In today’s episode, Marshall Dawson takes us through current political events, including a fascinating discussion of Colorado’s Constitution with expert Dave Evans. Tune in to learn more about the state’s unique governance powers and how citizens can engage directly in the legislative process. Karen Gorday joins to discuss her city council candidacy, highlighting the intersection of local politics and community service.
SPEAKER 15 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 11 :
I find that it takes work to get your brain around these ideas, and it takes work to engage in these conversations.
SPEAKER 15 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 11 :
With what is happening down at the Statehouse, I used to think that it was above my pay grade to read the legislation, and it’s not.
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Today’s current opinions and ideas.
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I see big danger in as much as we will be giving an unelected bureaucrat the power to make rules about what we inject into our bodies.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
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Indeed, let’s have a conversation. Welcome to the Kim Monson Show. Now, I can see you right now. I can see you looking at the radio and saying, oh my gosh, that is a horrible cold that Kim has. Well, no, this is not Kim Monson. I’m Marshall Dawson, your guest host for today. Thank you for listening. Each of you are treasured and valued and have purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, your body. We were made for this moment. And thank you, Producer Joe, and the good team that you work with and the great work that you do. Visit Kim’s website, KimMonson.com, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for the weekly email newsletter, and you’ll get the first look at all the upcoming guests, as well as the most recent essays. You can email Kim, Kim at KimMonson.com. We want to say thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. And thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship. There are three locations, Aurora, Westminster, and Loveland. They have great lunch specials Monday through Friday for dine-in or to-go. Wednesdays are wings days. Buy 20 wings and get an additional 10 for free. That offers good for to-go or for dine-in. Hooters Restaurants, a great place to get together with friends to watch your favorite teams. And today’s word of the day is rhetoric. Rhetoric is spelled R-H-E-T-O-R-I-C. It’s a noun which means the art of speaking or writing effectively. I kind of like the adjective form of that, rhetorical. I like rhetorical devices. I think sometimes we fall into the trap, and I’ve certainly done this, of using rhetoric kind of as a pejorative. Anytime that we oppose the content of what the other side is saying, we can overlook or forget that rhetoric is the way that great communicators craft their message to be more memorable, more encouraging, more compelling. And that dovetails with the quote of the day. Our quote comes from Aristotle, who was a fourth century philosopher. He was a Greek philosopher. Also specialized in natural sciences, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. And Aristotle said that rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Let’s talk about a few rhetorical devices. The first is a metaphor where we substitute a word or an object in place of another. We have probably heard that Social Security reform is the third rail of politics. That comes from the idea of electrified trains, and if you touch that third rail, you get electrocuted. Obviously, people are not going to be electrocuted if politicians touch Social Security, but it’s meant to be indicative of something that is fatal politically. Or simile, comparison of two things which are unlike each other. So, you know, Producer Joe, if I described it as being as cold as ice in this studio, it just means that I’m in here shivering. I’m not literally saying that it’s 32 degrees. Look, if I was doing that, Joe, man, you’d be doing this show on your own. I’ll also point out antithesis. We juxtapose two competing principles or concepts, and also I’ll combine parallelism. And a great example of this is John F. Kennedy’s speech when he said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. He had two competing ideas that he put right next to each other and was in that way pivotal in creating an inflection point in history. So I invite you to listen for rhetorical devices as you listen to speakers who resonate with you and find ways to use rhetorical devices and rhetoric to make your communication style more powerful. Let’s look at a couple of headlines. I think we have to cover the Hamas agreeing to the ceasefire in Gaza. Kim covered this yesterday, but yesterday after the show, from Breitbart and the Times of Israel, they said that the hostages could be released as early as this weekend. Trump is saying that it could be Monday. Look, you know, here’s kind of the way that I see this. I think it is reason for a lot of optimism, but Hamas has not exactly been trustworthy. They’ve not proven themselves worthy of being trusted in the past. So I am optimistic. I’ll believe it when I see it. We’re going to have Lauren Fix on the show later, and I’ll throw another headline out there. This comes from the Denver Post. Toyota recalls nearly 400,000 Tundras and Sequoias due to malfunctioning rear-view cameras. The cameras might fail to come on in reverse. This is a software bug and can be fixed with an update. In Colorado news, the conversion therapy law, so-called, is being challenged at the Supreme Court. And this is from thecentersquare.com. Kaylee Childs is the local therapist, and the case is being argued on First Amendment grounds. This is a so-called conversion therapy law because it’s actually a, it says that when you’re counseling, you can only go in one direction. In other words, if somebody comes into your office and says, hey, I’d like some help in becoming more comfortable with the body that I was born in, Colorado prevents that. Colorado says you can only go in one direction. You can only affirm somebody’s dysphoria. Shannon Stevenson is Colorado’s Solicitor General. And if you take the minute to go and listen to Samuel Alito’s questioning, man, that guy is just a rock star. He asked if there was any other medical, any other instances of medical consensus taking over the harmful means of a practice and using medicine for political ideology. Shannon Stevenson had no real response to that. She said, well, I can’t think of any evidence. And, of course, Alito comes back immediately and shuts that down. All right. Let’s look at what has happened on this day in the past. On this day, October 9th, 1888, the Washington Monument opens. 1872, the Colorado State Fair first came about. Now if you think about that, that was 1872. Colorado didn’t become a state until 1876. I think that’s pretty neat that the State Fair precedes Colorado’s statehood. I can’t confirm that there were any problems with that first fair. However, in 2011, there was a goat that was disqualified for failing a drug test. All right. We’re going to jump right in to Karen Gorday with Radiant Painting and Lighting. Hey, good morning, Karen.
SPEAKER 08 :
Good morning, Marshall. How are you today?
SPEAKER 17 :
Great, great. Hey, Karen, talk about radiant painting and lighting real quick.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. So we do interior and exterior painting, and we also do holiday lighting, and we… Strive for excellence in everything that we do. It’s all about quality. We’re not just your average paint company where you’ll paint and then you get a taillight warranty as we drive away. Make sure we’re using premium caulks and paints and you get a solid warranty on all of our services.
SPEAKER 17 :
I painted my house in 2023. This is before I heard of you. And I have to admit that one of the reasons I procrastinated was there were some repairs that needed to be made. Do you guys have a network of handymen that can come in and do those repairs for your customers?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes and no. So it depends on the repairs that need to be done. So… If I need to bring a specialist in, I can, absolutely. But I do have one of my crews, the crew chief, and I’ve had him for a couple of years. He actually used to do siding years ago with his father. And so he knows how to… flip out on the exteriors, flip out trim boards and pieces of siding, et cetera. And so in turn, he taught the whole crew how to do this. And so when it comes to exterior work, we don’t have to, you know, I don’t have to bring someone else in. um on interior if let’s say we need to redo a whole um wall for a drywall repair then i do have trusted partners for drywall to bring them in before we come in and paint so the answer is yes and no i do have trusted professionals to partner with when necessary but we try to handle those things in-house
SPEAKER 17 :
And I like that your website talks about protecting and enhancing your most valuable investment. I think that we overlook sometimes the fact that having a fresh coat of paint can protect it from the elements.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely, yes.
SPEAKER 17 :
Now, Karen Gorday, I was also interested in the lighting aspect, not just hanging lights, but as I understand it, you can help people tailor their designs for either external lighting and or holiday lighting. Can you talk about that a little bit?
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. So, um, usually during my initial conversation with someone about lighting, I’ll ask, um, if they have specific colors in mind and some people, um, want like every color that you traditionally see on when we talk about, uh, Christmas lights, for example. Um, but then some are like, well, I just want like a soft white all around my entire house. Or we had one last year. She’s like, I want red and green. Um, and that’s it you know so talking to them about colors uh right up front and then um and then you know i can i make a mock-up of what their house would look like with that pattern um and and right now it’s the perfect time to start looking at lighting um as we get closer to let’s say christmas i’ll use just use as an example since that’s the most popular time If you wait until December to get on someone’s schedule, you may not get the colors that you want. The reason for that is everybody in the country is trying to decorate for life. For example, last year, all of a sudden, the first week of December, there were no green bulbs to be found nationwide. That’s why I encourage people to get things done early so that you can get the colors that you want. And, yeah, now is the perfect time to be thinking about lighting. So thank you for that question.
SPEAKER 17 :
Great. Yeah. So give the website of Radiant Painting and Lighting, please.
SPEAKER 08 :
It would be www.paintwithradiance.com, or they can give me a call at 720-940-3887.
SPEAKER 17 :
Great. And, you know, another reason I was excited to talk to you is you’re taking the step to get involved in local politics. So you’re running for Lakewood City Council. How’s that race going?
SPEAKER 08 :
I think it’s going well. Right now it’s crunch time. Ballots get mailed out tomorrow. And when I say crunch time, trying to get door hangers on every door in my ward. I say every door. Every house and townhouse I want a door hanger on. And so that’s about 10,000 door hangers and doors. We are about halfway there. We’ve made really good progress last weekend through yesterday, and so we’ve got about another 5,000 door hangers to go.
SPEAKER 17 :
Karen Gorday, it was great talking to you. How can people reach out to you if they want more information about the city council race, or how can they get in touch with you?
SPEAKER 08 :
They can go to my website, which is karenforlakewood.com. Karen, F-O-R, lakewood.com.
SPEAKER 17 :
Karen Gorday, Radiant Painting and Lighting and Lakewood City Council candidate. Thanks, Karen.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, thank you. Have a great day.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
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Colonel, the British are raiding Danbury and burning the town. I’ll go tell them. Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington mounted her horse and rode 40 miles through night and pouring rain. That’s twice the distance of Paul Revere to sound the alarm.
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Quickly.
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assemble at my father’s house the kim monson show is our modern day sybil luddington bringing us the latest breaking news in the battle for truth and freedom ben’s plumbing heating and cooling is proud to stand with kim will you stand with us get engaged with the issue that keeps you up at night so that you can influence your school and community with truth and justice And for quality craftsmanship at a fair price, call or text Ben’s Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling at 303-995-1636. That number again is 303-995-1636.
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There’s so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Monson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at KimMonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
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And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. I’m Marshall Dawson. I’m filling in for Kim today. Check out Kim’s website at kimmonson.com. And you can email Kim, kim at kimmonson.com. Thank you for contributing to support Kim’s independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. Through all of Kim’s work with veterans, she’s honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all that they’re doing to raise the money for the remodel of the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado at 6th and Colfax. Paula Sarles is the president of the foundation. She’s a Marine veteran and a Gold Star wife. Paula and her team are working diligently to make the remodel a reality. You can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. That’s usmcmemorialfoundation.org. And up on the line, we have Dave Evans. Hey, good morning, Dave. Dave is a member and a board member of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers. How’s it going, Dave?
SPEAKER 22 :
Good morning, Marshall. It’s going well, thank you, and I hope it’s going well for you as well.
SPEAKER 17 :
It’s going excellent. It’s going very well. So let’s talk about the Colorado Constitution. You came prepared to give us kind of a primer on that. Is that right?
SPEAKER 21 :
yeah that’s right um yeah i’m i’m no expert on this so i i’ve done a little research and my primary um resource is is a book um written by david b copple or copple i’m not sure the pronunciation he’s associated with the independence institute it’s entitled colorado constitutional law and history my version is the second version but i would highly recommend that to anybody that wants to learn more about our constitution It’s very readable, and it’s available, I think I actually got it through Amazon, but it might have been from a link through the Independence Institute. I can’t exactly remember. It’s been a while since I got it.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, I’m familiar with Dave Kopel’s work, and Kim had kind of given me a heads up on this book, and I kind of laughed and said, well, Kim, I don’t think I can get that read before the show. But he is quite the constitutional expert and expert on things for Colorado as well. So what did the book tell you? What did you learn from this?
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, first of all, it’s a very readable book. You don’t have to be a scholar or anything to get a lot out of it. And from it, of course, the U.S. Constitution is the model for the state constitution. The U.S. Constitution is organized around five articles, and then that’s followed by the amendments. The Colorado Constitution is a little different. It has many more articles. It has 29. There were 19 originally when it was written in 1876. The amendments are actually woven into their respective articles. For example, TABOR, the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, can be found under Article 10, which is on taxes and revenue. of the state constitution is schedules, most of which is no longer relevant with the exception that the town of Georgetown depends on that for its being in law. But just like the U.S. was formed by states, Similarly, Colorado’s first governments were mining towns, and those governments were formed to establish some order in those camps. Also, there were some counties that preceded the formation of the state. So the state is actually kind of analogous to the United States in its foundation. And our Constitution, being one of the later ones written, is very long. It’s one of the longest. And it gives very strong powers to self-governance. And it’s a wonderful Constitution, really. For example… The Constitution, when it was set up, was established by direct vote. The people of the state actually voted to put it in place. We have the ability to legislate directly. In fact, the Constitution makes the people sovereign, not the government sovereign. The people have the sole and exclusive right of governing under our Constitution.
SPEAKER 17 :
And interestingly— I’ll interrupt you real quick, Dave. Go ahead. You’re talking about self-government. It’s easy for Marshall to say this morning. Self-governance and the power of the people. I think that we are somewhat unique in that the people do have quite a lot of power to change the Constitution and do amendments. I did have a question for you, though. You said that the amendments themselves are woven into the articles, unlike the U.S. Constitution. So if we go and we read the Colorado Constitution, we would literally see where amendments have modified, right? So it might be, you know, strike this and add here and insert there kind of a thing, as opposed to like our Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution and, you know, where the amendments are listed after the fact?
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, you don’t actually see that. You see the amendments… as additional sections added on to the articles. So you’ll see them at the tail end of the articles. Yes, some other interesting things about us. Of course, we have the ability to amend the Constitution, and that’s been done many times. We have the ability to recall elected officials, and not every state has these powers. The citizens don’t always have these powers. And originally, one of the changes we’ve made, which makes me a little sad, is that originally the citizens directly elected presidential electors. But in 2019, that was ended when The state adopted the National Popular Vote Compact. And so when the compact ever reaches 270 electoral votes, then the Secretary of State, instead of the citizens of the state, will appoint the electors. And this was ratified in 2020 by the voters. But interestingly enough, the Constitution hasn’t been changed yet. and it still requires elector selection by direct vote. So that’s going to create a collision when that happens, I think.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, and that was an important change that happened not so long ago. Dave, we have just a few seconds remaining. Give me your final thoughts, and then also let’s put in a plug for the Colorado Union of Taxpayers.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, you know, I’m really honored to serve on the Union of Taxpayers. We’re doing important work. I don’t know how much we’re noticed. I’m sure glad that Kim is bringing this to the attention of the voters so that they can see what’s happening down in our legislature by our summaries and responses to the legislation. And I think that’s the important thing we want to get out there is to get citizen involvement. And we as the union of taxpayers are sure trying to do that, and I hope we’re successful.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, so please go to coloradotexpayer.org. You can join for $25. I’ve been a member for quite some time. When I was a candidate, I signed the cut pledge. Great work that you guys are doing, Dave. Thanks for your time. And stay tuned. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. I’m Marshall Dawson sitting in for Kim today. I appreciate her letting me take over the reins here. Listen, sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter at Kim’s website, KimMonson.com. You can email her at Kim at KimMonson.com. And thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to free speech. Ready for financial freedom? Call our friends at Mint Financial Services. As an independent firm and an accredited investment fiduciary, they always put your interests first. Mint means more than money. It stands for a meaningful relationship, information sharing, a network of smart strategies, and a thoughtful advisor who puts you in control. No cookie cutter plans here. Everything is tailored to you. Call Mint Financial Strategies today at 303-285-3085. And on the line with us we have Lauren Fix with Car Coach Reports. And good morning, Lauren, first of all. Good morning. We have so many things that have just been going on. We are a couple of weeks away or out of the one big beautiful bill taking effect with those mandates. I also want to talk to you about the Fuel Emissions Freedom Act. But I’ll turn you loose and see where you want to go with this first.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, there’s so much going on in the automotive world. All my stories, if you hear it or you miss part of it and you want to hear it again, just go to YouTube and go to Car Coach Reports. You’ll have all my news on what’s going on in the automotive world. And then Car Smarts, which is on YouTube, is all my car reviews. I had to split them up. There’s a lot going on. We know about the end of the electric vehicle mandate. And we also know that that means if you want to buy an electric car, you can still buy one. Some brands are cutting as much as $10,000 off. So while you thought that tax credit was a good deal, $10,000 off the price of a car should say two things to you. One, they’re trying to get rid of these vehicles because they’re not selling them. And two, if you want an electric car, there’s some great deals to be had. But you also need to be very aware that they’re not leasing these cars in many cases. They’re selling you these cars. So what happens down the road is the car is three to five years old. You’re thinking, you know, I think I’ll get something new. The problem is getting rid of fields. You can tell from websites like IC Cars where they put the valuations of electric vehicles, they drop like 60 to 70 percent. So if you purchase an electric car, you better be prepared for the backside of that is when you go to trade it in and the dealer doesn’t want it. And a perfect example is a lot of the brands, whether it be Cadillac or Porsche or even Ford, when you come back with a Ford Lightning truck or a Mach-E, they don’t want them. Because nobody wants a used electric car, and that is hugely important when you’re going to make a purchase.
SPEAKER 17 :
I saw one of your reports where you recommended leasing over buying an electric vehicle. And I assume that it was because that projection was that they just are not going to be that valuable on the secondary market. And I figured, well, it’s only a matter of time before the dealerships figure this out and the manufacturers figure this out.
SPEAKER 07 :
They already have. And websites like IC Cars are always taking valuations, and that’s kind of where you can go. You can go to Edmunds, you can go to Autotrader, and you can see even used Teslas. They can’t get rid of them. And the prices keep going down and down. Now, you may think, oh, this is a great opportunity for me to buy a used electric car and I can save money. True. But then you’re stuck with the boat anchor, essentially. So now you’ve got a used vehicle. You don’t know how many times the battery’s been cycled. And now it’s your turn and you get to drive it for X period of time as the battery range shrinks. shrinks and shrinks and then you’re thinking I gotta get rid of this thing I’m spending more time charging than I am driving and you get to that point and then nobody wants it the thing is you can’t just pull out the batteries and put a gas engine in that would be wonderful I mean there are a few people that are doing that it’s a very expensive process and you have to know what you’re doing and so the thing is you’re kind of stuck with these vehicles and I expect that we’re going to see much like solar panels much like all these windmills you’re gonna end up with them in salvage yards and again how is that good for the environment is It isn’t. gas-powered car or a hybrid, I will fair warn you that currently hybrids are the hot ticket. Everybody wants one. But again, leasing makes sense. At the end of five years, you want to get rid of it because after five years, you’re going to have that same problem where that battery component may not work and you’re just driving a very slow gasoline-powered vehicle. But at least it will get you someplace versus the range getting shorter and shorter. And this is all important to note because your insurance is also going to be reflected because you have to have insurance to And you purchase an electric car, it’s always higher than that of a gasoline-powered car. Because if they’re in a fender bender, something small, you’re stopped in traffic, someone hits you from behind, they total the car. And the reason they do is if a cell is damaged, it can leak and create a fire, which would cause all the rest of the cells to catch fire. And you do not want to be in a car. But that’s why they destroy the car. They go, they don’t want it. Right.
SPEAKER 17 :
Now, Lauren, look, I’m kind of an old pickup sort of a person, and I like things that either are low maintenance or, in some cases, they go fast and make noise. Me too. The hybrid marketplace is completely foreign to me. Why is it that those are so popular? Is it because people kind of get the best of both worlds? They get a little bit of electric, and they get kind of that assuredness of a gasoline power? Why are hybrids so popular?
SPEAKER 07 :
That is exactly what it is. It is a combination of you get the best of all worlds. You want to drive around town, you’re going to sit in line getting your coffee at the drive-thru, and you are on electric. No problem. And then when you drive off and you put your foot in it to accelerate from a traffic light, it goes from electric to gas. So you’re getting great fuel economy. I mean, we’re seeing like 42 miles a gallon on some of these hybrids. I just drove the Toyota Corolla Cross hybrid, and it’s getting 42 miles a gallon. But, I mean, that’s a popular car. When you get to the more expensive hybrids, like BMW and Audi and Mercedes-Benz, it just increases the cost of the vehicle. You might get slightly better fuel economy, but the maintenance on that is going to be very expensive. And, again, you have that same problem with insurance. It’s going to be higher because it’s based on replacement value. So keep those kind of things in mind. People forget about that when you get the bill from your insurance agency.
SPEAKER 17 :
agent you’re like oh that wasn’t what i planned then and that can that can catch you off guard well talking about insurance you know i’ve heard you say also to be sure you notify your insurance company if you install a charger in your house exactly let’s talk about why insurance companies are particularly interested in that okay the first thing you need to know
SPEAKER 07 :
if you purchase an electric car that’s great that’s your choice you should be able to have the choices that you want so you need a charger unless you have access to public charging which a lot of people don’t want to sit in line at you know your local mall or coffee shop or airport or whatever it might be and there’s always a wait line especially when you’re like downtown denver and that’s true across the entire country it’s not just your state it’s literally every state And so people don’t want to wait. They want to plug it in the morning. And this is also the problem with electric cars. You plug it in, you go and do what you need to do and need to leave. You unplug it. The charger in your home could catch fire. And that’s why it needs to be installed by a certified electrician. If it is not, you’re going to have some problems down the road because you don’t know. And again, it could be the car as well. We had some problems here. I live in Buffalo, New York. I’m out in the suburbs. We’ve had two homes burned down. And it wasn’t the car. It was just something to do with the connection between the two. It could be the car. In every single case, the car brand came and bought the car back to give you an idea. They want to know where it’s coming from. But the insurance companies were the problem lies for both of these homes. And I know there’s others because a friend of mine handles a lot of these legal cases. And this is how I found out about it. She was telling me that if you don’t call your insurance agent and say, hey, I just put an addition on my home of an electric charger. Great, we’ve got it. We’ll put it on your policy. If you don’t and you have a fire, you only get paid out 80% of your home. So why not the 20%? It’s because they consider that the same in the eyes of the insurer as you putting on another bathroom or a covered patio or a garage on your home. So it’s really important that if you do get an electric charging station that you call your insurance company and let them know, hey, I put this in. They’ll just go, fine, no big deal. They’ll put it on as an addendum on your policy. It should not raise your insurance. But if you don’t have it, that’s where you get screwed. And again, it can happen anywhere. I mean, I get electric cars here to review. I do not have a charger at my home. I do not want a charger at my home for that specific reason. Even with a certified electrician installing it, why take the risk?
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, and I think risk is the important word there. Insurance companies are in the business of risk mitigation. So it’s either a risk to them because they would have to pay out additional for replacing that charger if things burn down. But also I’m sure that they have actuaries and those types of people inside the companies that are perhaps even a little worried that having that charger, having that extra electrical equipment, poses a fire danger risk, per se.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. If you work in insurance, then you’re well aware of the risk factor that’s involved, and I think a lot of people forget that. They look at the fact that this is great, I’m not going to have to pay for gasoline. Gasoline prices are down, by the way, and electricity bills are up. And to give you a perfect example, look at California, where, you know, they’re finally below $5 a gallon for now until Gavin Newsom does something silly because he’s got a similar governor to what Colorado and New York has. They just keep jacking up the prices for consumers. But the electric bills have gone up dramatically. Personally, my electric bill has doubled over the last three months. And everybody in New York State is complaining about it, just like California. And I’m sure Colorado is no different.
SPEAKER 17 :
Definitely no different. I keep seeing mine go up. And, you know, I have been seeing gas prices come down. I have to say, you know, we have a lot of rural areas and on the western slope here in Colorado. Lauren, you probably don’t know, but I ran for office a few years back It was staggering to me seeing the gas prices that the people on the western slope have to pay, or even in the mountain towns that are just not quite into the municipal areas that we have. So I’m happy for those folks that the prices are coming down. I can’t imagine what their electric prices must be.
SPEAKER 07 :
their electric bills have got to be through the roof yeah and the problem is when you’re out and farther out into some of the the rural areas is transporting the fuel to the stations right and i’m sure like we have uh indian reservations around here so a lot of times that’s where we go to the indian reservations to pick up fuel because it’s less expensive but still you have to be wise you have to use websites like gas buddy and try and find out because it’s so expensive but with gas i mean gas is one thing but electric’s another you can’t go somewhere else We don’t have that choice here, and most places don’t. You get one supplier, you’re either in or you’re out, and because it’s a captive audience, they just keep raising the prices, and the state, of course, approves it. They don’t think about that, but boy, when those people want to get re-elected, they try to lower the electric prices, and that doesn’t work in this case.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, yep, that’s right. Lauren, we’re going to get a break here shortly, but I want to tee up the Fuel Emissions Freedom Act for when we come back. And also, you know, Trump has been pretty famous for his talk on tariffs, and I know that there’s been some deals. I think that’s something good that we can talk about on the other side as well. So we’re listening to Lauren Fix with Car Coach Reports, and we’ll be right back after this break.
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SPEAKER 01 :
Call now. All Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. I’m Marshall Dawson filling in for Kim today. Check out Kim’s website at kimmonson.com. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. The Center is focused on the foundational values of America, honor, integrity, and patriotism. Through their K-12 educational programs, training for educators, and portraits of valor of over 160 Medal of Honor recipients, the Center is helping to instill honor, integrity, and patriotism for our next generations. Check out their website. It’s www.americanvaluecenter.org. That’s www.americanvaluecenter.org. And we’re coming back on the phone with us is Lauren Fix with Car Coach Reports. And Lauren, before the break, I said that I wanted to tee up a couple of things. One is the Fuel Emissions Freedom Act. But let’s continue down the road of the cost of ownership and driving. You’ve looked into a lot of the effects that Donald Trump’s tariffs have had on the automotive industry. Can you talk about that a little bit?
SPEAKER 07 :
Sure. I think what people need to understand, if you don’t know or understand Donald Trump, just read The Art of the Deal. If you don’t want to read The Art of the Deal, get the Spark Notes, get the Cliff Notes. You can go online and ask Chad GPT for the bullet points. And then also while you’re at it, look at The Art of War by Sun Tzu. These are how he operates. He always throws the hardest ball at you first and sees how you react first. Last one to the table is always the one with the worst deal. And that’s why Canada is right there at the worst deal. And so what you’re seeing is currently we have, under the Obama administration, they took advantage of the North American free trade deal, which President Trump had renegotiated, where they had production in other countries and taking manufacturing out of the United States. That was a bad thing that lost a lot of working class jobs here in the U.S. and did impact the automotive industry where they said, well, we’re going to build the car in Mexico and then ship it back across the border to whatever brand it was. And the same thing was true with Canada, where the cost of workers was less. And there’s no unions in Mexico where there’s unions in Canada. But it just started getting worse and worse and more convoluted. And they were shipping cars back and forth across the border to make it more complicated. And all these components going back and forth increased the cost of the vehicle because of the transport of these components. But the politicians didn’t care. It was about safety. making deals with other countries, which somehow seems to fund their campaigns. Again, that’s a whole different conversation, and I’m sure you’re well aware of all that. But as you look at the USMCA, which is what President Trump wants to renegotiate, is to get Mexico and Canada to the table. He’s made deals with literally every country right now, with Japan, with 15% flat rate, which is actually good because that’s what they charge us. Also with the EU, which is actually very interesting, because that 15% rate also means that they have to match our safety. For them, it’s about… Collision safety, for us, it’s about pedestrian safety, people walking across the street protecting the people that are in the car. So the EU is already in the process. I just talked to someone in Europe yesterday where they’re in the process of switching their safety standards to match the U.S. safety standards. What does that mean? That means we can sell our cars into the EU and they can sell their cars into the U.S. And that is good. So it gives us more choices. It helps our car manufacturers here. And what it does is it makes a level playing field. That will also lower costs because having different regulations in every single country just makes it more expensive, which makes cars more unaffordable to the masses. Now, another thing that President Trump did was having that Congressional Review Act signed that removed the electric vehicle mandate. And you think, well, how does that help the car industry or me? Well, what it did was it took away a lot of regulations. Car manufacturers were forced to build cars that didn’t sell, as we’re talking about with electric cars. And it also made cars more expensive. And every single brand, including Tesla, took a loss on every single vehicle. So you’re taking a loss like Ford with the lightning truck at $40,000 loss of every single vehicle. How do you make that up? Well, you stop selling entry level vehicles that have no options, like a pickup truck with crank windows. And you make every vehicle you sell higher trim levels with higher profit margins. And you raise the price of literally every vehicle to offset the loss. And that’s why cars have gone up from an average of $38,000 to $49,000. And that’s why cars are unaffordable. We’ll talk about interest rates and all that are part of it too. So putting these tariffs in place are now forcing car brands to come to the table with countries. And now what we’re seeing is a lot of negotiation. Even Mexico has made a deal. uh why the leader of canada carney came to the white house he left without a deal again another foolish move if anyone’s done any research on president trump you know the art of the deal don’t be the last one to the table you get the worst deal that’s exactly what’s happening so president trump will force them to the table to renegotiate usmca which will not be to the advantage of canada because they want to build our cars there we want to build our cars here that’s jobs That’s suppliers here, too. So you’re going to start seeing more of that coming in. That does not happen overnight, but we’ve already seen some changes. We’re already hearing car manufacturers saying that because these tariffs are being balanced, things are getting better. What you’re going to see is them eventually won’t be overnight. Probably in the next two years, you’re going to see a lot more entry level cars coming in. And we’re hoping the goal and we keep pressing all the car brands to wake up to the fact that you need to start offering cars that are under $20,000. For the average person, it’s like, I just need a car. I don’t want to buy a new car, but not at $35,000. Right now, every car is around $25,000 or higher. That’s unobtainable for a lot of people, especially with interest rates. So part of the deal is to negotiate and bring all of it back down to where it was, allowing car brands to make money and sell more vehicles to the masses, sort of like what they did with the Model T back in the day.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, I have to say that I feel like the nannies are, you know, they’re not just trying to eliminate gas-powered vehicles. I think it’s actually a very subtle war on personal mobility. You know, the more you can control the masses, you know, control their ability to freely get out, freely go to work, freely recreate, the more you can force them into doing the things that you want them to do. And by the way, my read on Donald Trump’s tariff actions are spot on with yours. I always see this as a negotiating tactic, not a long-term plan for revenue generation or punishment. Donald Trump is trying to get the best deal and get the best deal done. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. And it’s always about the deal. It’s always about the art of the deal. And when we have all this tariff money coming in while the government is shut down, he was able to fund what he wants. So he’s going to fund the military with that money. There’s billions of dollars coming in. It’s pouring in. And he was able to give money for the WIC program for milk and for food. for moms that are trying to feed their babies or need help with diapers and all that. So all of that, he can do whatever he wants with that money because it’s not part of the regular government funds. I think you’re going to see a big shrinkage in government. I think you’re going to see a lot of people getting laid off that work in the government that have useless jobs that basically, you know, they’re not essential. Then why do you have the job? If you have someone working for you and you have a coffee shop and they just sit there and watch you make coffee, why are you here? That person needs to leave. And that’s what they’re doing. They’re filtering through the government of all these people that were placed there that do absolutely, nothing they answer a phone that doesn’t ring or you know they go get coffee for someone there’s other things you can do and be more successful in life and be at least be happy with what you do for a living than sit there and do nothing and I get it if you have these government jobs you love them because you do nothing but how many games of Candy Crush can you play in a day you know what I mean yeah
SPEAKER 17 :
I know how many I can play, and that number is, it rounds to zero. You teased something a minute ago, which was about how having more choices for consumers with more, let’s say, matching regulations across countries is going to drive the prices down because it helps the supply chain not have so much stuff in the pipeline. You mentioned that kind of on a country basis, but the same would apply with states, too. And this kind of gets me into the Fuel Emissions Freedom Act. And I’ll let you hit the punchline, but I know what this does. I’ve looked into it.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. The Fuel Emissions Freedom Act, which if you’re following along and you’ve got nothing to do, it’s House Bill HR 4117. It was actually introduced June 24th of 2017. And it’s created a lot of debate because the legislation now is under review. It’s sitting in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. We need to get this to the floor for votes. But it seeks to repeal the federal and state motor vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards. a great job he is changing the rules removing corporate average fuel economies all the things that make cars more expensive and this is going to lower costs for consumers simply because the compliance for automakers is crushing them they have all these rules and regulations some are so outdated but they have to follow it and it’ll revive u.s competitiveness amongst the brands and by the way tesla is built here in texas as well as in california And so is GM, Ford and Stellantis. But Stellantis is not a U.S. car company. It’s now based out of Belgium. It’s owned by Peugeot. So just keep that in mind. There’s a lot of others. Lucid and Rivian are here in the U.S. as well. Those are electric car companies. But this is very interesting. The goal is to take away the powers of California. The California Air Resources Board has been calling the rules for decades. It’s time for that to go away. One state constitutionally cannot make the rules for the other 49. But that’s exactly what we have in place. So this will probably go to the Supreme Court at some point once it passes. And I expect that they’ll say, What are you talking about? It’s unconstitutional for one state to run it for everyone else. That may have been fine in the 70s, but this is not the 70s anymore. That’s quite a long time ago. So with that, we have a bill sponsored by Representative Roger Williams of Texas. It’s co-sponsored by Michael McCloud, Brandon Gill, Victoria Spars. And they’re working on removing all these federal emissions acts and the corporate average fuel economy. I think this is going to get to the floor, but the goal is it’s going to lower prices for drivers. It’s going to remove that regulation that makes it very expensive for car manufacturing. It’ll strengthen U.S. production, and that’s important, and it’ll open choices up and that mandates for consumers and remove California’s powers.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, on the Kim Monson show, we talk about freedom versus force and force versus freedom. And, you know, this is one of those examples of where we’re aiming to remove the force that California exerts on the rest of the country. And it’s not just California, right? I mean, they deserve a lot of criticism, but California. There are competing regulations all over. I’ll say that I have a personal dog in this fight because here in Colorado, we peg our emissions to whatever’s going on in California. So I would be thrilled to see this change. See this bill go through. I don’t know if you have a whole lot of optimism here, Lauren. I’ll say for our listeners that in the Energy and Commerce Committee, our own Gabe Evans and CD8, as well as Diana DeGette, are on that committee. I don’t have a whole lot of faith that Diana DeGette would do much, but Gabe Evans is a pretty good guy. I met him during the campaigns. So I would suggest people reach out to him.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, put pressure on your elected representatives. They need to know that you’re paying attention to this. The moment they hear their phones, and you know this because you’ve been there, their phones start ringing, they get a lot of emails, they get a lot of people, and then you’ve got to be cordial and you have to listen. I appreciate what you’re doing, but this is an important thing that needs to be addressed. I live in New York State. We have Schumer, who is the worst. We have all Democrats. We’re almost a super majority here. It is very difficult to get anything through. I’m just praying that Elise Stefanik gets in and we get rid of Kathy Hochul. She’s terrible, the worst. And the results of this means that when you start letting them know in a cordial, nice way, because if you yell and scream, they just hit delete. So that’s not what we need. We need them to understand that this is important to you. It’s important to Coloradans to say, hey, listen. it if they hear that you’re interested. If they don’t hear about it, no one’s saying anything, they ignore it, which is why I always bring up subjects like this across the country that people can start speaking up about, because if you don’t, they’re just going to move on.
SPEAKER 17 :
And that’s Lauren Fix, Car Coach Reports. Everybody stay tuned for our number two.
SPEAKER 20 :
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 15 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show. Analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 11 :
I find that it takes work to get your brain around these ideas and it takes work to engage in these conversations.
SPEAKER 15 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 11 :
With what is happening down at the statehouse, I used to think that it was above my pay grade to read the legislation. And it’s not.
SPEAKER 15 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 11 :
I see big danger in as much as we will be giving an unelected bureaucrat the power to make rules about what we inject into our bodies.
SPEAKER 15 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome to the Kim Monson Show. I’m Marshall Dawson. I’m thrilled to be hosting the show today. Kim is out. She’ll be back in another day or two or six. We’ll have to see. But yes, indeed, let’s have a conversation. And thank you for listening. Each of you are treasured and valued. You have purpose. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. We were made for this moment in history. And thank you, Producer Joe, and the rest of the team for your all’s good work. I just love it. Kim’s website is KimMonson.com, M-O-N-S-O-N. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get a first look at her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. You can email Kim, Kim at KimMonson.com. And thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. Thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. From Parker to Golden, Lil’ Richie’s Pizza and Pasta is your go-to for real New York-style pizza. Hearty pastas and that unbeatable local vibe. Lil’ Richie’s is serving up daily specials, quick and tasty weekday lunch deals, and a happy hour the locals actually build their plans around. Whether you’re bringing the crew, catching up with friends, or flying solo for a hot slice, Little Richie’s is your neighborhood hangout. Let’s get to the word of the day. Today’s word is rhetoric. R-H-E-T-O-R-I-C. Rhetoric is a noun which describes the art of speaking or writing effectively. I like the adjective which is rhetorical, especially rhetorical devices. And that informs to how I chose today’s quote of the day, which comes from Aristotle. Aristotle was a Greek fourth century philosopher and specialized also in natural sciences, linguistics, economics. I have to admit that my Greek is a little bit rusty, so I’m trusting that this translation is correct. Aristotle said rhetoric is the art of persuasion. In the first hour, I said that I used a rhetorical device when I talked about rhetoric and the way that great communicators craft their message to be more memorable, more encouraging, more compelling. We talked about also in the first hour what a metaphor is, a simile, antithesis, and parallelism. So I’m going to go a little deeper this time. Another rhetorical device is called epistrophe. This is the repetition of words at the end of successive phrases or clauses. What can you think of? For me, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address comes to mind, that phraseology of the people, by the people, for the people. There’s anaphora, which is repetition at the beginning of successive phrases. One of the more obvious and famous speeches here is Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream. I would invite you to go and read that speech. It’s just absolutely wonderful reading those words. And you’ll notice that he says, I have a dream that one day this nation, followed up by I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of Georgia, I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, I have a dream that my four little children will one day. And he actually used this in eight separate sentences. And as you go through your day, as you listen to great speakers and, you know, some of your favorite, let’s say, YouTube personalities, trying to keep an eye on whether they’re effectively using rhetorical devices. Are they communicating well? Are they getting that point across? And if you want to look at more historical speeches, you know, political figures and that type thing, there was a website that I discovered and trying to create some notes for this, AmericanRhetoric.com. Oh, how about that? I got the word of the day in one more time. Let’s go to the headlines. We have to talk about the ceasefire deal with Hamas agreeing to that. And Kim talked about this yesterday, but it is now official, supposedly. We’re seeing that the hostages could be released this weekend, perhaps Monday. Also in the news, the CDC ends the blanket recommendation for the COVID vaccine. This is from the Denver Post, saying that they’re now leaving the choices up to the patients. I think that is a great example of freedom over force. That kind of comes also into, you know, where could something be politicized in the medical community? Just let the patients make those choices. Also in local news here in Denver, Michael Bloomberg is contributing $1.5 million to help save Denver’s flavored tobacco ban. This is also from the Denver Post. You know, if you recall, in 2024, the Denver City Council banned flavored tobaccos, but a group called Citizen Power submitted 17,000 signatures to overturn this. They said that it is a force upon adult’s choices and it is harming local businesses. So my opinion on this is regardless of whatever your opinion is on tobacco, if you think that it’s virtuous, if you think that it’s harmful, I think this is an example of where we’re seeing tons and tons of outside money coming into Colorado, especially to Denver, to help sway opinion here, help get people to vote the way that somebody in New York wants them to vote. And unbreaking news, the shutdown is still in effect. I had some personal experience with this. There was, let’s see, where did this come from? BBC. Shutdown triggers multi-hour flight delays and even an unmanned tower in Burbank for six hours. When I was coming back through Chicago, not last night but the night before, I was delayed. I was frankly a little fearful that I was going to miss the opportunity to host the Kim Monson show. Now, you might ask, okay, Marshall, you’re getting put out. You’re being inconvenienced. Isn’t that enough to give all these giveaways to the Democrats to make a deal? I would emphatically say no. I am more than happy to be inconvenienced and have the Republicans hold firm. The Senate took a vote yesterday on whether to continue the shutdown and guess what? It is continuing. Let’s see what happened on this day. On this day in 1967, Che Guevara, you know that name, Che Guevara met his maker. He was captured and executed in Bolivia. They cut off his hands as proof, and he was buried in an unmarked grave. On this day in 1999, the SR-71 Blackbird made its final flight. This was a Cold War-era reconnaissance plane. It was capable of flying Mach 3.3 and 85,000 feet. But, my goodness, I’ll bet that, you know, we’ve seen Top Gun Maverick. And how Maverick was, you know, eager to push the limits, I would love to know how far they pushed the limits on that Blackbird and what it could have done. And if you’re a Beatles fan, you would be wishing John Lennon a happy 85th birthday today. He was born October 9th, 1940. And we’re going to go to break here shortly. Thank you for contributing to Kim’s independent voice and the exercise of our freedom of speech. And through all of Kim’s work with veterans, she’s honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all the work that they’re doing to raise money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado, at 6th and Colfax. Paula Sarles is the president of the foundation. She’s a Marine veteran and a Gold Star wife. Paula and her team are working diligently to make the remodel a reality. You can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. That’s usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 19 :
noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Monson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force. Force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Monson Show each weekday 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at KimMonson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. This is Marshall Dawson with you today, and I’m just so happy to be hosting the show while Kim is out. Visit Kim’s website, which is KimMonson.com. That’s M-O-N-S-O-N. While you’re there, you can sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get the first look at all of her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. And I’ll say, Kim’s newsletter is one of the ones that I subscribe to. I’m very picky about who I allow into my inbox. You can email Kim, kim at kimmonson.com, and thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. While you’re at Kim’s website, you can consider making a monthly contribution to her. Let’s look at some more headlines for today. In local news, this is from the Denver Gazette, Jared Polis takes a victory lap on new housing laws. The Department of Local Affairs released a compliance dashboard, and as I say, Polis is taking that victory lap. And yet, if you look at the actual results, there’s only about a 60% compliance rate at the highest. Polis had signed an executive order on strategic growth through compliance of state laws. This requires local governments to comply or risk losing out on housing grants worth $277 million. I think this can only be characterized as an example of using centralized power in order to coerce over local priorities that we see in all of our communities. And in fact, there’s a lawsuit opposing this currently going on. Lawsuits from Arvada, Aurora, Glendale, Greenwood Village, Lafayette, and Westminster. And another piece of news, if you watch Fox News, you’ve surely seen the news about Jay Jones, this fellow in Virginia, their attorney general candidate. He’s the one who sent texts fantasizing about shooting the Speaker of the House and hoping for the death of the Speaker’s children. Called the kids that he said that they’re breeding little fascists. And he also said in one of his text messages, it’s only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy. Well, some of Jones’s internal polling, this was from Hart Research, shows that Jones is only up by a single point. And if you think about how internal polling gets reported, it’s often skewed in favor of the candidate who requested it or who paid for it. I had a conversation with my mom a couple of days ago. Mom said, there’s no way he doesn’t get out of the race. I have a less favorable view of Democrats. I think there’s no way he does get out. I think that he stays in. The government shutdown is still on. Democrats yesterday balked at the idea of a one-year extension to the Obamacare subsidies for one year. And the Senate Democrats voted and decided they still did not want to reopen the government. And this is, frankly, just fine in my opinion. I think it’s a good exercise in representative democracy, if you will, democracy. And air quotes there. I think it’s important for us to have these conversations. And that way we can figure out what is important, what needs to be prioritized. Well, we do want to thank the Harris family for their sponsorship. And we’re going to go to break here in just a moment. And we’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. I’m Marshall Dawson, and I’m really happy to have hosted The Kim Monson Show with you while Kim is taking some well-deserved time off. Kim’s website is kimmonson.com, M-O-N-S-O-N. While you’re there, 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. Something that should be on your bucket list is a visit to the Center for American Values, located on the beautiful Riverwalk in Pueblo. The Center for American Values is 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, check out their website, www.americanvaluescenter.org. And on the line right now is one of my bestest friends and fellow advocate when it comes to freedom over force, Terry Goon. Look, if you live in Longmont like I do, you may have even voted for Terry in one of our past elections. Good morning there, Terry. Terry?
SPEAKER 10 :
Good morning, Marshall. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 17 :
I’m great. You know, we’ve had to switch things up here a little bit. When I was running for office, one of the things that I was eager to talk about was the way that government steps in, they will tell you, right, that they are trying to solve a problem, that they’re looking out for the little guy. But often they’re not. And often there can be these secondary effects, tertiary effects that come along and mess things up. And so I think it’s good that Kim talks about freedom versus force on her show. Now, Terry, you work for the Colorado Horse Rescue. I’ve seen the wonderful work that you all do. A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending an event there. But talk a little bit about the rescue, what the organization does, how you fund your operations and that type of thing.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, thank you very much for this opportunity. And I have to say, with this whole subject and talking about nonprofits, you have missed an amazing opportunity to talk about a rhetorical device, alliteration. Alliteration, freedom versus force, force versus freedom. So the thing with nonprofits is once you go out, you make alliteration, You earn what you need, what you want. You invest in the things that you believe in, different ideas that may earn you some money. But then you also invest in those things that you believe in that can do the work you want done. But you don’t have the time, the energy, the space, you know, any of those things to get this work done. So people who want to make certain that horses are well taken care of, that they don’t fall through the cracks, just like dogs and cats can, how they end up in humane societies in different places. Horses… will often face the same thing. And so people will invest in the Colorado Horse Rescue knowing that we will take in horses and take care of them and make certain that they find their correct home in the end so that they’re taken care of through their old age and that sort of thing. Because horses will go through a lot of iterations through their lives as well when they’re young and healthy and maybe jumping and running and racing. Versus after a while, just like people, joints will break down, feet aren’t well taken care of, children go off to college, people have dementia, they run across economic problems, and the horses are the ones that can fall through the cracks. And so those of us who… want to make certain that these beautiful animals are well taken care of, can invest in a place, I call it a horse rescue, and know that we’re doing the job that you can’t necessarily do yourself. That’s what I hear all the time from people who donate, is that they believe in what we do, they believe in how we’re doing it, they look at our website, and they see the care that we take for um, in the horses. And so that they, they may not have, you know, a million dollars to invest in their own horse ranch. So they, they, they will, you know, donate a hundred dollars here or there, 20,000, whatever it is. And they help us to do the work that they really can’t do. And this is almost like the cleanest form of capitalism, right? You’re investing in things, your church or the veterans. You mentioned the USMC Memorial Foundation, the Kim Monson Show herself. It’s another nonprofit. You believe in the work that Kim Monson does. So a nonprofit is a way to give that money where you think it works the best. versus waiting around for the government to step in and fix the problem. Because the problem is out there. It’s up to individuals to fix it. And that would be freedom versus force, force versus freedom, a rhetorical device.
SPEAKER 17 :
Terry, are you telling me that it’s not the government’s job to take care of horses?
SPEAKER 10 :
It is not the government’s job to take care of horses.
SPEAKER 17 :
That’s not the best way that we shouldn’t be pointing a gun at our neighbors and say, we need your money so that the government can take care of these horses? How dare you?
SPEAKER 10 :
I do not believe it’s the government’s job to take care of horses. I absolutely do not. I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to provide universal preschool. You know, so it’s… There’s a long slope of what the government’s job is, and I prefer to keep it confined to what the Constitution says it should do.
SPEAKER 17 :
I’ll tell you, you know, when I was at the fundraiser, it was so impressive. Not quite like some of the other fundraisers that you and I have seen. You know, during the event, there was a paddle raise for, you know, people just simply wanted to give cash, right? And, you know, by the time we got down, you might correct me here, but around the $250 or maybe it’s the $100 range, Pretty much every hand in the place went up, you know, wanting to give that money. I was just so shocked at how people were opening their wallets for something that they just really believe in and really trust the horse rescue to be good stewards of the money.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, I think that’s true. And like I said, I do the database management there. And I hear from people all the time that that’s why they do it, is that they trust us to take care of their money. And they trust in the work that we do. They trust that we’re taking care of these animals. We know them individually. We give them, each of the horses, exactly what they need. And they believe in it. You know, versus sometimes, you know, you talked about fundraisers you and I have been to, so sometimes political parties. There’s so much infighting in the, you know, the Colorado GOP these days that I even personally dropped out and became… I will be picked on forever for that. But there’s a lot of infighting in political parties within Colorado, and we don’t necessarily have the enthusiasm to hand our money over to whatever county you’re in or the state or the national party to do the work that we want done. And at the same time, we don’t necessarily have time to do that work. So the consequences that political parties end up not being funded as they as they should be and could be and where you then could maybe have some influence. You know, if I had one hundred thousand dollars to give to the political parties in Colorado, maybe I would have more influence as it is in Boulder County. I lost my mayoral race at the same percentage that every Republican always loses. So, you know, it is what it is here.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, when you first told me about this idea of dovetailing with capitalism and using charities as an opportunity to invest in the things that are important to you, it started making me think about some of the things that are important to me. And not that I want to invest, but things that I value. And this will show a difference of opinion, right? But one of the things that I really enjoy and love are classic cars. Now, you know, some people may know that I have a 69 Camaro. It’s not a nice car by any stretch. And look, if you want a 69 Camaro, you can go out and buy one today, right? There are plentiful. You can just go get one. However… You know, there are certain cars that have historical value, historical provenance. There are certain older cars that are one of a kind. And the thing that struck me when I started thinking about what you were saying, Terry, is I love that capitalism creates wealth because these important historical artifacts, if you will, are purchasable and can be preserved and curated by people who love them. There’s no way that I could go out and purchase one of these things that is historically relevant. Not only could I not afford it, but it wouldn’t be serving that artifact properly. I don’t have the means to take care of it. To love it and show it off, I just can’t do that. That’s another angle, I guess, on a way that capitalism can help us preserve and invest in those things that we love. Hey, I do want to make sure that you have more time to talk about the horse rescue and the great work that’s being done there. Can people come and visit the horse rescue? Can they see the operations?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, absolutely. We have actually online, if you go to chr.org forward slash visit, you can just sign up for a tour there. They’re done on Saturdays and Sundays, and we’ll show you around, and you can meet some of the horses and see the work that’s getting done there. But yeah, we keep 60 horses on the property, and they’re all… So many of them have specialized diets, specialized healthcare needs. Interestingly, this summer we’ve gotten a A number of the horses that we’ve gotten have been overweight. So we kind of joke about having a spa there at the horse rescue. Because once a horse gets overweight, it can affect their hooves in manners that make them unrideable and in pain all the time. So it’s really important to keep the weight down on horses. So we have a variety. We have a program called the Annie Project where we receive horses from dude ranches, ideally right before they’re ready to retire so that they still have a little bit of life left in them for something like lead line work with children on their back versus having the dude ranches continue to make money off the horse and selling them at an auction where they could end in an unsafe area. So That’s where the majority of our horses come from is these types of surrenders and people with financial or health issues. But we do work with seizures. You know, if the county needs to impound some horses for neglect, we will take those in as well. And, yeah, those are the three areas that we get the horses from. It’s a need out there.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, we have 10 or 15 seconds. Can you use volunteers? Can you use money? How can people help?
SPEAKER 10 :
We can always use money. Volunteers, we currently have applications open. Sometimes we get bills, but I believe the application section is open again on the website. So through the winter, some of our older volunteers or some of the people that are unhappy in winter weather may drop out. So we’ve got the applications open again. Going forward, yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
Great. That was Terry Goon, CHR.org. Please check him out. This is a cause that I believe in. And we’re going to go to break. We’ll be right back.
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SPEAKER 01 :
All Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
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SPEAKER 17 :
Welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. Thank you for being here. My name is Marshall Dawson. I’m filling in for Kim today. Kim is going to ding me on that last little flub right there. Check out Kim’s website, KimMonson.com, and you can email Kim at Kim at KimMonson.com. I mentioned earlier that I ran for office a couple years back and one of the things that really stood out to me was people would contact me and they wanted to know, Marshall, do you hate Donald Trump as much as I do or do you love Donald Trump as much as I do? Marshall, do you hate Israel like I do? Do you love Israel? And it was so disappointing that so few people just wanted to talk about you know personalities or foreign countries didn’t want to ever engage in i shouldn’t say ever rarely did people ever want to engage in policy well right now we have a special treat for you we have on the phone molly metz and her husband dirk dirk reached out to me during the campaign and wanted to talk about what is happening with inventors And hey, good morning, guys. Molly, let’s start with you and give me kind of a quick bio. What got you into where you are? And, you know, let’s lead up to, you know, kind of the punchline of the story there.
SPEAKER 09 :
okay uh well thank you for having us marshall my name is molly metz and i am a five-time world jump rope champion which is an interesting thing in an interesting sport but at the age of seven here in boulder colorado i joined the jump rope team and my coach is the founder of the sport of jump rope and so he was very inspired to take all of us kids all over the world So from the age of 8 to 14, I went to over 30 countries, primarily teaching the sport of jump rope when we would go to these different countries. But that was a very impactful childhood experience for me that when I grew up, I was just a big nerd of jump rope. And so in 2007, I started a jump rope company called Jump and Rope. And I would work with kids here in the Boulder range, front range, and start jump rope after school programs at rec centers and schools. And I would take former competitive jump ropers and employ them and get all these programs going. During that time, I was still competing, and I was trying to get faster at my sport because that was one of the entities, you know, to go as fast as you could. And I was tinkering with jump ropes. And long story short, after about two years of doing that, I went to a patent agent and I started working on some patents. And I was awarded two U.S. patents on my jump rope technology. Anyone out there who has ever invented something, it’s inspiring. It’s rewarding. And it also really inspired me to start a jump rope manufacturing business. So I was working out of my basement. I started an online shop. I started selling jump ropes everywhere. I’m working out of the basement. I think I just said that. And you never know when you’re going to get big with something. And so people start stealing my idea, right? And you just see your product showing up on Amazon, showing up on little shops here and there. And so around 2011… I find a facility here in Louisville, 10,000 square feet, and I just decide to go big. And I dump about $300,000 into creating a manufacturing facility, hiring more employees, getting molds. I opened the largest jump rope gym in America and so on and so forth. And all these infringers are out there. So I start battling them, right, and working with them. And at that time, it was like 2012, I had reached out to the largest company in CrossFit, Rogue Fitness. And we had a bunch of emails. I was very excited. We were going to do a deal, a licensing deal. And after a few months of exchanging emails and calls, they went cold on me and they decided to just steal my product. And that was hard. It’s hard as a small company to go through that. And at the time, I had all my money invested in my facility, but I didn’t fight them. But what happened after that is years of Rogue launching new jump ropes, all of my technology year after year after year. And then on top of that, other companies infringing more year after year.
SPEAKER 17 :
And, Molly, sorry to interrupt, Molly, but I do want to say I was not a jump rope person. I sometimes joke that I thought that all jump ropes came from Walmart or these days Dick’s Sporting Goods. And so when your husband, Dirk, reached out to me and started talking about this, He gave me a few things to look at, not only with your story, but about the patents. I was thinking, this is kind of too odd to be true, but it’s a very specialized thing, right? So I guess maybe describe your patent just very briefly, because I think many listeners think, well, how could you possibly have new art for something like a jump rope?
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. I mean, it does sound a bit crazy, right? So my jump rope is a dual-bearing system technology inside of the handle. But what’s interesting and what’s unique is it’s what’s happening on the outside. I specifically made this jump rope for speed training, one modality. The rope is not going to need to move around in ways where you’re crossing your arms or jumping like a boxer, like Rocky Balboa. So on the outside, it accommodates a stainless steel piece of wire, and there’s an articulating, I’ll call it I-piece, it looks like a helicopter piece, that allows for the rope to not move at a big 180-degree rotation. So it very much just tones everything down and just… allows for the user to focus on that one, you know, to go fast, to do power jumping, to do speed jumping. I wish we had a photo. It would be a lot easier just to show it. But it was so unique, right, that the examiner at the patent office said yes to granting this patent. I was able to show, you know, the novelty to how unique it was. and how different this jump rope was. So I hope that explains.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, and when I so rudely interrupted you, you were talking about various companies were infringing. There was a story about a coach who came here, bought your ropes, sent them to India to be copied, and you were talking about some other companies as well that you were going to get into licensing, and then we were getting to Rogue Fitness. Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And the gentleman that actually bought my ropes and sent to India, I didn’t know that happened until about, oh, my gosh, years after. But it’s just people feel people are gross that way. And that’s just going to be inevitable. But we get these granted rights, these patents in America to stop infringers, to stop those people. And we really we really need that. I mean, here I am trying to build my story for you all to understand that I’m just a A common person living here in Colorado, very proud to start a business. And I have all these people infringing. So that, yes, that leads us up to 2015. I very much was struggling running my programs, selling my ropes because everybody else was stealing, you know, taking over the market. So I had to shut everything down. I didn’t have to, but I chose to. And I stopped running my kids’ programs. I sold my gym. And I hired an attorney so I could practice my rights with my patents. So what we did for three years, and that’s about when I met Dirk as well, is we started to fight. And we used our patents. We started with small companies. We asked them to stop making. We would set up licensing deals. We would send them to court. We would go through little settlements. And the patents were working. And this was good. So for those three years, we literally stopped 150 companies from infringing on my jump ropes. And so in 2018, we had one infringer left, and that’s Rogue Fitness, who I sort of mentioned in 2012. At this point, I always get this number wrong, and maybe Dirk wants to interject. They’ve perceivably sold, oh, gosh, I would say over 200 million.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, we never really got to court, and I don’t want to jump ahead in the story, but we never really got to court because of those changes in law that we’ll talk about. But, yeah, perceivably, I mean, we have to assume based on prior licensing deals that we had with other companies that they sold probably at least for $100 million a year.
SPEAKER 09 :
A year. So this is a big deal for anyone listening. So my point of the story is in 2018, we had done our due diligence. I had saved my money. I had licensing deals. And I was ready to go to court with Rogue Fitness to sue them. I know everyone out there is probably saying court can take forever. And I know that it does. It can. So we sue them in the fall. And instead of staying in court, my attorney called me one day and said this is a couple of months after, you know, giving them their infringement papers. He said, Molly, your court case is going to be stayed and you’re going to be sent to an administrative court called the PTAB. And I said, well, what is that and why am I not going to court? He said, oh, it’s a new change in the law. And what’s happening is Rogue says that the validity of your patents, they’re not valid. And they’re going to prove that to the courts. But don’t worry, right? We’ve just gone through three years of fighting all these infringers. Your patents are valid. This is fine. I believe that. And I had no choice, by the way. So here we are. Our court case gets stayed. We’re sent to this administrative court. I’m told I get no voice. I get no props. There’s no jury. There’s no real judge. It’s starting to feel weird. I said, well, who’s going to defend my patents? Oh, you just have to get an expert, and that’s another $150,000. And we go to this oral argument. It’s during COVID. So I don’t even go in person. We get on our computers. It’s on Zoom. There are three, I can say, quote, unquote, judges who are in the squares. And the rogue is trying to say my patents are invalid. They’re using all this hindsight bias. Everyone on my end is sort of laughing because it’s ridiculous. It’s like throwing a bunch of mud on the wall and hoping it sticks. And it was about an hour. And my attorneys, we get off the phone and we say, okay, we wait six months, you know, for the verdict. And three months go by and the PTAT gets back to us. And both my patents are completely invalidated. My whole life’s work gone after a one-hour Zoom call. And, you know, you think, okay, we have an appeal process here in America. So we appeal. We go to the federal circuit. And that’s more time, more money, another year and a half or so. Dirk and I fly to D.C. This is a big deal, right? This is my entire business. And we’re heard. We give our appeal. And our attorney says, okay, let’s wait to six months. They’ll get back to us. Three days go by. I get an email. My attorney says, the Federal Circuit got back to you, and here’s the ruling. We’re done. And the ruling says, Rule 36 affirmed. And I went to bed for like a month after that because what he said to me is they don’t agree, they don’t disagree, and you’re done. And I couldn’t believe it. You invest. a decade of your life into something and you stamp patented on all your products, your family is proud, your neighbors and, you know, everyone is rooting you on and then you’re protected for, you know, up until 150 infringers and then the 150th one, 51st one, You send them to court, you send them to this administrative court, and your patents are invalidated.
SPEAKER 17 :
That was the one that counted, I know. Yeah, and here on the Kim Monson Show, we talk about things like property rights. And it’s important to point out that a key property right is what your creativity can come up with, what your mind can come up with, the problems that you can solve. And that’s why I did want you to mention kind of what the patent does, because so many of us wouldn’t think of such a thing. And the patent system is kind of the government’s way of telling you, we are going to, you know, protect on paper your property rights. You know, that creativity is your property. We are going to help you protect it. And yet this PTAB board, which correct me if I’m wrong, Molly, is that came about as part of the America Invents Act, I think it was. And it was this administrative system that, Maybe talk about the percentages and how those guys are funded. But I do want to make sure that we leave time to talk about improvements that have been made since then.
SPEAKER 09 :
yeah i’ll be quick so so really what happened after that all happened i found us inventor a big group here um about 50 000 inventors and i thought i wasn’t alone right there’s about uh three four thousand inventors who have gone through this court and lost their businesses um i also found out at the p tab 84 percent of patents are invalidated 84 that’s a huge huge percentage i also found out how impossible it is for inventors to get contingency from lawyers. What lawyer wants to take an inventor’s case knowing that the PTAB is not optional, you’re sent there, and then 84% of the time your patents are invalidated. So it’s very un-American. It is by law. It was set up by Congress. It can be fixed. And Dirk is here to talk all about what he does with that and what we both do.
SPEAKER 17 :
That’d be wonderful. Hey, Dirk, it’s been a while since we spoke, but yeah, let us know what’s going on there.
SPEAKER 03 :
So to bring a little more color to the story of PTAB, and by the way, let me actually take a step back. You mentioned earlier about property rights. So actually in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 says to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries. This is the only time in the Constitution that the word right is mentioned. That’s an interesting fact. But to go back to PTAB, from 2009 to 2011, you have all the biggest corporations on the planet lobbying the Hill to get this bill passed into all the American events that created the PTAB. Amazon, Qualcomm, Cisco, Google, Excel, Microsoft, and so on. Ultimately, Google ends up spending about $36 million lobbying this Hill, lost about three visits per day on average at the White House. In 2011, the American Invest Act gets passed into law. 2012, the Patent Office gets a new director. Her name was Michelle Lee, and her former job was VP for Patent Strategy at Google. Isn’t that interesting? What a coincidence. Next thing you know, Google ends up sending a bunch of patents to the PTAB that they were stealing. Those patents all get invalidated, and Google gets away with it scot-free. And then some people say that what happened to us and what happens to all the other American businesses is just collateral damage. I think the system was designed, or this change in the law was specifically designed to do what it does, and it does so effectively. Molly said it 84% of the time, patents get invalidated. And this doesn’t mean that 84% of the time these are bad patents. They’re actually very good patents because not only… Who would challenge a bad patent? Who would litigate over a bad patent? And if you have… If you have the main challengers, the main users of PTAB being Samsung, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Intel, they’re not stealing bad paths. They’re stealing the most successful, commercially successful and valuable paths.
SPEAKER 17 :
Dirk, we have 20 seconds. Real quick, who are your favorite congresspeople? And also, put in a plug for Jump and Rope.
SPEAKER 03 :
Favorite congresspeople, hands down, Thomas Massie. He’s our biggest champion. He’s doing all the right things. He’s very smart when it comes to patents. He has 32 or something on him. Okay.
SPEAKER 17 :
And Jump and Rope, is there a website?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes, it’s jumpandrope.com, J-U-M-P-N-R-O-P-E.com. And you can also visit mollymets.com where you can find all of our advocacy.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thanks, guys. Hey, it was great talking to you again. I really appreciate your time. Our quote for the end of the show comes from John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. Both men were founding fathers, they were U.S. presidents, and they went from friends to rivals and reconciled before they both passed on July 4th, 1826. Our quote earlier was from Aristotle, rhetoric is the art of persuasion, so I find this fitting. Adams wrote to Jefferson, you and I ought not die before we have explained ourselves to each other. 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.
SPEAKER 14 :
Talking about.
SPEAKER 20 :
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.
