Join John Rush on this enlightening episode as he welcomes Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House to discuss the ongoing adjustments in technology, healthcare expectations, and governmental inefficiencies. Dr. Kelly gives listeners an exclusive look into her recent visit to the White House for an important health report, and they all reflect on the over-reliance on AI and its implications. Key points also include Elon Musk’s frustrations with Washington’s sluggish pace and the essence of swift decision-making in the private sector.
SPEAKER 03 :
This is Rush to Reason.
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SPEAKER 03 :
With your host, John Rush.
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My advice to you is to do what your parents did! Get a job, Turk! You haven’t made everybody equal.
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You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
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Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 05 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, welcome. Happy Thursday, everyone. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Today’s program might sound a little bit differently. We’ve got a little software glitch we’re working through today that normally would autoplay certain things, so you might hear me talk a little longer than what I normally would, but we’ll get into that as we get going here today. Dr. Kelly Victory joining us today. Dr. Kelly, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m doing great, and we don’t let any technology glitches get in our way there, John. We’ll just make it up as we go.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Steve, welcome as well. Steve House, how are you?
SPEAKER 05 :
A walking technology glitch, my friend. That’s the way I live.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, I think, just really quick as a side note, you know, anytime and I think at times Charlie feels bad when we have technology glitches, but Steve, you know, especially you and I, I’ve been around enough of those things over the years in business and so on where, you know, if something doesn’t work, you know, I think for me as a business owner, you just figure out ways around it and it’s not that big of a deal at the end of the day.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I mean, you can’t not keep going. I mean, I think that’s I mean, Kelly’s probably the same way, right? She’s in an ER and she’s got some sort of a massive trauma unfolding and she can’t find a scalpel. She doesn’t mean she’s going to let the person bleed to death. She’s going to do something, right? Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. Right. Well, it’s one of my concerns about all of this technology is that people become so reliant on it that they have no way. They just don’t know the alternatives. And that’s never a good, true, a good option. To your point, Steve, in your boards, they always throw you a few zingers. You know, when you say what you would do, you say, well, I would order this drug or this antibiotic or I would do this. And they say, well, sorry, doctor, we just heard from the operating room that scope is not available. or that drug is not on formulary. And what they’re trying to do is make sure that you have two or three or four options deep, that you know what your backup is going to be if that thing isn’t available. And I fear that people are so wedded right now to their iPhones, to their computers, to all of this, that God help you. If your computer crashes, do you have a backup? Do you know where those documents are physically? Or, you know, is it just going to be complete and total bedlam?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, you guys are bringing up some great points. Not that I was going to run this into the topics today, but these are very appropriate because we live in a time, especially now, Steve, with AI getting bigger and bigger. And that’s a subject that we could probably spend an hour on between the three of us at some point. Maybe we should. Maybe I’ll put that on the slate for a later time. But as AI gets bigger and bigger and more things become automated, Steve, I’m just wondering, to Kelly’s point a moment ago, as… generations and we’re talking plural now it’s not singular but plural generations now have gotten so used to certain things being just at their fingertips and never really having to you know steve figure out how to do things on their own because something else has always been doing it for them holy cow we’re going to be in a world of hurt if we don’t train people how to do what dr kelly was just talking about yeah it’s kind of a balance right i mean this happened actually this week in thinking about exactly what you said and how it applies to health care john i mean
SPEAKER 05 :
There are people in a generation younger than I am that when they go have a CT scan, they don’t understand why it’s not read and back to them within a few hours. I mean, even if it’s a stat exam, sometimes it’s not. They’re like, well, wait a minute. When I need something, I Google and it’s right there. And they understand that some of the best parts of AI in healthcare thus far is the ability for it to look for anomalies in a diagnostic image, in a chest X-ray, a mammogram, whatever. So that generation is expecting speed, accuracy, and all that, and they’re not getting it right now from health care. And that may be part of the biggest challenge we have in health care.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dr. Kelly, that’s a great thing for you to speak on. I know I want to get to talking about where you were last week and update folks along those lines. But in reality, everything Steve is saying is accurate. the expectation level of individuals and we live in a very, you know, high expectation world right now, especially with AI. And the reality is, sometimes those things just can’t be delivered that way.
SPEAKER 06 :
They can’t be and they shouldn’t be, frankly. Certain things take time and need time for review. If you are reliant, for example, it’s been decades now that EKG machines come out. When it spits the EKG out of the machine, it comes with an automated reading. Many people might not know that. It was before we called it AI, the machine itself interpreted the EKG. And so you could get that immediate reading. It was frequently wrong. It is frequently wrong. The computer chip inside the EKG machine turns out isn’t as good as your average cardiologist or physician at reading EKGs. So I think the idea that we have the sense of immediacy for everything, people expect something to be done instantaneously, It’s not possible, and it’s not always the right thing. You need time for the clinician, I believe, to digest it, to review it, to put it in the context of the individual that they’re talking about, to give clinical context. And there are many, many times where a few extra minutes or even hours or days might can really make the difference between their correct reading and an incorrect one or an incomplete one.
SPEAKER 02 :
Makes sense. Again, I think that’s a great topic. I’ll put that on my list of things we can really dive into on down the road. But Dr. Kelly, I think because I know folks were asking me and even Steve and I were curious, you could not join us last week because of some things you were doing at the White House. And again, I know there’s things that you can and cannot share, and I’m not trying to pry and have you share anything that wouldn’t be appropriate, but Is it possible for you to give us a little bit of insight as to what was going on last Thursday?
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. I was honored to be included in the relatively small number of people invited in person to attend the big reveal, as it were, of the first MAHA reports. It’s an 83 page report that delved into the intricacies of everything they have found so far in the first roughly three and a half, four months of this administration with regard to the abysmal ill health of specifically American children and what HHS intends to do about it. There were a lot of, interestingly, industry people there, which I think, from my perspective, revealed a couple of things, including the fascination of this particular industry. administration with AI and data and the evaluation of data, perhaps the mining of data, things that people have been concerned about with regard to what everybody from Elon Musk to, you know, the electronic medical records or somebody in HHS or the IRS might do with personal data that they have about us. I did have the opportunity to speak one-on-one with Robert Kennedy and uh, secretary of HHS. Uh, the president was there for quite a period of time. The president was there for about 30 minutes, um, of the, uh, the event, uh, going over again, the things that he is prepared to do. Although many of us, I think, um, shared some disappointment that, um, when I say many of us, I mean the physicians primarily in the room, the business people, I don’t think care. Uh, but the physicians I think were somewhat disappointed. That there wasn’t sort of just carte blanche retraction of the mRNA shots from the market. We can talk more about that. But I think that overall, HHS is directionally correct in what they are focusing on, including all of the drivers of ill health, environmental factors, and that sort of thing. I will say that regardless of who’s in the White House, it is a remarkable opportunity to go there as a private citizen, particularly in a small group of people. It’s really otherworldly. We had the opportunity really to walk around. I’m sure there are gobs and gobs of security people there, but you didn’t really feel like it. You had the opportunity or I had the opportunity to walk from room to room in the common areas. It’s spectacularly beautiful. We were allowed to take pictures, and it was a lovely event. So I would encourage people to go to HHS.gov and actually download and read the report. It’s very telling in terms of what this particular administration is focusing on, and hopefully we’ll give a preview into what the things that are to come in the next months and years with regard to their efforts.
SPEAKER 02 :
Very, very cool. And again, as we were talking last Thursday, I said we’d most likely get an update this week. We weren’t sure exactly what was going on. And now this is another area where, again, don’t want to pry too much, but where are we at in regards to Surgeon General? Do they really have an idea who that’s going to be? Are they progressing in that? Is there going to be some retractions? What are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it’s anybody’s guess. I can tell you where we are, which is that I think most people know that Dr. Jeanette Nashua withdrew her nomination for good reason. She had been less than forthcoming about her actual credentials, and she would never have made it past through to confirmation as a result of those issues. The president announced that he was nominating Casey Means, Dr. Casey Means. which has had, there’s been quite a bit of consternation about that announcement, largely because of Dr. Means’ background. She did not finish her residency. She dropped out after having a mental breakdown of some sort and didn’t finish her residency. She does not have an active medical license, has never practiced medicine outside of her residency, and has been quite wishy-washy on issues regarding things like the vaccines. Although the president made that announcement, her name has not been formally submitted, interestingly, to the Senate yet. So the announcement was made, but her name is not on the docket. And therefore, no confirmation hearing has been set. I would not be surprised, honestly, if she withdrew. I wouldn’t be surprised if she used her pregnancy. She is pregnant, apparently. If she used her pregnancy as the reason why she was going to withdraw her name. But that’s again, it’s just pure conjecture on my part that has not happened. But I find it interesting that her name has not been formally submitted yet to the Senate.
SPEAKER 02 :
Interesting. Steve, your thoughts on all of that and the question I had for you. And we can get into this. I’ll have to take a break here in a minute. We can get into this as well afterwards. But Elon Musk, you know, he’s not going to be around as much right now. He says he’s focusing on his business. In fact, he’s now sleeping on, you know, factory floors and couches and so on because he’s really focused on, you know, getting back into that end of things. And the question I have for you specifically, Steve, is do you feel like. elon which i think at times i can very much relate to just gets frustrated at how slow things in washington move how deep not just the swamp but just how deep all of the nonsense the other nonsense that goes on there the things that you want to change but frankly probably can’t just because of the sheer magnitude of things that are in front of you you know these things need to be changed but on every In every corner that you’re trying to go around, there’s somebody there trying to eliminate you or trying to keep you from going around that corner. Everything from the legal system to other politicians and so on. Do you feel like he may be at a point where he’s just like, you know what? I tried. I did my best. I’ve got better things to do now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, I don’t think there’s any question that’s a factor. I mean, maybe you don’t remember this, but in 2015, I gave a speech in Southern Colorado in which someone in the room asked me if I believed that Donald Trump would be president. And this was before the first debate, which we held at CU that fall in October. In fact, it was on my birthday that year. And my answer to that was, I don’t think he will be because a man who makes decisions every single day that are significant and, you know, they have impact on lots of people and they’re financially important. Why would anyone want to assume an office where you have to go, you know, you have to have glacial speed before you get anything done? Now, Trump has overcome that with executive orders and how he’s managing the presidency. But those guys in those jobs, I mean, they make decisions at the speed of light. in order to stay up, be competitive, and gain the ground they have. So, yeah, he definitely has to be frustrated by it.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, we’ll come back, talk a little bit more about that. I want to get Kelly’s opinion on some of that as well. Dr. Scott Faulkner is up next. And, again, this is going to be my commercial because we don’t have some automation today that we normally have. So you’ll hear me talk about these commercials today. And, Steb, you hear me talk about Dr. Scott a lot. He’s hosted here for me in the past, and he is a great guy. He is exactly what Dr. Kelly and Steve and I talk about ongoing. He’s a concierge doctor. He’s going to do whatever is best for you, the patient, not what’s best for big pharma, not what’s best for big insurance, not what the next big trip is that if he – Pushes enough of X, Y, Z, he gets to go on said trip. No, that is not Dr. Scott. That’s not how he’s taking care of you. He’s going to do whatever is best for you, you alone, and he’ll handle it to the best of his ability using a lot of the things, by the way, that we talk about during this hour every single Thursday. You can schedule an appointment, talk to Scott directly. And by the way, you don’t get five to ten minute visits with Dr. Scott. You’re going to get an hour plus with him. And if you need him even outside of that appointment, That’s what the telephone or email or text messaging is for. And Scott will help you out along the lines every way he possibly can. 303-663-6990. Again, call Scott directly. Make sure you told him you heard him here, of course. 303-663-6990. And then, of course, Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning, one of our great sponsors. Know these guys well. I’ve actually known Doug, who’s Hunter’s dad. We hear Hunter a lot on the program. I’ve known Hunter’s dad, Doug, over 40-plus years now, old, old friend, and has been in the HVAC world that long. And just a great family, great individuals. They are growing as we speak, by the way. So if you call them and you might not get right in, or they may not be able to get out and get you right away, and what they’ll do is prioritize things depending upon what need you actually have. But again, don’t be frustrated if things are… gone awry and you’re trying to get them out as quickly as possible and it’s a day or so before they can come out, that’s why you know that time frame exists. So if you need them for anything, though, go to klzradio.com, look them up there. You can call them directly, 303-656-5467. And again, all of your HVAC needs. whether it’s furnace, which some of you, because of our cooler nights, might still be running, but the AC side as well. And again, whatever you need, give them a call, 303-656-5467. All right, Dr. Kelly, back to you. Talking about Elon Musk and… just the frustration i get frustrated sometimes even with the way things move i’m not even there i’m not in even your shoes i’m not able to sit in on some of these meetings at the white house and so on i don’t have the level of knowledge even that steve has when it comes to how the inner workings of some of these things are i’m like what steve was talking about a moment ago because i’ve been you know self-employed the majority of my life ran my own companies and so on when a decision gets made dr kelly we make that decision and move on i don’t have 15 different layers of hoops to jump through to try to figure out, can we do X, Y, Z? I’ve got to believe for a guy like Elon Musk and literally finally getting to Washington thinking, hey, we’re going to make some significant changes and then realizing that, oh, geez, we’ve got to go through this. We’ve got to go through that. This judge is going to try to stop us here. I mean, you just have to be extremely frustrated. My feeling, Dr. Kelly, is it’s why more high-level individuals like Elon Musk are not involved in a lot of the things that we do as a government, therefore hurting us at the end of the day because of that.
SPEAKER 06 :
100%, because the reality is private industry, the private sector, is far, far more efficient than government will ever be. So you get a guy like Elon who’s been super successful, and he’s successful for the same reason that the rest of us in the private sector are successful, because you figure out who’s functioning at a high level, who’s not. You cut people out. You figure out what’s best for your shareholders, and you do those things. It’s all a bunch of horse trading in government. It’s all of everybody’s jockeying for position constantly. You’re constantly having to make concessions to get something else. It’s why every bill that comes out of the Congress is… just loaded with pork, meaning it’s supposed to be a bill about health care. And it’s got stuff in there about, you know, the auto industry or schools or, you know, landscaping or climate change, because you in order to get anything done, you have to promise the other guy or the other guys and gals something else. And so it absolutely there’s so little forward movement. I don’t know. Honestly, you know, it is. honored as I was to be considered for the position of surgeon general, I have questioned over and over again how frustrated I would be working in that system because I am prone to action. I’m a trauma physician. I get it done. I don’t have time to be messing around, waiting to get consensus from everybody else. And so I think that somebody like an Elon has got to have been extraordinarily frustrated. He took so much criticism on top of it, which I just think is inexplicable. Given the work that he was doing, you would think that that would be embraced at a bipartisan level. He’s trying to save the American tax dollars from fraud and corruption. And that’s nothing but laudable.
SPEAKER 02 :
Steve, everything Kelly just said, I am right there. I know you’ve been closer to it than I, but I will also add this. It’s partially why even I struggle with serving on, and I have in the past, and I’ve done it, and I kind of feel like, I hate to say it this way, but I’ve sort of done my time. I’ve served on church boards, nonprofits, other type of trade organizations, and so on. And I will just tell you straight up, Steve, that part of why I think today I don’t any longer is because of a lot of things that Dr. Kelly just said a moment ago. I’m getting old enough anymore where I just don’t have the patience for all of the nonsense that goes on in a lot of those areas because you know you want to get something done. This particular organization needs to get this done. Here’s the answers as to how to get this done. And 15 committees later, you have no idea what you’re still doing.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I know. A couple of quick examples. One is we saw… SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket failed the other day at some level, but they extracted a whole bunch of information about how it did, and then they announced that they were going to be launching every three to four weeks. Can you imagine the U.S. government running that program?
SPEAKER 02 :
Nope.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, they’d wait three years before they could launch another one. So that was one of them. To the point you made about the slow-moving government, no-moving government that we’re dealing with, I mean, look, I posted on Twitter and I’ve tried on true social just saying ask for two things, like why is it taking so long for the big, beautiful bill? I mean, we have control of both houses. You know, they need to get it together and get something done. And speed is important as well as, you know, major cuts. And second is where’s the Epstein files, right? I mean, these guys have access to do things and they’re not doing them. It’s driving people nuts. It’s why I’ll never run for office again. I mean, I just don’t know how you can make a difference in a structure like that where no one gets things done. And at the same time, I have many times as a conservative said, I don’t want the government to overdo things either because I don’t want them in the way.
SPEAKER 02 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 05 :
Ask yourself the question. James Comer is interviewing a bunch of people about Biden. Will there ever be a referral and or a conviction to anyone in your mind who is involved in covering up the fact that the president did not have the capacity to be president?
SPEAKER 02 :
No.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’ll bet you not.
SPEAKER 02 :
No. I would agree. Dr. Kelly, I think you would agree with Steve and I on that one. No. And again, not to reiterate this, but Dr. Kelly, the reason why I don’t do some of the volunteer things that I once did, whether that be inside of politics, whether that be inside of church organizations, whether it be in other trade organizations and so on, is I guess I’m simply to that age where all of the nonsensical things that they make you jump through, and it’s not even as bad as government. Government is way worse. I just don’t have the patience any longer to… to put up with all of those things that go on in those organizations because my, I guess as I get older, Dr. Kelly, I just look at my own time is limited and I want to use it wisely and I don’t want to go through 15 committees to get something done.
SPEAKER 06 :
I agree with you. I think the efficiency is garnered by having fewer people involved in things. And the government’s response is always to do the opposite. Whenever there’s a problem, the government says we need to throw more money at it, more people, more committees, more time. When in private industry, you’d say, here’s the deal. Get me the two or three people who can actually get stuff done. And give them the task and they will get it done because they don’t get bogged down in, you know, in the committees and the constant meetings. You know, I watch so much waste. So much inefficiency in these groups that sit around and meet, and we’re having another Zoom call, and then they’ve got a summary report and this, and we keep tagging them, and nothing actually ever happens. Our government does so little in an average congressional session. When Congress is in session, they get so little done. Ask the average person in Congress. How many bills have you sponsored? What have you actually done? And the answer is very darn little. A lot of pomp and circumstance.
SPEAKER 02 :
So really quick, Steve, not to be negative, but is there going to ever be a fix for this? And then if not, what’s our alternative?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I mean, first of all, not only is Kelly right, but think about this scenario. Have you watched a confirmation hearing lately?
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, geez.
SPEAKER 05 :
I mean, even in the confirmation hearing, right? You know, this time around, the Democrats are sitting in the Senate confirmation hearing, and they’re making nothing but political points for themselves.
SPEAKER 02 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 05 :
By saying stuff and never letting a question be answered. It is absolutely a colossal waste of time.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yep.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, spending $20 million on the Biden family crime drama. Comer, Jordan, I like those guys, but that’s a waste of time, too. Is it ever going to get better? It’s not going to get better until being a political pundit inside your job as a congressman becomes a negative. We’ve got to stop rewarding these people for being so political and just making political points. If people are guilty of something, if they’ve broken the law, if they’ve been corrupt, look at what’s going on with James Comey. Now, they find all this stuff in the FBI office with James Comey, and, you know, we keep hearing, and I really struggle with people like Dan and Pam Bondi and these guys, oh, you know, Comey’s got this special drawer, and it was a secret drawer, and there’s secrets in it. And I’m like, okay, are you going to tell us what’s in the drawer? Because if that’s all you ever do, you’re not going to make me satisfied that I’ve got the right person in the job.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mm-hmm. Okay, so go ahead, Dr. Kelly, go ahead.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think that term limits would go a long ways to fixing things. And when I say term limits, I mean as in one, one term. That’s it. Because half these people, as Steve points out, in all of these hearings, they’re making political points because their eye is always on the next election. It’s always on their reelection. They’re campaigning the entire time. Day one that they get elected, they’re campaigning for the next time. So I think if we eliminated that and said, here’s the deal, I believe what our forefathers had in mind was that you were going to drop out of your job as the farrier, the postman, the dentist, the whatever, the town baker, and you were going to drop in, drop everything, serve your time, your civic duty in government, and then you were going to go home. Go back to your previous job. We weren’t supposed to have a bunch of career politicians. And that’s what we have. We have career politicians. That’s what these people do. Some of them have been in Congress. Look at people like Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden. You know, Ted Kennedy never got, you know, a paycheck from anybody other than the federal government ever in his life until the day he died. That’s not what the forefathers had in mind.
SPEAKER 02 :
So I just had a text message a moment ago, by the way, so I’ll throw this out to you, too. I’ll talk to you, Steve, first. The answer to the problem would get rid of professional politicians, which, again, Dr. Kelly, you just made a point that one way to do that would be with the term limits. But I’m going to come back and counter that and say, yeah, that’ll be a snowball’s chance in hell that that ever happens, Steve. I’m sorry to say it’s never going to happen.
SPEAKER 05 :
There’s an argument that is made often by conservatives about the freedom to choose who you want. So if you term limit somebody, you take away a choice, right? I mean, if you term limited Jeff Crank down in Colorado Springs, who’s in his first term in the U.S. Senate, if you term limited it, and I want to vote for Jeff and he can’t run anymore because of term limits, I’ve lost some freedom. I think we’re past that because it just doesn’t work the way it is. But Here’s the deal. I’m going to right now make Kelly Victory the head of HHS. And I’m going to tell you, Kelly, the only qualification you have for fixing health care is you must the fix must be able to be done within the election cycle, because if you want to take a generation to do it, it’ll never happen. What could you fix? Because that’s the problem. All of the things we need to do, especially health care, it needs a generation to fix it, and we’ve only got an election cycle, and that’s why we’re stuck.
SPEAKER 02 :
Great question.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think that, you know, as critical as I might be about the fact, as I said, that, for example, the mRNA shots haven’t been pulled off the market yet, Robert Kennedy and this HHS have made some really meaningful things. Look, we’ve been talking about things like artificial dyes for a long time. He’s already gotten those pretty much, you know, eliminated. already in a matter of months. That’s a big deal. You know, they are changing, you know, he’s changing the funding for the medical journals. He has said NIH, he made the statement this week, NIH will not publish. in the Lancet, the British Medical Journal, JAMA, Journal of American Medical Society. He said the NIH will not publish them because they’re corrupt, because those… once-storied medical journals are nothing more than propaganda. That’s a big deal for the HHS secretary to say that our government is not going to publish, that they’re going to start their own journal that is free from the overwhelming control of big pharma, which is why we don’t have any integrity any longer in our medical journals. So there are some big things that he is doing in a single term. Will it all get done? Absolutely not. So you’re right. A lot of these things won’t happen. But I am impressed with some of the things he has gotten done.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. So, Steve, go ahead. You just answered the question exactly the way I had hoped, which is you named some things that can be done in an election cycle. My point is get that whole list out. You know, he can get rid of fluoride in the water. He can probably get rid of the COVID shots. He can do things like that. Make sure… that in that election cycle, you do all of those things because they will contribute to changing health care, even if it takes a generation. However, you know, sitting up and saying, you know, I’m going to make health care less expensive and America healthy. Yes, I want to be healthy. I love the America, make America healthy again. I fear it’s not Robert’s problem. It’s the problem with how we view elections. If we don’t give those guys, especially in that group, If we don’t give them time to fix this, we’re not really asking them to do a job that can be done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Great point. Okay, segue there. We’ll come back in a moment. Again, this is Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush. KLZ 560, Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. And Dave Hart, we had him on yesterday actually talking about a lot of the storm chasers that are running around right now. Yes, we’ve had a lot of things roll through Colorado, different parts. Some of you have been affected by it. Everything from large hail to tornadoes to strong winds, things along those lines. And every circumstance is different. Every roof is different, by the way. In some cases, you may have a lot of damage. In other cases, not much. Our suggestion always is, before you do anything, before you pick up the phone and even call your insurance company to find out what you have that’s covered, talk to Dave Hart instead. He’ll come out. He’ll do an inspection. He’ll take a peek at everything, find out exactly how much damage is there. By the way, Dave is also very, very experienced when it comes to reading your policy, knowing exactly what it says in regards to your roof coverage. Because, again, that is not standard. You might not even have the same roof coverage now that you had a year ago, depending upon who’s handling your insurance. So give Dave a call first before you do anything else. And his number is 303. 710-6916. 303-710-6916. Again, Roof Savers of Colorado Commercial Residential. He does it all. Just give him a call today. Then, for those of you that have been kicking around with a collection of whatever, and when I mean whatever, it could be coins. Could be stamps, could be jewelry, could be watches, could be that sterling tea sets, things that you have either inherited, you’ve collected, you’ve gathered. Who knows how you acquired it, but you’re sitting around with this stuff thinking, man, I don’t even know what I have. I don’t know what it’s worth. I don’t know if I should get rid of it. Should I pass it on? Should I turn it in, turn it into cash? And before you think about going to one of those fly-by-night places that says, bring your gold coins here and we’ll turn them into cash, no. Call MahiCoin. Find out exactly what the value is. And for all KLZ listeners, it’s a free appraisal. All you have to do is go in, take all your stuff with you, and it’s a very secure thing, by the way, that we’re talking about here when it comes to David doing this. You’re in your own locked room and so on. You’re not out in public and handing over gold pieces and things like that. It’s all very secure. Find out what the value is. If you want to turn it into cash, David can do that for you as well. His number is 720- Again, 720-370-3400. And again, for those of you who may be tuning in for the first time, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush. We’re here every single weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. Our first hour replays from 6 to 7. And we have with us today Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House. They’ve been coming on with us, by the way, during this hour session on Thursdays for over five years now. Guys, we’ve been doing this for a very, very long time. So, Dr. Kelly, I want to throw this back to you. So, knowing everything we’ve just said, and yes, it can get a little discouraging. There’s things even I think that Donald Trump wants to get done, the administration wants to get done. We’re seeing all sorts of stalemates when it comes to even deporting certain individuals that aren’t even here legally, Dr. Kelly. And I look at all of that and I just think, okay, We don’t want to get down. We don’t want to just throw in the towel and say, OK, it’s over. I’m just going to go huddle in my own little corner, go live in a cave and see what’s next. On the same token, it can get very discouraging. There are people out there, really good, solid, America-first loving individuals that want to see what’s best for our country. But I do think at times they get very discouraged, Dr. Kelly, because they’re doing everything they possibly can. And it just seems like the other side gets win after win after win. And yet we’re doing the very best we can, but we don’t seem to have enough wins on our side.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I agree. And I think that it is easy to get very down. Believe me, it happens to me because I spent so much of my life immersed in this. What I recommend that people do is focus on yourself and your family. You don’t need government to do most of this. I don’t need government to fix the food system for me to eat healthy food. I know what they are. I can make the choices myself. You can keep all the artificial dyes in there. Keep them all in there. don’t buy those products. You have that option, okay? You have that option. And I think we need to stop waiting for government, you know, insert whatever word you want, for government, for your doctor, for somebody else to parachute in and fix what’s wrong in your life. You know, your priest isn’t going to do it. Your doctor isn’t going to do it. Your government isn’t going to do it. You know, your spouse isn’t going to do it. At some point, people really need to say, I am the captain of my soul. I am going to take control of my life and make the best choices I can every single day to do those things that make me happy, that make me healthy, that make me a good person, that put me in the right position in front of God. You have that ability with rare, rare exception. No one is forcing you to participate in all this stuff. So at some point, turn off the TV. I don’t care if you’re watching Fox News or MSNBC, you know, which end of the spectrum you’re on. Turn it off. Start taking control of your own life and don’t get completely sucked into that morass that we call Washington, D.C., because a lot of this stuff on a day to day basis is within your control. Make the right choices.
SPEAKER 02 :
Great advice, Steve. I know you would agree with all of that being said. I want to ask you, though, on top of everything Dr. Kelly said, financially speaking, because, yes, government does have a lot of impact upon our own finances, what they decide to do with policy and so on. At the end of the day, Steve, I agree with Dr. Kelly. Turn off all of the garbage that’s on TV. Go do your own thing. Be responsible for yourself and so on. Financially speaking, though, which this is a big area for you as well, what do folks do along those lines? Because government does affect our pocketbook greatly.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I know. Whether you’re talking about Social Security, Medicare, federal income taxes, public works, rarely do you find any area where we really get our money’s worth. And, you know, because because of some of the things we see, right, not just what we saw Doge find in USAID and all these other things. I mean, I question whether or not are we we basically as citizens, are we by paying our taxes, filing our tax returns? Are we telling Congress, government at all level, local, state and federal? Are we telling them that we approve of what they’re doing with our money? Because that’s the problem. The problem is, how do you tell them it’s not acceptable if you can’t unelect them? Fifty-one seats in the U.S. are competitive in the entire U.S. House and probably six in the Senate. You can’t unelect people in this country because you don’t like how they’re spending your money because there’s too much leverage if you’re an incumbent. I don’t know what to do about it, John. I question it every single day when I have to look down and see what taxes came out of the pay I just got.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and Dr. Kelly, that’s another thing where I agree with you on all of the health things especially and even how we live our lives and what we’re doing even as far as entertainment and all those different things go. I get all of that, but then there’s the other flip side of this, which is as much as we want to bypass, if you would, government, do things on our own, there’s the financial piece that those guys are taking big chunks out of on a routine basis.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, you better believe it. There’s no question. And I’m not sure what the fix is on that. Obviously, you know, you vote you vote accordingly. But as Steve said, you know, we’re we’re pretty much stuck with them. And regardless of who we vote into office. They all seem to, you know, Trump’s big, beautiful bill. Look, you know, Elon Musk wasn’t happy with it because it drives up spending. And, you know, people are sick of the spending because, you know, we need to keep reminding people the government has no money other than that which it takes from its citizens in the form of taxes. OK, the government doesn’t have money. Any money it spends is your money. It’s my money. It’s our money. And so you are right there. They spend like a bunch of drunken sailors. And I don’t know how you control that. So the best thing I can do is control what the decisions I make on a daily basis when it comes to the financial piece. You know, boy, pray. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, because, and again, and I get this question a lot even from different listeners and so on, and while there are certain things that we can do, even financially speaking, make the right investments, be concerned about what are you spending your money on, how much debt do you have, what’s your debt load like, what are you investing in? I mean, there’s all sorts of things that you can do that… that in a way can either work against government or coincide, I guess you could say, with their policy changes and so on. And that’s where I think you do have to be paying attention to what they’re doing next because those things can have an impact. But like you, Dr. Kelly, when it comes to those things, there’s only so much you can even control of that. Now, I will also say this. I’m going to throw this out there. Steve, I’ll let you answer. Those of you that have the ability, like me and the three of us, where you’re setting your own destiny, quote-unquote, by owning your own business and doing your own thing, I will tell you straight up, Steve, and I think you would agree with me, you can counter a lot of what government’s doing by owning what you do versus somebody else owning it for you. In other words, when you work for somebody else and they own your time versus you working for yourself and owning your own time, that’s quite a difference from one side to the other, is it not?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, yeah, there’s that simple equation, right, that says when you own a business, what you do is you earn money, you pay all your bills, and you pay taxes on whatever you have left over. When you work for somebody else, you earn money, you pay taxes on what you earn, and you pay your bills with whatever you have left over. There’s no inherent control that way. And government gets in a way. I mean, let’s be honest. There’s two big concepts. One is The Constitution is supposed to be a framework for a just society. It’s been distorted in so many ways that it isn’t all that just of a society anymore. The framework’s crumbling. And the other is we were supposed to operate under a free-market capitalist society. But when the Constitution and government overrides free-market capitalism, you get an incredibly distorted reality where – I’ll give you an example. John, you have a competitor who’s right across the street from you. You’re consuming resources from rubber to oil to whatever, and you’re doing a good job in earning a profit and paying taxes. The guy across the street consuming the same stuff, not doing a good job, losing money, writing it off on his taxes, not paying any taxes. The same set of resources were used radically differently between two people, and one of them was a failure to all of us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
So reward good behavior, don’t penalize it like we do.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh boy, that one’s really big. And again, that’s another one of those areas where I have to believe Dr. Kelly that, you know, I know I’m using Elon as an example. There’s been others like him that have tried to do similar things, probably not on the grand scale that he’s been trying to do, Dr. Kelly. But I got to believe that, again, a lot of what Steve just said a moment ago, he’s looking at, Elon looks at and says, Holy cow. I just don’t know if there’s any way that anybody, myself included, can come along and make significant changes without giving up every single thing that they have in their life. Keep in mind, with Elon, could he do a lot of those things? I think he probably could, providing that he would want to give up a lot of the other entities and things that he’s vested in. But the reality, Dr. Kelly, is if he does that, at the end of the day, he may have nothing.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I agree. And by the way, speaking of what Elon did, he revealed, he exposed the most egregious graft fraud and corruption in our government. If you go down that list and the amounts of money that he exposed that were being spent on things that were absolutely nonsensical, absolutely ridiculous, I can’t imagine anybody other than perhaps the people directly involved in running those particular programs that anyone could justify those things. The idea that we have gotten that far off the reservation in our government, I don’t know how you get back on. When you tell me that somebody signed off on giving millions of dollars to run transgender story hour in Afghanistan or to do some ridiculous scientific study that is absolutely – you can’t even make this stuff up. It’s Babylon Bee stuff.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, you can’t. That’s right. That’s right.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s absolute, you think it was Saturday Night Live. So when we are that far, when there’s been that much disregard for our money, we pay these people with the idea that they’re going to be good stewards of our money, that they’re going to use our tax dollars to fix the roads and build better schools and have a competent military and those sorts of things. And then instead you find out that that’s what they did with it. I mean, people should be absolutely curious. It’s hard to not want to run every one of them out of town on a rail, you know, to absolutely flush and start over. So I was surprised that Elon exposed what he exposed. And that there wasn’t, as I said, overwhelming, frankly, mutiny. I said, oh, my gosh, we’re going to have a civil war over this. People are going to be so angry or a revolutionary war. People are going to be so angry once they find out what our government has done with our money. But it didn’t happen. People were really, if anything, people got upset at Elon Musk. You know, it was get angry, you know, kill the messenger rather than saying, wow, we have got some reckoning to do with our government to get it back anywhere near on track.
SPEAKER 02 :
Steve, part of the problem that I feel in all of this, and this is something where, again, I don’t know what the fix for – well, I do know what the fix for this is. I don’t know how you implement the fix. Let me say it that way. I think part of the problem, even with what Dr. Kelly just said a moment ago, is only about 55 percent or so of Americans actually are net taxpayers, meaning there is about 45 to almost 50 percent – of citizenry out there that pay absolutely no taxes in other words there’s no skin in the game in a lot of cases steve they are net tax receivers meaning i hate to say this to dr kelly they don’t care where all that money got spent because they’re not paying that they have no skin in the game until that gets fixed steve i don’t see how a lot of these other problems actually get resolved
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s true, John. It’s like you don’t wash your rental car because you don’t own it. There’s no ownership. I think that the answer is to have a you know, a value-added tax, a national sales tax, if you will, and get rid of income tax. So you consume, you pay. You don’t consume, you don’t pay. There’s nothing fairer than that in my mind. And of course, you know, part of consumption is I want to drive on the road. And if the road isn’t, you know, if I’m driving on the road and there’s a toll for driving on a particular road, and yet the road’s not well built, I should have the right to complain and the right to see some answers and get a strategy. So It’s never going to work with a regressive income tax. It’s never going to work with a state and a federal tax. You know, the states that have no state income tax seem to do better financially than the ones who do. And there’s a reason for that. Usually they have a little bit higher sales tax.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right. Everybody’s paying.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Everybody’s paying.
SPEAKER 05 :
How do you question fairness if everyone pays a sales tax when they consume something?
SPEAKER 02 :
And again, Dr. K, not to argue with you at all because I would never do that, but the reality is I think the reason why a lot of the people don’t care about the things that you just mentioned and where that money was being wasted is they’re not paying the bill. Why would they care?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, I think you hit the nail on the head, and I think that’s exactly why, because they have no vested interest in this, so they don’t care. All they get are the entitlements. All they get are the freebies. They get all the goodies.
SPEAKER 02 :
Really quick, in fact, let’s go one step further. If they think for one second that part of their freebie might be taken away, that might be about the only thing they really care about, and they don’t care about the money being wasted. They care about that they’re not going to get their money anymore.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct. They only care about the party favors. And they get all the party favors that a smaller and smaller percentage of us pay for those party favors. And it’s getting old. So, you know, you call it what you will, but this is what turns – these are the things that civil wars are made of. These are the things when the number of people paying the bill gets small enough and the number of people taking – You know, gets big enough at some point there’s going to be, you know, it’s going to get to a breaking point. And I think we are darn close to that. I was very, very hopeful that this administration was going to turn it around. But if if they don’t allow people like Elon Musk to get in there and do what he was brought in to do, expose these things and eliminate them. Make the cuts. Cut, cut, cut. Bobby Kennedy, too. Bobby Kennedy got on there, and he cut out 20,000 people from HHS. I was in full support of that. These are bloated, top-heavy organizations that have minimal accountability, and that has got to change.
SPEAKER 02 :
With that, I will let you guys go an hour. Rolls by fast. Thank you guys so much. Dr. Kelly, I’ll let you go first, and I appreciate all you do for us.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. We’ll talk again soon.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right. Sounds great. Steve, you as well. Appreciate your wisdom. And all I can say is we can just keep fighting. That’s all we can do.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Kelly should still be Surgeon General. That’s my opinion.
SPEAKER 02 :
I agree. I agree. I’ll leave it at that. Steve, I appreciate you, man. Have a great night. Okay. Take care. All right. Up next, Veteran Windows and Doors. And there’s a great sale right now at Veteran Windows and Doors. And, again, the difference between Dave and a lot of the other window and door companies, and I have experienced this personally, is there’s no gimmicks. Dave comes out, sits down, has a conversation, gets out the tape measure. What windows are we looking at? What are we trying to accomplish here when it’s all said and done? Are we looking at one window? Are we looking at more than one window? Really, what is the end goal for you? In other words, what do you as a homeowner want when this is all said and done? And he will customize anything that you need when it comes to those windows and doors. The other guys, they don’t look at it that way. In fact, they are typically trying to sell you things that you, A, don’t need, B, don’t want. They try to trick you into the gimmicky end of things with UV light and other things that may or may not even be a factor when it comes to that particular window in your house. And they really try to sell you on high pressure and gimmicks. And I’m being 100% honest because I’ve experienced exactly that. You don’t have that at Vector Windows and Doors. They do, Dave does, what’s best for you and your home. And he challenges anybody else to come along and do it better than he does. That’s why he doesn’t care if you go out and get a second opinion. Find him at klzradio.com, 303-529-0720. Make sure you tell Dave you heard him right here on Rush to Reason. Ridgeland Auto Brokers next. I talked to Josh this morning, by the way. He has got over 50 cars in stock right now when it comes to the inventory. He has new used cars, I should say. So if you’re looking to make an upgrade… downgrade you’ve had an accident you need to do something different with your vehicle you’ve got kids now that might start driving and I’ve always said that even if your child is 15 and they’ve just got their permit and they’re learning how to drive put them in the car that they’re going to be driving in the end don’t put them in your car Put them in the car that they will own. Get them familiar with that. Try to reduce that accident proneness that can happen with new drivers as much as possible. And those are the kind of cars that Ridgeline Auto Brokers can help you with. They’re there on the weekends as well, on Saturdays, because in Colorado we can’t sell cars on Sunday. So make sure if you want to do anything on a Saturday, you call them as well. RidgelineAutoBrokers.com is their website. Again, RidgelineAutoBrokers.com. Paul Leuenberger, also a good friend of mine. And he is a guy that has been helping me on the insurance sides of things for a decade or more. He is a guy that would love to help you out as well. Paul is now a broker. He was strictly with American National Insurance. And for some of you that maybe are still with them, And Paul might still be representing them. He can represent a lot of other companies as well. So he has gone on the broker route now. So if you’ve got something you need insured, he can help you with that. That includes still to this day because he kind of made a name for himself on the classic car, performance car end of things. But he can do home, auto, the classic car end of things. In the near future, he’ll be able to handle business insurance as well. But if you want to learn how to save money on insurance, be insured the best way possible. And when I say save money on, there’s ways to even work your deductible and that end of things around to where you can save money, do a little bit of self-insuring, and Paul can help you with all of that and how to save money in the end. And especially for our listeners, it works out very well when it’s all said and done. 303-662-0789 is the phone number. 303-662-0789. And, yeah, please, once again, tell Paul that you heard him right here on Rush to Reason. And I don’t stress this enough. Please, anybody you use that you hear here on our program, Make sure you tell them that you actually hear them, that you’re calling in because of us. That helps not only them out greatly because they know what their advertising dollars are doing, but it helps me out as well when it’s all said and done. Back to Dr. Kelly and Steve. And again, for those of you who may be tuning in for the very first time, we have had them on during this first hour on Thursdays for about five years now. We started early into COVID, August. Well, Steve and I were talking about it all the way through COVID, but Dr. Kelly started joining us in August during that first season of COVID in 2020. She’s been with us almost every single Thursday since. And as you heard today, she was last Thursday out in the White House. listening to a report on Maha and different things. And they were looking for input from folks like her. And she’s very well connected along those lines. And we are very, very fortunate, I believe, to have Dr. Kelly with us. And we’ve become great friends. She’s great friends of all of us here on our program. A lot of you have asked questions directly to Dr. Kelly. And in a lot of cases, I can get those answers right back from her. She has been very instrumental in what do you do if you’ve got COVID? What do you do if you took the shot and you didn’t want to have the shot? Where are you at with that now? All those different things. She has been just, I can’t say this enough, she has been such a blessing to all of us here at Rush to Reason and KLZ that I know all of us, and Dr. Kelly, if you’re still listening, you have just been a real light in a very during covet especially a dark time and and i’ve had people you know individuals come up to me and say thank you for what you guys have done during that first hour on thursdays i have learned so much it’s helped my entire family we have listeners literally that tune in because i can tell this from the text line and the area codes we have got listeners that are tuning in from all across the country to listen to this particular hour each and every week so with that If there’s an hour that you have heard that you want to share, send on to somebody else, you can do that. Go to our website, RushToReason.com. Typically, it’s a few hours after we’re off air. Those things will be uploaded. Sometimes it’s the next morning, depending upon how quickly things load in our system. But those shows are always available. You can find those. You can send those on to family members, relatives, other folks that you may want to have listen to any hour. It doesn’t have to be just this hour. But any hour during the week, you’re more than welcome to do that again. Just go to RushToReason.com, and you can listen there. All right, the first hour of Rush to Reason is done. We’ve got two more hours coming your way, and we will be right back after the top of the hour news here. This is Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
