09-05-25 FULL SHOW - Crime Jumps In Colorado, And We've Got Parole Issues

Colorado has seen a serious increase in crimes while the rest of the country drops, some prisoners are being let out when they shouldn't be, and let's plan a singles event! 

Episode Transcript

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

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

Speaker 1 (00:10):
KOA ninety one FM.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
God guy can the niceyre Andy Connell keeping sadda locome local.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
Welcome to a Friday edition of the show Altogether Now
and we meaning me, Mandy Connall and that guy over there,
meaning Anthony Rodriguez. We'll take you right through this very

(00:51):
gloomy afternoon here in Denver.

Speaker 5 (00:54):
Why why does overcast and awesome sweater weather have to
be freaking gloomy because it.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Was raining when I woke up today exactly. No, I
want it to rain when I have to go to work.
Football weather. It is football weather. I will give you that.
But I don't like waking up to rain. I don't
mind raining in the afternoon because then you gotta get
up and you gotta go to work.

Speaker 5 (01:18):
And I was supposed to walk the dog and then
and this is.

Speaker 4 (01:21):
This is my impression of my dog Jinks. When I said, ooh, Jinkies,
it's raining outside, she literally looked at me like, but
I might die if we don't go for a walk.

Speaker 5 (01:31):
Mother.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
I love. I'm feeling weak from waking up if it's
Saturday or Sunday. Mark me down any day. No, mark
me down. You not want to have to go? I
don't know. Well, it doesn't really rain hard in Seattle.
It more like drizzles all the time. I'll take some
good consistent drizzle. Yeah, yeah, it's not bad. I mean,

(01:53):
you know, like Florida probably gets more rain. But it
all happens in an hour, you know what I mean?
Every afternoon for an hour it rains like hell. Doesn't
do that in Standle. It's more like a kind of
a sprinkly misty bringing off situation all the time. These
days are the post. All right, guys, we've got a
lot to talk about. I guessed out the wazoo. It's Friday.

(02:14):
So let's jump into the blog, shall we. Let's just
go to the find the blog by going to mandy'sblog
dot com. That's mandy'sblog dot com. Look for the headline
that says nine to five twenty five blog crime jumps
in Colorado and we've got parole issues. Click on that,
and here are the headlines you will find within Office
half of American all with ships and clipments.

Speaker 6 (02:34):
A sea that's going to press.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Plat today on the blog, Holy smokes. This crime stat
is alarming. More shenanigans from our parole system. The Mandy
Connell Singers mixer is a go. Three important petition drives
are taking off today. The spits scene round the world, rolling, rolling, rolling.
A doctor cuts off a healthy body parts and people

(02:57):
are mad. Alcohol doesn't calm you down, It gives you stress.
Do black lives really matter in Democrat cities Sydney, Sweeney
and controversy are good for sales. Palmer Lake Planning says
no to BUCkies. You may want to eat before going
to a game. Want to rent your home for sundance?
This NFL doesn't do diversity hires. Jimmy Segenberger weighs in

(03:19):
on space command. Mike Rosen weighs in on democratic socialism.
Trump Mull's banning trans people from buying guns. Denver school
Board doesn't want to hear from you. The new Lego
Death Star costs what the most expensive countries for expats.
The real iron Man Trump and Uncle Herschel will have
a moment. Operation Undercover Fan is under way in Seattle.

(03:41):
This doesn't seem like the best plan. Michael Bennett came
at RFKA Junior and it didn't go as well as
he'd hoped. We've got a Department of War now. Dave
Ramsey gives great marriage advice. Doug Co friends, We've got
a school board for him coming up. Those are the
headlines on the blog at mandy'sblog dot com tech Toe
a winner, Thanks Nancy. So you guys know I live

(04:05):
in Dougcoe. I am fortunate enough to be associated with
a wonderful group of people in an organization called Douglas
County Citizenry and working to bring topical, useful information in
a non angry way to people in Douglas County. Their

(04:25):
events are fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and I'm very pleased that
they invited me once again to moderate with my good
friend Deborah Flora an event coming up on the sixteenth
of September. And the only reason I added this today
and I'm gonna have Deborah on the show before just
to remind you, is I want you to save the
date because we actually have all eight school board candidates

(04:48):
committed to coming to this event, and we are going
to do a forum. It's not a debate, but we're
gonna be doing a forum and being able to allow
them all to tell you what they're about. You can
decide then which way you want to go. But I'm
very much looking forward to it, and we pride ourselves
on doing events that are incredibly respectful. We're not trying

(05:08):
to you know, we're not trying to debate them from
the moderator table. We're gonna let you hear from the
candidates and then you can make up your own mind
what to think about what they say. And yes, there'll
be an opportunity for you guys to ask questions and stuff.
But mark your calendar Tuesday, September sixteenth. It's at the
North Star Academy in Parker. So that is on the blog.
If you want more information about that. That pretty much

(05:30):
gave you all the information, but you can get it there.
So last night, did you watch the Eagles Dallas game
last night? Of course, Okay, first of all, it was
a good game. It was. It was a really good game,
Like I enjoyed that football game. It was kind of
like I felt like, this is a good game to
start the NFL season. It was back and forth and
back and forth, and it was just a good game.
It was, except it got off to a very very

(05:53):
bad start, like a really really bad start. It got
off to a bad start win. Before the game, there
was some jawing going on on the field and Jalen Carter.
Of their entire defenses built around Jalen Yeah, and he
gets into it a little bit, going back and forth

(06:14):
with Dak Prescott, and he makes the terrible choice to
at one point spit on Dak Prescott's uniform. Now, he
didn't roam ow it up where he's spit in the
guy's face, but he did spit at Dak Prescott right
in front of a referee. Not saying you should do
it if you can get away with it, I'm just
saying it was also in front of a referee, So

(06:36):
he got booted before the game even started. Now, Philadelphia
still comes back to hold off Dallas and win, but
I'm guessing it could have been even more lopsided a
rod the game would have been less close had Jalen
Carter been in the game. But now now we find
out that there are more angles to this than initially

(06:59):
we're least. And it seems that as the jawing began
between Dak Prescott and Jalen Carter that Dak Prescott over
the shoulder of one of his linemen spits in the
general direction of Jalen Carter, just in not at him
in the general direction down.

Speaker 5 (07:19):
He gave a thorough enough explanation after the game. He's
a he's a spinner. He spits a lot. He says
he's not proud of it. He was not spinning at
a juc That's why I.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Said in the general direction of Jalen Carter. Obviously, Jalen
Carter thought that he was being spit at and even
said did you spit it me? So I also have
to say I think this is stupid. Jalen Carter should
be deeply ashamed of himself. But one thing I will say.
I got up this morning. I haven't watched ESPN in
a million years. I just it's not my thing. I
don't watch it, and I've turned on ESPN just in

(07:55):
time to see them talking about Jalen Carter. After the
game yesterday, he stayed in the stadium. He met the press.
He said, I made a terrible mistake, and when they
tried to kind of give him the opportunity to blame
Dak Prescott, he did not take the bait. He said
it was a dumb thing to do. I should have
never done it. I can't believe it. It was just stupid.
I apologize to my teammates. It was just ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
And it became this morning the who shot first hand
Grido spit or spat spak Gate.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Okay, wait a minute. I immediately remembered the episode of
Seinfeld where Kramer is trying to figure out if Keith
Hernandez spit on him and they have to come to
the conclusion there was a second spinner and that was
what I thought of, and before I could get to
Twitter to post it, somebody else beat me to it.
It's like, dang, it wasn't fast enough with that joke crap.
But all in all, bad decision making by Jalen Carter,

(08:45):
but he seems to have owned it. We'll see what
the league does next. But just like you guys, just
why yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:52):
Why well he in terms of I mean, he's gonn
probably get a fine and he essentially already served a
one game suspension because it was or even played it down.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
But I don't they count that.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
They do big factor that in if you're if you're
I think across most sports, if you're they take into
account at what portion of a game. You were booted,
and this is essentially what he missed the entire opener.
I don't think he'll get further suspension, probably just a fine,
And Dak may or may not get a fine. They
may take it as some sort of him starting, but
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Prescott has a reasonable argument that he spit in the
general direction, but it definitely is on a downward trajectory. Yeah,
it wasn't trying to get any distance on that. Forget
spit takes.

Speaker 5 (09:33):
Now they need to review the spit tape and see
if he truly has over his career ben a spinner
or if he's being a liar.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Well done, thank you, well done with spit tapes. Yeah,
I mean that was good, Thank you. That was quality
right there. Thank you. I mean, I I believe Dak thoroughly.
I think he's like, Yeah, I just I spent.

Speaker 5 (09:48):
I didn't want to spin on my linemen, so I
had to kind of spit over them. Just happened to
be in the direction of Jalen wasn't near him, Yeah,
Jalen Carter didn't think.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yep, that was the case. Mandy, great game, except for
the Woo's weather. I need to get my butt to bed.
Dude that saw some images of some lightning that was close.

Speaker 5 (10:04):
Yeah, I mean they did not. They didn't start playing
again until eleven thirty eastern. Eleven thirty eastern.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
Wait, somebody just called me out on Keith Hernandez. Yeah,
that's by the way, wasn't it in Seinfeld? Yeah? It was.
Wait a minute, by.

Speaker 5 (10:17):
The way, we get back to back great days of football,
because there's Friday football tonight, Chiefs and Chargers in.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Brazil, Brazi, Yeah, it's it is Keith Hernandez. In that
Seinfeld episode, I was like, don't maybe question my Seinfeld knowledge. People,
I realize this asked me anything, but don't question my
Seinfeld knowledge. Okay, don't do it. And my older James
Bond movie knowledge. I realized my knowledge of the Daniel
Craig movies not nearly as deep as all of the

(10:44):
James Bond movies before that. Quick little nod.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
By the way, since you're bringing up mid sitcoms, I'll
tell you about a great follow up sitcom. They premiere
yesterday of The Paper followed the Game, the New Office
spinoff show It.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Looks kind of funny. I watched the first episode of it.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
There is promise, okay, more promise than the first episodes
of The Office itself.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
I watched the first episode of Tony and ZeVA last night.
They spin off from n CIS with Tony Denozo and
Ziva David, who are my two favorite characters of all time.
On NCI we're doing it again. It's no And here's
the problem. It's totally different, Okay, like totally different.

Speaker 5 (11:22):
And I mean you gotta get created when you have
that thousand of those.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
Shows, just I you know, would you like it? You know,
it sounds like you liked it. I mean when I
watched the second episode, maybe maybe not the season. This
last season was the first season in the entire existence
of n CIS that I did not watch every episode.
I've fallen off. I mean, it's been like one hundred years.
I think I was four when the n CIS first

(11:48):
came on TV.

Speaker 5 (11:48):
Well, i'll see, I'll be I'll be dedicated to this
new paper show. They even have an opening show jingle
that's comparable to the Office, and it was so emotionless,
a new version of the Office, and they gave homage
to the Office. There's a cool little twist that they'd
make this spinoff thing and it's the cast so far
is really funny.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
There's a lot of promise.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
So if you haven't watched it, Yes, the paper The
Office spinoff premiere last night after it's on Peacock.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
You guys must know that Friday has automatically asked us anything, Mandy,
are you do better Denver? Why? Yes, I am Mandy.
What is the history behind tic tac toe A winner?
That is from when Nancy Pelosi was trying to be
hip and cool talking about the potential TikTok ban or
TikTok regulation and this is what she brought to the floor.

(12:31):
Play it one more time? Oh yeah, just to remind
people what we're talking about. Tick tech toe a winner? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (12:38):
On the made off spinoff text line eight six seven
five three oh nine. Yes, The Office is the best
sitcom of all time. To the question that you didn't ask, well, I.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Mean generationally, every generation has their best sitcom of all time. Yeah,
in some and some the Office.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
Some people say the Office and other people say wrong answers.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
This text, Will Mandy be talking penises again today?

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Boy?

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Just that one time him? So all you men in
the office can giggle together, Okay, that's that's it, said Mandy.
The jerk store called, and they're out of Jalen Carter
well played Texter.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
He played he seems like a guy, and his locker
room response was I think pretty heart felt like he
had legitimately.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
I was impressed, remorse. And it's a young guy still
very young, Yeah, very young. He's issues in the past.
That hasn't he has? Like what was the deal? Didn't
he get? Didn't he was? He in like a vehicular
manslaughter situation. There was some kind of car accident with him,
and I don't remember what it was. I have no idea.
Misdemeanor charges were reckless driving and racing.

Speaker 5 (13:38):
Okay, it was a fat yeah, car crash killed two people.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
I mean you'd hope that stuff like that. And again,
these these guys, their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed.
And he dropped.

Speaker 5 (13:51):
He was going to be potentially the top overall pick.
He fell to the Eagles, like ninth overall.

Speaker 4 (13:56):
Hey, Rod, how woke is the new show?

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Not much at all? So far. We'll see It's great,
great cast. Do Gleason is the lead. He's really funny.
The text are clarified. I wasn't questioning you. That was
Newman's reaction when you heard Jerry say kaitherr nandez, in
which case you are forgiven Texter. Anyway, Okay, we've got
guests coming up today. We've got one coming up at
twelve thirty. His name is Mike O'Donnell. He is an

(14:20):
economist and a super nerd who you have to follow
on X if you want to see some of the
most just mind boggling statistics. And today we're talking about
something that he posted and listen to this now. I'll
do that in the next segment because he's coming on
at twelve thirty and then at one o'clock. You may
have heard my interview with Chris Vanderveen from nine News.

(14:42):
Uh maybe beginning of August somewhere around there, maybe right
before that. He's been sort of building this story about
the parole system here in Colorado and some very concerning
changes that have been made to data about prisoners that
is supposed to be unchangeable because it's based on their history,

(15:05):
and that data is used to determine whether or not
they can be released on parole. And what's happening is
violent criminals are having that data changed in such a
way as to make them appear like they are not
violent criminals, and they're getting led out of prison, and
some of them have reoffended again in spectacular fashion. So
Chris has not finished with this story. He's got even

(15:28):
more on this story. And to me, the biggest part
of the story is why are we not Why have
we not already? Maybe our Attorney general is too busy
suing Trump to ask for an investigation into how this
is happening, because it's either happening because there is a

(15:49):
entirely consistent glitch in the system that needs to be fixed.
But it's I would say inconsistent. Wait, it would be consistent,
and that it seems to only air in the wrong direction.
But it would be inconsistent because we don't know how
many records were changed, right, so that could be a

(16:12):
problem that we could fix, or someone is making changes
to these prisoners' records, and we need to know why
are they being paid to do that? Are they doing
it out of the kindness of their heart? Are they
doing it because they're being ordered by people in prisons
to do these things? I want to know. And Chris,

(16:32):
in a recent tweet on X said pretty much the
same thing, like why is no one seems to be
concerned about this? And guys, people have been murdered because
of some of these people. So we'll talk to Chris
Vanderveen again, get an update at one, and then at
two thirty we're going to talk with Oh my gosh,

(16:55):
I completely just blanked Laurie, thank you, Laurie gimmelschmat Is Sime.
She's coming on from Protect Kids Colorado at two thirty
to talk about three valid initiatives that petition gathering begins today.
They're having a petition pop up event today from five
to eight pm. And these are three ballad initiatives designed

(17:18):
to protect children in Colorado. One is increasing child human
trafficking penalties. One will keep boys out of girls sports.
And you, guys, I know you're going to be shocked,
but they really easily defined man, woman, boy and girl
in this ballad initiative makes total sense, absolute and total sense.

(17:40):
And there's also one to prevent kids from getting medical
gender affirming treatment in Colorado. So these are three ballad initiatives.
They're going to be collecting signatures and we're going to
talk to Lori at two thirty about that. So that's
all coming up. And in the meantime, I have good
news you guys. We've been talking about this for years
and the data is not set. All of the t's

(18:02):
are not crossed, all the eyes are not dotted. But
I talked to our program director Dave Tepper yesterday about
doing a Mandy Connell's Singles mixer, and we're gonna spitball
some stuff. But I want to get some ideas from
you guys. What would you like to see? Because one
thing I know for certain, if I just invite a
bunch of single people to come and show up and
I don't give them some reason to mix and mingle,

(18:24):
a lot of you will just stand on the sidelines
and not do any of it. So we got to
come up with like catchy things. So all of this
is just gonna be that kind of show. And of
course ask me anything also throughout the show via the
Common Spirit Health text line at five, six, six, nine
to zero. When we get back, wait until you hear
the crime statistics that Mike O'Donell gathered up about Colorado

(18:45):
and more importantly the rest of the country. All that
coming up next at mo'donnell and go ahead and give
Mike O'Donnell a follow because I just asked Mike this
off the ear. Mike, welcome back to the show. First
of all, thanks well having me back. I just asked
Mike off the air, I said, Mike, what are do
you just sit around and do nerdy economic stuff all day?

(19:07):
And the answer is essentially yes. And then he puts
his statistics in his graphs on X and some of
them are shocking, and then some of them are super
shocking and this one that I saw today or yesterday
was one of those. And it says Mike. Although the
number of violent crimes were reported by the FBI nationally
fell by ten point h four percent between twenty seventeen

(19:29):
and twenty twenty four, the annual number of violent crimes
the FBI tracked for Colorado increased twenty eight percent over
that same timeframe. That's crazy, I mean, that's absolutely nuts.
Where did these statistics come from? And then that's a

(19:51):
good question.

Speaker 7 (19:51):
What happens is the FBI maintained like a general database
and I think in their pressure release I said about
one hundred and sixty thousand agencies, you know, police, sheriffs, colleges, universities, tribals,
will all report statistics each year to the FBI, and
they say it covers about ninety six point five.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
Percent of the population of the United States. So they
gathered this.

Speaker 7 (20:14):
Information up every year and then they put it up
on their website, you know, typically every August.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
So it's just good data to use.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
And you can check through that information by state and
even within state, by the policing district. For example, my
little county out here in eastern Colorado, I thought I'd
check and see how many violent crimes the sheriff dealt
with last year, and they dealt with three, and then
the year before they dealt with four. So you're in

(20:42):
little county where violent crimes dropped twenty five percent. But
for the whole of Colorado it's actually, you know, it's
just year to year it's gone down just a fraction,
but if you look at an eight year trend, it's
gone up more than in any other state. So it's
not a good trend for Colorado to be sharing.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
So Mike, in looking at the graph that you put together,
it is striking how much how many more seats are
underneath on the declining crime side. You have maybe a
handful of states, maybe eight or nine, maybe ten where
crime went up, and Colorado's right on the top of that.
There's no other state that saw a bigger increase over

(21:24):
this timeframe than us. That's exactly right.

Speaker 7 (21:27):
If you actually look back at twenty seventeen stats, because
I just I started with twenty seventeen just because it
was about eight years ago and.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
I like even numbers.

Speaker 7 (21:35):
Colorado was ranked twenty first in the nation in terms
of violent crime statistics.

Speaker 4 (21:40):
And what I mean by those.

Speaker 7 (21:42):
Is that how many crimes occur for one hundred thousand
of populations. So Colorado's population has been increasing a little
bit faster than the national average since twenty seventeen. But
Colorado moved from twenty first in twenty seventeen to fifth
in twenty twenty four, and no other states has jumped
that far that fast. So something unusual is going on

(22:05):
in Colorado.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Now, I know that you are a statistics guy. You
are the man who crunches the numbers and looks at
all this stuff. And are you just leaving it up
to us to decide if it was the disastrous criminal
justice reform bill that could have let us down this
path or disastrous let them all go free? Policies by
district attorneys that have let us here, You're just gonna
let us draw our own conclusions.

Speaker 7 (22:28):
Yeah, I like to draw. Let you people draw your
own conclusions. Again, I have opinions and excel Twitter whatever
it's called I have. I'm not a paid subscriber, so
I have my limited number, and so I'm not gonna
pose my opinions on people. I like people to look
at the information and draw their own. But you're right,

(22:49):
I mean there's been changes here without one party rum
rule our, you know, slip on the hand type approach
to criminals and everything I mentioned off earlier that you know,
microeconomics is all about incentives and different in disincentives and
what we have not done a good job of providing
disincentives for people in Colorado to commit crime. So when

(23:10):
you look at the stats, now, you know we have
a cast holden in our state every eighteen minutes. That
was in twenty twenty four, but if you go back
to twenty twenty two, it was every nine minutes, and
so things are improving a little bit. But compared to
you know, where we were in twenty seventeen, it's just
chalk and cheese. It's just very different things have changed

(23:31):
in Colorado. Then you know that Andy comments about that,
the possible causes are very obvious. I mean, the team
that's in charge in today's you know, one party rules,
no checks and balances. We have an attorneys who's soft
on crime, to put it bluntly, and the left side
of the islers has approaches to punishment at criminal justice

(23:56):
that just don't work.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
I would agree with you all heardly on that.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Now.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
I asked Mike offe Arsid, Why'd you choose twenty seventeen,
because I would be very interested in just seeing the
data since twenty nineteen when we truly became a one
party rule state. Do you have that broken out? I mean,
what is the trend? There is the trend as dramatic?
I guess.

Speaker 7 (24:19):
It is with the FBI gives it on a annual basis.
So I've looked at twenty nineteen twenty nineteen. The jump
from twenty seventeen to nine twenty nineteen wasn't great. The
huge jump in twenty twenty and the problem with the
FBI is that in twenty twenty one, a lot of
states didn't seem to report crimes for whatever reason because

(24:41):
the COVID, Yeah, the COVID and stuff. But for example, California,
which is right up there with US, I mean they
had in twenty twenty. You know, they traditionally have one
hundred and seventy plus thousand violent crimes each each year.
In twenty twenty one on the FBI databases only thirty
six thousand crimes, but then in twenty twenty two they
jump up to one hundred and ninety four thousand. So

(25:03):
sometimes there's a little bit of inconsistency from year to years.
So I don't like to just compare one year to another.
I like to look over a period of time. But
you're right after after twenty nineteen, really starting in twenty
twenty and going through that COVID year, twenty twenty two.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
Was really bad year for Colorado, and.

Speaker 7 (25:21):
Then it's eased a bit in twenty three, dropped by
about a nine hundred violent crimes from twenty two to
twenty three, and then it's dropped by another one hundred
and thirty one from twenty three to twenty four. So
the damage was all done in twenty one and twenty
two in the state, and that was the peak of
the one party. Let's let's make it harder for people

(25:43):
to own guns and defend themselves, and let's make it
easier for people who commit offenses to get out quickly
and try again.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
It's just yeah, yeah, no, I was gonna say, Mike,
I think that we've reaped what we've sown on this,
and I appreciate it. Told Mike this, I'm I'm glad
you have time to sit around and crunch these numbers
and do these statistics so people as to thinking.

Speaker 7 (26:07):
Holy get off the so I can go outside and
do some of the things that don't involve looking at
a screen.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah, thank you, I appreciate it. Follow Mike on X
it's just mo Donald, right, m O d doneal Mo Donald.
Follow him for great information, Mike. I'm sure we'll talk
again soon. Okay, thanks Manny, all right, thank you. That
is Mike o'donald, And I'm telling you, guys, his entire
x feed is just statistics. And in my mind, there

(26:38):
are statistics that every Republican candidate for office anywhere in
Colorado should have memorized because they're not flattering. They're not
flattering at all, and some of them are downright scary.
Like when I saw this crime when I was like, wait,
what what what? So check it out on X really

(27:02):
really interesting stuff. But again, all of these things. If
the voters in Colorado cannot look at the information that's
in front of their faces and recognize that single party
rule is not good for this state. As I've said before,
I don't think it's good for any state, then I
don't think the state can be saved. But I'm not
willing to give up just yet. Let me go through

(27:22):
some of our text messages, because it doesn't ask us
anything day, what about vaginas Mandy. There you go, guys, Mandy.
I've found over my sixty four years, it's give every
new show the four episode try. If you haven't got
me on the fourth episode, I'm done. That's fair. That's
a fair assessment. I usually don't make it past the third.
If you don't kept grabbing me by the third episode,

(27:44):
I'm out. Oh there's some exceptions.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
I mean, if people notoriously say it gets better, right,
wait until that moment where they say, like the office.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
Uh, Mandy, loose women at your singles gathering, us men
will show and we will definitely mingle. Oh, I don't
have loose women that listen to this show as far
as I know, Mandy, I don't know if this is
a question for you or a rod, but at the
Broncos game this year, if you bring a walkman to
listen to the play by play during the game, will
there be a delay like there was last year? Yes,
there will. It's just because of the way we have

(28:17):
to do things. In order to make sure that some
guy doesn't run up to our sound microphone on the
field and yell the F word fifty times, we have
to have a way to be able to not broadcast that,
if that makes sense, So we have to have a delay.
It just is what it is. There's no way around it.
Because people suck, honestly, Like if you people didn't suck
so bad, we wouldn't have to worry about that anyway.

(28:40):
And I just want to make a point. Who still
has a walkman? I admire you, sir or madam? How
old is that walkman that has the radio function on it?
You know what I'm saying, Like, I still remember I
remember when I got my walkman's sport, Oh, the bright
yellow one that was waterproof, you know, so when you
were doing all that sweating from all all the running.

(29:00):
You didn't crap out your cassette tape. Yeah, so good.
Definitely heard that we're so good. Everybody in the listening
audience is like, dang, I forgot about those, but I
love my too, Mandy. Yeah, but the iPod too. Eh,
I've never owned an ipodtro never owned an iPod than
for you did not take the Actually I owned one,

(29:23):
but I didn't know how to load any songs on it,
so I just was, yeah, I didn't do anything with it.
So anyway, Uh, Mandy, I'm planning attend to the singles
mingled no matter what the age group. Enjoy you and
a rod. Thank you very much, Mandy. You made my
day Yesterday. I'm listening from New Jersey being the iHeartRadio
app Crystal Clear audio all across the country. I had
of that last part, and I'm sitting in my car

(29:44):
with the windows down. The moment that the buffering was done,
the first thing I heard, quote loudly, by the way,
was Cuomo is a scumbag. Thank you New Jersey, Thank
you New Jersey. Mandy. A bunch of they're not on
social media. Do you think you could do a text
in contest for us? We can't with this one, but

(30:05):
we need to make a note of that.

Speaker 5 (30:07):
Caylee Sports Today at five thirty, I hear they're going
to go over another pair of tickets for over the Air.

Speaker 4 (30:11):
Yeah, so there you go, Mandy. Most Lego sets are
about nine to ten cents a brick. It's a number
of pieces that make it so expensive. This texture is
referring they've obviously read the blog as all the smartest
people in the audience have Randy Cromwell dot com. Yeah,
and when you go to the blog, did you see
this thing, the new Death Star lego set? Don't look.
Don't look that. I don't have a picture. Guess how

(30:32):
much it is?

Speaker 5 (30:33):
Guess six hundred and ninety nine dollars.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
That's adorable. More, you are three hundred dollars short a
rod nine hundred and ninety nine dollars and ninety nine
cents before tax. Now, I guys, what this looks like?

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (30:47):
That is leg Yeah. Yeah, that's actually really cool but
not worth But no, what would know? Who is going
to do that? Nerds?

Speaker 5 (30:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (30:55):
Obiously, if I had money to burn, yeah me.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
I would not because I love how you old like
half of it and you see the interior of the
whole Death Star. That's really nice touch. Looks unfinished though
with that style, but it's really cool to see.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
Well, I'm just saying it is unfinished in the movies, right,
A lot of the movies. Yeah, yeah, finish Yeah. Thanks well, Mandy,
I'm a little fearful to ask this question, but I
have viewed a lot of videos on did we really
land on the Moon? I'm not a conspiracy person, but
their evidence is compelling. The only thing that dissuades me
is the Russians and not screaming that NASA is lying.

(31:32):
FYI witnessed this event in nineteen sixty nine on TV.
So I don't want to sound like some idiot old man.
Social media is a scary thing to me, and I
want to be careful. Let me just say this about that.
And this applies to so many other conspiracy theories over
the years. You can cherry pick data that has a

(31:52):
reasonable explanation otherwise and then put it together with other
things that have very easy to explain, understandable reasons. And
if you ignore all of those easy to understand reasons,
you can put all of these things together and create
a narrative with them. By ignoring things that undermine the narrative, right,

(32:17):
And that's what happens in these conspiracies. And I'm not
going to pretend to be an expert on the we
didn't land on the Moon thing, but I will tell
you this. I believe we landed on the Moon, but
I was not on the Moon, so I don't know.
But I do know. I believe we're on Mars now,
you know. I believe that we sent satellites barreling through

(32:38):
space and one of them is still, you know, giving
us some information that kind of stuff, So it's not
a crazy leap to think. And I've seen a space
shuttle take off off the pad, you know, so we
are in space. It just seems like a dumb conspiracy theory.
And it seems dumb for the reason you mentioned about

(32:58):
the Russians. If they thought that we just made that up,
holy cow, they'd still be talking about it. But that
they're not because they're pretty sure we were there and
I did see a space rock in the museum. Once.
They're not gonna They're not gonna fool me that way,
No way. When we get back nine News is Chris
Van Derven has been working on this story about prisoners

(33:21):
having information change that should not be changed, that is
allowing dangerous people to get on on parole. We'll find
out what's happening in the latest right after this.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and Injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
No, it's Mandy Connell and.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
N FMA, got Way Say and the nicety through and
Connell Keeping sad thing.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
Welcome Local welve. Lem me give the second hour of
the show. I'm your host Mandy, joined by my producer
Anthony Rodriguez. And if you have been paying attention to
Chris Vanderbin of nine News, he's got a great Twitter feed.
He has been on this story and I feel like
it's been a while now that Chris has been sort
of digging into our parole system, how people are parolled

(34:18):
information that the parole board uses in order to decide
make decisions about parole. And Chris, first of all, welcome
back to the show.

Speaker 8 (34:28):
Thanks Manny for having me. Yeah, this has been a
lengthy investigation. I think technically we started working on it
in early twenty twenty four. Last year after a parole
league by the name of Vincenzo Moscoso was accused of
murdering two people in northwest Denver, and since then we've
really sort of like tried to focus in on, I

(34:50):
think identification of the what I think are some potentially
systemic gaps within the parole system of Colorado.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
So let's start really quickly with how the role system
works in the sense that these evaluations that we're going
to talk about next, what role they play in whether
or not someone is paroled. Because the parole board is
just made up of people who come to a meeting
with information, they get evaluations, they get that stuff. So
we're talking about the evaluations that are done by who

(35:17):
does these evaluations, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (35:20):
By corrections officers, Department Corrections officers.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
When they're on inside.

Speaker 8 (35:24):
There's there's a number of assessments that are done and
in order to understand the story you really understand, like
basically think of this, every six months or every year,
the Department of Corrections, whether you're an inmate within prison
or you're arrolling who's out of prison, will try to
assess your risk level to reoffend. And it's really this

(35:46):
idea of like can we ask you a series of
questions that we'll get to the heart of let's take
Chris Vanderfiedt, the felon. Unfortunately I'm not. But let's let's
take that as a as a hypothetical hypothetical example that
I will answer a series of questions with a prole
officer correction his officer in front of me, and they
will come up with a score that will determine am

(36:09):
I low risk to reoffend?

Speaker 4 (36:11):
Or am I very high risk to reoffend?

Speaker 8 (36:14):
And based upon the answers that that assessment gives, you
can sort of like give finely tune the level of care, treatment.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Supervision to that person.

Speaker 8 (36:24):
So it's like it's getting into the weeds a little bit,
but I think it's important to sort of understand that
base level. Yeah, and the higher the score that you have,
the more risk that you have. It's not predictive fully
in nature, that means to guarantee that Chris biannit means
going to reoffend if he's high risk or very high
risk to reoffend, but.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
It means statistically speaking, I'm more inclined to reoffend. And
you want to know that when.

Speaker 8 (36:48):
Somebody's out on parole, are there some of you got
to watch closely or there some of you don't have
to watch this, bock So.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
And one of the things, I mean, there are things,
and I want to believe that people are capable of
change and care people of rehabilitation. So I would assume
that some of those measures could change dramatically over the
course of one's incarceration. But some of those measures are
should be static, right, they should be the same on
every report. How many felonies this person has committed, has

(37:16):
this person violated parole in the past. I mean, these
are numbers. These are hard data that should never change.
And that's kind of where we're talking about here, right,
That's where the.

Speaker 8 (37:25):
Issues are, and that's what we're the investigation is really
sort of concentrating on because they're there. They're the more,
the once more obvious errors in these assessments. And think
about it this way. There's a question, were you ever
expelled from high school or school?

Speaker 4 (37:41):
If the answer to.

Speaker 8 (37:42):
That question is yes, if Chris By, if I were
expelled from what Thomas Jefferson High School is the school
I went to here in Denver, If I was expelled
from TJ and the answer to that is yes in
twenty fourteen, then the answer that twenty twenty four would
still be yes. That is what they call in the
business a static score. And and what we've been finding

(38:03):
with these static scores is that sometimes like Chris bannermy
twenty fourteen ever expelled from DJ Yes and twenty twenty
four No, that's a mistake, that's an error. And what conversely,
what happens with that is that you know, you get
one point for answering yes to have you've been expelled
from school, and then you know years later if it's no,

(38:25):
then it's zero points. And as I talked about the
amount of points matters, the higher the points, the higher
the risk. And if you mess up on those scores,
now all of a sudden, your risk level is getting
lower than it should, right, And that's what's happening.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
So you know, and you know, lots of times it may.

Speaker 8 (38:42):
Be it may be relatively inconsequential when we're talking about
two points or whatever, but sometimes it's so much that
suddenly somebody who is who is who should be like
very high or high risk, is now moderate risk or
in the example that we've talked about, last a couple weeks,
go low risk. And that means you're not getting a

(39:04):
lot of interaction with your brow officer.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
You're not being drug tested as much.

Speaker 8 (39:09):
And again, you'd like to think that people who are
high risk to re offend, they're getting the most interaction
with role because that means that they're checking in on them,
they are they noticing maybe they're spirally, maybe they need
more care. This is when I say I think we've
identified a systemic problem. I'm convinced of it because you know,

(39:33):
while it doesn't mean that the people that we've identified,
it doesn't mean that that absolutely they would not have
murdered somebody.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Had they caught this. It just means that as.

Speaker 8 (39:43):
A whole, we're not catching people as much as we
should in terms of assigning their risk level, and it
means overall we're less inclined as a state to provide
the right level of care and treatment and supervision to
people who can be inherently dangerous.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
I'm more I mean, I'm more suspicious than you are
about about the beginning part of this, and I think
that that's the part and all of your points you
made about levels of supervision are spot on. I mean,
if you have somebody that has a propensity for violence, yeah,
I want them if they get out of prison to
be carefully monitored, right. I want to know that they're
being looked at and being followed up on. But the

(40:24):
reality is is that we have kind of a significant
issue right now. And it's either sloppy record keeping or
a system that is so cumbersome that it lends itself
to sloppy record keeping and that in and of itself
needs to be fixed, Or it's someone being lazy and
not doing a good job that needs to be fixed,
or it's more malicious, you know, the suspicious level. In me,

(40:45):
I'm like, is it something more malicious where you have
people that are getting numbers changed because of either relationships
within the prison or or you know, even something more
nefarious than that. And I don't want to cast dispersions,
but I think all of that should be the focus
of an Hence investigation. I think whatever the answer is,
and it could be something really simple to solve, I

(41:05):
think that not only we the public, but also the
men in prison deserve to know that their records as
they are are not being meddled with, right because how
do we know they're not being meddled with in the
other direction, making low risk prisoners.

Speaker 8 (41:21):
I agree with that there's a man on the name
of Brian Lovin's we interviewed in our story recently. He
helped create the assessment system that Colorado uses, and he
was a verse of the idea of like actually criticizing
Colorado because he didn't want to go in that direction.
But what he did say is this, and I think
it's really important. He says, it is worse to get

(41:43):
assessments wrong than to not do assessments at all, Meaning
if you're going to do them, you need to do
them correctly because you can assign Let's say, let's say
you do have somebody who is inherently low risk and
they're treated as high risk, then you're having too much

(42:04):
resources devoted to a person who is at low risk
to reoffend. Ideally, what you want to do is devote
the most amount of resources you can to the people
who are statistically speaking most likely to reoffend. This is
we don't have all the money in the world. It's
sort of like put towards parole. People on parole. Not
all of them are going to reoffend, but statistically speaking,

(42:25):
they're much more likely to reoffend because they've already offended
in the first place. They're on parole, they've gotten out
of prison, and so you want to believe that the
state is doing a good job of saying.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Okay, Chris Fanitvy is.

Speaker 8 (42:39):
High risk, we're going to devote like you got to
check in with your prole officer every two weeks or
every week because we want to know how you're doing.
But if Chris Fanamy is low risk, then you don't
have to give as much resources. I don't have to
check in as often with the prole office. And we
do have a problem in this state when it comes

(43:00):
to crimes, high profile crimes that are committed by paroles, and.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
There are a number.

Speaker 8 (43:09):
Of high profile crimes that have been committed by people
on parole. Next week, we're taking a deeper look into
a man by the name of Ricky Lee Royball Smith
who was on parole and he's now accused of a
double homicide in Aurora on colfax, and he's also the
main suspect, by the way, in a death inside the

(43:31):
Denver jail and a death that happened in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
This is a guy that is potentially very dangerous and.

Speaker 8 (43:39):
The state did not do a good job of assigning
his risk level, it's clear as day. So when it
comes down to what needs to happen, I think I
said these two before when I talked to before, like.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
It shouldn't just be up to a reporter at nine
news to investigate this problem.

Speaker 8 (44:00):
I openly admit there's eight thousand people on parole in
the state of Colorado right now. I cannot, single handedly,
with the help of my team, look into all eight
thousand cases and see how the state is doing.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
But the state does have the resources and.

Speaker 8 (44:13):
The power to care, a little bit more about this
and actually identify, Okay, what is the extent of the problem.
And what scares me the most is that we don't
know the extent of this problem right now.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
And that is significant because we don't know how many
other paroles are out there, probably shouldn't be in the community,
or I mean, even as I said, it's like, it
sounds like a silly thing to worry about that someone
who is a low risk offender would be kept in
prison right as a member of the population or likewise,
it's still a criminal. But for me that does matter,
Like I want the people in our justice system to
be treated the way our justice system is designed to

(44:46):
treat them wherever they are, right wherever level they are.
But have you seen any consistency in the records that
you have pulled? This seems to be more pervasive in
one prison or another, or does it seem to be
consistent across the whole system.

Speaker 8 (45:02):
I think what I've seen so far is that it's
consistent across the board. And I think what we've just
started to get into recently, we talked a lot about
assessments of people on parole, but there's assessments of people
that are inmates that are in prison. And keep in mind,
I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
You're well aware of this. I think this is surprising
for the.

Speaker 8 (45:23):
Public is if Chris Pannamine is given a twenty year
sentence to prison, statistically speaking, I'm going to do about
ten years of that prison sentence and then I'm going
to be on parole for a certain period of time.
A lot of parole that happens in the state of
Colorado is discretionary parole, where the parole bar gets to say, yeah,
we think you're ready to be parolled. And one of

(45:47):
the tools they're using to decide if somebody should be
parolled discretionarily early are these assessments. Yeah, and so if
you're getting the assessment and we know they're getting these
assessment's wrong in prison, because we've found documented cases where
they're getting these assessments wrong. And it doesn't mean the
pro board's going to release this person. But if if

(46:08):
you're looking at somebody that you might may or may
not release the prison and they're low risk thy offend
or modern risk thy offense, you may be more inclined
to proll that person as opposed to very high risk
toy offense. That's the problem too.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Amen to that, Chris. I appreciate the story. I've been
following along as you add. Every time I see a
new face on your Twitter feed, I'm like, oh, Chris
has found another one in his little back of Chris,
have you spoken to the Attorney General's office about this
and said, hey, would you guys or could you guy?
Or can someone just get to the bottom of this,
because to your point, the state does should have the

(46:40):
resources to figure out what the problem is. I would,
I would, I would yes to the AG's office.

Speaker 8 (46:45):
But I think specifically it is the governor who appoints
the head of the Department of Corrections. It is the
Department of Corrections that will not go on camera with us,
And it is the governor who will not go on
camera with us to discuss specific questions that we have.
And I do think the responsibility here lies is the governor.

(47:09):
The governor appoints the executive Director of the Pariment of Corrections,
that's the boss of DOC. That's the person that determines
how this goes. That's the person that determines, Hey, we
need to look further into this to see, if you know,
does Chris have some wack to doodle idea of what's
going on in the pro system or is.

Speaker 4 (47:25):
He on to something?

Speaker 5 (47:26):
Right?

Speaker 8 (47:26):
I think I'm onto something, but I think I would
not sort of like a lot of responsibility here lies
with Governor Polis one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
Well, you and I are in a similar vote. He
won't come on my show either, so I can appreciate that.
But Chris, keep up the good work. We're going to
keep sharing the story. I think it's a really important story.
And we've had way too many high not even not
just the high prof We've just had way too many
people whose lives were destroyed or taken by people who
probably shouldn't have been walking around, and I think that

(47:58):
that's significant and something that we should all be concerned
about as we're trying to move crime in the right
direction in Colorado. I think all of this is connected.
So I appreciate you making this your cause and just
keeping the digging in and hopefully maybe the Attorney General's
office and the governor we'll hear some pressure and begin
to actually say we should probably figure out what's going on.

(48:21):
You talk about victims of crime.

Speaker 8 (48:22):
There's a manman of the name of Jesse Schaeffer, who
was murdered back in late June, allegedly at least according
to the Royal Police Department, by this Ricky Lee roy Ballsmith.
I talked to his family not too long ago. They
live in Salida. The story we're gonna have on Tuesday Night,
this is devastating. Victims of crime need to be heard
and they are curious about what we found. And quite frankly,

(48:46):
I don't blame that.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
That's going to be on Tuesday Night's nine News. I
appreciate your time today, Chris very much. That's Chris Vandervein.
Thanks and Andy. All right, have a great day, man,
crazy story and what's crazy to me?

Speaker 7 (48:59):
Is just.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
But I mean, the people that should be the most
interested in getting to the bottom of it are just like, eh,
you know, shrugging. I just think that's crazy, absolutely crazy.
This is an interesting text message as an ex con.
If there's no support system, you're more likely to reoffend
one hundred percent accurate. But this person continues. When I

(49:20):
got out, it took me one hundred and thirty six
days to find someone to hire me. I seriously considered reoffending.
You know, I don't have like the uber conservative view
on our justice system. I know a lot of people personally.
I know a lot of people on the right. And
you may be on the right and not agree with this,
but I know a lot of people on the right
are like, look, slam the door behind him, throw away

(49:42):
the key kind of thing. But the reality is is
that a vast majority of people in our prison system
are going to get out right, very few are there
until they die. So the rest of them are going
to come back into society. They're going to come back
into our cities, in our neighborhoods. And I firmly believe
that prison should offer as many opportunities for those who

(50:02):
genuinely want to change. And that's the key, right if
you go into prison and say I've had enough, and
I've had the great pleasure over my radio career of
interviewing more than one person who was in prison. For
some of them were in prison for over twenty years,
and they made a decision at some point in prison,
maybe a year in maybe ten years, in maybe fifteen

(50:24):
years in that they really wanted to change their lives,
and they started taking advantage of the programs that were available.
They got their high school diplomas, some of them got
some basic college, some of them got a skill or
a trade. And there are really dynamic programs in some
areas for ex felons to come back and re enter

(50:44):
the world, get another chance again. I'm all for that
for people who genuinely want to change. I am not
for that for people who want to abuse the system.
And I think it's I've been told by former inmates
that it's fairly easy to tell one from the other.
I mean, every once in a while you get a
scam artist who's really good at fooling their way through it.

(51:05):
But we have to allow people the opportunity to come back.
I mean, I believe in redemption That's one of the
things I love about the United States of America. This
country believes in redemption. We want people to learn from
their mistakes and be better on the other side, don't we.
I mean I do so. I don't believe just because
someone has committed a crime that they're hopeless and can't

(51:26):
be saved and their lives can't be better. I mean,
I just I wish we could do more to help
the people who genuinely wanted to change in prison. So
I realize that's not popular with everyone listening to the show. Mandy,
It's the only way our AG would our AG is
interested if Trump was responsible. You know, that's a great point.

(51:48):
That's a great point, says this texter. One of the
craziest parts about the story is Chris Vanderveen is telling it.
He's usually so pro government. If he's found a problem here,
that means it's bad. Well, I mean, from Chris's perspective
the way I just heard it, he's very concerned that
we're letting people out of prison that are not being
supervised properly. My level of paranoia and suspicion about why

(52:11):
this is happening is a lot higher than his. I think,
and I think that has got to be determined, Like
we have to figure that out. How about not parolling
violent criminals, Guys, people can be rehabilitated. Not every violent
criminal gets out reoffends, especially if they have the ability
to take advantage of some of the programs. I was

(52:31):
just talking about, you know, the older and this is
what an ex con once told me he had been
when he was a kid. I think he said the
first time he went to prison, he was seventeen, and
when I met him he was probably late fifties, and
he had spent thirty years of his life in jail,
in prison, and the last stretch he did was a
ten year stretch, and he said, I was old enough

(52:54):
at that point to be able to really look at
my own choices and how I'd created this life for
my self that I no longer wanted. And he started
engaging and, like I said, really work to change his life.
So those people deserve the opportunity to change. And if
the law says they're eligible for parole after a certain time,
if you don't like the law, change the law. Anyway.

(53:18):
When we get back, I have so much stuff, but
I want to talk about our singles mixer. Okay, I
mentioned this at the beginning of the show. We need ideas.
I talked to my boss yesterday. It's going to be
a lot of fun, a lot of fun. I did
tell Chuck he has to wear a shirt that says
I'm not available you too. A rod will make one
for you too. I'm taking But I think it could
be a lot of fun. And people have been asking

(53:39):
for this for years. But I need ideas, like what
should we do at this singles mixer? I have some ideas.
I'll share them with you. After this, we have a
go for the Mandy Connell Singles Mixer. Now, I don't
have a date, I don't have a location. This is
all in the very beginning stages. But it's happening. You

(54:00):
guys have been asking for this for a really long time.
But I want to make it a very successful event.
And I already told my boss. I said, look, when
we announce that we're doing a singles event, all the
married people are going to be like, what what about
our event? So we're also working on one of those two.
I mean, you could come to the singles event if
you're married, but that's kind of a jerk. Move just
saying we will be doing tickets for this event. They're

(54:25):
not going to be free. I mean, they're not going
to pay for them. But that's the only way I
can ensure that we have a good balance right between
men and women. I don't want I don't want to
be a sausage farm when you get there again, I
want to be a dude ranch. I want to make
sure that we have enough people, you know, to mix
and mingle. But then here's the thing. I have been
to these things and there's a lot of people that
are kind of shy and they don't necessarily feel like

(54:49):
they can just walk up and talk to such. So
I want to see the pot a little bit. I
want to come up with creative ideas to kind of,
you know, force people to interact. And here here's one
of my ideas. Here's one of my ideas is to
have guys who would volunteer. They would come up and
they would give their best pickup line, and then I'd
have women with a bunch of whiteboards and they could

(55:09):
score them one to ten. That could be fun. That
could be very fun. I also like, like on your
name tag, we're gonna have it say something like your name,
you know how old you are, and then something that
will be an icebreaker, like what role do you wish
you could play in Hollywood? And recognizing that most of
us cannot act, but you know if you ever said, oh,

(55:30):
that would be so much fun. You know what role
I would love to play right now? I would love
to play Ali Larder's role on Landman. She is a
horrible person, just awful. I just think that would be
a blast. But I don't know what that says about
me to play the role. I don't know. So we
need to come up with stuff. Guys five six six

(55:51):
nine oh five six six nine oh text the Common
Spirit health text line with your idea. Somebody suggested that
we play the game where you tie a string around
some waste and then you try a long string down
and then you try a hot dog to the bottom
of the string and they have to swing it up
and catch it in their mouth. And I'm like, I
don't know, I don't know. The married couple's one is

(56:15):
going to be a wife swapping party, isn't it. No, Texter,
we have no plans to move forward with a wife
swapping party, just trying to get nice people with a
similar value system, you know, in the same room with
people that might share their value system, so they can
strike up a friendship and maybe it turns to a

(56:35):
dating situation. This Texter, Mandy, can I bring a date?
I'm not sure what bringing a date to a singles
mixer says about how you feel about that date. I mean,
are you just saying to them like, hey, I think
you're cool, but I just need a backup plan? Maybe?
What are the ages of the singles get together? My
daughter's twenty six. I'm probably just gonna say this, one

(56:58):
of the things we're gonna ask for on the tickets
is your age. No, we're not going to exclude people,
but I want people to know, like, if someone is
twenty five and they're not looking and they're looking for
another twenty five year old and we don't have any
twenty five year old sign up, I will let you
know in advance. I want to make this as even
as possible, right, but I also want to make sure

(57:20):
that we have something for everybody. Mandy, will you have
a wedding in a baby shower? If the singles event
goes well and people see success, you know what, I
will not, but I will be more than happy to
attend your wedding as long as it's not a destination wedding.
Just don't do that, Mandy. Avoid P Diddy style freakofs.

(57:40):
You know, I just gave it some thought, and upon
further reflection, I can assure you there will be no
P Diddy style freak offs at the Mandy Connell Singles mixer. Mandy,
can we wear red or blue to identify our political affiliation?
Thank you for asking that? Text her because I'm thinking,
and you guys can tell me if this is right
or wrong. I am thinking about banning any mention of

(58:03):
politics in the conversation. Any mentioned like you have to
talk about something else, because talking about politics is so tedious.
It's so tedious, And when you're building a relationship with someone,
please don't based it on politics. Please do not. Holy Moly,

(58:25):
just don't. So should I ban conversations about politics? Should
I just say no political conversations? Let's be real. A
vast majority of the people that are gonna come to
this are going to be right leaning. You know, Mandy,
my husband hates it when I date, but it would
be a fun event. You know, I can imagine your
husband being upset with that this one, isn't it obvious?

(58:46):
A wine and yoga tasting class. Don't laugh, because I
have gone to one of the Wine Yogi's wine tasting
yoga classes and it's outstanding. Mandy. I'm with you. I'm
not gonna I'm not going to know where there's hot
dogs swinging. I agree. I just don't think that's classy enough.
You know what I mean. Thanks, Mandy. I sincerely need

(59:08):
this singles mixer. I need to meet a conservative man,
which is hard to find in this state. Oh, contraor
young lady, you come and you'll find a conservative man,
trust me. Give guys the beginnings of words and gals
the ending of words. Oh I love that? Or what
about words that can go together like blank slate, but

(59:30):
then make other options like blank check, so then you'd
be like, oh, I'm go over here, talk about it,
blank stare. Oh my gosh, I love that. I love
that a lot. Oh that's good. That's really good, Mandy.
What are the big things on social media? And I
say this seriously, unlike my last comment, men aren't showing
up to these singles mixers. If you check out YouTube

(59:53):
or TikTok, it's strown with women lamenting that all of
their single mixers, none of the men are showing up
because of all the talk about the ick factor of
being hit on. Well, see, this is the thing about this.
We know why everybody's there, and I get it and
then don't want to come to But the reality is,
if you're coming to this mixer, it's because you want
to meet people. And here's the kicker you, guys. You

(01:00:14):
may not meet anyone you have a romantic connection with,
but if you make new friends that have similar value systems,
guess what they have friends that have similar value systems.

Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
That's sometimes you don't hit it off with that person,
but sometimes they're like, Wow, I got a friend you
should meet for sure. Uh thanks men oopen' already read
that when Mandy don't let John Caldera attend. Ew You, guys,
I love John Caldera like I love him. I'm gonna
invite him to come. I'm gonna make sure he's there.
If he's single, I don't know if he's seeing anyone.

(01:00:46):
I have no idea, Mandy, can I come in search
of a sugar baby? Whatever you want, sir or madam,
whatever you want to do, Mandy. It's a little complicated,
but depending on the number of people equally into teams.
So put numbers one, two, three, four, how many? How many? What?

(01:01:08):
You put something in a hat. Everyone grabs a piece
of finger, all the ones gelled together, all the twos,
and then you play three different Oh okay, so just
divide everybody up into groups. Well, the singles mixer be
like a catal Catalina wine What is a Catalina wine mixer?
I don't know what that is. Am, I gonna get am.

(01:01:28):
I looking up pornography right now on my computer to
find out what Catalina wine mixer. It's just a wine taste, oh,
modeled after a fictional event in the movie Step Brothers. Okay,
so there really is a Catalina wine mixer, you guys.
I haven't seen Step Brothers since it came out. I
don't remember that that scene. But if it works and

(01:01:49):
it's funny, then we'll do it. Mandy, it's pretty easy
to spot a liberal blue hair nose ring or a
man bun. I wish I could say that's totally wrong.
Mayby a lot of women won't date conservative guys. It
is something about electing a rapist or something. I know
I didn't listen. Let me just say this, and this
is going to sound really catty and really mean, and

(01:02:10):
it kind of is. Young women think they don't want
a manly man. They think they want a man who's
going to be pliable and will do exactly how the housework,
and we'll capitulate to them on pretty much every issue.
They think that's what they want. But then when you
grow up, you realize that kind of sucks, and you

(01:02:33):
want a manly man. I have friends in big cities.
I have a friend in New York who cannot find
a guy to date. She would date a conservative guy
because at this point she's like, well, all the men
that I've been dating are you know? I can walk
all over them. So women who just out of hand
will not date a conservative man. First of all, you're
cutting off your nose to spite your face. But I

(01:02:53):
think that we are about to see a massive wave
of women who never get married because they've been sold
a bill of goods about men and marriage that is
entirely inaccurate, and they truly believe that going through life alone,
buying a house alone, having kids alone, doing all the
things that career women are supposed to do alone. Now
is a way to go. I'm telling you it's not

(01:03:16):
spend a little of that effort finding the right person,
and boy, you've got to treat it like a job,
which is why we're having this mixer. We're talking about
the Vandy Connell single mickers. Wait, let me try that again.
Single mixer that we are going to put together. And
I'm trying to get some ideas. This is something that
people have asked for over and over and over again.
But I don't just want to have an event where
everybody comes and stands around and stares at each other.

(01:03:37):
So I'm looking for ideas of how to make it,
you know, how to kind of force people break the ice,
that kind of thing. And let's see here, where is it?
Let me find it? Uhmandy, ways to start interactions, mistletoe
belt buckles. Sorry, I'm a terrible person sometimes. And weirdly,
that's not Chuck's number. That is something my husband wud say.

(01:04:01):
And I mean that. Man Ny im a forty five
year old conservative man who's tried the single scene in Denver.
The odds are good, but the goods are odd. Yeah, uh, funny.
I was telling a friend back during Turkey season that
I need to find a girlfriend. I need someone to
check me for ticks. Jim O, I would not lead

(01:04:21):
with that necessarily. I would not make that. You're opening salvo.
But it's fair, you know, Mandy. Nothing like a good
game of Twister to get to know somebody. Y'all, we
are too old for twister. That ship sailed about twenty
years ago for me. Wait what, I literally just turned
in and heard treat it like a job. That's why

(01:04:41):
we're having this mixer. What mixer? We're having a singles mixer.
More details coming, but we're doing it. Jimo also went
on to say, please avoid deer in Elk seasons. Many
of the manly men will be on the mountain when
or deer in Elk seasons. I don't know. Someone needs
to let me know. Uh, Mandy, you should have the
best joke test at the mixer or nothing like finding

(01:05:02):
the cunning linguists in the crowd. Manny, I love the topic.
I'm a fifty eight year old conservative man, divorce fifteen
years ago, and I gave up on the dating scene
several years ago because of exactly what you just said.
Many many women are ending up unmarried and lonely due
to their attitude toward men in masculinity. Never heard a

(01:05:25):
woman make the point as well. And no, we're not
doing a naked mask wearing event. What is wrong with
you people.

Speaker 5 (01:05:34):
Here?

Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
I'm thinking I'm creating a respectable way for you know,
right leaning people to make meet other right leaning people,
and your people are making it weird. Now I'm already
rethinking this. Anyway. My daughter is dating and she told
me she wants a manly man. And poor guys, the

(01:05:56):
poor young men that are coming up right now, they've
been told relentlessly since they were children that masculinity is
toxic and they don't know how to be men. And
what we have done to young men is just it's
terrible what we've done me young women. We've made everything
so complicated. Kids. Back when I was young, when you

(01:06:18):
wanted to meet someone, you went out to some bar
with free or nickel beer, got kind of sloshed, and
got up the courage to walk across the bar and
talk to people. That's what we did. I'm not recommending alcohol,
but I kind of am. You know, you got to
maybe a little social lubricant in some situations would be good.
I don't know, Mandy. I have a longtime single friend

(01:06:42):
who complains that every man on the dating site has
a picture of himself with a big fish. I told
her to buy a boat. Not a bad strategy, Mandy.
My wife and I will be wearing the upside down pineapples. Okay,
my little swinger friends, that's a whole different kind of
mixer and I'm not having that one. How about ax throwing.
Here's the thing with ex throwing, and I love ex throwing.
I'm actually having an event for my clients where we're

(01:07:04):
gonna be throwing some access. But I want people to
be forced to have a conversation and not necessarily have
that to rely on, right, because it's a distraction. And
I realize that's why people do it, because it's a distraction,
but I don't It's not like when you're going on
a date with someone and you kind of want a
little bit of a distraction, so you know, the lulls
aren't so pronounced in this situation. If you are talking

(01:07:26):
to someone in the conversation just kind of dies out,
you should be able to say, hey, you know what,
it was nice talking to you. I'm gonna go over
and meet some more people and that's it. Call it
a day. Mandy, I'm seventy five looking for a twenty
to twenty five year old. Could be fatal, but if
she dies, she dies. Ha ha do you are? You

(01:07:47):
are funny? You are a funny, funny person. And the
last joke I'm going to take on this subject because
I'm to talk about something serious in the next segment. Mandy,
poop jokes aren't my favorite, but they're as solid number two.
On that note, we'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
No, it's Mandy Connell and on KOA ninem got way.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Nicey three by Connell keeping sad bab We.

Speaker 4 (01:08:30):
Well, welcome to the third hour of the show. I'm
your host for the next hour, Mandy Connell, Anthony Rodriguez,
pushing a button, running things, and we will take you
right up until KOA Sports. At the top of the hour,
a couple of quick questions from the Common Spirit health
text line, Hey, Mandy, will Mandy have any role in
the Broncos games broadcast? I think Mandy should co host

(01:08:51):
Broncos React after the game that is lovely of you
to think that. I mean I could, and I mean
I could because I used to do sports radio and
I just don't want to just I cause some of
those games get overlate. You guys get the best of
me this time. Slot trust me. Later in the evening,
I'm just tired. Uh. We're probably not gonna have a

(01:09:12):
Toka party. Just to let you know, Mandy, will you
have a mixer for seventy and eighty year old singles?
I expect you to be at this single at this mixer.
That's one of the reasons when we do the tickets,
We're gonna do free tickets. I'm gonna probably ask everybody
for their age range it's possible, just to make sure
we kind of know what we're gonna get there. Mandy
for the mixer, do two truths in a lie as

(01:09:35):
an icebreaker, I got even better. I had a listener
reach out to me. It was created a game called
Things You Can Say, and he's gonna donate some copies
of things you can say. And there are things what
can you say about an ex lover and a motorcycle right?
Or what can you say to your dog but you
can't say to your girlfriend. Those kind of things. I
think that'll be fun. I like the way this is

(01:09:57):
shaping up, you guys, the way shaping up. As soon
as we have any more details, we will let you
guys know, and then we'll be able to spread the
word among all the single people who listen to the
Bandy Show, because that's really who I want here. And you, guys,
I love it that one of you just sent all
of the Hunting seasons to me, all of the dates,

(01:10:18):
all of the Hunting seasons, and I appreciate you. I've
got to I've got to very carefully copy them from
the text line and send myself an email with them
in it. But I will tell you we'll be during
the week for a variety of reasons, not the least
of which is we're gonna do it in a space
like a restaurant or a venue or whatever. And you

(01:10:40):
know they're busy times with the weekends, so we'll probably
do it Wednesday night Thursday night. As I said, more
details as they become available, and you guys will be
the first to know. So thank you for participating in
my what should our singles mixer be? Hang on, I'm
just sending those dates to myself and that is done.
Now I've got a couple of things I want to
talk about. There's a really, really good editorial in the

(01:11:01):
Denver Gazette today. Sometimes I disagree with the Denver Gazette
editorial page, but for the most part, we are on
the same page. Right, we are definitely on the same page.
So uh oh, they took it down. Wait, that cannot
be right, that they could not have taken that down. Okay,

(01:11:24):
So there was an editorial in today's Denver Gazette that
very rightly ask the question do Democrat cities really care
about black lives? Mattering, do black lives really matter? And
the editorial had some statistics in it, and it has gone.

(01:11:47):
You guys, this is I'm wondering why they pulled it down.
Hang on one second, I'm just double checking to make
sure that it is indeed gone. And it is indeed gone.
I certainly hope they did not take it down because
of the content, because the content was accurate. When you
have people, when you have the mayor of Chicago explicitly

(01:12:11):
saying we don't want the National Guard here because crime
is on the decline, and then you go through a
labor day weekend where over fifty people were shot and
seven people were murdered. So this morning I went to
chat GBT, my new research assistant, and asked chat what
percentage of murder victims in Chicago are black. Seventy eight

(01:12:33):
percent of murder victims of Chicago are black. So what
the mayor is saying is, hey, you know what, all
these black people getting killed, It's okay, we're moving it
in the right direction. If you're unfortunate enough to get
killed before we continue to move it back in the
right direction where we need to go. Sorry about your luck.
We're not going to do anything to help you. Per
se word is going to resist. We're gonna let you

(01:12:56):
know wardsman bad and we don't need his help because
it's just black people that are dying. Now, that's not
what the editorial said, but it's a fair point. That
is a fair criticism right there, to say, you guys
marched in the streets to tell us that black lives matter.
But when it comes right down to it, when actual
black people are getting murdered. And by the way, the numbers,

(01:13:17):
and this was in the editorial, I don't know why
they pulled it down, but the numbers for how many
murder victims are African American as compared to their proportion
of the population is staggering. It's mind blowing here in Colorado,

(01:13:41):
where we do not have that many African American people,
We really don't. They make up a tremendous chunk of
our murder victims. So essentially, what these democratic cities are
saying is like black lives don't matter because black lives
are disproportionately being taken in places like Washington, DC and Shook.
And yet the mayors are telling us well, although I

(01:14:02):
have to say, Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, d C.
She has just leaned in. She is just gone. We
didn't have a murder for twelve days in DC. I
don't know if you heard, but federal Prosecutor Janine Piro
announced that there had been arrests in the murder of

(01:14:24):
the Congressional Intern, a twenty one year old man who
was just murdered for no reason. And they caught two
seventeen year old boys, and they're charging them both as
an adult because she's Jane Piro can under federal law
in Washington, d C. If these two seventeen year olds, who,
by the way, also have considerable violent criminal records. They

(01:14:48):
couldn't charge them if they were looking to charge them
in DC without that federal rule, they couldn't charge them
as adults, and mural Bowser stood at a press conference
and said, yeah, I think cold blooded by two seventeen
year old should be charged as an adult, but they're
still resisting it. I'm curious. I am genuinely curious as

(01:15:09):
to what happened to that editorial. Maybe there were some
bad stats in there. I don't know. I didn't check
the stats in it. I don't know. I really hope
they didn't take it down because somebody was frosty about it.
I think it's a legit question. Seems to me like
Donald Trump cares about black lives more than the mayor
of Chicago. Just throwing that out there, I do now

(01:15:34):
that I said Trump cares more about black line. Now
I have to talk about something dumb Trump is trying
to do. But looking at it straightforwardly as you honestly
can't do as much of what Trump does, it looks
ridiculous and absurd. But there's always the chance that he
is lofting this in order to force Democrats to take

(01:15:55):
another unpopular position that is in direct opposition to things
they've been saying all along. What am I talking about?
Trump's Department of Justice is discussing proposals that would potentially
block transgender Americans from buying guns. Guys, this is so

(01:16:15):
clearly unconstitutional. I mean, it's like, it's so so incredibly unconstitutional.
I can't even believe that it would be something they
would consider. Now, we can have a conversation about the
overall mental health of the trans community, which is usually
far worse statistically, it is way far worse than the

(01:16:38):
general population. But this is you know, you just can't
choose one group of people and say sorry, you can't
have guns. It's not how this works. But what if
this whole thing is just designed to get Democrats who
are always arguing for gun control to demand guns for
trans people, two of which just you know, killed little children.

(01:16:59):
I wouldn't put it past to At this point, I thought, wait,
this text, messenger said. I just checked my copy, and
if it was there this morning, it is not there. Now.
I thought both editorials this morning were national. I don't
know you guys, because it was there on their website.
Because I always consume the Denver Gazette at Denver Gazette
dot com. I'm a subscriber and they're literally the first

(01:17:20):
news site that I look at first thing in the morning.
So maybe five point forty five this morning, it was
there and I connected a link to it. It's gone.
Now that's crazy. Maybe they're going to put it on
later this weekend. I have no idea. Very very interesting anyway,
I've got several things on the blog today that we're

(01:17:41):
not going to get to. We already talked about the
fact that the new Lego Death Star kit cost nine
hundred and ninety nine dollars and ninety nine cents before tax.
Now I'm a grandparent, but that is a hard pass
for me. I'm not doing it like I'm not going
to be that grandparent. You know. I can't do it,

(01:18:02):
absolutely cannot do it. I want to talk for a
second about what Seattle is doing right now. So the
Seattle Seahawks. I've had the chance to go to a
game in the Seattle Stadium. It is loud. It was fun, though,
and I found the Seattle Seahawks fans. Granted I was
not I wasn't wearing a Seahawks shirt, but I also

(01:18:24):
wasn't wearing the shirt. I think they were playing the Rams,
which I didn't have a dog in that game. But
I was in Seattle and I got to go to
the game. So we went, and I found the fans
to be very pleasant and nobody was super obnoxious. And now, granted,
I was raised up in Miami, where you play the Jets,
who have the world's most obnoxious fans. Oh no, wait,

(01:18:47):
I'm sorry, they're tied with the Patriots, who are also
in the same division, who truly do have the world's
most obnoxious fans. Oh but wait then you forgot about
Buffalo Bills fans. Right, So I'm used to that level
of fanship. So when I went to Seattle, well, this
is kind of pleasant. Everybody's really nice, you know, no
big whoop, everybody's just hanging out. Well this year, this year,
the Seattle Seahawks have devised a plan. They are now

(01:19:11):
going to have undercover officers wearing opposing team jerseys at
home games in an effort to and this is a quote,
quickly detect guests violating the Fan Code of Conduct. Law
enforcement and lumin Field Events staff will proactively intervene to
support an environment where all fans can enjoy the game

(01:19:32):
free from the following behaviors, including and then they go
to list all the behavior that's just obnoxious, drunkenness, offensive language,
interference with the progress of the game, all that just
your average stuff. But can anybody else look at this
and see how this could create huge problems for actual

(01:19:54):
fans of the opposing team who dare to go to
see a Seahawks game in their opposing team gear? What
does everybody walk behind you chanting nar, nar, nark, narc?
I mean, am I wrong here? Aron? Could you see
the potential for disaster in this?

Speaker 5 (01:20:09):
Ummm no, because then they'll think, well, out of the
all these opposing fans, like one percent of them are undercovers,
so they'll be like, well, we can't call everybody a nark, or.

Speaker 4 (01:20:21):
They can try. They can try. Nah, it'll be fine,
It'll it'll do more good than harm. I don't know.
This makes me a lot. I mean, don't get me wrong.
I hate obnoxious people. I really do. I've ratted people
out at sports events before they were just being out
of control obnoxious, Like I'm totally ratted them out as
former event security. I thank you, yes, So I'm not
opposed to the ratting people out part of it. I'm

(01:20:43):
just saying, why you got to put him in the
opposing team's jersey. You can't scope out all that same
behavior in a Seahawks shirt. You know that is kind
of weird, isn't that odd? I feel like that's a
bad choice, Like you're just creating antagonism. We're already football
antagonism might exist. Who is the Seattle nemesis? Like who's Niners?
Is it the Niners? Okay, I didn't know. I don't

(01:21:04):
pay that much attention to Seattle football. But it just
this just I don't know, this just seems like was
not well thought out. Also, why can't they just be
a normal thank you close? Why either? Yeah? Why you
gotta be why you gotta be undercover like that? Just
wear shirt? Also who wrote this article?

Speaker 5 (01:21:23):
Was it the team announced it? Because it's weird that
the team announced it. It was like they're narky on
their own narks.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
It's the Seahawks and uh lent Field or what's what's
the name of their field lumen lumen?

Speaker 5 (01:21:34):
Yeah, lumen Field, literally nark narks or here's the real
conspiracy theory. They're not doing it at all, and they're
just trying to scare people into behaving. Totally possible.

Speaker 4 (01:21:46):
That's the thing. I did not even think about that.
But it's basically the double reverse fake right reverse, you know,
not a bad plan? Hey wat yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:21:55):
Or or but then conspiracy theory to the conspiracy theory
putting that out there, is that just Seahawks fans and
the Seahawks' staff saying this is our turf. Don't resell
tickets to let opposing fans. It could be narcs come
to the games.

Speaker 4 (01:22:13):
I don't know. It can go real deep. This can
get real deep. Or it could just be that this
is a poorly thought out plan that we're now talking
about on the radio, and they bail on in that week.
There you go, all right, we're gonna come back. And
there are three ballad initiatives that are collecting signatures as
of this afternoon. I need you to sign all of
these petitions when you have the chance. We'll explain what
they are when we get back. Let me go to

(01:22:33):
the phones where Laurie, every time I try to say
your name, I mess up the last part. So please
give me your last name one more time on the
air before we start our interview.

Speaker 6 (01:22:44):
Heym Andy, it's a Gimmelstein, three syllables, Gimmelstein.

Speaker 4 (01:22:48):
I want to make it Gimblestein, even though I know
how it's spelled, that that's not remotely how it's pronounced.
So I just wanted to let you do that so
I did not destroy it. Laurie is part of the
great team that is with Protect Kids Colorado, and they
are doing so much to do exactly what their name says,
and that is protect kids. Laurie, this is a big, big,
big day, right, This is a huge day for three

(01:23:12):
ballid initiatives that are going to protect kids in Colorado.
If they pass. Tell people what's happening this afternoon and
why we're doing it.

Speaker 6 (01:23:21):
Yes, we're so excited, so I Protect Kids Colorado. We
are bringing three initiatives to the ballot hopefully in twenty
twenty six, and tonight we are having a launch event
at Saint Thomas More Catholic Church in Centennial and we're
going to be showcasing our three valid initiatives to protect,

(01:23:43):
prohibit and punish so protect women in girls' sports for males,
Prohibit child mutilation from sex change surgeries on minor children,
and punish child sex trafficking with life in prison, and
listeners can go to our website at tech Kidscolorado dot
org and they can sign up to volunteer. We need

(01:24:05):
people to sign the petition to help us collect signatures
to donate so that we can make sure that these
these initiatives make it to the voters in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):
Well, I love all of these and you have some
pretty You got some heavy hitters that are joining with
you to help make this happen. You've got Jennifer Say
from xxxy Sports, former Levi's executive who has really just
come out guns a blazing rhetorically of course when it
comes to protecting kids. And we also have the other

(01:24:35):
gentleman's name Mark. What is Mark's last name? Guys, h
thank you Mark, guys. He has an incredible story as well.
How did he get connected with you? Guys?

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
Well?

Speaker 6 (01:24:46):
As Mark Guist? Many of your listeners may know him
from Operation Benghazzi. They may have seen his major motion
picture Thirteen Hours based on his ordeal in Libya and
on when he came back from the Marines. He was
actually a sheriff down in Teller County and he was
the lead child crime investigator and he just since has

(01:25:11):
a heart for protecting children, for protecting our country, and
so when we were discussing these ballad initiatives, Oz just
came to mind as such a phenomenal person to chair
this initiative, and so we got involved with Oz. And
then of course Jennifer Say, who everybody knows is just

(01:25:34):
a fantastic activist for protecting girls sports, and she is
the chair on our Protect Girl Sports initiative. And then
of course Aaron Lee, who many of your listeners I'm
sure have heard her alarming story where her daughter was
transitioned at school in an after school art club, and

(01:25:55):
so she is the chair on our ballad initiative to
prohibit of it kiled mutilation from sex change surgeries.

Speaker 4 (01:26:03):
So let me ask this question, is there any polling
data that you either have access to or have seen
that you would like to share the shows where the
average coloradin is on these issues. Because I know how
I feel, and I feel passionately that I also know
I live in somewhat of a bubble, right, so I
know that the people in my life look at everything
that you're talking about, all three of these and go

(01:26:24):
I can't believe that's not already a thing, right, It's
like it's such common sense that we would all agree.
But what does the bigger picture look like for you?

Speaker 6 (01:26:33):
Yes, we're so grateful that we have the opportunity and
the funding to extensively pull. So we did focus groups
and we did pulling, and all three ballot initiatives pulled
incredibly well across the political spectrum from unaffiliated Democrats, Republicans,
and you know, we had a threshold where we if

(01:26:57):
we're going to run these, they have to pull it
up that we know that if we get these on
the ballot, the people of Colorado are going to vote.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
Yes. That is so good to hear. So let's talk
about where we are. You just mentioned the event coming
up this afternoon five to eight pm at Sir Thomas
Moore in Centennial. I've got the address on the blog
today if people want to join you. But today begins
the active process of getting petitions, getting petitions signed. So

(01:27:24):
this would be a perfect way if somebody's listening and
saying how can I help, you can actually go to
today's event and get petitions to have signed. Correct.

Speaker 6 (01:27:33):
Yes, So if the event starts at six PM at
Saint Thomas More Church. All three of our chairs will
be there so people will get to meet Jennifer, se
and Oz and Aaron Lee. We will have petition packets
ready to go. If you circulated a petition last year
for us, we welcome you back. If you haven't, we're
here to help. We're here to help, get you equipped,

(01:27:55):
get you everything you need. And we're very excited this
year because we have thousands of volunteers across the state
already signed up, and people can also sign up if
they can't make the event, you know, they could be
somewhere else in the state too far away. Got commitments
this evening. Just go to Protect Kidscolorado dot org and
right on our home page there's a volunteer button and

(01:28:18):
we will get in touch with you right away. We're
very fortunate, extremely organized. We have regional coordinators across the state.
We have captains in each county that are going to
help you, and we're ready to really make this to
the ballot. And we are so excited that this is
a citizen led initiative.

Speaker 4 (01:28:38):
How many days do you have to get all the signatures?
We have six months.

Speaker 6 (01:28:44):
We are very excited. We were able to get all
of these initiatives passed that title board. We were challenged
but with the title board decision, but we prevailed at
that hearing as well, and so we have the full
six month to collect these signatures and we are very
optimistic that all three will make it to the ballot.

Speaker 4 (01:29:07):
Well, I have to tell you, I was extremely impressed
that you guys somehow managed to answer the incredible difficult
question of what is a woman, what is a boy?
What is a girl? And what is a man fairly
easily in these I mean, they're very explicit, and I
do think that the simple definitions that you're giving sort

(01:29:28):
of drive home the point of how like common sense
this really is. And I hate the phrase common sense
because my common sense may not be common sense to
other people, but in the history of our world, these
are all common sense definitions. So hats off to you guys.
I'm super excited, and I'd love for you to stay
in touch Lorie and kind of keep me posted or

(01:29:48):
if you're having another big event where people can stop
by and sign or get petitions. I want to keep
this ball rolling in any way shape we can, So
if you have anything else to report, I mean I
want to let people know how they can do this
because I guarantee you if my listeners see people standing
outside of a King super or a safe Way or
Walmart or whatever, they're going to sign these petitions. So

(01:30:10):
I want them to be signed. Make sure you're signing
in the right district, you guys, make sure that you're
signing it with correct information, because a bad signature is
kind of weighted in a bad way. If they get
too many bad signatures as they're certifying signatures, it can
really create a huge problem. So make sure you're signing

(01:30:31):
in your district to make sure you're signing with all
your good information when you do sign Is there anything
else my listeners can do for you, Lori?

Speaker 6 (01:30:37):
Yeah, so you can sign anywhere across the state of Colorado.
These are all Colorado or Ice Statutes initiatives, and so
that's exciting. We are asking people to do three things.
Sign the petition, get ten sons and family to sign,
and if you can give five, ten, twenty dollars. This
is a grassroots effort driven by volunteers, and we would

(01:31:01):
be grateful for donations. You're printing these these petitions thousands
of dollars and We just want everybody to do their
part to protect Colorado's children and go to protect Kids
Colorado dot org.

Speaker 4 (01:31:14):
Protect Kids Colorado dot org. LORI, I know the event
today is going to be outstanding. Again, the information about
that event is it is this afternoon for oh jeez,
hang on one second. I literally just my I've never
in the last ten years not turn my phone off
until today and it actually just ran because someone called me.

(01:31:34):
Sorry about that. It's from six to eight pm tonight
at Saint Thomas Moore Catholic Parish that is at eighty
thirty five South Quebec Street in Centennial. You can stop by,
meet Jennifer, meet Oz, meet Aaron Lee, who has been
on the show many many times. Jennifer's been on the
show as well. And more importantly, get those petitions going
and get take them to church this weekend, take them

(01:31:55):
to your coffee club that you meet with, take it
to your book club, take it wherever you go, and
let's get these petitions done. Laurie, thanks so much for
your time today.

Speaker 6 (01:32:04):
Thank you, Mandy.

Speaker 4 (01:32:05):
All Right, we will keep you updated on that issue.
On that thing. Ben come here, Ben, Ben came here.
I want to talk about a story that I have
on the blog today, and I have it on the
blog today for a couple of reasons. One, I think
it's interesting that we're taking note of this so tonight
or last night was the first night of the NFL,

(01:32:27):
and nine News points out that as of last night,
there are sixteen black quarterbacks in the NFL, And I
just figured I would ask, I'll set this up for you.
Let me lost this softball, ben, how many of these
quarterbacks are diversity hires? Ah, softball huh?

Speaker 9 (01:32:48):
Well, at the NFL is a meritocracy, tend not to
think that anybody would be specifically for that. I would
say the closest thing to that would probably be justin
fields in New York, which would be not a diversity higher.
But they brought in a mobile sacrificial lamb.

Speaker 4 (01:33:03):
Right, it's not very good. But that could have been
a white guye too. The fact that he's back does
not mean anything else. It could have been anybody. But
my whole point here is that, you know, when we
talk about diversity for the sake of diversity, it's amazing
that it never quite reaches that level in professional sports.
There's not a single pro athlete out there because because
all of a sudden, the Broncos were like, geez, look

(01:33:23):
at this roster we don't have we don't have a
Pacific islanderland.

Speaker 9 (01:33:29):
I'm running down the Nuggets, I mean the Knicks, the
Knicks thing, and Goldstein.

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
Isn't on the is it on the roster? You know,
We've got a diversify. And that's one of the reasons
I love.

Speaker 9 (01:33:37):
Sports, because I think sports sports does do the diversity thing.
But it's diversity of thought. It's not diversity of skin. Yeah,
a diversity of thought. And so you tend to surround
yourself with, hey, this guy's got this background over here,
this guy steeped in this over here, and we can
kind of cobble these thoughts together to kind of figure
out what works and what does it is.

Speaker 4 (01:33:55):
But ultimately it's about it's it's it's about two things.
It's about your athletic pre and your brain power and
what to do with it on the field. Yeah. I
referraid to coaching staffs in front. I don't care a that.
I mean, I'm just talking about on the field performance
is if you are great at that position, you're going
to play, and if you're not, you're not And why
do you Okay, so, why do we just have sixteen

(01:34:17):
black quarterbacks this year? Is it just because the position,
even at the college level, is now more open to
black quarterbacks? Because like we had a black quarterback at
Florida State back in you know, Charlie Ward was our quarterback.
So black quarterbacks for in my mind, have been around
at college for a very long time. So why have
we taken sixty Why is it now that we've got
sixteen in the NFL?

Speaker 9 (01:34:38):
Because the NFL offenses have evolved over the last fifteen
years or so where a mobility at the quarterback position
is something that you value and you didn't used to.

Speaker 4 (01:34:45):
Is that the Michael Vick effect?

Speaker 9 (01:34:47):
Yeah, yeah, Michael Vick, Cordell Stewart, you know who I've
been for a Colorado connection. There's there's a lot of
those guys that NFL coordinators and coaches didn't know how
to harness that in a meaningful way. Right, college coaches,
did you have the wider hashes, it was easier to
take advantage. In the pro game, the hashes are narrower,
and it's just it was tough. It's faster, right, And
so now you saw when when Brady was in Belichick

(01:35:10):
and Josh McDaniels were there in New England. You saw
that the shotgun and these spread systems come into the
league quite a bit. And then as they started to
do that, like well, you know, now we've got the
field spread out, there's running lanes for the quarterback, right,
and so it's just it's the kind of thing instead
of wanting a six foot six rocket arm, you know, quarterback,
well was the mobile guy, instead of having Joe Flacco
or Peyton Manning right used to you still want somebody

(01:35:33):
who's accurate and smart and all that, but you want
a guy that's got a shorter base leg base so
he's not wide, so the pocket doesn't have to be
as wide.

Speaker 4 (01:35:39):
You know, you want a guy that can take off
and buy you with his legs. Bo Nix is a
great example of doing that.

Speaker 9 (01:35:45):
And so, you know, just the evolution of the game
and the long story even longer, it's evolution of the game.

Speaker 4 (01:35:51):
No, I mean I thought at first, I thought it
was interesting that we're doing uh that as a news
story because because okay, you know, we've had the first
NFL black quarterback.

Speaker 9 (01:35:59):
I think that was Warren Moon. Oh no, no, there
were Craig Morton here in the Broncos right long before,
long before. I loved Warren Moon when he played. He
was one of my favorites. I have all of his
rookie cards. Warren Moon was was a great I'm trying
to think of some of the other the Marlon Briscoe,
I'm sorry, not Craig Moore.

Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
Marlon Briscoe was the first African American quarterback in the league.
It was Denver Broncos. Who was that? How long was
it just been? Okay, so I didn't know it happened.
It's been around a while.

Speaker 9 (01:36:24):
It's just they tended to play for whatever reason, other positions,
and white guys tended to play quarterback. And there's all
sorts of theories as to why that is summer truth.

Speaker 4 (01:36:32):
So back in the day, though, let's be real. Back
in the day, there was a pretty common thought among
some coaching staffs that black athletes did not have the
brain power to run the game. That was a pervasive
thought back in the days of racism in the early
parts of the NFL. Yeah, Marlon Briscoe was was sixty
eight when he started. It was you were talking about
his age for a second. I was like, so that

(01:36:54):
makes him the oldest quarterball. Also the wheelchair, I believe
it or not, the first very long in his whelchair down.

Speaker 9 (01:37:00):
The first one ever plays before the Super Bowl era
would have been a guy named appropriately named Willie Thrower
who did for the Bear but he will but although
back then though all they did was run, Warren move
was the first one in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (01:37:13):
Okay, Doug Williams was the first for a Super Bowl.
I forgot about him. He was a buck, a few
bucks that actually went on to do something. Uh, Bernie Custis,
he was big in the CFL. But it's like, at
what point do we stop having Like next year do
we have He's got nineteen black quarterbacks in the NFL.
Is it just when we get to all all the
quarterbacks are black? Now we can stop talking.

Speaker 9 (01:37:34):
About So this is the first year that there are
more black starting quarterbacks than not Okay on Week one,
so this.

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
Is the first time that's occurred.

Speaker 9 (01:37:42):
So in a sense, yeah, that is a milestone, and
that's something I think that we But the reality is,
I mean sports is a great equalizer.

Speaker 4 (01:37:48):
People don't care. You get on the field and you
just don't care.

Speaker 9 (01:37:51):
It was always funny to me when I played high
school ball that, you know, they the black guys, would
be like, well.

Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
He's sneaky fast. I'm like, no, bro, I'm not sneaky fan.
I'm just fast. Like you're saying what. I know what
you're saying. All right now, So that little chit chat
about black quarterbacks. Where, by the way, I don't know
if you knew this, there are sixteen black quarterbacks starting
in the NFL this year, Just so you know, half
the league. Now we know. Now we got a thing,
and now it's time for the most exciting segment on

(01:38:17):
the radio of its kinde.

Speaker 7 (01:38:23):
Of the day.

Speaker 4 (01:38:24):
All right. Someone asked on the text line earlier if
I was ever gonna yell in the world again, I cannot.
I am unable to perform that yell because my voice
can't do it.

Speaker 9 (01:38:34):
Just to give you, I had flamed in my throat
and was doing an emergency throat clearing with a microphone.

Speaker 4 (01:38:41):
Anyway, what is our dad joke of the day, please, Anthony?
Why do scuba divers fall backwards out of the boat?
Pop backwards out of the boat. I don't know, because
if they fell forwards, they'd still be in the boat. Wow, Wow,
I love that yoke. That's fantastic. What is our word

(01:39:04):
of the day please?

Speaker 6 (01:39:06):
A two histrionic?

Speaker 4 (01:39:09):
Oh that means over the top dramatic, like that freaking out,
out of control kind of thing. That's correct. I have
no idea. I never heard that word before. Yeah, I
think I've used it on the show. If you paid attention,
heardel There you go. What makes I don't know how
to say?

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
This? Is it?

Speaker 4 (01:39:25):
Tomorrow sauce, tom ri sauce T A M A R.
I have it in my cabinet. I use it. I
just never said it before. What makes Tomorrow's sauce unique
among soy sauces? And I use it for this very reason?
So now I know, okay, free, Yes, it has no wheat.
And I was like when I first found that out,

(01:39:46):
I was like, does soy sauce actually have wheat in it?
That seems weird, But I guess so, I don't know.
I do not know. I actually cook more now with
amino acids then I do anything else. Yeah, all right,
here we go. What is our Jeopardy category? This pen

(01:40:06):
sucks left motion? Left motion most any of that in
quotation marks?

Speaker 5 (01:40:13):
Okay, okay, men, start this double or triple talk dance
with a step to the left.

Speaker 4 (01:40:19):
A pre fame Bruce Lee was a champion at it
in Hong Kong. One more time, please, men.

Speaker 5 (01:40:25):
Start this double or triple talk dance with a step
to the left, and then a pre fame Bruce Lee
was a champion at it in Hong Kong.

Speaker 4 (01:40:36):
I have no idea like I don't even know what
is it.

Speaker 5 (01:40:41):
Oh kay, aren't you glad you brought a friend along?
Now you can swing left into this type of highway
lane marked with diamond lane. In chess, the one time
the king can move two squares is doing this?

Speaker 4 (01:40:57):
Then? What is castling? Correct? Bugs Bunny's line about wishing
he'd to touring left it out? What is turned left
at Albuquerque? Correct?

Speaker 5 (01:41:09):
At the Battle of Chancellorsville, he swung left to crush
the Union right, but was mortally wounded by friendly fire.

Speaker 4 (01:41:19):
Let's score, by the way, there is two for me,
one for Ben and I know my Confederate generals. Let
me just think about this for a moment. Battle of
Chancellor's Can you read through the question again? Please?

Speaker 5 (01:41:30):
At the Battle of Chancellorsville, he swung left, crushed the
Union right, but was mortally wounded by friendly fire.

Speaker 4 (01:41:37):
Yeah, I know I know this one. Like I can
see I'm sitting on I'm not I'm not risking you know,
I can see the face.

Speaker 9 (01:41:45):
Oh mans Stowel Jackson correct, that is that is fine.

Speaker 4 (01:41:50):
I'm looking at his face. Yep, we're gonna go with
I'm not gonna do it. I played defense and I
just screwed myself as.

Speaker 7 (01:41:59):
What I did.

Speaker 5 (01:41:59):
Okay saying it? How about this call the football play?
Oh God, because it's football weekend after a last second
win over Buffalo with this prayer for play?

Speaker 4 (01:42:10):
What is a hail Mary is? Thank god? It was
the easiest one. Anyway, that's super easy. Thank you, thank
you very much. Anyway, we'll be back on Monday. I
expect everyone to be on their best behavior. Watch the
Broncos game. As the Broncos win, I'm just going to
do the assume close call it a day we don't
have Like, is it still the biggest line of the weekend?

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:42:33):
Yes, what is the eight and a half? My half?
Now eight half? I mean there's another team showing up
cam Ward.

Speaker 9 (01:42:39):
They have a rookie quarterback on the road against one
of the best defenses in football.

Speaker 4 (01:42:43):
Can't wait anyway, We'll be back on Monday. Ka Wa
Sports coming up next