In this episode, guest host Yvonne Pius steps in to lead a powerful conversation with Dr. Jill Vecchio and other prominent guests. We explore the controversial and important topic of gender-affirming treatments, bringing together voices from the Rocky Mountain Summit committed to safeguarding children. Hear from leading experts on the medical, legal, and ethical implications of such treatments, and learn why this issue is at the forefront of today’s societal debates. Additionally, we honor the remarkable leadership and valor of Major Patrick H. Brady, whose Medal of Honor citation continues to inspire generations.
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It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
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An early childhood taxing district? What on earth is that?
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The latest in politics and world affairs.
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I don’t think that we should be passing legislation that is so complicated that people kind of throw up their hands and say, I can’t understand that.
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Today’s Current Opinions and Ideas.
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And it’s not fair just because you’re a big business that you get a break on this and the little guy doesn’t.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
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And happy Friday, and welcome to the Kim Monson Show. I am Yvonne Pius, and I am guest hosting the show today. Kim is traveling, and let’s have a conversation. So thank you for listening. Each day you are valued and treasured. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, soul, mind, and body. You were made for this moment. And thank you to producer Joe for your good work.
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It’s my pleasure, Yvonne.
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And in studio today, we have Dr. Jill Vecchio, and she will be here for both hours, and she’ll be speaking about the money and health care, and that will be in the second hour. Good morning, Jill. Good morning, Yvonne. It’s great. I seldom come into the studio, so this is kind of fun. And it’s great to be here together. So I’d like to remind you that the website… is kimmonson.com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter. You’ll get the first look at all her upcoming guests, as well as the most recent essays. And the email is kim at kimmonson.com. Thank you to Laramie Energy for their gold sponsorship of the show. It is reliable, efficient, affordable, and abundant energy that powers our lives and fuels our hopes and dreams. And thank you to Hooters Restaurant for their sponsorship. There are five locations in Loveland, Aurora, Longtree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs with great lunch specials Monday through Friday or dine-in or to-go. Wednesdays are wings days. Buy 20 wings and get an additional 10 for free. And they have offers for to go and dine in. And Hooters restaurants is the great place to get together with friends to watch your favorite teams. Today’s word of the day is mediocrity. And it’s spelled M-E-D-I-O-C-R-I-T-Y. It’s a noun that means the quality of being average, ordinary, or not very good at something. Its Latin parts together literally mean halfway up the mountain. In other words, a failure to excel. And I remember when I was young, my dad used to always say, don’t be mediocre. Strive to be good and never, ever be mediocre. And the Spanish lesson for the day is if you know the word mediocre in English, it is spelled exactly the same way in Spanish. So this is a Latin derived root. So you can say mediocre or you can say mediocre. Okay. All right. So the reason that was the word for the day is it’s actually going to come up later since today is Medal of Honor Friday. So we are going to honor a Medal of Honor recipient with his Medal of Honor citation. And this is for Patrick H. Brady of the United States Army, born in 1936 for actions on January 6, 1968.
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I’ll read the Medal of Honor citation, or I’ll get started on it. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, Major Bradley distinguished himself while serving in the Republic of Vietnam commanding a UH-1H ambulance helicopter. volunteered to rescue wounded men from a site in enemy-held territory, which was reported to be heavily defended and to be blanketed by fog. To reach the site, he descended through heavy fog and smoke and hovered slowly along a valley trail, turning his ship sideward to blow away the fog with the backwash from his rotor blades. Despite the unchallenged close-range enemy fire, he found the dangerously small site where he successfully landed and evacuated two badly wounded South Vietnamese soldiers. He was then called to another area completely covered by dense fog where American casualties lay only 50 meters from the enemy. Two aircraft had previously been shot down and others had made unsuccessful attempts to reach the site earlier in the day. With unmatched skill and extraordinary courage, Major Brady made four flights to this embattled landing zone and successfully rescued all of the wounded. On his third mission of the day, Major Brady once again landed at a site surrounded by the enemy.
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The friendly ground force, pinned down by enemy fire, had been unable to reach and secure the landing zone. Although his aircraft had been badly damaged and his controls partially shot away during his initial entry into this area, he returned minutes later and rescued the remaining injured. Shortly thereafter, obtaining a replacement aircraft, Major Brady was requested to land in an enemy minefield where a platoon of American soldiers was trapped. A mine detonated near his helicopter, wounding two crew members and damaging his ship. In spite of this, he managed to fly six severely injured patients to medical aid. Throughout that day, Major Brady utilized three helicopters to evacuate a total of 51 seriously wounded men, many of whom would have perished without prompt medical treatment. Major Brady’s bravery was in the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army. And the quote, those were the times, those were the times. Does that not just amaze you? 51 people, and he flew in how many more times?
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Yeah, I think he did. Did he fly four missions that day? Four missions that day?
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Three helicopters to evacuate 51 wounded men.
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A line, I mean… It’s incredible. It really is incredible. And that movie, Hacksaw Ridge, this reminds me of that movie. It’s just, you just kept going and going. And you really wonder, you know, God’s providential hand being on a situation, right?
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And we definitely stand on the shoulders of great men. Yeah, yeah. So the quote of the day comes directly out of the quote book that you can get at the Center of American Values because that is where they have all the Medal of Honor pictures of the people who were recipients of that. And it is actually the quote of Major Brady. Okay. And it goes, mediocrity and failure result from choice, not chance. Success is born of courage alone. And God has made this marvelous gift infinitely available to all who ask for it. And this is from Patrick H. Brady, United States Army Medal of Honor recipient. And I had the chance to visit the Center for American Values last year, and it is really phenomenal in Puebla, right on the Riverwalk. And they even have, if you like a particular picture and quote of a Medal of Honor recipient, you can ask the staff to see the video that tells you more about that person. And so it’s a really incredible place to go. Please make a point of going there and take your children so that they can see the amazing feats of courage and bravery of our armed forces personnel. So our headlines today, let’s cover a few of them. First one would be that Colorado taxpayers are now paying more than $340,000 for losses caused by wolves. And that’s just in a certain area. So that’ll be the tip of the iceberg. So people can decide whether that was a good thing or not. But I don’t think stressing out our flocks and our cattle across Colorado and having flocks decimated is a good idea. But we’ll get back to that. So the second headline would be that, oh, of course, everybody saw this one. D.C. Democrats behave like heartless, spoiled brats at the president’s congressional address. And after that, we have another one, which is presidential hopeful California Gavin Newsom changes his stripes, stating he is profoundly sickened by the unfairness of men playing in women’s sports. Since when does he have that attitude towards it? And how long will it last? Vice President Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, and Pete Hagseth go to the border. And if we thought that this border invasion could not be stopped, all it took was a new president. So my feeling is that those who say it can’t be done need to get out of the way of those who are doing it.
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Well, constitutionally, it’s the president’s job. It is. To prevent invasion of our country. That is specifically in the Constitution. One of his specifically authorized duties is to prevent this country from being invaded.
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So as a former military member where we are supposed to be all about protecting the nation and our borders and things like that, it always amazed me how the previous administration just let that happen. And when asked about it, they were like, oh, well, nothing can be done. And I knew better. Right.
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In fact, by not doing anything, you could argue that it’s kind of treasonous to just open the borders and let potential enemies to our country in and then harbor them and give them comfort, which is specifically the definition of treason.
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And comforts above and beyond that which is offered to American citizens. Any comfort.
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They could have given them a pup tent, and that could have been considered treason, to be honest.
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Right. So I guess the bottom line is there’s ways to do things and ways not to do things. We need to secure our border for our own national security and sovereignty, and we need to have an immigration system that actually works. And we could tweak our… and make it some better, but the answer isn’t just ignoring it and letting everything happen the way it was happening. Absolutely. Sue, I would like to also say that the show comes to you because of really great sponsors like Roger Mangan of State Farm Insurance Team.
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Focused and wise marketing is essential for your success, especially during tough economic times. If you love The Kim Monson Show, strive for excellence and understand the importance of engaging in the battle of ideas that is raging in America. Then talk with Kim about partnership, sponsorship opportunities. Email Kim at kimmonson.com. Kim focuses on creating relationships with individuals and businesses that are tops in their fields. So they are the trusted experts listeners turn to when looking for products or services. Kim personally endorses each of her sponsors. Again, reach out to Kim at KimMonson.com.
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And welcome back and happy Friday. I am Yvonne Pius. Kim is traveling today. Kim’s website is KimMonson.com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter and you’ll get the first look at her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. Her email is Kim at KimMonson.com. And thank you for contributing to support Kim’s independent voice and exercise our right to freedom of speech. Through all of Kim’s work with the veterans, she is honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all they are doing to raise the 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, and she is 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 Paula Sarles will celebrate her 76th birthday this month by climbing 426 stairs at Red Rocks on March 15th. Please consider a donation to the USMC Memorial Foundation. And now I would like to welcome our next guest, who is Lori Gimmelstein of Colorado Parent Advocacy Network. And you have a big upcoming event. Please tell us about it. Good morning, Yvonne. Thank you so much.
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It’s great to join you this morning. Good morning. Yes, so the Colorado Parent Advocacy Network and Colorado Principled Physicians are co-hosting the second part of our Rocky Mountain Summit on Safeguarding Children from Gender Affirming Treatment coming up on Sunday, April 6th at the Inverness Hilton in Englewood. We’re bringing together two powerful panels. We have a medical, legal, and policy perspectives panel And we’re thrilled. We have leading experts from across the nation coming to this event. We’re bringing in Deputy Counsel Candace Jackson, many of who know is on the Trump’s administration. She’s general counsel for the U.S. Department of Education. We’re bringing in Dr. Lear Sapir. He is a fellow with the Manhattan Institute and is a data analyst. And we also have a Colorado pediatrician, Dr. Michelle Stanford, joining this panel to bring her perspective on the harms of gender-affirming treatment. And we are thrilled to be bringing in renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Miriam Grossman, who’s also a best-selling author of the book, Lost in Transnation. And then we will be hosting our family impact panel after that panel presents. And many of your listeners know the story of Erin Lee’s daughter. And Erin and her daughter Chloe will be joining this panel. Chloe will be speaking for the first time about her experience. And we’re also thrilled to have Florida parent, January Littlejohn, who your listeners probably saw in President Trump’s State of the Union address the other evening, where she was honored for the work she is doing as a parents’ rights advocate to protect children from this transgender ideology. And we also will be having Matt and Judith Ray, and they will be bringing kind of a spousal perspective on the harm of these treatments and gender-affirming treatments. And we hope that your listeners will join us. Tickets are on sale now. We’re very excited to announce that we’ve just been approved for continuing medical education units for physicians. So the event is accredited for 1.25 AMA PRA Category 1 credits, which is wonderful. And we hope people get tickets on our website, coloradoparents.org.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow, that’s quite the lineup. That’s going to be quite the event. So great that you’re doing something like that to bring awareness to a very serious situation.
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Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, when I think of what has happened, excuse me, in the last year, we hosted our first part of this summit last year. We had Chloe Cole, who many people know is a very well-known young adult who has detransitioned and is suing her medical providers. And we also had Dr. Travis Morrell, who is the founder of Colorado Principals physicians who’s now co-hosting the event this year, speaking out on, you know, somebody as a physician, he had actually participated as a doctor. And when he learned of the harms of what was happening, he had to put a stop to it. And so we’re just so thrilled that over the last year, we’re seeing the culture shift here in Colorado. And I do have to say, it’s very alarming with all of the evidence, all of the people that are detransitioning and speaking out against the harm, there’s still such a push for these treatments here in the state of Colorado. And people need to really be curious as to why is this? The Truth Center and Kaiser Permanente are two clinics that offer gender-affirming treatment to minors. So children as young as eight years old are receiving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. And when President Trump put down the executive order to stop federal funding to any hospital clinic physician that was providing these medical treatments, back in early February, the True Center actually stopped. But now they have resumed treatment. And we need to call attention. We need people to come to this summit to learn the truth and to dig into what is happening in regards to the scientific, ethical, legal concerns around these treatments. And we need to come together to stand up for what is right and what is true and protect children.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right, and I actually have had the opportunity to see Dr. Murrell on a couple occasions, and it is just amazing the information he has as to the damage that can occur. So I wholeheartedly invite people that are skeptical, that don’t know how to feel about the situation, to go and listen to the actual facts of of surrounding the whole situation. This is not an emotional thing. This is an actual, factual, medical thing. And if harms are being done, people should know that before they engage in either performing that harm or subjecting themselves to that harm. What do you think, Dr. Jill?
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Well, I remember when I was in medical school a long time ago, in the 80s, late 80s, we actually had as part of our classroom, we had a couple of transitioned, transsexual, surgically altered patients. men who had gone to women, and they gave a lecture to us, and basically they said, we wouldn’t recommend this for anybody. We felt as though we were in the wrong body, but after all of this treatment and all of this surgery, we were more depressed than ever, and the fact that we had permanently kind of mutilated our bodies and changed our hormones and everything did not help. So, I mean, it… We’ve known that was decades ago. And they had to go through a lot of treatment and psychoanalysis before they were allowed to have this surgery. Now it just seems like all they have to do is question, like a tomboy is thrown into this program.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, and I think Dr. Murrell really helps by giving that informed consent kind of thing, that informed what can happen all the way through that people aren’t receiving before they get these things. And back to you, Lori, how would you like to close your statement on this and your invitation, again, reinforce where it’s going to be and when?
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, so it’s time to start asking these questions. We have to stand up for these permanent consequences that are happening to children, the bone loss, chronic pain, infertility, sexual dysfunction, and irreversible surgeries, just like Dr. Jill was just saying, that fail to bring these promised happiness. So I invite your listeners to go online to our website today at coloradoparents.org and get tickets to our upcoming summit on April 6th.
SPEAKER 04 :
We look forward to seeing everybody there. Fantastic. And can you give the website one more time? Absolutely. coloradoparents.org. Okay. Any last thing you’d like to add on the subject?
SPEAKER 21 :
I would just be thrilled for more people to engage in this conversation. We saw earlier this week that The House Democrats in the House Health and Labor Committee voted down a parent’s right to give consent to their child’s health care treatment, medical and mental health care treatment. Every single Democrat voted against it. And I encourage people to call their representatives and ask why that they believe that the government knows better than the parents. that we need to work together, come together, and stand up for what is right and what is true to protect Colorado’s children.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thank you. And, you know, there’s nothing more important than protecting our children, both from mental and from physical harm. And I can see. And like I said, I’ve heard Dr. Morrell speak. And I know the details, which I won’t share here because there’s a lot of families going to and from schools at this point. But there are some some serious damage. There is some serious damage that can happen.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, and also, doesn’t it kind of amaze you, Lori, that whenever you see interviews of these kids with a gender dysphoria or uncertainty, they always want to excitedly rattle off at least three psychiatric diagnoses that they have. I have PTSD. I have anxiety disorder. I’m bipolar. And then I also have this gender dysphoria. And to me, it’s kind of like then… Why aren’t we talking about the gender dysphoria being among your psychiatric diagnoses rather than saying, oh, you’re so confused. You know, you have all these psychiatric illnesses, issues. Yet you’re completely justified in your gender identification. You know what I mean? It just seems like we’re separating out this one social entity from what should be a psychiatric entity.
SPEAKER 04 :
And why wouldn’t we go first to the softer side of things? Right. Which is that before you go into any type of medical practice, surgery, possibly irreversible situation. So yes, if nothing else, why wouldn’t we start there? I mean, it seems like the reasonable thing to do. And well, we really appreciate you, Lori. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. And this show comes to you because of great sponsors like La Vaca Meat.
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SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome back on this fabulous Friday. I’m Yvonne Paez filling in for Kim Monson. And Kim’s website is kimmonson.com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter and you’ll get the first look at her upcoming guests as well as most of her essays. And her email is kim at kimmonson.com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. And now I would like to welcome our next guest, General Joe Arbuckle, U.S. Army retired. Welcome, General.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks, Yvonne. It’s very nice to speak with you. And thanks for calling in for Kim. I’m sure she’s happy you’re there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good morning. Yes, well-deserved vacation for her.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I’m sure. Well, what do you want to talk about this morning?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I’d love to see what is on your radar first, General, and then I’ll have a couple questions of my own. But what is on your radar today?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I continue to spend most of my time as a volunteer with STARS that stand together against racism and radicalism in the services. And the website is STARS, S-T-A-R-R-S dot U-S. We’ve had, Kim, for about the past four years, two strategic goals. One is to get rid of the mandatory COVID vaccination in the military. We worked hard to do that and played, I think, a pretty key role in making that happen. So that’s been accomplished. But still, there’s some remedies that we’re seeking to put into effect. for those service members who are harmed by the vaccine. So that’s one goal. The other is to get rid of DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, out of our military. And that has been, thanks to President Trump, largely accomplished, but we still have some follow-on actions we’re working today. And you probably recall that President Trump campaigned hard on one of his mandates, and that was to remove CRT, critical race theory, and DEI from the military. and the other was to rebuild our military into a lethal fighting force. And he’s, true to his word, just the day he was in our grade, the day after, he’s put out about five different executive orders to accomplish those two things. But they’re not complete. There’s still some follow-ons that need to be done. And that’s what we’re working right now within STARS. And to do that, our group has written 12 different position papers. Ten of those deal with getting rid of CRT and DEI from the military. One of them is the COVID vaccine remedies. And then one calls for a major study to look at our defense posture for the 21st century and reorient everything pretty much in the Department of Defense roles and missions and that sort of thing. On top of that, of course, Pete Pegseff, as the new Secretary of Defense, has hit the ground running. And to augment the executive orders that the President has issued, the ones I just mentioned, Pete has put out memorandums to the entire Department of Defense to provide implemented instructions, and he’s doing a great job there. One thing that’s of interest I’m looking at right now, on his personal stationery, about the day after he was He was approved by the Senate to be the Secretary of Defense. He wrote in handwriting, DOD does not equal DEI. And under that, he said, there’s no exceptions, no name changes. In other words, don’t change the name of DEI to try to hide it or delays. Those who do not comply will no longer work here. Signed, Pete Hicks, Secretary of Defense. So that’s what we’re up to right now. And I can dive into that a little bit deeper if you like.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, that’s pretty straightforward. And like you said, I mean, I was also part of the Armed Forces. I was in the Army as well, General. And, you know, we have one mission, and that is lethality. I mean, we have one mission. If we are put to use, then there is one thing we have to do. And hopefully you and I know that we would like to avert any war as possible because you win every war that you don’t fight. But in the event that we do have to fight, there is one thing that we are supposed to do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, exactly. To tie into that, and thanks a lot for your service. I know you won an ROTC scholarship and served five years and got out as a captain, so that’s great. Thank you. Pete Hicks has, on your point there, four things that he’s focusing on. Lethality, as you mentioned. The other, which is really, really important, is meritocracy. And we know that for decades in peace and war, our military has been driven by two things. One is equal opportunity for everybody, and the other is meritocracy. By that, of course, we mean personnel actions are based upon how people perform, their merit, their meritocracy, not based upon artificial goals and quotas based upon race, sex, or ethnicity. And that’s what DEI has been pushing in our military recently. And so As that’s removed, we’re rightfully getting back to equality, meritocracy, or fighting readiness, as you just commented on. And Pete’s absolutely right. Pete Hicks said to focus on accountability. That has been a bedrock, as you know, of our military forever, and it’s important to hold people accountable for what they do and what they don’t do. Correct. And that just has not been done recently, and so he’s putting emphasis on that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Excellent. And that’s exactly it. I mean, it was always, at least when I was in, about equal opportunity and meritocracy. Because if we have equal rights and opportunity for everybody, then that’s final. But if we have special rights for some people, then we don’t have equal rights for everybody. And that should be easy for people to understand. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. And when a group of people based upon skin color or sex, for example, which is what’s behind DEI, are given special privileges, in other words, standards are lowered for them for things like admission to our service academies, which has been going on and is still going on, but it’s being stopped. Special consideration for promotions, special considerations on command selection boards and key assignments. That’s wrong. That creates all kinds of morale problems within the services because of those special privileges. So this is great. I sense that the morale within the force is coming up and returning with the advent of President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hague said, because they’re getting back to why we exist, and that’s to be prepared, as you said, to fight and win our nation’s wars.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and to elevate people into a position that they’re not ready for or can’t do based on other factors is a setup, and it’s a setup for failure, and it endangers them, the people around them, and the mission.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly, and so when you have the special privileges, not based on meritocracy, to do that, you have to lower standards. Correct. Such as physical fitness, and that’s exactly what’s happened. Just so we can say, well, for example, the first… female graduated from Ranger School many years ago. There was a big issue about that and the physical standards being lowered to do that. General Brown, who was recently retired as the Joint Chief of Staff when he was the four-star in charge of the Air Force, wanted to lower the number of white pilots just to give others a chance to be pilots. Well, when you lower the standards to be a pilot, You’re increasing risk because the best are not being selected in terms of meritocracy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. And I can say as a woman’s service member, yes, they were slightly different standards on the APFT, Army Physical Fitness Test or whatever for women than for men. But they were based on their biological body differences. And they were considered equal when you compensated those differences. And anything that they would have taken down from there, I do not stand by at all. And as a matter of fact, I think they kind of messed up because the men were always struggling with the sit-ups because they’re lifting their center of gravity, whereas we’re sitting on ours and we didn’t. So I think we should have had to do more sit-ups than the men. Wow. But anyway, so Dr. Jill Vecchio, did you want to add anything?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. Hi, General Arbuckle. This is Dr. Jill Vecchio. I’m filling in for Kim along with Yvonne today. And thank you so much for everything you’re doing. And thank you for your service. I’m curious from your standpoint, because so many higher up in the military will not speak to this. turning indoctrinated kind of emasculated people into warriors and it’s getting more and more it has to be getting more and more difficult I know at the Air Force Academy they’re not allowed to do just even mild hazing like calling the first years by some certain term they’re not allowed to use that term anymore because they can’t say maggots anymore yeah it may it may trigger people or something I mean it it’s got to be hard to create warriors when
SPEAKER 06 :
considering what you have to start with where they come from out of high school these days what they’re taught there and throughout their education and then to try and you know turn them into hardened Warriors can you comment on that sure well it has been hard with uh Dr Jill right yes it’s been hard with uh with the wokeness that’s been going on because of the lowering of standards and and the softening of the force as you just said however with that changing the type of person that wants to come into the military wants to be challenged.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wants to be challenged and pushed hard. And that’s going to turn around, I think, pretty quickly, and we already see some of that happening. But there’s a bigger issue here, and that’s the demographic of the people that come into the military from society. As you know, for about the past, oh, 10, 15 years, only around 23% of those eligible to come into the military, age group 18 to about 24, can even pass the basic standards to come in. And one of those that’s the hardest is physical, obesity. That’s a huge problem. And so of the 23% that can pass the basic requirements to come in with no criminal activity and a high school GED, for example, only about 9% of that 23% is interested in coming into the military. So that is a challenge. So we’re working really on that 9% within the 23%. come in and once they go through basic training and see what it’s all about you know what you’re talking about turns around and Marine Corps among all the services always has done that the best because they’ve always said we’re tough and if you want to come join the Marines you better be ready and they get and they meet the recording goals because of that that’s what the rest of services are doing right now trying to turn that around
SPEAKER 04 :
Excellent. And I believe there is some good news on the recruiting numbers. Do you know anything about that, General?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. In the case of the Army, Yvonne, for the first time just last year, the Army met its goals, I think it was the first time in 15 years. But, you know, the bigger picture is we went to an all-voluntary military in 1973 after Vietnam. We’ve gone through, the military has, the greatest recruiting crisis since 1973 for the reasons I just outlined, basically the demographics. And then add to that, here’s another huge factor, the wokeness. About 70% of all those who come into the military come in because they have either a family member or a friend who is in the military or has been. So there’s a direct linkage between military service in the past, current, and then those people that come in. Correct. That tie was broken to a large degree because of wokeness. Parents and friends started telling their kids and their relatives, you know, I wouldn’t really go into the military today because it’s woke. It’s not what it used to be. We suffered because of that in the recruiting area. Again, that’s being turned around.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. Well, thank you, General. And is there any thought you’d like to wrap up with today?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, we’re definitely getting our military turned around. We’re headed in the right direction. But it is going to take some time to flesh out the mentality, the ideology that this wokeness has brought with us. But that’s going to happen.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. Well, we will be back in the next segment with General Arbuckle. But this show comes to you because of great sponsors like Lorne Levy.
SPEAKER 16 :
We’ll be right back. 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.
SPEAKER 13 :
That’s 303-880-8881. 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 16 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome back. I’m Yvonne Paez. Kim is traveling today, and I’d like to remind all listeners that Kim’s website is KimMonson.com. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter, and you’ll get first look at her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. Her email is kim at kimmonson.com. And thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. We are speaking with General Joe Arbuckle, U.S. Army retired. Welcome back, General.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks a lot, Yvonne. It’s a pleasure to be with you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you. So I would love to hear about other thoughts that you have about what’s been changing since the new administration kicked in and since Pete Hegseth has taken the helm.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, of course, all the directives and so forth I mentioned earlier, but also there’s been some changes of leadership at the very top, as you probably noticed earlier. General Brown, past chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has retired. And in addition to that, the Vice Chief of Staff for the Air Force, the four-star in charge of the Navy, a female admiral, has been asked to be retired. And frankly, in that case, that was an example of diversity, equity, inclusion. When the selection process was underway for the CNO of the Navy, there was a male who was a warfighter throughout his entire career in the Pacific primarily and competing against the female admiral. And Secretary of Defense Austin, to his credit, said, we need to pick this warfighter guy to be in charge of the Navy. Well, President Biden overruled that and selected the female admiral. just to be able to say I think that for the first time a female is in charge of the entire United States Navy. And so she, under the new administration, has been asked to retire, and they’re looking for a replacement right now. In addition, all the senior lawyers in all three services have been asked to retire and be replaced because primarily, I believe, they tended to be too woke. That’s an issue within our JAG Corps, within the military. It has been for some time. So that’s happening. The changes of leadership send a signal throughout the ranks that we’re serious about getting rid of this DEI.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. People that get promoted need to be promoted for the right reasons, and it has to be on merit. And let the chips fall where they may. And I, again, as a woman service member, I am not… I don’t feel slighted that somebody is being taken out because – and it is a woman because I don’t know the circumstances of her promotions. But understanding the climate we were in, I can – think that maybe there might have been some issues. So as somebody who’s not involved in those decisions, I can stand by and watch knowing that we do need to have the best people at the top leading our military. You cannot teach what you do not know. You cannot lead where you do not go. And so there’s just no way we need to be popping people in there because of sideline circumstances. And Dr. Jill, comments?
SPEAKER 11 :
And General Arbuckle, my brother’s a retired lieutenant colonel, also Army, so we’re in a big Army club here, but also Army, and he made a comment years ago that by the time Any military general reaches that level of the multiple stars. They seem to turn into more of a politician than a warrior. And frequently they kind of they let the warrior part slide and focus more on. continuing their advancement politically.
SPEAKER 04 :
And being a two-star general, yeah, I’m sure you can comment to that and what you’ve seen.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. Could you comment on that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Dr. Joe, unfortunately, there’s truth in that. And I don’t think my opinion is that’s not done for the sake of getting promoted higher. I think it’s an indoctrination that comes from the infusion of political correctness in the military coming from the political side. And so it becomes more and more apparent to how you go, that politics are playing into the major decisions within the military, again, coming from the political appointees and even from the president. So there is, I think, that tendency that you just commented on. But again, I’ll reiterate, I don’t think it’s to get promoted. I think it’s just the culture, the climate.
SPEAKER 11 :
I see. And do you think that Secretary Hegseth has any kind of a plan for, do you think, well, number one, do you think that that needs to be kind of remedied? And if so, do you think that there will be some kind of a program to remedy that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, exactly. And that’s with his emphasis on warfighting and lethality and getting rid of political correctness. And DEI was all about political correctness. And so, yes, indeed, that’s his focus. He wants leaders to be warfighters. And basically, he said, if you can’t do that, then get out. There’s no place for you in the Department of Defense.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
That seems reasonable.
SPEAKER 11 :
That seems quite reasonable. Promising, yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, exactly. I don’t know how much time you have, but if you want to talk about the COVID vaccine and remedies, that’s it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sure, we can go to that. We have a few more minutes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. All right. Well, as I mentioned earlier, in Starz, we played, I think, an important role to get rid of that illegal COVID vaccine. And by the way, I’ve taken all the shots in the world, and you have too. The issue is not vaccination. The issue is not requiring our service members to take an experimental vaccine, and that’s what COVID was. It was issued under emergency use authorization, which is a special category within vaccines. So it was declared to be illegal. It stopped, but now people, men and women in the uniform and out, have been harmed by the vaccine. And President Trump and one of his EOs, executive orders, said that anyone who was kicked out of the military for refusing to take the vaccine based on religious or other grounds may come back in with their rank restored, their pay restored, back pay restored, and all the other compensation. Well, the problem with that, that doesn’t go far enough. There’s only about 8,100 within the Department of Defense that were kicked out for refusing the vaccine, and it only addresses that small group. Now, what are the other groups? There are those that left voluntarily. They just got fed up. They didn’t want to take the vaccine. They didn’t like the climate, so they got out voluntarily. In many cases, they got less than honorable discharges, and that’s a slap in the face. That should not happen. And those discharges need to be upgraded along with their DD-214s that go with that, as well as any negative personnel actions that might be in their file or simply refusing an illegal vaccination. A third category is those that stayed on active duty but still refused to take it, and they were being processed when the thing was stopped, the mandatory vaccine was stopped. Well, they were harmed because they weren’t, in many cases, considered for promotion or key assignments or any other positive personnel action while they were being basically investigated for not taking the vaccine. All those negative personnel actions that are in their files need to be taken out, and any other harm that was done to them from a personnel management standpoint. Finally, those were physically harmed with myocarditis, strokes, and that sort of thing that are tied to the vaccine. Need to be taken care of under the VA and there’s something called a pact at PACT Act and that includes toxic burn exposure from the Mideast. Also Agent Orange. Well, the vaccine is toxic, so one of the things we’re pushing from stars is to get any veteran that’s been harmed with those kind of conditions from the vaccine included in that act and then they will get care from the VA for the harm that’s being done to them physically. So that’s the entire gamut of the way this terrible thing called the mandatory vaccine was injected on our service members and the harm that was done. And oh, by the way, there are about 37,000 applications for religious exemptions to not take the vaccine. Guess how many were approved? 400 out of 37,000. There was no intent from the beginning to approve anyone. to get out, to be exempt from the vaccine because of religious beliefs.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, General, I just don’t understand. Because if there was any risk with an emergency use only type of vaccine to the health of our armed forces personnel, and that’s what we need them to be, is healthy to fight. So why would we… I can bat as it was in the civilian sector. I cannot believe that our military gambled with that, knowing that we always, you know, need more people and the recruiting numbers. And why would we adversely affect or harm perfectly healthy service members? I mean, did we not learn anything from the anthrax vaccine?
SPEAKER 06 :
Precisely the same thing happened there. You’re right. That was declared illegal. That’s a good question. That’s what’s bothered many of us. And, of course, the excuse was the vaccines needed for readiness purposes, but that’s absolutely not true. In fact, it did more harm than good. The DOD’s numbers over a period of a year and a half said that 95 soldiers over that year and a half period had died, and the cause was attributed to attributed to not caused by the vaccine during that same period of time. Only within one year, that same period of time, we had 585 military members commit suicide.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, my goodness. Well, with that, we’re going to have to close. But, you know, it should not be that our military members are going on to commit suicide because of these things. Thank you so much, General, for being with us today. And the quote for the end of the show is today, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to books. And the quote for the end of the show is, it comes directly, I’m sorry, it comes directly from the first part of the show where it’s from the Medal of Honor quote book because it’s Medal of Honor Friday. and it is mediocrity and failure result from choice, not chance. Success is born of courage alone, and God has made this marvelous gift infinitely available to all who ask for it. Patrick Brady, United States Army Medal of Honor recipient.
SPEAKER 09 :
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 survive
SPEAKER 02 :
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 17 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 18 :
An early childhood taxing district? What on earth is that?
SPEAKER 17 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 18 :
I don’t think that we should be passing legislation that is so complicated that people kind of throw up their hands and say, I can’t understand that.
SPEAKER 17 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 18 :
And it’s not fair just because you’re a big business that you get a break on this and the little guy doesn’t.
SPEAKER 17 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome to The Kim Monson Show on a fabulous Friday. I am Yvonne Paez, and I am thrilled to host the show as Kim is traveling today. Let’s have a conversation. And thank you for listening. Each of you are valued and treasured. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of heart, soul, mind, and body. And thank you to Producer Joe for your good work. Oh, it’s my pleasure again, Yvonne. And Kim’s website is KimMonson.com, and that’s M-O-N-S-O-N. And you can sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter, and you’ll get first look at her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. And you can email Kim at KimMonson.com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom and speech. And thank you to Laramie Energy for their gold sponsorship of the show. Reliable, efficient, affordable, and abundant energy from oil and gas and oil and gas derivatives fuel the hopes, dreams, and prosperity of everyday Americans. Today’s word of the day is mediocrity, and that’s M-E-D-I-O-C-R-I-T-Y. It’s a noun that means the quality of being average, ordinary, or not very good at something. And its Latin parts together literally mean halfway up the mountain. In other words, a failure to succeed or excel. And I remember when I was young, my dad would always say, whatever you do or do not be mediocre. And the Spanish lesson for the day, the word mediocre is spelled exactly the same in Spanish. And it’s mediocre. So there’s a word you didn’t know you already know in Spanish. And the quote of the day is from our Medal of Honor recipient, Patrick H. Brady, U.S. Army. And that whole citation was done in the first hour. So if you want to hear his entire citation, you can refer to it when the show replays. And… Here it is. Mediocrity and failure result from choice, not chance. Success is born of courage alone, and God has made this marvelous gift infinitely available to all who work for it. Sue, on the headlines today, I did see that Colorado taxpayers are paying more than $340,000 for losses caused by wolves. And that includes the kills. And, of course, anybody who really understands livestock and how things work when cattle and livestock are stressed. They tend to not be able to get pregnant or sometimes they will abort their babies because just the stress causes an involuntary abortion. So it just, it’s not good. So we pay for, we’re gonna be paying for the kills as well as all the lower births based to the stress in the cattle. And we also have in studio today Dr. Jill Vacchio and she will be talking with us a little later. And the other headline I’d like to highlight is that the D.C. Democrats have behaved like spoiled brats at the president’s congressional address. So what do you think about that, Dr. Jill?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, you know, and I come from Iowa and we still have farmland in Iowa. And we until a couple of years ago, we had cattle as well. We didn’t have wolves. And from what I understand, they’re actually not. Are they really being reintroduced or just introduced? Is I think one of the questions people bring up. The other one is they can run a cow to death. A dog can run a cow to death. And, you know, sure, cows can kick, but a lot of times they’ll just take off running. Every time you lose a cow, and that’s not even if it’s a breeding animal, but for slaughter, that’s like $2,000. Right. Right out of your pocket.
SPEAKER 04 :
And the worst part is there’s so many people who cling to care about animals. And they think that the ranchers and the people who… who actually have them and care for them, don’t care for them well, and they’re always trying to micromanage that from some city position. And if you care about animals, why would you put a predator in their midst to stress them out and kill them? Keep the predators where there’s appropriate prey. There was a reason that they were eradicated from here. And the ones that were reintroduced were not re-anything. They were introduced because they’re not the type of wolf we originally had here. And they were living happily in the forests of Canada before they plucked them out of it. Some of them don’t survive on the transfer. So there’s no reason for this. Yeah. So… And at this point, I would like to welcome our guest, Jim May Cattleman with Lavaca Meat Company. I bet he understands a little bit about this.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, good morning, Yvonne. And it’s Dr. Jill there, too, right? Howdy, howdy. Hey, guys. Good morning. It’s Joe this morning. I’ve been listening for the last hour. And just this topic about the wolves, yeah, it’s real. It’s real. And you’re right. Now the next cows are going to be more like 3,000 to 4,000, and bulls are starting to bring 6,000 and 7,000 and 10,000.
SPEAKER 04 :
Supply and demand.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. So you’re totally right about the wolves. Our ranches are in the kind of the black forest area there between Castle Rock and Kiowa, or a little east of Kiowa, actually. And then— My son spent seven or eight years up in Canada where, you’re right, there’s plenty of wildlife up there for a wolf. But there’s places where wolves can be and there’s places they shouldn’t be. And certainly they shouldn’t be in the middle of our food supply. You’re right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 11 :
Correct. Yeah. And where there are cattle being raised, there are also animals, pets, families. Yeah. Exactly. And horses, things like that, too, that’s a problem to have a wolf around. Correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely right. You know, as I’ve grown up in the feedlot industry, and we’ve done it all our lives, ranching, and now we have lots of feed yards, but a stray dog, you know, is fair game to us. I mean, we will not let an animal like that into our operation. If so, you know, we’ve got a gun to shoot them, and we feel entitled to do so because, you’re right, they can not only… kill cattle they can knock down corrals they can do all kinds of things with and and you’re right there’s horses there’s everything else to think about and there’s people on those horses and and so it’s very very important to protect your animals and the people who are working for you trying to care for those animals yeah and i’m glad you guys are hitting some of these things i think i’ve talked a lot about labaka meat of course um i think I’ve been on the show for a little over a year now every Friday, and I mean what I say. But there are a lot of these other things connected to our industry. I mean, there’s an element out there that’s just anti-beef or, frankly, anti-eating any kind of an animal or anything like that. And there’s a lot of things going on here that we need to be made aware of, and we need to watch what the left is doing, and we need to be careful about – getting swept away by some of these dumb ideas like free-range chickens, for instance, the problem we’re having with eggs now. And not only that, they killed a ton of chickens in this bird flu deal that I’m not sure that was really warranted. But there’s a reason for why those prices are so high. Certainly, I want to hit some of those topics going forward. But I do want to say a couple quick things about Lavaca meat. First off, Our store is a store that handles only the best premium beef that’s aged and handled right. And we’ve done it all our lives, and we feel like we’re more concerned about trying to do the best at it than even it being a super, it’s not a super profit center for what we do, but it’s important to us that people have the opportunity to have really good stuff. If you want to check it out, I want to put a shout out to the Grand Cafe down there in Littleton where they have a burger on our menu and a good steak, a little breakfast steak and a nice little… Filet and different things on that menu that are ours, and I really want to push that. If anybody wants to try our meat sometime, just let them cook it the way you want and try it. We have everything, nothing to hide behind. We just do the best job we can in everything that we do.
SPEAKER 04 :
And it is delicious. I stopped by and picked some up, and we had Lavaca States last week with the grandmothers at home, and they swore it was the best steak they’d ever had.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, that’s great for you to hear. I mean, I look forward to meeting you in person one of these days, but if it’s possible, are you from here in Colorado?
SPEAKER 04 :
I am, actually. I came to Colorado to go to Colorado State University and got my degree in animal science. Oh, wow. That’s one of us. I’m a friendly, yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
The Gable family are probably some of the best people that I know, and we’ve been in business. Kate is the president of our Nebraska feed yard, Herd Co., and You know, this guy, his dad got run over by a bull. It’s been 30, 40 years ago now. And so he’s kind of a paraplegic, but he still is just like he was a livestock judge, and he just pushes on and works as hard as anybody I’ve ever seen.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, when I was out on that feedlot for other reasons, and he was just right there working along the rest of them.
SPEAKER 07 :
He is super. I mean, Case, you just… Can’t say enough about Case and Christie. This is how good they are with cattle. Case had the grand champion spirit at the Colorado State Fair. But the crazy thing about that, that’s really an accomplishment. That’s the best animal in the state. And a year later, Christie had the same thing, his sister. And now his son, Stetson, has had the state champion at the Colorado State Fair. So they really know, you know, Steve was a livestock judge. or training livestock judging teams. And his intellect, his intelligence on that thing is so good and the way he can transfer it to people. But obviously, we know cattle through them, and we’re very proud of that family and what they stand for and what they do.
SPEAKER 04 :
They’re great. So thanks for giving them a shout-out. And do you have a cowboy poem for us today?
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m going to do one. Have I got a few minutes? I mean, I want to explain a couple of things here. My brother, Dan… And through your show, we helped vote for him, and he was… Steve Gable’s actually a member of the Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame. There’s only like 30, 35 of those people now that’s been going on for about 15 years, and they put two people in every year. But my brother Dan was elected this year, and through Kim Monson and the show, we put a lot of votes out, we think. But he won hands away, and he deserves every bit of it. But I want to… My birthday was last Monday.
SPEAKER 10 :
Happy birthday.
SPEAKER 07 :
And Dan’s birthday is this Monday. So we’re a week apart. I was born March 30th, born March 10th. Uh, my next brother, Tom was born February 19th and Steve was born in June. You see a pattern here.
SPEAKER 04 :
I do. There was a time and season for things in your family.
SPEAKER 07 :
We got four brothers in this business. 4M Feeders is one of our other companies here in Colorado. And, uh, So the first time I ever wrote a poem, and I spent a lot of time, last week I talked about our trips. Dan and I would drive a 280Z way out to Nevada to our ranches out there when we were first getting started. At the very first, it was just looking to buy cattle, and then later on we bought a little ranch out there. So I got to know some of them. I spent some time in Elko and listened to the cowboy poetry and got to know Baxter Black and a few of those people, and that’s all I wanted to do was listen to it. and this was the poem I’m going to give you today was my first poem that I ever wrote, and I really had no intention of ever being a cowboy poet at all, and I’m not sure I’m that great.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, we love you.
SPEAKER 07 :
But anyway, I wrote this poem in the year 2000 for my brother’s 40th birthday, and my brother Dan was a really good athlete when he was By two or three years old, he’s always kind of standing on his head and doing some crazy things, and then we’d find him standing on his head when we’re buying shoes at a mall or in the doctor’s waiting room. He’s always just kind of standing on his head. That’s part of this poem. I just told you we’re all a year apart. But early on, Dan’s the kind of guy, and I think we all are very competitive, and it’s like we always pushed the envelope. We bought every cap that we could buy that the bank would let us buy, and we just kept on… trying to keep the yards full and kept building pins. And so in the early days, every once in a while there were more cattle that came in than we really even had room to take care of. But that just becomes part of what you do. So this poem is about… I was asked to do some stand-up, kind of, you know, get the party going for Dan’s 40th birthday party. There it is, cul-de-sac there on Dry Creek. And there were about 100-some people there. And so I… I was looking for something to say or joke or something, and then the day before the party, these five or six loads, four or five loads of cattle, I don’t know, came in, and everybody forgot to tell me they were coming, and we were completely full. So I had to really hustle and get them put away and get them into a little grass paddock there. And then I sat down at my computer and wrote this poem just because I was still too fired up to go back to sleep. It was 4 o’clock in the morning, and I wrote this in about 30 minutes.
SPEAKER 08 :
called Dan Sporting. The birthday poem I wrote for my brother Dan when he’s 40 years old. Tell a young man he’s been a buyer of cattle like you’ve never seen. And from 7 to 12 every day, he’s a great machine. But last night, the phone rang at a quarter to 4. And I heard a Mexican voice say, there’s four more trucks at the door, and all the pens are full in both yards, you see. I guess this is Dad’s birthday present to me. Because I can still remember when he was real little. Got down on his knees and put his head in the middle. And raised his feet in the air as I watched from the bed. And he said, look at me. I can stand on my head. From that moment on, he used every chance to display to the world this upside-down face. Looking back now, I’ve often wondered and said, do you think maybe he might have spent too much time on his head? No, but don’t sweat the small stuff like you’re there turning grades. This here’s a… Oh, that was great, Demay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for your cowboy poem this Friday.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hey, I tell you what, I’m going down the jump road here, and I hope you came across okay. It’s great to meet you. I hope everybody has a great weekend, and I’ll see you next time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, and happy trails. Thank you, Jim May Cattlemen with Lavaca Meat Company. And the show comes to you because of great sponsors like Roger Mangan.
SPEAKER 05 :
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 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 16 :
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.
SPEAKER 13 :
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 10 :
It’s Friday!
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back, and I’m Yvonne Pius, and I’m pleased to host the show today, Kim is Traveling. Kim’s website is KimMonson.com, and that’s M-O-N-S-O-N. Sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter, and you’ll get first look at all her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. And her email is Kim at KimMonson.com. Thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. Through all of Kim’s work with veterans, she is honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all the work that they are doing to raise the 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 and she is a Marine veteran and a gold star wife. Paula and her team are working diligently to make the remodel a reality. And you can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. And I’d like to welcome our guest, Dr. Jill Vacchio. Welcome.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, thank you so much for having me, and I’m hanging out here in the studio with you. It’s really nice. I haven’t been there for a long time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, it’s great to have you in the studio today.
SPEAKER 11 :
So I’ll just introduce myself, if that’s okay. That would be great, and then let us know what’s on your radar. Yeah, I’ve been on the show many times, and Kim always introduces me beautifully, but sometimes it’s just easy to do it myself. I am a relatively newly retired physician specializing in radiology with a subspecialty in breast cancer and women’s imaging for 30 years. And I got involved in health care policy when I read the Obamacare law. It’s called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I think that’s a misnomer. I think in my research I found out it was more like the Patient Exposure and Unaffordable Care Act, so I like to call it PUCA. Right. So I started doing a bunch of talks and so forth and really educated myself on health care, how the whole health care system works. And I’ve been very surprised at a lot of things over the years. And it’s an ongoing learning process. So, yeah, I wanted to talk about Kim and I have kind of been doing a bit of a series. On health care, you know, I mean, it was a big deal before Obamacare passed. And then when we thought maybe it could be overturned in 2017, it was a big deal again. And I was very active. And then when it wasn’t repealed. which was unfortunate. But when it wasn’t repealed, then everybody kind of forgot about it. Nobody talked about it. And I’m kind of like, wow, come on, guys, you know, engage. And they didn’t. So I’ve just been kind of waiting on the sidelines. And I’m hoping that this administration is certainly in a position to really address health care reform. And there are so many things that they can do. So Kim and I have been kind of talking about that. Excellent. So one of the things I wanted to start with, because today we’re going to kind of talk about money and financing in health care for the entire country. And it’s amazing to me how much the government controls. They do control all of health care. And I wanted to read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. I’m going to start with the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, and this is in the Bill of Rights. So the Tenth Amendment says, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. And that’s a part that people forget. It’s to the people. So Health care is not one of the enumerated powers granted to the federal government in our Constitution. Here’s a newsflash, folks. Health care is not the government’s job. They have taken it on since they started Medicare and Medicaid, and we’re going to talk a lot about Medicare and Medicaid here. Now, the Ninth Amendment says the enumeration of the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. In other words, healthcare is supposed to be in the hands of the states and the people. So when we look at government in healthcare, it’s important to recognized that health care prior to the end of World War II was really private hospitals, private individuals, private doctors, communities, churches, all working together to take care of people. Doctors could give free care. Now they really can’t give free care at all unless they are completely independent of government resources. services or they have their own practice. And what’s interesting is before Obamacare passed, 90% of physicians were in private practice and they were employers and self-employed, not employees. Now, since Obamacare took effect, it’s now 90% of physicians, their practices are owned by large corporations or large groups or governments. Wow, this is not sucked in? Pardon? I’m saying, wow, they just got sucked in then. Well, right, because Obamacare had so many regulations and so many restrictions and penalties on doctors’ practices, and with electronic health records, it was too expensive and too much of a hassle. The overhead was crazy complying with government regulations and billing and coding, so doctors just gave up and sold their practices. So now they don’t have control over their own decisions and think about that with COVID. So COVID couldn’t have happened the way it did if doctors’ practices and physicians themselves were forced to comply, relatively forced, right? You know, they could have quit, they could have rebelled, but they chose not to. But they were absolutely coerced into complying with whatever these big hospital groups and so forth said. And I’m going to explain to everybody how Medicare is the actual core of that control. So after World War II, there was a relative shortage of working-age males, working-age people working. So employers had to compete to get these employees, so they started offering things like health care benefits. Well, that started the whole problem with now the person providing the care, and this is an absolutely key concept that everybody needs to understand. Our problem today stems from the person giving the care, the health care provider like me, and the person receiving the care, the patients, are bureaucratically separated by the person paying for the care. In other words, insurance companies, third-party payers, and the government. Medicare and Medicaid started in 1965. Medicare is for roughly the easy way to understand it. Medicare is people over 65. Medicaid is for indigent people under 65, and that was vastly expanded during the Obamacare stuff, but now you’ve got government controlling so much of health care through Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare actually has immense power and control that a lot of doctors don’t even understand. So even going back to medical schools, medical schools and residency and fellowship programs, so you go to medical school, you choose your, like if you’re going to be a surgeon or a primary care doctor, then you have to do a residency, a certain number of years of training in that residency. Maybe you do a fellowship, and those are all at teaching hospitals or community hospitals that have slots, available positions for training these medical students and graduates. Well, Medicare pays a ton of money for that training. They pay something like $23 billion a year in 2024. $23 billion a year is paid for this medical education. So they control that. They control the number of medical students that are admitted to medical schools. They control the number of residency and fellowship positions that are available. And what those positions are. So they will limit the number of radiology resident positions. They’ll limit the number of like ENT or surgery or ophthalmology, psychiatry. primary care, and they want more people in primary care. So a lot of times they’ll restrict the number of specialties, subspecialties. So that’s how they can control your ability, your access to positions just through that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow, that’s a lot of control.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s amazing. And then we talk about reimbursement. So all All of the reimbursement, all of the insurance companies, government programs, through Medicare, they determine how much some service or like lab tests or something like that, how much Medicare will pay for that. Now, Medicare reimburses more for some things, less for some things. Overall, Medicare is kind of a break-even for providers, hospitals, doctors, and so forth. So it’s a break-even. So you’re not making any money. You can’t stay in business if all you see is Medicare. Now, when you talk about Medicaid, you always lose money on Medicaid patients. If a Medicaid patient walks into a doctor’s office, that doctor is literally paying Medicaid. money out of their pocket and their practice to see that patient. Wow. And yet, so it’s kind of amazing. Yeah, it’s kind of amazing that they agree to do that, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s definitely not beneficial to the doctor. Well, I think we will pick up on the other side of this with that one. And at this time, I just want to remind everybody that the show comes to us because of great sponsors like Karen Levine.
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SPEAKER 15 :
All of 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.
SPEAKER 03 :
And welcome back. I’m Yvonne Pius. Kim is taking the day off. The website is KimMonson.com, and that’s M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Be sure to sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter, and you’ll get the first look at all her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. Email Kim at KimMonson.com. And thank you for contributing to support our independent voice and the exercise of our right to freedom of speech. And something that should be on your bucket list is to visit the Center for American Values located in 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, honor, integrity, and patriotism. For more information, check out their website at AmericanValuesCenter.org. And we are speaking with Dr. Jill Vacchio. Welcome back, Dr. Vacchio. Thank you. And where did we leave off?
SPEAKER 10 :
We were talking about…
SPEAKER 11 :
Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement and how much health care is really completely controlled by our government at this point. So Medicare reimbursement, we said, it’s about a wash. It ends up being 50, you know, just like break even for providers and it’s hospitals and physicians. And Then we have Medicaid where they lose money. So anybody who says Medicare for all, I mean the Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warrens, whatever, Medicare for all is a solution, blah, blah, it’s not. In fact, it’s either they’re completely ignorant of how the system works or they’re lying, neither one of which is the right answer, right? So if you had Medicare for all, not a single healthcare facility could stay afloat. let alone make any money to pay their employees. I mean, it barely covers costs. And Medicaid, they lose money. So overall, they’re losing money on these government programs to practice. So when the private insurance has to step in, and when we contract with private insurance, because I’ve been in these contract negotiations, and they’ll say, well, for an MRI of the knee or something, we’ll pay 1.4 times what Medicare will pay. So they always have to pay more than what Medicare would have to pay as a private third-party payer like Blue Cross Blue Shield or Cigna or something. They always have to pay more to the provider in order for the provider to just stay in business and keep the doors open. Wow. Right. So it’s kind of like, no, you have to have our system, the way it’s set up, and it needs to change drastically. It’s completely broken. But the way it’s set up, anybody who has private insurance is automatically subsidizing all the government programs. So that’s, I mean, you’d want to talk about what’s fair and what’s not fair. No, it’s not really fair. So, but that’s the way the system is set up. So every single service that’s provided has to have a negotiation about how much more than what Medicare reimburses the provider will get. And so the prices are different all over the place. It’s like buying an airplane ticket. You know, there’s not just a single price that everybody is paying for an MRI. So it’s important for people to understand how much Medicare controls that process as well. So, you know, the third-party peers are absolutely necessary partners. in our current system now i have lots of ideas for healthcare reform where that doesn’t need to be the case but we’ll just keep going from there now when whenever a provider accepts money from medicaid or medicare which is like virtually every provider sees some medicare and medicaid patients so every provider is now obligated according to the federal government’s regulations that are act like the rule of law they are obligated to abide by whatever regulations and rules and restrictions the government places on them like how you do how you do your reports like with covid every single facility that took any medicaid or medicare money from the government for any patients had to comply with wearing masks DISTANCING IN THEIR FACILITY, TAKING THE TEMPERATURE WHEN YOU WALK IN THE DOOR, THEY HAVE TO TAKE YOUR TEMPERATURE, THEY HAVE TO WRITE IT DOWN. YOU HAVE TO BE VACCINATED. ALL OF THIS STUFF, ALL OF THESE RESTRICTIONS AND REQUIREMENTS WERE PUT IF YOU TOOK A SINGLE DOLLAR OF GOVERNMENT MONEY, WHICH MEANT EVERYBODY WAS SUPPOSED TO COMPLY WITH THIS STUFF. which made it really heinous when a physician, now if a physician had their own office and they only took private health care or the direct primary care offices that don’t work with government health care, they could do what they wanted, and they did. So that’s the last bastion of freedom at this point in health care decision-making by physicians.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so they just instituted all those protocols. They instituted all those protocols and made them follow it all.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, right. Just because Anthony Fauci, and let’s face it, with corporate healthcare, because the corporations now owned all these practices or big, huge physician practices owned the physicians. they could say, yeah, whatever Anthony Fauci says, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re not going to buck the system. If they bucked the system, it would have fallen apart, but they didn’t. All it took was these big corporate healthcare giants passing down a mandate that came direct from Anthony Fauci, and nobody could even resist it without losing your credentials. And a lot of doctors lost their credentials, had their license threatened. I mean, that’s, you know, you’re talking about I graduated from the 29th grade, 29 years of education. Down the tubes just because somebody points a finger and says, you’re refusing to wear a mask at work.
SPEAKER 03 :
Or you’re refusing to be vaccinated. And it happens. And absolutely threatening their livelihood in that manner. Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 11 :
So, yeah, the heavy hand of government control of health care. And when government controls health care, they control the people. And doctors were encouraged to punish patients or not see patients or something or treat patients who weren’t vaccinated, didn’t have the COVID vaccine. They were allowed to and free to and encouraged to punish them, like refuse to do a kidney transplant, right? Because they didn’t have a vaccine. I remember that. Evil people, right? I remember that. Yeah, that was in Colorado. So, yeah, that’s the spider web that has been woven over decades since the 1960s. And it just keeps getting worse and worse. Now, also, you think about it, all the medical research, man, look at it with a really critical eye. Because think about who’s paying for that medical research. Government programs. Anthony Fauci is in charge of a lot of grant money going out. A lot of people that are kind of being exposed now for corruption and all this, they’re going to We’re going to find out that a lot of the medical research that was done, the money was given to achieve a certain goal, not necessarily to find truth, but to find a truth that they wanted found. So pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, all of them do it. They pay researchers and academicians who have to have that grant money in order to keep their positions, publish or perish, right? Right. That grant money, they’ll choose who they’re going to pick, and they’re not going to pick somebody who is interested in doing research that may prove that their pharmaceutical drug is dangerous. Right. or their vaccine is dangerous or that some medical device didn’t work the way it was or it wasn’t efficacious. They’re going to pick and they’re going to decide how they want the research conducted in order to get the results that they want. And that includes the government grants for research. So keep that in mind. This is not the pure system that we have been led to believe that it is. And starting in medical school, I bought into all of it. All this vitamins and health supplements and natural treatments, oh, that’s garbage. You must abide by pharmaceuticals because that’s what we were taught. And I bought into that. And now I look back.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that’s how they made money.
SPEAKER 11 :
I’m like, wow. Yeah. And that’s how they made money. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. And you had to have grant money. You had to have research grant money in order to supplement your income as an academician and to keep you relevant so you could keep your job. You had to be published. So everybody was playing this game. Now, is there anything else you need we should talk about with this? Or do you have any questions?
SPEAKER 03 :
well i it’s just amazing i’m sitting here listening in amazement as as you spell it out and i mean i guess we all maybe thought that was working that way but i i witnessed that takeover where even my doctor had his own practice and then it mutated to them falling under this big umbrella under covid and i thought it was just a few practices i had no idea that it went from 90% private practice to 90% being sucked under the bigger medical organizations. Right, right.
SPEAKER 11 :
And I think a lot of people didn’t notice that. But a lot of people, you talk to almost anybody, it’s like, yeah, my doctor’s practice changed. I didn’t understand what it was, but all of a sudden it was somewhere else or it went away or he retired or something like that. And it’s like, yeah, this is what’s happening, folks. This is what they’ve done to us. We have fewer choices. So, you know, now another thing when we talk about money in health care, how much time do we have left, by the way? We’ve got a couple minutes before break. Go ahead. Okay. So we talk about big corporations, money, and campaign financing, lobbying. I mean, if you – I think we’ve shown that government has created – the monster that is the dysfunctional monster of health care as it stands in our country today. So if government created it, what will be the incentives for them to dismantle it or completely recreate it? Like hit a reset button on this thing. And if you’re bringing them the money. Right. Right. So if big pharma, like the biggest campaign donors in health care are private insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, these massive corporate health care companies like HCA here, we have Trinity and Banner Health that are these monstrous multi-state companies. conglomerates of corporate health care, the hospital associations and the trial lawyers associations. Those are the big campaign finance donors and the lobbyists.
SPEAKER 03 :
So we will pick up with that on the other side of the break then, Dr. Vacchio. And I just want to remind people that the show comes to us because of great sponsors like Bolson Law.
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SPEAKER 03 :
And welcome back. I’m Yvonne Pius and I’m pleased to host the show. Kim is traveling. And Kim’s website is KimMonson.com. And that’s M-O-N-S-O-N. And you can sign up for Kim’s weekly email newsletter so you can get first look at all her upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. Her email is Kim at KimMonson.com. And we have Leanne Thompson on the line. Hi, Leanne.
SPEAKER 20 :
Hi, Yvonne. Thank you for letting me be on the line to make a brief announcement. The Jefferson County Republican women are holding a grassroots activism workshop on taking back our communities and making a real impact with our keynote speaker, Kathleen Chandler, from the Independence Institute. You’ll learn how to find, apply, and be appointed to a local board and commission. And the event will be tomorrow, Saturday, March 8th, from 9.30 to 10. We have a mix and mingle time with brunch items to share. And then 10 to 11 is the presentation. It will be held at the Jefferson County Republican Headquarters, which is by Colorado Mills, 13952 Denver West Parkway, Suite 450 in Lakewood. And the event’s open to anyone, including men, from any county, and it’s free to attend. And if you need more information, you could go to our website, jcrw.club.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, thank you, Leanne. That is so important. We really need to get the right people on all of our boards and commissions because sometimes leadership in our states and communities begins with us.
SPEAKER 20 :
That’s really true. And in this case, you know, it’s like you can’t run for office a lot or you can’t, you know, be elected as a representative. This way you can be a millennial, a retiree, and you could take and be participating in our local government. There’s over 4,000 boards and commissions that we could apply to, things like historical society, beer, water, anything you’re interested in, there’s a board for it. And they usually will meet like only one or two times a month. Sometimes you get paid. There’s usually refreshments. And yeah, it’s really exciting to be involved at the board and commission.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, that’s great. And I believe it’s Kathleen Chandler, right, that’s doing the training, is she?
SPEAKER 20 :
That’s right. Kathleen Chandler, and she’s from the Independence Institute, and she’s also a leadership program of the Rockies member, and she does an excellent job. She does a number of programs on different things. This one is, you know, focusing on our grassroots activism and getting involved with our local government.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s excellent. And I have seen her before, and she is fantastic. So please, I hope everybody that’s even remotely interested in finding out how to be on a border commission will show up and learn something about how we can do this. So thank you for making that announcement, Leanne.
SPEAKER 20 :
Thank you very much. All right. Take care. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
SPEAKER 03 :
And now we will continue our conversation with Dr. Jill Vacchio. All right. You’re back. Thank you. I am. Where did we leave off, please?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we were just getting started talking about the difficulty we’re going to have with getting rid of government control over our entire health care system when we have politicians whose campaigns are financed by government. like big pharma, big insurance companies, corporate health care, hospital associations, trial lawyers. It’s going to be really hard to get government legislators to fix a problem that they created to begin with over time because of these influences. And the biggest lobbying groups are the same people. Most of the legislation is written not by the legislators. It’s written by these lobbying groups. So that’s a whole other can of worms that we could talk about at another time. But when you have all of the money flowing in, and McCain-Feingold, with the creation of these super PACs, I mean, that really accelerated the amount of money pouring into congressional and state and such campaigns. So that’s going to be, I think that’s going to be the biggest hurdle is how do we handle that so that we can get legislators to do the right thing and really try to fix healthcare. These deep-pocketed, big corporate beasts are essentially creating the healthcare industry decision-making rather than the people or the states, and it used to be the states, but Obamacare killed that. Obamacare, by making it a federal law and openly violating the Constitution, then it took all of the control of healthcare decision-making to the worst possible, the highest possible level rather than the potentially lowest possible level of being at the state’s individually, where it used to be where it was for decades. So that was a huge change with Obamacare, putting it at the federal level where there can be all of this outside influence that is not, in my opinion, is rarely, if ever, in the best interest of the patient or the person paying for the insurance policies. Right, right. How much time do we have?
SPEAKER 03 :
What a mess to get into.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, we’ve got like a couple minutes left. So, yes, how would you like to wrap this up, Dr. Vecchio?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, let’s end on a note because a lot of people are going to go, well, what would you do? What would you do? What would you do? Well, I’ll tell you what I would do. I can’t go through. I mean, I’ve gone through it with Kim before, and you can look back on prior podcasts and stuff, and we’ll keep going through it again and again. But the biggest thing is get government out of health care. It’s not their job. It’s a violation of the Constitution. It’s a violation of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. It doesn’t. Health care is not among the enumerated powers granted to the federal government. Obamacare was an overt violation of that. The Supreme Court shows not to address that part of some of the lawsuits. So we still don’t have an answer to it. If you want to revive health care, think about automobile insurance. OK, just plant that in your head. Think about auto insurance. You don’t pay for getting new tires or having your oil changed or your windshield replaced, maybe covered a little bit. You may pay a little bit into having your windshield replaced, especially in Colorado. But you’re paying for all of the basic maintenance on your vehicle. You’re paying for little hiccup things that go wrong. If you’re in a car accident, some major collision happens. Then your insurance kicks in. It kicks in for catastrophic things. And we can do that with health insurance. People are paying $30,000 a year for health insurance that they’re not even using because the deductibles are so high. We’ve talked about that. What if you had that $30,000 and you were just paying maybe, I don’t know, what would it be? Maybe some of the catastrophic policies are maybe $50 or $100 a month. Right. You’re talking about, you know, so you could have $28,000 to pay for health care.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And that’s an excellent analogy. Yeah, that’s an excellent analogy, Dr. Vacchio. I think if we just thought of it as we don’t really need it for the everyday stuff. We just need it for the catastrophic stuff. I think that would be a great way to save money. So with that, thank you so much for all of the information you provided to us today. And we hope to have you back really soon. But, wow, that was a whirlwind of information for us to digest. Thanks again. And I would. OK, thank you. And I would like to mention that the quote for the end of the show comes from the Medal of Honor recipient, Patrick H. Brady, U.S. Army. And it says mediocrity and failure result from choice, not chance. Success is born of courage alone. And God has made this marvelous gift infinitely available to all who ask for it. 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 09 :
Like a new moon rising fierce Through the rain and lightning Wandering out into this great unknown I don’t want no one to cry But tell them if I don’t
SPEAKER 02 :
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 17 :
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