
start doing, and no one would listen to me, and
I got more and more frustrating. And that's when I
got introduced to the Colorado GOP. I met the former chairman,
Steve House, and I met with him and I said,
you know, I'm a teacher, but i'm a Republican and
I'm really frustrated with education policy. And he started mentoring me,
(01:32:24):
and that's when he said, you know, we at the
time they didn't have a candidate to run for CU
regent in CD six, he said, you know, that would
be a perfect place for you to run, you're an educator,
and I filed and then COVID hit don't recommend running
a campaign during COVID, but that was the start. And
when I didn't win, he said, Priscilla, that's okay, you
(01:32:45):
should run for vice chair of the Colorado GOP. Which
I really thought he was crazy at that point, because
again I didn't have the language you and I met.
I didn't sound like a Republican. I had all of
the public education liberal left linging lingo, but I wasn't
a liberal.
Speaker 5 (01:33:02):
I was a conservative.
Speaker 22 (01:33:03):
So that was the start of my journey to understand
how to match what I believed was what I was saying.
Speaker 6 (01:33:11):
Wait, so then, how Priscilla Ron, do you evaluate the
teachers unions in twenty twenty five, especially, I mean, now,
there is a push by some including coridangelists who joined
me on this station on Monday when I filled in
for Ross and others, who are pushing to get rid
of the national Charter that apparently the National Education Association
is the only union that has a federal charter giving
(01:33:33):
them all sorts of privileges and so forth. Then you've
got the American Federation of Teachers and so forth. So
how do you evaluate the teachers' unions at this moment.
Speaker 22 (01:33:42):
Well, look, Becky and Randy, who are the leaders of
both of those teachers unions, are making eight and a
half times more money than the average teacher. They're making
five hundred thousand plus dollars a year to yell and
scream and gaslight educators into what's happening.
Speaker 5 (01:33:59):
And so I can no longer.
Speaker 22 (01:34:02):
Defend a system that is hurting kids, that is keeping
especially the students that they claim to be helping down,
because there's just no evidence of them helping black and
brown and second language learners or standing up for American
citizens to begin with. So I'm all for, we don't
need a teachers union. I look, seventy dollars a month
(01:34:25):
is what I was paying. I gave myself a seventy
dollars a month raise. I can put gas in my car.
That was, and that was right in the middle of
you know, the inflation. I'm like, oh, now I can
actually put gas in my car and focus on the
things that I that I can impact more.
Speaker 6 (01:34:41):
Let's talk more about the book Restoring Education in America
and Inspirational Teacher Toolbox. Why, after thirty two years in
education going into thirty second did you decide that this
book was necessary and fundamentally what is it about.
Speaker 22 (01:34:58):
I thought it was time because President Trump signed his
two executive orders to NDI and to decrease the size
of the Department of Education. I hope he's successful in
eliminating it because that will bring all of those decisions
and the money back to the states and back to
local school districts where we can actually use that money.
(01:35:20):
We don't need to spend billions of dollars in a
system coming out of DC. I think we have very
smart district leaders right here, and we need the money
locally for our kids in the classroom and.
Speaker 5 (01:35:33):
To pay teachers more. That would be great.
Speaker 22 (01:35:36):
But I was looking, or I have been looking at
the professional development that I've been provided, and it's been
very ineffective.
Speaker 5 (01:35:44):
After three decades.
Speaker 22 (01:35:46):
You've got to give me something that's going to inspire me,
an additional tool. You cannot give a professional development that's
for the lowest common denominator, which is a young educator.
You have veteran educators who don't need any more icebreakers.
We don't need to hear any more about you know,
creating for equity and all of this stuff. I'm like,
(01:36:09):
this is a practical tool and I can't wait for
somebody to do it. I have thirty plus years of
experience in all levels, and I should be the one
to tell the story.
Speaker 5 (01:36:19):
And I'm going to do it.
Speaker 6 (01:36:19):
And like twenty seconds real quick on this question. You
are actually offering. This is a course coming up for
teachers where they can actually get continuing education credit.
Speaker 22 (01:36:30):
Yes, if you are in Colorado or any other state,
you can get a certificate at the end of my
course that you can use towards your professional development, towards
renewing your license.
Speaker 6 (01:36:39):
That is fantastic, Priscilla Ron, just a few minutes left
with you, and I want to ask you this question
because obviously this book is primarily for teachers in the
K three twelve system, but also for homeschool parents, So
keep that in mind if you're a homeschool parent. But
when you think about a book like this, I think about,
especially as a radio host with a broad audience, lessons
(01:37:00):
in takeaway excuse me, everyday people can get from a
book like this. What do you hope they can take
away if they were to say, you know what, I
want to check out this book by Priscilla.
Speaker 22 (01:37:10):
We need great candidates to run for school board all
across the nation, but you've got to know what's been
going on in the school district. We want everyday people
to know how to have a great relationship with their
child's teacher, or their child's principle, or their child's superintendent,
how to go and talk with your legislator about things
that are going on in policy.
Speaker 5 (01:37:31):
So this book is a tool for everybody.
Speaker 22 (01:37:33):
There's reflective questions at the end because it'll grow you
as a human being, how you interact with other people.
And I think there's no loss to buy in this book.
And when you're done, give it to a teacher that
you know or someone in your neighborhood, a homeschool, charter school,
private school, Catholic school, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 5 (01:37:51):
I appreciate that idea too.
Speaker 6 (01:37:54):
Read the book, pass it on because these are tips
that teachers are not, like you said, getting in professional development.
And that's no surprise when you see the quality of
declining caliber of education that we've got.
Speaker 5 (01:38:09):
One final thing.
Speaker 6 (01:38:11):
You don't see as much faith representation, especially in public schools,
but that's clearly the worldview you come from, a Christian worldview,
but bringing some faith into this book, but also into
how you sort of approach your teaching.
Speaker 5 (01:38:23):
Talk to me about that for a moment.
Speaker 22 (01:38:25):
So for me, when I read my Bible, it says
God says, apart from Me, you can do nothing. And
if we're going to do great things, we do it
with the creator of the universe, the guy who designed
everything that we see and is the source of inspiration
and faith and sustenance and the one that I go
to when things get really really bad and I want
to quit.
Speaker 5 (01:38:44):
He's my source.
Speaker 22 (01:38:45):
And so every chapter is based on a biblical concept.
This is not a Christian book per se. It's just
it's embedded. And I want people to know that if
you're a person of faith, no matter what your denomination
is or religion is, there is an element of truth
that will help sustain you beyond just what we see
(01:39:06):
in the policies that we see, because we need more
than just policies. We need principles, we need values, we
need character, we need all of these things that will
help ground us into the why. And each scripture is
a why behind why. I'm sharing this concept and why
it works.
Speaker 6 (01:39:24):
Yeah, the book is Restoring Education in America, an inspirational
teacher toolbox. The author on her birthday, joining us here
in studio, Priscilla Ron, Happy birthday, my friend, and thanks
so much for joining us.
Speaker 5 (01:39:37):
Very interesting conversation. Thank you, Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (01:39:39):
And we'll see where K through twelve education goes moving ahead,
but so many changes and reforms need to happen as
we wrap up the program.
Speaker 5 (01:39:47):
Two quick things. One, make sure.
Speaker 6 (01:39:50):
Twenty four seven three sixty five you can check out
what I've got going as far as content and reach
out to me via email from my website Jimmy Sangenburger
dot com. Keep it, there's no AI or you in Sangenburger.
It's all ease, all the time, once you know that
Sangenburger is easy.
Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
Plus.
Speaker 6 (01:40:10):
This coming Sunday at the Genesee Pub and Barbecue, the
Jimmy Junior Blues Band will be performing from three to
six pm. Come on out have a good time if
you feel so inclined for some great blues and some
rock and roll in the mix. Really looking forward to
all that is coming on Sunday, And as we go
(01:40:33):
out to you might as well a little bit of
harmonica Jimmy Sangenberger in for Andy Connell today. Thank you
so much for joining us, and make God bless America.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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