In this episode of The Kim Munson Show, guest host Alan Thomas delves into the implications of having smart meters and the recent legislation in Colorado that could change how they are managed. A thoughtful conversation unfolds as guests explore the divide between personal choice and technological advancements. With insights from guests like Corey Onusorg, the episode tackles topics from state regulations to national politics, offering a platform for engaging debates and informed opinions.
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And welcome to the Kim Munson Show. I’m Alan Thomas, and I’m guest hosting the show while Kim is traveling. Let’s have a conversation indeed. Thank you so much for listening. Each of you are valued and treasured today. Strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, soul, mind, and body. We were all made for this moment. And thank you to Producer Joe for opening everything up and getting us on the straight and narrow before the show starts. It’s my pleasure, Tom. Or Alan. Yeah, it should be a good one today. We have some fun guests coming up in hour one. And then hour two, we’ll have Lauren Levy and Trent Luce. So make sure and stay tuned. Make sure and visit the website, too. That’s KimMonson.com, M-O-N-S-O-N. And make sure and sign up for the weekly email newsletter as well. You get a first look at all the upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. If you want to email Kim, you can always reach her at kim at kimmunson.com. And thank you to Laramie Energy for their gold sponsorship of the show. It’s a reliable, efficient, affordable, and abundant energy that powers our lives, fuels our hopes, dreams, and empowers us to change our own personal climate and dreams. And I know they were just on the show yesterday, I believe, right? So you can always go back and listen to some of what they were talking about. Yeah, Bob Bob’s always has some good stuff. Yeah, very fascinating stuff. So make sure and check out. You can always find replays of the show at KimMunson.com or Spotify and probably some other places as well. I also want to say thank you to Hooters Restaurant for their sponsorship. They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. They have great lunch specials Monday through Friday for dine-in or to-go. Wednesdays are wing days. Buy 20 wings, get an additional 10 for free. Offer for to-go or dine-in. And it’s a great place to get together with friends to watch your favorite teams. And we’ve got March Madness coming up. So that’s always a good time to have some wings while watching a ton of great basketball. It really is. Growing up in Oklahoma, March Madness was everything around there. Yeah, it’s like a mini holiday, sports holiday for me. It’s my favorite sports tournament for sure. So getting over here to the word of the day. The word is ebullient. E-B-U-L-L-I-E-N-T. It’s cheerful and full of energy. So it was pretty easy to see it’s an adjective. Trump definitely had an ebullient Republican crowd at his joint address of Congress last night. Definitely not so much on the Democrat side, but ebullient. Try and use that. So also got a quote of the day. So I’m not sure. Do you know Aesop’s Fables, producer Joe? I really like Aesop’s Fables. Which one do we have today? Well, we got a quote by Aesop. He was a Greek fablist and storyteller created with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop’s Fables. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, he is credited with numerous tales that were gathered across the centuries and in many languages and a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. So one of the quotes he is attributed with is the tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny and it is useless for the innocent to try by reasoning to get justice when the oppressor intends to be unjust. So I just thought that was an interesting one. The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. He’ll always justify using tyranny. And, you know, coming over to some of the headlines, of course, most of what I wanted to talk about today was the joint… address that Trump made to Congress last night, technically not of the State of the Union since it is his first year, but since he’s been up there before, it essentially was. It was very fascinating, as it always is, at what one side of the room will stand and cheer for and what the others won’t. And Trump started the address by saying America is back. So that was a strong way to start, a different way to start, not saying the State of the Union is strong, America is back, and really came with this message that the American dream is unstoppable. So really a pretty positive message. when you looked at it as a whole, a pretty positive message throughout the entire address. Of course, you had some theatrics by the Democrat side and just a couple themes I saw while watching it last night. The women, the Congresswomen on one side were all wearing pink in solidarity for women’s rights. But it was very fascinating throughout the entire address what they would not stand for and the irony of them not standing up for it. Of course, the two biggest ones where it was pretty shocking that they wouldn’t stand was when Trump was addressing the brutal rape and murder of Lake and Riley. Of course, that’s been somewhat politicized, of course, because they now have the Lake and Riley Act. But just the fact that they could not stand to support a mother there, a mother and a sister who are both there to honor the memory of a woman whose rights were horrifically violated really shows how out of touch they are with America. And the same with Jocelyn. When Another another young young woman who was brutally raped and murdered by, of course, illegal aliens. So yet again, the Democrat women are showing that they don’t really stand for women’s rights at all. They’ll only stand for women’s rights for people that they love. Support for causes that they support and really just showed how how terrible it is that you can wear all pink for women, but quite obviously not all women. The last one, of course. Again, very unsurprising that they didn’t stand when they had the opportunity, but Trump honored a volleyball player who was hit pretty hard. So hard, in fact, that she had multiple fractures in her face, had partial paralysis, and Trump honored her up in the gallery. And again… Democrat women wearing pink in solidarity for women’s rights, again, choose not to stand just to support her, just to say, hey, you know, whether we agree with the policy that Trump is proposing as a part of it, you can still stand and support somebody who went through something as terrible as that. So, yeah. Going over to the other part, at the very beginning, Trump was starting out his message, America is back, and then started to tout how great of a victory he had. He was talking about all seven swing states won by him. Then as soon as he said he won the popular vote, the Democrat side started booing, started heckling, got to the point where the sergeant at arms was actually called in to remove one of the members. And I don’t really want to mention his name because he doesn’t deserve that type of notoriety. Just he is in Texas. So Texas, let’s figure out how to get him booted. But just very shocking how disrespectful the outburst was. Most of the time, it’s to be expected. You know, the standing, the clapping, the great overtures that both sides will play. But the lack of decorum obviously was planned for. Mike Johnson had his notes right there, was able to say the right things at the right time to get that representative booted. Gave him several chances, too. It was not one of those as soon as this representative stood up and started shaking a cane at President Trump. That he immediately threw him out of the building. He asked him by name to just take a seat so he didn’t have to throw him out. But, you know, as with many of these things, it’s all about theatrics, right? And so it was very unfortunate to see that kind of disrespect, that lack of decorum. And again, these State of the Unions are all theatrics. You know, we have the responses at the end. It’s very easy to come in and we all know exactly what they’re going to be like. We know what Biden is going to get up there and say and how we’re going to disagree with him. We know what Trump is going to say and we know how the left is going to disagree with him. But the fact that they couldn’t just sit through a very, very long speech was incredibly sad and was not a good display for our country whatsoever. And, of course, when you talk about theatrics, in kind of a funny moment, the Democrats had these little placards kind of that you have at like auctions, right? And one side said false that they were trying to, you know, while they were not going to boo or try and use their voices to use the heckler’s veto of Trump, they were trying to hold up these little placards that say false. And on the other side of most of them was Elon Steeles, which is a fascinating. Kind of phrase for them. I’m unsure where they think that’s going. But then on the other side, some of them had, say, Medicaid. But it was really funny when Trump got into the DEI portion of his speech and the gender ideology part of his speech, touting, you know, how quickly and effectively he went after those key topics. He mentioned his executive order where he said there’s only two genders and they are male and female. And, of course, the Republicans all stood up at that part and started clapping. But then it panned out so that you could see who was standing and clapping. And for most of the speech, whenever Trump said something, all of the Democrats that had these little performative placards would hold up the false sign. And wave it back and forth. And I found it very telling that when it panned out, when he said there were only two genders, male and female, there were only about nine, 10, substantially less amount of Democratic senators that were willing to even put up the false sign to that statement. And I found that very encouraging, actually, because. It’s a winning issue for Republicans. It’s a common sense issue for Republicans. It’s something Trump has effectively campaigned on, effectively won. It’s something that the polling shows. Most Americans understand this basic truth. And it was very obvious that now Democrats are starting to see this is a losing issue for them. It’s a losing issue for them to come down on this radical gender ideology side. And, you know, of course, you can’t in the moment see which nine held up those placards. Of course, you figure it’s probably in in very safe districts that, you know, California, New York, unfortunately, probably Colorado for some of them. But it was very telling that that many of the Democrats were unwilling to hold up their placards to say false to the fact that there is just two genders, male and female. So, of course, there’s probably plenty we could talk to about that joint address, but we did want to say thank you to Roger Mangan because this show comes to you because of really great sponsors such as the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team.
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And welcome back. This is Alan Thomas. I’m filling in for Kim today while she’s traveling. So make sure and sign up for the weekly email newsletter. You’ll get a first look at all the upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. You can email Kim at Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And thank you for contributing to support our independent voices and exercising our free right of speech. So one thing you should make sure and do when you go through Pueblo, make sure and visit the Center for American Values located on the beautiful River Rock in Pueblo. The Center for American Values was co-founded by Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix and Emmy Award winning documentary maker Brad Padula. The center is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and teaching and upholding the principles of America, honor, integrity, and patriotism. For more information, make sure and check out their website at AmericanValueCenter.org. So on the line, we have a Colorado Union of Taxpayers board member, Corey Onusorg. And we’re going to be talking about some legislation at the Colorado State House. So welcome to the show, Corey.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey there, Alan. Good morning. Good morning.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good morning. So what bill do you want to start out with today? I know there’s no shortage of them here in Colorado.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you got over 500. I mean, you know, take your pick. Well, there’s one bill I wanted to talk about, and it was an interesting bill. It was House Bill 1175. It was sponsored by it. Sheila Leader, Representative Leader, a Democrat in House District 28. And basically, it allows a better, I guess, better opportunity through a website and then also utilities to remove smart meters if that’s what customers want. And Quite frankly, I was surprised that it came from the Democrat, but she also had a bill. I can’t remember the number of it, but it was basically a backflow bill trying to correct a terrible bill she had in her previous session. So I think she’s trying to get a little credit and do some good. I mean, Democrats do some good. And this certainly, you know, to me, a smart meter, you shouldn’t have it, you know, on a wall of a frequently habited you know, place like a bedroom, a baby, baby’s bedroom, especially. And, you know, this basically allows for it. I think the only thing about it is the safety clause. It’s kind of a strange one. I don’t think there’s, it’s an emergency or, you know, needs to have a safety clause in any way. So that was, we see a lot of bills for that use. And yeah,
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, you don’t often see Democrats trying to repeal their own bills. So that’s a refreshing dose this morning because typically, I mean, what the typical reaction to a bad bill is is to pass another one to try and fix it as opposed to just pulling it. So this one is very interesting.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and I mean, you know, I’ve given talks on 5G, smart meters, Internet of Things, Internet of Bodies, and, you know, this conversation can go down all kinds of rabbit holes. Thank God we only have 10 minutes. But, you know, we see the fires out in Maui. We see the fires up in Northern California, Southern California, even here in Boulder. And you see, you know, some of these – these smart meters right at the source just charred on the wall and people are, you know, very concerned. And it’s not just the, you know, electromagnetic pulse that shoots out every 15 seconds, you know, communicating your, your usage data, you know, and, and so, and sure there are people that, you know, they like to live the life of, you know, have a smarter house as possible and have your smart meter communicate with, your smart appliances, and, you know, quite frankly, I mean, I want my house as dumb as possible when it comes to that. I want none of my electronics communicating with each other personally, but, you know, it’s each to their own. And, again, this bill allows for customers to, you know, have that smart meter removed or replaced by an analog meter. Of course, there’s a charge for it, and, you know, you’re going to pay for it, you know, excel everybody else. I mean, it’s all about making money, right? So…
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and this is very interesting because my background is engineering as well. And we used to do a lot of consulting for water wastewater districts in the Denver metro area. And we had one district in particular that wanted to start using smart meters. And one of the other reasons why is sometimes when you’re getting your water bill read, they actually have to drive around and pick up the radio signal because it’s very difficult to get a radio signal from every household to one tower. So they were they were touting this smart meter. And it was very interesting, because, you know, from from one side of it, from the technology side, they could tell that you even had like a leaking flapper valve in your toilet, like they could see these leaks and tell you real time, hey, you have a leak. And as a homeowner, sometimes those leaks are very difficult to detect, right until it’s much too late. And then all of a sudden, you have a whole wall that’s completely leaked through and and you have costly repair bills but to your point this is something you know when technology like this comes available if that’s a benefit that people see they should be able to choose uh to opt in or opt out this is something that you know this isn’t a left or right thing necessarily this is definitely one of those things where if people like the technology go ahead and use it like there’s nothing off my back for that
SPEAKER 09 :
but if you do have concerns of course you should be able to have the option to to choose some of these things yeah no that’s exactly right i couldn’t agree more alan and you know just for uh for excel it’s 12 a month plus uh you know 46 charge to replace your smart meter so it’s not like uh excel isn’t making some money on it but yeah they’ve got a they’ve got to drive around with those analog meters. I mean, most water, I think, here in Colorado still are on analog meters. But as far as electrical, you know, they had a rollout of smart meters. And I myself have solar, so I’ve got a smart meter, and then I’ve also got a net meter. And, you know, the or production meter, sorry. And so the production meter tells you how much solar you’ve produced in the lifetime of the solar. And then the net meter, you know, tells your net, you know, production versus usage. And I’ll tell you, Accel, they certainly, they try to send their contracted people out and update. I’ve already got smart meters on there, but they want to put a, you know, up-to-date smart meter on there, which is, I just tell them no. You’ve got a locked backyard and all of that. You do have rights to not have that done. you know, again, to use their own. And, you know, at the end of the day, you look at the ownership of Excel, you’ve got Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, you know, your three favorite owners of the world that are at the top of their ownership. And a smart meter, if everyone had one, you know, I think if it was on the wall of an unfrequent in place, like say a garage or, you know, utility room, something like that, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with it. But unfortunately, some of these meters are on bedroom walls. They’re on, again, you know, if you’ve got a baby kid, you don’t want to have that smart meter on that wall. I’ll tell you that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, certainly. And, you know, the Carter Union of Taxpayers is doing great things, Corey. So how can we follow what the what cut is doing and keep track of all these crazy bills?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so I recently, you know, we had a board meeting, and so we started up Cut on X, and we’re going to be bringing out some fun things with that.
SPEAKER 06 :
And what’s the X handle that people can follow?
SPEAKER 09 :
The handle is CO, as in Colorado, Cut, C-U-T 1776. Okay. And so we just started it up. So please give us a follow, you know, and call our taxpayer, you know, taxpayers. It’s, you know, it’s not a left thing. It’s not a right thing. We all pay taxes and, you know, we spend a good, I’d say four to eight hours, at least, you know, a weekend reviewing anywhere from, you know, 25 to 45 bills. And so, you know, I had run for house district 23, I thought it would be in 2024. And I thought it was, uh you know kind of civil civil duty plus it would give me practice uh you know as a legislator and and and keep up to date on the bills and we try to keep the public informed and again it’s only 25 a year barely barely over two bucks a month to to become a member you get our newsletter and um yeah and it’s just a great group of human beings that um I don’t want to say we do God’s work, but I’ve got to tell you, we’ve got to stay up to date on these bills. There are some really terrible ones.
SPEAKER 06 :
There really are, and I know you guys do a lot of volunteer work for that. So thank you for all your efforts, and we look forward to having you back on the show, Corey.
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, thanks for having me, Alan, and thanks for guest hosting. Doing great, and look forward to talking to you again.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sounds great. Well, we’re able to have great conversations like those we had with Corey because of great sponsors such as Karen Levine.
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We’ll be right back. Knowledge is power and preparation leads to success. Call Lauren Levy at 303-880-8881 so that you are prepared for the opportunities in the mortgage market. That’s Lauren Levy at 303-880-8881.
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SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back. This is Alan Thomas filling in for Kim Munson while she’s traveling. And thank you, as always, to producer Joe for for all your help throughout the show. Make sure and sign up for the weekly email newsletter where you’ll see the upcoming guests and most recent essays. That’s Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. You can always email her at Kim at Kim Munson dot com. And again, thank you to all of you that contribute to support the independent voice and exercise the free right of speech. Kim has to buy all of her airtime, so we deeply appreciate all of that. And joining us in studio, we have Representative Max Brooks along with CJ Garbo, his senior legislative aide. So Representative Max Brooks is out of Colorado House District 45. And we’re going to talk about some bills that happened last week that kind of died along party line votes. So welcome in.
SPEAKER 05 :
Sure thing. Thank you. Good morning.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good morning. Yeah, welcome, CJ. Good morning.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, there has been a lot, unfortunately, that has died. Actually, it hit me the other day as I was on X. I was like, yeah, this is like a Billy Joel song, right? It’s like it’s only the good die young here at the statehouse. It’s only the good just go straight to the dirt pile and get knocked down on party line votes at the statehouse. The frustrating part about that is that then we have such limited ability to As Republicans, with only 22 of us, and so that means that our committees are stacked, right? I mean, the committees I sit in, Business Affairs, Labor, and then also the Finance Committee, are 8-5, right? So you have to get two Democrats across in order to stop the bad stuff. But, yeah, there have been a number of really good bills passed. And I’ll start with 1055. 1055 was a straight line repeal of last year’s 24, 1353. Last year’s 1353 placed excessive permitting and fees on gun store owners, on FFLs, right? Multiple problems with this. First of all, Colorado, as we stand right now, we are the sixth most regulated state in the nation. Sixth, right? We just love, love our regulation with the state capitol. And we are strangling, if not outright killing, Small business in the process. And you’re talking about how many mom and pop gun shops do you know? Now, I get it, right? The Democrats, their heads pop every time you talk about guns. We would do away with a 21-gun salute just simply by virtue of the fact that gun is in the title there. So they don’t like anything that has firearm or gun in the title. But we ought to be treating guns. These small businesses, these small mom-and-pop businesses, cornerstone, right? Small business is the cornerstone of our economy. We ought to be treating them the same way as if they were selling mattresses or hats or mufflers or whatever it is, right? Let’s just treat all small businesses the same way. Instead, because they’re a gun owner, we’re going after them. And, of course, this failed. I thought for a little while. And I know you know all about Trump derangement syndrome, right? TDS. I’m telling you, it is a thing. It is a real palpable thing. You hear all the time in committee, Members of the Democrat caucus talk about, oh, Washington, what’s going on here? We’ve got to worry about what they just they are so afraid and running scared. I mean, that’s what they do anyway. Right. But they’re so afraid and running scared right now. This is the reason why I couldn’t get any bipartisan support is because they are terrified. of President Trump abolishing the ATF. Forget the fact that it takes an act of Congress to do that. I mean, there’s that fact that you have. Don’t worry about that. And so to be perfectly honest, I don’t know that if it was particularly helpful that right before my bill was being heard is when they made all the moves with Kash Patel. And then they took the ATF, they moved it from the DOJ underneath the FBI. And then they put Dan Bongino as the So their radar was packing red already.
SPEAKER 06 :
But most of their arguments against it were more federal arguments against it, not local, not talking about Colorado, just the Trump and the federal arguments. That’s interesting.
SPEAKER 05 :
There were three different Democrats I mentioned in committee. That the big reason why they were afraid of this going through is because they were afraid of the ATF being abolished. And they figured that they’d have to have some duplicative because these laws already exist, right? The permitting already exists at the federal level. So all we’re doing is telling local gun shop owners that they’ve got to go through the same process. They’ve got to pay additional fees for what’s already being done federally. Oh, but no. We want to have that insurance policy remain in place. Here’s the worst part, Alan, is that you know that we have a budget crisis on our hands right now. We’re still chasing somewhere around the neighborhood of $600 million to $1.2 billion that we have to cut. We have to cut, actively cut, right, from the budget in order to deliver a balanced budget, which is coming up sooner than later. And yet this particular item, 1353, to implement it, You have to hire 20 new Department of Revenue employees, put them through post-certification, so then that way the Department of Revenue can have a more robust COP program in order to go out and enforce this, right? It’s going to cost the state $3.1 million this year and $2.7 million in an ongoing fiscal note. It’s irresponsible. You know what happens if you go out right now? Now, I don’t know anything about your personal finances, but I’m just guessing that if you were to write a $3.1 million check, what would happen? You’d be thrown in jail on felony charges for forgery. It would certainly bounce. Right? It would certainly bounce. And mine as well, to be fair. But that’s called forgery, and that’s a felony. But that’s what we’re doing, and we continue to do. As we nickel and dime Coloradans to death, as we nickel and dime small businesses, we’re writing bad checks at the Capitol that we have no hope of cashing.
SPEAKER 06 :
And, you know, most of the time they justify the fees to help pay for the people that will be monitoring the fees, right? But this is one of those, it’s, again, like you said, it’s not making the public any safer. And I know that’s a lot of the arguments whenever regulations get brought up is, oh, public safety this, public safety that. And it’s very obvious that this bill is, like you said, duplicative. Like, it’s not making the public any safer. It’s not… preventing any gun crime it’s not preventing anything like that it is completely just adding money to our state budget to do what the federal government already does and continuing to hang weight around the neck of small businesses in colorado so you’re right yeah yeah it doesn’t doesn’t do anything from a public safety standpoint
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, what would have also died in Senate committee, and that was Senate Bill 047. Senate Bill 047 was allowing law enforcement to go back to working directly with immigration officials. It is those mechanisms. There are three separate ones that have been passed over the course of years. that make colorado a sanctuary state we are a sanctuary state now it the governor continues to say well i’ve never said those words it doesn’t matter if you say the words or not man you know i’ve never said i’m six six but i still am yeah it doesn’t change it right right And so it was it’s hard to repeal some of those laws to make it possible for cops to be cops, to make it possible for our law enforcement to do the job that we want, that we expect them to do. Right. And that is to enforce the laws. Well, that died three to party line vote in Senate. That was one that I was a co-prime with Senator John Carson, who’s who’s fairly new in the in the Senate. We we worked on that together. And that unfortunately, unfortunately died, along with a whole host of other things. Zero based budgeting. I wanted to go to a zero based budgeting tool again because we’ve got a very difficult time. With the budget, let’s start from zero instead. I actually, I PI’d that, postponed indefinitely, because there was a fiscal note on it. I’m going to bring that back next year and try to figure out how to go about that. One other one, Senate Bill 135. That was, and I take it back. Senate Bill 047, I co-primed with Senator Mark Baisley. Senate Bill 135, I co-primed with John Carson, Senator John Carson. That was a Colorado doge, a Colorado version of doge. An efficiency bill. How about that? Let’s have a little efficiency.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, it very clearly was not going to have the scope and the power that the federal doge does, where they could go in and literally clean house and fire people. This was going to be more of just simply a recommending body to be able to go in and say, look, this is what we found. We found some inefficiencies here in this department. We found some inefficiencies with the budget process here. Let’s go in and let’s clean this up. They weren’t going to have that either.
SPEAKER 06 :
And again, was that argument mostly just because of the fact it has Doge attached to it, that there’s a musk somewhat in there? Because it’s very fascinating. One of my worries about Doge when you talk about efficiency is… One of the things I’ve always cautioned against is we don’t want a progressive government to get more efficient at regulating us, right? So it’s kind of interesting because when you’re talking about efficiency of government, you have that lingering specter of a progressive government could do that. But again, they’re not even looking long-term on that. They’re just sitting there saying, Doge, Trump, Musk, no, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, exactly. I mean, honestly, as real as Trump derangement syndrome is, there’s a Musk derangement syndrome as well. People are trading in their Teslas. They’re like, I don’t want the Tesla anymore. Now, let’s not forget that, of course, Musk was a hero, right? He was the guy, right? And now, all of a sudden… We can’t have the Tesla anymore because everybody is so freaked out. We’re vandalizing Tesla stores. I mean, that’s how far it is, right? It’s just so fear-based and overreactionary. It’s beyond the pale of anything logical, sensible, or anything that actually would provide any level of result, right? So, yes. The Doge, Colorado Doge, you bet. That had its dirt nap specifically tied to difficulty with people being able to understand that we weren’t talking about an Elon-type project here. It’s just trying to figure out how can we be better about the budget in Colorado? How can we be better about ensuring that the taxpayers’ money is being looked after correctly?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and, you know, we’re constitutionally required for a lot of this. Exactly. And, you know, it’s so funny when you, you know, and I’m certainly capable of being hypocritical at times as well. But, you know, when you talk about this push by our governor for electric vehicles and yet we’re still going to rebel against Tesla, one of the top companies. electric vehicle providers in the country. You know, at the beginning of the show, I was talking about the Congresswomen during the joint assembly wearing pink and yet not really actually wanting to support women when he brought them up during their speech. And it’s just kind of a recurring theme. Like, you know what? We will stand for you as long as you stand with us. But as soon as you stand on our principle, if something that we support, but you don’t stand with us, we’re going to kick you to the curb.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, yeah. Let’s not protect… girls and boys or boys and girls sports and making sure that they’re not competing at an unfair advantage let’s let’s not do that but let’s wear pink for it’s it’s unbelievable yeah and and there was actually one that came up recently where um you know there’s an effort to deregulate some uh some of the aspects around the marijuana industry in colorado of course you know we were we had the we got to plant the flag as being one of the first ones in for recreational marijuana which I believe is directly attributable, by the way, to why we’re in the mess that we are. It forever completely changed the political landscape of this state. It wasn’t about money. It was about politics. We used to be a purple state in Colorado. And still, when I hear people say that, I look at them and I think that’s just adorable. You know, I know you’ve been here for a few years in Colorado, if you think that we’re still a purple state, because those were the good old days. We’re blue as a Colorado sky now. I believe a lot of that is due to the marijuana regulation and allowing it here. So we. ran the the roost right with with income from marijuana sales of course you know the novelty was squarely on colorado right well i believe that over the course of time as other states have started to allow this you know the novelty has worn off and it’s just a level set well they don’t see it as a level set the democrats see it as oh my gosh this magical piggy bank that we had to be able to fund all the different things that uh that they wanted to fund because you know We have Tabor. We’ve got a check and balance in place that doesn’t allow them to do it. They made the argument in committee, oh, we don’t like regulation. We’ve got to save Colorado businesses because they want to deregulate some of the marijuana. And I’m sitting there thinking, I sat right there at that desk. I sat at the same desk where the bill sponsors are trying to deregulate some of the marijuana legislation. I sat right there and making the exact same argument, but because it was about guns, oh, they weren’t going to have it. But because it was about marijuana, then they’re making the same argument that I made, not even understanding. There’s three members of that committee that actually were the same in that committee that were in my gun hearing bill. Yeah, and it’s just – It just makes you shake your head, doesn’t it? Yeah, I pointed it out to them, and still it doesn’t have an impact.
SPEAKER 06 :
It doesn’t matter because it’s what they believe. And, you know, this is a great conversation here. Look forward to continuing it after the break here. But we have great sponsors such as Lorne Levy that allow us to have these.
SPEAKER 18 :
We’ll be right back. If you’d like to explore what a reverse mortgage can do for you, call Lauren Levy at 303-880-8881. That’s 303-880-8881.
SPEAKER 19 :
Call now. You’d like to get in touch with one of the sponsors of The Kim Monson Show, but you can’t remember their phone contact or website information. Find a full list of advertising partners on Kim’s website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 04 :
Franktown Firearms and Shooting Range is excited to announce its new partnership and on-site training opportunity coming soon. Training in firearm safety for in-home or self-defense is difficult to do in a practical way. But Franktown, in partnership with Colorado CQB, is opening an indoor 360-degree shoot house that will bring you closer to reality than anything you’ve ever seen. Practice interactive scenarios for defense to ensure you and your family are safe. and you can shoot confidently you’ll benefit from experienced staff and trainers including law enforcement and military backgrounds franktown’s new shoot house opens in february and they invite the public to come out to talk to them about it now and be ready for the grand opening for safe and simulated training opportunities open to all levels of experience come to franktown firearms where friends are made learn more about franktown firearms on the klz radio.com advertisers page where you can ask any questions you might have
SPEAKER 19 :
Dum-da-da-dum-da-da-dum-da-da-dum-da-da-da-da!
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back. This is Alan Thomas filling in for Kim while she is traveling. Thank you for listening in. Um, as always make sure and sign up for the weekly email newsletter where you get to see the upcoming guests and look at the most recent essays and you can email Kim at Kim at Kim Monson, M O N S O N.com. And thank you for contributing to make sure we can keep, uh, this radio show going. So excited to have in studio with us representative Max Brooks and, uh, We’ve had some interesting talk about some of the bills that died last week, but as always, there’s going to be some new bills this week. What’s on your radar?
SPEAKER 05 :
A couple of bills that are coming up on the House floor today. And understand that the schedule is about as fluid as what comes out of your faucet when you turn it on. We really, truly have no idea, even though it’s on the schedule for today, if it will be heard today. But there are two of them that are worth mentioning. One is 1169, House Bill 1169. The title is Housing Developments on Faith and Educational Land. If you remember, it wasn’t this last most previous session, but the session before 1169. There was an effort to, it was 213 was the title of it, to remove basically all local zoning control. We do have a housing shortage here. Now, part of that is due to middle housing, not even being able to be built because of the Construction defects. Right. So they’re they’re trying to remedy that. The Trial Lawyers Association, which has an absolute death grip on the Democrat caucus, they’ve been killing that the last couple of years are going to try again. So then that way we can have condos built again in Colorado. Right. So we’re at a point to where affordable housing is very difficult, and we do need to solve that. The Democrats tried to basically remove all local zoning control a couple of years ago, thinking simply that if people could come in, if they weren’t being barred from building high-density housing, from all of these pesky local government laws, then if they could just get those out of the way. This is a piece of that, basically what 1169 is. It’s a remnant. It’s trying again to erode local control, to remove the ability for municipalities to say, no, you know what, that doesn’t work in that area. And so this would allow religious institutions, if they wanted to, and there is one in Castle Rock, if they wanted to, to build higher density multifamily housing facilities. problem is that oftentimes it’s in the middle of a single family neighborhood local municipalities go through great lengths to make sure that the densities match you know feathered densities that way you don’t have a mansion right next to a 7-eleven right it’s there’s a little bit of a of a density you know kind of pattern that you go through before you get to the multi-family housing so having multi-family housing single family neighborhood is problematic The other piece of it, it allows for educational lands, removing local zoning control from educational parcels. In Castle Rock, and this is not at all just Castle Rock, I’m just going to use Castle Rock as an example. Typically, during a development process, there will be an allocation that is set aside for a future school use. Now, the school district right now does not have the money to build schools, right? So there are something like 19, 20, two dozen of these parcels within Castle Rock that are set aside for a future school. There’ll never be a school built on it. Douglas County School District doesn’t have the money. It’s not strategically sound to build schools there. So what might happen in a situation like that? Castle Rock doesn’t allow the district to own the property. It’s just set aside, which is very good foresight on the town’s standpoint. But in McAnta, which is just outside of Castle Rock, there are two parcels of land that the school district owns. play this forward. If 1169 were to pass, we all know that the school district is in a bad financial position, probably going to be put in a worse financial position by the time this budget season is over because the governor wants to cut K-12 spending, understanding that they’ll probably get at the local level, at the county level, the mill levy overrides to be able to make up the difference. Well, the problem is that they’re going to be put, my fear, School districts are going to be put in a financially untenable position to where they’re going to have to sell off their land in order to generate money. And then that sale will go most likely to the highest bidder. And again, you have a developer coming in, putting high-density multifamily housing in a single-family neighborhood. So that’s one to watch. We should be arguing that today in the well. Another one that I expect will get pretty spicy today in the well is House Bill 1147. The title of that is is fairness and transparency in municipal courts. So basically, that means they want to ensure that municipal courts again, it’s an erosion of local control. So a municipal court doesn’t have the flexibility to say, look, in our community, we want to treat this offense in this way. They want it all to be the same at the state level. Now, this argument is being led by folks from Denver and Aurora. Let’s say that disproportionately it’s impacting those of color and homeless. Okay, maybe that’s a problem in Denver. Maybe that’s a problem in Aurora. But it’s not a problem in Telluride. It’s not a problem in fill-in-the-blank any rural area. And that’s where we have, again, you’ve heard it, the urban-rural divide. We’re trying to make laws to fix problems in Denver and Aurora for the entire state. So Castle Rock, again, we sit right on I-25. We have a very, very large retail presence, the Promenade. We’ve got the outlets. You go a little bit further up I-25, right off of I-25 in Douglas County is Park Meadows Mall. We ought to be able to punish retail theft properly. at the level to which we feel is appropriate to dissuade people from coming in and stealing from our large retailers. We need to make those decisions. This aims to homogenize it at the state level to say, you know what, if you steal $100 worth of stuff, you know, it’s a slap on the wrist. And of course, let’s not forget the Democrats and how they fear incarceration. They want to be able to put people out on PR bonds. And that’s what happens when next thing you know, you’ve got people running around slashing people’s throats on the 16th Street Mall. And then three days later, you got the mayor out there saying, no, no, no, Denver’s safe. You’ve got a security team around you, man. No, Denver is not safe. So those two are coming up today. One other thing I want to put on everybody’s radar is there’s a good rally today. It’s a 2A, Support 2A, Defend 2A rally. It’s on the west steps of the Capitol. They’re trying to organize everybody at 1130. The actual event begins on the west steps of the Capitol at noon. There’s a march planned as well. Peaceful protest. Want to make sure that because we’re talking to 2A folks, that they understand that no open carry. The organizers are saying no open carry of firearms. Just come up, but let’s protest peacefully. Let’s make sure that our voices, our 2A support voices are being heard because, again, they just continue to try to assault 2A rights.
SPEAKER 06 :
And with that, it’s always important to, you know, you’re going to have the antagonizers, right, that are going to try and bring you into it because they know if they can make it about the antagonizing and they can make it about how loud they are or how rude they are, then you lose the message, right? You lose the rhetoric of, hey, we actually just deeply care about this issue, this deeply constitutional issue that was instituted for a purpose and for a reason. Right. And so that’s a that’s a great point. Let’s make sure to be very respectful and just know that they’re out to try and rile you up. They’re out to antagonize you and make you do something to take away from our message of we can be normal to a people.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. That’s right. And don’t give fake stream media anything to work with on the news tonight. Right. Let’s just stay away from that. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Kyle Clark would gladly jump. Absolutely. Anything other than, hey, there was a bunch of people that just believe in their right to own arms.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, real quick for you. A couple of things that I want to mention. If you are interested in signing up for our newsletter. C.J. does an amazing job with the newsletter every week. You can shoot an email to info at brooks45.com. Real easy. Info at brooks45.com and ask to be signed up to the newsletter. But I want to give a special shout out. Kind of like the Casey Kasem long distance dedication. I want to give a special recognition to my favorite guy. Yeah. Migrant Mike. Migrant Mike, the mayor of Denver. Migrant Mike, I want everybody to remember where he is today. That long-distance dedication to Washington, D.C., where Migrant Mike is testifying in front of the U.S. House Committee on Government and Reform because of the insurrectionist remarks that he made about defending his asylum seekers program and the illegal migrants.
SPEAKER 06 :
You got to love it. Well, thank you very much for joining us, Representative Brooks and CJ, and it’s great having you in. And to end the show, we’re ending with Aesop as well. He said, no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. So today, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. You are not alone. God bless you, and God bless America, and stay tuned for hour number two.
SPEAKER 10 :
young like a new moon rising fierce through the rain and lightning wandering out into this great unknown and I don’t want no one to cry but tell them if I don’t
SPEAKER 17 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s the Kim Munson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 02 :
The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water, what it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
SPEAKER 07 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Under this guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
SPEAKER 07 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 02 :
On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
SPEAKER 07 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome to the Kim Munson Show. This is Alan Thomas, and I’m thrilled to be guest hosting the show while Kim is traveling. Looking forward to the conversations we’re going to have. Had some fun ones last hour with Representative Max Brooks and then Corey with the Carter Union Taxpayers. So thank you all for listening. Each of you are valued and treasured today. Strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, soul, mind, and body. And Thank you to Producer Joe for all your hard work, for being that wonderful voice in the headset to keep me on cue and tell me of everything going on back there. So thanks for all you do. It’s my pleasure, Alan. Make sure and visit the website. The website is kimmunson.com, and there you can sign up for the weekly email newsletter. You’ll get a first look at all the upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. You can always email Kim at kim at kimmunson.com. And thank you to Laramie Energy for their gold sponsorship of the show. It is reliable, efficient, affordable, and abundant energy. from oil and gas and oil and gas derivatives that powers our lives, fuels our hopes, our dreams, and the prosperity of everyday Americans. So getting over to the word of the day, producer Joe told me that in the first hour, I forgot to spell it. So I will make sure and spell it this time. So the word is ebullient, E-B-U-L-L-I-E-N-T, ebullient. It’s an adjective. It means cheerful and full of energy. So it was pretty easy to see how ebullient many of the Republican representatives were last night during Trump’s address of joint Congress. And it was also easy to see how downtrodden many of the Democrats were. So half the room was standing and clapping and cheering and the other half was putting on their theatrics. The quote of the day is credited to Aesop. He was born around 620 B.C. and lived to 564 B.C. He was a Greek fablist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop’s Fables. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. And one of the quotes that’s attributed to him I thought was interesting. Very helpful, especially when we’re talking about Colorado politics, is the following. The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny, and it is useless for the innocent to try by reasoning to get justice when the impressor intends to be unjust. So it’s useless for the innocent to try by reasoning to get justice when the oppressor intends to be unjust. It just goes to show when you don’t have your principles about you, when you become a tyrant, it’s difficult to get out of that cycle because the tyrant will always be able to justify his tyranny. And that tyranny comes to us in many different ways, especially with an overregulated bureaucratic government. It’s, you know, we can call the tyrant public safety. We can say, hey, we’re justifying our tyranny by saying we’re going to keep the public safe. We’re going to justify our tyranny by saying we know best how to live your life. We are the experts. You shouldn’t be doing that. It is taking rights away from everyday citizens. It’s telling parents that they don’t know how to parent their own children. So tyranny comes to us in many different forms. And just a caution to each of us too. I know we do our best to live principled lives as well. And just be careful that your own justifications aren’t justifying tyranny no matter how small. So we are very lucky to have a great sponsors of the show and joining us on the phone right now is Lauren Levy, a mortgage specialist. Welcome to the show, Lauren. Hey, good morning, Alan. Well, it is, it’s a, it’s a good one. I, you know, the sun is setting a little bit later and despite the snow, it’s all melted off and we get to have you on today. So what’s, what’s going on in your arena? I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s been kind of active in the last few days in my arena. Um, you know, mortgage rates tend to be news driven and data driven. And that’s what Kim and I talk about all the time. And I, you know, I talked to her about the effect of the 10 year U S treasury note has on mortgage rates. And, and, you know, as we’ve seen the stock market have volatility the last week or so, same with the 10 year note, it’s come down, you know, from almost four, four and a half down to like the four 20 range, which has been the good news for mortgage rates. You know, nobody ever wants to see anybody lose money in the stock market and during volatile times, but sometimes those create opportunities that Kim and I discussed. And right now, rates are starting to pull back a little bit into more around the mid-sixes range, which is great for people who are interested in buying a home. It affords them a little bit more buying power on their monthly payment. And anyone that’s bought a home in the last year or so with a seven in front of it might want to reach out and call and see if they can save some money on a refinance at this point.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and what do you think is driving this, Loren? What’s kind of creating this downward pressure?
SPEAKER 15 :
I think, you know, Kim and I discuss all the time that markets just, they want certainty. The market has expectations, you know, for whatever may come its way, whether it be Fed adjustments to the rate or, you know, fiscal policy changes, things like that. The market has expectations when things are uncertain, the market changes. has a downward effect usually because people, investors look for safety, like in bonds and cash. So I think that’s what’s causing this downward pressure is the unknown. Some of the stuff with potential layoffs, today we saw some data from the ADP where there weren’t as many jobs created as there have been in the past. And some of this tariff stuff, it’s not that President Trump is presenting tariffs, it’s that it’s unknown exactly how much or what effect they’ll have. And when there’s unknown and uncertainty, people get out of riskier assets and move into safer ones, which are, you know, money market funds, cash bonds, things like that. And mortgages are just a different type of a bond. And when you have buying in bonds, the yield comes down on it as the price goes up. That’s how bonds work. So I think that’s what’s causing the downward pressure. And it’s, you know, one man’s treasure, you know, like they say is, You know, when something’s not going great in the market, there’s an opportunity somewhere else. And oftentimes that’s in the mortgage market. And that’s what we have right now.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is very interesting because, you know, in Trump’s first term, there was lots of stability in the economy, in the market, right until COVID, right? And now we’re kind of seeing he’s worked so hard and so fast in these first six weeks. It’s almost like we expected the economy to almost turn on a dime. But that’s not necessarily how economies work.
SPEAKER 15 :
No, it’s not. And, you know, he’s done a lot of work in the first six weeks, but he’s done it so fast that we don’t have the results of that work yet. And so that is what’s causing the uncertainty is what is going to happen. What effect will this have? Like, you know, people you can find people on both sides, for example, with the tariffs that will say tariffs will cause inflation because, you know. the prices have to go up when you put extra taxes on things, then you can find someone else that will say, well, no, it’ll get worked out in the supply chain and it won’t affect prices until there’s a known and a certainty. And, you know, maybe he’ll, maybe he’s using them as a negotiation tactic and maybe he’ll take them off later on. You know, there’s just that uncertainty. As long as we have that, we’re going to have volatility, I think.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and as we know, he’s a great negotiator and some of negotiation is creating some uncertainty, being able to throw things out there and walk away from a deal and create a better deal for yourself. But like you said, that uncertainty may not be the best at times, but it certainly creates an opportunity for some people. So how can they get a hold of you, Lauren, to take advantage of this?
SPEAKER 15 :
The best way is always just give us a call at 303-880-8881. It might be a good time right now to just take a look and see if something can be done. I know right now Americans have more credit card debt than they’ve ever had, but they still have a bunch of home equity. It might be a time to look and see if you can get a lower rate on your mortgage or use that equity to pay off some of this really high credit card debt that we have right now. So I would just call 303-880-8881.
SPEAKER 06 :
And make sure and ask for Lauren. Well, thank you very much, Lauren, for being on the show. We appreciate your sponsorship. It’s always great talking with you. You too. Have a good day, buddy. Thanks. You too. And another of those great sponsors is the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team.
SPEAKER 03 :
It seems like we are getting squeezed everywhere. Inflation, high taxes, at the gas pump. Where can you save money? Well, when you bundle your insurance coverage with the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team, you may save money immediately. on your insurance premiums. The Roger Mangan team will help you with a personalized plan to cover all your insurance needs for your home, auto, boat, and renter’s coverage. For a complimentary appointment, call the Roger Mangan team now at 303-795-8855. That number again is 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan team is there.
SPEAKER 14 :
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty, wrote founding father John Adams. RE-MAX realtor Karen Levine has been working diligently at the local, county, state, and national levels to protect property rights and home ownership. Karen has navigated the often challenging Colorado metro real estate market for years. That’s 303-877-7516.
SPEAKER 19 :
You’d like to get in touch with one of the sponsors of The Kim Monson Show, but you can’t remember their phone contact or website information. Find a full list of advertising partners on Kim’s website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. This is Alan Thomas, pleased to host the show today while Kim is traveling. Make sure and visit the website and sign up for the weekly email newsletter where you get a first look at all the upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. You can email Kim at Kim at Kim Monson dot com M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And thank you for contributing to support the independent voice and exercising our right to the freedom of speech. It’s Kim buys all of our airtime. So we really do appreciate all of those donations and that support. Make sure if you’re ever going through Pueblo or looking for a nice little day trip to visit the Center for American Values located on the beautiful Riverwalk in Pueblo. The Center for American Values was co-founded by Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix and Emmy award-winning documentary maker Brad Padula. The Center is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and teaching and upholding the principles of America, which are honor, integrity, and patriotism. So for more information, check out their website, AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValueCenter.org. And very excited to have Trent Luce join us here on the show. He’s a sixth-generation farmer and rancher. Welcome to the show, Trent.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, Alan. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Definitely.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks for sitting in the big chair, holding down the seat while Kim’s out. I don’t know what she’s doing, but she’s running around somewhere.
SPEAKER 06 :
Ah, she’s traveling right now, so getting much-deserved time off. And it is weird, you know, usually I can see, when I’m a guest on the show, I can see Producer Joe out the peripheral vision, but now he just gets to sit there and wave at me and tell me, hey, we need to go to break, and all the good stuff back there. So it’s fun sitting here. But, you know, listening last night, it was kind of interesting, the… joint address at congress president trump tried to get ahead of it and you you knew they were still going to try and get after it but egg prices are somehow a uh a federal issue now and they’re trying to use egg prices against president trump so i thought you know we’re talking to a sixth generation farmer here maybe we should talk about some eggs first off last report and this came out since the february 11th outlook from the usda
SPEAKER 08 :
United States Department of Agriculture is now concerned. And Brooke Rawlins, the Secretary of Agriculture, was in Denver this week with Commodity Classic with 8,000 farmers that attended that event. We can talk about that too, Alan. But what I’m leading up to here is that we have a $49 billion trade deficit with agricultural trade deficit, just agricultural products with other countries. So we’ve imported 49… 2025, we’re going to import $49 billion worth of agricultural products into this country more than we export to other countries, which is very problematic. In fact, prior to the Biden administration, there was only six years since 1960 that we had a trade deficit, agricultural trade deficit at all. But what’s getting left out of the equation and what I’m leading up to and how it ties into your egg question is that the two years before Biden took office, 2019 and 2012, were two of the six years that we had an agricultural trade deficit when Donald Trump was president. So Biden didn’t create this. Biden just made it worse. And since that report came out anticipating a $49 billion trade deficit, they’ve now announced that we could import between seven and 10 million dozen eggs into the united states in 2025 to meet the demand so you have to ask the question why is why are we short well number one this is not getting near enough attention although kim and i talk about it regularly like the state of colorado you have 40 percent of the egg production which is moved to cage free because everybody thought that was somehow better for the chicken When, in fact, there’s a higher mortality rate, it’s tougher to manage the chicken and provide the care that you need to make sure that that chicken is laying as many eggs as possible. And we’re to the point where a chicken will lay 300 eggs in a given year up from 280 not that long ago. Some cases we’re talking about 320 if the chicken does not have an induced stress because the first thing that fails is reproduction. When there’s stress, reproduction goes out the window. And so because we’ve had so many situations that now dating back to October of 2022, we’ve euthanized 160 million chickens. This is a direct result of failed policy from the USDA to come in and absolutely euthanize the entire flock with a positive test of one animal. They kill the entire flock. There’s been so many people standing up saying, We need to relook at this policy and why we’re doing this. And that, too, by the way, predates the Biden administration. It’s just a failed USDA policy. But it’s a combination of a number of things. And even in our 50 miles from my house, Broken Bow, Nebraska, which is as rural as you can get, Alan, Kelly’s got a picture. Last week, eggs were $1 apiece, $12 a dozen. And this is not going to go away anytime soon.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and it’s kind of interesting, too, because, you know, whenever we talk about this, we talk about egg production. We talk about culling a flock and, you know, big words like this. And it seems like the argument is always used against us. Oh, we want cage free because we care about the chickens. We care about the animals. And we’re sitting here going. We’re using things such as egg production, but like you said, a chicken will produce more eggs when they are not stressed. So if they’re in a better environment, egg production goes up. It’s a result of a good product for the chicken. And then you’re also sitting here going, well, yeah, we’re for not killing millions and millions of birds. Why can’t we look at this policy? So it seems like the positions we’re supporting are pretty pro-chicken and pro-animal as well.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’ve reached this era where people sitting in a cubicle pretend to know more about animal care than the people who actually take care of them every day. And when that started, and it started in the early 2000s, and in fact, all of this legislation began in California in 2008 with Proposition 2, which was about chickens in cages. And I actually made 14 trips to California in 2008 trying to prevent that from happening. And we got smacked. We got beat in every single county in California. But Alan, what you just mentioned, it needs to be just shouted from every rooftop, is that our role as farmers and ranchers is only one thing, minimize stress. How do we minimize the stress of the animals, the stress from weather, the stress from other animals, the stress from predators. Those are the things that we wake up thinking about how we’re going to handle this. And if you look at the cage-free egg, you’ve induced more stress because nobody thinks about where did the term pecking order come from? Well, it came from chickens who are establishing a pecking order, killing one another to decide who’s going to be the boss of this particular flock. That’s how it happens. And when you put five chickens in a cage, you minimize the pecking order and those fights. But where else in Colorado have we induced stress? Since Kim and I last talked, I had a tremendous conversation with Tim Richard from Kremlin, Colorado, and he is the current president of the Middle Park Stock Growers Association, and they are the ones who are dealing firsthand with stress in their sheep and in their cattle because the voting public of Colorado apparently, we believe, voted to introduce wolves once again, and there are 30 wolves running around Middle Park creating stress with these animals. Our whole last 150 years has been about how can we minimize the stress for food animals, and here we are because of ignorance and lack of information that gets to the public. We have induced stress environments for the food animals we produce. Consequently, go to the grocery store and see what the food cost today compared to what it was a year ago.
SPEAKER 06 :
And like you said, it’s the difficulty of this progressive idea that, you know, I have great intent. This policy has great intent. I want to do great things with it. And then when it doesn’t fulfill its purpose, we never repeal it. We never look at saying, hey, maybe this isn’t doing what we want. Maybe these animals aren’t in a better situation because of my ideas here in an air-conditioned room. Maybe those ranchers who have been doing this for a millennia quite literally, you know, taming animals and having them around has been something that’s happened for thousands of years this is thousands of years of knowledge and wisdom passed along maybe they do actually care about their animals maybe they do have the best intent for them but you know this intent is king is crushing us and that’s reflected through egg prices that’s reflected through the stresses that we’re seeing throughout all of these animal communities throughout the country
SPEAKER 08 :
Alan, I really wish you wouldn’t have gone down this path because, you know, all the women are out there shouting. We tell you guys when you go down the wrong road, you need to turn around and go back, and we refuse to do it, Alan. We just go find another route. We don’t go back where we came from.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. You know, it’s it’s when you talk about public policy, it’s having that that wisdom to say, hey, you know what? I maybe did have the best intent, but it didn’t work out. So let’s let’s scrap it. Let’s go back to where we were and maybe think about going a different way. But there’s we just lack the statesman. We lack the virtue of asserting our of legislators who will assert themselves and say, hey, I messed up. This wasn’t a good idea.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. We do need statesmen, and we’ve been struggling with that for quite some time. But there is one cure, and nobody’s going to like the cure. It’s the belly button banging the backbone.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yep. And, you know, we’re going to talk a little bit more about this commodity classic in Denver. I want to ask you a little bit more about that. But before we do, when we talk about some good food, one of the great sponsors of the show is Lavaca Meat.
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SPEAKER 11 :
I miss me.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back. This is Alan Thomas. I’m filling in for Kim while she’s traveling. Make sure and visit the website, KimMonson.com, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. There you’ll be able to sign up for the weekly email newsletter, get a first look at all the guests coming up, as well as some of the most recent essays. And you can always get a hold of Kim by emailing her at Kim at KimMonson.com. Thank you to everyone that contributes to support the independent voice and the exercising of our right to the freedom of speech. And You know, one of the great things that Kim does is one of the great works is working with a lot of our veterans. And one of the ways she’s involved is she is honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation for all the work that they are doing and to raise money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado, at 6th and Colfax. So… Paula Sarles is the president of the foundation, and she’s a Marine veteran, Gold Star wife. And Paula and her team are working diligently to bring the remodel to a reality. So you can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We are pleased to have on the line with us Trent Luce. He’s a sixth-generation farmer and rancher and doing great work all around the country to help support the agricultural community. So one of those events was here in Denver. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, Trent?
SPEAKER 08 :
Unfortunately, mostly because of weather, some because I screwed up a pickup last week, Alan. We don’t want to talk about that because it’s not one of my more proud moments in a snowdrift. But starting on Saturday, what is being reported is 8,000, and I said farmers earlier when I mentioned this, but truth of the matter is that 4,800 are farmers, and the balance are people who are vendors who are all tied to the agricultural community, but they’re They’re the people, the sponsors that ultimately make an event like this happen. And it’s an annual event. First time it’s been in Colorado, first time it’s been in Denver typically. They go to Florida or San Antonio, so that was nice. And why I looked forward to coming to Denver but just didn’t get it done. Before I say my concern about what I’m getting as a drift, because I know this happened at this event, is that I started noticing in February a year ago I was speaking – to a dairy group in upstate New York. And I’ve spoken at Cornell University. Cornell University and the Ivy League School has actually done some great work in the agricultural realm. It’s been a great powerhouse in research, particularly for agricultural events and our agricultural missions. And Cornell had a big presence clearly at this event, and I noticed they’re constantly pitching climate-smart agriculture. And that’s all the research that was taking place right now at Cornell is climate smart agriculture. Well, I contend that if you look at what’s happening in the research at Colorado State or any of the land grant institutions, that’s the same pitch. What do we do for climate smart agriculture? And, in fact, a longtime friend of mine who’s a beef researcher at the University of Nebraska, last summer they had a tremendous research project that said that beef animals grazing actually – does wonderful things for decreasing emissions. And so I did an interview with my friend, who I’ve interviewed many times before, and every time he would tell me about this, he had to include the phrase climate smart agriculture. And, Alan, the reason I’m walking you through this is that we have now gotten where agriculture is really focused on net carbon zero and how we’re going to have climate smart agriculture instead of the best way to be environmentally friendly is is to just go out and produce more with less. Producing more with less is always the best benefit for any environment. But instead of the overall message from every vendor and every presenter at this Commodity Classic of talking about how can we produce more with less and how can we market the products that we produce for more money, everybody’s talking about how do we fix this carbon intensity score? How do we do this with net carbon zero? Net carbon zero is death. And I’m going to parallel it exactly to chickens in a cage and what we were talking about previously, in that we’re trying to do the warm fuzzy, what the buzzwords are of the day, which at the end of the day does not produce more food for every acre that is farmed. And I’ll give you just one example that is absolutely the most obnoxious example, and this is a direct result of failed policies at, again, the USDA. I was driving home from Fargo in December, and I noticed off of Interstate 29 between Fargo and Brookings, massive amount of high tillage. I’m talking moldboard plow and high tillage. Alan, most people recognize that carbon is released when you do tillage. And we have been working towards minimizing the amount of tillies needed for a long time. And so I started being inquisitive. I’m like, why are all these farmers doing massive tillage at a time when we’ve moved beyond that? Well, I got the answer. The USDA wants to show market improvement in net carbon zero and a carbon intensity score. So what was their first part of being a part of this program? In order to be a part of this program, you had to go extreme till, moldboard plow your field so that you take your carbon score to zero so that over the period of the next 4, 5, 10, 12 years, you can show market improvement in your carbon intensity. That is the failed policies of the USDA and what we’ve been pushed into, and these universities are falling prey because they want the money. It’s just modern-day prostitution, to be honest with you, and the consumer is going to pay the price. We’re talking about high-dollar eggs right now. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and it underlies an entire different issue too, right? I mean, there’s also the aspect of… We preach rule of law so often because when you have a rule of law, it’s easy for a business owner to say, here are the laws, as long as I do not violate them, I can… kind of do whatever I want, right? Here’s the aspects of me not violating anyone else’s rights, and then I can go out and do my best to produce more with less and to create value. But when you have this bureaucratic state that uses the tendrils of climate change to fester and infect every aspect of our lives, you now have ranchers who have to be concerned about that these regulations are going to change on a dime, that they’re going to suddenly start asking more and be required to comply with more regulations. So it’s also understandable why many ranchers, farmers, are going to be concerned about what regulations are going to be sprung on them in the next year, two years, five years, that they’re suddenly going to have to comply with. So how can we get ahead of it and use maybe some of our research money to try and figure out where this rule of law is just going to shift and change through this massive bureaucratic state?
SPEAKER 08 :
What you said is exactly right. But it is also the reason that we’re in the position we’re in today since the EPA was created in 1973. I mean, we have continued to reinforce that we need a regulation on this, a regulation on that, regulation on water use, regulation on everything. And now we are feeling the brunt of what is coming. And yet what you said is they’re going to continue to ramp up regulation. We’re already seeing the USDA, Brooke. Rollins has only been in a position of two weeks, and she’s already talking about doing things. We’re going to fix this chicken problem so that we can get eggs affordable. Trust me, the more the USDA does, the higher chicken prices are going to go. We’re going to give 435% more money to farmers in 2025. That will not create a solution. That will be the new problem. And what happens at every turn? Farmers get out of the business because they cannot afford to comply, and we see consolidation. And the other buzzword that was taking place that Kim and I talked a bit about last week, and I had my friend Kevin Kinney join her a couple of weeks ago talking about this, the other buzz term at the Commodity Classic, autonomous tractors and combines, farming without the farmer. That should be the concern. for the everyday citizens and why I can just so easily say that we’re at a point in time when you need to think about, I’m going to repeat my phrase, the belly button banging against the backbone. That ultimately is the problem.
SPEAKER 06 :
And like you said, there’s this difficult confluence of technology helping us to produce more with less. But when it’s mandated, when it’s regulated, when people are not allowed to choose, that’s when we start to see all of these issues. When the government, again, comes in and tries to take away the collective wisdom that’s passed down through generations. When some farmers are allowed to adopt new technology and see how it works and others say, you know what, I’ve got a way of doing things. I want to keep doing it. We really benefit from a free market aspect of allowing people to choose and allowing the market to drive innovation as opposed to the government attempting to drive innovation, which frequently means higher food prices, less efficiency and more regulation and more control.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I got very little to add to that because you just summarized it so well. Just to draw some numbers to prove your case in point, if you look at how many acres of land it took to produce enough food to feed one person in 1900, pre-petroleum, by the way, that was the biggest one invention that’s made a difference, but it took 10 acres of land in order to produce enough food to feed one person for a year. And today, I often talk about that we’re at a third of an acre, which we literally are at a third of an acre. It only takes a third of an acre to produce enough food to feed one person for a year. But to your point, if you look at the innovation that took place through the calendar year 2000, and then the innovation and progress that we’ve made from 2000 to 2024, because we’re just into 2025, It has slowed. And what has taken place, particularly since the George W. Bush era in 2000, is that we have just stymied and continued to pile on top of one another regulations to do what it is we were doing. Those regulations are now inhibiting, preventing, creating a wall, giving this great big hurdle We used to be running low hurdles. Now we’re running high hurdles. And soon we’re being told that we’ve got to be a high jumper in order to continue to farm. And there is where we are chasing people out. And the consolidation will affect every community and will affect who controls the food supply and who controls the food supply and the energy supply. Because what’s happening in energy is no different. That is ultimately who’s in charge of the world, and we control all of that at the local level. And, Alan, we’ve just forgotten that part of the concept, forgotten that about this Constitution. We need to get back to control at the local level. We had a fantastic win yesterday in South Dakota on a Senate passing HB 1052, and right now my phone is kind of blowing up with people asking, this was a fantastic win where we’re going to limit the use of eminent domains for putting CO2 pipelines in the ground in the state of South Dakota. The governor hasn’t signed it yet. But beside that, people are asking me, do you think that Trump will federalize this and minimize the impact of the state law? Yeah, I really think he will, because we have continued to allow the federal government to dominate everything that’s happening. We’ve got to get control of this country from the grassroots county level on up.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it’s kind of interesting. And I want your thoughts here really quickly before we go to break. You know, one of the things Trump brought up is that for every one regulation that’s new, you have to remove 10. But then it sounds like this USDA that’s in charge of agriculture is kind of using regulations to try and fix a problem, which we know is a broken way of trying to fix government-induced issues. So… Maybe your thoughts on that real quick. Do you see some of Trump’s picks coming in to try and help the agricultural community, or it seems like it’s not the right direction so far?
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s not going to be the right direction. Trump gave the same verbiage to the scenario in 2016, and it didn’t happen. He has the ability to say what people want to hear, and then if you follow through, it never happens.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hmm. Well, hopefully we can use our voices to help try and guide effective change. But like you said, it also just starts at the local level. You know, it’s starting as small as you can and working your way up. And that’s why it’s important to be involved in, you know, municipal politics and county politics than in state politics and and hopefully drive this change all the way up because we can only be as effective as we try to be right and if we just give up we’re giving away our whole facility to to try and change our lives alan i think the book that my mother made me read the most when i was a little kid is the little red engine that thought it could That’s always a classic, and I try and read that to my kids as often as possible, too. So we’re going to go to break here. And, you know, we’re able to have these great conversations because of Boson, Boson Law.
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SPEAKER 10 :
a great day to be
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back. This is Alan Thomas. I’m pleased to be hosting the show while Kim is traveling. Again, make sure and check out the website, KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. You can also email her at Kim at KimMonson.com. Make sure and sign up for the weekly email newsletter. You get some great first look at essays as well as checking out the upcoming guests for the week and planning out when in particular to tune in, though you should be tuning in for all two hours of the show. We’re pleased to have Trent Luce on the line, and also we have a call-in from Gammy. Gammy, what’s on your mind?
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, my. Honey, you should have asked me what’s not on my mind. It’d be a lot easier on all of you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, you know, we do have an end to the show, so I hear you have a couple questions for Trent here.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, Trent, you know, you nailed a bunch of stuff when you said local, local, because yesterday I spent all day waiting to speak on two different bills, all of them having to do with parents having some input or doctors having the right to deny a procedure because it goes against their, you know, religious rights. Well, or other rights, you know, like maybe they don’t believe it’s safe. Well, when you said go local and you’re talking about everything that’s happening to us in Colorado, we are the number six nationwide state with the most regulations. It’s the number six state in the country with the most regulations. And every single bill that has anything decent, they vote it down. It’s always along party lines. The cognitive dissonance, the mental meanderings is insane. But we got two bills today. One of them says they want to give parental consent to treatment of minors. We have to legislate this. It’s like, what? And the other one is that they want, if they’re going to perform medical procedures like abortions, they want the facility to be, you know, up to code so that person doesn’t die from nasty. But there’s these bills going on right now to do with smart meters so you have the right to opt out without having to pay a monthly fortune. They have another bill where they want to put AI in the wildfire detection in our woods. There’s a problem with it. Guess what? The person that they’re using, the company they’re using, member of the World Economic Forum. Hello.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, those are good ones, Gammy. Trent, do you have any thoughts?
SPEAKER 08 :
I can’t keep up with Gamete in order to have thoughts. I just try to stay right as close as possible.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I mean, those are great bills. And, you know, we actually in the first hour got to talk about a couple of those as well. You know, some of the good bills of having choice, of being allowed to opt out of smart meters if possible, how that’s a good idea, being able to choose smart. is a good idea and I know you know Trent we talked about that too along with the farming technology it’s this radical idea of an individual having an ability to make choices for their own life you know and I’m Kelly and I have three daughters that are under the age of 30 basically between 30 and 20 and so I can make this statement with a degree of experience and
SPEAKER 08 :
We have so many things moving into a digital world. And this week we see a report out of Europe that they’re going to electronic wallets where even your facial recognition, your DNA, all your tax stuff, everything is in a digital wallet that you have. And you know that kids 30 and under are going to think this is a wonderful thing. And I’m thinking about it when Gammy brings up the smart meters. There is nothing wonderful about a smart meter. Giving somebody else control of your house. That’s just blatantly saying you’re going to control my house. The same thing has happened in agriculture. You now have John Deere that literally monitors every piece of equipment if it has the telematics in it or the electronic equipment where it’s doing all of the deck gathering. They can literally turn that tractor off anytime they want to. That should be problematic to everyone. And it’s interesting, speaking of the digital world, I am holding my phone. Just keep track if somebody wants to weigh in. Hi, Kane. Thanks for the note. But you know how the algorithms and the digital world pays attention to everything, Alan. You and I are talking about farms and struggling. And just as we’re talking about that, I get an ag review report that was written today. And the title is Farm Bankruptcies Hit a New High. And the U.S. court reports that 216 farm bankruptcies were filed in 2024. That’s an increase of 55% from 2023. But it’s 64% less than the all-time record of farm filings for bankruptcy, which was the calendar year 2019 with 599 farm filings. Hmm. And so while we talk about how the economic policies of Biden and the USDA, which I’m telling you was a total train wreck, but it didn’t start there. We’ve been building to this point, and we’re to the point where so many farmers are, you put enough air on a balloon and the balloon pops. The balloon is full, and your domestic supply of food and fuel is at risk. That’s why we’re having this conversation. And the answer to the conversation is, You go find your local producer and buy as much as you possibly can from your local producer. That is always the case. And why I just, without hesitation, endorse Lavaca Meats, because it’s a Colorado-based company providing Colorado beef, comes from Colorado range, and you can go buy that. And that’s just one example. There’s tons of great places in Colorado to do that with every single aspect. But your consumer dollar is ultimately going to decide who’s in the marketplace and who’s filing bankruptcy.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. Yeah, it’s it’s all our agency to choose. Right. And it’s it’s using that’s what makes a free market wonderful is you can use your your dollars to actually show what we should and shouldn’t be supporting. So before before we let Gammy go really quickly, Gammy, can you do you know the the bill number for those bills that you just brought up?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, the smart meter bill is 1175, HB 25, 1175. It’s L-I-E-D-E-R is the sponsor, okay? The other bill that’s really important, and I don’t know if people have time today, they read it at 1.30 in the Senate meeting. Judiciary, it looks, no, Transportation, SB 25011, Detection Component Wildfire Mitigation. Daughtery is the sponsor. That one is the one where it’s really complicated, but it gets down to AI putting cameras all over in the wilderness to make sure they catch it. of wildfire but there’s so much more to the component and anybody that really wants to know the dangers of letting ai run the show without real control look up the dangers of ai as opposed to the benefits you can google it and it gives you like a list of 20. there is such a component of Mishap could still happen. It could be really dangerous to let AI out of control, run anything for us. It’s non-human. It makes us vulnerable on ways that really it’s epic. And I think we need to have some sort of moderation between how we use these new technologies and where we cap them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. I mean, there’s always just let’s ask the questions, and before we just trust everything, let’s verify, right? So thank you for all you’re doing, Gammy. Thanks for bringing those to our attention. And, you know, Trent, how do you want to button up the conversation today? We’ve got a couple minutes before we end the show.
SPEAKER 08 :
Gammy said something there that’s really funny, and it’s funny, sadly funny. She said, and I agree with her on the dangers of AI, and I believe the biggest danger of AI is the intensity of energy required to generate this. We’re destroying our reliable supply of energy, being natural gas and coal. We’re retiring those. We’re moving to unreliable, unaffordable energy supplies when it comes to electricity and ramping up our need for electricity at an unprecedented rate. But Gammy also said, Google it to find out how dangerous AI is. And Gammy has to think about, and we all have to think about this, because I do it too. It’s convenient. Google is AI. So we can’t turn to AI to try to get the truth about AI. And I’ve got to tell you, Alan, I’ve really ratcheted down where I’m going to get information, just particularly in the last two weeks, because I’ve noticed What is most available is what they want you to be saying. You have to dig deeper. Stop doing what is convenient. Work harder.
SPEAKER 06 :
And you’re absolutely right. It was kind of interesting. When you’re looking up quotes and you’re typing in tyrant, the first recommended suggestions, I always chuckle because on one hand I’m like, you know, the Internet should know better by now that I am not interested in Karl Marx or but yet it will still try and subtly suggest it every single time, right? It’s like, no, I’m trying to find something by Hamilton or Jefferson or Washington, and yet despite all of the inputs I’ve put in, it still is just trying to push me towards an ideology.
SPEAKER 08 :
Speaking of tyrants, on this day in 1953, Joseph Stalin died. That was a tyrant that killed more than 40 million people. That was a good day for mankind.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, wow. You know, thank you for doing that. Usually we do this day in history, but didn’t have a chance today. Well, Trent, you know, thank you so much for being on the show and passing along this great knowledge. It’s always important to also highlight history so that we don’t let the echoes of history haunt us in the present.
SPEAKER 08 :
A very dear friend of mine who was a retired school teacher and administrator said, Trent, you have a rearview mirror so that you can keep track of what’s going on behind you, but the biggest part is the windshield, but you cannot lose track of the rearview mirror. You have to know where you’ve been if you know where you’re going. Exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, as always, thank you for being on the show, Trent. And, you know, to close the show, I know we started with Aesop, so we’re going to close with him. So one of the quotes he’s attributed with is no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. So today, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. You are not alone, and we are all made for this moment. So God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 10 :
Living by God To live a free life To live in freedom Talking about freedom
SPEAKER 17 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 07 :
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