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Join Bill Gundersen as he navigates the tumultuous waters of the current stock market in this riveting episode. With the S&P seeing significant losses, tariffs created by trade tensions bring forth reminiscences of past economic upheavals. Bill and Barry Kite dive deep into the implications of these tariffs, discussing how they remind us of pivotal moments like the market crash of 1987 or the early COVID-19 economic shock. Although markets are experiencing pressure, interest rates are declining, posing both a challenge and an opportunity in today's financial landscape. In a world where global economies are interlinked more than ever, tariffs can significantly impact industry giants like Apple and put pressure on various sectors, particularly retail and technology. This episode explores how political decisions and trade policies are deeply intertwined with market performance, influencing everything from commodities' price fluctuations to manufacturing strategies across countries like China and Vietnam. Listen in as Bill theorizes on the potential long-term effects, assessing the role of manufacturer decisions on the current market status. Reflecting on historical patterns and current market behavior, Bill shares lessons from past crises, emphasizing the importance of resilience in financial management. With insights on consumer behavior, geopolitical impacts, and the significance of understanding market dynamics, Bill and Barry propose strategies for navigating this turbulent period. While there may be darkness on the horizon, the episode ends with a hopeful perspective that echoes the market's resilience through past challenges like COVID-19 and the financial crisis of 2008. Will today's economic challenges pave the way for similar opportunities?
SPEAKER 02 :
He's been seen on CNBC, the Fox News Channel, and the Fox Business Channel. His articles can be found on MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TheStreet.com, and many other places. He's the author of the weekly Best Stocks Now newsletter and the inventor of the Best Stocks Now app. He's president of Gundersen Capital Management. Here is professional money manager Bill Gundersen.
SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome to the Friday, it is the Friday bloodbath version of the Best Stocks Now show. There's got to be a capitulation in here somewhere. However, we'll find out at some point in time. This is Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And I'm here with Barry Kite, our chartered financial analyst, who's back on vacation. He should have stayed on vacation. He should have never came home. It wasn't that long ago that the S&P was trading at 6,200 or 6,100, I want to say. And now it's at 5,200. So things have gotten a lot cheaper. We're down 166 points again on the S&P. That works out to 3.1%. As China strikes back with a 34% tariff of their own on the goods that we export to them, which I don't know that they buy that many goods from us, but it is what it is. The Dow is down another 1,000. Another four-digit drop. It's down 1,072. It reminds me of COVID. This is not COVID, however. And let's not forget that that COVID in March of 2020 created one of the best buying times of all in my memory. But the Dow is down 2.7%. NASDAQ down 3.3% right now. Silver lining? The 10-year. Oh, my gosh. Interest rates have plunged. Trump's been the best president for the bond market we've ever had. Now, the jury's still out on his second term in the stock market. So welcome to today's Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson. And I'm here with Barry Kite, our chartered financial analyst. Barry wasn't there in 1987 when... The Dow went down 23% in one day, and then it climbed back within several months of that. But Barry's dad was there, and Barry remembers what it was like when his dad came home from work that day. Right, Barry?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you could see it. Put it this way. You could see it on his face. Yeah. You knew something happened? I wasn't sure what it was.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sometimes my wife will say, you look like you've seen a ghost. Well, you know I did. It's called the NASDAQ, the QQQ. Okay, we're going to go through this because there's differing opinions all over the place. I think the best interview that I've heard regarding this tariff matter, and even the conservative pundits, I mean the liberal pundits are all against the tariff idea. And even the conservative pundits are against it. I've listened to them all, pretty much. For me, the very best interview I heard was Charlie Kirk with Victor Davis Hanson, a fellow Californian, a Stanford scholar. I really liked his take, because he goes back to the old days when America was more of a... You know, grunt labor and muscle labor type of country instead of just software programmers and whatnot. Nothing against them. But I really liked his... I think it put it in perspective for me. We're also finding out those that really hate Trump and this administration and those that are keeping their fingers crossed. That's kind of where we are at right now. If there's a silver lining, crude oil is $61.32 today. Do you know what that's going to do with the gas pump, Barry? No. I mean, your gas, who knows? I paid $2.99. I filled up Wednesday, and it was $2.99. It'll be interesting to see what it goes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, was that at Costco, or was that at a normal gas station?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I went to my friend as a big employee at our local Refuel.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. Yeah, Refuel. So I paid $2.99.
SPEAKER 04 :
Am I paying too much?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you know, I think at Costco with the membership, it's usually a little cheaper, but anything under $3, right? Okay, all right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I've got to believe we're going to see a big plunge in gasoline prices. That's good for inflation, number one. Okay, number two. He's been the best president we've ever had for the bond market. And, you know, Besant went in there. They obviously have a game plan, all right? And I think right at the top of their game plan was get government spending under control, number one. And number two, get interest rates under control, which would be good for the economy. Do you know that the 10-year right now is sitting at 3.94 with no help from the Fed?
SPEAKER 03 :
And you know what it was in July?
SPEAKER 04 :
4.8%. He's brought it down 100 basis points. Now, that's good for real estate. That's good for the automobile market. That's good for credit cards, et cetera, anything that's interest rate sensitive.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good for the interest line on our U.S. budget. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, he can refinance a lot of our debt, right, at a much lower price, which I think is what they're aiming to do.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's what I think they're shooting for. I mean, what's easier? Like I said a few weeks ago, what's going to save more money, cutting 30,000 jobs at the federal level or reducing interest rates? We know our interest costs, and you know the interest costs. They're huge.
SPEAKER 04 :
So, yes, okay, he's been the best president I've ever seen for interest rates so far. But, obviously, the jury is still out on what he'll do for the stock market his second time around. That's all I can say was I never saw a better stock market in my career in the business other than the first few months of 2000 and late 1999 during the tech boom. Before it crashed, I never saw a better stock market than during Trump's first administration. So the jury remains out on that, but I think you can look to the success that he had in his first term as president and hope that he's getting all of this out of the way quickly, ripping off the bandage, so to speak, evening the trading playing field, and others are against him. Ben Shapiro is against what Trump is doing. Charlie Kirk had on Victor Davis Hanson. And I've listened to them all. Of course, CNBC is calling this a COVID moment. I mean, they are likening what's going on in the world and the economy right now to the morgue trucks pulling up in COVID and loading the dead bodies into the freezer trucks, right, and everything. The economy has not come to a halt.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yeah, look at the jobs report this morning. It's hard to take. You've got to kind of peel, and it's hard to do. And you're touching all the bases, right? You've got to pull all the kind of political angst out of it. But all the news we get, most of it is obviously fed through that political lens.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and I think people that have listened to me for any period of time know that I'm a numbers guy. And yes, this is going to have an impact. I do believe that the earnings for the S&P 500 are going to take a temporary hit. There's going to be a material hit. What do you think this does to Gap Stores? What do you think this does to Abercrombie & Fitch? What do you think this does to Home Depot, to Walmart, etc.? And on down the line, I mean, it's like this will probably put Kohl's over the top. I don't know how much of their stuff comes from China, but... Inverse ETFs against retail are doing pretty well right now. The VIX, you can buy the VIX. That thing's up to 38.5 right now. So, you know, we're going to... The companies that have offshored things... are definitely in the spotlight right now. And I think that really showed up big time yesterday with the sell-off in Apple.
SPEAKER 03 :
Restoration Hardware was an interesting one. Do they offshore? They have a lot of Chinese. I think a lot of their stuff comes from China, and they dropped 44% yesterday.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, okay. So, all right, they're being punished big time. If you offshored... Well, you know, I mean, look, GM and Ford and those, they don't have their hands clean. A lot of this stuff was offshored. In the San Diego area where I live, Fallbrook, California is the avocado capital. It was the avocado capital of the world. You know, the mountains of Fallbrook were covered with avocado trees, and then along came the EPA. The Water Authority, all the regulators in California, etc. And then came NAFTA, which pretty much was the final nail in the coffin of the avocado. groves and now you're getting avocados at walmart for 78 cents or whatever the case may be they're not the big beautiful ones like we had in fallbrook the fuertes or the zutanos but uh you know they they were a lot cheaper so there's a lot to discuss today uh goldman sachs says tariff risk for industrial this is going to be an interesting earning season How many companies, Barry, in their earnings calls will mention tariffs?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think we had a record number last time. Yeah. The question is, I want to know how many of them will be able to keep giving guidance.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think they're going to give guidance, you know, on the worst-case scenario. Yeah. And we're going to really expose the companies that have offshored a lot of their goods. And, you know, and I do think that this will all settle out. Do you think China needs... Us? Well, there's six freighters right now in our port unloading Chinese goods. We'll be right back. And welcome back here to the second quarter of today's Best Stocks Now show. Well, Barry, you weren't with us yesterday. You had some well-deserved time off. But we went through the tariffs that other countries are charging us, okay? And if you figure, of course, now they're doubting the math and everything because Trump also included in their currency manipulation and trade barriers tariffs. But China is at 67%, the European Union 39%, Vietnam 90%, Taiwan 64%, Japan 46%, India 52%, South Korea 50%, Thailand 72%, Switzerland 61%, Indonesia 64%, and the list goes on and on and on. And, of course, Trump has countered with half of that. in his reciprocal formula that he used. Now, how badly does China need us? Okay, so I remember at the bottom of tariff, I mean, we're talking like February, March of 2020, and it seemed like the whole world was going to end. We were going right off of a cliff. and two-thirds of the world's population would die from COVID, blah, blah, blah, and on and on and on. Okay, well, we called. Eventually, the market realized that it was going to get through it. Markets are pretty resilient, to be honest with you. And we had called an all-in buy in March of 2020. You go back in Seeking Alpha and look at that. It was one of the best buying opportunities of all time. How would you compare, Mr. CFA, this Trump tariff turmoil? It's self-inflicted, okay? That's the hard part.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's the hard part for me to digest, right, is the fact that it is a self-inflicted wound. Now, is there a larger plan, and is everything going to work out in the end? I have hope and hope that that's the outcome. Do I wish we got a little more clarity and paint that picture for me? Sure. But it's much different. You talked about – I was thinking this on the way back. You were talking about the white switch, right? It was the economy. Yeah. You knew in COVID that the economy was coming back on, right? Yes. So it basically flipped a switch, right? And you had that V-shaped recovery there. I guess this one would be, you know, if you're using the light switch analogy, maybe it's more of a dimmer switch.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, keep turning the lights back on very slowly, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
But the economy is still going. I mean, basically, you know, essentially the economy came to a halt. Yeah, we shut down.
SPEAKER 04 :
We couldn't leave our house. I guess we could order from Amazon, which gets 70% of their stuff from China.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, couldn't leave the house. I remember, you know, the only folks that, you know, a lot of folks at least around here that could move, certainly medical professionals, but it was really the ports, you know, folks who moved truck drivers, folks who moved some goods around. And other than that, there wasn't a lot of, you know, everything else is pretty much, if you were driving around, you better have a good reason for it.
SPEAKER 04 :
or a permit you know and let's not forget europe okay i if you import if china wants to sell an ev in europe a byd uh 17 percent tariff on that car so china is kind of squeezed wherever they look because everybody's charging tariffs on them and how much does china depend on us. I'm sure you saw some freighters in our port loaded with containers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's one or the other. It's harder to calculate, right? But obviously, we import more than we export, so you do... The old adage, US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. They need us as a trade partner, or at least have historically.
SPEAKER 04 :
The second point I'd like to bring up, the first quarter was the golden quarter for European stocks. And I talked earlier this week, maybe last week, about how that's all come to a sudden halt because they've woken up to a world, a whole new world, and it's even worse than they thought that it would be, okay? So that European safe haven is definitely gone. And, you know, I thought for a while, I thought China might be a safe haven because they basically, like Alibaba just sells to China mostly, right? uh no tariffs there at all but what's this going to do to the chinese economy and the chinese consumer how much of their economy is dependent upon manufacturing and exports a big chunk i'm guessing 80 percent well they've been trying to build you know they've been trying to build their you know quote-unquote middle class right to be more of a
SPEAKER 03 :
consumption economy more of a service economy like we are right using us as an example but you know certainly covid set that back and they've you know i mean it's hard to build a middle class in a communist society by the way so yes it's very right so that's that they haven't been successful at that so they are still very much dependent on manufacturing and exporting whether it's to us or other countries so i mean they can lash out
SPEAKER 04 :
today this morning which they did i mean they're putting a 34 percent tariff on anything they import from america which i doubt that there's very much that they import from america yeah i mean more high-tech side of things right i mean it's not like you know they're not uh you know they were supposed to buy a bunch of our farming products right yes they haven't they haven't No, and they haven't come through with that. So soybeans and the grain and things like this and our oil and natural gas. But they're not importing model train parts and bicycles and pressure washers from us, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
They're not importing too many Dodge Rams, I would imagine.
SPEAKER 04 :
So anyways, they're going to come to the bargaining table, just like COVID eventually left the shores, and it wasn't as bad as everybody thought originally. But I will say this. If you listen to CNBC right now or read the Wall Street Journal or listen to Bloomberg, you would think that this is worse than COVID. In fact, I heard one of their guys yesterday. I listened to them all. You know, I try to take it all in and try to discern for myself where the truth lies. UBS especially hates Trump. They haven't done this yet, but I think they're going to put a zero target price on the S&P 500 before it's all over. So anyways, they're playing into the panic, I would just say. There's no question about it. Not that there's not disruption. Not that Gap Stores isn't in trouble and Kohl's and others that depend on cheap China goods to keep the lights on and the doors open and the consumer coming in. But there's going to be some heavy, big, the first shot, the first salvo has been fired today. And I truly believe that just like COVID, we got through it. Just like 08 and 09, we got through it. And in fact, in March of 08 and 09, that was one of the very best buying times of all time, if you look at what the markets have done since then. Now, are we there yet? No. I mean, the first salvo has been fired. We are sitting in a lot of cash, but we still have exposure to the markets. Maybe, I don't know. I have to look where we're at right now. 60-40, 50-50 cash equities. But anyways, I do truly believe that we will get through this. We'll be right back. This is Bill Gunderson. Thank you for tuning in to today's Best Stocks Now, Best Inverse Funds Now show. Now, back to the second half of the show.
SPEAKER 05 :
And welcome back here to the second half of today's Best Docs Now show.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Trump says he is open to tariff negotiations if he's offered something phenomenal. Typical Trump language. That's where he begins the negotiations at. Now, let's look at the fallout, okay? Nissan, big-time problems to halt U.S. orders for SUVs built in Mexico after Trump tariff shock. Okay, now, I'm not sure. I think it's, is it May 2nd when the tariffs actually will be on the sticker price, or is it immediately?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think it's May 5th. I thought it was May 5th. I know there's some that kick in tomorrow. I thought there was some on April 5th. When they actually show up on actual sticker prices, I'm not exactly sure. I know some of it's going to be up to, obviously, up to the company, what they pass on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, well, they can lower the price of the car, but they can't lower the price of the tariff. It's going to be in there. Nissan said it will maintain its Tennessee plants Rogue production. That's where they make the Rogue. After announcing in January it would end one of the two shifts this month. And that plant's been there for years. And they also have a joint venture, does Nissan, with Mercedes-Benz. It will stop accepting additional U.S. orders for the Infiniti QX50. That's a pretty car. And the QX55, which are produced where? In Mexico. Oh. Okay, so, oh, no, it says the global truck and tariff took effect on Thursday. Oh, okay. It is in effect now over there at Nissan. Okay. copper and aluminum prices plunge against again as tariffs spark worry over global growth slowdown well i'm just going to say that that would seem to offset the inflation fear from the tariffs maybe not entirely but it seems to me that you know the u.s buyer consumer is not going to pay the tariff
SPEAKER 03 :
That's still the lumber. Yeah, it's the lumber down 8% today. I mean, everything, input costs, right? What you're referring to is input costs have been going down.
SPEAKER 04 :
You mentioned oil.
SPEAKER 1 :
$62.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's one of the major input costs. It's in everything, all right? Copper, aluminum, absolutely diving, which to me is offsetting the... The tariffers, even though UBS says they're predicting 5% this year in inflation, and it's pretty obvious that UBS is looking at this as, you know, we're going to get this guy Trump, we don't like him, and a lot of people don't like him, I understand.
SPEAKER 03 :
And how have you seen, Bill? I mean, you've noticed in terms of earnings estimates. I mean, I know you've been doing the newsletter. You haven't seen any changes in earnings estimates from the street yet.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, but I do think probably by this, when I look at the earnings estimates today, Friday and Saturday morning are my day when it's nice and peaceful, nice and quiet. I can think straight. The market's not... being in jiving all over the joint you know i can think straight look at those earnings estimates i i don't think that they've really been factored in i don't think that they could really factor them in yet right but i would not be surprised to see a 15 percent hit to this year's earnings estimates by next year i think everything will straighten its way out well we've already taken a 15 percent hit in the market i mean the market has already factored in a 15 percent hit to earnings this year 2025 And so, you know, it should be all up from here. I mean, I think it's already been priced into the market. But it will start showing up now, especially Gap stores. You know that Starbucks, I mean, how much coffee do we grow in America? Do we grow any?
SPEAKER 05 :
Any?
SPEAKER 04 :
Does North Carolina have coffee trees? I don't know. Does Colorado? Maybe Jeff knows. I don't think so. And I think they're going to have to make exceptions for certain items that we don't produce.
SPEAKER 03 :
And they announced, I saw something where you announced a list of different items. I think it was yesterday evening when I was traveling. But it does create a lot of confusion, particularly if you're the one that's cranking out some Excel sheet with earnings estimates.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Starbucks, all their product is imported for the most part, okay? Right. Now, Canada's, I know we had a good jobs report, came in higher than expected.
SPEAKER 03 :
Blowout.
SPEAKER 04 :
But I see that Canada's unemployment rate rises to 6.7%. Now, here's the number that caught my attention. Do you know that the participation rate in Canada is 65.2? What are the other 35% of Canadians doing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, they have a higher participation rate than we do. I think ours is about 52. No, ours is higher than that. I'll tell you in a second. It's pretty low. I've always been kind of a get-you. It's like, what are the rest of everyone doing?
SPEAKER 04 :
What's everybody doing? Well, they're not manufacturing train parts and exporting them to China. TradeWeb. Post record volume, that's a good little stock T-definition.
SPEAKER 03 :
62.4, so that sold us a little short.
SPEAKER 04 :
I thought so. Check out the VIX. The VXX is 38.5. That's incredible. It normally runs at about 15, 16. So obviously investing in volatility has been a winner since Trump's come to town. VXX is the ETF that you can invest in. I mean, the one sure thing right now seems to be volatility. Dan Ives at Wedbush, obviously not a Trump fan. He says, dark days ahead. Of course, they're all tech, pretty much. Tech trade crushed by tariff. He's calling it Armageddon. Hey, maybe Armageddon's a trade war and not a nuclear standoff. Who knows? Trump's tariffs are not priced in, says UBS. Inflation could rise to 5%. I call BS on UBS. I don't see that, not with these commodity prices falling. And it's pretty obvious that they are overstating things. CNBC, the Wall Street Journal is overstating things. And who knows, maybe on the other side they're understating things. Bill Gross says investors should not buy the dip. It's like catching a falling knife. But I'll tell you, the guy I like, and I've followed him since I've been in the business, is Ed Yardini. Your dad probably followed Edward Yardini. He is a common sense numbers guy like myself. And just looks at the real world and the real numbers and tries to cut through the noise. Yardini, now maybe not today, no. Yardini sees great buying opportunity after terra-fueled stock market crash. He says, I think some buying opportunities are being created here. The founder of Yardini Research, which does a lot of what I do in the newsletter every week. It's very similar to what I do. I'm just not as well-known as Giardini. I'm a complete unknown, like Bob Dylan was when he left Minnesota and arrived in New York. I still got to watch that movie. I can't believe I haven't watched it yet.
SPEAKER 03 :
As long as you last as long as Ed.
SPEAKER 04 :
As long as I'm in there when Ed's still in there. He was on Bloomberg, who doesn't like... Now, you're getting slanted news. There's no question about it. CNBC has it in for Trump. Bloomberg has it in ever since Trump called Bloomberg when he ran for president. A long time ago. There's nothing worse than calling a short guy little Mike. They never get over that.
SPEAKER 03 :
No matter how big their bank account is, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
No. NVIDIA takes part in the three. Now, if I was going to invest, if you could pick one person to invest in today's world, who would it be? Barry. One CEO. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
I was thinking, in terms of what you've got to do is look at the people that are closest to Trump at this point. It's not going to be Tesla. No, it wouldn't be Musk.
SPEAKER 04 :
I would invest in Jensen Wang. I don't think there's a more brilliant CEO out there.
SPEAKER 03 :
And whose product is going to be needed. That's the other thing, too. That product, right? No one else is replacing that product. No one else is going.
SPEAKER 04 :
AI is in its infancy right now. Now, would I own an apparel stock right now? Well, I own a little tiny bit. I think I own 32 shares at the whole firm, and I own them. In Deckers, okay, we thought that Vietnam, we got bad information that Vietnam was going to be treated very lightly in the tariff. Instead, they got whacked. Oh, man, I'll tell you, VF Corp., which is Lee and Wrangler Jeans, Gap, Switzerland's On Holdings, which makes shoes, Skechers. Now, you know what? I had this debate with my sister yesterday down in Florida. She says, well, corporate investors like corporate profits, and that's why they offshored everything. or companies like Big Profits, but I also came back to it. I said, yeah, but consumers have driven that because they like cheap shoes and cheap clothing and have been a big part of that buying stuff that's made in Vietnam. So anyways, there's a lot to be debated here. I think it all works out in the end. Just give it some time. Like COVID, we'll be right back.
SPEAKER 02 :
On a winter's day.
SPEAKER 06 :
Go where you want to go. Do what you want to do.
SPEAKER 04 :
And welcome back here to the final segment of today's Best Stocks Now show. VF Corp makes more than half its merchandise in Vietnam and Indonesia. Gap Stores makes 29% of its apparel in Vietnam and another 18% in Indonesia. While Vietnam is responsible for 35% of Skechers footwear, Swiss-based On Holdings makes all of their popular sneakers in Southeast Asia with 90% made in Vietnam. Who would have ever thought Vietnam? I mean, look, I grew up during the Vietnam War, and something's happening here, and four dead in Ohio and all of that, and here, Vietnam. But Vietnam has the nerve to charge us a 70% tariff on everything that comes into Vietnam. From America. So I think they'll come to the table rather quickly because they've become a big, big, big hub.
SPEAKER 03 :
uh of manufacturing and when i think about this in my head i mean that they almost have to come to the table right there has to be some resolution because what we're never going to do we're never going to make we're not making nikes here anymore we're not going to make hoka shoes here anymore we just aren't we don't have you know we're not a we're not a textile so that's a that's i mean they've been making textiles for how long So in terms of, you know, throughout history. So we're not going to be a textile hub, I don't believe, anymore, right? So, you know, so some resolution has to come.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's all they've got to do is lower their tariffs on things that they buy from us. And everything will be hunky-dory and they can go on. with their bustling little economy in Vietnam. Now, the carnage, Wayfair down 28.5% since this began. Five below is about 20 below right now, 28.2 below right now percent. Kohl's is down another 23.3%. I've got to believe this is the death knell for Kohl's. Gap Stores down 21.7%. Victoria's Secret down 21%. American Eagle Outfitters down 18.5%. Boot Barn down 18.2%. Elf Beauty down 15.9%. Abercrombie & Fitch down 15.8%. Okay. And, of course, Apple in the eye of the hurricane. Now, here is one that they are. They're lowering their EPS forecast for Apple for fiscal year 2025. So here's your first shot fired across the bow. This comes from Needham. and Needham's numbers are taken into account when they come up with that consensus estimate, they're lowering their earnings from $7.32 to $5.22, 28%. That's a significant drop because Apple offshored. And if you buy an Apple phone that was made offshore, I don't know if they make any in the U.S. I doubt that they do. Now, they're hoping for an exemption for Apple. In my opinion, I don't think Trump's going to hand out an exemption to Apple. Do you? Is Apple a necessary item, or is he going to punish Apple for moving their – does he want them to build them in Austin, Texas?
SPEAKER 03 :
I got to go back to, you know, I believe they did have, didn't they have, I think he did put a few exceptions in place for them the first time around. But they haven't done it yet. Not in this administration.
SPEAKER 04 :
Without an exemption, Apple would be, if he exempts Apple iPhones, that would be one heck of a buy at the current level because Apple, Needham's priced in a 28% drop in earnings for this year. That's based on where the tariffs are right now. Stellantis lays off workers temporarily in Michigan and Indiana amid auto sector tariff disruption. And we're going back. I can't wait to go to Bloomfield Hills. We've got it scheduled, I'm hoping by the end of this month, actually, to go there if Detroit's still open for business. I mean, the last time we went there, we heard horror stories.
SPEAKER 03 :
About EVs, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
They just hated EVs, number one. And number two, well, all of the closed factories and whatnot, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and it had to do with the, you know, had to do with all the, you know, kind of the new fuel standards were coming up. Oh, that was it. Yeah, number one, it wasn't just EVs. It was also the fuel standards, which were engine development, all kinds of different changes from that standpoint, so.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and China's going to strike back in many ways. They're doing an investigation into DuPont. Okay, there's an American name if there ever was one. The pride of Delaware over alleged antitrust violations. Musk could be fined $1 billion plus for breaching EU's DSA law. You ever hear of that one?
SPEAKER 03 :
They got a lot of laws over there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Then our companies are their ATM machines for Europe. Amazon launches a buy-for-me AI agent that shops on other sites for you. Okay, I don't know what that's all about. And what about the toy makers, Mattel and Hasbro? Maybe Hasbro's going to change their name to Hasbin, but obviously, I mean, they build everything. Do you think they're making Barbie dolls in Iowa?
SPEAKER 03 :
They are not.
SPEAKER 04 :
No. But, you know, look, I mean, this is all where these negotiations begin. And Goldman Sachs flags tariff risk for industrials ahead of Q1 earnings. They call out companies with strong ties to Mexico, such as Stanley Black & Decker. Okay, are you happy getting your hammer and your tape measure cheaper that's made in Mexico? Are you willing to pay a little more? Can Stanley Black & Decker move their operations back to Mexico, or will there be some kind of negotiations? That seems to be the most likely scenario. Carrier air conditioners built in Mexico. Lenox air conditioners. Maybe Americans will start buying American-made products again. Only. And boy, you know what? I'd never buy another MTH train locomotive built in China. I took it back yesterday to the FedEx store. MTH gave me a return slip paying for the freight. That thing was a lemon. Totally messed up. From the factory. Brand new. You know how excited a guy is to open up a brand new steam big boy locomotive and it works like crap? I spent like two weeks trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. And I found out it was their manufacturing. My Lionel trains work just fine built in Concord, North Carolina. Thank you. Anyways, this has been a lot of fun, I guess. We'll come back and do it again on Monday. We will get through this. I'm going to leave you with that message. Just like COVID, just like the financial crisis of 08 and 09, we will get through this. And those were some of the greatest buying opportunities of all time. We're not quite there yet, but we will get through this. GundersenCapital.com, 855-GUNDERSEN. 611 Best. We are American-made. We'll be back on Monday.
SPEAKER 01 :
This show is not a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Bill Gunderson or clients of Gunderson Capital Management may have long or short positions in stocks mentioned during the show. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Gunderson Capital Management is a fee-based registered investment advisory firm. All accounts are held at Charles Schwab. Schwab is a member of SIPC and FINRA.
In this enlightening episode, Mike Gallagher sits down with Wilk Wilkinson, the voice behind Derate the Hate podcast, to explore the unsettling waves of polarization that grip our nation. Delving deep into Wilkinson's personal evolution and how he became intertwined with Braver Angels, the largest grassroots cross-partisan organization in America, listeners are invited to join a journey of depolarization and mutual understanding. As Wilk recounts his transformative experience and the reasons behind adopting a more inclusive dialogue, the conversation unfolds into an examination of ideological binaries and the quest for common ground.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think it's fair to agree that our country is more divided than ever. There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of anxiety. And look, all of us who have platforms have a role to play. And I've been sort of fixated this week, as you may have noticed, on trying to... See if there's any chance for common ground. See if there's any way to try to lower the temperature a little bit. And I say that as a guy with a big mouth, you know, a talk show host for decades. And then I heard about Braver Angels, which is an organization described as America's largest grassroots cross-partisan organization that is dedicated to depolarizing people. our polarized times. And I thought, boy, I want to spend some time learning about the group. And it seems like a very noble effort. And we said to these folks, can we talk to somebody who kind of represents the spirit and the intent of Braver Angels? And they introduced us to Wilk Wilkinson. He's a conservative, a Christian. He hosts a podcast called Derate the Hate. And he, you know, is described as somebody who is inspiring others to embrace growth and navigate challenges with grace. Wilk, it's great to have you on the Mike Gallagher Show. Welcome aboard. How are you?
SPEAKER 02 :
I'm fantastic, Mike, and it's just a great honor to be here. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the honors are all ours, and we're excited to chat with you about Braver Angels because I read about your sort of journey with Dr. Francis Collins. And let's face it, the pandemic has left a lot of anguished, angry people forever. It changed our country. It changed the world. The way we responded to it, of course, really, really has left people angry. frustrated and alarmed about our ability to just submit, submit to a lot of power. Before we get to that journey that you were on with Dr. Francis Collins, formerly of the NIH, tell us a little bit about your association with Braver Angels. Because I was drawn to this group, try to learn about them, what it's all about. Look, you and I both have one political worldview and an ideological perspective that, of course, the left doesn't agree with. But why? Just explain to us how you came to be connected or associated with Braver Angels.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, Mike, back in 2020, beginning of the pandemic. I was I myself was a probably a much more toxically polarized kind of person, but I had been on this personal journey to kind of depolarize myself, to detoxify myself from a lot of the anger and animus that I had. And in doing so, I started the Derate the Hate podcast and. Uh, within, I don't know how many months of me starting the D rate, the hate podcast, a couple of local ambassadors here in the state of Minnesota, the state in which I live reached out to me and asked if they could come talk to me about this thing called braver angels that, that I had never heard of, but it was right in my wheelhouse for the kind of things that I was trying to do better in the world, one attitude at a time. And, uh, So and then my own personal journey, I thought, hey, this is fantastic. You know, one of the things that I suffer from is this toxic polarization thing. So they came on the podcast. I talked to them and I signed up that day as a as a member. Mike, I was just so it was just it seemed to me such a powerful thing. For our country, I consider myself a patriot. I consider myself somebody who loves our country but understands that this polarization thing is just something that's got to be addressed. And so I signed up as a member that day. Now, ironically, there is a bit of an imbalance in our membership because we lack conservative representation. And so that being the case, I started doing a lot more with them because they'd reach out to me as a conservative guy and say, hey, we do not have enough voices saying the things that you're saying, doing the things that you're doing. voices that believe the things that you believe. Can you participate in this? Can you do that? We need your voice here. And that was going on five years ago now, I believe. And it's been an incredible ride. I've learned so much being a part of that organization. I've helped others learn about people like you and I, Mike, who are from the conservative side of that organization. political spectrum. So that's how I got into it. And it's been one of the greatest honors of my life, just being a part of this organization.
SPEAKER 01 :
Was there a tipping point or an event or a reason that you said, I've got to be maybe less I don't know if the word is bombastic or over the top or, you know, sharp elbow. Those are kind of the ways that I've sort of described myself over the years. And let me start before you answer that by sharing with you what my sort of journey has been. Look, I've got friends in my life who are absolutely terrified right now. They are worried. They think they think Trump is the devil. They think that Elon Musk is Satan's spawn. They believe that the country is going to go up in flames, that everybody's rights are being stripped from them, and it's just a horrific Armageddon. And their fear... is real. I mean, it's not performative. And in one particular case, a family friend of mine who is just really, really over the top, really gone, and I started thinking, Instead of ignoring them or making fun of them or mocking them or marginalizing them, why don't more of us try to say, let's at least try to have a dialogue. Let's try to explain why we feel the way we feel. But with that, also ask you why you feel the way you feel. I mean, just these tariffs this week, I'm like, why are people rooting against America? You know, people are rooting against the country because they don't like Trump so much. I want to kind of get to some clarity from their point. Was there an event like that in your life, a friend or a family member or somebody that kind of sparked you to make that sort of decision to embrace a cross-partisan organization like Braver Angels?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it was a combination of things, Mike. I think back to that period of time and I had started a horribly failed t-shirt company called Failed Understanding Apparel and the letters F-U was the whole concept behind it, right? And I was participating in a lot of that online social media toxicity and And started losing friends because of it, because of the way that I talk about the sharp elbows and bombastic way of saying things. And just that hyperbolic toxicity that so many people participate in. Now, I started losing friends. And when you start losing friends, when you don't consider a lot of people to be friends, and you start losing the ones that you have, you start to... or at least I started to say, okay, what's the common denominator here? What's going on? And being somebody who preaches a lot about personal accountability, I started taking it back to myself. And then I started looking at the results of what I was putting out there. And I'm like, am I changing anybody's mind by saying the things that I'm saying? Am I opening anybody's mind by saying the things that I'm saying? And the answer for me kept on coming back to no. It just wasn't happening. So instead of doing so much talking or talking at people, I began to speak with people. And instead of being so certain in my own stance on things, I opened my mind to the curiosity that I might be wrong. I still found myself to be what I consider right most of the time. Maybe not most of the time, a lot of the time. But that genuine curiosity, entering into a conversation with somebody with genuine curiosity, I found. That not only did that help me, but it also helped them because now they were actually listening. Whereas before, if you come at somebody with this aggressive, sharp elbow stance, you're A lot of times their ears just slam shut, Mike. They aren't listening to anything after that. If they are listening, they're only listening with the intent to respond to what you've just said, not listening to the content of what you just said or not actually absorbing in a curious way what you just said. So I found that in order to actually have a meaningful conversation and learn from the person I'm having a conversation with, I also had to open my ears and come in with a genuine sense of curiosity as to what they were saying. The world has opened up. to me in that way. I'm still as conservative as I was, you know, five years ago. Uh, but I understand those on the other side of the spectrum a lot better than I ever did before. And I also understand that these rigid binaries, you know, uh, black, white, uh, red, blue, uh, these, these are not real rigid binaries. There's a whole spectrum of opinions out there. And we got to remember that none of, uh, especially in politics, but in any of these classifications, there's no rigid binaries. There's no solid monolithic group. You have to open your ears with genuine curiosity to find out those things and just broaden your horizons. So now I don't try to change minds. I just try to open them. And it's open mind. And it's made for a much, much... And I like to say that there's nothing that means more to me than my personal sanity. And that's opened up a whole different kind of peace of mind for me, a whole different kind of sanity for me, a serenity that is just far better.
SPEAKER 01 :
We're visiting with Wilk Wilkinson. He's a host of the Derate the Hate podcast. I want to talk about your podcast. I want to talk some more about your work with Braver Angels. I also want to talk a little bit about your journey with Dr. Francis Collins. Now, you know, the pandemic. You talk about black and white and red and blue. It was, in many cases, our side against their side. To this day, when I see somebody wearing three masks, driving a car by themselves with the windows up, I know who they probably voted for. It's fascinating, the political divide that paralleled our response to this worldwide pandemic, the coronavirus chapter. Tell us a little bit about your experience with Dr. Francis Collins, who frankly has been, to many on our side, or my side at least, identified as one of the boogeymen, one of the overlords of the pandemic. Yet you you sort of had a very different experience with him, I guess. And then that led to another friendship. Just walk us through all of that. How did a how did a husband, a father, a Christian conservative and the host of of a podcast called Derate the Hate podcast start hanging out with Dr. Francis Collins of the NIH?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it's kind of a wild story, right? I mean, nobody would expect a truck driver, a former truck driver from the state of Minnesota, rural Minnesota, to end up in a personal friendship with Dr. Francis Collins. But back in... early 2022, Dr. Francis Collins came to the organization Braver Angels at the prompting of his friend David Brooks, as some people know from the New York Times, the Brookings Institute and things like that. But David Brooks had told Francis Collins about the organization Braver Angels. One of the things that we say at Braver Angels a lot is, you know, we all have our blind spots, but not one of us is not worth talking to. Dr. Francis Collins realized he had a very large blind spot for a lot of the things that had happened during the pandemic, especially with regard to people in rural America, rural middle America, right? A lot of what Francis Collins was doing centered around that Beltway bubble, that DC Beltway bubble, and the same as many people in our, I guess, elite institutions, right? So he asked if there was somebody within the Braver Angels organization that he could speak with to kind of reveal or help him work through some of those blind spots that he had. They came to me and asked me, knowing that I had been speaking out against the government's response to the pandemic since early 2020. I put out a video early on, didn't get a lot of views, but it was basically the idea of... Hey, this one size fits all thing is not the best thing for America. You know, as a truck driver, nobody's really going to listen. But but that was my opinion. Right. We can't do this one size fits all thing and expect it to work. And. We have to have a more targeted response and we aren't listened to out here and things like that. And then also about the freedom shaming. I talked about freedom shaming at the time and how anytime somebody would try to speak up, we were being castigated and just demonized online and in the media and things like that. So. So they asked Francis Collins to come speak with me. And it started off very, I mean, it was very interesting, right? They asked me if I would speak with the former head of the NIH. And I'm like, I'll speak with anybody. Let's make this happen. And so we had several hours worth of conversations just across Zoom, just getting to know one another and finding out about each other's families and, you know, building that organic friendship. And before we started really diving into all of those things that separated us, because we were a long ways, we're still a long ways away from each other in terms of how we feel about the government's response to the pandemic, the pandemic itself, things like that. Right. So we started having these conversations and then we started doing some like fishbowl exercises where we'd bring in other people that would watch us speak with each other and do these things. But over the course of the past few years, we've developed and built a pretty decent friendship. And somebody I consider a dear friend, somebody I disagree with vehemently on many things with regard to the pandemic response, but somebody I consider a dear friend and I'm able to have great conversations with.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, I'm very mindful, and I've done this for a long time. My first talk show was in 1978, so I'm an old man. I've probably got socks older than you, Wilk. But I will say that we tend, in my world, to vilify the other side. Everybody's the enemy. Everybody's the bad guy. And we forget about the lives that a lot of people live that are maybe our political opposition. Maybe we don't agree with anything ideologically. But we kind of lose our humanity, don't we? I mean, we sort of forget. That somebody might not vote the way we want them to vote or I don't vote the way they want me to vote. But, you know, we're humans. And I know this sounds a little bit like a kumbaya moment here, but it's true. And we forget. I had a caller yesterday on the show say every Democrat is a demon. And I thought, no, not ever. That's not true. You can't. And but we we get caught up in this. Now, you know, the pushback, though, and I got it when I when I called the guy out and I disagreed with him and said not every Democrat is a demon. Right away, I got accused by some in the audience of going soft. Mike, you're going soft. Mike Gallagher is becoming squishy and you're you're you're you're you're a moderate now. You're in the middle. Have you faced that kind of pushback from people in your world as well, this whole effort to try to find some common ground and forge friendships with people who disagree with you? Do you hear that criticism that, oh, Wilkinson, you're no conservative. You're trying to, you know, try to have it both ways.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It never ceases to amaze me, Mike, how when you try to be that connection point between the us versus them, how you start to get attacked by both the us and the them. Uh, it's, it's interesting how, how that, how that happens. But one thing I, I try to keep in the back of my mind in this thing is, is again, I know that I'm a, uh, a steadfast Christian conservative guy. I, my, my values have not changed. And what I do is, in trying to bring together both sides for a non-contentious conversation about contentious issues, I think that is so vitally important. And when people from either side decide that they are going to attack me for being some squishy moderate or not a true conservative or... It... I don't allow those things to bother me anymore because I know where I stand. I know who I am. And I also know that my mission, I'm a very mission driven guy. My mission is to make this country and this world a better place for my children. I know that we don't get there by staying as polarized as we are right now. So those who would like to see us remain divided are typically the ones that are attacking me. So while I think their opinion definitely deserves... you know, the merit that it's worth, I guess. I don't allow that to bother me anymore. But yeah, I do get that quite often where people will attack me. You know, I mean, I'm probably one of the only human beings on the planet that's good friends with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Francis Collins. I get attacked by both sides. And so do they, which is very weird.
SPEAKER 01 :
The whole thing is weird. I mean, I remember back in the day I was a Fox News contributor and I appeared frequently with Alan Combs on Fox News. And Alan, who has since passed away, Alan, though, was one of the most lovely people you'd ever meet. Just kind and a great guy, you know, dedicated Democrat. And I remember how he got it from both sides. He, you know, conservatives got mad at him because of his point of view. And then liberals got mad at him because he was appearing regularly on Fox News. Fox News Channel. It was like the guy couldn't win, and again, was an absolute great guy. Wilk Wilkinson is our guest. Let's close by talking a little bit about your podcast. What does derate the hate mean? I think I have an idea, but why don't you explain the mission and purpose of your very popular podcast, Wilk?
SPEAKER 02 :
So thanks a lot, Mike. I greatly appreciate that. So derate the hate for people who may not know. So there's a couple of things, a couple of ways you could take the derate thing. And in the trucking industry or the trucking and transportation industry, which I've spent decades. the last 26 years in, when you derate a truck, you basically, it's the truck's self-defense mechanism. It's turning the ability for that engine down so that it doesn't destroy itself. It inhibits the truck's ability to continue to operate at that level so that whatever's going wrong doesn't destroy the whole powertrain system.
SPEAKER 1 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Also in whether it be podcasting or radio or whatever, if you derate something, you turn something down. So if we want to tame down the toxicity, if we want to turn down the hate in this country, we need to derate that. And so I just came up with that idea one day. Derate the hate. Sounded good. Started a podcast with the mission statement of bettering the world one attitude at a time. I, like I said earlier in the show here, Mike, I spent a lot of my life angry. I was a I was a loud guy. I was angry about a lot of things, had a lot of animosity for a lot of things that have happened in my life. And I came to the realization that it was really up to me to fix them. I was the common denominator in so many of my problems. So gratitude, personal accountability, these things helped me on my journey to tame down my own toxicity. And I wanted to bring that to other people. So I started the D-Rate Day podcast to try and make the world a better place, bettering the world one attitude at a time. And now I've had some of the most incredible guests in the world, some of the greatest minds in the world have joined me on the D-Rate Day podcast. to talk about all kinds of different things. You know, we talk about mindset, gratitude, forgiveness, redemption, past discretion, gratitude. Grace, we talk about all of these different things that are really about making the world a better place. And I spend a lot of my time in that depolarization space because I think that's one of the most important things out there is realizing that we cannot continue as a country. We cannot continue as a human race. As a population of this planet, we got one rock to live on. And if we don't tame down the toxicity and tame down that toxic polarity that seems to be so prevalent today, we don't get to live the lives that we should live. So I think we should all just try to make the world a better place by it starts with the conversation.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hope everybody finds your podcast, Derate the Hate. You can follow your podcast on X at Derate the Hate. And also go to BraverAngels.org to learn a little bit about what this great organization is doing. I really believe in the mission, and we ought to do more of what you all are doing. So BraverAngels.org. Wilk Wilkinson, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to join us here on the Mike Gallagher Show. Keep fighting the good fight.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Mike. So grateful. Thank you.
Today's discussion takes a sharp focus on the alarming conditions of city infrastructures with a particular emphasis on Los Angeles. Dr. Kelly Victory recounts her recent visit, shedding light on the city's plight and the need for new leadership. As federal funding streams come under scrutiny, Steve House weighs in on the critical need for cities to meet certain quality-of-life criteria. The episode continues with a pragmatic look at potential political contenders and vaccine mandates that have stirred national conversations. As always, listeners are encouraged to engage and share their thoughts with the panel.
SPEAKER 17 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 16 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you're scared. And you're scared because if you try and fail, there's only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 04 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 14 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did.
SPEAKER 11 :
Get a job, sir. You haven't made everybody equal. You've made them the same, and there's a big difference.
SPEAKER 12 :
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 11 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 17 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right, welcome. Happy Thursday. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Dr. Kelly Victory joining us now. Welcome, Dr. Kelly. How are you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, I'm great. I'm back from a five-day business trip to Los Angeles and fully reminded of why I would never live in Los Angeles. What a truly dismal place to be. The homelessness, the infrastructure is broken down. There's trash on the streets. It truly looks more akin to a third-world country. Very, very disappointing. Fortunately, I was staying at a nice hotel, but the reality is it has gone the way of much of California and is in desperate need. We are in desperate need of new leadership in the state.
SPEAKER 15 :
Wow. Steve House, welcome as well. Appreciate you joining us.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you know, I was going to say in regards to Los Angeles, I mean, I wonder what the funding structures we use, if there shouldn't be a time where we say to qualify as an American city, you must have a certain set of criteria and the basic criteria I would put, but they would not qualify along with other cities.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, and I think, Steve, you might be on to something because the federal funding that happens in a lot of different cities, states, and other areas, yeah, I think we should, in a lot of cases, put some strings to that money that's going to those places. For example, if you're a state that allows sanctuary cities inside of it, if you're a governor that allows that, then you know what? No federal funding for roads, bridges, whatever. I mean, there's all sorts of ways to make the power of the purse work here.
SPEAKER 03 :
If you think about it, why do taxpayers pay taxes that end up in the hands of city governments? And the answer is quality of life for the citizens, in part, who pay taxes. They pay city taxes, but they're also probably paying federal and state taxes. But you want quality of life. You want safety. You want education to be effective. You want health care to be effective. You're subsidizing everything from Medicare to the police and education. If you don't qualify as providing that, then why would anyone give you money?
SPEAKER 15 :
Dr. Kelly, I can't argue with anything Steve's saying. I know that wasn't necessarily our main focus for today but I can't argue with that.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I agree. And why in the world people would vote for that? I spent half of my time in California after being up in Los Angeles for a prolonged period. I'm thinking why, you know, when these people vote, who is it who is voting for continuing this level of leadership? Because they have let everybody down. As I said, it is more akin to a third world country. There's trash on the streets, homeless people, you know, people who are floridly psychotic, mental health issues abound. You're afraid to walk, you know, literally around the corner to the Starbucks from the hotel for fear of being assaulted. I mean, this is not what I expect. And, you know, the idea that these people get voted in year after year or that Gavin Newsom would even be considering a run for the White House. After the horrific job he has delivered in his own state, it's just unbelievable.
SPEAKER 15 :
He was, you know, and this is another, you know, another conversation, maybe for another day, we can probably brush up on it now. Steve, I'll throw this to you. I see Gavin and maybe I'm wrong, but I see him being a pretty good contender for the Democrat side in 2028. Am I wrong?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, you're not wrong. I mean, I think that if you do the math, right, I mean, Gavin probably gets to the 35, 36 percent of the base. That is far left. That is, you know, very, very liberal socialist in nature. You don't have to get 50 percent. You just have to get a vote or two more than the person closest to you. And if you pick up 36 percent, you know, you're probably that's more than a third in any competitive race. You have a potential to win there. And, you know, it's got to be something different. Going back to the original subject, I had a black pastor from Colorado I've known for years who said today he worries about Musk because he believes what they're going to do is terminate enough federal employees that they have to shut down agencies and then private organizations will take them over and make them work for a profit. And I was like, wow, what a great idea. And he was dumbfounded that I said that because I thought, you know, in some cases, you know, that may be true. Gavin Newsom may be a contender because, you know, he's tall, he's a good-looking guy, he's fairly articulate, and he gets the base. So he may be that. But, boy, we sure do need to hold him to some level of responsibility for exactly what's going to happen under his watch.
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay, really quick, I've got to go back to your comment about the black pastor. I'm confused. Why would— Current federal organizations that might be reorganized, even made private, and they now have to make a profit, what am I missing here? Is that a problem?
SPEAKER 03 :
It is for the liberal side because the liberal side believes, and this guy's actually a conservative, but this is what he's getting from constituents. I think people think on the liberal side that the government, like we said, it's not Trump being king. It's stopping the federal government from thinking it's God. I mean, they believe that the government is the only place that they can get what they deserve. And that's the difference between being conservative and liberal. I mean, we want small government leaving us alone and they want government that equalizes the world in their opinion. They think the government has to run it and that all billionaires and millionaires and business owners are crooked.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, I hate to tell them or break the news to them that they are sorely wrong in their thought process. A, that's not the proper role of government, and B, that's not what all businesses do. Yes, I get it. There is some corruption in all forms of things that happen. Dr. Kelly, you know that from the medical side. Steve, you know that from the medical and also the political side and so on. And where there's men and women involved, yes, there will be things that go awry because that's the nature of who... men are but at the end of the day dr kelly that is not the norm when it comes to these things and i do believe there's a lot of great businesses that do a lot of great work they are out there to make things uh well and do a great job for their customers for the consumers at the end of the day and no not every bat not every business is a big bad business
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I agree with that. There certainly are many. Take a chain company like Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A or In-N-Out Burger, companies that treat their employees very, very well, that have a strong basis in faith, that are not open on Christmas and Thanksgiving because they feel those are family holidays and no one should be asked to work and be away from their families on those days. People who have a strict uniform code, for example. like In-N-Out Burger does, companies that change with the trends in order to keep up with health standards. In-N-Out Burger is now going to use beef tallow, for example, for its fries rather than seed oils. So lots of examples of people doing the right thing. But I think, unfortunately, those are more the exception. Those are the standouts that I think Steve is largely right that the larger companies really they dance to the tune of their investors, whether it's moral or ethical or not. We saw during the pandemic, certainly, you know, the big box stores, Walmart and chain stores were able to stay open while the mom and pop shops were largely shut down and took it on the chin as a result. The vast majority of small businesses that were closed during COVID did not reopen and will never reopen, tragically. So I think there is a disconnect here. Back to the Gavin Newsom thing. Unfortunately, I do believe he's going to be the heir apparent for the Democrat nomination going forward in the next election. Let's just hope it's not Kamala Harris. I don't think I could tolerate another campaign season of that cackling idiot. So at least Gavin Newsom is reasonable to look at, as dumb and as horrible as his policies are. At least he'd be reasonable to listen to.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right. That's a great job. Go ahead, Steve. Go ahead. Jump in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Just one quick comment. Apparently, based on some stuff we heard this week, the election in 2028 will have – VP candidates Donald Trump and Barack Obama with whoever's running for president on each ticket. That's the way it sounds.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, I'm not one that believes any of that stuff, as you guys know. And there's a lot of folks out there that are spreading some of those things around, and yeah, I don't see either one of them doing that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Trump made a comment about it, which salted that or seasoned that for discussion. But I thought, wouldn't that be crazy if you had J.D. Vance with Trump as a VP and then on the other side, Tim Walz with Obama as a VP or Gavin Newsom?
SPEAKER 15 :
And for a lot of folks that are listening, while that sounds, I guess, plausible maybe to some degree, guys, the reality is no, that's not reality. Typically presidents would not. And the premise being the president now and Obama being a past president, they would run for VP knowing that the current president at that time could step down. They then could become president, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, as you know, Steve, those are great fallacies, but they're not going to happen.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it shouldn't happen. There's just no way that should happen.
SPEAKER 15 :
Great.
SPEAKER 03 :
I agree.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right. We'll take a quick timeout. We'll come back. Lots to cover today. If you've got a question for us, by the way, please send us a text message, 307-282-22. If you want to know more about Dr. Kelly, Victory especially, go to our website, RushToReason.com. Whole page there dedicated to her. We'll be right back. Affordable interest mortgages next. Kurt Rogers, he knows mortgages like Dr. Kelly knows everything. really medically speaking, including COVID vaccines and so on. We'll get into some of that today as well. But give Kurt a call today, 720-895-0500.
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SPEAKER 13 :
No liberal media bias here. This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 15 :
And we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Dr. Kelly Victory, Steve House with us. Okay, Dr. Kelly, Steve, start with you, Dr. Kelly. Steve sent something out earlier this week that I thought we could make a topic of today because these are things that I occasionally get questions on. And we, you know, sometimes answer these, sometimes we don't. It just depends on what we've got going on that particular day. But there was a... I guess you could say that was on Joe Rogan's podcast talking about placentas in women that had been vaccinated while they were pregnant. They no longer have any stem cells left in them.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. I've not seen the study. I heard this report by the person on Rogan's show. I have not seen these studies actually proving that or come to any conclusion about the placenta. the mechanism by which that may happen. Um, I can tell you there's a host, a laundry list of problems. with giving the vaccines to pregnant women. We know that women had difficulty conceiving in the first place. It was difficult keeping the placentas attached. There's a problem with an overlap between a protein that's in the placenta and the antibodies to COVID getting confused. And rather than attacking the COVID virus, attacking the placenta itself. We have lots and lots of examples of placentas that had blood clots within them. huge blood clots that would therefore cut off blood flow and oxygen to the baby and on and on and on this new revelation that there was a lack of stem cells they said i've heard the report but i've not seen the study validating it and have not come up myself yet with a credible theory for how that might have happened steve may know more steve you got comment on that
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, you know, I haven't read the study either. I believe in the person who mentioned it. I think this was Suzanne Humphries, right? Yes. Kelly, and she's a bright lady. She does a lot of research. She cites a lot of stuff. My immediate thought was, You know, spike proteins have been destructive in a lot of ways. I mean, we know about IgG4 and turbo cancers and everything else. Killing stem cells wouldn't surprise me, that's for sure. And the fact that she quoted it makes it interesting because... this research study from the basics I read about it, which I didn't go into depth, where they just don't find the common stem cells they're used to in a placenta for people who've been vaccinated while they were pregnant. If that's actually true, that really sets us back on doing research and having the stem cells available for that. I mean, we've been using them for lots of things. People have been saving placentas in case they needed them down the road when they had cancer and they needed, you know, treatment and therapy. Now, if that's the case, they don't have any stem cells in them. That becomes a useless exercise as well. Interesting.
SPEAKER 15 :
Another good question that came in just now, Dr. Kelly. And again, this is one we've talked about in the past, but I don't think we've talked about this recently. So this question is for Dr. Kelly. Steve House Roe v. Wade decision made decades ago was wrong, finally reversed. Do you believe the Supreme Court ruling? that only health workers could be mandated to be vaccinated was also wrong. Has there been any thought or talk of anybody taking action to bring that decision back to the Supreme Court, basically forcing our health care workers to take a vaccination that they did not want that was wrong? And is that ever going to be corrected?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think there are lots of attacks against that or approaches to getting that reversed. I think that fundamentally, I believe that vaccine mandates are going to go away entirely. That certainly is my hope and certainly something that's being discussed openly. The idea that people should have the option to get vaccinated, that vaccines, given the fact that there's always a risk benefit calculation that goes on there. that they are never 100% effective, and they are certainly never 100% safe, and therefore you cannot mandate someone to participate in something where there is risk that they are not willing to take. So I think that it will get reversed, not just with health care workers, but potentially even with the military, certainly in schools and elsewhere. In the meantime, it's a matter of sort of biding your time. People ask me on a daily basis, what do I do if my kids are required to have these vaccines to go to school? You know, my answer is buy yourself as much time as you can. Keep fighting it. Keep pushing back. Keep asking for exemptions, personal exemptions, religious exemptions, you know, medical exemptions, because I do believe that ultimately it will be reversed in the same way as, you know, I had friends who got vaccinated, didn't want to be because they said, well, you know, I need to in order to travel or whatever. And I kept, you know, you know, begging them, don't do it. Just wait. I promise you these vaccine mandates will go away. You know, and sure enough, here we are, you know, sitting in 2025 and they are in fact gone. It was just a matter of biding your time, even if that was uncomfortable, meant I couldn't travel, I didn't go on vacation, I never left the country, didn't attend a lot of sports and music events. But it was worth it because I was right. I bided my time, and the mandates went away.
SPEAKER 15 :
Steve, are you hearing anything internally where there might be things happening along those lines, or is this another one of those where we'll just have to wait and see?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I mean, I do think she's right. I mean, I think HHS and Bobby Kennedy will ultimately – stop the mandates the question is what about harm i mean you know the liability for vaccines of course was resolved years ago by the congress in a way that was just not proper but will these guys ever get some you know you know some restitution for what happened to them and it's hard to say i mean at the same time that that you know placental stem cell study comes out you know the nihr which is the national institute of health and research publishes the study in late february of this year that pregnant women should get COVID-19 vaccines because it stops blood pressure disorders, it reduces birth by cesarean section, and it helps their newborns not need intensive care. Now, I don't know if any of that's actually true and where that came from, but they don't even have any mention about what's happening. So there'll be a fight over this for years to come just to be able to avoid liability. So I don't have hopes that Anything other than a stop in the mandate will happen. I don't think people who got harmed by it will probably ever see any money because they'll continue to have papers like this published that place doubt in it.
SPEAKER 05 :
I concur 100%, Steve. And the tragedy of it is that 9 million children, including a million babies, infants, have received COVID boosters, the new 2024-2025 COVID booster. So it is continuing to go on. Another 9 million children just got injected. This is unconscionable. There is irrefutable data showing the harm's We know that the shots do not stop you from contracting COVID. They don't stop you from spreading it to others. And they are fraught with harms, not the least of which, you know, is there is the risk of autoimmune diseases, neurologic conditions, certainly cancers. Cancer rates have skyrocketed. We're seeing just horrific reports. This most recent one of 17, one seven nurses at a single hospital in Boston having developing brain tumors. Wow. I mean, that is unheard of. The statistical likelihood of that is zero. I feel clearly it's going to be a result of the vaccine. Whether we could prove it or not, I can't say. Dr. Patrick Sun Chung, who is the owner of the LA Times now, but a world-renowned cancer specialist, developed chemotherapy agents, he has now finally, in the 11th and a half hour, come out and acknowledged that he is seeing and his colleagues are seeing unprecedented rates of cancers. He personally has an eight-year-old child with a colon cancer, a 13-year-old with pancreatic cancer, multiple patients under the age of 20 with both colonic and pancreatic cancers, as well as lung cancers. These are unheard of, never seen before. And there's a tsunami that's yet to come.
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay. So you know what, John? Go ahead, Steve. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
On top of that, I mean, I'm in health care every day. I talk to doctors virtually every day. There's still 20, 30 percent of all the doctors out there who are absolutely committed to give COVID shots. Thank you. You're segwaying into what I was going to ask a moment ago.
SPEAKER 15 :
Why are we still doing that, Steve? What I'm asking is, and Dr. Kelly, you can talk and explain this after Steve, but What we talk about here and the fact that COVID isn't anything much more than a cold and might turn into a respiratory issue or something along those lines, but at the end of the day, still not a major deal. So, Steve, why are they still pushing that?
SPEAKER 03 :
You know what it is? It's what you're reading and what you're exposed to. And I'll give you a little task that I've done for the last week or so. Every day I get up and look at the first 10 stories on MSN and the first 10 stories on Fox. And when you look at MSN this morning, there was plenty that stuck out. But one thing that stuck out was. When Trump did the tariffs yesterday on Liberation Day, he failed to sign the executive order, but he walked off the stage without doing it. And then they turned him around. He went back and signed it on MSN. That's that was major health concern with President Trump. Is he still fit for office? It was like the headline because he forgot to sign it with all the speeches and stuff. and had to go back i mean that's the point right so you have all these people saying long covid this is going to kill you you know it's still a problem you should get your vaccines your kids need it and then the other side of the coin people are saying it kills people it injures people you know there's there's millions and millions and so depending on what you read who knows what you believe it's crazy
SPEAKER 15 :
And so, Dr. Kelly, so going back to what I said a moment ago, from what I've understood and what we've had conversations on this program here during this hour for over the past year, and, you know, unless I'm completely wrong and haven't heard it right, COVID now, what you actually would get if you have it, can you tell the difference between it and a bad cold?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, no, the symptoms are very, very mild. I'd be much more concerned about getting influenza A. We're having a relatively brisk influenza season. I had it in early February and really felt quite lousy, certainly much worse than I felt when I had COVID. Everyone I know who has COVID right now, and you always know who they are because they're the ones who test. They feel obligated to shove a Q-tip up their nose every 15 minutes every And when you ask them what their symptoms are, they're like, oh, I've had a runny nose and I felt really tired yesterday. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we are making such a big thing about nothing. Truly, I'd be much more concerned about getting influenza, which is packing a bit of a punch this year, and forget about COVID. It's going to continue to mutate. It's going to continue to become less and less severe. Right now, it's runny nose, a little bit of cough, and some body aches in the worst case scenario, and nothing more than that.
SPEAKER 15 :
OK, so given that's the worst that you can get from COVID and I get it, you know, there can be certain situations, certain episodes for certain people, Dr. Kelly, depending upon their immune system, their age, all sorts of other things to where even a bad cold can be. Very detrimental. It can turn into a respiratory illness, viruses, things along those lines. I get I mean, by the way, that wasn't that that's nothing new. That's been that way for a long time, even prior to covid ever existing. So given all of what we're saying, going back to the question I asked Steve a moment ago, why are we still having a covid vaccine period?
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. Particularly, you know, half of them are only available under the emergency use authorization. I need someone to tell me exactly what emergency we are having that would justify anything being available under an emergency use authorization. We don't need these shots in the same way they're trying to gin up fear about measles. They're trying to gin up fear about all of these things. Let me tell you, right now, we have heard so much about these, quote, measles outbreaks, the cases of measles. We have had less than 1,000 total cases of measles in the United States last year, in 2024. We had less than 1,000. Europe... all in Europe, same size population, fundamentally same land mass in Europe, had 127,000 last year. Okay. Okay? Did you hear anything about that?
SPEAKER 15 :
No, not a thing.
SPEAKER 05 :
We had 1,000 and people's hair is on fire. Right. Okay? They had 127,000.
SPEAKER 15 :
Interesting.
SPEAKER 05 :
Same population. Yeah, that's the first I've heard of that.
SPEAKER 15 :
That's the first I've heard of that, you telling me that just now. Yeah, it doesn't make the news at all.
SPEAKER 05 :
It never made the news. You're never going to hear Anderson Cooper or Sanjay Gupta telling you about this. They had 38 deaths in Europe. Okay? We've had one in the United States. And you'd think that the world was falling apart. People do get viral illnesses occasionally, and tragically, people will die from them, particularly if they don't get the best of the medical care available. And unfortunately, we cannot live in this constant state of fear-mongering. COVID is a nothing right now. Influenza, hopefully we're getting towards the tail end of the season. Usually by May, cases start to drop off. You know, we've had... far fewer deaths from influenza this year than we have in a particularly bad year, where we might have as many as 40 or 50,000. You know, we have got, the best thing you can do for your health at this point is turn off the darn news.
SPEAKER 15 :
That's a fact. That's a fact. Well, all of this leads me into the next conversation. Guys, hang tight. We'll come right back. If you've got a question for us, please send us a text message, 307-282-22. Golden Eagle Financial coming up next. Make sure you're dialed in with your financial future. Talk to Al today. klzradio.com is where you find him.
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SPEAKER 04 :
The best export we have is common sense. You're listening to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Dr. Kelly Victory, and Steve House. Okay, after all of that, Dr. Kelly, everything we just talked about in regards to the vaccine, and Steve started with doctors pushing that and all of that, and then we got into what is COVID really even like today, and this is, I know, A frustration not only of mine, but I think of both of you and even the Trump administration. And yes, we've got a new head of HHS, Robert Kennedy Jr. But the communication that is now not coming out. And this is the complaint that, by the way, Steve. I'll start with you. I've got a complaint with the Republican Party in general. Our messaging and communication skills absolutely suck, as much as I even love Donald Trump. And he did a great job yesterday, I think, during the press conference explaining tariffs and what they mean and what other countries are doing and so on. Although I still don't think at times we even explain that as well as we should. And I can tell you right now, coming out of HHS, it's like crickets.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think part of the problem is, is there's an assumption, and I've run into this so many times, even recently, John, I've talked a lot to people in Colorado about, you know, the new chair and what's going on there. And that is that there's an assumption if you're in the political elite, if you will, that the average person isn't going to get it. But in reality, if you're communicating effectively, you're communicating from the basis of what's constitutionally correct. You're communicating from the point of view that you put yourself in the shoes of someone who, let's say, has, you know, $250,000 invested in the stock market and they encounter a day where, you know, they lose 5% or 6% of their wealth. You know, I think Trump needed to get on there yesterday and say, look, You know, I've told you that there's going to be some small disruption. Well, a little bit better explanation on that. You should say, look, there's going to be a reaction. There's going to be a reaction by the market because there's a lot of people that assume that this is the wrong strategy.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, and adding to that, there's a lot of globe. I would have said this specifically. There's a lot of globalists on Wall Street. In fact, the majority of Wall Street is made up of them. Keep in mind, these guys don't like tariffs because it affects the way the global economy works. So keep in mind, you're going to see a dip in the stock market because globalists hate this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, exactly right. And they also hate short term pain. You know, it's not a lot. This is a long term investment. I mean, it needed to happen. I mean, that's right. You know, there's some things about what he believes on tariffs that are, you know, China, maybe the number in China is not 67 percent. Maybe it's 67 percent when you add in barriers to entry and other things. But in reality, clearly it's messed up. It's been messed up for a long time. So did we know the stock market was going to take a hit? It's been taking it for two months. Are we ready for that? I hope you're not retiring this month because it might be a problem. But in reality, he could have done a better job of explaining it. So should Howard. What I do like, though, is Howard Lutnick and Peter Navarro and the guys are saying, look, it's the right thing to do. Be patient. It'll come out. But yeah, they needed to communicate better. No question about it.
SPEAKER 15 :
Dr. Kelly, I know this is sometimes frustrating for you because you're in that world where you communicate a lot. You're on a lot of news shows. You're on a lot of programs like what we have going on right now. You, I, and Steve, we communicate daily a lot of these things that go on. I know for me, personally, I get really, how should I say, upset maybe isn't the right word, but just irritated that we on our side don't communicate some of these things better.
SPEAKER 05 :
I agree with you 100 percent. And I think that the issue is I think they've done an abysmal job communicating, explaining to the average American how this is going to work, why it's important and acknowledging that there is going to be pain for a period of time. But that is going to be pain with a purpose because it's going to ultimately pay off. And I think you have to explain that or people are going to become very, very upset and the base is going to start to turn. It's sort of like saying to somebody, yes, you can become a marathon runner and it won't be painful at all. You just go out and run every day and it's super easy. And then the next day you just go and run the race. No, there's pain involved. Okay? Growth, you know, and a lot of times, something, in order to get where you want to be, you've got to make a sacrifice. You've got to cut back. It's going to hurt for a little bit, but this is necessary, and we've got to do it. You know, there's a reason why the grown-ups in the room, in this case Trump, is supposed to explain it. When you're the parent with your child in the ER, you're supposed to explain, you're going to have to get this shot, but it's going to make you better. Okay? It's going to hurt for a second. But it's necessary. That's what's apparent. And I am very unhappy with how lousy a job our side has done, the Republicans have done, in explaining, laying out in lay terms what all of this economic policy is about, what it's ultimately going to return, but acknowledging that there's going to be a period of brief discomfort.
SPEAKER 15 :
And, again, communicating that properly. Go ahead, Steve.
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, I can tell you I see it every day in the solicitations for funding for people running for office, too, on the Republican side. I'd coach all of them and say, like, don't send me an email asking me for money telling me that you might lose. I mean, I don't know Randy Fine. He wins. I mean, all this stuff. Like, guys, look, if you're going to be a rational candidate, Talk to me in my terms about my problems and tell me what you think is going to happen. Don't just call and say, we're going to lose. I'm like, okay, I might give you money, but as soon as I see some evidence that we know what we're doing and that we get results, I think we're going in the right direction. I like the direction we're going, but we aren't there yet. We don't have proof yet. And a little bit more explaining would be helpful because we don't yet have absolute proof.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, and Dr. Kelly, the other thing, too, that I would caution folks on, and I say this all the time on our side, is while there are things that might be proven to be true down the road, until you know for sure that things are actually true, and you had a great answer for that earlier when it came to the whole placenta story and so on, and until we know that things are Absolutely 100% true. Be careful what you're spreading. I'll give you an example. And somebody just asked a question. I think I answered it back on the text message, but I'll ask you anyways. They're asking, is some of what we're seeing with measles, which you just explained, we don't have a problem with measles anyways, but is any of that linked to some of the illegals that are coming across the border? Well... I think if there were a lot more cases, maybe we could attribute it to that. But I would be very cautious in saying that's because of the illegal activity at the border that we actually have measles at all, because we have them anyways.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. We have measles outbreaks every year. You know, last year, I think we had 16 or 17 outbreaks, an outbreak being defined as three or more cases that are related. I think we've had four or five outbreaks this year. So I can't blame it specifically on the illegals. There's no question. We don't know people's vaccine status and we don't know their their infectious disease histories. So you can't say that they didn't bring it. There's been a single case in Pueblo. I got a health alert by the Colorado Department of Public Health. health yesterday or the day before saying, you know, there's been a single case of measles identified in an adult male in Pueblo. They made it very quick to say that this was an unvaccinated person who had been to Mexico where there had been measles present. And, you know, I am certainly not even going to bat an eye at a single case of measles in Pueblo, Colorado. And I think largely we need to ignore all of this. I think there are lots of reasons to be concerned about people coming into this country illegally with unknown health status. But I'd be far more concerned about them bringing in tuberculosis and particularly drug resistant tuberculosis than I would about measles.
SPEAKER 15 :
Okay, so back to what got me going on this whole situation with RFK Jr. And it's Axios. Axios is definitely left-leaning. I get it. But talking about headline red, White House fed up with RFK Jr.' 's sluggish press shop. Again, I don't take a lot of stake in Axios, given their background, where they come from, and so on. Although, personally speaking, and I think you guys would agree with this, we haven't seen a lot coming out of that particular administration. I get it, and I'm trying to be patient. They're fairly new. But I would have expected by now, Dr. Kelly and Steve, and I'll start with you, Dr. Kelly, to even have... An explanation as to what we just went through, you and I and Steve, with what COVID really is today. Do you need this vaccine? Quit giving it to kids under a certain age. I mean, there's all sorts of things you could have came out and made a statement on. And I guess my frustration is, what are we waiting for, guys? Get on it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, they are certainly suffering, they being HHS and the new administration under Bobby Kennedy. They are struggling for a communication strategy.
SPEAKER 15 :
I mean, no offense, Dr. Kelly, really quick, just to interrupt, but, you know, between you and I and Steve, and I'm not trying to boast or brag, but they could hire the three of us, and I'm not joking, within about... I don't know, 48 hours, the three of us could come up with enough messaging to handle what they need to do over the next 30 days.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. Well, you know, I was, you know, without getting too much into the weeds, I was heading to D.C. to do that job for HHS. And so very, very recently when they made a decision, senior administration under Trump made the decision that not to have a spokesperson for HHS, the job I was heading to do. They made a decision that Bobby Kennedy, Jay Bhattacharya, Marty Macri, and Memon Oz will be their own spokespersons. I think that that is a bad decision. I think we need cohesiveness and communication. And I think the only way to get the train back on the track, given how much competence has been lost during the, you know, not only the COVID debacle, but over the last couple of decades with regard to what's going on in health care, certainly including Obamacare and everything related to that, I think they absolutely need somebody to give a singular voice and a singular message with regard to the priorities. They don't have that. And it appears, at least for the time being, I respect their decision. It was not my decision. But I think that it is not the bet. I think you are always better off to have a cohesive, singular voice rather than appear to be in a bit of disarray.
SPEAKER 15 :
Steve, maybe they knew that she knew you and I, and that's why she didn't get that.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know what? I called him and said it would be way too detrimental to the radio show. Yeah, can't lose her. Can't lose her. Let her down easy. Let her down easy.
SPEAKER 15 :
Part of me, I'm really upset that you didn't get it. Part of me actually is very glad you didn't, Dr. Kelly, because, yeah, that means you wouldn't be with us on... a regular basis, and we have learned so much, and you have given so much value to our listeners. On the same token, I agree with you wholeheartedly. There needs to be a cohesive message coming out of HHS across the board. There's so many things that that department, frankly, and the White House has missed the mark on over the past not only four years, but I'll go a couple of years even past, even when Trump was still president. Reality is they have blown it on so many levels. They've got to get that back.
SPEAKER 06 :
I agree, and I'm hopeful...
SPEAKER 15 :
Go ahead, Dr. Cahill, I'll let you start.
SPEAKER 05 :
As you say, I'm hopeful that they will come to a different conclusion, whether it's me or somebody else. There are certainly other people who are competent to do it. It's something that I was willing to serve in order because I believe this is such an important thing. And I think we have got so much work to do. So I was willing to give up a lot of things that I love, including this show and a job that I love at the wellness company and other places. in order to serve the country. So I'm hopeful that they will make a different decision going forward.
SPEAKER 03 :
Steve, go ahead. I mean, in reality, I've traveled the world and seen health care in different countries, and I will tell you the silos that we have in this country are unique. We don't have these kind of silos in the rest of the world. I mean, you have nutrition-based health, which Bobby Kennedy seems would make America healthy. Again, he's kind of putting his arms around that. You have then drug, pharma, FDA, approving processes, devices, interventions, etc., You have Mehmet running CMS, Medicaid, Medicare, which is one of the largest payers in the country. And, you know, then you have the entire infrastructure underneath all of that that involves health care, IT and billing and everything else that goes on. There is no way. I mean, I really am disappointed because what I expected, and I like Bobby Kennedy, what I expected him and that group to do was come together and lay out a plan from end to end, from the starting point of nutrition and, you know, even as far as saying, you know, breast milk is better than formula. All the way to the point where nutrition throughout your life is really, really critical. And when you need an intervention, you get it a certain way. You need to be incentivized. You said pain, right? You were talking about pain. It's like going to the gym, Kelly, right? I mean, you can't get progress without pain. You go to the gym and you get that. There has to be that overall messaging that is connected together. And if it's not connected together, then, you know, you're living in silos and all of a sudden you jump from one to the other. And usually there's a bunch of pain and a bunch of costs associated with it. So it's very disappointing they haven't made that change.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, if it's any consolation to both of you, we've had numerous texters now saying, gosh, what a bad move on their part to not do that. And I get it, Dr. Kelly. There are other people that could do that as well. Although I will just say this straight up because I know you as well as I do. I'd be hard pressed for, you know. If I were them, I'd be hard-pressed to find anybody more qualified to do that job than you. That already has got a lot of press experiences on the radio, is on TV, is doing these things on a routine basis. They would be hard-pressed to find anybody better than you. I'll just say that straight up.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I appreciate the kudos. I laid out a strategy that I think is tried and true when it comes to leadership, which is that, number one, people need to understand that you are capable of doing something other than surviving in crisis mode. I would lay out on a regular basis, meaning in the same way that you've got uh caroline lovett doing it uh for the white house i would do take that same approach with hhs there's so much going on that i would do a weekly uh press briefing and say here are the top five things we are working on the top two might be crisis issues perhaps you know bird flu or measles right now uh but then layout and here are things three four and five that we are working on urgently issues with regard to you know pharmaceutical advertising or flooring in the water or the school You know, the school lunch program or whatever it is.
SPEAKER 15 :
How to make America healthy again.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes. Yes. That you're not just capable of putting out the fire in front of you, but that you can multitask and that you are capable of keeping this plate spinning and addressing the needs of all Americans. Right now, it's sort of they just go from one crisis to the next. And that's never a good optic.
SPEAKER 15 :
Nope. No, you can't just be a fireman. Steve, it's one of the things that, you know, when I coach other businesses and I come alongside and I try to, number one, start that process of, hey. as an owner, you cannot just be a fireman or you're never going to get the business to where it needs to go. So there's things you do strategically, as Dr. Kelly laid out a moment ago, that you start down the process of to not just be a fireman. Because as you know, Steve, if you're just a fireman, that's all you're going to ever do. You're not going to do anything else.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it's kind of like you have this make America healthy again scenario, but you also need a keep America healthy when we get there again scenario as well. You need to have that investment in that. By the way, if Kelly wasn't going to do it, John, I'd want you, because I can just see the press asking you a health care question and you saying, you know, that's like having a transmission and a differential. They're both brand new. That's right. If they don't integrate, you're just not going to get the opportunity you want, and that's going to cost too much money. You're going to end up in ED. I would love that kind of talk.
SPEAKER 15 :
You know, the funniest thing about that is there'll probably be a lot of blue-collar guys out there saying, yeah, right, I get that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, from the first time I understand health care, I finally get it.
SPEAKER 15 :
Oh, you're too funny. Well, I got to run, let both of you guys go. Dr. Kelly, all we can do is keep praying, see if they'll see the light. I think you still would be a great candidate. I guess we'll see how things turn out.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you very much. In the meantime, I will continue working with you guys. We appreciate it. Educating people one show at a time. We love it.
SPEAKER 15 :
Thank you, Dr. Kelly. Appreciate you very much. Steve, thank you for putting all this together years ago. It's because of you we do this. Well, maybe, but it's because of her that we're better at it than we would have been otherwise. Very well said. Appreciate that. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate you very much. Up next, Veteran Windows and Doors, 35% off up to three windows, 40% off four or more. Free labor to install. Talk to Dave today. Go to klzradio.com to find him.
SPEAKER 14 :
Veteran Windows and Doors knows that other companies only care about getting the sale. Those companies sell you on emotions, pressuring you to sign today to get the best price, but they don't even know about the critical energy codes and ratings of the windows. Dave Bancroft, owner of Veteran Windows and Doors, guarantees he will get you the right windows and doors designed specifically for your home. without the ridiculous sales tactics and needless pressuring. Dave is passionate about educating you so that you can make an informed decision on your timeline and wants to protect you as a consumer. And Dave has seen other companies' prices appear cheaper initially, but once the door you bought doesn't fit or it's the wrong door, they must structurally change the door frame to create the opening. You've lost thousands of dollars. Don't deal with just the sales rep. Work with Dave. For the month of April, when you buy up to three windows, enjoy 35% off. Buy four or more windows, you'll receive 40% off, all with free installation. Just go to klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 15 :
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Are you in the market for a reliable car, truck, or SUV that won't break the bank? Does your vehicle need high-quality auto repair? Then look no further. Ridgeline Auto Brokers and Legacy Auto Repair specialize in quality used cars that cost between $15,000 and $25,000, making them a great option for first-time drivers or anyone looking for a great deal. At Ridgeline, we pride ourselves on providing a transparent and happy hassle-free car buying experience. That's why we never charge any dealer fees. Plus, all of our vehicles are inspected by our team of ASE-certified technicians. You can trust that the car you're buying is in excellent condition. And remember, we can also service your vehicle after the sale. At Ridgeline, we can take your current vehicle on trade, and we also offer competitive financing options for vehicle purchases and also for vehicle repairs. Ridgeline now has two locations, one in Boulder and now a second location in Fort Collins located at 1101 North College Avenue. Both locations offer full-service auto repair and a host of off-road accessories. Check out all their services at RidgelineAutobrokers.com. Ridgeline, the smart way to buy or service or accessorize your car, truck, or SUV.
SPEAKER 15 :
All right, those of you that may have collected either coins, stamps, jewelry, watches, maybe not collected but just acquired over the years, you may be sitting on those thinking, hey, what's the value of that today? Best thing to do is go see David Gonzalez at Mile High Coin. He can explain the value, appraise it for you, by the way. And you can decide at that point, do I want to turn that into cash? Do I want to take a portion of it? What do I want to do? Once you know the value, you can make that decision on an educated basis. 720-370-3400 or go to coinbuyers.co.
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SPEAKER 04 :
It's time to leave your safe space. This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. All right.
SPEAKER 15 :
And yes, some of you that may be interested in more about Dr. Kelly Victory, if you haven't seen her out and about and you don't know who she is, she's actually very well known. She talks to a lot of other news organizations besides us. We were one of her first backers. Back in the day, 2020, and she has since grown much larger in that particular area since then. And you see her in a lot of different places all over the news and so on. But we've got a page dedicated to her on our website, RushToReason.com. So in case you're new, maybe listening for the first time today, want to know who that actually was. She is very much an expert in all things medically related, including COVID, turbo cancers, the mRNA vaccines, all of those different things. So if you want to know more about her, again, just go to our website, RushToReason.com. And Steve House, who you also heard there, he actually has been in the political end of things for quite some time, was based here in Colorado for a very, very long time, has been in the medical health care admin end of things for a very long time, and put Dr. Kelly, Victory, and us together all the way back in 2020 as well. We'll be back. Hour number two is next. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 16 :
The Average Guy's Ordinary Average Guy
In this thought-provoking episode of The Flatline, Rick Hughes invites listeners on a journey through the concept of volitional responsibility in the Christian faith. Through exploration of scripture and biblical teachings, uncover insights into the transformational potential of humility, the significance of belief, and the detrimental effects of arrogance. Rick illustrates clearly how maintaining control over one's decisions can lead to spiritual growth and a fulfilling life aligned with divine intention. This episode offers listeners practical tools to break free from the chains of stress and embrace a God-centered life through disciplined obedience and reverence for eternal truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to The Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you'll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flotline. I'm your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, I'd like to ask you to please stick around. It'll just be 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and we don't use any manipulation. If this is your first time to hear us, the Flotline stands for the Forward Line of Troops. That's a military analogy. We're talking about how you can learn 10 unique problem-solving devices taught in the Bible, the Word of God, and there's nothing new. These are age-old biblical doctrines, but if you learn them and use them, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity from becoming the inside source of stress. That's why we say adversity is inevitable and stress is optional. You can have an inside flatline, a main line of resistance in your soul based on the word of God to allow you to live the life that Jesus Christ designed for you, the Christian life, the most unique life in the world. A life with no worry, a life with no fear, a life with complete confidence, a life that has the most happiness that you've ever known. You say, that doesn't sound like any Christian life I've ever heard of. Well, that's what it's supposed to be. That's what the Word of God says. And it all boils down to you using your volition. We've been talking about volition the last two shows. Volition, V-O-L-I-T-I-O-N. It's part of the main frame of your soul. God gave you a soul. You have mentality and you have volition. You have the ability to choose. You have the ability to make a decision. But that decision can be based on one or two things. It can be based on what you think or it can be based on what you feel. That's why we jokingly say that God has given you two ends, one to sit with and one to think with. And success in life depends on which one of those you use. Heads you win, tails you lose. God wants you to think. And that's why the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. And the first thing you have to think is in terms of humility. The Bible says who humbled himself, he humbled himself. Humility is the total opposite of arrogance. Arrogance skills include self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption, and eventually, obviously, self-destruction. And arrogant people always destroy their life and other lives of those associated with them. And so if you use your volition in an arrogant way, With an unrealistic self-image, with unrealistic expectations, you're just going to destroy yourself. But if you have some humility and use your volition to learn God's Word, to acquire wisdom, knowledge, insight, and understanding, the fantastic four taught in the book of Proverbs, then you can have a most wonderful life. But we showed you how there's self-induced misery and divine discipline from using your volition in the wrong way. Again, your volition is what controls you. You make your life out of your decisions. You must choose. Your thoughts become your decisions, and your decisions become your actions, and your actions lead to results. So what does the Bible say about self-induced misery? Making your own self miserable. Proverbs 22.8, he who sows wickedness reaps trouble and the rod of his punishment will surely come. Sowing wickedness is you intentionally committing sin. When you intentionally sin, it could be mental attitude sin such as uh worry fear jealousy bitterness it could be sins of the tongue such as lying and slander and gossiping it could be an overt sin like stealing or adultery or fornication when we sow wickedness we reap trouble and that trouble if you are a christian comes from the disciplined hand of God. If you're not a Christian and you never accepted Christ as your savior, you're still so troubled from the establishment concepts of the law, divine establishment concepts that we operate on as a nation. Demand that we all orient to authority to maintain our freedom. And if you cannot orient to authority, if you're negative to authority, and you decide to go on a criminal spree, you will suffer trouble. So that's one verse, Proverbs 22, 8. He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his punishment will surely come. There's a verse in the book of John chapter three says, he that believes in him shall never perish, but have everlasting life. And he that believes not, the wrath of God abides on him already. Without believing in Jesus Christ and accepting him as your savior, you are using your volition to go negative to God's plan. You're using your volition to say, no, I do not want to accept Christ as my savior. Maybe you think you got a better deal. Or maybe you think that God is wrong or the Bible is wrong or it's all a joke. It's not, I assure you. We don't have time to go in and prove why the Bible is true and why the Lord Jesus Christ is who he said he is. But if you read Romans, the first chapter, beginning with verse 19, you can see the logical conclusion that there must be a God that created this because there's too much order. There's no chaos in the universe. And so everything fits together, even in your own body it works. So there is a God, and you must answer to that God. And that God said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. I hope you'll consider that seriously. I hope you will look at those claims that Christ made himself, the claims that he was the Son of God, that he did die for your sins. It certainly shocked Pilate when Pilate saw it. Pilate, Jesus was led before Pilate to be crucified by the Jewish religious leaders. And they said, he's made himself out to be the son of God. And Pilate heard that and about freaked out. Took him to the side, back into the praetorium and said, where did you come from? well he wanted to know i hope you want to know is jesus the son of god is he is he who he said he was or was he just as it's been said before a lunatic and a liar i think if you will examine the scripture you will see that he was not a lunatic he was not a liar he was indeed the son of god That's why the Bible says this is the will of him that sent me that you believe in me whom he has sent. And that is the first volitional decision you must make that will help you orient and adjust to the plan of God. And we go to Proverbs 12, 13. In the transgression of the lips, that's the sin of your big mouth, mine too, is an evil snare. That's triple compound discipline we get when we stick our nose in someone else's business. Matthew 7 says, don't judge, let you be judged because of what measure you measure, it'll be measured back to you again. And you can actually stick your nose where it doesn't belong. And that person's discipline, if in fact it's true, what you said would be taken off of them and given to you. So your righteous will escape. And let me go back. Proverbs 12, 13, in the transgression of the lips is an evil snare, but the righteous person will escape this trouble. So every time you judge or malign or gossip or run down someone, you have manufactured misery for yourself. The righteous here isn't someone who's perfect. I don't know anyone who's perfect. We're all just a bunch of jerks. And if it wasn't for God's sense of humor, come on, you know this. You and I would have already been a greasy spot. God has a sense of humor. You don't believe it? Go look in the mirror. He created us, didn't he? And he's very gracious and very patient with us. So what this righteous person here is not a perfect person. It's someone who doesn't gossip, malign, or judge other people. and uh can't afford to do that i have been at dinner conversations where the neighbor was the the center of the conversation and it makes you terribly uncomfortable and you want to say shut up quit judging other people leave them alone proverbs 13 20 he who walks with wise men will be wise but the companion of a fool will suffer misery if you use a volitional decision to hang out with an idiot If you use your volition to hang out with a real, dumb, criminal, arrogant idiot, then you're going to suffer misery. We make good decisions and we make bad decisions in regards to the people whom we associate with. If you associate with the wrong crowd, you're making a decision that's going to cause you a tremendous amount of unhappiness. You may remember from high school, associating with the wrong crowd, I can remember distinctly the upperclassmen luring me into certain things and wanting to get their approval, wanting to be liked by them. I went right along with just like a dumb sheep, just so they would like me and did things that I should not have done. And you probably were down the same road. Proverbs 15, 17, another volitional verse. Better is a dish of cabbage where love is than the best wine and hatred with it. In other words, you not only choose your food, but you choose your associations as well. If you choose to have a steak or a hamburger or pasta today, you also choose who you're hanging out with. So if you're gonna fall in love, you better fall in love with the right sort of person. Proverbs 15, 33, occupation with the Lord is the instruction for wisdom. And before honor must come humility. Good decisions. Occupation with the Lord. Problem solving device number 10 in our Flatline on the Soul. Occupation with the Lord is the instruction for wisdom. And before any honor comes into our life, we must be able to handle it with humility. Good decisions based on humility in your soul will eventually lead to honor, and that includes virtue love as a problem-solving device. Another problem-solving device, number eight, virtue love, impersonal love, the ability to love other people. Proverbs 16, 18, pride, that's arrogance, goes before destruction and an arrogant way of life before a fall. Destruction and fall here both refer to self-imposed, self-induced misery under the law of volitional responsibility. Your arrogance and your arrogant way of life will cause you to destroy yourself. That's why I told you earlier in this show, self-deception, self-absorption, self-destruction. Self-justification is the first step of arrogance. You justify why you're right and everybody else is wrong. Then you become totally absorbed with what you want to do. That's self-absorption. And then there's also self-destruction that comes along following that. Self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption, self-destruction. So remember that pride, that's arrogance, goes before that destruction and an arrogant way of life before a fall. If you're listening to me and you're thinking these may be you that I might be talking about you, could I suggest you take a moment and go before your father? And as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, simply tell him you've sinned. Simply admit to him that you've been arrogant and you've rejected his word and you've gone down that my way highway. Be honest with God because the Bible says that he loves you. He cares about you. God doesn't want to hurt you, but he will discipline his children when we step out of line according to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us, chapter 12, verse 6, those whom he loves, he disciplines and he scourges with a whip. And that's not fun. So if you are a child of God, now would be a great time to be honest, to own up to it, and to simply ask the Lord to forgive you, to cleanse you from your sin. That's where it starts because that puts the Holy Spirit back in control. You cannot grow if the Holy Spirit's not in control. You cannot glorify God if the Holy Spirit's not in control. You cannot live the Christian life if the Holy Spirit's not in control. That's why rebound is the first problem-solving device in the flotline of your soul. rebound retains the filling of the Holy Spirit. It's the only way to get the Holy Spirit to be in control again because the Bible tells us the flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit wars against the flesh, they're contrary one to another. There's a war going on inside of you and it's your flesh that wants to control you that manipulates you until your volition agrees to go along with its demands. When the flesh demands something that you don't want to do, your volition may fight it. And your volition may say, no, I'm not going to do that. No, no, no. But the flesh doesn't give up. And the world doesn't give up. not even talking about the devil. Remember, he's not omnipresent. He can only be in one place at one time. And if you think he's at your house chasing you around between the living room and the bedroom, you're wrong. You're not getting away from your own flesh and the lure of the world. That's where the problem is. Now's the time to confess your sin to God. Another verse, better a dry crust with tranquility, that's peace and quiet, than a house full of religion and strife. Proverbs 17, one. Better a dry crust with tranquility, that's peace and quiet, than a house of religion that's all kind of sacrifices and strife. So religion usually is ritual without reality and it's meaningless. Organized religion is the number one evil thing in the world. It is the most evil thing in the world. Luke 18 talks about the religious man who thought he was saved and he wasn't. Oh, he tithed and he prayed and he did this and he did that, but he wasn't a believer because he was basing it on his own self-righteousness. If your volition is basing your salvation on your self-righteousness, then you are not a Christian either. So, Proverbs 17, 13. He who returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house. It will not only affect him, but also everyone associated with him. And this is called compounding self-induced misery. Not only will you make your life miserable, but you will make everyone in your home miserable as well. And this is so true of drug addicts and how they destroy families and homes and alcoholics and et cetera. Proverbs 17, 20, a person with a perverse right lobe, that's a mindset, That's a person who deviates from what's right. He's obstinate. He's willfully wrong. A person with a perverse right lobe mindset will not prosper, and he whose tongue is deceitful will fall into trouble and misery. Proverbs 19, eight. He who gets wisdom loves his own soul. That's spiritual self-esteem. That's a wonderful thing. And he who cherishes understanding will prosper. Did you see gets and cherishes? Those are volitional decisions. You must decide for yourself, do you want to grow up spiritually? You must decide for yourself, do you want to glorify God? You must decide for yourself, am I willing to put in the time that it takes to become a mature believer? If you join the military service, you have to go to boot camp. And in boot camp, you learn how to march, how to dress, how to use your weapon, how to respond to officers. You are basically reintroduced to a new way of thinking and a new way of living under authority. This is much the same as becoming a Christian. You have to change the way you think. You change the way you live. And this is what becoming a Christian is all about. If any man is in Christ, the Bible says, he's a brand new creation. Old things are passed away and all things become new. You don't look different. You don't sound different. But internally, you become different. Because God the Holy Spirit moves in to set up residency in your dead human spirit, you are now made alive spiritually and And you enter into the angelic conflict where the war begins. The flesh wars against the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh. And you must decide for yourself, as I've seen many people decide not to do, you must decide, do I want to advance spiritually? Do I want to grow spiritually? Or do I want to pursue other details in my life? Some of my personal decisions I'm trying to think of the word I want to use here, but some of the things that have made me the saddest are those that I've seen come to Christ who had the potential to serve him but walked away to chase the details of life, to chase fame, publicity, happiness, and some other area. And it's the way life goes. They're not interested. Other things attract them. What attracts you? What do you want to do with your life? What is your life about? That's a decision your volition will make. Your volition will decide where you want to go and what you want to do. Proverbs 19, 15, laziness brings on deep sleep and the shiftless person suffers hunger. Laziness is a volitional decision. If you want to lay in the bed 12 hours a day and you live to be 80, you're only awake for 40 years, so you live to be 40, really. Sleep is fine. It's wonderful. Nothing wrong with it. But you're not designed to sleep your life away. And yet a lazy person will sleep their life away. They won't work. They won't get out of bed. They won't take care of their schoolwork. They won't get dressed in time to go to school. They won't handle their responsibility. They just want to sleep. And a shiftless person, that's a person that's not willing to work, suffers hunger. However, in our country, some people are not willing to work but depend on the government to provide food for them. That's not a good thing necessarily. It is right and thing to be charitable. It is right to help people in need. But it is not right to provide for those who are not willing to work and are able and could work. They take advantage of the system. Proverbs 19, 16, he who obeys instruction guards his own soul, but he who is contemptuous of his own ways will die. This is a certain ticket to an early death. If you obey the word of God, it's beginning with Ephesians 6, 1, 2, 3, children obey your parents, honor your father and your mother, which is the first mandate with a promise that you will live long on this earth. If you can obey those instructions to develop authority orientation for your parents, then you can protect your soul. But if you're contemptuous of your own ways, you reject the authority of your parents, you reject the authority of the priest officer, You reject the authority of the Bible. You reject the authority of the pastor. You're going to set yourself up for an early death. How? Because in your arrogance, you will self-justify, self-deceive, self-absorb, and self-destruct. You will destroy your own life. As a matter of fact, you may be well on the way to destroying your own life right now. Again, it's not too late. You can stop. You can go to your Heavenly Father if you're a believer in Jesus Christ and admit your sin. He already knows about it. He's lovingly waiting on you. You haven't died yet. Why not recover? Why not get with it? Why not use the same volition that got you into trouble to get you out of trouble? Just like you decided to do what you did, you can decide to go to the Father and admit your sin to God. Proverbs 19, 19, a hot-tempered man must pay the penalty. If you rescue him, you will have to do it again. That's a person who can't control his temper. That's a volitional decision. That's the arrogant person that can't control his temper. We've all been there. We've all, when we're young, we have a temper. However, in America today, It's unbelievable. People are so out of control, they'll shoot you in traffic just because you accidentally pulled in front of them. They'll run you over in the grocery store because you accidentally did something. People's temper is out of control. They'll run you down in the parking lot they will do unbelievable mean nasty evil things because they get mad and lose their temper and never think about the consequences a hot tempered person is the person you must look out for Because if you rescue him, you're going to have to do it again and again and again and again. If he's your child, if he's your friend, it's going to be a life of misery trying to get this person out of trouble because they can't control their temper. Proverbs 19.23, occupation with the Lord leads to living so that one rests in contentment is untouched by trouble. You rest in contentment and you are untouched in trouble. To be content means to have capacity for life. To be content means you're not looking for something to make you happy. You already have inner happiness. In Proverbs 19.25, flog a mocker and the simple will learn prudence. but rebuke a discerning person and he will gain knowledge. That's the criminal, the mocker. You flog him and the sepul learn, I don't need to do that or I'm gonna get flogged. But if you rebuke a person that has some discernment, then he'll gain knowledge. And so a person with humility has discernment and gains knowledge. from the rebuking that we are getting today from the Word of God. Are you that person? Do you have that sort of temperament? Do you? Are you discerning enough to know that these verses are speaking to you? This is God talking to you, not Rick Hughes, the host. It's God's Word speaking to you, and it's the Holy Spirit making them come alive in your soul. So the Bible is clear. Better to live in the corner of a rooftop than to share a house with a contemptuous wife. Boy, Proverbs 21 verse 9. If your life is miserable, you just soon go live outside on top of the roof and get yelled at, shouted at, cussed out by a wife that's mad. Proverbs 21, 19, better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging woman. In other words, making a wrong decision and choosing your marriage partner will cause you a life full of misery. Proverbs 21, 21, he who pursues virtue love finds the capacity for life, prosperity, and honor. That's what God has for you. But Proverbs 22.8, he who sows wickedness reaps trouble. That's the law of volitional responsibility. And the rod of his punishment will surely come. His is God. The rod of God's punishment will surely come. There are laws relating to your volition. There are laws relating to what happens when you use your volition to go negative to God. When you in your arrogance reject the authority of your parents, reject the authority of the police officer, reject the authority of the pastor, reject any authority in life, you're setting yourself up for an early death. You will destroy yourself because you do not have enough humility to make the right decision. Consider what I say. Think about these things. You are a product of your volition, not your circumstances. You're a product of your decisions, not where you grew up, not who was your mama or daddy, who you are, your life, your volition, your decisions. You are responsible. I hope you're thinking. I hope you're listening. I hope you're paying attention because this is a critical time in your life. I can guarantee you that. Until next Sunday, when I'll be back, same time, same place, same station, we're very grateful for the opportunity to be here, and we always like to hear from you. Contact us through our website, rickhughesministries.org. Until then, thank you for listening to The Floodline.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you'd like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
Join us for a comprehensive dive into recent news. We'll touch on contentious issues like fraudulent Social Security recipients, the daring remarks of President Trump, and the challenges that arise with such divisive topics. Our discussions aim to provide clarity and understanding, bringing in various perspectives and expert opinions to foster an engaging conversation.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. It's Friday, April 4th. This week, the left vandalizes Teslas, California honors an alleged assassin, and President Trump floats a possible third term. We begin with the story everyone wants to talk about, tariffs on the stuff we buy every day. It's a big day for the country and the world with tariffs. the so-called Liberation Day finally arriving, the day when Trump is, after the markets close, will reveal what the tariff position is going to look like. Israel yesterday announced no tariffs on the United States, which is big, but perhaps even bigger is what the Ontario premier said, Doug Ford, on an interview earlier today on CNBC.
SPEAKER 02 :
He believes he's supporting Americans. He said he was going to create jobs, create wealth, reduce inflation. It's worth the total opposite. But do you think it's fair that you have tariffs on a whole number of products? That's right. And we'd be willing to take those off tomorrow if he took all the tariffs off. We are not the problem, Andrew. Do you know what the problem is? China's the problem. And he's taking a blind eye to China as they continue to build their critical mineral mass. We have all the critical minerals that our great neighbors need. We have the energy that our great neighbors need. Did you hear what he said?
SPEAKER 03 :
We will take the tariffs off, all tariffs off, if Trump will take the tariffs off of Canada. That's, of course, what Trump wants. Trump wants an even playing field. Fair trade. Not us. Shouldering the majority. Well, Liberation Day continues in what's being described as a stunning move. The president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, has conceded to the United States and President Trump, declaring she won't retaliate with tariffs against President Trump's trade measures. Somebody just pointed out, How Scheinbaum just played a high stakes game and she blinked first. It's a big story. Real big story. It's a real big story. First, Israel. Canada's Doug Ford said, we'll lift the tariffs. Mexico. China is left, but this is... This is the golden era. This is where Trump's agenda comes into play mightily. I love the quote, all we needed was a new president. Republicans may have won big in November, but as Democrats proved this week, the fight is far from over. The GOP would do well to remember that. So I don't know that name-calling and I don't know that denouncing our political opponent, I don't know that Violence? I know that violence isn't the answer. But I wonder what you think about my belief that maybe last night's election win for the Supreme Court justice, this liberal Susan Crawford, will lower the temperature a little bit. I guarantee you Charlie Kirk doesn't agree with me. I don't think he does. But who knows? I just have enormous respect for him. You've seen these videos that are going viral, and they've been going viral, where he goes one-on-one with college students on college campuses all over America. That is a thing to behold. This young man is beyond brilliant and has emerged as one of the most important voices in America. Here's what he wrote about Wisconsin. We did a lot in Wisconsin, but we fell short. We must realize and appreciate that we are the low-propensity party now. The party has been remade. Special elections and off-cycle elections will continue to be a problem without a change of strategy. We're the party of welders, waiters, and plumbers. We're the party of people who work with their hands, who shower before and after work. Politics is an afterthought for many of our supporters. They have common sense and American values, but they're voters who must be chased and Democrats have become the college indoctrinated, institutionalized, and government dependent high propensity party. They live for politics. It's their religion. You may hate Trump, but he resurrected a dead GOP back to life. Voters who weren't on anyone's data rolls came out of the woodwork to vote for Donald Trump. Charlie goes on to write, our movement must begin to fully fund the infrastructure to match the Democrat machine. Our ideas are better. They're actually popular. But we need to match like for like. We need to out-organize Democrats. We need to match their fundraising advantage. Let Wisconsin be a wake-up call. Let it be a call to return to the front lines. We won in November, but to save the republic, we must string together multiple victories. And that starts in 2026. It's a great message from Charlie Kirk. I hope you check it out. Again, I posted it on my ex-account. Follow me, at Gallagher Show. Interact there, and let me see what you think. We've been hearing about angry Americans vandalizing Teslas to protest Elon. Here's an example of one such criminal confronted by the vehicle's owner. There's a lot of insanity. Take, for example, the guy caught drawing a swastika on a man's car. And my question to you is, what would you do? Here's what this guy did. He took out his cell phone camera and he taped the exchange. The way the guy responded, the guy who was caught red-handed defacing another man's property is classic. Free service.
SPEAKER 06 :
How about you pay for the repairs? Write a check. You just bought a Tesla. I can wipe it off with a towel. No, no. It's not a key. It is a hate crime, sir. It was a crayon. It is a hate crime. Did you write a swastika on there?
SPEAKER 07 :
I'm sorry you're upset. Did you write a swastika? It didn't even work.
SPEAKER 06 :
Apparently it doesn't work. Did you write a swastika on the... It's a key, sir. We see it on the video.
SPEAKER 07 :
It's not a key.
SPEAKER 06 :
Is it a swastika? I was probably putting my keys in my pocket. Is it a swastika? Have you looked at your car? Is there a key mark? Yes. is it a swastika it's at the police right now it's being fingerprinted there what do you mean it's being fingerprinted because they they're trying to track you down thankfully facebook tracked you down so your business your freaking livelihood everything now because you chose to write a uh so to tell facebook that you're sorry for writing a swastika on a tesla listen
SPEAKER 07 :
I said, I'm sorry. For what?
SPEAKER 06 :
And I apologize. For what?
SPEAKER 07 :
I have nothing against your car, and I have nothing against you.
SPEAKER 06 :
So why would you write a swastika on a Tesla?
SPEAKER 07 :
Obviously, I have something against Elon Musk, but that's not the way to show my... So Elon Musk owns that car?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, he owns the company. It was bought and paid for a long time ago.
SPEAKER 07 :
That's why it's misguided, and obviously, I did not intend to do this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, you didn't intend? I didn't intend to draw a swastika on a car. And I don't want to put this guy in harm's way, the guy caught, but I want to know about him. I mean, normal-looking guy, well-groomed. I mean, he's got, like, his little vest on. He's got his little jacket vest on. Looks like a professional. This guy's a 45-, 50-year-old man defacing somebody's car because he's mad at Elon Musk. I want to know about that guy. Who is he? What does he do for a living? Not, again, to cause him any harm. I want to know how these people get to where they are psychologically. Aren't you kind of intrigued by this? I wonder if that guy's a husband, a father? Is he an executive somewhere? What does he do for a living? How do you interact with people who are thrilled that the Trump administration is trying to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of our taxpayer dollars? How will you treat that person if you're going to go up and draw a swastika of all things? You know how many Jews in America have immediate family members who died in the Holocaust? You think that's funny? You think that's cute? You think it's clever? You think you're making a statement? Well, obviously I have something against Elon Musk. Well, take it up with Elon Musk. Go try to draw a swastika on his car and see what happens to you. You big coward. These people are nuts. And if you talk to anybody who's agreeing with that guy, they're nuts. And nuts is on the line. All Elon Musk did was volunteer to make our government and our country better. We all worry about the future of Social Security, right? Listen to what Elon's Doge team is doing to fix it. This is important. Elon went to Wisconsin. He's supporting, of course, Brad Schimel. And he introduced one of his Doge engineers. This guy's one of these venture equity capital guys, a guy named Antonio Gracias, who explains what's going on. with the Social Security Administration and what they are uncovering through Doge. Check this out. And this is like four minutes, but I want you to hear the whole thing because it's really, really important. Everybody needs to know what's at stake. Look, in Wisconsin, they want the radical progressive woman to win the Supreme Court race so that Democrats can control the House of Representatives. That's the real plan. That's the endgame. With Social Security, check out the connection to illegals.
SPEAKER 01 :
Antonio's helping out with Social Security. So just trying to review Social Security, where you may have heard that we found 20 million dead people mocked as alive in the Social Security database. This is so crazy. And then you'll notice there's a strange trend here. where how many social security numbers were issued? Do you want to?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, so let me tell you what happened here. We started at the top of the system. You want to talk about a lot of it? We started at the top of the system, mapping the whole system of social security to understand where all the fraud was. And there's a lot of great people there that showed us really a lot of waste. And so that came with a big list of stuff they're working on. You've heard some of that already. But this is what jumped out at us. When we saw these numbers, we were like, what is this? In 21, you see 270,000 people. It goes all the way to 2.1 million in 24. These are non-citizens that are getting Social Security numbers. Yeah, this is a mind-blowing chart. Yeah, this literally blew us away. We went there to find fraud, and we found this by accident. And this isn't political, by the way. My parents are immigrants. Yeah, this country's been great to us. My brother and sister are all born in Spain. I'm pro-legal immigration. This is not political. This is not political. This is about America and the future of America. And there are a lot of good people in the system that pointed this in this direction. I want to honor them right now that work in the government today who took risks to show us these numbers and tell us what's going on. So I want to stop for a minute. I want to honor those people today. Very good people. Very good people. I have been from D.C. to social security offices to the border to track this down, and very good people have helped us along the way. I want to thank them. This number, what this is, is when you come in the country, if you're illegal, there's a couple ways to come in. You come in through a port of entry, and you can tell them you're afraid. They'll give you an asylum case. You'll get an interview. Then you get in. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is to just go to the border. Literally, this happened. I talked to Border Patrol myself. Elon was there, too. I went to Laredo and I went to Bronzeville. Elon went to Eagle Pass. You walk up to Border Patrol officer and you tell him you want to come in. They have a couple of choices. They could charge you with a misdemeanor or a felony under 1325, or they can make an administrative offense, like a parking ticket, basically. They were told to do that, make an administrative offense under the last administration. And then you could walk across the border. They do what's called a... Release your recognizance and they give you an NTA notice to appear which to appear at a judge The wait times on judges are like average six years. Look at grok. You'll see it on immigration judges There's only 700 of them. This is 5.5 million people Okay, so what happens then once you're in the country and you've got asylum do one of these pathways we map the whole thing out and You can apply for a work document. You file a 765. It's the work form. You get this form called the 766. That's the authorization. And then Social Security Administration automatically sends you in the mail your Social Security number. No interview.
SPEAKER 01 :
No idea. This is worth just reiterating. People sometimes think that under the Biden administration that he was simply asleep at the switch. He wasn't asleep. They weren't asleep at the switch. It was a massive, large-scale program to import as many illegals as possible, ultimately to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and make it a permanent, deep blue, one-party state from which there would be no escape.
SPEAKER 08 :
Look, if I hadn't seen this myself, I'm not sure I'd have believed it. I went through it myself and mapped it, and Elon is right. This is true. The defaults in the system from Social Security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people, and minimum collection. That's what's happening. We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid, as an example. On every benefit program we went through, we found groups from this particular group of people, this 5.5 million people, in those benefit programs. And then what was really, really disturbing us was why. We're asking ourselves why. And so we actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records. And we found people here registered to vote in this population, yes. And who did vote. And we found some by sampling that actually did vote. And we have referred them to prosecution at the Homeland Security Investigation Service. Already. Already. That has already happened.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's what I voted for. And that guy, this Antonio Gracias, he's an equity venture capital guy. He doesn't need this. Elon doesn't need to do any of this. They're doing it because they love the country. And they want to make it better. Spring is here, and my pillow is ready to meet the moment with the Spring Sheet Sale. Got to be careful with the way I say that. The Spring Sheet Sale. Say that three times fast. You know the Giza Dream Sheets that I've been telling you about? These and the percale sheets, holy cow, check out this offer. Just in time for spring, you can get your very own set of Queen Giza Dream bed sheets from MyPillow. You'll save 50% or more. You can get the queen size. Queen-sized Giza Dream or percale bedsheets for as low as $29.98 with the promo code MikeG. That's an extraordinary offer. And when you go to the website, check out the pillows, the slippers, the doggy beds, the loungewear. and more. MyPillow.com. Look for the Mike Gallagher Special Square. Click on that box, and then with anything you order, enter the promo code MikeG. MyPillow.com. Promo code MikeG. MyPillow.com. Promo code MikeG, or call 800-928-6034. 800-928-6034. Sing along with me. For the best night's sleep in the whole wide world, visit MyPillow.com. Promo code MikeG. This is the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. We saw the way Biden weaponized the justice system in this country in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from winning the White House. Obviously, it did not work. But do you know where it did work? Well, everywhere else. Remember when everybody was mad at J.D. Vance for picking on Europe? Remember that entire drama where he talked about Europe descending into woke authoritarianism? Have you heard about Marine Le Pen? the so-called far-right politician who, according to the polls, was favored to win the French presidency in 2027, they've sent her to prison. And I'm trying to follow what they convicted her of. It had something to do with tax funding and I forget. It was a financial impropriety. But she's only one of many. Look at these four European countries where candidates like Marine Le Pen and the party itself that represents supposed far right. I always get cynical when somebody says far right. You hardly ever hear the media talk about far left. Check out, though, the Romanian far-right frontrunner. has been blocked from the Romanian presidential race. Moldova has banned a pro-Russian party member from running for election. Germany's far-right party expelled from the European Parliament group. And finally, Marine Le Pen, not only was she sentenced to, I think, four years in prison for some kind of tax or financial impropriety, but she was banned from running for president. And she's the favorite in the polls. Sound familiar? Sound like something you recognize? Oh, surely no government would gin up charges against a politician in order to prevent the people from getting to vote for who they want to vote for, right? That can't happen in this world. It's 2025. Nobody would use the courts to do that, would they? That's not possible. No, no way. J.D. was right. He was absolutely correct to criticize what Europe is doing. In four European countries, candidates and parties, sometimes even after winning the first round decisively, France is the latest example of banning people who the people want from running for president. Wow. The California legislature proposed a new ballot measure about access to health care. Sounds good, right? Wait till you hear what they named it. The California ballot measure that would be a new health care law that would make it harder for insurance companies to deny coverage is called the Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act. I'm not kidding you. They're actually advancing a ballot initiative in the state of California named... for the young man who is charged with brutally slaughtering a young husband and father whose crime, whose sin, whose fate was to be the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. The Luigi Mangione Access to Healthcare Act in California was put forward by attorney Paul Eisner. It would make it illegal for an insurance company to delay, deny, or modify any medical procedure. Now, delay, deny, that's important. You remember those terms. Because that, of course, was allegedly Luigi's mantra. He even had those words on the bullets that he put forward. used to slaughter Brian Thompson. Delay-deny was the subject of a book blasting the healthcare industry. So the ballot initiative not only glorifies this alleged assassin and monster and coward putting bullets in the back of a young man, stalking up behind him while the guy's walking to a conference, But it also glorifies the book that Luigi Mangione allegedly used as the basis for his cold-blooded killing. Now, I can't dismiss California. It's a prominent state. It's a big state. Millions of people, many of whom are listening and watching me right now. How sick have we become when something like this can happen. How sick a society are we when this kind of thing happens? With all the serious issues for the Trump administration to manage right now, it's easy to forget that the President has a great sense of humor. He had a tremendous time trolling the media this week about running for a third term in office. If I should make MAGA world mad at me when I express a little discomfort with Trump's trolling. Once again, President Trump is on the prowl with infuriating his critics by suggesting he could run for a third term. Wouldn't really run for a third term, he says. J.D. would run as president. Trump would be his vice presidential running mate. And then on day one, J.D. would resign and Trump would become president for the third term. Now, none of that can happen. None of that's going to happen. None of that will happen. But he says it anyway. He says he's serious. And when he says he's serious, then, of course, the media dutifully says, well, he's serious. And he's got his tongue firmly planted in cheek. He's not serious. At least I don't think he is. He doesn't mean it. He just wants the media to take the bait. And they always do. They always sit around and they thump their chest and they fret and they whine. I mean, listen to them. Let's take a peek into MSNBC and how they reacted to Trump. He was on Air Force One. He said, well, you know, I'm serious about this. Now we've got to give this some thought about what we could do. And then somebody suggested, well, how would this happen? Would J.D. run and then you're his VP? And then he'd go, well, it could happen. And that led to the predictable meltdown on MSNBC. Quick reaction, guys, to that Trump comment entertaining a third term. You first, David.
SPEAKER 05 :
Believe him. I think the biggest mistake of the last eight years is we somehow fail to give credibility to Donald Trump's whims and his impulses. But we know it's true. And January 6th was a perfect example. If he says that he's not ruling it out, he's not ruling it out. And we consider we should consider it a constitutional threat.
SPEAKER 03 :
They're very serious about this is a constitutional threat. We have another constitutional crisis. Impeach him. Impeaching for talking about a third term. He's shredding the Constitution. And the reason I'm going to get in trouble, and I'm ready, I'm okay, hey, what am I, a big mouth, old man talk show host, and I'm an old man, going to take vacation next week to pretend that a milestone is not being reached. I'm pretending I'm 49 years old. I think I feel 49, maybe 50, 51. There's no way I could ever be 65. There's just no way. It doesn't happen. Couldn't happen. How did it get here this quick? So, look, let me just throw caution to the wind. This is not my favorite thing for President Trump to do. I don't love it. And you're going to get mad at me. That's okay. Hey, let's open up the floodgates. 800-655-MIKE. 800-655-6453. Yell at me. Be mad at me. Stick a pin in a voodoo doll of Mike Gallagher. Get you one of those Mike Gallagher bobbleheads. We tried to do that, but they're too expensive. Those bobbleheads. And finally, all kinds of people call our show to contribute their insights about the day's event. Lamar called as well, and it was one of the highlights of the week. Lamar, it says downtown New York. Might be a troll alert. Hi, Lamar.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sir, it has been said with great justification that no nation can be greater than than the people who reside within her borders. President Donald John Trump, the greatest man alive in the world today, has said he wants to make America great again. How is that possible when the American people have demonstrated time and again that they are a reprobate, depraved people, as exemplified by the woman you had on your program a few minutes ago who said she voted for this judge in Wisconsin because it would assure the continuity the continued abortion laws in that state. We fought a civil war in this country to end southern slavery, but there's an evil going on in this country today, many times more wicked, demonic in fact, From sea to shining sea, American babies being killed, up until the due delivery date in certain states, such as in Minnesota, thanks to the man who would have been vice president if Kamala Harris had won the last election. The founding fathers, the men who carved this nation out of a wilderness, said that in order for a people to be free, they must first be moral. The American people are not a moral people.
SPEAKER 03 :
They are a reprobate, depraved people. Okay. Thank you, Lamar. Appreciate it. Have a good day. 13 before the hour. More coming up. Look, I could have taken a lot of different career paths. I could have sold insurance. I think I'd have been a great monorail driver, captain of the monorail at Walt Disney World. But look, I would have missed an opportunity to talk to Lamar and share his passion with you. It's what we do. We're givers here at Team Gallagher. 800-655-MIKE. That wraps up the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast for Friday, April 4th. Be sure to subscribe to all our podcasts and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like the show, be sure to share it with a friend. We'll see you back here next week on the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast.
Join John Rush and Bill Anderson on this week's episode of Ready Radio as they dive into the chaos and charm of springtime activities. With gardens sprouting and new life hatching, they discuss the importance of establishing effective systems to manage busy schedules. For anyone feeling overwhelmed with to-do lists and responsibilities, this conversation offers practical insights into navigating the craziness of life with preparedness and a proactive mindset.
SPEAKER 08 :
This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, here's your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush. All right, it's that time. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us. Live program today on March the 28th. So almost one quarter of the year is down. Bill Anderson joining me now. Bill, how's your week?
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, it's crazy. How's your week, John?
SPEAKER 07 :
About the same. Like I just said, it's like the end of the first quarter, and man, it just felt like Christmas.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you know, it's, I don't know. The spring is crazy. We've got chickens hatching. We've got rabbits being born. We've got gardens to get in. I've got jobs kicking off like crazy. We've got ACPMs coming up. It's just, it's nuts, you know, and part of Hoping with all that is really having good systems in place because otherwise it can become overwhelming.
SPEAKER 07 :
That's exactly right. Let's get into some of that as well, by the way, because I think there's a lot of people, Bill, that feel the same way. They feel, you know, in a lot of cases overwhelmed. You know, they hear us talk about the different things that we get into on a... A weekly basis here, and I, for those of you maybe listening for the first time, thank you. We talk about preparedness and how to be ready for the what-ifs of life during this particular hour every Friday from 2 to 3. Bill's agreed to join in here of late and really add a lot of value to what we do here. We're doing this now for... several years and so again if you're just listening for the first time thank you you can listen on our app even if you're just passing through and you like what you hear you want to keep listening just go to klz radio that is our app you can listen really anywhere you want to around the world as long as you've got some sort of a data connection you can actually do that of course you can listen right here at klz 560 as well but bill a lot of people i know because i hear it They're like, guys, I understand everything that you say, and I get that I need to do this and I need to do that, and we'll talk about some of those things today. But they also, I think, Bill, can feel very overwhelmed. It's like, okay, I've got all of these other things that I need to do, especially those that are still raising families. You and I are a little older than that, so we've got grandkids now, not necessarily kids to raise. But, you know, they're busy. Everything's going on. They've got a lot of things to do. As you just mentioned a moment ago, even for you and I, it's a busy time of the year. And I think some of them can feel very overwhelmed with, hey, I'm just trying to live life and make ends meet, nonetheless do the things you guys talk about.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and, you know, I would say, you know, it's funny because when people say, I don't have time, you know, I would challenge them every single time I hear that comment because, you know, you and I, we're two peas in a pod, right? We've got... several balls in the air. And listen, if we can do it, really anybody can. But it's important to set up little systems and things. That's the only way. For me to go down and take care of my chickens and my rabbits and stuff, it literally is a 15-minute deal every day. I mean, obviously some days are a little bit more where I went down there and, oh, I had five chicks today, so I had to set up a brooder. But if you have all that stuff up, the whole – point of this program, John, is be ready. And so whether it's I'm ready to have chickens hatched, I'm ready for AC season, I beat the rush, I scheduled a tune-up, and I beat the rush, that way I'm not waiting indefinitely. And by the way, John, if you schedule one of those at this time, I'm sure you're going to talk about this maybe tomorrow on your Fix-It program, but if you schedule that ahead of season, oftentimes you'll get a discount, right? That's absolutely right. slow times. And, and the whole point is, is be ready for it. You know, I mean, um, I knew that these things were going to happen and the chickens, uh, the, we're going to be hatched, you know, and, and the, the, the rabbits were going to be born. I'm sitting on three letters right now. And another one started building a nest today. So she's going to have her any day now. Um, I've got, you know, all these listed on the Facebook, and, you know, I've got people coming to buy rabbits today. I've got people coming to buy chickens today. There's just a ton going on. It's just so much. You know, I just got notice today that we're getting awarded. two more big jobs. We do a lot of wiring of pole buildings and things like that out here in Elizabeth. And we've got two underway now that are getting ready to start any time. So it's just, you know, you have to be prepared for these things. And like I said earlier, that's the whole motivation of this program is, you know, be ready for stuff, you know, and then life doesn't overwhelm you, because now you're not being reactive, John, you're proactive.
SPEAKER 07 :
Very well said, and that's one of those things, frankly, Bill probably could take an entire hour and even just go through, you know, some of the basic things that, you know, we as owners have to do. And, you know, one of the first things a lot of times I have to do, especially with, you know, new clients or even new businesses when I'm consulting with them is, OK, let's make sure that we're managing all of our time correctly. Are we able to get everything done? Are your people getting everything done? Are you, for example, you know, I've even... I do it sometimes exactly what Dosh has done of like, you know, write down for me over the course of a couple of weeks the things that you do each day. And by doing that, it's not a punishment. It's more of, okay, are there things that there are other services, for example, and for some of you listening that are in business for yourself. There are now even automated attendance and virtual assistance and things like that that can help for really pennies on the dollar when it's all said and done that can assist you in things that might be very mundane. You feel like you need to do them, but the reality, Bill, is in a lot of cases, no, they don't. They could go on and do things that are a lot more productive that are actually making money and putting cash and food on, you know, cash in the bank and food on the table. But we kind of get into this realm of doing the same thing over and over again, and a I understand, but I think one thing about this program that I need to try to remind everybody of is change is good as long as you do it correctly.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and you're nobody, I don't think the listeners know this, but you're coaching us in our business, and you know, you're helping us, and you're probably looking at my wife shaking your head going, what do you do it, Bill? I mean, I'm a pastor. I teach firearms. I got a class tomorrow. I got
SPEAKER 07 :
you know, my little homestead going on, I teach self-defense, I got the church, and you're trying to run an electrical business, and, you know, you're probably going... Well, you're very diversified, and again, for those of you listening, there's nothing wrong with that, Bill, and again, it's the things that even you and I talk about on a pretty routine basis, which is, you know, that's great, we still have to juggle all those things, and, you know, that old saying, the main thing still has to be the main thing, and in your world, of course, and we don't have to remind anybody of this, but in your world, that's pastoring a church and putting food on the table through, The business, which is the main line of income, everything else is ancillary.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and, you know, that's another point that I would like to kind of talk about if we can. You know, I was thinking about this just earlier today. You know, a lot of people will have things. They'll be hobbies, okay? And hobbies cost money. And, you know, that's just the bottom line. But I've found a way to at least take my hobbies and at least try to supplement – And again, there's a price for that, right? There's a price versus value, and price is time, money, whatever it may be, resources. But what's the value in it? You've got to start looking at that. But I've found a way to take my self-defense hobby, my gun stuff hobby, you know, my chickens and rabbits hobby. And, you know, at least I found a way to come up with some type of an income with those so that it's not a liability, John.
SPEAKER 07 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I think that's huge.
SPEAKER 07 :
I agree. That's huge. I agree. No, I can't disagree with you on that at all, Bill. And I think for a lot of folks, unfortunately – you know the hobbies can and nothing against this if you've got the time and the ability and the resources and you've got a hobby that is more of a you know time slash money you know sucker if you would uh bill fine you know i'm not going to tell anybody not to do something provided they've got the wherewithal to do it on the same token like you i mean there's there's hobbies that i have where you know cars being one of them to where i try to turn those into a profitable at the end of the day, and that's hard, I think. For some, it really doesn't make sense. They're like, wait a minute, how can you make money on a car? Well, just like some of the things that you're doing, when you learn the ins and outs and some of the basics of what's going on and you know what to buy and when to sell and so on, yes, there can be money made on some of those. Your daily driver and things like that, no, those are depreciating. They're not even assets. They're liabilities. Those are depreciating things on a daily basis. Everybody knows that, and that's not what I'm talking about. But to your point, Bill, I think you can take – some hobbies not all but some in your case you're doing a good job of that and actually turn them into something that can be somewhat you know profitable at the end of the day or at least break even to where you're not spending a lot of money on them and unfortunately bill i think far too many people and this is not a criticism because everybody has different things they like to do and different releases i guess you could say and different ways of even networking let me give you an example I like golf. I can't say that I love golf because I'm not very good at it, but I like being outdoors. I like playing around here or there, but I'll be honest, Bill, since I've been doing this program here daily for 10 years, I haven't played a round of golf more than probably a half a dozen times in those 10 years, and most of that's been when My boys want to go out and do something. It was more of a family affair than anything else, mainly because of the amount of time and effort and so on that it takes. It's not necessarily the money side of it. It's just the sheer time that it takes to actually go do that. Now, I also know, Bill, that there's a lot of folks, business guys even. Donald Trump being one of these where they play golf, they make connections, they make deals, you know, they're doing business basically at the same time they're playing golf. And if that's what you do and you can do your hobby and quote unquote still make a little money at the same time, you know, more power to you. I think, though, Bill, that's probably more the rarity than it is the norm for that particular endeavor. And again, no criticism for guys like playing golf. If you love it and you can do it, more power to you. But typically that's not going to be a moneymaker.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. And that's okay. And a lot of people will push back on that and go, well, then my hobby becomes a job, and then I stop enjoying it. And it's like, okay, well, I guess you need to find that balance. But again, it's a mindset, and that's just the way I'm wired. And every time I learn something new, I instantly go, okay. How can I turn this around? How can I make this an enterprise? How can I? I mean, that's just the way I'm wired. How can I teach it? Yep.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and I don't think that's and that's, you know, that's a mindset. And it's one of the things that we're trying to get people to think about through this program is, you know, are there things that you're doing? And again, I know, Bill, it's not going to be equal for everyone, and we're not trying to make it that way. You or I either one are saying that everybody has to go out and do these things. That's not at all what we're saying. But I do think that if you have a little different mindset and you say, you know, I built myself a chicken coop. Let's use that one as an example. And I've got the thing working. It's all dialed in and so on. Well, guess what? There's probably folks around you that don't have the same skill level that you do. So what's it take for you to duplicate that, maybe make a little money on it, and sell that to some of the folks that are around you? That's some of the stuff that I'm talking about, Bill.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. And then that kind of goes back to the point of, hey, John, I don't have time to build a chicken coop. So, well, there's people out there that can do it for you. Right. You know, it kind of goes back to that conversation that you had. I have a lady today buying three of my, they're not quite a year old, laying hens. And you know what? That's done for her. She gets a chick that's instantly laying eggs right now. She doesn't have to go through that process of getting the chicks, raising them up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hoping they all live, all of that stuff that goes along with it, right?
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. And she'll have eggs. Got it. And, you know, I'm charging.
SPEAKER 07 :
So I went out and I bought because I'm trying to— Okay, so really quick for a reference because I don't think most people know this. I mean, I don't. I don't know what a price of that particular hen would be. So in that realm where you're doing that, what do you get on a per-chicken basis?
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it depends on, right? It depends on whether it's what you would call a purebred or what they call a barnyard mix. you know some people care some people don't care uh but but it all kind of boils down to that you know you've also got to look into it how much you got into that chick you know if you're buying organic food and you know over the course of a year how much did it cost you know and things like that some people will say you know hey that chicken's 40 bucks okay you know i i i'm i sold those three for 25 each so i'm getting 75 bucks okay but here's my mindset i went down because i want to try to start having a a line. I'm going to raise a very unique, rare line. Rhode Island whites. You may have heard of Rhode Island reds. They're a common bird. A very rare bird is a Rhode Island white, and they're hanging on for survival. I'm going to try to go ahead and keep that line going. I went out and I bought or one rooster and three chicks, three hens, of these particular birds. That costs me $4.50 for each chick. Okay. So that times four is, you do the math, right? What's that cost?
SPEAKER 07 :
$18 or so, roughly, by the time you're done with the $0.50, I think.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, $18. And I'm sitting here going, okay, I've got enough chickens, and I've got 12 of these other, and so I'm going to go ahead and sell three of these birds because I replaced those three birds with this other. There you go. So... I mean, check that out, $18 versus $75. Yeah, I've made the feed, but guess what? I've got eggs for a year or two that I got out of those hens. I was already feeding a flock, so they weren't really costing me that much. I figured out a way to minimize my costs. I got a local brewery that gives me their spent grains. They eat all our chicken scraps, all our food scraps, I mean. I grow fodder for them. I do all these things to offset the cost. of the chicken feed, and I don't buy much chicken feed. I don't buy much of it at all. Obviously, when they're chicks, you have to have special feed and things like that. And then when you get into the summertime, they're eating grass, and they're out there foraging, and your expense goes way down. So here's the point. What's my rate of return on those girls? I've had them for... pretty much a year they started laying you know i got them in september they started laying and actually i got them in august they started laying in mid winter so i had chickens all winter long okay you know right interesting enough right when the whole so you had eggs right when everything was going sky high everything was going sky high i was like i got all these eggs you know i don't know what to do with them you know i've taken i've got probably about 30 eggs right now that 10 and 20, actually more than 40 eggs, 25 in an incubator, and I got 10 under each chicken. And I've already hatched 15 chicks that I've got live right now, five more hatched today. And these eggs came from those chickens that I'm now getting rid of. So people look at the price tag of, oh, you're getting $25, that's not much. But I'm looking at the value I've had of those birds for the past year, offset the cost, plus what it costs me to buy the new chicks, the replacement. I don't know, John. I think I'm money ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, I think so. Yeah, I think the route that you're going on top of that, what you're actually getting out of it on the production side of having some of them lay eggs and you're not going to the store and this, that, and the other. Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, Bill – And again, a lot of people are listening and saying, yeah, guys, that's all great if you have time and all of that. And I understand everybody's in a different place along those lines, Bill. I think what you're saying, though, is I think some people look at this and think, oh, man, that's just too hard. There's no way I can do that. Honestly, Bill. It really isn't that hard. Most anybody can do it. And there's plenty of information out there, including, you know, calling you and, you know, just even just, hey, how do I get started? How do I do this? I mean, there's plenty of resources around, is my point, to get going in it if that's something you've thought of doing.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, here's an old story that I had. This one guy I knew, he was from Houston. He's an old Texan guy, and I worked with him for a little bit several years back, and he always told a story. He went on a trip, and he told his kids, he said, hey, I want you to mow the yard. And he came back, and the yard wasn't mowing. He said, well, what happened? He said, well, the lawnmower wouldn't start. So he went out there and, you know, it wouldn't start. So he had to choke it a little bit and push the little button to prime the carburetor and all that stuff. And it took a minute, you know, but he got it going. And he came back in here and he says, the lawnmower wasn't the problem. The problem was you lack the want to. The effort. And so, you know, that's kind of a saying of mine now is like, hey, you lack the want to. Because here's the reality of it. You know, you'll sit there and look at something like that, John, and go, oh, that's way too hard. But then, you know, figuring out what your hobby is, no matter what it is, if it's a video game or if it's a car or if it's whatever, man, you'll figure that out. You'll figure that out. And so, again, it comes back to, you know, do you see the value in that? Do you see the value in what is in... whatever i'm looking at you know and the reality is you're not going to want to and and here's the truth of the situation and i said this several times on the program is we've got the dangers of comfort complacency and familiarity and and i think unfortunately that's where society's at it's like you know they come home They plop down on the couch, they throw on the wheel of fortune, and they veg out, whatever. And that's life to them. And if anything interrupts that, oh, my gosh, it's too hard, it's too whatever. You know, last night my oldest daughter and my oldest granddaughter were – I told them to come over. I said, hey, we're going to make some noodles. You know, I've got – literally a fridge full of eggs i mean we've got a spare fridge in our garage and it literally is full of eggs and i'm like i gotta do something with these eggs right so let's make some noodles and so i taught them last night how to make you know homemade fresh noodles from from the eggs that we raised and and you know my 10 year old granddaughter she's gonna look back and remember that day you know those are things she'll never forget those are life skills that she now has Yep. And to me, John, that's what life's all about. It's just that's what it's about. It's not about the Bronco game or who's in office or what's happening around the world, around the country. Those things are going to happen, John. They're going to happen. But you can control your world.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, and to add to that before we go to a break, and this is – we're not trying to be out of line in what we're going to say here and along those lines, but Asia just had a huge earthquake, almost eight on the Richter scale. You saw some of those tall buildings collapsing, people still inside of them and things along those lines, and it's just an utter – Yep, that's the whole mindset. You know, you're always...
SPEAKER 09 :
bettering the worst case scenario that you can think of um we can't we can't predict what's going to happen you have no idea do you think those people woke up that day going hey there's an earthquake happening today nope we had no idea there were um and of course i was in in my mirror and in thailand and it was 7.7 and just reading about it 7.7 and
SPEAKER 07 :
No, in fact, Bill, I will tell you that you can see from some of the videos, there were people that were even, you know, as this was happening, they're on their scooters, their bikes, their cars, they stop because, you know, the earth is shaking and they're looking around and things are starting to fall and they're wondering even what do they do? How do they get out of the way? I mean, no, they had no idea this stuff was going to happen. Had they, they wouldn't be there.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, yeah, and that's the whole idea is, you know, it takes a little effort to You got to have the want to, John, and you got to start looking at things in life, because I'm going to tell you, you know, we're not living in the 80s anymore. The decade of decadence. Right. Things are getting tough. Things are getting hard. They're volatile things. Look at the stock market. Look at the economy. Look at the political situation. Look at even state level of what's going on. They're down there talking again about SB 25003, banning the magazines. They can't even define what a magazine is. It's just a mess, right? Yep. and all of this goes on, and then all of a sudden you have an earthquake. That's right. Guys, it's the world we live in today.
SPEAKER 07 :
It is, and I'm going to really quick put a plug in for Drive Radio tomorrow. There's all sorts of talk now, and we'll get into this here in a moment, on tariffs and things like that that are happening, and certain things are going to go up in price, and actually car prices most likely will rise because there's so many parts that are coming from overseas, even on cars that are made here. In America, even Ford, who makes most of their vehicles here, only about 75% of what they sell is actually made in the U.S. And even those that are made in the U.S., a lot of those parts that are coming in are still coming in from overseas and other places. Point being, you're going to see a raise. in the value of things and the expense of and my point is listen to our program tomorrow between 10 and 1 we teach you how to save money on you know the maintenance and repair end of your vehicle because bill that's another one of those where the longer you can keep driving what you own and not have to go out and buy that other replacement vehicle new or used the more money you save at the end of the day
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. I mean, I don't know if you watched what happened, I think it was yesterday, when Trump again talked about terrorists. GM just went in the toilet. It just sank.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep. Yep. And rightfully so, because they only make about 50, if I'm doing this from memory, I think about 54% of, 52, 54% of their cars, the things that they actually sell here in the U.S. are actually made in America. Guys, we'll come right back. And by the way, you can text a question and we'll get that answered for you as well. 307-200-8222. 307-200-8222. We'll be right back. Ready Radio. It's ready-radio.com. KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
Ready Radio, klz560ready-radio.com is our website. Bill Anderson with me today. Bill, a question just came in. Really quick, before I move on, give folks your website, too, where they can go find you if they need to before I ask this question.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely, yeah. In fact, we have a gun class tomorrow, and I just had two people call and say, unfortunately, something came up, and they're not able to make it. So I know it's last minute, but if you jump in that gun class, I'll give you a deal, because we definitely need to try to fill those spots. It's PrEP, the number two, protect. co.com prep to protect co.com and if you're looking for generators uh or anything like that that's arc electric ehc.com and that's ark ehc.com i think i said that incorrectly the first time so
SPEAKER 07 :
We'll get some links up on the website for all that as well. We'll talk about generators in a moment. We had a question that came in, though, about chickens, and that is, how do you raise baby chickens without heat lamps? In other words, like year-round, can you do it without heat lamps? Do you have to have heat lamps? How does that part work?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so until they get feathered out, it is suggested that you do have a heat lamp or, you know, you can even go onto Amazon. I have this little 25-watt heat thing. It's a little plastic thing, and you could change the levels of it. And, you know, you could put that in there for 25 watts, which is pretty good. But you're definitely going to want to kind of keep some heat source on them. If you have them inside, like we, you know, unfortunately, my wife doesn't like this, but they're on my dining room table right now. And you can even just put a regular old light bulb incandescent. Now, don't go LED because LEDs don't get hot. Yeah, you need to have some incandescents kept on your light bulbs, folks, because they're hard to come by anymore. You know, back when Obama was there, he put that law into place where getting rid of all incandescents. And then Trump came in first term and said, that's ridiculous. And said you can get them back, but they're kind of hard to find. It's hard, yeah. Keep hold of those, because those will create a heat source. So at any rate, you put that down there on them. I do have heat lamps on mine, even in the house. The chicks will self-regulate. They'll go in and out of the heat, but I just actually moved four of my chicks, because they started to feather out, and I moved them down into my little chicken coop, but I have a little heater down there for them, too, and they'll self-regulate. So Yeah, you've got to have a heat source on them where they're little.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. All right, so there is your answer on that. Okay, let's talk about because of just the volatility that's out there. We as a country, period, take EVs out of the picture even. We're still a country that is lacking when it comes to electricity generation. Yes, this administration is trying to get some of that back on, although it's going to be slow. And then you're still relying on the grid and other things to make things happen. We've got an issue with, of course, Canada, where a lot of our upper Midwest, a lot of their power is coming out of Canada as well. And by the way, for those of you that maybe don't know this, some of that power, believe it or not, reaches all the way down to where we are here. in colorado just the way the grid and bill you know far more about this than i do but the way the grid is designed and so on some of that electricity believe it or not still makes it down here into you know wyoming and colorado so not saying that you know we're going to have any big issues because of that but here's the thing just like we were talking about earlier with the earthquakes You don't know. I mean, at any point in time, if all of a sudden the grid is overloaded and it's a super hot day and everybody's running their AC and they decide they want to run some, you know, rolling brownouts or blackouts, they have the ability to do so. They're not even going to apologize for it, by the way, Bill. They just turn off the switch in a way, quote unquote.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, you can't control it, right? See, the problem is, especially in the state of Colorado, is they've gone the way of electrification, and that's what they call it. They want to get rid of natural gas, and the city of Denver has already passed this. And once Denver passes something, you've got the trick. Everybody else does it. That's right. That's right. Yeah, I heard from a Douglas County inspector. It's like, yeah, as soon as Denver passes something, we're going to be a little slow, but we're going to be right behind them. And what that means, it started with multifamily right now, and, you know, multifamily, they're saying, hey, everything needs to be electric. Now, that sounds all great, but the problem is the grid can't control it. And we run into this a lot with car chargers. People are like, hey, I want a car charger. Well, Douglas County, Arapahoe County, a lot of these counties are requiring a load calc on the house to see if the service can handle it. And when we do the load calc, it's like, oh, you're over 200 amps. And what do you do? Well, you can't, you know, it's not that easy to get a 400 amp service brought to your house because, you know, if it's transformers in the backyard and then they got to upgrade all that and it's just not going to happen, right? Overhead's a little bit easier, but, you know, out in the rural areas, it's a lot easier. But, you know, in town, it's just not practical. And so the answer is, is, well, you have to start load shedding. And what that means is they're going to put a device on your house. And we have to put this in that once you reach a certain ampacity, it's going to start to say, hey, what are we going to shut off? And usually it's a lot of the conveniences, meaning it's going to shut your air conditioner off. It's going to shut your car charger off. It's going to shut these things off. You know, so that's the problem that we're having. And, you know, that happens at individual residences. But then once that gets to the next level, it's going to start happening in areas, and that's where you get your brownouts and things like that. In California, it's like, hey, it's too much demand. Too much demand on what the power can plant or the substation can supply, so we're going to have to shut her down. And, you know, during those peak hours, if you will, you're not going to be able to do what you want to do. And so... Some of the things that we can do is we can set up generators. We can set up Franklin battery packs and things like that that we can program, by the way, to do that load shedding. But you're not load shedding in the – in the idea of i'm shutting stuff off so it's no longer available to me i'm going to become my own power plant i'm going to be my own provider you know you hear of like like kirk right uh from taking mortgage there and and by the way we used him uh great guy you know your referral you know he got us the all-in-one mortgage here, and we've had it for a while. And the idea is you kind of become your own bank. That's right. You borrow against yourself. That's right. And so electrically speaking, we store this energy, and we're getting into summertime. So if you got solar, great. What are you doing with that excess? Because by the way, when you're producing solar, it's in the middle of the day when Most people are at work, so they're not using it. So, you know, why don't you capture it? Think of a rain barrel.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, there you go. Good point.
SPEAKER 09 :
And then I'm going to water my plants when it's dry and I have no water, right? And that's kind of a little analogy there. But you can use... So generators are one thing, John, and they're great for brownouts or power outages. And by the way, CORE is going through my area right now replacing a lot of things, and my power's been off and on for the past couple of days because they're working on the lines. And just last week we lost power for, I don't know, an hour and a half or whatever. And for whatever reason, you know, you don't know if they're working on it or new communities coming up. You don't know. But, hey, I'm out of power. So generators are good for that. But here's the idea. The idea is to set up your own little microgrid system that I'm going to store that energy. And even if I have a power outage. and my generator kicks on, my generator is going to continually run whether I'm consuming that electricity or not. So let's put the rain barrel up there. Let's put the battery pack up there. Let's capture that energy, offset the grid, and, you know, hey, by the way, if the power goes off and I'm going to drain my battery, then my generator is going to kick on, recharge my battery, plus give me power. Let's do it.
SPEAKER 07 :
And for all of you listening, Bill, that's one of the things that you guys specialize in. You have the ability to sit down and analyze what somebody has, what their needs are, what are they using, what's going to work for them. Is it a combination of results when it's all said and done? In other words, what works best for them and you can help them make that decision versus them watching a YouTube video or seeing an ad or something along those lines where, by the way, at the end of the day, they may not have any idea if that idea or that sales pitch is even going to be right for them.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, because all these installations, John, is like a, you know, it's a personal thing, right? Because everybody has... a different demand factor of their house, a different lifestyle. They have a different setup. I mean, there's no cookie cutter in all this where a lot of these things make you think that there is. There's a cookie cutter, and it's like, hey, one size kind of fits all. And that's a fallacy, right? I mean, everybody's a little bit different. Your utility's different. Maybe you've got covenants in your hand. I mean, we have to come in. We have to take a look at what you're trying to accomplish, right? What's available, what you'll have as far as maybe funding, things like that, and then we kind of build something from there. And what's great about what we do, John, is we can start off with a base package. And then in time, you can add to it. Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
In other words, you can have the start, the foundation or the building blocks, if you would, to where, OK, we ultimately want to get to this place, but we can stair step how we get there. And here is the one, two, three, four, five, however many steps it takes to get there. Here's our process. And we can do this a chunk at a time.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, we can put it in the battery pack and go, okay, hey, that's step one, and we'll start with maybe a 5K or a 7K or whatever, and then we go, okay, next year or whatever, we'll add another component. Now we'll add the generator, or maybe we'll add another 7K battery up there. I mean, you can continue to add. It's like Legos, right? You start with one, and then you can put another one on there, put another one on there, and put another one on there. And the great thing about The systems that we use, whether they're the Enphase or the Franklin, and honestly, I'm more of a fan of the Franklin stuff. It's not dependent upon the brand that you already have. Like, let's say you already have solar on. Maybe you already have a Generac or you have a Kohler or you have a generator that you bought from Costco. I don't know. But, hey, I can plug anything. Any brand, it doesn't care what the input is. Now, if you go with Tesla or, you know, some of the Generac power walls or things like that, it cares, right? And even with the base, I've got to go up there and change all your inverters, you know, for your solar to the IQ8s to make sure that it works.
SPEAKER 07 :
So what you're telling me is some of it is proprietary.
SPEAKER 09 :
Exactly. You know, I have a way where, you know, we have a system that it don't care. It doesn't care what it is. It will fit everything, even the old stuff. Even the old stuff from 10 years ago, the old solar panels from 10 years ago, it'll take.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, so just being the, you know, you know, me mechanical type guy that I am and thinking in my mind and so on, wouldn't I benefit from you? Or I guess give me the pros and cons of if I'm using proprietary stuff, like you were mentioning a moment ago versus doing it this way to where we can retrofit and pretty much use whatever we want to use seems to me like that would be a better option or, or are there advantages and using some of the proprietary things?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I've kind of tried to sort that out, and I honestly can't find any really that gives it the value for why I would want to keep it. Okay. The only reason that would be is let's use the smart home, for example. Okay. And let's say you have the ring system. Okay. You know, whatever it may be. And now I've got a Genie garage door, and I've got a sledge lock on my door. And the problem is, is now I need the Sledge app to work my door. I need the Genie app to work my garage. I need the Honeywell app to work my thermostat. And, you know, and so there's a system out there. It's called the Brilliant system, which will try to bring all those in. Google Home and things like that will also help with that. And they're getting a little bit better. It's getting better, yeah. They're getting better, but... So think of long outlines. Now, if I go and I start, okay, I got a Tesla car charger. I got a Tesla, you know, power wall. I got a Tesla. There is some internal integration that works a little bit better because they can communicate to each other. And sometimes when you try to hybrid all these things and cross communicate against different brands, sometimes it, it does, you know, it's like, It's like talking to somebody down south, Louisiana, and you're like, what did you just say?
SPEAKER 07 :
I know you're talking English, but I don't know what you're talking about. Well, and I think there are those that have the ability to handle and not trying to be... I'm not trying to be rude to anybody or belittle anyone at all, Bill. But some people have the ability to run through, like in my case, I do have kind of a hodgepodge of different things at home for different things that I'm using, whether it be certain lights, whether it be certain plugs, whether it be the irrigation system, whether it be the door lock, the garage door. I mean, a lot of things you just mentioned, I'm kind of that guy. I don't have anything that's on one single system. So what I did to... kind of organize things even on my phone is I put all of those apps under a home category, meaning I hit that folder, I open it up, I've got all the different apps there. If I'm going to open the garage door, if I'm going to do this, if I'm going to do that, everything's all in one place. Now, I say all that to say this. For me, I can get by with that. That works well. I know what each one does. It's not a problem. And off we go. Now, I will tell you that... when it comes to even other family members and so on, it gets a little bit confusing. And, again, not trying to belittle anybody, but I kind of built it, did it. I know where everything's at. It makes it easy for me to handle things, but I will tell you that it's not as easy for everyone else. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and I'm one of those guys, John. I'm like, you know, talking to my wife, I'm like, ugh. hey, what's this password? What's this? How do I get to this? How do I get to that? And, you know, I swear, every time I try to bring up my garage door opener, it's like I'm starting all over again, trying to bring up You know what the worst one is? Sonos. Oh, my gosh. I get so fucked up with that.
SPEAKER 07 :
You and my wife. So don't feel bad, Bill. She kind of is the same boat along those lines. And point being, this is where we're going with this for all of you listening. There are – and, Bill, this is where you can help, folks. There are single-source items. Yes, you get into a little bit of that priority, you know, the proprietary end of things, I guess what I'm trying to say, to where if you're going to keep everything unified – That comes with some advantages, and the disadvantage is typically you're going to spend a little more money because a lot of those products have a little higher price tag. Because they're integrating so many different things, they kind of do the – and I'm not belittling them at all, Bill, but they kind of do the gotcha plan. It's like, well, we gotcha, so when you add this and you add that and so on, yeah, we can do all of that, but you're going to be a little more money than if you went out there and found these individual pieces on your own. I mean, it's sort of like – Bill, think of it this way. You can go take an old car, take like a hot rod, for example, and you can go buy an engine here and a transmission there. And you can even build the engine yourself if you'd like to. I mean, you can get into doing how much of it you would like and really making it unique to you. And you've built it. You know how it works. You know how everything is going. You know all the little idiosyncrasies of it when it comes to start it. You know exactly how to hold your mouth and turn the key and everything starts and runs and fires up. But go put anybody else in the car and that might be totally different versus, no offense, going down to the The lot and buying a brand new production car that's all ready to go. Now, in the car case, probably not a great example because sometimes building that car will cost you as much as actually buying a new car. But you get my drift. I mean, you could build it all yourself and maybe save money at the end of the day. The new car is a lot more convenient, but you're going to spend a lot more money to make that happen as well.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and, you know, I have this saying, and I probably said it to you, you know, I'm getting to that age where I forget what I say to people, but it's like, you know, you're going to pay regardless.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's true.
SPEAKER 09 :
You're always going to pay somebody.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's true.
SPEAKER 09 :
And usually it's pay, you know, if you pay first up front, it usually is cheaper, right? That's right. So then happen to pay if like, oh my gosh, I, you know, put all this stuff in and it was the wrong stuff. Well, now I've got to start all over again.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, yep. And so it becomes hard, you know. Well, and that's where I want to – guys, listen, please. I want to put a plug in for Bill to where if you're thinking about even some of this, you know, home automation stuff and the remote access of and even some of the power things that we've talked about, supplementing your own power, making sure that you can even run – you know, off grid, which is a whole nother realm that we haven't really even gotten into yet, Bill, because that requires different things. And even some of the stuff that we've even talked about so far, I mean, the reality is you can help somebody with all of that and really build a system according to what they want to do. I think for a lot of you listening, you have to be kind of on the front side deciding, am I okay with maybe three or four apps that are going to control all of these things? Or do I want everything in one place for ease of use? Because Bill, those are some of the things you're going to ask right off the bat.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, John, I'm not sure what you said. We had a little cut out there.
SPEAKER 07 :
What I'm saying is, you know, what you can help people with is really deciding on the front side, you know, do we want a smart home system where everything is all tied together, one app, make it easy, or are you okay with, you know, maybe a half a dozen apps to run all these different things that you're doing? And those are some of the questions that you're going to ask people. And by the way, how you build it out will have a lot to do with what their ability is on that front side, like you mentioned a moment ago.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, absolutely. It's Like I said, it's a tailor-made program with anything that we do, whether we're talking generators or smart home integration or whatever. And it all kind of boils back, circles back to how we started. It's creating those systems. It's creating those systems that work for you, and everybody's cut a little bit different. Everybody has... different skill sets, different things. You know, when it comes to Sonos, you know, some of these apps, I'm handing the stuff over to my two son-in-laws, and I'm like, you know.
SPEAKER 07 :
They can get a little flaky. No, and literally, they can get sort of flaky. And I think my opinion on some of that, and I can see why you just hand those off to, you know, your son-in-laws, if you work with them a lot and you know some of their idiosyncrasies, it's not a huge issue. If you don't, they can drive you crazy. Did I lose you? You there, Bill? Nope, I think I lost him. Well, let's do this. I tell you what, Bill, if you're still listening, appreciate you. I'm going to let you go. We're close enough to the end here where I can do that, take a break. We'll come back and kind of finish things up anyways. And again, for those of you listening, and maybe that's Bill there, Charlie, we can grab him really quick. We've got a couple minutes left here. I was going to say, as any of you that are listening, please give Bill a call directly. Bill, you're back with us. Give folks really quick your phone number in case they're listening and they want to get an appointment and kind of figure out what some of their next steps are on some of these things. What's your number? How do they reach you? Are you there, Bill?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now I got you. Now I got you. Give folks your contact info so they can reach out to you if they want to.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right, 303-656-3689. 303-656-3689, John.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, is that where they call, too, if they want to sign up? You've got two openings for the gun class tomorrow. They call the same number for that?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, we can all sort that through on that one. Yeah, get in on that. It's short notice, I know, but I'll make you a deal if you can get in. We've got about seven people signed up for it now. Actually, we're down to six now, so I'd like to run about eight people in those classes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, perfect. Bill, I'll let you go. I know you've got a lot going on. Thank you for your time today, sir. Appreciate you very much. All right, take care. All right, man, take care. And Bill's website, again, for those of you that maybe didn't hear that earlier, it's prep2, so it's the number 2, not spelling it out, but prep2protectco.com, prep2protectco.com, and then you can look up Arc Electric if you forgot their phone number or anything along those lines, and we'll put some links up on our website for Bill as well. But if you've got any questions on any of those things we covered today, generation, battery packs for your wall, you know, wallpapers, Power walls, we actually call that in the industry, or he does. Anything along those lines, if you're looking at how to do some of that, even some of the smart home technology, Bill can help you with some of that as well. We'll come right back. Ready-radio.com is our website. You can go there and find out a lot of resources as well. We'll be right back. KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thank you for listening today, by the way. I appreciate it. And some of your questions that you've texted in on when it comes to how to raise chickens and so on, no, I am not a chicken whisperer. Not something that I'm doing at the moment. Got some family members that are. Bill is, of course. And so some of you that have questions on that, I would highly recommend that you call Bill directly. Or if you send me a text message, I do have resources where, like I said, I've got some family members now that are. raising chickens and so on and and quite honestly in my world i'll be quite honest the biggest reason why we haven't started doing that even as you know as a husband and wife is i'll just be straight up honest when you leave town for any reason at all you have to have somebody available that will come and still tend to all of those different things that you have going on now at your home And so for me, given my schedule and the things that I do and the fact that we've got family members living in other states and so on, for us, that becomes more of a issue, I guess you could say, in figuring out who's going to always be there to make sure that those things get handled and tended and you get the drift. That becomes a factor, by the way, when you start thinking about all of these other things as well. So again, when you start looking at what am I going to do when it comes to doing some of these things that Bill's even mentioning with raising farm animals, growing your own crops, and so on, you have to factor into that who's going to do all of that if you're not around and you've taken a week's vacation or a two-week vacation. For some of you that have family out of state and Maybe one half of you has gone for an extended length of time. Okay, great. Who's going to still tend to all of those things when the other person isn't there? How is that going to work out? And these are things that you have to talk through because the last thing you want to do is have all these wheels in motion. And then all of a sudden there is a glitch. Something comes up or in our case, you've got elderly parents that you're also having to manage and handle and take care of. And so there's a lot of other factors is what I'm trying to say that come into play with all of this. And again, this is why it is not a one size fits all. And I will tell you, don't get into the comparison trap again. of where somebody else is doing it, so now I feel like I should. No, you have to do what works best for you and your family, and don't worry about what everybody else is doing. But bottom line, this show is about being prepared for the what-ifs of life. Ready-radio.com is our website. This is KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
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.
Guest host Bradley Beck presents an insightful journey through some of today's most pressing political and societal topics. From the chilly landscapes of Colorado to Washington's historical swamps, Bradley navigates listeners through current legislative debates while reflecting on America’s journey of civil rights and liberties. Featuring a stirring word of the day discussion, this show enriches our understanding of language and its historical roots. The episode brings to light the nuances of contemporary gender ideology debates with Dr. Lior Sapir, who examines the controversial practice of gender-affirming treatments. Essential for listeners who cherish informed dialogue, Bradley's guest appearance encourages a deeper reflection on how local, national, and global issues intertwine, emphasizing the role of active civic participation in shaping a more just society.
SPEAKER 20 :
It's the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 01 :
An early childhood taxing district? What on earth is that?
SPEAKER 20 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 20 :
Today's current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 20 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let's have a conversation.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, hello, Colorado. And indeed, let's have a conversation. This is Bradley Beck. I'm sitting in and I'm honored to do so for Kim Monson, who's traveling. And she gave me a call and said, Brad, would you come in? And always I say yes, because it's a privilege to be here and sit in the big kid seat and not just be a guest, but be the guest host. So let's have a conversation today. Thank you for listening. Each of you are valued. You're treasured. Strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind and your body. You were made for this moment. And I'd like to have a shout out and say thank you to all the great folks that work here at this station. And producer Joe always lets me in with a smile. Good morning, Joe.
SPEAKER 06 :
Good morning, Brian. How are you doing this morning?
SPEAKER 21 :
I'm doing unbelievable. As we were walking in this morning, I was telling you I just flew in from a little bit warmer climate down in Phoenix, although it wasn't as warm as it normally is. It was probably in the low 70s, so I wasn't as prepared as I thought it would be for the desert. But then I came here, and of course, it does what it does. It snowed when I landed, so welcome to Colorado.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. I can never guess what's happening here, but 70 sounds amazing.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, it was nice. And of course, the people are nice there and lots of good scenery. But I was there on business, so mostly working and always good to be back here in Colorado. And I want to just thank Kim for this opportunity. You know, you can always check out who's going to be on the Kim Monson show by going to our Web site. And that is Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And there you can sign up for her weekly email newsletter and get the first look at all the upcoming guests, as well as the most recent essays. And I just submitted one. for next week when I come back. And I'm one of the guests of the program and always like to do that. I always like to listen to different people's perspectives with their essays and their ideas and just kind of get a take from a different person who's on here all the time. I know Alan Thomas is on and Susan Kochavar and many others. So it's always good to get those perspectives. And you can always email Kim at Kim at Kim Monson dot com. And we always want to thank our great sponsors, the Harris family, for their gold sponsorship of this show. And thank you to Hooters Restaurants. They always have great specials and wings. There's five locations here in Colorado. There's Loveland Restaurant. Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and down in Colorado Springs. They have great lunch specials Monday through Friday to dine in or to go. And on Wednesdays is Wings Day. You can take off with some great 20 wing specials and get an additional 10 for free. for dine-in or for taking out. It's a great place to get together and watch your favorite teams, and especially those who like the March Madness and all the sporting events that are going on. Last night, I saw, caught a little bit of the St. Louis Blues and their 11th straight hockey victory, so that was good to see. A little bit of good news for the Midwest when they're going through all these storms and and our thoughts go to all those folks, I guess, for the next three days, Joe. They're going to be hitting some pretty crazy weather there. So big winds, and we hope the St. Louis Blues give them a little hope in that part of the country.
SPEAKER 06 :
It sounds like they might.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, it's a good series. So I always like to start off with the word of the day because it gets us going, thinking about how to use our language and not enough opportunity to do that when we get in our day-to-day activities. So here's one that I thought was interesting, and it's... Lacrity and it's spelled A-L-A-C-R-I-T-Y. It's a noun and it's a cheerful willingness or eagerness and lacrity derives from the Latin lacquer and it means lively or to be eager. And in a sentence, it's used in the following way. He invited us all to visit, and we agreed with Lackerty. So use that word, and you'll get brownie points, Joe. I always try to use the word of the day, and it gets me thinking and looking up other words around it and love our English language, because sometimes it doesn't make sense, other times it does, but we've got to expand our ability to communicate with people, so...
SPEAKER 06 :
And it's an ever-changing language, too. There's so many oddities that keep happening. It's interesting.
SPEAKER 21 :
Exactly, yeah. Especially when you start thinking about learning the ancient languages that make our words today, you know, the Latin, the Greek, the Hebrew. It's all part of just learning and communicating with people. So use the word Lacherty today. On this day in history... In 1789, first U.S. Congress begins, the regular sessions, and George Washington, of course, was president. Most people don't know, of course, that that happened in New York City at Federal Hall. And that ended in 1791 when the Capitol was moved down to Washington. Washington, D.C. At that time, of course, it was just a big swamp, but over time they built it up. In 1862 was the Peninsula Campaign in the U.S. Civil War. This particular campaign happened in southeastern Virginia, and it was basically targeting the Richmond area, which was the hub of the Confederacy at the time. 1862 was the siege of Yorktown, and that was also a big battle that happened and part of the Civil War. I love Civil War history. But going to civil rights in 18—excuse me, 1968— And I remember this when I was a kid. Activists and one of the greatest leaders we've ever had, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. And I remember that time. I was young, but I remember the... The news headlines and everything was in black and white back then. We didn't have color TV. And it was a pretty impactful time. John Kennedy had been shot. Robert Kennedy had not at that point, but it was a pretty impactful situation in America. And I have since been to the Kennedy, or excuse me, the King Center down in Atlanta. And if you have the chance to go down there, you should. It's an incredible opportunity to see our history. In 1974, Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth's home run record by hitting his 714th in Cincinnati facing Jack Billingham. And that's appropriate today because it's opening day at Coors Field. And of course, it doesn't feel like opening day, but Colorado having the weather it does. Sometimes you have to start in the snow and end in the snow. But all those who are going out to the game today, wish them good luck. Bundle up. It will be a cold start, but always a great opportunity to get the season kicked off and have another year of fun. beverages, the stands, and the hot dog, and watch our great Rockies hopefully at least get to 500 this year, so that would be good. But it's always an opportunity, a fun time to go out there. I wanted to do a bill of the day, and there's something interesting happening down in the capital. Of course, that's where the sausage is made, and there's always something interesting down there. But I was reading they have a bill, HB 25-1005. And this is a tax incentive for film festivals. And it's concerning the creation of tax incentives to support the film industry. And at first glance, you'd say, OK, why would the legislature want to attract a film festival? Well, the Sundance Festival, of course, is coming to Boulder and I think another two year or another one year next year from Utah. And this was an incentive to draw them here. But my question to our legislature is, why are we picking winners and losers? And they'll say, well, you have to invest a little money to bring people here. But the question comes up is, why is the film industry any more special or less special than any other industry that we want to bring here, whether it's AI or it's technology? But then the small businessman and the taxpayers end up funding this project. this opportunity for a specific group of people a specific industry and so I'd always ask why is it we're picking winners and losers in our legislature and it's always important to to think about these things yes it will bring in lots of money but at whose expense and it's all you the dear listeners who are footing the bill ultimately for things like this happening in our area and And it's important to push back on it because, yeah, we want to have growth, but is it the proper role of government to provide those types of tax incentives to bring people here? And we have a great state. There's a lot of resources and talent here, and we always want people to be here to do their businesses. But the bigger problem is that you have people that are – doing it at the expense of others. And any time that happens, this collective bringing together an industry and spending money to invest here is against what I would say the free market is all about. So it really applies to all industries. I don't think that one industry over another should get any other accommodation. So that's HB 25-1005, and that's during the regular session. I think they're up to probably close... 500 different pieces of legislation that have passed this session. And that's just unbelievable. Do we really need that many new laws? In fact, I would challenge anybody to know half of them, maybe even 10 of them. I couldn't tell you half of them, although we will be talking about in the second hour gun bills that are coming up and, you know, It's really going to impact our ability to defend ourselves. It was interesting when I came home last night from Phoenix, flew in, I was sitting next to a lady who was visiting from Australia. Very nice lady. And one of the things that was on her mind was, You know, all the guns that we Americans have. And we started talking. She was looking at the book I was reading, The Indispensable Right by Jonathan Turley. And it's a great book about free speech during the age of rage. which there has always been rage in our American history and American politics. But in particular, it's been ratcheting up for many, many years. And she was interested in that title. And she says, is that the one about the guns? I said, no, that's the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment helps protect the first, our free speech. But throughout history, we have, especially in this country, a misconception of what free speech is. So this book is happens to go through all of that history. And it's fascinating. But she was just a guest that I was pro Second Amendment and was not sure how to deal with it. She said, of course, you know, in our country, they took away our guns. And I said, yeah, how was that for you folks in Australia during the the Wuhan experience, the covid-19 experience? And And she said, well, yeah, you're right. There were a lot of freedoms that were taken away from us. And I said, well, that's why we have the Second Amendment. It's not for hunting. It's to protect ourselves from our government. And she looked at me with a look on her face that really told it all. She was not of our culture to even think about that. I really find it interesting that people have a different perspective all around the world, and it's always fun to have the opportunity to talk to people who have a different mindset. And it's important that we do listen to people with different perspectives because so often we're so set in our silos. Well, we have some folks that are going to be coming here and talking with us in a little bit, and we've got some call-ins. But before we do that, I'd like to talk about all through Kim's work with veterans. She's honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all that they're going to do to raise money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado at 6th and Colfax. And Paula Saris is the president of the foundation. She is a Marine veteran and a Gold Star wife. And Paula and her team are working diligently to bring that remodel to reality. And you can help by donating to the usmcmemorialfoundation.org. That's usmcmemorialfoundation.org. Great opportunity for you to invest in a worthwhile cause. So this show comes to you because we have great sponsors. And one of those great sponsors is Roger Mangan. and the State Farm Insurance Team.
SPEAKER 19 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
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.
SPEAKER 21 :
It is Friday. Welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. She is out traveling. I am Bradley Beck, and I am very glad to be here with producer Joe behind the glass, and we're having a fun morning. And we always like you to remember to sign up for Kim's weekly e-newsletter that you can get in your inbox with all the guests and the guest hosts. And you'll get the first look at everybody who's written essays. And we look forward to getting feedback from those. You can always do that at Kim at Kim Monson dot com. And thank you for contributing to our support of independent voices and exercising our right to freedom of speech. You know, if it's right, you shouldn't have to force anybody to do anything. So we believe in that. And we were thankful that you do as well. And thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the Kim Monson Show. And something that you should put on your bucket list to visit the Center for American Values located on the beautiful Riverwalk down in Pueblo, Colorado. The Center for American Values was co-founded by Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix. and Emmy Award-winning documentary maker Brad Padula. The Center is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and teaching and upholding the principles of America, which are honor, integrity, and patriotism. For more information, check out their website at AmericanValueCenter.org. And it's a great place to go and learn more about our great Medal of Honor recipients. On the line with us right now, we have Dr. Travis Morrell, who I've had the opportunity to interact with many times. And he's got a particular event happening with the Colorado Parents Advocacy Network, CPAN. And good morning, Travis. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 03 :
Good morning, Brad. It's always good to talk to you.
SPEAKER 21 :
Good to hear your voice. And things are happening this weekend that are important. And you have a guest, Dr. Lior Sapir, who's going to be one of your featured guests at the CPAN event this weekend.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks, Brad. Yes. So local parents, CPAN and local doctors have invited Lior Sapir, who's a Ph.D., to speak with other experts here on Sunday today. April 6th at 2.30, what's called the Rocky Mountain Summit on Safeguarding Children from Gender Affirming Treatment. You may know Lior Sapir. He's broken the story when prestigious American Society of Plastic Surgery came out saying what everybody else knows. There's considerable uncertainty as to the long-term effects of pediatric gender care. He's broken other stories and important data, and there's nobody better qualified to help our listeners on Sunday and today know exactly the answers to the questions that they're asking about gender-affirming treatments on kids. We all want to know, how did medicine start pushing unproven gender treatments on underage kids? And then now they've doubled down as Europe goes the other direction. And even though American plastic surgeons go the other direction, Colorado is still advertising mastectomies on healthy girls at 15 and 16. And Lior is a great guy, very well-spoken, humble, and extremely smart. And he's going to be really interesting to listen to Sunday in Denver at 2.30.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, why don't we bring him on, Dr. Lior Sapir. You're a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy and Research, and you're an expert in this topic. And welcome to The Kim Monson Show.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thanks for having me on, Bradley, and thanks, Travis, for those very nice words.
SPEAKER 21 :
I have seen many of your videos and they're just fascinating. And you have a background in American policy and have done a lot of research into this field. And it's amazing to me that this is such a prevalent thing happening in such a short period of time in the pantheon of our history. And I'm just curious, how did this come about so quickly, this whole idea of gender ideology?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, gender ideology has been metastasizing for decades in academic circles and also to some extent within medicine. But if you're asking about specifically so-called gender-affirming care, which is the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries, to treat adolescents who experience distress about their body, their developing body. That's about 15 years old here in the United States and only about 20, 25 years old worldwide. And here in the United States, it was really brought about through a small number of medical association committees that were convened for this purpose, related purposes. and issued recommendations that were far outside what the scientific evidence supported at the time and still supports now. And it became a civil rights cause.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, it's amazing to me that it's come to, you know, almost like a pimple, if you will. It's been popped and it's all over the place now. And I know it's a bad analogy, but it's the only one I could think of at the time. But, you know, it's amazing to me that we're having to deal with this now. I have a friend who's actually one of the panelists on the Family Impact panel, Erin Lee, and her story is amazing. and what her daughter had to go through in this whole gender ideology in schools and how they're really pushing it through the public education system.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's right. Yes, Erin's story is really incredible, and she's an incredible person and very well worth listening to because her story is not only compelling, but it also mirrors what many parents across the country are experiencing. And unfortunately, schools, not just public but private as well across the nation, have adopted policies, practices, procedures that not only perform social gender transition on children on demand, but very often keep that information from parents unless the child gives express permission to bring the parents into the decision. And that is also a practice that has been found to be not only without, but also actually against existing evidence for what's safe and appropriate for children. And other countries are moving away from it. A good example being the UK, where the recent CAS review, which is a 400-page report on youth gender transition, explicitly recognize social transition as an active psychological intervention with the potential to lock in these experiences of gender distress.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, Lior and Travis, we appreciate you sharing this information. Where can people get more information and plan on being there with these panels and this information and the scientific, ethical, and legal concerns surrounding this gender-affirming treatment?
SPEAKER 03 :
Brad, your listeners could join us by just going to coloradoparents.org and clicking on the events page. That's coloradoparents.org. And this will be Sunday, April 6th in Denver at 2.30.
SPEAKER 21 :
And there will be a whole day of information and really understanding the medical risks and the ethical concerns. Leroy, how would you like to wrap this up and entice people to come down and see your presentation and the other panelists?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it's a great lineup, and I think it's going to be an extremely interesting event, not just for those who know very little about the subject, but even for those who know quite a bit about the subject. There's a great deal more to learn, and I highly recommend, if not coming in person, then at least buying tickets and tuning in online.
SPEAKER 21 :
And it's important for grandparents as well, because I think grandparents need to get involved in this. I know there's several organizations out. I know Grandparents for Kids is a great organization, and they have a lot of influence over their grandchildren. And I think whether you're a... parent or a grandparent or just a concerned citizen this is the second rocky mountain summit this is part two safeguarding children from gender affirming care and treatment and it gives you clinical perspectives and family impacts and i think it's an important subject that we we need to know more about travis would you what what are your last thoughts
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks so much, Brad. This lineup is outstanding. We're extremely gratified, grateful that Colorado can host people like Lior Sapir, child psychiatrist Dr. Miriam Grossman, people have seen in books and movies, Denver pediatrician Michelle Stanford, a parent January Littlejohn, whistleblower Jamie Reed. And just like Lior said, whether you're new to this or an expert, I think you're going to learn something and meet some really interesting people. And that's how change occurs through meeting people and learning and making connections. I believe in the people connection element. So please join us at coloradoparents.org Sunday at 2.30.
SPEAKER 21 :
And all the good folks, Laurie Gimmelstein and the good folks at CPAN are doing great work. And we appreciate all their efforts. And we appreciate you coming on today, sharing a little bit about this great activity that's going to be happening on this weekend. So thank you, gentlemen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you for having me. Thank you.
SPEAKER 21 :
And we'll be right back after this moment.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Don't delay. 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 21 :
Well, it is Friday. Welcome to the Kim Monson Show. And no, Kim does not have a frog in her throat. This is Bradley Beck. I have the good honor of being here and filling in for Kim, who's traveling. And you can always sign up for Kim's weekly email newsletter. Get the first look at all the upcoming guests as well as the most recent essays. I'm one of those people who darken her door on writing one once a month, and I look forward to being here next week. And we always invite feedback. And you can email Kim at kimmonson.com. And we all thank you for your contributing support of an independent voice, which exercises the right of freedom of speech. And as I mentioned in our opening segment, I'm reading a great book by Jonathan Turley on free speech, the indispensable right to And it's amazing to me that more people don't understand that honor and privilege and right that we have here in America. And to talk about a right that I think more parents need are two gentlemen who just drove in from the Elizabeth's Colorado School District. We have Superintendent Dan Snowberger. He's the Colorado Public Schools Superintendent in Elizabeth. And Jeff Maher, who's the Public Information Officer there. And you both have an interesting topic to talk about, the recent development of the schools being told what they can and cannot have in the libraries. Yes. particular parents their rights to say hey you know what we don't necessarily want those books or if they do have those books in the school there are certain permissions that need to happen correct yeah it's been a been a long story here we as a school district have really tried to enhance our parents rights in our in our district and uh
SPEAKER 16 :
This process, we began about a year and a half ago in reviewing our library content as well as our curriculum. And so we began going through our entire library collection. And instead of trying to determine what children should read, we began labeling books that had sensitive topics and giving parents the right to say, I'm going to opt my child out of books that might have sensitive topics, graphic violence, sexual content, ideations of self-harm. drugs and alcohol, racism, religious content. So a parent who might not want their children to access books that have those contents, they can opt out. And so when a child tries to check out a book that might have that, The parent says, I don't want my children reading things unless I give them permission. It would not allow their child to check it out. In the process of reviewing our books, we found some books that were adult content. And so we decided, let's do a public process. Let's get our parents to review 19 particular books. Actually, when we pulled them, there were only 18. One was never returned. Yeah. We displayed those books for 25 days, had our parents come in and say, tell us what you think about these particular books. Overwhelmingly, our community said, these books don't belong in the library. No educational value. Adult content inappropriate for the age range where they appeared. And our board made the decision based upon community feedback, they should be removed from the library. We removed them on September 9th. The board acted. They were disposed of. December 20th, we were sued by the ACLU on behalf of two particular families in our community. We've been in a battle on that lawsuit with the ACLU. We, three weeks ago, had a preliminary injunction ordered by a local Denver judge in district federal court. That that order was stayed two weeks ago after we filed a motion for stay in appeal. Unfortunately, yesterday after after she stayed, that order once again has reissued her preliminary injunction. And so we are appealing to the. 10th Circuit Court today so the real challenge for us is these books are graphic in nature they are not just books that have a political viewpoint they are not books that we are just opposed to because they have LGBTQ content or they cover a point of view that we don't agree with these are books that are adult content and they just don't belong in a child's library They're accessible in the public library. They're accessible on Amazon. They're accessible on online libraries. And they're not books that we believe are bad. They're just books we don't believe a child should, in wandering our libraries, accidentally pick up off the shelf. And so I know there's a lot of folks out who have said book ban. Frankly, if a child brings this book to school, we're not going to discipline them. We're not going to take it away from them. As long as they read it quietly and read it during their free time, that's fine. We want to make sure and respect out of parent rights that this book isn't something that they get provided by the school district because of the fact that it is adult content and definitely requires a parent to make that decision for their children. So it's been a difficult road for us. I bet. For sure.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, Jeff, how do you get ahead of the messaging on this? Because as Dan mentioned, you know, the idea of book ban, you're not in favor of a book ban. In fact, you probably are wanting more people to read more often, especially books. But how do you get ahead of that being a expert in communication, being the chief information officer?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it can be difficult because for the most part up to this point, the media in Denver has framed this story in such a way that Elizabeth School District is banning books and is against this group and this group. And I haven't seen a single article that actually shares the content of what is inside these books. Instead, they just list the titles. They show the author's names. They make it clear in bold that these are books that are hailed by certain groups. These are bestsellers. How could Elizabeth School District do this? And it's really only been a couple of individuals, including CBS Colorado, that have given us a fair and balanced story showing both sides and allowing us to tell our side and then platforms like this one. And in addition to that, utilizing our YouTube channel, utilizing the fact that. I spent 20 years as an anchor and reporter, so I come from a journalist background, and I'm able to tell stories in such a way where we can tell our story in the right way and get our narrative out there. And so that's what it's been up to this point. I think the tide is turning in terms of the public perception of this. Because we have been sharing the excerpts on the air on various stations. And when we do that, the response changes. And we have had plenty of individuals call us, email us. Even some have come to my office and said, thank you for doing this. Thank you for standing up for parents' rights. We had no idea that it was this bad in terms of what was in the books.
SPEAKER 21 :
In fact, it's so bad, and we'll talk a little bit about this in the next segment, but some of the things that when you read them, in fact, you can't read them all because we'd be getting knocked off the air, get fined pretty heavily. I remember when I was in what we called junior high school, middle school today, in the L.A. City school system. So that will give you a take on the mindset there. But this was in the early 1970s. I remember reading D.H. Lawrence books. The Lady Chatterley's Lover. I remember reading The Great Gatsby. And looking back and reflecting, one, on the content, the language, the idea of class struggle. But it really was deeper. There was sexual exploitation, pretty explicit language for the time. And, in fact, both those books were controversial back then. Today, it's even ratcheted up more.
SPEAKER 16 :
Absolutely. And reading them with guidance from a teacher is one thing, where a teacher is expressing the purpose. Some of these books have historical or purpose and understanding. For instance, one of the books is A Kite Runner. It's outlining the Taliban and the challenges in Afghanistan today. Historically and in a true account of what's happened in in Afghanistan, there's value in that. But for a child to wander read it without the context, without the historical explanation, reading a graphic sex scene is the concern. And so we don't in any way say any of these authors are awful, any of these books are terrible. It's should they just be picked off the shelf and read without explanation, without guidance. And that's a concern with the books. So again, I know the plaintiffs have said we're attacking the authors. We're not attacking the authors. These are just books that we don't believe should just be accidentally taken off the shelves.
SPEAKER 21 :
And the parents should have the opportunity to chime in on this. After all, it's the right and responsibility of parents to... have the responsibility and the expertise to raise their children, not a government entity. So you guys are taking the responsible perspective on this.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, and to your point earlier, I mean, in Colorado, 40% of children can read at grade level. Our purpose as a school district is to improve that. We've got to improve the ability of children to read. We're spending our time defending a lawsuit to keep pornographic and graphic violent content in our library. Our goal as a school district is return to the purpose of our school district, which is to educate children, to prepare them for successful futures. And I guess that's the frustration we have. We're a little district. We don't overtax our citizens. We have one little mill levy. We're competing with our neighboring districts who have massive amounts of additional taxation of their tax base. And so this is very costly for us. We've been very fortunate so far to have lots of support from outside entities. But we also feel this is a principled thing. This is something we must stand for. And we've been very fortunate. We have a very great legal team of legal scholars, constitutional scholars who are supporting us in this matter. And so we're fortunate. But, you know, we on our website, ElizabethSchoolDistrict.org, we We have a link where Parents United has been supporting us and trying to help ensure that this legal case doesn't take away from our children because we are right now in the process of wanting to make sure we aren't that district who continues. We outperform our state. We're at 45% of our children reading above grade level, still unacceptable. We need 90, 95, 99% of our children reading at grade level, and that's where we're going to continue to focus on our students are our efforts.
SPEAKER 21 :
It's important not only because the child needs a well-rounded education, but the child also needs to be exposed to the classics. And if they have a choice with limited time, why are they being taught to read this type of material as opposed to the Iliad or the classic books of Euclid? Exactly. And it's so important. But we have more to talk about, and we'll continue this conversation right after this message from Karen Levine.
SPEAKER 10 :
We'll be right back. If you'd like to explore what a reverse mortgage can do for you, call Lauren Levy at 303-880-8881. That's 303-880-8881.
SPEAKER 09 :
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 10 :
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SPEAKER 21 :
And welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. I am Bradley Beck. Kim is traveling today and we are so happy that you're with us supporting this station that is really about free speech and freedom versus force. If it's a good idea, you shouldn't have to force people to. contribute or to push ideology on top of them. We appreciate your support for this station, our independent voice. And you can always look up Kim's information coming up for the week by getting her newsletter at Kim at KimMonson.com. And we're talking with the superintendent of the Elizabeth School District, Dan Snowberg, and the chief, or excuse me, the public information officer. I was going to call you the CIO, but you're the PIO. Promotion. Yeah. Yeah. You'll have to talk to Dan after the show. But Jeff Maher is here as well. And let's get into this, gentlemen. There are some pretty interesting titles. And by themselves, they're innocuous if an adult wants to read something. But this content to a young, influential child or a school-age kid is pretty graphic. And I thought it would be important to review this and some of the titles and the verbiage that we can say on the radio. I'm filling in for Kim. I don't want to knock her off the air by repeating some of the words that I've read in these books. So, Dan, why don't you start off with that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Or Jeff.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, I'm going to let Jeff start with.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. So we want to put a disclaimer out there to our listeners that if you do have any children in the room, we would ask that you remove them so that they can't hear this because it's our belief that this is not appropriate for children. That's the issue at hand. And so we're going to start with an excerpt from a book that was available at the high school level. It's called Identical by Ellen Hopkins. It features a character named Kaylee who is 16 years old. And it goes on to say... I cracked my eyes just a slit as he sat on Kaylee's bed, pulled her into his lap. He smelled of brute and wild turkey, his peculiar potpourri. I love you so much, my little flower. Daddy needs something from my girl, my sweet rose. Will you give it to me? I wanted to be his little flower. Would have given my daddy anything. What did he want from Kaylee? She laid her head on his chest. What? I want you to see something. Something that proves how much I love you. This is only for you, Kaylee girl. He lifted her gently, sat her down on the bed beside him. Then he opened the snaps on the fly of his flannel pajamas. And another excerpt in that book goes on to say, Confused at his tears and at the sticky stuff icing her hands, still Kaylee pleaded, Don't cry, Daddy. What's the matter? Didn't I love you good enough?
SPEAKER 21 :
Boy, that's disgusting. And it just goes to show that it is not age appropriate for either high school, junior high, or elementary school.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, incestuous content. Do you want to read another high school one?
SPEAKER 21 :
And these are books that are in the library or were in the library that were able to be accessed by a student. Correct.
SPEAKER 02 :
Correct. So this is another one from the high school level. It's Crank by Ellen Hopkins. And again, disclaimer to the audience, not age appropriate, not good for children. So if you have kids, we ask that you remove them from the room. This excerpt goes on to say... I froze as he pushed inside. There it is. Oh, God, there it goes. It went all right with an audible tear. Pain mushroomed into agony, and all I could do was go stiff.
SPEAKER 16 :
And these are things we can read on the air. Obviously, it goes on with more graphic detail, so, you know, it... This is what the ACLU wants us to put on the shelf. And I want to mention something. When we first received the legal filing and we filed our motion, our attorneys used quotes in our response to make sure the court understood why the board excluded these books. When we tried to transmit these through our email system, Because of the Child Internet Protection Act required by the federal government that we have an internet filter in our school districts to protect children from receiving inappropriate content, we could not email these quotes in our school district. So the federal government says we must protect children from receiving content like this over the internet. But we're being sued to put this content on our library shelves. Amazing. Think about that for a minute.
SPEAKER 21 :
And you couldn't even read these words in public comment in front of a school board. No. Because they're so egregious.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. And our school board read these and, again, did the same disclaimers Jeff has done now twice. to the audience and individuals who have been motivated by this lawsuit actually got up and left that school board meeting when they did this back in August to say, we want our community to understand what's in these books before we take action because we don't want you to think we're removing books that are just politically motivated. We want you to understand and individuals in the audience got up and left because of their discomfort. So again, this is frustrating for us.
SPEAKER 21 :
And you're not saying ban the book. You're just saying it's not appropriate for school-age children in a school library to have access to these titles.
SPEAKER 16 :
Who could accidentally pick them up, go sit down at a table, and open them up and read them without adults.
SPEAKER 21 :
Or even under peer pressure, you know, kids, you know, being what they are, they would maybe one would get a hold of it and then bring it in.
SPEAKER 16 :
Agreed.
SPEAKER 21 :
And then, you know, next thing you know, it's wildfire. All the kids are exposed. Agreed. So, Dan, what's the next one?
SPEAKER 16 :
I've got two middle school books. Now, we had one book that we removed from the middle school that's still at the high school. So, again, sometimes it was just age appropriate, whether it was appropriate at the age level. One book we removed was removed by Mesa Valley School District after seven children committed suicide one year. And it's a book that many people might know. It's called 13 Reasons Why. And it's a book about suicide. And it's a book about, I believe, a young girl who had committed suicide. And it's recounting what led her to that. So here's some excerpts from it, and they're different excerpts. I'll read them all together, though. Okay, I'll say it. I thought about suicide. A gun? No, we never owned one, and I wouldn't know where to get it. What about hanging? Well, what would I use? Where would I do it? And even if I knew what and where, I could never get beyond the visual of someone finding me swinging inches from the floor. It became a sick sort of game, imagining ways to kill myself, and there are some pretty weird and creative ways. He took pills that we all knew. Some say you passed out and drowned in a bathtub full of water. It came down to two lines of thinking. If I wanted people to think it was an accident, I'd drive my car off the road someplace where there's no chance of survival. So I've decided on the least painful way possible, pills. But what kind of pills and how many, I'm not sure, and I don't have much time to figure it out because tomorrow I'm going to do it. And so Mesa Valley had seven children commit suicide and decided in 2017 to pull that book. We pulled that from both the high school and the middle school. Think of 12-year-olds reading this book, depressed, and having a book that plants ideas in their mind about committing suicide.
SPEAKER 21 :
That's powerful, and it's a strong narrative, but again, you're not wanting to expose young people to this kind of ideology and give them the idea that it's, oh, it's something I can do, and then they do it, and the next day they're not coming back. Exactly.
SPEAKER 16 :
It's important. You can't fix that mistake.
SPEAKER 21 :
No, not at all.
SPEAKER 16 :
Another book called The Hate U Give, and it does have a lot of content about police brutality, and the narrative is we don't want kids to understand there's police brutality. this has some graphic sexual content um and this was at both the high school and the middle school and again 12 year olds here's here's a quote fooling around isn't new for us and when chris slipped his hand into my shorts i didn't even think of it and he and he got me going and i really wasn't thinking at all for real my thought process went out the door and right as i right as I'm sorry. And right as I was at the moment, he stopped, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a condom. He raised his eyebrow at me and silently asking for an invitation to go all the way. All I could see, walking around Garden Heights, babies propped on their hips. Condom or no condom? Expletive happens. I left his house pissed and horny and absolute worst way to leave. And then another section left me clarify. Let me clarify my butt against his crotch, my back against his chest. I'm bumping up against him trying to figure out how to get the ball back in the hole. It sounds way dirtier than it actually is, especially in this position. And again, that's the tame stuff in the book. So again, yes, there's police brutality. There's, there's life experiences of, of maybe inner city. The issue is the graphic violence or the graphic sexual content in the book that led us to say, it just doesn't belong in, in, in a middle school and a high school library. Um, Are there real experiences that maybe children need to understand some experience? Yes. But this is a content that led us to exclude.
SPEAKER 21 :
And shouldn't the parents have the discussion, not the teacher or not the student to student?
SPEAKER 16 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 21 :
You know, there are safeguards in schools. If there is some activity that happens, they can report it. Absolutely. But at the end of the day, if you only have that limited time, as I mentioned before, what do you want your kids to be exposed to? And as a parent, as a grandparent, I think it's important that – this be brought to the forefront and saying who has that responsibility because some of the things you're saying here i mean i can imagine what you can't read and parents and people listening can pick those books up and and decide but your school board did the hard work read it you had parents chime in and now you have this situation where you're kind of like david again again it is a david and glia story yeah we have time we have one elementary example i don't We have about three minutes, so.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, so this one is called George, alternately named Melissa. Again, it was available at the elementary level to kids as early as five. And this excerpt goes on to say, and I should preface this, that the character is in fourth grade and is going through a gender transition. That would be George slash Melissa. The excerpt goes on to say, while mom made dinner, George headed upstairs to take a bath. She took off her shirt while the tub filled, waiting until the last possible moment to take off her pants and underwear. She immersed her body in the warm water and tried to not think about what was between her legs, but there it was, bobbing in front of her. And then it goes on to say in another excerpt, so George knew it could be done. A boy could become a girl. She had since read on the internet that you could take girl hormones and that would change your body and you could get a bunch of different surgeries if you wanted them and had the money. This was called transitioning. You could even start before you were 18 with pills called androgen blockers that stopped the boy hormones already inside you from turning your body into a man's. But for that, you needed your parents' permission.
SPEAKER 21 :
Boy, not a lot left to the imagination there. Well, gentlemen, how can people get involved, help you folks out, and really bring you the support you need?
SPEAKER 02 :
So as Dan mentioned, this really is a David versus Goliath fight. I know everybody's talking about that show on Amazon right now, and my wife, we're actually watching it. It's very good. I highly recommend it. But as we were watching it, we said, yeah, this is the situation that we are in, literally. And what people can do if they want to help Elizabeth School District in this legal fight, they can go to our website, elizabethschooldistrict.org. Again, that's elizabethschooldistrict.org. And at the top banner, there is a link to the 5013C fundraising site that's been set up by Parents United. And this really is going to be a grassroots type of effort approach to try to take on this legal battle that absolutely could go the distance because this is unsettled law. This this hasn't been addressed since the early 80s at the U.S. Supreme Court level. And, you know, for all we know, it could be headed that direction. And we're definitely going to need help to get there.
SPEAKER 16 :
There's also a link on that website that will provide updates on this case. So if you scroll down a little, there's a link that will give you updates as we file new motions, as we file our new briefs. So people who are interested, follow along because this is really an important case, not only for our district, for districts around Colorado and around the nation.
SPEAKER 21 :
Very good. Well, Dan and Jeff, thank you for being here. And we appreciate the information and hope people get involved with you. And I'll end with a quote that is appropriate by Orison Swett Martin. He was an American inspirational thinker. And he said, every child should be taught to expect success. And what's been going on in the school districts now, it really is not giving them success. So Ladies and gentlemen, today, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideas, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. You're not alone. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 07 :
Young like a new moon rising fierce Through the rain and lightning Wandering out into this great unknown And I don't want no one to cry But tell them if I don't
SPEAKER 05 :
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 20 :
It's the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 01 :
An early childhood taxing district? What on earth is that?
SPEAKER 20 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 20 :
Today's current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 01 :
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 20 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let's have a conversation.
SPEAKER 21 :
Indeed, let's have a conversation. And the voice you're hearing is Bradley Beck. It's not Kim Monson. She's out traveling. And I have the honor of sitting in the big girl chair today and hosting this wonderful program, the Kim Monson Show. And welcome, Colorado. We're glad you're here. Thank you for listening. Each of you are valued. You're treasured. Today, strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. We were made for this day. And it's a beautiful day here in Colorado. And Producer Joe, thank you for letting me in. And we had a great first hour with Superintendent from the Elizabeth School District, Dan Schoberger and Jeff Maher. And amazing segment.
SPEAKER 06 :
I thought it was fantastic, too. A lot of those pieces, I was kind of seeing the startup when I was getting out of high school. My little brothers were still in school, and so I got to see a small transition there, but to see it go this far is just unsettling.
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, it's amazing. And the good, hard fight that the Elizabeth School District is doing to push back from the ACLU and fighting the fight that it's the parents' right to decide what their children read, not necessarily the school district. They're not looking to ban books. They're looking to be sensitive to topics that would impact our young people. And if you're a grandparent or if you're a parent, we encourage you to look up the Elizabeth School District and read Absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I think it's so important, their point. They're just trying to take the books out of the school library. You can go to the public library and get those books with your parents' permission, but at the end of the day, it shouldn't be readily available in the schools so young.
SPEAKER 21 :
Exactly. Well, good conversation. We invite you to listen to the replay and that'll be later today. In the meantime, you can sign up for the weekly email newsletter at Kim at Kim Monson dot com is her email and Kim Monson dot com is where you can get all the latest essays. I have one I just submitted and I think she's going to accept it. She usually does. And with good editing from Mrs. Beck and my grammar and the ability to punctuate, I'm lucky that I have an editor to do that. We all need editors, right, Joe?
SPEAKER 06 :
I definitely do. I'm more of a math science guy, so sometimes I English no good.
SPEAKER 21 :
I think that's everybody. So we want to thank the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. We need the support of people like the Harris family who invest in Kim's program or an independent voice for freedom and free speech. Our word of the day is one that's interesting because when you look at it, it sounds one way, but it actually is pronounced Lacherty, yet it's spelled A-L-A-C-R-I-T-Y, and it's being cheerful or a willingness or eagerness, and it derives from Latin, meaning lively or eager. And used in a sentence, quote, he invited us all to visit and we agreed with Lackerty, end of quote. So that's the word of the day. We invite you to use it and help your skill set in communicating to your friends and coworkers and people you just interact with today. And one of the things we omitted at the very beginning, but I'm going to do at this part is our quote of the day comes from Dr. Orson Swett Martin. He was an American inspirational author and he wrote on achieving success. From when he was born, 1848, to 1924, he was a prolific writer. He founded the magazine Success in 1897. And his writings discuss common sense principles and virtues of well-rounded individuals who want to have a successful life. And his first book, Pushing to the Front in 1894, became an instant bestseller at the time. And Martin later published more than 50 books or booklets, averaging about two titles a year, which is prolific. And in his book, He Can Who Thinks He Can, which I happen to own, a 1908 edition, he said the following... quote, every child should be taught to expect success, end of quote. And I think that's important. And when friends and people I know in business have a baby, I usually get one of several young children's books that are appropriate, and I sign that in there as well and quote Orson Swett Martin, and that's O-R-I-S-O-N. middle name S-W-E-T-T Martin, M-A-R-D-E-N. And I encourage you to look him up and see his history and what he's been doing for the ideas of success, especially in business, but in life as well. And so one of the things that we also like to talk about a little bit is the happenings from the history of our great country and some of the events that really stand out and one of those things in 1968 the US civil rights activist Martin Luther King was assassinated on this day April 4th and it was in Memphis Tennessee at the Lorraine Hotel and I think it's important to remember his legacy and what dr. King represented I remember I was about nine years old when that happened President Kennedy had been shot. Robert Kennedy had not yet. I think several months later he would be. But it's important to know that that voice was silenced on that day. And there's so much that Dr. King did to advance the cause of rights of not just the black community, but all of us as Americans. And he was a great civil libertarian. He spoke truth to power. And it's important to remember his legacy. And if you ever get a chance and you go to Atlanta, Georgia, the King Center there where he's buried in the museum, it's a fascinating opportunity to learn a little bit about the history that too often is misconstrued. And not known and not taught. And as was demonstrated in the first hour, we had a variety of books that are being taken off from the Elizabeth School District school shelves because they're not appropriate. And yet students are not exposed necessarily to Dr. King and his thoughts. So it's important to remember this. Being opening day for the Colorado Rockies here in Colorado, of course, it's a little snowy out there. But on this day in 1974, Hank Aaron, he tied Babe Ruth's home run record by hitting the 714th baseball home run in Cincinnati against Jack Billingham. So... We never know what the Rockies are going to be doing, but we wish them well this opening day. And I have been to opening days when it snowed before. This year I'm not going, unfortunately. But it's great to go out to the ballpark and celebrate spring and the great American pastime. It's very important to have those traditions and those things that bring us all together. It's not always political, but it is an opportunity to celebrate our Rockies. I want to talk a minute here about this HB 25-1005. It's a tax incentive for film festivals. And you think, well, what's wrong with that, bringing the Sundance Film Festival or any film festival here to Colorado? We get exposed to new creative people and films that are important or could be important. And I think it's important to do that. But should the legislature pick winners and losers? And so this 2025 in the regular session, the bill to create a refundable tax credit, only if at least one qualified film festival entity with a multi-dedicated operating history and verifiable track record attracting 100,000 or more in-person ticket sales will get a compensation, a tax credit. And, you know, it sounds good. The problem you have is why is the legislature picking winners and losers when the small guy who has an independent business, a mom and pop shop, is not being compensated? And I'm not saying they should be. But what I'm saying is that the legislator is saying one group of people or one industry is more important than another. And it's not the proper role of government to be doing things like this. It is the proper role of government to protect the rights of individuals to come together and put together a film festival or a concert or an art exhibit, but not necessarily to give them funding or a tax break because, you know, the mystique or the idea of having Hollywood here for a couple weeks or a week, It's just not the proper role for government to be in part of. So I'd invite you to push back on something like this. If a government wants to do it, if a town or city wants to do it, that's awesome. But the government shouldn't be incentivizing film festivals. You know, that's important because we should do things voluntarily. And one of the things that I would encourage you to do voluntarily through Kim's work with veterans is to honor and highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation and all the good work they're doing to raise money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado at 6 and Colfax. And Paula Sarris is the president of the foundation. She's a Marine veteran and a Gold Star wife. And she recently had a birthday and climbed, I think, all the steps at Red Rock. So congratulations to her to raise funds for what they're doing out there. And Paula and her team are working diligently to bring the remodel to reality. And you can help by donating to the USMC Memorial Foundation. And that's USMCMemorialFoundation.org. And we invite you to do that. This show comes to you because of great sponsors such as Roger McLean.
SPEAKER 19 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
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 21 :
Indeed, it is Friday. And for those that celebrate Shabbat Shalom and Happy Friday, we hope everybody's having a great day today. So far, I am. It's great to be in the big kid seat here and take over for Kim, who's out traveling. I'm Bradley Beck, and it's always an honor to be here at KLZ. And looking at the other side of the glass, the great Joe, producer Joe, welcome and glad you're here today.
SPEAKER 06 :
I'm glad to be here. I always like coming in.
SPEAKER 21 :
It's always great to see your smiling face, and he does great work with all the folks that work with Kim here at the station, and we appreciate their support. You can look up Kim at her website and all the wonderful essays that are on at kimmonson.com. You can sign up for her weekly email newsletter and get the first look at all the guests that are coming on, and you can always comment at kim at kimmonson.com. and we really appreciate all the support of our independent voice of exercising our freedom of speech. And something that should be on your bucket list and have the opportunity to see, the Center for American Values, which is located at the beautiful Riverwalk in Pueblo, Colorado, just south of Colorado Springs. The Center for American Values was co-founded by Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix. and Emmy Award-winning documentary maker Brad Padula. And the Center is focused on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and teaching the upholding principles of America, which are honor, integrity, and patriotism. For more information, check out their website at AmericanValueCenters.org. That's AmericanValueCenter.org. And we appreciate their support of the great American values that we mentioned. On the line with us, we have Alicia Garcia, and she's an interesting lady because she does so many things. She's a firearms instructor, a range safety officer, a civil rights activist, a Second Amendment activist and a plaintiff on a case that we may be able to talk about, Garcia v. Colorado. And she is known as, I believe, the broomstick babe on Instagram. So, Alicia, welcome. Thank you. Good morning. How are you today? I'm doing unbelievable. It's good to hear your voice, and I've been following you for years on social media and all the things that you're doing. Tell us a little bit about your background.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, first of all, thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I am very, very happy to be here. I'm just a regular old gal. Everybody knows me as the Boomstick Babe. It's a nickname my father gave me when I was a kid. Because I used to shoot a little 20-gauge shotgun on our family farmland, and it just kind of stuck. And when he passed away, I kind of just used it as my screen name to honor him because I was talking all the time about gun rights and the importance of staying armed. And it just, you know, it took off from there. But just like you said, I'm the plaintiff in Garcia v. Polis suing against a three-day waiting period as a co-plaintiff. with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, shout out to them. I also have a company that I just put together with my business partner Spartan Defense in Colorado Springs by the name of The Second Syndicate. We are not just a show on YouTube, but we are a movement. It is a Second Amendment grassroots activist movement that we put together in January because of all the gun control Colorado is facing right now. I also do a lot of public speaking and encouraging people to stay armed and educating them on the importance of staying armed and why firearms are an essential tool to be an American as well as for freedom. So just like you said, I'm also a range safety officer. I'm a firearms educator. I teach classes on the concealed handgun permitting, on defensive pistol, on situational awareness, on de-escalation, things of that nature as well.
SPEAKER 21 :
So where did you grow up?
SPEAKER 15 :
I'm kind of an anomaly. I grew up in Denver. I went to private school in the city. So I went to like presentation of Our Lady. I went to Lutheran, which are private schools that were in the city and county of Denver. But on the weekends and holidays and basically, you know, Friday through Sunday, I was in Trinidad, Colorado with my grandma and my grandpa and my aunts and uncles. So I was a farm girl on the weekends and a private school kid on the weekdays.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, you had a mixed upbringing, and I bring that up because I mentioned in the first segment, I was on a plane yesterday flying back from Phoenix, and I had the good fortune of reading a book by Jonathan Turley, and the title is The Indispensable Right About the First Amendment and Free Speech. And this lady sitting next to me was from Australia, and we got in a conversation about the book title. But then she turned the subject to, excuse me, the Second Amendment. And I handed her a constitution, which had the declaration into it. And I said, well, this gives you all the information you need to know. And we had a delightful conversation about the Second Amendment. But as she kept bringing up, well, you know, in Australia, we got rid of all our guns and we don't have the violence you have here in America. And I thought that was an interesting perspective.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well... People assume that violence is because of the tool. People forget that humans are animals. We're complex chordates. We're in the kingdom of animalia. We're complex chordates. We're Nephilim chordata. The only thing that differentiates us from those creatures is we have a right to exercise sympathy and we have a right to exercise reason. And that doesn't mean that humans aren't innately violent. And when we talk about violence, it's not saying that all humans are going to conduct violence. What I mean by that is that we have the ability for violence. And we don't carry guns and I don't promote gun ownership to act violently. I do them so people cannot act violently towards us. And it is a right to ensure your safety. It's a right to defense. It's not a right to act violent. And I think that that's the misconception a lot of these countries have about, you know, oh, well, guns are innately violent, so we don't have those. Well, you know, a lot of the time they associate that with also self-harm. you know, the big S word. And look at Japan. It has one of the highest S rates and suicide rates in the entire world. And it's not with firearms. It's just self-harm. It's a cultural thing. So it's not necessarily the tool. And one of the constant messages that I teach my students is the mind is the weapon. The gun is a tool. So we have to use ourselves. We have to use our wits. We have to use our brains and our cognitive reasoning to to exercise that right and to exercise the decision of when to act, if to act and how to act, and to make sure that we have the ability to act when something is responding to us in an aggressive or violent way, because we all have a right to get home to our families, right? We all have a right to go home at the end of the night and make sure that we're safe. So I don't carry a gun every day because I'm looking to harm somebody or impose my will on people. I carry a firearm to make sure that nobody can impose harm on me or impose their will on me. It gives me my ability to say no. And I think we've forgotten that as a society because we're being groomed by so many outlets, you know, the mainstream media, the TV shows, the news. constant attack on our freedoms that are being groomed by the left, by the people that want to take these rights away, that are indoctrinating not just our students and our youth, but communities of saying, hey, you know what? Just give these things up. We'll protect you. You don't need these because look at all these acts of violence. But what they don't understand is nobody wants to get shot, not even bad guys. So would you be do you want to be the gazelle or do you want to be, you know, the rhino? Do you want to be the armadillo with the harm shell or do you want to be the predator or the little prey bunny? You know, it's like even if in when you look in nature, every animal has a method of self-defense. We just have a very elevated and evolved way of doing that.
SPEAKER 21 :
And you mentioned safety, which is an important part. If you're going to own a firearm, you should know how to use it. You should be well-trained. And it's not something that you should take lightly. It's something that you should understand that it is something that can take somebody's life.
SPEAKER 15 :
Absolutely. We believe in training. That's a misconception I believe that people have. is that we don't believe in training, so the government keeps continually imposing mandated and forced training. Well, I truly believe, and I've been doing this for quite some time. I've been shooting guns since I was a child. I've been an enthusiast of firearms most of my life and active in this for many years now. And what I have found that Most of this community is very adamant about training. We encourage training, we promote training, and we train all the time. I shoot a gun once a week. And I travel across the United States and I go get training every year. I train in medical, I train in life-saving skills make sure that we can seal chest wounds, that we can pack wounds. We know how to use tourniquets. We know how to do those things. I carry an IFAC, which is an individual first aid kit with me everywhere I go. I have one in my house. I have one in my car. And I encourage my students to always have medical life-saving equipment around you. You know, you should have one on every floor of your home. You should have one in your vehicle because car accidents happen, violence happens, and it's not always necessarily meant from other people, but You know, you could slip and fall on ice and get hit by something. There's all these different types of things. But the importance of saving a life is the mentality that we really want to push and the encouragement of that. And right now, we have all of these state-issued mandated laws that they're force-feeding our communities. And what I truly believe is it's more harmful than not having them or than having them just be left alone because... When you tell a society that's unfamiliar on a topic that, hey, you need to go and you need to take an eight-hour classroom class, and then you need to go shoot 50 rounds of live fire with your firearm and take this written exam, what that does is it tells people this is enough. This is all you need. And so it actually encourages them to not get more training. And it also tells people we're going to be rebellious. We don't want to do this. So as a way to reject government tyranny, we're going to say no, and we're not going to do what you tell us to do, which that's not what we want. We want people to be efficient. We want people to train and encourage that. I just think this is going to have an adverse effect in what they think they're doing.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, Alicia, when we come back, I want to talk about that overreach by government and what's going on down in their state legislature and SB 25-003. I think it's important to talk about those issues, and we'll do that right after we hear from Karen Levine.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
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.com.
SPEAKER 21 :
Happy Friday and welcome to the Kim Monson Show. The gravelly voice you hear is not Kim, of course. It's Bradley Beck and I'm glad to be filling in for her today on this beautiful day in Colorado. So we're so glad you're listening today. Sign up for Kim's weekly email newsletter. You can get the first look at all her upcoming guests as well as the most recent emails. You can go to KimMonson.com. And always contact her by emailing her at kim at kimmonson.com. And thank you to all our contributors, their support of our independent voice, exercising our right to freedom of speech. And thank you to the Harris family for their gold sponsorship of the show. And through Kim's work with veterans, she's honored to highlight the USMC Memorial Foundation. and all the work they're doing to raise money to remodel the official USMC Memorial, which is located right here in Golden, Colorado, at 6 and Colfax. Paula Saris is the president of the foundation, and she's done amazing things. She's a Marine veteran, a Gold Star Wife, and Paula and her team are working diligently to bring a remodel to reality, and you can help by donating at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. And on the line with us, we have Alicia Garcia, and she's a gun enthusiast. She does a lot of things with the Second Amendment, and we want to talk a little bit about the bill that the state legislature passed just passed, I believe it's on the governor's desk, and that's SB 25-003, which is probably one of the most controversial gun bills in the country right now, Alicia.
SPEAKER 15 :
Very true. And as awful as this bill is, the sad part is it's not alone. If you search in the bills right now that are being propositioned for basically they're negotiating your civil rights in the Gold Dome, there's 25 bills right now that have the word firearm in it. Twenty five. So even though this is egregious and this is horrible, it's not the only thing of its kind. They're killing us with a death by a thousand cuts. And this has been an onslaught against your civil rights and your right to self-defense for quite some time. We experienced this last year, the year before. And they just keep coming at us, and they're leaving us basically no choice than to push back with federal law to get feds involved, to file lawsuits, and to resist. I mean, that's what we have to do as people, as well as coordinate more real politicians that are actually serving the voices of the people and serving their communities. in the Gold Dome. What is astonishing to me is when I first started pushing back against these bills, showing up to the Capitol, testifying in opposition of all this gun control, I had these wide eyes that my voice is going to matter. I'm going to change the perspectives of these politicians. And I was shocked to see that not only do they not care about what I have to say, they will sit there they won't look at me they'll leave they'll color and coloring books they'll text on their cell phones they completely ignore you because they know exactly how they're going to vote they know exactly that they're going to pass this and it was shocking to me that this year the first time we had public committee hearings for sb520 uh for 25003 there were so many businesses like gun shops and gun owners that were saying you're going to put you're going to put colorado gun gun shops out of business And this was pleasing to people like Senator Julie Gonzalez, to people like Senator Tom Sullivan. That was music to their ears. So when we have these people coming in there and they're saying, hey, you're going to destroy my business that I've owned, that's exactly the goal. And it encourages them to keep doing it more and more. And what we're realizing now is that even though Pro-gun people, every time they have these hearings, we're getting more loud, we're getting stronger, we're getting more involved. We're outnumbering the opposition one to ten. Think about that. We are keeping them for hours and hours and hours telling them, no, we the people do not want these bills. And yet they completely disregard our voices and say, nope, but we do. So not only are they not acting in the interest of the people, they're acting in the interest of themselves and the organizations that are lining their pockets. And they're absolutely corrupt. They're absolutely bribed. And they're absolutely doing the bidding for the big gun control movement, such as Bloomberg, Moms Demand Action, etc.
SPEAKER 21 :
So this bill, Senate Bill 25-03, would make it illegal to buy, sell, and manufacture most guns that use a detachable magazine unless the person has a special permit. And there's the rub, right?
SPEAKER 15 :
Yep. It's a permit to purchase, and the big deal that I want people to understand is this is a gun registration. This is a... gun registration bill because they're saying you're going to need a permit to purchase semi-automatic firearms as of July 1st of this year so just in in just a few months the concealed carry laws are changing in Colorado based on a bill that was passed last year so myself as a firearms instructor I have to get permission from the state to even though you know I shoot once a week we have a private range here at my business partner's house and we train and test guns all the time You know, I train there all the time. I'm registered as a firearms instructor with national organizations. I've worked with some of the best in the world. And yet the state feels that it's their requirement also to judge me and to make me pay for them to say okay miss garcia you should you can teach now it's it's a it's a scheme to make more money and to also get us to give them our name you know hey here's a formal name that you're going to have now on record of me being a gun owner and a gun educator now for my students it requires them to have eight hours class time as well as 50 rounds live fire and a written exam and they have to be able to pass both of those requirements which keep in mind many firearms like or many um Law enforcement don't even have those requirements. So that's a red flag to me. But now they're imposing a permit to purchase. So this is a complete different law that's in addition to that process. So now you're going to have to ask permission to buy 80 to 90 percent of the guns that are being sold in Colorado and the United States. So they're asking you to say, hey, you know what, even though I need a permit to carry, now I need a permit to ask if it's okay for me to own these tools. And here's my information. I have to petition the state through the Department of Wildlife and ask you if I can. And it also takes away Colorado's right for shell issue, meaning right now you have the ability to apply the state to say, hey, you know what, I want a concealed handgun permit, and the sheriff or county that you're permitting through has to give you that permit if you meet the requirements. They cannot exercise discretion, meaning they're just an administrator. They stamp it, they rubber stamp it, and they pass the paperwork through. Now the permit to purchase, what we're calling a COID card or a FOID card, much like Illinois and these other states that have the highest rates of gun control and the highest rates of violence, are saying, you know what, we are now empowering the Sheriff's Department. We're now empowering law enforcement and these other people to look at your personal recognizance and say, you know what, we do not want this person to have a gun. We're going to look up who they are. We're going to look at their social media. And if we feel that this person is not ideal to own and purchase firearms, we have the ability to deny them that. So think of how that looks for someone like me. My name is Alicia Garcia. Most of the time, people don't think I even speak English because of how ethnic my name is, okay? And there's a lot of bias against that. you know, different types of minority groups, women, et cetera. And we don't know who's exercising that discretion. When you look me up on the Internet, you type Alicia Garcia, Colorado, all you see is pictures of me with guns, right? So to people that don't understand my lifestyle, they think, oh, this girl is a right-wing extremist. She's violent. She's all of these things. So who's to say that they're going to say, you know what, we don't like that this girl does all these things. We're going to rubber stamp her denied, and we're empowering them to deny us our constitutional rights.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, I'd like to remind people we have a Second Amendment, and it is very quick to read. It says a well-regulated militia, the people, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And being an originalist in mindset, I don't understand why people don't get that very simple sentence.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, one of the things that was very shocking to me that I heard said by one of our legislators, and I wish I had their name on the top of my head who said it, it was said that, okay, the Second Amendment guarantees you the right to bear arms. It does not give you the ability to purchase them. And this is how they twist this language to fulfill their own psychotic, diseased concepts of freedom. to the people. They feel that it is their place to impose what they want on ourselves. Two years ago in public testimony, excuse me, last year, I testified against the new laws of concealed carry, and I spoke about how historically racist and biased gun control is, and the ugly roots of gun control is rooted in racism. And Stephen Woodrow, In rebuttal to my testimony, he actually quoted 18th century slave law from slave codes that prevented freed slaves and minorities from having firearms based on bigotry and bias to support his vote for imposing more gun control on the people. And these are the people we have in office right now pushing these laws, pushing these restrictions on free people.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because, as I mentioned, I was sitting next to this lady from Australia when I was coming back from Arizona. And one of the things that she said to me was that, you know, people shouldn't have firearms to protect themselves, which just blew me away. And I said, we have a constitutional right to protect ourselves, but we have a personal responsibility to be trained as well. And as we are having that conversation, I mentioned that we don't have guns or firearms to protect ourselves just from criminals. It's also to protect ourselves from the overreach of a government that is out of their lane. And not that I'm advocating that we have a revolution, but Thomas Jefferson even mentioned this many times, and so did many of the founders, that we need to protect ourselves from a democracy rather than a republic.
SPEAKER 15 :
Absolutely. And we are a constitutional republic. This gets misconstrued all the time. I hear this word democracy thrown around in committee hearings like candy, like rice at a wedding. It's like we live in a constitutional republic. You know, say the Pledge of Allegiance, you know, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Where is the justice in this? And my concern with laws like this is this is a well-organized and well-thought-out design from the anti-gunners to indoctrinate and groom our youth to believing that this freedom is not necessary. And any time in history, when you look throughout every culture that groomed to disarm their citizens, it led to mass genocide. And what's happening here is this is a registry, these gun registries that they're imposing. Registration leads to confiscation. Confiscation leads to genocide. And people are like, oh, you're being too extreme. You're being too extreme. I had Lily Tang Williams on my YouTube show last night who grew up in communist China under Mao. And one of the things that we talked about is when she was 12 years old, when Mao passed away, she cried because in her mind, he was a god. He was untouchable. She was... you know, raised to think that this was the way it is, just like this woman from Australia that you're talking about. And that's what they're doing to our children. They know that the older people, like me and others, were raised with this right, so we understand the value. So they're targeting our youth to tell them, you know what, you don't need the right to privacy, like they've taught them with their cell phones and all their personal information that they're publishing online, which is also a constitutional right. Now they're telling them, you don't need these guns, you don't need these things, and we're going to indoctrinate you with this mindset, so you don't need that either. And this is a well-thought-out plan, and this is what we're up against, and this is why it's so important that we have community and togetherness and education and training and fun around guns again, and remind people that this is not just a tool of liberty, this is a tool of freedom. We're humans before we're constitutionalists, right? Even other people in other countries deserve the right to have that human right of survival. The Constitution just succincts that for us.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, and there are a lot of other laws, as you mentioned, Proposition KK, which would add an excise tax and, going to your point earlier, the least among our society who can afford these increases in firearms and taxes collected to support all kinds of programs that the left uses. And yet it precludes those that are, let's say, poor in our society to buy either the firearms or for the ammunition.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 21 :
And welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. I'm Brad Beck, and I'm pleased to host the show for Kim, who is traveling today. And it's always an honor to take the big kid seat and be the host for the Kim Monson Show. You can always check her out at her website at KimMonson.com. Sign up for her weekly email newsletter and get the first look at all the upcoming guests, as well as our most recent essays. I have one coming out, and I'll be back next week to talk about it. And we're talking to somebody who is an expert in firearms and somebody who is passionate about the Second Amendment. Alicia Garcia is on our phone line with us, and we're having a conversation on what they're doing to usurp your rights down at the Colorado legislature. Welcome back, Alicia.
SPEAKER 15 :
Indeed. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 21 :
So you have an event coming up, and I want to mention that down at the Capitol.
SPEAKER 15 :
Absolutely. Well, not down at the Capitol. I have two events this weekend. One is Saturday at the Gallery Shooting Range in Lakewood, Colorado, from, I believe, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. We are having a range day, a 2A society social, and a meet and greet of Lily Tang Williams. If you out there don't know who Lily Tang Williams is, you should know her. She is a immigrant who came to America from communist China who is now running for Congress. I had her on my show last night. She is a fantastic human being, very, very pro-2A, and she is worth knowing. We're also going to have a whole bunch of really, really high-end handguns and firearms available to shoot. All day from 4 to 7 p.m., we have guns like the Lago Alien, which is Anywhere from a $4,000 to a $8,000 handgun. It's the most futuristic, lowest-bore-axis firearm on the market. We have guns like a stealth platypus, which is a very, very high-end gun. We have suppressed firearms, our weapons that's made here in Colorado, shooting those. We have dead air.
SPEAKER 21 :
...event coming, shooting, and social event. That's easy for me to say. It's a meet and greet that's coming up at the Lakewood, at the gallery, a sportsman's club and range. down in Lakewood, Colorado. And Lily Tang Williams has run for office, I believe, in New Hampshire, and she's running again. And she's a great person to interact with and network. She was here in Colorado for several years and moved down, I think, with the Free State Project. And you'll get a chance to meet her and interact with a lot of gun enthusiasts, firearm instructors, and to take advantage of some new guns that are out there in the marketplace. And I think we have Alicia back with us now.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah, sorry about that. I don't know what happened, but yeah.
SPEAKER 21 :
You gave me a heart attack, but that's okay. I needed it.
SPEAKER 15 :
Please, no. Please, no. I don't want that for you. But, yeah, we're going to have some really, really high-end firearms that my partner company, Spartan Defense, has provided, Lago Aliens, which are like $5,000 to $7,000 handguns. They're the most futuristic, most lowest-bore-axis firearm you could shoot. We're going to have some full-auto Uzis. We're going to have some full-auto Scorpions. We're going to have some suppressed firearms. We're going to have a really great time. The Libertarian Party is providing some really nice hearty hors d'oeuvres for everybody, even if it's general admission. We have some amazing giveaways that my company, the Second Syndicate, is providing. Colorado Specialty Sports in Colorado Springs donated a Springfield Echelon that people can win. Spartan Defense is raffling or, excuse me, giving away a $500 gift certificate to their shop. I have some really nice Vertex bags that are a couple hundred bucks. that are concealment bags. We have some ear pro and eye pro that are very expensive. We have training that we're giving away. It is going to be one heck of an event. And so, of course, Lulitane Williams will be there. You know, she's such an amazing person. And we're also having a two-way social with a lot of like-minded individuals. We wanted to do this because we want people to remember the importance of why we're fighting so hard. We need to, you know, send some freedom seeds downrange with some amazing guns, give people those experiences and mingle with like-minded individuals and kind of build morale. So come out. The tickets are on sale. You can go to my website, thesecondsyndicate.com. There's a link on our events page that you can go there or just go to Eventbrite and you can search for Lily Tang Williams and you'll find that event. We also have an event on Sunday in Colorado Springs if Lakewood's too far for you. You can go to our Staccato Range Day. You can call Spartan Defense's shop or you can go on Eventbrite as well and go to the Spartan Defense Eventbrite and just Google Staccato Eventbrite. Staccatos are like the Porsches of firearms. They're handguns. They're amazing. I carry one. They're a fantastic firearm, and you could shoot their entire lineup for like $35, courtesy of Spartan Defense. So we have some really, really amazing events going on this weekend, and we'd appreciate your support in coming out and remembering the beauty of the freedom that we're fighting for in the first place.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, that's important because it's our responsibility to take care of ourselves as citizens. And the criminals aren't going to abide by our laws, but free individuals will. And it just seems that the gold dome doesn't get that. There's so many bills that you mentioned at the outset. House Bill 25-1133 would raise the minimum purchasing age for ammunition to 21. And you think, well, somebody can go to war at 18. Why are they putting this in? And if you don't train young people to how to use a firearm early, you're going to have a lot more problems, I think, in the belief that they're more harmful. You can get a license for a car and take out a whole community at a parade. But, you know, this idea that the bullets are going to hurt people as opposed to having the training, the mindset that you have a responsibility both with a vehicle and with a firearm.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, we as people, when you're young, you have the ability of neuroplasticity as a child. The sooner you learn something in your youth, the more adept you become, the more versed you are, and the easier it is to learn. I learned how to shoot guns when I was a tiny little gal with my father. It's been a skill set that I've had my whole life, and it's been very easy. And I think we're robbing our youth of that ability. We're thinking that they don't have the concepts or the mindset to be able to handle firearms at a young age, and that's absolutely not true. That's a misconception that has been indoctrinated by the left as one of their tactics to say, hey, you know what? These things are not for kids. Children have a right to stay alive also. And when you raise children with discipline and respect, my business partners have... They own a gun shop. They have young kids in their homes all the time. And they know exactly what guns are. They know exactly not to touch them. And there's many studies that have been put out that I have watched and been a part of where they put groups of young kids in rooms with fake guns and observe them. And it's always the children that don't have gun safety knowledge and don't have exposure to firearms that touch those guns and and bad things happen. Education is the key to change. And we need to encourage our community to go out and get educated and exercise us right and embrace this culture because that's what they're wanting to take away from us. They're demonizing firearms rather than encouraging training. And one of the things that you just said about 1133, about raising the age to purchase ammunition, one of the issues that not only access to ammunition, but This void card of having a fixed magazine to firearms, they're actually making firearms more dangerous by not allowing training. If you want to learn how to use a firearm correctly, you have to train. You need ammunition to do that. You need to be able to make a gun safe. You need to be able to drop a magazine out and clear the chamber on a firearm if you have a malfunction. And if you have a firearm that you can't do that with, what are you going to do? You're going to make it more unsafe for somebody to handle. And when you buy a firearm in a gun shop across the state, what's the one thing that comes with every firearm? A lock. And it is fed through a magazine to go through the chamber to be able to lock that gun to make it secure so unauthorized people, when left unattended or put away in a safe, are not supposed to be able to use that firearm. And this is an ideology that the left imposed. But when you have an affixed magazine, how are you supposed to make that firearm secure and safe? How are you supposed to clear malfunctions? How are you supposed to ensure that that gun is clear for safe handling? You can't. But you see that these laws are being created by people who have no experience with firearms. They're just imposing their will on others with ignorance and bias.
SPEAKER 21 :
Exactly. Well, you know, Lisa, you have so much good information, and I appreciate your time today. How would you like to wrap this up?
SPEAKER 15 :
I just want to say thank you to everyone out there who's tuned in and obviously to you and Kim for supporting us. You're welcome to follow me and follow my company, The Second Syndicate. We have a show on YouTube on our YouTube channel at Spartan Defense Armory. You can follow me on X platform at Boomstick Babe. You can follow my other company at The Second Syndicate and support us. We're raising funds. You don't have to be present to win at these events on Saturday. Buy a ticket. It goes to donate to us. You can donate to us on Give, Send, Go or becoming a 504C so we can start lobbying and creating more of an environment in Colorado with better politicians and people that are pro-2A.
SPEAKER 13 :
So we are a nonpartisan pro-2A organization that wants to protect the right to self-defense, and we welcome everybody in the community.
SPEAKER 21 :
Well, Alicia, thank you, and we appreciate your support of the Second Amendment and your time today. Thanks for joining us on The Kim Monson Show.
SPEAKER 13 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 21 :
My pleasure. And, folks, for the end of the show quote, I'd like to bring up Dr. Orson Swett Martin, who was an American inspirational author. He wrote about achieving success and Success Magazine back in 2009. 1897 and he published many books in his book he who can he can who thinks he can written in 1908 quote every child should be taught to expect success and i think whether it's firearm safety and owning one owning a firearm or if it's educating your children and books in the library as they are fighting in elizabeth we all have a responsibility to get involved and have our voice heard So today, be grateful, read great books, think great thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideas, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. And I wanted to say thank you to Joe and for Kim for giving me this opportunity today. It's always a pleasure to be here. You are not alone, and I'd like to just remind everybody to have a beautiful day. God bless you, and God bless America. And go out in there and be successful. Do great things. And if you have the opportunity, go out and learn of gun safety and get involved with the Second Amendment and our First Amendment with rights, especially down in Elizabeth where they need your help. And I'm stalling because Joe's saying stretch it. Thanks for being here and have a great weekend.
SPEAKER 07 :
And fast on a rough road, riding high through the mountains, climbing, twisting, turning further from my home. Young like a new moon, rising fierce to the rain and light. And I don't want no one to cry. But tell them if I don't survive.
SPEAKER 05 :
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.
Mike Gallagher tackles the complex world of tariffs with insights from listener calls, historical context from Trump’s past interviews, and a deep dive into the media's reaction. Whether it's the skepticism from mainstream outlets or the hope for America's prosperity, this episode explores the dual nature of national and global economic policies. Listen in as Mike presents diverse viewpoints and sparks a thoughtful conversation on the trajectory of American trade.
SPEAKER 15 :
he's the happy conservative warrior mike gallagher from your trusted conservative tv network salem news channel and broadcasting across hundreds of radio stations nationwide here's mike
SPEAKER 13 :
I just had an aha moment, and she doesn't even know what a big aha moment it was, my producer Tracy. We were just talking about how the mainstream media and the Trump haters and all the usual suspects are lining up in opposition to Trump's tariffs. Liberation Day came and went. Of course, the stock market expected to feel some pain. We'll see how it all fleshes out. But I am fascinated by watching all of the people who hate Trump root against America. I'm really intrigued by this. And I was just talking about it with Tracy. And Tracy is a real common sense, sharp-edged, you know, sharp-elbowed conservative. You know? Hard-working lady. Worked in Tampa Bay for years at the Tampa Bay Times. We managed to snag her just as she listened to the show. And she became... She started as our screener. And I like her a lot. And the team likes her a lot. And she seems to enjoy being here. But she's not... you know, a seasoned broadcaster or something. I mean, not that that matters, but it's not like she spent 100 years in talk radio and working on a talk show like this one. And she has so much wisdom. So she and I were talking a little bit about Liberation Day, Trump's big announcement, and it's a bold move. I mean, there's no question. This is big time. This has taken on the globalists. and putting Main Street first. This is trying to put America first in a massive way. Here was President Trump's announcement about Liberation Day from the Rose Garden at the White House.
SPEAKER 04 :
I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world. Reciprocal. That means they do it to us and we do it to them. Very simple. Can't get any simpler than that. This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history. It's our declaration of economic independence. For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense. But now it's our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it'll all happen very quickly. With today's action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before.
SPEAKER 13 :
Now, to watch the media, this is the... worst thing they've ever experienced, and they're rooting for the economy to completely tank. In other words, they're rooting against the country. They're actively and enthusiastically cheerleading for the demise of the American economy. Because I guess then they can say, see, Trump doesn't know what he's doing. That's all it's about for them, to try to get a leg up on him because they hate him so much. And this has thankfully shifted all of the boogeyman stuff away from Elon Musk for a little bit and back to Trump. And they're ranting and carrying on and this is awful and this is terrible. Now, I was talking to Tracy about why people are angry. enthusiastically rooting against the country. They're talking about Trump. I think Pierce Morgan posted something yesterday on X that was kind of Captain Obvious, but it's true. This is either going to be a spectacular success, and it's going to revitalize our country, it's going to bring manufacturing back, it's going to create jobs, and these dying cities like Detroit and Dayton, Ohio, and the Rust Belt, there's going to be a renaissance, there's going to be all kinds of... growth and economic prosperity in a way we've never seen. Either that's going to happen, or we're going to completely tank and the country falls apart, and we're going to have a recession and a depression, and we're going to be back to people jumping off of buildings on Wall Street in 1930-whatever, 1939. And I wonder why the people... who are rooting against Trump's tariffs and thereby rooting against the country don't want any of this to succeed. And Tracy, my producer, put it perfectly and summed it up quite succinctly and simply. She said, they hate America. They don't like this place. They don't want this country to be prosperous. They want us to be miserable. COVID was their euphoria. The pandemic was a place that they loved to be. Miserable, scared, angry, isolated, unhappy. Ultimately, I struggle with this because I don't want to believe it. But I'm starting to think she's right. I mean, I've said this over and over again. Certainly during the campaign and both campaigns, I kept saying, they're not against Trump. They're against you and me. They don't like America, firsters. They hate MAGA. A red hat puts them into spasms of rage. Make America great again. Well, that can't happen. America's never been great. It's awful. Racist. Xenophobic! Horrible! And I think my producer's take on this is pitch perfect. Have you noticed the enthusiasm and the glee with which people who are reacting to Trump's tariffs are responding? They want the country to fail. Because then they can say, aha! He doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, no matter what you think of Donald Trump, Do you honestly think he's setting out to destroy our economy? Do you honestly believe that he wants the country to go into a recession or a depression? You might because you think he's Hitler and you think maybe that's the way he's going to control us or some crazy nut job theory. But to rational people who don't like the guy, I say to you, do you think he wants this to fail? He's been talking about tariffs and free trade, fair trade rather, for decades. I got an Oprah Winfrey interview from 35 years ago, he laid all this out. This isn't new for him. I don't know... that Tracy is wrong. I want to find out what you think. Welcome aboard. It's Thursday, April the 3rd. We're in the Relief Actor Studios. Our number is 800-655-MIKE. 800-655-6453. One call does it all. Call or text us. Give me your reaction. Mark from Michigan says, not sure I quite agree with Tracy's analysis, but I would say that the far left hates Trump more than they love their country. I'm not sure it's just the far left, Mark. I'm seeing a whole lot of people in the media today and last night who are not at all far lefters. What about Mitch McConnell voting against Trump? what Trump is trying to do with tariffs with Canada. What about Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins? So my question to you is, with all of the cheerleading against America and all the negative response to Trump's announcement of tariffs, is Tracy right? Do they just hate the country that much? 800-655-MIKE, 800-655-6453. Hope you join us. PhD weight loss has changed my life, and I've got a little secret for you. You know Big Pharma and semaglutide and the shots in the belly. You've seen the story recently about the study that shows that a lot of people that are getting this are going blind. You don't want to do this. You want a program to lose weight that's centered around science and nutrition, a proven roadmap that has helped over 8,000 clients lose weight and keep it off, like me. I lost 53 pounds a few years ago, and I've kept it off. 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SPEAKER 14 :
Mike Gallagher.
SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
Promo code MikeG. So here's Michigan. Mike, they're globalists. They're not Americans. That's their point of view. Jeff in Allentown, Democrats hate themselves more than they hate America. Interesting. And finally, also from Michigan, I think Tracy is very close to the core of the problem, but not quite on the bullseye. I think this is more about people's narcissism than about hatred for America. People admit their hatred for virtue and add to that the desire to be proven right, even at the expense of society as a whole. So what is it? Which is it? Why are so many smart people rooting and enthusiastically predicting Trump's failure when it comes to the tariffs? I just saw a column by my friend and colleague Kevin McCullough. over at townhall.com, who breaks down the whole tariff battle brilliantly, as he often and usually does. I'll share that with you here in a couple of moments. But first, to your calls. Ronnie in Oregon. Ronnie, how you doing?
SPEAKER 12 :
Doing fine. You know, the Democrats, to me... are so evil because they had no concern about the attempts on Trump's life. It's like they rallied in it. So they're so evil. They're not only evil, but they're sick. They're mentally disturbed. And I don't know how anybody in their right mind can support one Democrat as well as some of the Republican Party that's just as sick and mentally off as the Democrats because they team up with them and go with them against this country.
SPEAKER 13 :
And they hate people. Yeah, I think you've got to be careful because what they say about all of us sounds like what you're saying about all Democrats. And you can't say all Democrats are sick and evil. I think we've got to be careful in not just condemning an entire political party because, again, that's how they talk about us. We're all crazy. We're all in a cult, and we're all Hitler, and we're all this, and we're all evil. But look, there are plenty of people who seem to just have – a contempt for america at their core and truly and look there is a lot of evil incidentally you're right there's tons of evil all around us what do you hear about the guy at walgreens in fresno california got gunned down why because he worked at a walgreens and the killer supposedly had an axe to grind with big pharma when you embrace luigi mangione this is what's going to happen So you're right. No shortage of evil. But let's just be careful not to say all Democrats because it isn't true. Brandon in Jacksonville, Florida. Hello, Brandon.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, Mike, how's it going on? I just wanted to say the reason why it seems like the way it is is because of left wing state sponsored propaganda. Yep. This teaches people. to hate Donald Trump. When they see Make America Great Again hats, they say evil, but in reality, all it is is, hey, let's make America great again.
SPEAKER 13 :
I mean, that's literally what the hat says. And who's against making America great? You think about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
When you get these interest rates down, you know, everyone's going to reap the benefits. Trump is in office for all people. Bingo.
SPEAKER 13 :
That's exactly right. I mean, this is what I never understand about these people. Don't they want their taxes lowered? Don't they want border security? Don't they want law and order? Don't they want criminal law? Well, some of them don't. But it just intrigues me. And if you're not understanding the tariffs... And look, I don't claim to be any kind of economic expert. I joked yesterday with the team, boy, this is fun navigating through tariffs like I know my you-know-what from a hole in the ground. But there's a lot of smart people around me who do. What do you hear the way Kevin McCullough breaks it all down over at townhall.com? We'll share that with you and a whole lot more next.
SPEAKER 02 :
Please come to Boston. She said no. Would you come home to me?
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SPEAKER 15 :
He's the happy conservative warrior, Mike Gallagher, from your trusted conservative TV network, Salem News Channel, and broadcasting across hundreds of radio stations nationwide. Here's Mike.
SPEAKER 13 :
So President Trump announces sweeping global tariffs and cue the America haters to cheer for America's utter collapse. Never seen anything like it. I'm so intrigued and riveted by all those lining up, excitedly hoping that the economy tanks, rooting against farmers, factory workers, waiters, waitresses, ordinary, hardworking, taxpaying, God-fearing people. And because of the hatred of Donald Trump, They want it all to fail. There's not even a sliver, not even a sliver of cautious optimism in any of the media coverage. It's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. The president wants to put America first, and they hate that. My producer has a theory. It's because they hate America. And I don't want to go there, but I'm starting to think she's right. Why would you want this economic agenda to fail? You may be worried about it. Look, but at the very least, you'd say it's either going to be a huge success or a disaster. But they're not even giving out any hope that it can be a success. It's crazy to see how quickly... people who despise Trump exhibit their anti-American persona. There's no other way to put it. Trump is a guy who's been raising the alarms about unfair trade practices for decades. You doubt that? You don't believe me? Let me take you to 1988. when a young Donald J. Trump was a guest of Oprah Winfrey.
SPEAKER 06 :
Last year, criticizing U.S. foreign policy. What would you do differently, Donald?
SPEAKER 05 :
I'd make our allies, forgetting about the enemies, the enemies you can't talk to so easily, I'd make our allies pay their fair share. We're a debtor nation. Something's going to happen over the next number of years with this country because you can't keep going on losing $200 billion. And yet we let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets and everything. It's not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it. Just forget about it. It's almost impossible. They don't have laws against it. They just make it impossible. They come over here. They sell their cars, their VCRs. They knock the hell out of our companies. And, hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people. I mean, you can respect somebody that's beaten the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country. Kuwait, they live like kings. The poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings. and yet they're not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren't they paying us 25% of what they're making? It's a joke.
SPEAKER 06 :
This sounds like political presidential talk to me, and I know people have talked to you about whether or not you want to run. Would you ever?
SPEAKER 05 :
Probably not, but I do get tired of seeing the country ripped off. Why would you not? I just don't think I really have the inclination to do it. I love what I'm doing. I really like it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Also, it doesn't pay as well. No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER 05 :
But, you know, I just probably wouldn't do it, Oprah. I probably wouldn't, but I do get tired of seeing what's happening with this country. And if it got so bad, I would never want to rule it out totally because I really am tired of seeing what's happening with this country, how we're really making other people live like kings, and we're not.
SPEAKER 13 :
You've said, though, that if you did run for president, you believed you'd win.
SPEAKER 05 :
That was 35 years ago. That was 1988.
SPEAKER 1 :
1988!
SPEAKER 13 :
Isn't that wild? Now, fast forward... 35 years ahead, let's look at yesterday, April 2nd, 2025. A little bit older Donald Trump.
SPEAKER 04 :
We're going to start being smart and we're going to start being very wealthy again. We're going to be wealthy as a country because they've taken so much of our wealth away from us. We're not going to let that happen. We truly can be very wealthy. We can be so much wealthier than any country. It's not even believable, but we're getting smart. Nearly a century later, in the face of unrelenting economic warfare, the United States can no longer continue with a policy of unilateral independence. economic surrender. We cannot pay the deficits of Canada, Mexico and so many other countries. We used to do it. We can't do it anymore. We take care of countries all over the world. We pay for their military. We pay for everything they have to pay. And then when you want to cut back a little bit, they get upset that you're not taking care of them any longer. But we have to take care of our people and we're going to take care of our people first.
SPEAKER 13 :
And I'm sorry to say that. I have a question for anyone in this audience who doesn't like Donald Trump. Maybe you didn't vote for him. Maybe you're disappointed in him. Maybe you don't like his personality. Whatever your reason is. There's plenty of room for debate and disagreement in America. It's who we are. I've got to ask you a direct question. Don't you think he wants this economy to prosper? Even if you hate him. Do you actually think he's setting out to tank the American economy? This is how delusional people get. This is what Trump hatred does to people. My friend Mark Davis says it often. It makes nice people mean and it takes smart people and makes them dumb. He's been talking about this for decades. Unfair trade. Why in the world does a country get to punish us with their tariffs and we're supposed to say, thank you, sir, may I have another? Let's get building again. Let's open up factories again in Ohio and Indiana and Michigan. Let's build American cars. What's wrong with this? And even if you don't like him, Don't you want America to succeed? Do you remember when Rush Limbaugh got into a world of hurt years ago? It came up that somehow he said something about the American agenda. If the American agenda succeeds under Barack Obama, that would be bad. I want it to fail because I want Obama to fail. Oh, they went crazy. He's a monster. Look at that. He's rooting against America. What do you think virtually the entire universe that hates Trump is doing right now over tariffs? They're rooting for America to fail. They want America to fall flat on its face so they can say, aha, Trump was a bad president. He's a bad guy. And shame on every single one of them. Shame on the networks, the legacy media, the Democrats. Why can't you say, look, I don't like the guy, I didn't vote for him, but I'm pulling for the American farmer. I sure want a guy in a factory in Alabama to succeed. You know what I mean? It's just crazy. And Tracy's theory, my producer, it's because they don't like America. They hate the country. Now, it seems a little extreme, but what else can explain it? What else explains bellowing about how awful Trump's tariffs are? Reciprocal tariffs. Putting America first. That's awful? That's terrible? That's maniacal? Are you kidding me? Let's put your voice front and center. Thursday, we're a little fired up today. April 3rd, great to have you along for the ride. 800-655-MIKE, 800-655-6453. Hope you join us.
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SPEAKER 13 :
A lot of really insightful text messages coming in on the MyPillow text line from Ohio. Trump is not the only one who's known about this for decades. See Milton Friedman, for goodness sakes. We just have had the poorest type of leadership, a pack of fools and grifters, running this great nation into the ground for their own selfish, petty, tyrannical benefit. Georgia, Mike, it's disgusting to see how giddy the media sounds over Trump's tariffs. I just heard ABC talk about how prices could rise as much as $7,000 per household. That's why the stock market's tanking today, all based off fear initiated by the mainstream media. And finally, North Carolina, Gary, Mike, those who support globalism want the U.S. brought down to the level of other countries in the world. Make the U.S. consumer pay to raise up other countries. It's an absolute disgrace to see the way Trump haters are rooting against America. It gets back to what I said all through both campaigns, 2016 and 2020. They don't hate Trump. They hate us. They hate Americans. They want Americans to fail. We should be punished. for having an ideological or political view that they don't agree with. Jacob has been hanging patiently in Michigan. Hey, Jacob, thanks for hanging in there with us. Hey, how are you? Why do you think so many people are rooting against America, not just Trump?
SPEAKER 08 :
Besides the globalism, I think they've drank the Kool-Aid the Democrats were selling, and now it's become a core belief. To deny that belief, they have to admit they were fools that believed the Democrats' lies. And who wants to believe they're a fool? That undermines their credibility in the future and is humiliating also.
SPEAKER 13 :
It's a great observation because, you know, we could say they drank the Kool-Aid about Trump. You know, he's going to be studied by historians for the rest of time. I mean, there's never been a political figure like him in the history of America. And people are going to study his personality, everything that goes with it. Okay, so I can accept... They drank the Kool-Aid. They accept he's Adolf Hitler. And they're goofy and they're wrong, but okay, so be it. But why did they then transfer that to you and me? You know, why can't they leave it at Trump?
SPEAKER 08 :
It's because of that core belief. It has become a core belief. And if you look at core beliefs for people, you know, it's something you're raised with. It's something that you believe in. And so at that point, You can't deny that core belief. It'd be no more different than a Christian denying they were a Christian or a Muslim denying they were a Muslim. Those are core beliefs. These have become these people's core beliefs.
SPEAKER 13 :
It's become a part of who they are. It's their existence. And they have to do something that nobody likes to do, admit they were wrong.
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. And that's what drives the majority. I see them out doing the old, you know, picketing and stuff and protesting against Musk. Why would they protest against a guy like that when he's done so much for our country, when he actually was the main guy for the Democrats for their new green scam?
SPEAKER 13 :
Everybody gets an electric car. That's right. Save the planet, and we're all going to be in good shape. You know what's funny, Jacob, and you made me think about the way they've turned on Elon Musk and Donald Trump. You know, they used to love these guys. They loved these guys. There's Oprah, 35 years ago, 1988, fawning all over him. I mean, he was a coveted guest on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1988. I remember seeing a Comedy Central roast that was from years ago, and they were roasting Trump. And the whole room said he ought to run for president. They were cheering for him. White, black entertainers. They were all, oh, my gosh, he'd be the greatest guy in the world. Elon Musk. You're right. He was saving the planet. Look at what he's done. SpaceX and Tesla and electric cars. And then he joined the Trump team. Now he's the boogeyman. Yeah, that's basically what it is. That's all it is. It was worth waiting for you, Jacob. Thank you for your patience and hanging in there with us. I know we held you over, but Tracy said you had some great points. It really is true. It's just a fundamental human condition. Can't admit you're wrong, and you don't want the guy to succeed in any way, shape, or form. I mean, do you remember when they were mad at Limbaugh? for saying that I hope the Obama agenda fails because then America fails? Don't you want America to succeed, even if you hate Donald Trump? Here's Peter Navarro, a guy who, boy, you talk about a neck-snapping journey. Wasn't too long ago they were hauling him out of it. Wasn't he the one that they went and locked up? Now, of course, appearing on television on behalf of President Trump, playing a key role, it seems, in the Trump administration. Here's what he said yesterday on Fox News.
SPEAKER 03 :
Liberation Day. Let us celebrate that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, CNBC says it's a bloodbath tomorrow. They don't know how long this process is going to take. Paul Krugman just said you've lost your mind.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Let me let me unravel some of this stuff. I mean, first of all, the media and the economists and everybody in between have been absolutely wrong about trade. Going back to the days, they said NAFTA was going to be great for America. They destroyed NAFTA. Our manufacturing base and led to a mass illegal immigration. They said China getting into the WTO was going to be great. We lost five million manufacturing jobs in one hundred thousand factories. And during the first term, Jesse, and this I'm bearing the lead. You remember this. Every one of those people from Krugman on down. said that the Trump tariffs in the first term on China, on steel and aluminum, on solar, on dishwashers and go on down. What did they say? They said, oh, recession, oh, inflation. What do we have? Price stability, economic prosperity. And for me, the most gratifying thing being in that White House was real inflation. Wages increasing for workers in blue-collar America and the middle class. And that was the greatest achievement of the Trump administration, besides everything else he did.
SPEAKER 13 :
There's a fundamental belief that the joke is if Trump managed to walk on water, they'd say he's too stupid to swim, to learn how to swim. If he cured cancer, everything he does... And look, it's politics, tribalism. Maybe we're guilty of that to some extent, too. I remember when I gave Obama some credit for killing Osama bin Laden. Some of you came after me saying, oh, how dare you give him any credit? We all tend to forget to give credit where credit is due. At the end of the day, we've got to do better. 800-655-MIKE.
SPEAKER 15 :
mike gallagher every day mike visits with mark davis morning host on 6 60 a.m the answer in dallas here's today's eminem experience darling darker shame thank you for all the joy and i'm guessing many americans in 1963 heard this and said hey who's this woman
SPEAKER 16 :
No way people thought this was a guy. Nope. But it was. It was. Not only was it a guy. That, of course, is Wayne Newton and Duncan Shane from 1963. Wayne Newton is 83. And I remember that. And about a decade later, he had a kind of a heart-rending, or as they say in Maryland, heart-rendering. You remember Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast? Oh, yeah. A story about a dad that's about to bail and the kids are going, you know. But here's the thing about Wayne Newton. Listen, you're just wrapping up one of the many Johnny Carson biographies. Wayne Newton, of course, clad in a tux, became king of Vegas and also apparently king of intimidation because, boy, Johnny Carson was comically vicious toward the effeminacy of Wayne Newton. And at one point, apparently, Wayne Newton had some people visit Johnny to stop those jokes. Come on, really? Yep. And they did. Is that in the book? I think I it's well, I've read five of them. There's the one that Bushkin wrote. Yeah. Carson the Magnificent. Are you done with I don't know if it's addressed in that, but it's yeah. And I think Johnny kind of actually might have talked about it in his 60 minutes thing. So do not mess with Wayne Newton. And well, I certainly won't. He's as much today.
SPEAKER 13 :
As much as I love Vegas, I hate that I've never seen him perform. I think it'd be fun. And I think he still performs occasionally. He lives out there and he's had a residency there forever. It would be fun to see him on stage because he certainly is an icon and a legend. So happy birthday, Wayne.
SPEAKER 16 :
You know who Lisa and I saw? Circa two, we saw in one big Vegas visit, circa 02 or 03, Tony Bennett. And at that point, even there, he's in his late 70s or 80s or something. And at one point in a in a hall that holds about 2000 people, he just puts the mic down and sings a song without benefit of microphone, because in filling that hall, his his voice was just that strong. Nice. And then we saw Jerry Seinfeld, I think, the following night. Seinfeld doing stand-up, still one of the great practitioners of the art, walks out. And again, this was over the holidays. Walks out and he says, wow, look at this. Vegas at Christmas, just like Jesus would have wanted. Exactly. nothing like vegas i love vegas and i'm not a gay i'm not really a big gambler or smoker drinker or anything but i love the restaurants and the hotels and the shows and you gotta you gotta give me a list because i've sort of put the gambling thing in my rearview mirror i mean we at least and i spent some serious time at craps tables and it accrued to our great benefit some days not so much we wound up on the plus side which is great but i'm just kind of done with that it's not the Best stewardship of my money. But Vegas as an entertainment mecca and the shows you can see and the food and the stuff, the sphere. I mean, I still got to do the spheres.
SPEAKER 13 :
I saw the Eagles at the Sphere and that was a spectacular experience. And all the Cirque shows are great. I mean, it's like they take a theater and they say, let's have no budget. Let's just build the biggest theater. stage and theater and sets we can build. So anyway, hey, let's get down to some business here and talk some serious stuff. Let's talk about the horrific, horrific stabbing of Austin Metcalf that you've been talking about all morning and doing such a brilliant job as usual. And you have the right tone. I love your prayerful attitude, not only about the young man who was allegedly killed in cold blood, but the alleged killer as well, Carmelo Anthony. You know, you are deftly avoiding the 800-pound elephant in the room. And I notice that you have not touched what is all over social media over this killing. And I am intrigued by this. Not by you, by the way. I know why you're not even there, because it doesn't even cross your mind, perhaps. That race is a national subject on this particular horrific tragedy. And I often wonder why. And let me tell you why. Let me give you an example. End Wokeness is an ex-Twitter account I follow. And the post shows both of these boys' pictures. You know, Austin and this Carmelo Anthony. The Post says, say his name, Austin Metcalf, 17, high-achieving student athlete, 4.0 GPA, killed in cold blood by Carmelo Anthony, zero national outrage. I don't know if the zero national outrage is because this was a senseless killing, these were two kids, both of whom, well, I think I know. And it bothers me tremendously. If a white kid had killed a black kid, What national outrage are we supposed to have?
SPEAKER 16 :
The Earth would stop spinning in its orbit. The reason I haven't mentioned that is an angle. And first of all, your point is 100 percent well taken. It's because there's precisely zero reason to believe that race had anything to do with that. And that should be the default setting. But your point is 100 percent golden that if a white kid stabbed a black kid, we would have congressional hearings by now.
SPEAKER 13 :
And perhaps that's why people are bringing it up now. Maybe they're saying, look, it's the end of the world if a white kid kills a black kid, but if a black kid kills a white kid, nobody pays attention. Well, I can assure you, people are paying attention to this case. And in this case, as you pointed out, both of these kids had bright futures. Both of these young men were promising athletes and scholars and spiritual. As you said, they both have Twitter X accounts, and they both invoke God and faith. And like you said, the Anthony family now is gutted by what this kid allegedly did. But as you said, at least he's alive. He'll probably be behind bars for the rest of his life. So two lives are ruined. Two lives are destroyed. And race, we've just got to stop, I think. And the only reason I want to just touch on it is because that's the entire threat on social media. Oh, when a black kid kills a white kid, there's nothing to say about it. Look. We don't have to get into Sigmund Freud here to know what happened. It's the basis of road rage. Happens in the blink of an eye. You see these videos posted on social media all the time. Two people have a disagreement, and before you know it, one of them is dead. And that's because we have these hair-trigger atmospheres where everybody feels like the other person is out to get them. You cut in front of somebody on I-35, boom, that's the end of the world. I'm going to cut him off, and I'm going to beat him up, and I'm going to get up. Before you know it, somebody's got a gun out, and somebody's dead. And that's what happens. Allegedly, as I understand it, the one kid was in the wrong space or a wrong seat or a wrong place, and they got into a disagreement about that. And, Mark, you know how those things go. One thing leads to another, and they're insulting each other. And before you know it, there's a fight. And then this kid pulls out a knife out of his backpack, I guess. Like you said, what's he doing with a knife in his backpack? But what are you going to do? Are you going to go through every backpack in an outdoor track meet?
SPEAKER 16 :
How do you prevent that from happening? Well, that's one of the things I heard in the stories is now there may be focus on security at such events. Security at a high school stadium for a track meet?
SPEAKER 13 :
We're going to have metal detectors there now? Oh, I know. That's where we go. And God forbid if it would have been a gun. That'd be the end of the world on that one. That'd be gun control.
SPEAKER 16 :
Now we need knife control. Exactly.
SPEAKER 13 :
It's just, like you said, what we need to do is lean into prayer. I hope that both of these families, particularly the family of Austin Metcalf, who now has to be buried, I hope they take some comfort in knowing that, at least from his public postings, he was right with the Lord. And that should bring them some comfort, because as you said in your beautiful prayer this morning, He's now in the loving arms of God and our Savior. The whole story, when that twin came out, I just had to almost pull the car over to the side of the road when you shared that about in the middle of the report with the mother. And incidentally, kudos to you for understanding why people give interviews. They want the world to know about their beautiful boy. They want the world – they don't want people to forget Austin Metcalf. And if it means giving an interview – and as you said, everybody grieves in a different way. Some days I look back at my wife's funeral. I didn't want to have the receiving line at White's Chapel afterwards. I just thought, you know, I can't do this. I just can't. And I felt terrible because I remember – remember Tom Leppert, the mayor of Dallas at the time? Of course. He showed up. It came to my wife's funeral. And when we were pulling away in the funeral thing, I looked over and just trying to, I was numb, but I do remember the memory of Tom and some other people standing there looking kind of confused. Like, why is Mike and the family leaving? Why aren't they standing to shake hands? Because that's such a funeral tradition. And I couldn't do it. I just didn't have it. I just thought it's all I could do to get through the service. I can't believe she's gone. And I just appreciated so much everybody being there. And I look back at that and think how rude I was in doing that in the moment because I should have been gracious enough to say hi to everybody and thank them. I think there's special dispensation in a case like that. I hope so. And I hope Tom forgives me. And I hope because I remember him. I could see him as we were driving away. He was like looking kind of confused, like, why are they leaving? And I thought, you know, and it's partly to do with what we do for a living. We have to be on, you know, when we're with a crowd, we're on a cruise ship and we're at an M&M experience. You know, you're shaking hands and slapping, slapping backs and kissing babies. And I just didn't feel like doing that that day. And I hope people have some forgiveness in their heart. By the way, percent. Hey, let's take one minute, two minutes in the final time we have left to pivot on to the tariffs. Yes. I'm old enough to remember that Rush Limbaugh got eviscerated because he said something about, you know, I don't want America's agenda to succeed because it's Obama's agenda. Remember that? Remember there was a big drama? Well, now we're witnessing this on steroids. Have you ever stopped to think about how all the legacy media and all the Democrats are rooting against America with these tariffs?
SPEAKER 16 :
They would love it. if the stock market totally tanked, if jobs were lost, and if America's manufacturing sector suffered for a long time.
SPEAKER 13 :
Seriously, that's what they're doing. I mean, there's not a sliver of optimism in any of the coverage except for conservative media. You go to Town Hall, you go to Salem News Channel, you go to 660 AM The Answer, you listen to newscasts. Look, this is a big, bold move. But, you know, Trump has talked about... I found an Oprah Winfrey interview he gave 35 years ago. where he said our allies aren't paying their fair share. And this is called fair trade. But you've got people like Mitch McConnell's lining up against it. Shocker. Murkowski and Collins. Shocker.
SPEAKER 16 :
And Rand Paul. Now, the only guy – I'm going to give Rand Paul a special carve-out of sincerity because he's such an uber-libertarian. He doesn't want government intervention in the trade marketplace at all. He just sort of wants it all to kind of even out, and I understand that.
SPEAKER 13 :
He's consistent, I guess, but – But let's be united Republicans. How about we give some cover to the guy? Look, Pierce Morgan had a quote that I thought resonated. He said, look, this is either going to be one of the biggest, most spectacular success stories in the history of America, or it's going to be an abysmal failure. And, you know, I know he's Captain Obvious there, but nonetheless... Can we at least have a little bit of optimism for America? Look, no matter what you think of Trump, I don't care if you're the biggest Trump hater on the planet. Do you really think he's sitting around saying, let me figure out a way to tank the economy? Exactly. You know what I mean? These people lost their minds. We're going to talk, we hope, today to the great Stephen Moore and maybe Seb Gorka. Yeah, these are great people. And Scott Besson, what a smart, bright guy.
SPEAKER 16 :
You know, we don't spend a lot of time with our careers saying, hey, how about that Treasury Secretary? I know. Who even is the Treasury Secretary? Well, we know who everybody is in this administration because they're all various shades of awesome.
SPEAKER 13 :
They sure are. And so let's just keep praying for our country, see how it goes. All right. Good job. Happy Wednesday. Or what is this? Thursday.
SPEAKER 16 :
Thursday. It's crazy. Thursday already, dude. It means that. You know what that means. You know what tomorrow is? Tomorrow is the couple of days early Mike Gallagher's 65th birthday. No, no, no, no, no. Skip it.
SPEAKER 13 :
No, no.
SPEAKER 16 :
That's right, everybody.
SPEAKER 13 :
It's a moratorium.
SPEAKER 16 :
Get ready. It's tomorrow.
SPEAKER 13 :
I've got a tech segment. A lady on X from Minnesota said, would you stop whining about turning 65? She said, I'm turning 65 in October. You're making me nervous.
SPEAKER 16 :
I mean, I'm just not.
SPEAKER 13 :
Your kids. Your kids, I tell you. Got here quick. It arrived quickly. All right. Happy Thursday, my friend. I love you. Great work. And great work today, Mark. Thank you. Great work on this.
SPEAKER 16 :
I appreciate it so very, very much. Great work every day from Mike. And it starts at 10 as soon as we're done on 660 AM. He answers.
SPEAKER 15 :
Download the podcast and hear all of Mike and Mark's conversations at MikeOnline.com for the M&M experience.
In this episode of Water Talk, Paul the Waterman delves into the alarming presence of PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, in our water supply. These synthetic chemicals, renowned for their resilient properties in consumer products, have surfaced as a global contamination crisis. With insights from various communities affected by PFAS, listeners are taken on a journey from the Faroe Islands to Minnesota to uncover the hidden impacts on human health and the environment. Last week’s discussion on DuPont’s involvement in the PFAS saga transitions into a hard-hitting expose on 3M and other corporations’ roles in perpetuating this environmental threat. Yet, amidst this revelation, solutions surface. Paul discusses advanced filtration techniques, such as reverse osmosis, that individuals can adopt to protect their households from these pervasive toxins. Join us to understand why water quality is a priority for global well-being and how legislation is shaping the future of PFAS management.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Water Talk with Paul the Waterman brought to you by Water Pros. Paul the Waterman is Colorado's expert on all things related to the water we use and drink in our homes. Have you ever thought about where your water actually comes from? Is it safe to drink? Is it harmful to my health, my skin, or my hair? Paul the Waterman knows water and he has the answers. So get ready to talk to the Waterman yourself right now. Call in with your questions to talk with your host, Paul the Waterman.
SPEAKER 01 :
Happy Thursday, everybody. I'm Paul the Waterman, a.k.a. Paul Dowding. How you doing? Hey, we're going to have a great show today, and if you have questions on the material that we share with you, give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about it. You can reach us here in the studio at 303-477-5600. That's 303-477-5600. So we've been doing some research on the PFAs of forever chemicals in the water. We found... Some really good information that we're going to share with you the next couple of weeks. The PFAS contamination is global, but I didn't realize how bad and how long the PFAS contamination has been happening. It's dangerous. Do I think our water quality is safe? I absolutely do not, and I think you'll share that feeling with me after the information that we share with you, especially today. So last week we talked about DuPont and what happened with them and the PFAS contamination. Today it's 3M's turn. And so this information that you're hearing is a video that can be found on YouTube. um and so i encourage you um you know to do your research because you'll see and find the same things that we're going to be sharing with you and it's clearly our responsibility to look at the quality of the water that we have and i think we also have to make our elected officials pay more attention to what i think is an epidemic of poor water quality and it's global um so okay look let's let's let's start it out
SPEAKER 19 :
Here we are in the Faroes, a remote community up in the North Atlantic. We have been living or fishing for hundreds of years. We have no production of chemicals, but we are exposed to a lot of chemicals. They came to us without our asking us. We have seen negative effects on the health of our children. We want to see their development because we have always been a bit suspicious if these substances can have any impact on the endocrine system. This is a price to pay for what the international society have done without thinking about the consequences of just releasing new substances.
SPEAKER 20 :
What we have seen here in the Faroes is that this is part of an absolutely global contamination that may have started in the 1960s without us being aware of it.
SPEAKER 19 :
So PFAS is everywhere.
SPEAKER 08 :
PFAS have contaminated our food supply, and PFAS can also accumulate in soils, in sediments.
SPEAKER 20 :
There are chemists who have sampled rainwater on the Antarctica and in the Himalayas. What did they find in the rainwater? PFAS. It's all over.
SPEAKER 03 :
They don't just stay in the environment, in our water, in our soil, but they get into living things and they stay in us. It's like a ticking time bomb in the body as this stuff is building up and coating all of our organs and staying there year after year.
SPEAKER 20 :
We have analyzed thousands and thousands of human blood samples. We never met one that did not contain PFAS.
SPEAKER 14 :
We have all paid a high price due to large corporations carelessly dumping known toxic chemicals. Through no fault of my own, I was exposed to these toxic chemicals, and as a result, I will die with this cancer.
SPEAKER 03 :
We've all been used as guinea pigs for the last 70 to 80 years. We weren't told we were being exposed, even though the companies knew that these things, if we put them into these products, they will get into people. They will get into people's blood. But they did it anyway.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's hard to even talk to people about these chemicals and tell them, look, there's a chemical that's in you that's not found anywhere in nature. These chemicals are found in 99% of people. It just sounds crazy. Tell people that these are also forever chemicals that we've created a chemical that we don't know how to destroy. It sounds even stranger.
SPEAKER 08 :
So PFAS are synthetic man-made chemicals. PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. It's quite a mouthful. It's an acronym that stands for a family of thousands of different chemicals. The most recent estimate from the EPA says that there are over 14,000 different chemical structures that they recognize to be PFAS. They share the same chemical property of having many carbon-fluorine bonds. These carbon-fluorine bonds are some of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry. So for this reason, PFAS have also been called forever chemicals because those carbon-fluorine bonds just really don't break down.
SPEAKER 04 :
But the part where this story gets really strange is looking at their origins, because these chemicals came from the Manhattan Project, which was a secret project to build the atomic bomb in World War II. So after the war, companies began experimenting with these chemicals. One company had a scientist who accidentally splashed some of it on their canvas shoes. They discovered the chemicals had stain-proof and waterproof properties. That company was 3M.
SPEAKER 08 :
Because of their unique chemical properties, they're added to products to make them non-stick, grease-proof, stain-proof, and water-resistant.
SPEAKER 18 :
You know who's going to win this contest. Teflon is so much easier to clean than stainless steel or uncoated aluminum.
SPEAKER 04 :
These chemicals went into some of these companies' most famous products, like 3M's Scotchgard and DuPont's Teflon. These chemicals were really at the dawn of what we think of as the era of better living through chemistry. And they sort of epitomized this attitude of consumers and companies that everything we do could become more convenient.
SPEAKER 21 :
...on virtually any fabric. Use Scotchgum, a fabric protector, and let your cock run its over.
SPEAKER 04 :
Consumers are still really enjoying the fruits of this era. When you look around you, there are so many things that are stain-proof or waterproof, like pizza boxes that are grease-resistant or microwave popcorn bags. They're in industrial applications like plastics, semiconductors. They may even be used in solar panels and wind turbines. They're in a lot of products that it's not even clear why they're there, like toilet paper or dental floss. But as time has gone on and more scientific research into them has progressed, we've realized that they also have a downside. We're east of Minneapolis in Minnesota near 3M's global headquarters. So back in 2018, I started looking at 3M's history with PFAS chemicals. I wrote a story at that time. A lot has changed since then, and I'm back to see what's happened. In 3M's hometown in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, and in the surrounding areas of Oakdale and Lake Elmo, the company had been dumping these chemicals since the 1960s. And clearly these chemicals got out into the environment. They were seeping underground, getting into aquifers, getting into soil. And that's really the beginning of this gigantic plume that was later documented around the 3M site in Cottage Grove. The pollution has caused concern among the people who live in the area. There are troubling statistics about childhood cancer, which is thought to be more connected to environmental contaminants.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hi. Hi, how's it going? How are those burgers? Great. I'm a wonderful barbecuer, obviously. Do you have a plate to put them on? That probably would have been something I should have grabbed as well. Oh my gosh, mother.
SPEAKER 04 :
Back in 2018, I interviewed a number of local residents, including Amy and her daughter, Lexi. I was so happy to get back in touch with you and find out that Lexi has made a full recovery. So how many years did that take?
SPEAKER 15 :
Being done with treatment and stuff, to be fully considered cancer-free, it took five years after I was treated for it.
SPEAKER 11 :
So when did you first start suspecting that it could be an environmental issue? I drank city water growing up, so city of Oakdale water. And then when I was pregnant with Lexi, her dad and I moved into an apartment in Oakdale and lived there until she was about two or three. And all of her baby bottles were made with the water. We didn't buy the filtered water then. I don't think it was as common as it is now. I don't really remember people as having bottles of water. It was more of a luxury. People didn't want to spend money on that.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, do you ever think back about, like, eating fish from the lake or anything else that might have put her at higher risk?
SPEAKER 15 :
Yeah. I've been eating fish since, like, the day I was, like, one years old. Like, since the day I could chew, my grandpa has been having me eat fish.
SPEAKER 11 :
From the lakes around here? Yeah. So, my dad, her grandpa, he's a professional fishing guide. Oh, wow. So, he loves the fish, and he loves to go fishing, and...
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so I want to interrupt real quick. Minnesota is the birthplace of the Mississippi River. Also, the river that went through my hometown, the Rock River in Illinois. And so these contaminants are global contamination. And I think it's something that it's been in all our drinking water and all our food. And one of the things that... What bothers me personally is when I was listening to that EPA webinar last year, not one time did they talk about the severity. And nor did they mention 114,000 chemicals, it's probably grown, that make up the PFAS family. So the good news is that we can remove this. From the drinking water with a point of use for reverse osmosis drinking water system. We can also remove this within a whole house anion resin based system. And I definitely recommend that both those are supported. with a whole house water softener because hard water can absolutely wreak havoc on water filtration. Another known method to remove PFAS is activated carbon. But activated carbon doesn't last forever. It breaks down. And quite frankly, activated carbon absorbs a whole bunch of other organics. So, you know, with this PFAS contamination, My professional and personal opinion is that we look at the more reliable and long-term reduction methods with a point of use reverse osmosis or the whole house anion resin-based system. And that's something that can absolutely remove the PFAS. Something else to listen to is that since World War II, basically till today, PFAS are still an active part of our environment. And there's countries, other countries that have not taken steps to, you know, cut back on the PFAS. And PFAS, you'll find, can also be spread globally through, you know, the rainwater. So, okay, look, let's pick it back up.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, wow. So he loves the fish and he loves to go fishing and come home and make big fish fries. And yeah, they live right over by here. It's about a six minute drive from here. So all the lakes that he would go to would be Lake Montreville, Lake Jane, all the ones in Lake Elmo. My dad's a lot more particular now if he's going to actually keep them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Not everyone was as fortunate as Lexi. Death records show a child who died in Oakdale from 2003 to 2015 was 171% more likely to have had cancer compared to those who lived outside the contaminated area. So in that area, one of the schools was Tartan High School, and there was a math teacher there who told me the numbers just weren't adding up. There were so many students who seemed to have rare cancers, so many teachers who had family members with cancer, and one of the most outspoken students about this was Amara Strandy.
SPEAKER 14 :
I'm 20 years old, and at the age of 15, I was diagnosed with stage four fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma. I've had over 20 surgeries, including two liver resections and one open chest surgery. There are no more treatments to try, no roadmap, and no plan.
SPEAKER 04 :
So is this her bedroom or just her hangout?
SPEAKER 17 :
No, this is her bedroom. This was her bedroom. The reason why there's no bed in here is because it was a hospital bed and we had to give that back to the hospice.
SPEAKER 08 :
Who's from hospice?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Amara was diagnosed with cancer at age 15 and she died just two days before her 21st birthday in April of 2023.
SPEAKER 17 :
What she's most proud of is her music studio.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow, how many different instruments does she have in here? I see a violin. There's your ukulele, her mandolin.
SPEAKER 15 :
There might be a harmonica or a kazoo somewhere in there.
SPEAKER 17 :
Her first love was music. She was a composer. She had written songs. Her dream of a career was to write music, compose music for either computer games or maybe even film scores.
SPEAKER 04 :
And she could keep composing even while she was sick?
SPEAKER 17 :
She was composing up until just a few days before she died.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
But she couldn't sing anymore.
SPEAKER 07 :
They removed this large mass that had grown into the fibers of her liver, of the fiber lamellar variety of liver cancer. Fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma is a cancer that is found in one in five million people. It's very rare.
SPEAKER 04 :
Did any doctors along the way say they thought there might be an environmental cause for the cancer or suggest any lifestyle changes?
SPEAKER 17 :
That was not their concern. Their concern was to deal with the cancer as they understood it. It wasn't until much later that Amara started inquiring about How possibly could this happen to her?
SPEAKER 04 :
And did she first start asking those questions at all because she was a student at Tartan and there have been so many other cancers there?
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. I mean, she was aware of the community concern about PFOFs. It was something that the kids talked about at school and even joked about, you know, as much as you can joke about, you know, don't drink the water here.
SPEAKER 17 :
Don't drink the cancer water as they talked about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
She knew kids whose parents had cancer. And then she knew kids whose siblings had cancer. She wanted to know, why doesn't anyone know about this? And why aren't people asking questions?
SPEAKER 01 :
So that's a great point. Why aren't people asking questions? When we got the communities received letters last year regarding they were mandated by the EPA and those letters saying that the water quality didn't meet standards for PFAS, forever chemicals, why didn't they have more information in those letters? Why wasn't there facts regarding the potential health hazards of drinking water with PFAS contamination? That's something that really boggles my mind. This information that you guys can find, it's on YouTube. I encourage you to get it. Why is the federal government not doing more? And why haven't we put together the world's top scientists, I'm very serious about this, to try to eradicate this PFAS problem? I mean, this is extremely serious. It's a global contamination. So it's not only in our water supply. It's in the grass. It's in the trees. It's in the vegetables. It's in the fruit. It's in the animals. So it's all part of the cycle of life. Now, I'm not trying to scare people, but I want to bring it to our attention. And I've said this all along. We have to take our own responsibility to treat the quality of our water. And PFAS is just one thing. problem in a pool of other contaminants within our water supply pharmaceuticals absolutely pharmaceuticals is another concern that we're going to have to deal with and we'll bring that to your attention as well but PFAS how many cancers in the last let's say you know 10 years have people have succumbed to that were created because of the water that they drink And it stays in our body. It accumulates in our body. And, you know, other research we found that, you know, pregnant women, you know how pregnant women get rid of PFAS contamination? By breastfeeding. Now, that's scary, isn't it? When a pregnant woman breastfeeds, the PFAS leave her body and go to the newborn baby. That's a fact. Okay, Luke, let's go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Even though Amara and Lexi's mother Amy believe that these cancers are linked to PFAS chemicals, it's something that's very hard to prove. It takes years of research, both on a population level and in particular when you look at one individual. But fears about the water intensified by what would come out in the 2010s. Minnesota sued 3M for damaging the state's natural resources with its dumping of PFAS. And in doing so, a mass of the company's internal documents were released. What they revealed has been described as a scientific cover-up.
SPEAKER 03 :
Seeing the documents that in 1975, 3M was told, we think we're finding your chemicals, these perfluorinated materials, in the blood of the general U.S. population. And to see what was going on internally, 3M started testing its own workers and found, yes, this chemical is building up in the workers who were exposed to this chemical.
SPEAKER 04 :
They were seeing studies of these chemicals on animals with disturbing effects.
SPEAKER 16 :
It shows that in 1997, 3M gave DuPont a material safety data sheet with a label that said cancer warning contains a chemical which can cause cancer. But 3M removed that label the same year and for decades sold PFAS without warning the public of its dangers.
SPEAKER 03 :
you see the companies internally debating, do we say anything? Do we tell the government? And unfortunately, what they decided was no.
SPEAKER 04 :
Some of 3M's documents even showed that there had been a sort of whistleblower inside the company named Richard Purdy, who had... said the company wasn't telling its customers about the risks of these chemicals and he resigned. He referred to 3M's PFOS or P-F-O-S as the most insidious pollutant since PCBs.
SPEAKER 08 :
Some of the most notorious PFAS are PFOS and PFOA. So these are two PFAS molecules that have a carbon backbone with eight carbon atoms. These are the chemicals that so far have raised the greatest concern. These are the ones that show up most frequently in the environment. These are also the ones that show up most frequently in people's bodies. they have half-lives in blood of years, which means that it would take years to decades for the levels in your blood to go down to an unmeasurable level.
SPEAKER 03 :
the 3M company had actually had one of its own scientists sit down and calculate what would be a safe level in human blood. And that scientist had calculated, and they even used the word safe on the headline of the document, that the safe level for this chemical in human blood would be no more than 1.05 parts per billion. At the time, in the late 1990s, the average level of that chemical being found in the general U.S. population's blood was 30 times higher than that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, so that's really important because during last year's EPA webinar, they were talking about four part per billion. A target of four part per billion, yet they knew... that four part per billion was still too high. Now, at today's time, they publish reports where they believe that the recommended contamination level for PFAS is zero. So it's up to our municipality, our government, how are they going to address this problem? And we talked about how to remove PFAS from your home. Imagine the size of system that you would have to use to handle a community water filtration system, especially when you have six, eight-inch water mains feeding a community. So water filtration is not plug and play. And one of the things regarding water filtration is hard water will absolutely affect filtration. For example, I mentioned anion filtration media. Anion media or anion resin is super sensitive and it will not function under hard water. the hard water will destroy the anion resin media. If you have any questions, if you want to comment about this topic, give me a call here at 303-477-5600. That's 303-477-5600. So this is why I mentioned before, maybe we should get tax breaks for people that, you know, do their own filtration. But then the filter medias that we use, eventually, you're going to have to consider those hot or contaminated. And then we're going to have to have a process of properly disposing water filters that's going to be full of the PFAS. Another thing to consider, and we'll get right back to our story here, but another thing to consider is the wastewater treatment issue that we have. And the human waste that's removed, if that's contaminated with PFAS, what are we going to do with the human waste? We used to sell the human waste as fertilizer to farms. But then we talked about stories, I believe in Texas and Wisconsin, where farms were contaminated, overly contaminated, because of the PFAS and the human waste that was used for fertilizer. This is a big problem that we're going to have to really, you know, have some sincere thought process and what to do. Now, we can do it ourselves. We can definitely treat it ourselves, again, with a point-of-use reverse osmosis system. And we can absolutely, you know, set up a whole house anion resin-based system again. But if you have hard water, we definitely, it all starts with a water softener. And that's something that we can help you out with with Water Pros. I encourage everybody... to you know dive into this and do your own research so you can see for yourself but to me this is not only a global concern but this is worse than a pandemic i mean we have a if you don't have healthy water we don't have a healthy life okay luke
SPEAKER 04 :
In 2018, 3M settled, but there was no admission that it had done anything wrong, that there had been a scientific cover-up, or what the real risk of these chemicals was.
SPEAKER 06 :
3M will pay $850 million to settle claims that contaminated water in Minnesota for decades.
SPEAKER 07 :
It's hard to talk about in our community because... Like everyone loves 3M, right? There's not a person I know personally from 3M who isn't a stellar individual. I feel torn inside myself, but I am really angry at whoever at whatever level did what they did, especially after they knew the chemicals were dangerous and they kept doing it.
SPEAKER 04 :
So no one even knew what these chemicals were until this lawyer from Ohio came along. His name is Rob Bellot, and he took on the case of a farmer who had these cows downstream of a DuPont factory that were dying.
SPEAKER 21 :
It's unbelievable. That calf had died miserable.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so Rob Balot's story is now told in the film Dark Waters, where he's played by Mark Ruffalo.
SPEAKER 22 :
DuPont is knowingly poisoning 70,000 local residents for the last four years.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's not what I was trained to do. That wasn't the kind of thing I was normally doing at the time. I was actually working with chemical companies and big corporate clients, helping them navigate all the federal, state, international laws, rules, regulations, governing, things going out into the environment. it was actually through that case that we took on back in 1998 that we first found out that these man-made chemicals we now call pfos forever chemicals even existed what we're seeing is not only are we finding all these potential human health impacts but we're seeing them happening at lower and lower dose levels and exposure levels We recently had the Federal Environmental Protection Agency come out and essentially say, if you can detect this, it's of health concern.
SPEAKER 04 :
The safety advisories keep getting lower and lower. From 70 parts per trillion for both PFOA and PFOS in drinking water in 2016, the EPA lowered it to just four parts per trillion each. That's less than a single drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Each time those levels are lowered, it means that more people live in an area where contaminated water is thought to be a concern. A recent study found that as many as 200 million people are drinking water with more than the acceptable levels of PFAS. That's around two-thirds of Americans. states are taking action and one of those states is Minnesota, they're not taking any chances with the PFAS that are in drinking water. And to do that, they're trying out new types of water filters.
SPEAKER 10 :
PFAS is out in the environment and it will spread as far as the water can spread it. It's left the barn. It's out of the gate. This waterway is carrying the PFAS right where the air meets the water. And these little bubbles are sort of signs that there might be PFAS in that water. PFAS has a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic nature to it. So if you think about it as like a caterpillar, the head of the caterpillar is hydrophilic. It wants to be in the water. And the tail of it wants to be out of the water. It's hydrophobic. So it kind of surfs along. And so it actually has that property that behaves the same way out in the environment on its own, or whether you're putting it in the water or on a pan, it's going to behave the same way. So mother nature is saying, here's your PFAS, it's in the foam. And so we want to take advantage of that and do the most removal we can.
SPEAKER 09 :
It's called the SAF. It's surface activated foam fractionation. We fill those full of contaminated water and then we are able to physically remove the PFAS by foaming it, adding air into the system. And then we pull the PFAS off of that foam again. And that's where we get a small volume of very high concentrated PFAS containing liquid.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thus far, the test has shown us that we can remove roughly 92 to 98% of PFOA and PFAS. It could run at least at 60,000 gallons of water treatment per day. And this is just one small system. So this is effectively the test to see whether we can scale this up to very large volumes. And can we apply this in a permanent location to reduce the PFAS in the environment altogether?
SPEAKER 04 :
It's not just 3M or DuPont who are responsible for PFAS pollution. There's about a dozen companies that have produced PFAS around the world. Highly concentrated levels have been found in Europe, Japan and Australia. It's become a multi-billion dollar problem globally. Like the US, a lot of these sites are places where the chemicals are manufactured or sites where other companies use them. One of the most widespread sources are military bases and airports, where firefighting foams containing 3M's PFOS were sprayed right into the ground.
SPEAKER 14 :
We're just going right through here.
SPEAKER 09 :
So you're here to have your blood drawn?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. So come on with me here.
SPEAKER 04 :
I've come to Mount Sinai Hospital in New York to have my blood taken and tested for a variety of PFAS. We'll give you a little warning there. All used in different products and made all over the world. So we know these chemicals are everywhere and they're in everyone. The question is obviously, you know, what level of them is unsafe? It's something that science is still trying to figure out. Personally, I've wondered if I could avoid these chemicals as well. PFAS, like a lot of other chemicals, can bioaccumulate, which means it sort of moves up the food chain and becomes more concentrated in predators and apex predators. And one of the places where a lot of the cutting edge research is being done is, surprisingly, the Faroe Islands. This small archipelago in the North Atlantic has a population of just over 50,000 people. There is no manufacturing of chemicals here. There's this quirk of local culture that people have eaten whale meat for generations and whale meat can have very highly concentrated levels of chemicals in it.
SPEAKER 19 :
Pilot whales as a kind of a gift from nature because over centuries we have harvested them in hundreds and around thousand per year. They were seen as really a gift almost from heaven. I went out to the public saying that pregnant women, especially a woman who intended to become pregnant, they should really be careful eating pilot whale meat.
SPEAKER 04 :
Dr. Paul Waihi and his team found mercury was getting into the local population from whale meat and other seafood. The scientists have studied the Faroese since the 1980s. Every so often, a new cohort of hundreds of children under one year old are added to the research. Their physical and mental development is examined all the way into adult life. They're tested for things such as balance, reaction time, body composition, lung and heart function, even the antibodies in their blood. As the Faroese reduced their consumption of pilot whale, the scientists saw the levels of mercury in their blood lower over time. But unlike mercury, PFAS chemicals are in everything. In the Faroe Islands, people have stain-proof couches and waterproof jackets just like the rest of us. Even in people who had very low levels of the chemicals, the scientists started spotting things that really concerned them.
SPEAKER 19 :
What we saw surprised us very much. And we saw that the negative effect on the antibody formation was much higher in children exposed to PFAS than to PCB and other substances.
SPEAKER 20 :
people in the Faroe Islands, far away from pollution, and they were exposed to these compounds at something we thought was very low concentrations. And still, we found that every time that a child had a double concentration, of PFAS in the blood, the child would lose half of the antibody. Essentially, the vaccines did not work. It means that there is a fault, a weakness in your immune system. It's not functioning optimally. We can see that those kids who have higher exposures have a weaker skeleton. And there's a tendency of, at young ages, to develop what we call prediabetes.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, I just do the last test.
SPEAKER 04 :
So as these studies evolve and we learn more about the links between high PFAS levels and health problems, how close are we to understanding how much is too much?
SPEAKER 20 :
The World Health Organization experts on cancer believe that if you don't have an optimally functioning immune system, you may be more vulnerable to cancer. So we can see the various diseases that are sort of triggered, if not facilitated. I would call this is a multi-organ toxicant, PFAS. It affects multiple targets, and it may be that different PFASs that each take their pick of their favorite toxicity. We're trying to decipher that.
SPEAKER 04 :
One of the most disturbing things that persists as a scientific problem with PFAS is that there's no known way to get them out of our bodies. There's only one way that's known of, and unfortunately that's through mothers giving birth. They're offloading their PFAS to their children, both at the time of birth and through breastfeeding. And this just has huge implications for not just our generation, but the generations to come that we're passing these PFAS on to our children.
SPEAKER 01 :
So I want to point something out. Types of cancer becoming more common in young people. Men and women in the prime of their lives are increasingly becoming diagnosed with serious cancers, including colorectal, breast cancer, prostate cancer, uterine, stomach, gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer. The forecast is predicting that cancer for the young people will increase globally by 30% from 2019 to 2030. Is it because of the water that we drink?
SPEAKER 04 :
Elsa Helmsdale is both a scientist who studies PFAS, a person who has been through the cohorts, and a mother who's had to deal with PFAS on a very personal level.
SPEAKER 12 :
I thought a lot about it and I decided to only breastfeed for six months, even though the recommendation is that you breastfeed for a year.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. Did it feel strange to think about being sort of pre-polluted or sharing your pollution with your child?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, it did. And also because I didn't know my own levels and you actually give... a lot of the contaminants, in this case the PFAS, to children so their levels go really high and your levels drop as a consequence of breastfeeding. I didn't think about it that much when I was testing myself but I do think about it a lot when it comes to my kids.
SPEAKER 20 :
We're starting to understand that early life exposures can change the configuration of our chromosomes. And so the question is, is it something that can affect future generations if we pollute or expose the currently pregnant women? And this has been shown in rodent studies that it can happen. The pesticide is completely gone, but the changed DNA chemistry is not.
SPEAKER 04 :
PFAS aren't just a problem for humans. The chemicals have been detected in animals for decades, from polar bears in the Arctic to dolphins in India. In the Faroe Islands, they're also studying the impact on wildlife. Ornithologist Schroeder Hammer is looking at their effects, both on seabirds and to ecosystems as a whole.
SPEAKER 13 :
We're fairly confident that the PFAS that we're finding in seabirds, for the most part, comes from their diet. There's important research done quite recently on how pollutants have a negative impact on top predators in particular, where you see high concentrations, and that has a knock-on effect on their, it could be parasite load, but it could also be their likelihood to catch infections or to survive a pandemic like avian influenza.
SPEAKER 04 :
So if we were to lose an apex predator like the great squaw, what are the consequences ecologically?
SPEAKER 13 :
Ecologically, top predators are so very important in stabilizing the ecosystem. They have a kind of controlling top-down effect on the ecosystem.
SPEAKER 04 :
Are there other consequences ecologically to these birds in particular having PFAS or other chemicals?
SPEAKER 13 :
We very often look for sublethal effects. They may have more subtle effects on their reproduction, for example. And also in relation to PFAS, there are indications that the mothers pass it on to their eggs. So there's what we call maternal transfer as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Just as with humans.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 19 :
We have documented some of the negative consequences and we send the message back to you. Please learn the lesson. It can be irresponsible just to invent some new substances and produce them and send them out without any control.
SPEAKER 04 :
As more has been learned about the health hazards of these chemicals, regulation of PFAS has really picked up. It's forcing a reckoning for the chemical companies. They're seeing settlements from lawsuits that are amounting to tens of billions of dollars. While claims that PFAS chemicals cause cancer have been litigated elsewhere, there's never been a major trial in Minnesota. Skeptics say the state's drinking water contains other contaminants, but many people living in areas with high levels of PFAS still question 3M's role. Even since the 2018 settlement, Minnesota is still working out how to deal with PFAS.
SPEAKER 22 :
The PFAS legislation that we have, this year we named it the Amara Law. It will ban non-essential use. It will require labeling of any product that has PFAS in it.
SPEAKER 07 :
these manufacturers were coming forward wanting to be considered essential. So that's how we found out there were all these products that had PFAS in them because they wanted to be on the essential list.
SPEAKER 17 :
We didn't know how extensive PFAS chemicals were in different products. We kept learning more and more every day of the thousands of products that contained these chemicals.
SPEAKER 07 :
And at the same time, how would any of us know? It's not listed on ingredients. It's not listed on what is used to make this particular shampoo or this particular dental floss.
SPEAKER 14 :
We need stricter regulations on the use of PFA's chemicals and more research to be done on the long-term effects of exposure. We also need more education for the public about the dangers of these chemicals so that people can make informed choices about the products they use.
SPEAKER 07 :
Her voice in the legislature was a voice for the community. They saw her as she was getting weaker. I saw her as getting clear, in many ways stronger than she'd ever been.
SPEAKER 22 :
She was a champion for us this year, bringing awareness to this issue. Unfortunately, you know, she passed away, I think it was three days before we had the bill on the floor for the first time.
SPEAKER 17 :
All Amara was asking for in the testifying at the Capitol was for companies who are using these chemicals do the right thing and take responsibility for their use.
SPEAKER 07 :
Her life doesn't seem over to me because she puts so much in motion and those things are still in motion. And so there's no over for me yet.
SPEAKER 01 :
So as of April 2024, the EPA finalized drinking water standards for some PFAS which set legally enforceable maximum contamination levels for PFAS and drinking water. And so we're at PFOAs are four part per trillion. PFOS at four part per trillion. PFHXS at ten part per trillion. Now remember what a part per trillion is different from a part per billion, isn't it? So that's even a smaller amount. So you go from a part per billion to part per trillion. I just wanted to point that out. And so because they said a part per billion, if you take an Olympic-sized swimming pool, it's just one drop. So they went from a part per billion to a part per trillion. A mixture containing two or more of the PFAS contaminants is a hazardous index. And based on combined levels of these chemicals, that also can affect the standards. The maximum contamination Levels are different, and those, based on drinking water standards and levels which have to be reliably measured, the public water system must start monitoring for the PFAS by 2027. So we have at least two more years before they have to start monitoring for this contaminant. The system must also provide the public with information on the levels of the PFAS and the drinking water starting in 2027 as well. So again, you heard that the recommendation was part per billion, and now the EPA eventually finalized their drinking water standards, and it's even smaller. They want it at a part per trillion. If monitoring shows that our drinking water levels exceed the maximum contamination levels, a public water system must take measures to reduce the PFAS by 2029. So that means we have four years to come up with a game plan and how this is going to happen. Starting in 2029, public water systems that have PFAS levels exceeding one or more of these maximum contamination levels must take action to reduce levels of the PFAS in their drinking water and must notify the public of the excess levels. So I wonder when that's going to start happening. They have basically four years. To ramp up a program, I haven't heard anybody in our state government talking about this or even local government talking about this. It states that many states have their own regulations regarding PFAS, most commonly the PFOAs and the PFOS in drinking water. Some... of these are enforceable drinking water standards, while others are just guideline levels or they just require public water systems to regularly test for certain PFAS and notify the consumer. So, you know, Colorado has a problem at the state lab level already. And another scientist or lab tech said, was found to fudge water test results. And so now the state lab has stopped all testing of water. So, you know, I'd like to know if there's another lab in the metro area that's going to be testing municipal water samples for safety. But how many of those, you know, test for PFAS? I knew at the time the state of Colorado wasn't set up to test for PFAS. So where is that going to be done? The specific PFAS that are regulated and the levels that are allowed vary among states that have these regulations. All state standards have to be at least as strict as the EPA drinking water standards that have been enacted on a federal level. What this means is this is a very serious issue. And in the very beginning, when this was exposed, they went from a part per billion down to a part per trillion. So I've always said this. It doesn't take a large number to have contamination. Absolutely doesn't. Now, again, we can treat this ourselves. We can use a point of use reverse osmosis unit at the kitchen sink with a separate faucet. We can use an anion resin based system that will remove it for the whole entire house. Both of those are strongly recommended to be supported by a point of use water softener. You have to, you know, Water filtration is not plug and play, and you absolutely have to remove hardness, iron content especially, in order for the anion resin system or the point of use reverse osmosis unit to be functional. We're going to have more information on this. We're going to continue to bring you stories, to bring you information that you can clearly find for yourself. I encourage everybody to do the research. And I think it's going to be up to us to filter and take care of our own water. But we're going to have to start knocking on the door of our politicians, especially at the state level. I haven't heard anything out of Governor Polis' administration to talk about water quality, water contamination, and what we're going to do with this PFAS problem because Colorado has a PFAS problem for sure, especially down south in Colorado Springs by the Air Force bases down there. I'm sure here in Denver Metro area as well. The firefighting foam that we use in all the forest fires, absolutely, you know, DIA with the PFAS and their firefighting foam and the drills that they use. And it's something that we learned that has spread globally. It's a bioaccumulant contamination. It's everywhere. And as it gets into the human waste and we get rid of the human waste from the waste treatment plants, it's going to get back into our water supply. Are we creating a never-ending cycle of PFAS contamination? Because these chemicals don't break down. These chemicals do not go away and they stay in our body. Stick with us. We're going to have more information on this. I appreciate you stopping by today and hanging out with us. And I want everybody to have a very blessed day. God bless you all.
SPEAKER 02 :
Remember to reach out to Paul the Waterman with your questions and water filtration needs, and be sure to tune in to Water Talk Thursdays at 2 p.m. to talk with Paul. And for more information, find him on the programming page at klzradio.com.
Explore the multifaceted discussion of financial empowerment with 'The Wealth Break' segment, highlighting stories of people who build wealth through unconventional means. Dana interweaves this financial narrative with lively debates on modern prison reform and the seeming absurdity in California's approach, all while adding a humorous twist on domestic disputes over IKEA furniture and hardware mishaps. Get ready for an episode that's both enlightening and entertaining.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
It's his life mission to make bad decisions. It's time for Florida Man.
SPEAKER 06 :
So I got to share with you this story about a Florida man clad only in his britches who destroyed a merchandise kiosk at Disney. He was in his underwears and he busted up a sales kiosk at Disney World. Sean Patrick McHugh. He's 24. He's a port orange. He was arrested on multiple charges in the early morning hours. He pled not guilty just recently. He was arrested on New Year's Day. But his court, this is how long it takes for stuff to go through the system. Only now. It's just going only now. So he was accused of endangering... He was intoxicated. They said he endangered the safety of another person's property, caused a public disturbance. They only just now released the arrest report. And so that's why all this stuff, along with the court action, is now why it's making headlines. But he was... Disney security noticed he was trying to relieve himself into the bushes on the walkway between Epcot and Hollywood Studios. And then he stripped down to his britches and broke the $1,000 sales kiosk. And then he was told to leave and not come back. And he refused. So it was third-degree felony mischief, two misdemeanors for drunken disorderly and then trespass. So, yeah, apparently that's not the first time. There were two people, two, remember, just like months prior, New Jersey sisters who were fighting and then ended up tearing each other's clothes. It was ridiculous. This is also silly. A man accused of a DUI falls asleep in a Taco Bell drive-thru before he woke up and then hit a parked car. Yeah. Brooksville, Florida, Hernando County. A man was arrested. Deputies say that they believe he was under the influence of a controlled substance when he fell asleep in the drive-thru of a Taco Bell, crashed into a parked car when he woke up. Someone, a concerned citizen, called 911. He was taken into custody. Failed the sobriety test. All Family Pharmacy is, this is a great partner for the show, and I've used them. They've helped me out quite a bit, especially when I was developing, as I told you, before strep throat. You know what that's like. And you also know what you need if you've ever had it before. All family pharmacy can help you out in a pinch. Shipping is about two to four days on average. You can also get things overnighted as I did before. But they also have, you know, actual real treatments that big pharma and the government under the Biden administration worked together to shut down. They wanted to stop you from accessing things like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine. I mean, there's certain preventative things that you can have access to that don't work with Big Pharma's agenda if you have access to them. So that's why a lot of these alternatives and therapeutics are dismissed. At All Family Pharmacy, though, that's not what they do. You can visit allfamilypharmacy.com slash Dana and use code Dana for 10% off. off of your entire order. They provide ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, antibiotics, and more. The very medications the system previously tried stopping you from accessing. Simple, fast, and affordable. No insurance, no problem. They got straightforward pricing, online ordering. And it's super easy to get your everyday maintenance medications, too. They make it so easy. Fast shipping, no hassle, no gatekeepers. And everything is made in the United States. Manufactured, the inputs, everything from here, right here in the U.S. of A. So you have high standards for quality and safety. Visit allfamilypharmacy.com slash Dana and get 10% off with promo code Dana10. Be prepared. Protect yourself and your family today. Allfamilypharmacy.com slash Dana. Code Dana10.
SPEAKER 03 :
I'm Rodney Williams. And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to The Wealth Break. Let's be honest. Building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle, and relying on your community to create something bigger.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that's exactly why we created The Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles, and real wins.
SPEAKER 03 :
We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learned to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six-figure business, we're bringing you their stories.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.
SPEAKER 03 :
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place. Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Can I share with you a really stupid story from California? San Francisco Chronicle. You're going to like this. California is about to spend, you know, California has a major multi-billion dollar deficit right now. They are about to spend $239 million to turn San Quentin, into a Scandinavian-style rehab center. They are planning for sweeping changes, says the Chronicle, for San Quentin State Prison. They're remaking it, Cain. It's going to be a Scandinavian-style heaven, complete with a rehabilitation center and a farmer's market. A podcast production studio and a self-service grocery store. It sounds like a bougie apartment in D.C.
SPEAKER 05 :
Are you telling me this is a prison?
SPEAKER 06 :
Uh-huh. Yeah. It's a prison. $239 million. $239 million. Construction was on track to finish in January of 26. It's in California, really. You think that's going to actually happen? They've been plotting the same track of train for 10 years. The first, now this is, I love how they say this. You could just say prisoners, but they say incarcerated people. Like they're people who just accidentally got incarcerated. How can we get like ex-carcerated? It was on track to finish in January 26. And now they said that they've begun using the revamped facility within months of completion early next year. So it is a little behind. And that's not surprising considering, I mean, it's California. How long? It wasn't even a mile, right? That track that they built for the train that was supposed to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco, they didn't even finish that. Yeah. So, I mean... They say in 26, but we all know it's not true. But I'm trying to understand what is this going to do? Newsom called it California's most notorious prison. And that he had declared a moratorium on executions. He began dismantling death row, per the San Francisco Chronicle. He ordered state officials to start the process of transferring the prisoners to other state facilities, and he announced plans to turn the whole prison into this Nordic-style center so they can reenter life outside prison. He's hired Kane, the Danish architecture firm Schmidt Hammer Lawson, to help reimagine the maximum security prison. I'm not joking. That's actually in the piece. I'm reading from it directly.
SPEAKER 05 :
But the point of prison was, you know, you don't get to do stuff that you do when you're not in prison.
SPEAKER 06 :
But podcast studio? It was a self-service grocery store.
SPEAKER 05 :
What?
SPEAKER 06 :
The influences they're taking from the Scandinavian incarceration system. Where a prisoner's living detention center is designed to approximate life outside of prison. Yes, because that's the problem. Sure. Good grief. So they say that they've successfully reduced prison populations and recidivism by focusing jail time on preparing people for their release back in society. Let's look at some other jobs you can do besides killing people and selling them drugs. Let's just... So they said they want the prisoners to have access to so-called normalizing spaces like the self-service grocery store, a cafe, food trucks, staffed by other incarcerated people. I don't know about this. They're spending $239 million on it. Is it all going to be like Ikea? Now what Juan is showing you is like a mock-up. Is that the family all visiting incarcerated dad? And that looks like corrugated metal on the side of the buildings. I'm sorry. That just looks so trashy.
SPEAKER 05 :
Assisted living facility.
SPEAKER 06 :
Why does it look so junky? It's like weedy and overgrown. It's nature. No, it looks trashy. Who decided to do it? Look at those stupid, squaddly little trees over there. They don't even look healthy and properly trimmed. I mean, you just think, you know, if you're doing a mock-up, you know, maybe sell it. It's $239 million. Sorry, we spent all our millions. We couldn't render any better trees than this. Sorry.
SPEAKER 05 :
The vegetation's in prison, too.
SPEAKER 06 :
I'm amazed at this. So they've got this very expensive Danish architecture. They're going to solve all the problems with the jails, Cain. $239 million. I'm going to have an Ikea inside.
SPEAKER 05 :
You're going to have people committing crimes so they can have this life. That's what's going to happen.
SPEAKER 06 :
Can I just say, I hate the... And I don't say this as an insult. It's just not my style. I loathe the Scandinavian modern stuff. I can't stand it. I cannot stand it. My version of hell is literally what this is describing. You don't have to threaten me with prison. Just threaten to send me to Ikea. Right? Just let me go there. And I scared straight, taking her to Ikea. The holistic initiative leverages the best practices to improve the well-being of those who work and live as a prison's king. I don't, they said that they wanted to make, in California, now here's the kickers, we wrapped those, they want to make prison life less punitive.
SPEAKER 1 :
What?
SPEAKER 06 :
I am not making it up. That's literally a quote. It is literally a quote. This is literally a quote. It's San Francisco Chronicle. They've dubbed the effort the California model with the aim of making prison life less punitive.
SPEAKER 05 :
The point of prison is to be punitive.
SPEAKER 06 :
So mean, Kane. What is... Why don't you like our Nordic jails? This is Hans. He's going to get you checked in. Bend over. I just...
SPEAKER 05 :
I can't. Where's the nearest bottle of scotch?
SPEAKER 06 :
So basically, you had some California moron go up and convince Newsom, like jail, but like less jailier. So, we're going to put the prisoners in jail, but it's going to be like way less jailier. Like, hear me out, right? We're going to have the landscaping and a podcast station because they can do podcasts. Self-service grocery store. This is so dumb. This is California. We're California. I know. Now, I will say you could because Ikea is like a big thing here. It's a very big. I know a lot of people have Ikea furniture. I don't like to put things together because I like to disregard tools. I look at the instructions. I see them and I'm like, nope. And I try to do it. My husband says it's like I'm doing women's math. And it is true. Do you know? That women can measure the size of something with their hands on either side of something. And then they can keep their arms totally still like a robot and then go to a different part of the room and put their hands down. And that's perfect measurements. Wow. It's amazing.
SPEAKER 05 :
I did not know that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. It's truly amazing. Or when a woman says, I can eyeball it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Just totally believe her.
SPEAKER 06 :
Just totally believe her. My favorite thing to do when I want something done in the house is to ask my husband... I'm like, where's the hammer? I'm not even allowed to have that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Evil reverse psychology that you do.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I want to go hang something. And I'm just like, use a Hercules hook for everything. Sorry, Hercules. The Ozark's coming out. Hercules. I'm like, just Hercules it. Get a Hercules hook. My younger son's like, there's a U in there. You know that. And you just put it in there. And my husband's appalled. He's like that. He says it's trash and that I'm doing it. I'm being trashy by doing that. And he's like, no, you got it. And then he gives me a thing where it's a nail. And then the thing, like all these things for the nail. And you just what? Use a hook. What's so wrong? And it just kills his soul. Kills his soul. I don't even know where the tools are. If I have to hammer something, I got to get a flashlight and beat the thing with it because I'm not allowed to have the hammer.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's the deterrent that you offer your husband. And that's what a prison should be. It should be a deterrent. But it's not a deterrent. If you're podcasting. Q Creed's my own prison. Podcasting from prison.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Welcome to the prison podcast. Today we're talking about. And that's. Oh, man. But you know what? I would listen to a prison podcast if it was the prisoners talking smack about, you know, each gang has a prison podcast, right? In today's prison podcast files. And it's like all the dirt on this prisoner. I would totally listen to that. You get some good like move over Real Housewives, which I totally don't watch anyway. But I would actually listen to that. The prison podcast. Our friends over at Kel-Tec, the Kel-Tec PR team. It is a new build from Kel-Tec. It's a 5.7. It's a rotary barrel pistol. And it's the first of its kind. 40% lighter than the next lightest 5.7. And that innovative rotary barrel makes it so light, so nice. Now, I keep joking about this because I find it funny. The left always says, oh, my gosh, the clips. They call them clips. They can be correct with this one for once. Because it doesn't use a traditional magazine. This is the other reason why it's so light and slim. The unique top-loading design replaces the traditional mag with a stripper clip. So you have a slimmer carry profile and a 20 plus 1 capacity. Super low recoil. Quickest and easiest field strip out there. The MSRP is only $399. Y'all, this is so affordable. It's crazy. I'm just saying Mother's Day is coming up. Ladies, if you want a nice 5.7 that you actually can realistically carry, this is it. Dudes, if you just want a lighter, thinner one, this is one for you too. Because, you know, Father's Day is after Mother's Day. Visit CaltechWeapons.com to learn more. Innovation Performance Caltech. It's the first of its kind. Caltech PR57 Rotary Barrel Pistol Chambered in 5.7. KELTECWeapons.com. Tell them Dana sent you.
SPEAKER 03 :
I'm Rodney Williams. And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break. Let's be honest. Building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle, and relying on your community to create something bigger.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that's exactly why we created The Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles, and real wins.
SPEAKER 03 :
We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learned to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six figure business, we're bringing you their stories.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.
SPEAKER 03 :
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place. Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It's time for Dana's Quick Five.
SPEAKER 06 :
Cain sent this to me because it's supposed to be like he doesn't like him and he's making fun of him. The shoulder pad is back. This is according to Financial Times. By the way, I love shoulder pads. I should have come up into the age in the 80s. I should have come to age in the 80s, not the 90s. That's my decade. Should have been my decade. Because that's when the fashion, everything was crazy and it was awesome. I am so happy with structured silhouettes. So I guess you're not a fan of the shoulder pad, Cain. No, not really. Well, I think they're amazing.
SPEAKER 05 :
It's more false things on women.
SPEAKER 06 :
I like it. It makes a nice defined shoulder. I like it. Not on men, though. I think if it's on men, it's weird. You guys don't need that.
SPEAKER 05 :
I've played a couple years of football. That's how I think shoulder pads.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, well, I mean, in jackets and stuff, I mean, there's not everything, but it looks good in a lot of stuff. Apparently, it's back. I think a lot of the 80s stuff, if we go through a period of economic prosperity, the fashion will reflect it, and I swear we're going to go into another 80s. I think we will. That's actually very encouraging. Let's see. Oh, my gosh. 17 shoplifters arrested all in one day at the same store. Linwood police in Washington. They arrested 17 shoplifters all in one day. They said that there were people confidently shopping, loading up their carts and walking right out the door. And they arrested them. They said, please do not come here and steal from our community. Now, in February, at that exact same store, what is happening? They arrested 14 people in a six hour period. That's I've never heard anything like that. That's wild. There was there was a man arrested in Provo after he entered a restaurant just naked as the day he was born and, quote, flexed his muscles aggressively. Oh, and he had a gun. I feel like that should be in the headline, too. That wasn't in the headline, but it should be. It does at least come up in the lead. A man's facing charges after he allegedly walked into a restaurant naked and armed with a gun. And his name is Ralph Laurent. I am not kidding you. Ralph Laurent is his name. 24 years old. I mean, it's literally Ralph Lauren, but with a T. A T is doing some heavy lifting in the story. The man told police that he was flexing his muscles aggressively. Or one person told police the man was flexing his muscles aggressively and following people. Another person said he had a gun. Now, I don't know why all of them are not saying that he had a gun. Being that he was naked, I have no idea where you're going to put it. If, you know, it's not like you can conceal it, you know, just saying. Let's see a one week just doing one week of cold plunges could slow down your aging at a cellular cellular level. It's a good thing. I don't care about slowing down my aging at a cellular level because I there's no way I'm doing a cold plunge. That's we invented heating water. As people, right? And like the house and electricity. Why are we doing this stuff? We got a lot more to hit as we move. Just back in just a few. Stick with us. I have an update about a story that we had yesterday that has to do with the, you guys remember the dad who left his kids in McDonald's and he went, the way that everybody said it, he went for a job interview. You guys remember? He went for a job interview. Well, there's more. So let me lay it out. The police say the guy lied about being at a job interview next door. The New York Post covered the story and they had a follow up on this along with not the B. Georgia police find inconsistencies in job-seeking dads' whereabouts. Remember, he left the kids at McDonald's and then 10-year-old, the youngest was one. There were three kids, 10, 6, and 1. He left them alone at the restaurant and told police that he went to a job interview, right? And he was looking for work at the time. That's what happened. The mom showed up and a concerned customer saw what happened and called police. And he said he had filled out an application at the West Bank Inn next door and he was just waiting for a call back and he was, you know, doing... They noticed as they were questioning the dad that there were holes in his alibi. So they went to the inn where they spoke with an employee. And they confirmed that he had filled out a job application about 1.30, but he was not expecting a return call for an interview. They weren't, but apparently they weren't going to call him. And then there was security footage showing him walking around the hotel at 1.30 p.m., but not 4.30 p.m. That's when he allegedly left his kids at McDonald's. Customers saw the three kids inside the restaurant at 4.30 as he was talking to someone on the phone. They heard him say that he needed to drop something off. He left the store. The kids were there by themselves for about 90 minutes. And that's apparently when they called police. Now, the daughter, who's 10, said she and her family had walked to McDonald's from the apartment complex that they live in less than a mile down the road. And... Apparently, the girl said that, yeah, dad leaves us alone frequently when he's watching us like he leaves them alone. That's according to kids. The kids told police that he leaves them alone all the time. The 10 year old girl said told police that our dad had a backpack was supposed to give it to their mom. They contacted the mom or the daughter contacted the mom, told her to go to McDonald's. Police were here. Come meet us. And apparently the dad said that he was at the apartments looking for the mom, but he couldn't deliver this bag that he was supposed to deliver to her. And then while he was there, he just happened to lose his ID and all this stuff, Cain. So the sheriff's office is standing by the arrest. They're like, he was not at a job interview when this happened. And they said there's tons of camera footage, witness statements. And they said they determined it was a misdemeanor charge of deprivation of a minor and that the intervention was appropriate to ensure welfare. Right. OK. And you got former NFL player Antonio Brown. He set up a GoFundMe forum, all this stuff. Oh, wait, there's more, though. There's a lot more. Oh, I know. Because now we've got the Augusta Press. It came out and said, oh, there's even more details now about this. It just gets more. Because people were defending him. And we talked about him on the show. If he's... Going to a job interview, and he left his kids at McDonald's so he could go to a job interview, and someone called the police, that's really crummy, right? You know, maybe help somebody out. That's the position that we all had. But it sounds like, first off, the timeline is different. Every article I read, the timeline's different. The amount of time that he left the kids there changes every single time they talk to him. Whether or not he was hunting for a job or dropping something off, that also changes, right? I just think that if you're just doing one thing, why is your story changing? If you went to go fill out a job application and you left and you were doing an interview and you left your kids at Play Place at McDonald's, then why is your story changing and the time changing dramatically as you're telling the story? That doesn't make sense. And they're saying that there's a lot of inconsistencies about his whereabouts. And they can't even place his whereabouts during certain times. So... What does it sound like to you? It sounds to me like he was doing more than a job interview at this point. I mean, they did admit that he went next door and filled out. But if you're just going next door to fill out an application, how long does that take? I mean, it doesn't take 90 minutes.
SPEAKER 05 :
You can actually grab it and take it back to the McDonald's and fill it out there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. I mean, he didn't sit down for an interview there and he wasn't going to get a call back. So how long does that take you if you're just, you know, getting an application? It doesn't take 90 minutes. And then that was just at one point when he left him, he left him again. So apparently he came back and left and came back and left. So that's changed from what was initially being reported. You know, when cops get a call, About unattended kids, they have to follow up and you can't. I don't I'm not angry at the police. My initial question yesterday was who calls the police? If you see a dad that needs help and he's just going, you know, that was my whole thinking. But if he's there and one of the witnesses says that he like went and came back like two different times. OK, then there's something else that's happening here. What is happening here? And I don't like it when good people who need help don't get it because it's overshadowed by bad people who do stuff or maybe people who do bad things or who are doing questionable things that call into question everybody. That's not fair. So what's the truth of it? What do you think he was doing? Was he selling drugs? I don't know. They don't actually tell you what's the backpack.
SPEAKER 05 :
I saw some other witness testimony talk about how this wasn't the first time that he's actually done this at that McDonald's. So when he gets visitation.
SPEAKER 06 :
He drops his kids off at Play Place.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
And they just think, and the dad thinks that, well, with the chaos of Play Place, nobody's going to know that these kids are unattended. Well, there are some customers who did. So this is because the left has been trying to turn this into a class warfare thing. But I don't really think it's a class warfare thing. This doesn't sound like a plugged in dad. Right. And also be careful about jumping on GoFundMe is like that. You never know. So we need we need I still have questions.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Dana Lash's Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven't already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER 03 :
I'm Rodney Williams and I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break. Let's be honest. Building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle, and relying on your community to create something bigger.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that's exactly why we created The Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles, and real wins.
SPEAKER 03 :
We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learned to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six-figure business, we're bringing you their stories.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities, like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.
SPEAKER 03 :
So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place. Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
SPEAKER 01 :
As a mom, I love treating my kids to something sweet without all the junk. Dr. John's Healthy Sweets are our go-to. They have lollipops, hard candies, gummies, caramels, taffy, and even chocolates. All natural, plant-based with no artificial ingredients. Now snack time feels fun, not guilty. Order at drjohns.com or find them on Amazon. Dr. John's Healthy Sweets. Keep the sweets, skip the sugar.
