We also take a closer look at the ongoing ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, analyzing its stability and prospects with insights from key players like Casey Harper and David Brody. Additionally, we explore a controversial conflict involving a bivocational pastor fired from his job over pronoun usage, discussing the legal implications with Liberty Counsel's Matt Staver. Finally, our episode wraps up with an exploration of in-vitro fertilization and ethical reproductive alternatives that align with a pro-life philosophy.
SPEAKER 20 :
from the heart of our nation's capital in Washington, D.C., bringing compelling interviews, insightful analysis, taking you beyond the headlines and sound bites into conversations with our nation's leaders and newsmakers, all from a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER 19 :
Sitting in for Tony is today's host, Jody Heiss. the senate democrats have zero shame about this they don't have any shame at all about the pain that they're inflicting upon hard-working families upon soldiers and law enforcement officers and veterans and the elderly and the disabled and women infants and children services to all those categories and paychecks to those folks are being stalled because democrats are playing games
SPEAKER 10 :
That was House Speaker Mike Johnson on Capitol Hill earlier today criticizing Democrats for refusing to pass a clean continuing resolution as the government shutdown is now in day 20. Welcome to this October 20th edition of Washington Watch. I'm your host for today, Jody Heiss, filling in for Tony Perkins. Thank you so much for tuning in. Coming up on today's broadcast, over the weekend, the so-called No Kings protests challenged President Trump's leadership, but Republicans dismissed them as nothing other than political stunts, not any serious solutions at all. The shutdown is now the third longest in U.S. history. Congressman Chuck Edwards will be joining me shortly to break the latest down for us. And a fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is now itself under heavy fire, but at least for the time being, it's still holding on. And later in the program, we'll share insights from Pastor Jack Hibbs and former Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, both of whom were in last week's Pray, Vote, Stand Summit in Southern California. We begin this afternoon with news coming out of the Middle East in Gaza. Israel marked a new pullback line under the U.S. brokered ceasefire, but still violence flared up again over the weekend. Hamas militants killed two Israeli soldiers, and in response, Israel put forth strikes of their own, literally killing dozens. And joining me now is Washington's stand reporter Casey Harper. Casey, a lot's happening in the Middle East. What are you hearing as far as the latest?
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, that's right, Jody. So here's the update. Despite the violence committed by the terrorist group Hamas this weekend and their efforts to maintain control of Gaza, which is a violation of the peace deal, both sides do say that that ceasefire is holding. Now, President Trump, while speaking today at the White House, he said the U.S. will give the ceasefire a chance, but he warned Hamas, behave or you're going to face some swift, violent action from allied forces.
SPEAKER 05 :
We made a deal with Hamas that, you know, they're going to be very good, they're going to behave, they're going to be nice, and if they're not, we're going to go and we're going to eradicate them if we have to. They'll be eradicated, and they know that. So they went in, they went in, and I don't believe it was a leadership, but they had some rebellion in there among themselves, and they killed... Some people, you know, pretty a lot of people. But this is a violent group. You know, you probably noticed over the last 100 years, this is a very violent group of people.
SPEAKER 21 :
Now, President Trump's envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, they met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu today to try to keep this peace deal on track. Israel says Hamas is breaking the agreement by attacking troops and withholding those bodies of deceased hostages. But despite those setbacks, the Trump-led plan is pushing forward. Vice President J.D. Vance actually just left for Israel today as the administration is pushing forward this 20-step peace strategy, which is part of what President Trump calls this historic new Middle East, Jody.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. A lot going on, Casey. Let's turn, if we can, our attention to Washington, D.C. Of course, the government shutdown is still the big news. I have been hearing for several days, Casey, that there is a possibility, a possibility that maybe the Democrats will be open to reopening the government after the No Kings rallies. What are you hearing?
SPEAKER 21 :
Yeah, well, they do have President Trump is leaving the country soon, so they might be motivated by that deadline, Jody. But today marks the day 20 of the government shutdown, which is actually the third longest in U.S. history. So the Senate, they're scheduled to vote on another clean CR. But as you may expect, it's not expected to pass. These no kings protests, they have become a major focus in today's political discussion. As you mentioned, protesters gathered across the U.S. over the weekend to speak out against President Trump, and they say his actions are too extreme and even threaten democracy. But many Republicans argue he's just doing what he promised, cracking down on illegal immigration, standing up to biased media, and putting America first. Most of these protests were peaceful, but some, like in Portland, showed signs of glorifying violence, which did raise concerns. Now, in a Fox News interview this weekend, President Trump responded to those protests, saying, I am no king. He defended his leadership as firm but fair. Many Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, actually joined the No Kings protests. And Republicans say this is proof positive that Democrats are prioritizing political theater over reopening the government. In fact, Republican Congressman Chip Roy slammed Democrats for this, calling it a distraction from just doing their jobs.
SPEAKER 16 :
target the Southern Poverty Law Center, who are going after people like our friends at the Family Research Council, or ultimately Charlie Kirk. Securing the border, passing the Lake and Raleigh Act. These are the things the American people want us to do, not shutting down the government for political rallies. And the truth is, the Marxists, the radicals, and the Islamists, the Democratic Party promoted this weekend. They cannot handle the truth. The truth is that there is a king, and that king is Jesus.
SPEAKER 21 :
With President Trump heading to Asia later this month, Jody, we'll see if these negotiations can move forward before then.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, let's certainly hope that they do. And just hearing Congressman Chip Roy there, I was honored to be at the PrayVote Stand Summit this weekend in Chino Hills, California. And certainly we had some protesters there as well. And as you can imagine, they were chanting, no king, no king, no king. But while they were out there, we were all inside Calvary Chapel, Jack Hibbs Church, praising the one and only king. the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was just a really, really special time. In fact, those of you who are viewing right now, you're able to see Tony Perkins and Jack Hibbs. They've got a picture of themselves with some of the protesters there in the background. Really quite an experience it was. All right, Casey, anything else that you're tracking? Is there any good news out there?
SPEAKER 21 :
Oh, yeah, Jody, we do have some positive news. Sorry to be a downer on the show so often, but here's some good news. Bible sales across America are up. In fact, they soared 36% in September of this year compared to the same time last year. Now, of course, this comes after the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, but according to the publishing tracker, Circana Book Scan, sales jumped from 1.5 million to 2.4 million copies. This shows Americans may be turning back to faith in some pretty uncertain times, Jody.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. Thank you so much, Casey. We appreciate always you giving us these updates. We are grateful for it. All right. I want to go back now to the latest on the government shutdown. And in particular, I'd like to get a congressional perspective of it all. And joining me now to discuss this and more is Congressman Chuck Edwards. He's a member of the House Appropriations Committee as well as the Budget Committee. And he represents the 11th Congressional District Committee. the great state of North Carolina, Congressman Edwards. Welcome back to Washington Watch. Great to have you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good to have you. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. Well, look, before we get to the shutdown, which I certainly want to get to, I would love to get your thoughts on the No Kings protests over the weekend. While certainly most of them, as already has been noted, were free of violence, there was some pretty violent rhetoric that was on display at all. What was your thoughts with it?
SPEAKER 09 :
You know, I wasn't there. I didn't see actually what took place. I find it extremely interesting that we see this level of theatrics from folks that really are distracting from the issues at hand right now, which are getting our government drunk. funded and operational again. I think it's interesting that so many folks want to protest what President Trump is doing, what he has accomplished, what he says he wants to help us accomplish. They're just still angry that he won the election. But we're remaining focused on trying to get the government open.
SPEAKER 10 :
That's what it seems to really come down to. And many have noted the irony of these demonstrations. In fact, Speaker Johnson, we had a clip of him moments ago about it. But if President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER 09 :
That would certainly be the case. And President Trump would be the first to admit that he's not a king. He's part of a republic of this great nation. And again, they're just frustrated that he was elected, and this is their opportunity to get out in the public eye and remind folks they wish the election had gone some other way.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, speaking of all of the opening the government, the Senate is scheduled yet again to vote, I believe, now for the 11th time on advancing the clean House passed continuing resolution to fund the government. Are you hearing any indication that we might see some movement on the votes? What are you hearing?
SPEAKER 09 :
What I'm hearing right now is that the constituents in the districts of those senators that are continuing to say no to funding the government are getting more and more restless. They're beginning to recognize that the military will not be receiving checks here in just a short time. They're beginning to realize. that they will not be receiving SNAP payments and WIC payments, and that other government services disruption will be beginning to show through. And the constituents in those districts are getting noisier and noisier. And I believe we're going to see a number of Senate Democrats switch over and decide to reopen the government.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I sure hope you're right. You know, we hear a lot and we've been hearing for the last few weeks a lot about how the government shutdown hurts certain individual service members, for example, federal workers. But it also impacts everyday people. And you represent a district where I suppose that is as real as anyone else in Congress. This time or so last year, of course, the huge hurricane came through your district and did catastrophic damage all throughout the southeast. But your district in particular was hit. And you still have people right now suffering and they need some help, some assistance. Tell us the impact that the shutdown is having on them.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, certainly with FEMA, USDA, HUD, and others having their operations disrupted so much, we're having a tough time. In fact, my office has been in contact with several folks today and not been able to get through. And it has certainly slowed our recovery. I find it appalling that folks, the House Democrats in North Carolina, said that they wanted to see North Carolina rebuild, and yet they voted to shut the government down. Here's the other interesting thing. In the clean resolution, we had $21.5 billion additional disaster relief funding that Democrats are saying no to for North Carolina. It most certainly has disrupted the momentum that we've built
SPEAKER 10 :
over the last few months and i'd rather see us get back to full functionality well we certainly hope that that will take place speedily thank you so much congressman chuck edwards of north carolina it's great to have you on the program we appreciate you coming on appreciate you coming on good to be here thanks for having me All right, coming up next, we'll share the latest on a case involving Pastor Luke Ash. He is a bivocational pastor who was fired from his job at the local public library because he refused to use biologically correct pronouns. Well, Liberty Council's Matt Staver will be joining me for that discussion in just a moment. They are representing the pastor, so stick around. We'll be back right after this brief break.
SPEAKER 12 :
For over 4,000 years, the Jewish people have had legal, historical, and biblical ties to the land of Israel, especially the heartland of Israel, Judea and Samaria, which much of the world still calls the West Bank. To Israelis, Judea and Samaria is far more than a name. It's the center of their ancestral homeland where nearly 80% of the Bible's events took place. Abraham purchased property in Hebron, Jacob in Shechem, Joshua made an altar on Mount Ebal and led the Israelites into a covenant before God. On Mount Gerizim, overlooking Shechem, Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well about worshiping neither on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth. Judea and Samaria is nearly a quarter of Israel's current land mass, not a small strip of land on the Jordan River, but a vital and strategic part of the nation's identity. The October 7th massacre, launched from Gaza, shattered the illusion that giving away territory brings peace. Gaza, which was once seen as the cornerstone of a two-state solution, became a launchpad for terror. Today, only 21% of Israelis support a Palestinian state. Trust in a two-state solution has all but collapsed. The Middle East is changing. Iran's grip is weakening. New alliances are forming. But Western countries and some U.S. officials still chase the mirage of a two-state solution. History speaks clearly. The 2005 Gaza withdrawal, backed by the U.S., led not to peace, but to a terrorist regime. Judea and Samaria are 24 times larger than Gaza, deeply woven into Israel's geographic and spiritual fabric. To surrender them would not bring peace. It would invite conflict and existential danger. Family Research Council stands with Israel's rightful claim to sovereignty. It's time for America to do the same for history, for justice, and for lasting security in the Middle East.
SPEAKER 22 :
Looking for a trusted source of news that shares your Christian values? Turn to The Washington Stand, your ultimate destination for informed, faith-centered reporting. Our dedicated team goes beyond the headlines, delivering stories that matter most to believers. From breaking events to cultural insights, we provide clear, compassionate coverage through a biblical lens. Discover news you can trust at The Washington Stand, where faith and facts meet every day.
SPEAKER 21 :
Download the new Stand Firm app for Apple and Android phones today. You can join a wonderful community of fellow believers. We've created a special place for you to access news from a biblical perspective. Read and listen to daily devotionals, pray for current events and more. Share the Stand Firm app with your friends, family and church members. And of course, Stand Firm wherever you go.
SPEAKER 10 :
Good afternoon. Welcome back to Washington Watch. I'm Jody Heiss, an honor to be filling in today for Tony and thank you so much for joining us. All right. Earlier this summer, our team here at Family Research Council was among the first, if not the first, to report on an incident regarding a bivocational pastor in Baton Rouge who was fired from his job at a local public library after he refused to use the preferred pronouns of a gender-identifying coworker. Well, that pastor is fighting back, thank God, and he's doing so with the help of our great friends over at Liberty Council. And joining me now to discuss this is Matt Staver, who is the founder and chairman of Liberty Council. He's also pastored several churches and produces a Bible study podcast, among a host of other things that he does. Matt, welcome back to Washington Watch. Always great to see you, my friend.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you, Jody. Always a good opportunity to be with you and the great people at FRC. In fact, it was Family Research Council that broke this story, and that's how Liberty Council learned about this story with Pastor Luke Ash in the East Baton Rouge Parish Library. So thank you for doing so, and thank you for keeping all of us informed.
SPEAKER 10 :
It's great. Well, Pastor Ash actually was with us this past weekend at our PrayVote Stand Summit in Southern California. Matt, I'd like to get started by showing you just a little clip of what he shared, and then we'll go from there. Play the clip for me.
SPEAKER 06 :
I was working there for a few months. And I was in a conversation with a colleague about somebody that she was training. And in the course of that conversation, I used biologically accurate pronouns. And my coworker corrected me. and said that they prefer he. And I said, I don't do that. And she said, you don't use preferred pronouns? And I said, I don't do that. And she said, that's very respectful. And I said, yes, that's very respectful. Thinking about the image of God, how the Lord has created each one of us in his image. And so to tarnish that would be to vandalize the good creation that God has made each and every one of us with the sex that he has given to us. So the next day, I was brought into the office, shown the inclusivity policy. I was given the option to change course. And I said, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to lie. And two days later, I was fired from the library.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, Matt Staver. You know, hearing that, I think most of us instinctively feel what the library did was wrong. But can you tell us a little bit more precisely how the library acted unlawfully here? What did they do?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, they certainly violated Title Seven, which is the law that governs employment. But they also, since they are a public library here, they also violated the federal First Amendment and also the state constitution right to religious freedom. So there's three different different categories of law here that they violated under Title Seven or under the First Amendment, where you have religious free exercise rights, for example. In this particular case, They knew that he had a religiously based objection. He's not going to lie. He's not going to give false pronouns to someone. So they should have asked about how or they should have perceived in determining how they could accommodate this. Well, this is pronouns, right? So how often do you refer to your colleagues by pronouns? You refer to them by first or last name, for example. They could have simply said, whenever talking to this particular employee, can you just use their name? which I'm sure Pastor Lukasz would be happy to do so. He just didn't want to lie. He could use the person's name, whatever that name would be, but he's not going to tell a female employee that they are something other than how God created them as female, in this case, male. That's an absolute lie. So the library should have, it's a very easy accommodation, but in fact, what the library did is they have the so-called inclusivity policy that each employee has a so-called right to choose their own pronouns, but they don't have a right to force other people like Pastor Luke Ash or anyone else to go along with that delusion or that lie. And that's really, I think, the problem with the library. So we sent a demand letter to the East Baton Rouge Parish Library on behalf of Pastor Luke Ash. We are asking them to reverse course. They need to actually reinstate him. They need to pay him back pay as well. And if not, this will result in, unfortunately, litigation against this library because they've clearly violated his rights. And not only to get against Pastor Luke Ash, if they did it against him, they're going to do it against everybody. So this has to end. And I'm glad Pastor Luke Ash is standing up for his freedom.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, we are, too. So what are the possible different outcomes here? What could happen as this moves forward?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, what the preferred option would be is that the library just understands that it made a mistake and they need to apologize. They need to reverse course. They need to bring Pastor Luke Ash back and they need to pay him for back pay. That's really what needs to be done. And then going forward. he doesn't have to refer to someone based upon a false pronoun. He can refer to that person, or this was someone who was new, he could refer to that person by their first or last name. That's an easy fix. That's what really needs to do. But if they don't do that, if they dig their heels in, then I believe this will result in a lawsuit, a federal lawsuit. And I know Family Research Council, you all have been so good at getting this information out. So frankly, the people of Louisiana and the people of Baton Rouge, they ought to be outraged at this, and they ought to make their voice known. This is a publicly supported library, and it's their tax dollars that are supporting this library that people have an interest in correcting.
SPEAKER 10 :
Matt, less than a minute before we've got a hard break here, but what advice would you give to people who may encounter this type of situation? It's not happening just in Baton Rouge. We're seeing more and more of this.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I think Pastor Ash has done the right thing. Number one, he said that he's not going to participate in that false pronoun, and it's based upon his religious beliefs. And stand firm. Don't compromise on this particular issue. You're not helping anybody. You're hurting somebody by giving them a false delusion. And then if you have issues, contact Family Research Council. You can get the word out. Liberty Council will stand beside you to make sure that the legal issues are protected and your rights are protected.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you so much, Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Council. Always great to have you with us. Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you. My pleasure.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, by the way, for those of you who are listening and watching right now, we do have a petition through which you can stand with Pastor Luke and push back against the left's deceptive and destructive ideology that punishes faith. You can simply text the word PASTOR to 67742 to sign that petition. All right, coming up, we've got some very timely discussions that took place at the PrayVoteStand Summit. We'll start with the question, what should we keep in mind when we talk about IVF?
SPEAKER 08 :
A family is the oldest, most tested, and most reliable unit of society. It is divinely created and sustained. And yet, there are those who are always tampering with its values and structure. That's why we need organizations like the Family Research Council that can effectively defend and strengthen the family.
SPEAKER 20 :
Family Research Council began over 40 years ago, like all great movements of God, with prayer. Today, rooted in the heart of the nation's capital, FRC continues to champion faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER 17 :
FRC is one of those bright lights that helps us focus on true north. And I shudder to think had they not been here that it could have been worse, worse, worse.
SPEAKER 15 :
The Family Research Council is key. It's one of a handful of groups that I think will determine whether our children live in a country that enjoyed all of the freedom and all the opportunity that we enjoyed in this great land.
SPEAKER 03 :
It's just a wonderful parachurch organization that doesn't seek to take the place of the church, but it seeks to assist the family and the church as we try to move forward successfully, not in a defensive mode, but in an offensive mode as we seek to live our lives according to the Holy Scriptures.
SPEAKER 01 :
FRC is not going to be whooped. You know, we're going to fight. We're going to take a stand. And again, we don't retreat.
SPEAKER 12 :
You will never see in front of this building here in Washington, D.C., a white flag flying. We will never step back. We will never surrender. And we will never be silent.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome back to Washington Watch. I'm Jody Heiss filling in today for Tony. In vitro fertilization, IVF. Well, it became a topic of discussion once again after President Trump's announcement late last week of new federal actions related to the procedure. And it was also a topic at our PrayVote Stand Summit. And one of our panelists, reproductive endocrinology and infertility physician, Dr. Lauren Rubal, had some great insights on fertility and IVF. So I want to share some of that with you right now. Here's Dr. Rubal with Tony.
SPEAKER 02 :
For much of my career, I did do in vitro fertilization, which is combining eggs and sperm outside of the body to create embryos. And I absolutely believed that what I was doing was the best way forward to help those couples. That IVF is pro-life because it helps create life, right? That's how I started. And I'll tell you, quite frankly... After a period of doing this, I was the head of a division in a large hospital system, and I was starting to feel more and more and more the weight of my actions and what I was doing. And I felt that personally because I knew that I was seeing all these couples. I was seeing almost a third of the time per the national data, couples do IVF, for example, due to unexplained reasons, that they don't have a true diagnosis. And I felt it every day because I said, you know, We just have to kind of move forward and this should be the fix. But it truly is a band-aid and I could sense that, that I wasn't healing when I wasn't addressing those root causes, number one. And then number two, I was intimately involved and really felt like I was playing God. I felt and realized that in fact what in vitro fertilization does is it creates embryos, which are humans in their earliest stages of development. And unfortunately, I was making decisions of life and death for those embryos. In fact, on average, about seven to 11 embryos are created per IVF cycle. And with that being said, when we look at data from Europe or from the UK, they have about 20 years of data showing that there are about 300,000 embryos that have become live-born babies. But guys, this is 5% of embryos that are created based on that same data. And so what that means is that 95% of those human beings in their earliest stages of development are either they die through the process, they're destroyed, or they're frozen indefinitely. And in fact, we know there are millions of embryos that are just suspended in a cryotank somewhere without... potentially the possibility of ever being transferred or given that chance for a life, a life, a true life. And so because of this and because of my realization morally and ethically, I realized I couldn't do what I was doing, that my soul was truly at stake. And therefore... Thank you. Oh, thanks be to God, actually. All glory to him. But I'm here to tell you that the exciting part about this is that even though IVF is actually not the best answer because it's not as effective as we think, it's less than a 50% chance of live birth per treatment cycle.
SPEAKER 12 :
Say that again?
SPEAKER 02 :
It's less than 50% of a live birth.
SPEAKER 12 :
And it's also very costly.
SPEAKER 02 :
incredibly costly. $61,000 on average to achieve a live birth and otherwise about $25,000 per couple.
SPEAKER 12 :
And how much oversight and regulation is there of the industry?
SPEAKER 02 :
There's minimal. There's minimal. And that's why techniques and technologies such as pre-implantation genetic screening, which is a biopsy of those embryos to look at the chromosomes within. There have been different iterations of this technology that have happened for decades already. What has happened is they've finally gotten around to doing studies of this, looking at how this impacts live births. And the thought is, well, if you screen the embryos and we select the best chromosomally normal embryo, they actually find when they finally do the studies that it doesn't significantly improve live births and that there are errors with this technology. And there are babies born after being deemed chromosomally abnormal by this technique that are perfectly normal, chromosomally, no defects, no issues, live-born babies. So lots of issues.
SPEAKER 12 :
So there's issues there, and there's moral, there's theological, there's health issues, there's cost issues, there's so much. But you've got couples. I mean, I have five children. My wife and I took a few years to get to our first one. We had some issues we had to go through. But the Lord blessed us with five children. And I can't imagine what life would be without my children. And so there are couples struggling to have children that want children because I mean, I think we're created that way, but there's another alternative.
SPEAKER 02 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Speak to that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. And so that's very true also, just in general, that children are always a gift, no matter how they come, you know, and how they're conceived. But restorative reproductive medicine is an ethical, affordable, and effective alternative to IVF. And what this means is this is essentially a process whereby we look at the root causes of why people are dealing with infertility or losses and For example, that 30% unexplained infertility diagnosis goes down to 1% when you use RRM or restorative methods to figure it out, which is unbelievable. And not only that, like I said, it's incredibly effective. If we think of a 37% chance of live birth per IVF cycle for everyone in the U.S., according to recent data, With restorative reproductive medicine, there are studies showing a 30% to 66% chance of live birth over a period of two years using, again, techniques that help and restore your own health, your wellness, and decrease risk to moms and babies, too.
SPEAKER 12 :
And it doesn't create the excess embryos that then are just suspended out there forever. That's right. Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
That was part of our panel on the life issue at last week's PrayVoteStand Summit. To watch the entire panel, visit TonyPerkins.com. All right, coming up, I want to share with you another panel on the topic of Israel. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER 13 :
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Family Research Council invites you to join our Stand on the Word Bible reading plan as we reflect upon the life of Jesus, the Word who dwelt among us. Come with us and discover the glory of the Word. Read the Gospels and witness the life-changing story of Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection. Come read how Jesus transformed the lives of common people and how those same people transformed the known world through the power of the Holy Spirit. Come with us for 10 to 15 minutes a day and read the entire New Testament before the new year. Find our Bible reading plan in daily devotionals from Tony Perkins at frc.org slash Bible. Join us in Stand on the Word.
SPEAKER 18 :
Three years ago, the Supreme Court issued its historic Dobbs decision, a ruling that overturned Roe versus Wade, which for nearly 50 years imposed abortion on demand, silencing voters and bypassing the democratic process across the country. The Dobbs decision was a huge step forward against abortion, but it didn't outright ban it. It returned the power to the people. Now, 29 states have laws on the books protecting life. However, there's a catch. Abortion numbers since Dobbs have actually gone up with an increase of 12% since 2020, climbing from 930,000 to over 1 million in each of the most recent years. So how can this be? The answer is simple, the abortion drug. Today, over 60% of U.S. abortions involve abortion drugs, many of these without medical oversight. In 2021, the Biden administration quietly removed bare minimum longstanding safety protocols for the abortion drug that have existed for 20 years to protect women from life threatening risks and ensuring informed consent. The Biden DOJ then declared that they would not enforce the Comstock Act, which prevents the mailing of anything that causes an abortion. This is not only illegal, but also dangerous. A study shows nearly 11% of women who take the abortion drug end up in the emergency room with serious complications. Unless the Trump administration reverses these reckless Biden-era policies, pro-life laws will remain largely symbolic without a full review and repeal of Mifepristone. Unborn lives will remain in grave danger, and pregnant mothers will remain at risk. Let's stand for life and end this mail-order abortion drug pipeline. Sign the petition urging the Trump administration to take action at frc.org slash stop chemical abortion.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome back to Washington Watch. I'm Jody Heiss filling in today for Tony. As the delicate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas continues to hold, we thought it'd be fitting to share a portion of the panel we had on Israel during last week's PrayVoteStand Summit. Tony was joined by Pastor Jack Hibbs and former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, and they discussed their concerns with the Trump administration's 20-point peace plan for Israel and Hamas. Let's start with Michelle's reaction to the plan.
SPEAKER 04 :
So then the plan comes out, and this made all the bells go off in my head because contained with the plan is the understanding that Israel, that by the way, They were within two weeks of winning this war with Hamas. They already controlled 80% of Gaza. They were just right there coming in for the victory. Go back to World War II. We soundly defeated Imperial Japan, soundly defeated Nazi Germany. So when that happened, they're clear winner, clear loser. That's what you need in the Middle East for the Arab mind. The Arab mind needs to know there's a clear winner, clear loser. And by the way, the loser loses land. That's how the Arab mind works. So just about as Israel is reaching the goalpost, in comes our envoys, Wyckoff and Jared Kushner, and say, wait, stop it. You can't win. Sorry, we're not going to let you win. And so now we're going to have a ceasefire. And now we're going to negotiate. And in the negotiation, Israel, you're not getting control over the land. You're not getting it. And by the way, if the Arabs do everything right, there's a hint, they might get their own state out of this deal. Judea, Samaria, and maybe Gaza for their own country. I mean, this is like shocking stuff. Absolute barbarians, murdering, raping barbarians. They're going to get rewarded. And Israel's going to get what? 20 emaciated people back. That's what they're getting out of the deal. 20 emaciated people and dead corpses. That's the deal they're getting. After they've lost the lives of 2,500 people and two years in this nation, when we saw one miracle from the hand of God after another, week after week after week, you saw the miraculous hand of Almighty God win and defeat Hezbollah, defeat Iran, defeat in Yemen, defeat Israel. every enemy on seven front wars. We watched the Bible play out for the last two years, and God was victorious over Israel's enemies. And just as we have the weakest of all enemies, Hamas, and Israel's about to go and defeat them, because again, Israel is handcuffed. We, the United States, we were the bad guys for the last two years. Under the Biden administration, America handcuffed Israel and told them, you're not allowed to win. You can't win. And we denied them ammunition. We denied them weapons. We made Israel's life miserable. That was under Joe Biden. Then when President Trump came in, it took a long time to ramp up to get them the weapons and the ammunition. But then weirdly, out of nowhere, Jared Kushner reenters the scene. What had he been doing? He struck a $2.5 billion deal with the Saudis and the Qataris when President Trump left office the first time. Okay, that's his thing. That's what he's doing. But you're going to bring him back in to negotiate the deal? Somebody who has... has financial arrangements on the line, and is a junior business partner of Saudi Arabia that's clearly been involved in terrorism against the United States, and Qatar, which is actively involved in terrorism. And you should know this, by the way. You wonder why American students, Christians, conservatives, have turned against Israel. I'll tell you why. It's because for the last two years, it's documented, Qatar has spent over $200 billion... billion dollars in America targeting your kids and targeting you. They spent it on American newsrooms, on influencers, and in academic institutions. So all those riots at Columbia University paid for courtesy of Qatar. Not just Soros, Qatar. Okay, so why is American policy that we're going to allow that? Why is it that two weeks ago, President Trump announced an executive order that we, the United States, are going to give a NATO-type guarantee to Qatar? Anybody who attacks Qatar, America is going to defend Qatar. In what universe? Why? This just came out. Just this week it came out. I love Pete Hegseth. Went to church with him since he was in high school. Beautiful believer. But he had a meeting where he was with, I think, his counterpart from Qatar saying that now we are going to host Qatari F-15s in Boise, Idaho on an American airbase. Unbelievable. So why are we rewarding the chief funder of terrorism, the nation that has housed and hosted Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical terrorist organization? Why are we rewarding them when their goal, and they've been propagandizing our students against Israel? Why are we doing this? So I'm asking these questions and thinking, I don't know, I'm looking at this 20-point plan. and they're talking about taking away Israel's land, which would violate Joel chapter 3, verses 1 through 3, and perhaps take away control, or at least at minimum, allowing Israel the right to annex, which means to put their sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, which since 1967, Israel owned Gaza... And they've owned Judea, Samaria. So under international law, this is their land. And now it looks like under the Trump plan, the plan is saying, yeah, Israel, you've owned it since 67, but Gaza, we're going to sever that off and we're going to give it to Qatar. And we're going to give it to Saudi Arabia. And we're going to give it to all these wealthy Arabs. You paid the blood and treasure, but we're giving it to them. In what universe? And Judea, Samaria. In what universe? So I'm looking at this thinking, oh. This isn't political. This is biblical. And so what's going to happen to the United States of America? Because God is no respecter of persons. We will not mock him when it comes to his people. And again, Pastor Jack has been brilliant to teach his congregation about the times that we're living in. These are prophetic days. As we're looking at all these convergence of events that are happening that the Bible predicts, This is when we want to sit up and fly right and make sure that we're part of the five virgins with full oil lamps right now. Because the king is coming.
SPEAKER 11 :
That's right. I'm glad a woman delivered that message just now because... Wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I won't be invited to the White House for Christmas, I can tell you that. And I don't mean to be mean. Honestly, I'm not mean.
SPEAKER 12 :
I think we have to be truthful, and what we're looking at this is from the biblical lens of how things should be. And I agree with Michelle's analysis of the 20-point plan. In fact, we've communicated our concerns to the White House. Any effort that would take a an official position that would divide the land puts America in a very dangerous place.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's judgment against God. If you've read Bill Koenig's book, Eye to Eye, he documents the consequences of dividing the land, and they're ferocious. So we don't want to see the United States put in that position of judgment.
SPEAKER 11 :
In fact, the scripture says, you referred to Joel, God says in the end when he returns that he will draw the nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat and judge them for dividing up my land and selling my people as though they were chattel. using the Jew for whatever and dividing up. He says, not the Jewish land. He says, it's my land. And of course, that's what he said to Abraham. It's my land. I'm making you a promise, but it's my land. But what she said is exactly spot on. And it should cause all of us as Americans to tremble in the sense for our nation. Remember, we were talking about Jefferson just the other day. Jefferson said, I tremble when I think that God's wrath is
SPEAKER 04 :
That's written on the Jefferson Monument in D.C. I tremble for the nation when I think that we would expose ourselves to the wrath of God when we violate his word.
SPEAKER 11 :
That God's judgment and wrath will not always sleep. What becomes of the United States if we... participate in leading Israel down the wrong path is remarkable to me for just many reasons, but this one. To whom much is given, much is required. This nation has been given more than any other nation in all of human history. And if we turn... On Israel. I believe in short order. I don't mean 100 years. I don't think 50 years. I think in short order you will see the hand of God's judgment fall upon this Christ-rejecting nation. And I think the only thing that spares this nation from imminent judgment is the presence of the believers.
SPEAKER 12 :
That is... what I want to go to next, because I want to lay out just a little context here, and I'll just put this out here as informational points, and the Holy Spirit can lead you to process it. I wouldn't give it to AI, but I would give it to the Holy Spirit. So as I've talked about, I've been around here for a while in Washington, D.C., and I was a part of the conversations back in 2004 when the Bush administration and Prime Minister Sharon was convinced, you know, they had made the decision to disengage from Gaza. And they got the evangelicals together in Washington to convince us that that was a good idea. And I was relatively new. So I didn't say a whole lot, but I did raise my hand and say, you know, I think that's kind of contrary to what the Bible says is going to happen. Oh, no, no, this is going to be peace. This is going to be peace because we're going to give them Gaza as a place, and so it's going to bring about peace. So there was a disengagement. They actually literally, they dug up the graves of the Jewish people that were there. They bulldozed the homes and they took them out. That happened on August the 23rd. It was a two-day where they got all the people out. That was August the 23rd of 2005. August 25th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit America. To this day, the most expensive natural disaster in history. Michelle was in the White House. I was there in January.
SPEAKER 04 :
January 28th of 2020 when President Trump revealed his peace plan that envisioned division of the land. This was Jared Kushner's plan for the peace process. And it was a list of everything that the Arab countries had to do. But if they did, then they would get Judea, Samaria. And it envisioned division of the land. And I remember my heart sunk to my toes. I sat in the third row. Alan Dershowitz is in front of me and Mike Pompeo was in front of him. And President Trump was up there with a big map of what it would look like, the division of the land. And I thought, are you flipping kidding me? I couldn't believe it. And it was less than 24 hours later that the COVID task force was set up with Fauci at the head. And President Trump lost control of his presidency and then lost the election. Benjamin Netanyahu was up there. He was in agreement with the plan. He lost his prime ministership that week because the police brought charges against him. He lost his prime ministership. They had five elections. They went four elections with no government. It never happened before in Israeli history. It was devastating to Israel. And on the 5th, he came back in as prime minister. So the United States suffered trillions of dollars of loss from COVID. Easily $5 trillion, if not $6 trillion in loss. And you know what we all went through with that. And look at Israel, the price Israel paid in their own society. And so isn't it unique? I mean, just step back for a second. This happened, this level of Joel 3 judgment happened not only in our lifetime, like five years ago this judgment happened, and then God allowed supernaturally? How often would you see a coincidence like this?
SPEAKER 12 :
Let me give you one more data point. before you come to a conclusion. You were doing great. I was on a roll. If I can't finish it, it's his fault. But I'm going to give her a little more fodder. It was 20 days ago that the 20 point plan was unveiled. Two days later, what happened?
SPEAKER 04 :
Government shutdown?
SPEAKER 12 :
Government shutdown. Coincidence? I mean, you do not, in fact, let me give you another data point. France was the first country in this latest go-around to advocate for a two-state solution, a Palestinian state. They led the other, many of the other European countries at the end of September at the United Nations. You know what happened to France three weeks ago? Their government collapsed.
SPEAKER 04 :
And continues to collapse.
SPEAKER 12 :
They cannot get their parliament together.
SPEAKER 04 :
He appoints a prime minister, he resigns, and then he appoints him again. It's like a clown show in France right now.
SPEAKER 11 :
Coincidence? If France is the strong horse leading the way, then Europe is over.
SPEAKER 12 :
So what do we do with this? So, again, I go back to how I started with the illustration from Isaiah chapter 6. Many would think, I think, look, I am grateful for the policies that President Trump has put into place, many of these policies, and we are grateful that God has given us this reprieve. But to understand these issues, you have to be spiritually minded and to be able to see. And unfortunately, there is not that depth of spiritual understanding in this administration as we had in the first Trump administration. And so how do we compensate for that? We need to pray. We need to, and this is, we're not sharing this information to be critical. We're sharing this information so there's a sense of urgency of how the church must pray and speak into this because we all, we all will be affected by the outcome if we get this wrong. And as Pastor Jack and I talked last night, the nation of Israel and getting it wrong on this could have incredible consequences.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, that was part of our Israel panel last week at the PrayVoteStand Summit. If you'd like to watch the entire panel, visit TonyPerkins.com. It was a powerful one indeed. All right, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. Hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll join us again tomorrow right here, same time, same place, for more of Washington Watch.
SPEAKER 20 :
Washington Watch with Tony Perkins is brought to you by Family Research Council. To support our efforts to advance faith, family, and freedom, please text GIVE to 67742. That's GIVE to 67742. Portions of the show discussing candidates are brought to you by Family Research Council Action. For more information, please visit TonyPerkins.com.
In this episode, Scott welcomes Travis Peacock, the owner of Airgun Outdoors, for a detailed discussion on the modern airgun industry. Travis shares his journey from IT to airguns, highlighting the community-driven events he hosts and the evolving airgun technology. Learn about the legal uses of airguns in Colorado, their applications for small game hunting, and the technological advancements that make airguns a versatile option for shooters of all ages.
SPEAKER 10 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado's premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado's top outfitters featuring the industry's leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here's your host, Scott Watley.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, we've got a great show in store for you. Just a quick reminder now, if you miss our live show on Saturdays, you can catch us on Sundays at 8 in the morning, 8 at night, then the following Thursday from 9 to 10 a.m. So we're actually on four times a week here with Sportsman of Colorado, and hopefully one of those times will work out for you. And, of course, you can get our podcast wherever you get yours. Well, it's been a little bit since this gentleman has been with us, and that's been 1,000% my fault. But Travis Peacock, he is the owner of Airgun Outdoors in Parker. Their number is 720-603-3099. It's airgunoutdoors.com. And Travis and I met several years ago, and I tell you, got into the airgun space finally and i'm telling you it's a blast so before i go any further proper introduction travis peacock how are you sir hey doing well scott how are you good to see you and we're coming to you live from the world headquarters here of aragon we stopped by and just said hey let's just do the show here at your store so uh we're doing that today so if you you hear a phone ring or a doorbell go off here hey we are in the showroom here They are located, by the way, at 12543 North State Highway 86, right? 83, I'm sorry, yeah. And really, it's Parker Road, okay, not to confuse anything, okay? And so, hey, pretty easy to find and all. And once again, if you have not looked at air guns in a while, this is a must stop. You must come over and look. So, Travis, first of all, it has been a while since you've been on. Let's tell folks a little bit about yourself. And everybody thinks of a gun store, but needless to say, very few have thought about opening an air gun store. So how'd this all come about?
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, thanks for having me on, Scott. You bet. So I opened a store about four years ago. I'm a retired IT consultant, so this was my fun job. I've always been involved with outdoors air guns for about the last 20 years. Like these type of air guns, not... You know, most people think of air guns. They think of the stuff we grew up with, you know, King in the Yard and stuff. Benjamin Crossman, .22 caliber, pump it ten times. Right. Yeah, totally different world as you know now. But, yeah, it's just – it was – too early to really retire. So I wanted to do something and something I enjoyed this time. So that's why I opened the store and it's been great. I've met so many great people. And my favorite part of the job is sharing the hobby with people. Because as you know, 90% of the people that are not familiar with these guns, they just, they have no idea what they are. You know, as you know, they're outstanding accuracy. They're quiet. And in my shop, I go from 17 to 50 caliber. Wow. So, yeah, it's quite a wide range.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I guess with like anything, you know, if you get into something, you know, whether it's just shooting maybe at a range or you get into archery, you know, there's kind of a great community in each one of these sectors. And there is an air gun community here in the area.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and that's something I'm trying to grow a little bit. Every first Saturday of the month I have a thing called Good Morning Airguns where I bring in coffee and donuts and local airgun guys come in or even just people that are interested in getting more information and checking things out. So the first Saturday of every month at 9 a.m., there's a group that get together and we sit and eat donuts and drink coffee and BS about air guns.
SPEAKER 06 :
What a great way to start a Saturday. Exactly.
SPEAKER 12 :
Guns, donuts, and coffee.
SPEAKER 06 :
You're all good. You know, you mentioned with kids and things. I just want to kind of start there because sometimes you'll see things where somebody puts them on with a kid shooting, you know. 20 12 gauge shotgun it's just too much for them and the kids scared everybody thinks it's funny but we both know it's not the right thing to do for kids this is something that hey you know you live kind of maybe with neighbors around different things like that and you want to get your kid into shooting and teach them some safety practices how to shoot accuracy and all Man, what a great way to start with air guns.
SPEAKER 12 :
Definitely. And I have a lot of customers that once they come in and purchase a gun, then they realize, hey, this is the perfect avenue to get my kids and my whole family shooting. No recoil. Next to no noise. They're extremely quiet. A lot of times the impact of what you're shooting is louder than the shot. I've had tons of kids come in and they're so excited because dad let me shoot by, you know, his air gun. And now they're like, Hey, when I get a little older, can I get one? And, you know, so it's, yeah, I love that part. It's, you know, keeping kids in the outdoors or getting them started. And, you know, um, yeah, we've all seen the videos online where somebody throws a, you know, a 12 gauge in a 10 year old's hand and they, they, after they shoot it, they don't want to shoot anymore. So we don't want that. We want kids to love the outdoors. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Once again, Travis Peacock is with us. It's Airgun Outdoors. And as I mentioned, they're located at 12543 Legal Address, North State Highway 83. But it's really just right off Parker Road here. What's this road? Pine Lane. Pine Lane. Yeah, right here in Parker. All right. Let's kind of talk about, I mean, man, we live in an area where you talk about coyotes are a problem, you know. A lot of rabbits eating people's gardens, different things. And, hey, some people deal with them in some ways. Some people deal with them in others. And air guns work well. Exactly. So let's talk about what's legal because there may be some people out there, you know, what is legal in the state of Colorado as we speak?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, first and foremost, you know, always check your regulations, make sure seasons and whatnot. But in Colorado, you can use air guns for small game. You can use air guns for fall turkey and for fur bears, so coyotes, things like that. Not big game as of yet, but hopefully soon it's... It's something that... Because there are some states that have that legal. Oh, yeah. I believe there's 29 states currently where big game is legal with air guns. And, you know, it's... As far as a tool for, you know, like prairie dogs, things like that, I have a ton of customers that are utilizing them out on the ranches for prairie dogs. And... Um, either in, you know, some smaller horse properties where, because they can't, you know, the number one, they don't want to poison. Um, and number two, they can't shoot anything large there. Sure. So like I said, I can go all the way down to 17 caliber if you have to worry about what's around and, uh, With that, you can dial it back, but the accuracy is crazy. I mean, I was telling you, we shoot flies at like 30, 40 yards with these. It's like literally. For testing and things like that, they work great. we've had customers that had a mouse problem. So set them up with an air gun and a thermal scope and they shot 450 mice. So after that, they had no more problems with mice in their house. News travel.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
And on top of that, you know, just taking care of the problem is it's a lot of fun. Yeah. So if you've never shot a mouse with a thermal air gun or, you know, an air gun with a thermal scope on it, it's, Yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to find more fun than that.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. All right, we're here at the store, as I mentioned, when we started, so I'm just going to turn here on the wall, and I wish we had a podcast segment with video where you could see what we're talking about. But these look extremely cool. I mean, these guns are unbelievable. I want to talk about just some of the features on one. And you can even take the one that I've got from you. You know, because there's a power selection there. Kind of walk us through. what one is kind of made like today.
SPEAKER 12 :
Sure. And I can actually, if you want, what might be best is my top selling gun is from a manufacturer in Sweden called FX Airguns. And this one is the FX Impact M4. Cool thing about this gun is you can change calibers. You can change configuration, turn it into a compact all the way up to what they call the sniper edition, which is just a longer barrel, larger bottle. So more shots, more power. And then that platform, you can go anywhere from 177 up to 357. So you buy a barrel kit and a magazine for subsequent barrel or calibers that you want. And in two minutes, you've got a completely different setup then. wow and then the the power gauge that's like usually like a one to seven or something like that yeah it depends on the gun but yeah some of them are one to seven one to sixteen one to twenty three so what happens is that's actually um you're adjusting the hammer spring preload uh so you know you have to think of an air gun that's pretty much a mechanical device there's you know regulators and then a hammer hammer hits the valve uh and then lets air out goes through the transfer port out the barrel So with the dial, the adjuster that you're talking about, what you're doing is you're adjusting how much air is coming out. So you're dictating the performance of the gun that way. And what's really cool is it's on the fly. So I have a lot of customers that are... Actually, the majority of my customers are firearm enthusiasts as well. And a lot of them reload. So what I tell them is think of reloading, but instead of... adjusting your grains, all you're doing is dialing. So it's the same thing, but you can do it on the fly.
SPEAKER 06 :
So if you're sitting there, let's say you're just out planking and you wanted on two or three to give you more shots. Coyote runs across you out there and all of a sudden you turn it up and wham, right? Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
You just know your holdovers. Yeah. But I have a ton of people doing that. I have folks that have their guns set up to plink and then the next week they're hog hunting in Texas. I have a lot of customers that hog hunt. Air guns are great because same thing with coyotes. They're really quiet. So you can... you know you have a hog or a coyote that comes in take your shot and you're not scaring everything you know within a mile away they in most cases have no idea sure and then you've got a gauge on the side to let you know how your pressure is doing correct yes um and most of the guns are regulated so what it does is takes that higher pressure regulates it down to a lower pressure and so then every shot's consistent gotcha now
SPEAKER 06 :
You'll see where the gauge goes up pretty high, but then most of them, do you put it about, because I think on mine it's 250?
SPEAKER 12 :
It just depends on the model, the manufacturer, but most of the guns in here go up to 250 bar, which is 3625 PSI. All right.
SPEAKER 06 :
So you need a compressor, okay, which that is pretty easy. Look, Travis will tell you I'm the least mechanical guy in the world. Okay. I mean, if it says on and off, I'm good, but other than that, I need some instruction. Okay. But it was super easy to learn how to do. And so I'll let you walk through the steps when you get one.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, no problem. And one of the biggest questions I get is, can my compressor at home fill this? And the answer is not even close. Most garage compressors go up to about 150 PSI. the compressors that i sell here um go up to 4500 psi right so it's yeah definitely a difference in in pressure but uh um you can set so i have customers have multiple guns one gun may go to you know 230 bar another one to uh 250 bar another one all the way up to 300 bar so what's nice is on the compressor you set the fill pressure and it has an auto stop feature so as it gets to that it shuts off you bleed off the line disconnect your gun you're ready to go right so really i mean man you take it out of the it's got a nice little carrying case uh or the option of the carrying case right carrying case and uh hey it's real easy man just carry over your shoulder if you're gonna go out and
SPEAKER 06 :
uh... do some shooting and uh... yep just hook it up the gun and like i say he pre-set mine to where it just shuts off at that two fifty and uh... it doesn't take that long just a few minutes yeah just a few minutes and then also they're ac dc so if you are out in the field you can just hook it onto your battery and
SPEAKER 12 :
And Phil from there, too. Wow.
SPEAKER 06 :
What are most people, for a break here, what are most people so surprised when they come in and they haven't looked at guns in a while? I mean, you must just see jaws drop because when you walk in here, you would think you're in anything but an air gun store, right?
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, exactly. Yeah. I have people, they're like, I can't believe that this is, you know, these are air guns. Right. Um, you know, most of them are anticipating, you know, if you walk through a big box store and see like the break barrel air guns and that's, I don't carry anything like that. It's all, it's all high end, uh, um, high pressure pneumatic air guns.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Um, so yeah, they're, they'll walk in and like, wow. And then they, they hold them and, you know, check and, and they can see exactly, you know, they could feel the build quality and, um, and shoulder them and they're like, wow, this is not what I expected.
SPEAKER 06 :
I'm telling you, as Travis said at the beginning, just so quiet, unbelievably accurate. If you've been thinking about one or you haven't ever thought about one, highly recommend you come by and see Travis. Once again, it's airgunoutdoors.com. The number is 720-603-3099. The address is 12543 North State Highway 83, just off Parker Road and Pine Lane. We've got to take a quick break. We'll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
If you're in the market for a new rifle for the big game season or a new shotgun for some doves or upland game birds, head on over to The Gun Room. Kevin Flesch here from Sportsman of Colorado, inviting you to visit Denver's oldest gun dealer. And that's The Gun Room at 1595 Carr Street in Lakewood. They offer buy, trade, consignment, transfers, and appraisals. And if you purchase a gun, we'll cover your background check fee. It's The Gun Room, 1595 Carr Street. Tell them Sportsman of Colorado sent you.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
This is 560-KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sports From Colorado. Again, thank you so much for being with us. Just a quick reminder now, you miss our live show here on Saturdays. You can catch us twice on Sundays, 8 a.m., 8 p.m., and then the following Thursday from 9 to 10 a.m. So, hey, four times a week here on KLZ 560. And, of course, you can get our podcast anywhere you get yours. Well, it's been a while since my good buddy Sergio Alcazar has been in studio with us, ALC Global Adventures. Good to see you, my friend.
SPEAKER 11 :
Good to see you. It's always good to be here, and thank you so much for inviting me again.
SPEAKER 06 :
You bet. So what hunting here have you done in the past? I guess dove season kicked it off, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Dove season here in Colorado was pretty good the first few weeks, and then I was down in Mexico just about two hours south of the Texas border just for white-wing doves, three, four days, and that was incredible. They have about 21 million birds in that area. That was the count, so plenty to shoot.
SPEAKER 06 :
Probably 20 million now that you were there. I tried.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, definitely. We put a little dent in it, a tiny one.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, you take trips down there with people, correct?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Tell us about that.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, we actually, a lot of people ask about Mexico for obvious reasons. And the number one outfitter that we hunt with there, he's been there for close to 20 years. And he takes close to 700 clients a year down there for dove and duck and quail. And the nice thing is that you don't fly into Mexico. You fly into Bronzeville, Texas. So very easy. You get there. They pick you up. And then you have about a two hour drive, two and a half hour drive to the lodge. And they provide everything for you. All you need to do is bring your clothes and they have laundry service, just like in Africa, places you've been. So it's a very, very easy hunt. And, you know, it's been safe. I mean, really, I mean, the border was the crossing of the border was 30 minutes to come back into the States. Now that with Trump, you know, everything he's done in the border, I mean, it's made it, in my opinion, safer. You know, for us hunters, for Americans, yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, at least you got a gun. Oh, yeah. You know, if something goes wrong, you got a gun.
SPEAKER 11 :
That's right. So, you know, a lot of shells, too.
SPEAKER 06 :
So that always helps, you know. So what's a trip like that run? Somebody's listening and they say, hey, maybe we'll do something.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, so they do six hunts in each trip, you know, three mornings, three afternoons for either duck or doves. Or you can make some wild quail as well. Okay. And the dove hunt is $27.50. All right. And that includes basically everything. The only thing you pay extra after that is $400 for tips for the whole staff. I'm talking about bird boys, cooks, everything. And your shells, which they run anywhere between $20 to $24 a box of 25, which is reasonable. So he makes it very easy for you just to pay your fee, and then all you need to do is shells and tips. And the guns are there. The bird boys are there. And the cooks are great. The accommodations, you know, they have a pool.
SPEAKER 06 :
And they got great guns, I've heard you say, too. They got great shotguns here.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, basically Benelli's and Beretta's, 20 gauges and 12 gauges, semi-automatics. And they have plenty of them. They always bring extra guns for you in case one, for whatever reason, jams or whatever. So it's a great trip. And the weather, even in the winter, even when you go there in February, I mean, it's cold in the morning, which is nice. You know, maybe 40s or, you know, maybe high 30s. And during the day, it goes up to like 65, 70. So it's a great place to hunt ducks. We're going back in February again, and it's a great place to go.
SPEAKER 06 :
So when you go kind of dove season, about the same as here, kicks off somewhere around that first of September? Earlier, actually. That's a nice thing. What's your window of time for trips?
SPEAKER 11 :
For doves, actually, it's at the beginning of August. Oh, wow. And then it ends about now, about a week ago, so middle of October. Because these are wide-wing doves, so they start migrating into Central America about now.
SPEAKER 06 :
Are they bigger than our normal doves?
SPEAKER 11 :
They are bigger, and they fly in a pattern that it's a lot nicer to shoot. You know, I mean, it's almost like pigeons but a little faster, and it's a beautiful bird. So the shooting is really good, high shots, low shots. It's not like the morning doves that are kind of like, you know, squirreling around and blowing the ground. No, these ones, it's a lot of nice, nice shooting. You can really practice almost any shot you want when you are there. And then the dock season starts normally about now, maybe another week or so. probably beginning of November, and then runs into the late February. And the nice thing of that is that we shoot a lot of redheads, and 80% of the population of redheads winters there. So the ducks are there. There's no question about it. And then we do those in the Laguna Madre, which is a saltwater lagoon towards the ocean. And then we have a lot of freshwater ponds for pintles, wigeons, all the three-teal, cinnamon-teal, and all that. And people that want to do a little mix, they can do quail hunts. And in my opinion, I was born and raised hunting quail in central Mexico. So I can tell you right now it's probably one of the best places in the world to shoot quail, bobwhite quail. I mean, wild quail, 100%. And you normally can flush anywhere between 12 to 14 cobbies in two and a half hours. It's crazy. It's really good hunting. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
Now, if you take some waterfowl over there, can you bring those back to have them mounted with taxidermists? Yeah. What's the easiest? Get them done over there? Get them shipped here? You can.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay. But to be honest with you, with the paperwork and then who you get in the border when you cross back into the state, sometimes you get officers that they are not very familiar with the rules, and that delays a whole group. so the outfitter does not encourage that so you go shoot them you take some great pictures they donate birds they cook for you and that's about it they don't really yeah want you to bring them because it could be a hassle you know so it's not worth it yeah all right so that's one thing under alc global adventures you can help take people on those trips what are some others you do We basically offer hunts anywhere in the world for any big game species you want, even some fishing. So if someone wants something in Africa, we have pretty much five, six, seven different outfitters down there. New Zealand, I mean, you name it, we have it. And one of the things we offer is that every outfitter that we send people to has been vetted before and checked. I have personally checked quite a few of them, but, I mean, obviously it's impossible for me to be all over the world and checking all of them. So I have associated myself with Craig Boddington Endorse Outfitters, which... Greg Boddington has been in your show. Sure. And they specialize in that. I think it's one of the only companies that I know that they do that. They don't send people anywhere. What they do is they vet outfitters around the world. They go check them. And every year, you know, they basically check with their clients, be sure everything is good. If for some reason an outfitter fails, you know, the standards, they literally ask him to leave. So they pay a fee to be vetted and to be part of the Craig Bonington Endorsed Outfitters. And with them, I literally have a network of outfitters anywhere in the world that have been checked. they are basically first class. So that's, that's a nice thing. You can, we can customize a hunt anywhere you want.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. You know, I think we've both been to places maybe early on in our hunting careers, especially where, and even later, sometimes you just hear of a place and you want to go to that region of the world or whatever. And it's nothing like you thought it was going to be. And that's such a bummer, you know, when communicate, maybe I didn't ask the right questions and we're going to go over that later here in the show, trying to help you not have these kinds of problems, but yeah, You always got to just make sure what's important to you is communicated to find out what their answers are going to be right. Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
I mean, some of these hunts are very expensive and a lot of people save a lot of money for years. And then the last thing you want is to be in... the east part of Russia and find out that, you know, it's a disappointing place to stay and their vehicles are terrible and the guns don't work. And it's happened to me. And, you know, I have vetted outfitters and I'm like, okay, well, I'm not coming back and I'm not sending anybody here. Thank you. I mean, it's a risk. So you really want to be sure that these people are checked and that everything up to your standards. I mean, it's a big risk and a lot of money. Right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Again, Sergio Alcázar is with us. It's ALC Global Adventures. If you've got questions for Sergio, hey, give him a call, 303-921-3055. We've known each other many years now, and we 1,000%. endorse stand behind him so i tell you he's a guy you can trust and uh will deliver you a good hunt um and with that says i had a guy that day was real mad because he went with an outfitter he didn't see any he didn't see one elk during muzzleloader season and he called and said what can i do i said well dude it's hunting you know it's not shooting i mean you never know i've been on some hunts with gods and didn't see an animal and didn't get to pull the trigger sometimes it happens like that right
SPEAKER 11 :
Absolutely. And I think that the way people have to approach this is, and you know, we're hunters. So, I mean, when you go with an outfitter and you don't see anything, but you know that the outfitter has done everything right. He's telling you to quality properties. I mean, you're seeing sign and sometimes the weather. I mean, they can't control the weather. They can't control these wild animals, you know, their patterns and things like that. But you get the idea if the outfitter has done their homework or not. And that's where it could be disappointing. Or you're like, well, you have to understand at the end of the day, it's hunting. It's not fenced. It's free range. So there's so much you can do to control these things.
SPEAKER 06 :
So what's your favorite? Some people have asked me before, like, if you had to hunt one thing the rest of your life, what would that one thing be? First of all, that would be very hard to do because I love all the different things. But if you had to just...
SPEAKER 11 :
hunt one thing what would it be what's your favorite well and for for me ducks yeah i love hunting ducks over decoys that's probably one of my favorite things to do um and then for big game whitetails yeah i i have a passion for whitetail deer you know and and again maybe turkey's a little underneath it's hard to say right i mean it's like no how can i pick but i think those will be my three yeah you're three one three give me three not one yeah for sure
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, you're listening to Sports from Colorado. Don't go anywhere. When we come back in this break, Serge and I are going to go over some things to help people. When you are looking to book a hunt, what should you look for? How do you know who's good, who's not? If you go to a lot of shows around, I'll tell you this right now. Now, we do some vetting. I just want to be careful how I say this. We do some vetting with our Mile High Hunt and Fish Expo. Once again, that's going to be in March this year, and we'll try to talk about that here before we get out of here today. But we do some vetting there because we're just trying to deliver a different type show. But in most cases, anybody can buy a booth. Would you agree with that?
SPEAKER 01 :
Anybody can buy a booth.
SPEAKER 06 :
Anybody can buy a booth. Sometimes you have people work in the booth that really don't have anything to do with that outfitter. They may be somewhere across the world, and it's during their hunting season, and they may have some clients that will be there. with their booth they may just hire some people to be at their booth you really never know but anyway we'll come back we're going to try to help you out with some tips and uh hey it may be too late for this year but maybe it'll help you in the future so Sergio Alcázar is with us ALC Global Adventures and we'll be right back
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Dan. You know, our jobs are pretty different. I'm a baseball announcer. You're an attorney and a talk show host. Yeah, but we do have something in common. Really? What's that?
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Here's your Water Talk Minute with Paul the Waterman, brought to you by Water Pros.
SPEAKER 02 :
So, one of the things that we've learned, and you can check this out factually information for yourself by going to theepa.gov. The EPA has a laundry list of unregulated contaminants, and what that means, folks, is that your municipality does not have to test for these contaminants, and so they're not reported in your annual water quality report. This is something that has to change. We have a false sense of security about the quality of our drinking water, from pharmaceuticals to the levels of PFAS and Gen X chemicals, which was recently removed from the EPA contamination list. And for example, there's a contaminant on the unregulated list called 1,4-Dioxin. 1,4-Dioxin has been in our water supply since the early 1900s. Check out my podcast on Spotify, Paul the Waterman, or waterpros.net.
SPEAKER 03 :
You're listening to 560-KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sports from Colorado. If you're just joining us, Sergio Alcazar is with us. ALC Global Adventures, 303-921-3055. And if you're just getting in the car, turn on the radio, and you missed our first segment, Sergio is someone that you can 100% trust to help you find a good hunt, hey, anywhere in the world. He's got some outstanding connections, and even here, of course, locally in the States as well. And highly recommend you give him a call. If you are looking to book a hunt, I see a lot of things on social media where people are asking questions, and hey, we've got answers for you here on Sportsman of Colorado, and Sergio can help you. One of the things I see a lot is people asking about outfitters, or I read things where people I just saw one the other day where somebody said, hey, outfitter ripped them off here for first rifle, and trying to figure out if there was another outfitter that could take them hunting. And sometimes that's hard to do most of the time because they're booked if they're a good outfitter. So the surgeon and I thought we'd go over some things. As he said, all the people that he has, he has personally vetted, or a guy like Craig Boddington, and, of course, I can't vet even the ones that I do, and I don't go near the places Sergio does. But, you know, we certainly trust each other's references as well. And, Sergio, there's a lot to go into here. But, man, I'm going to try to get through as much of this as we can here. But if you were just kind of starting out, what would be some things? Let's take your top three or four things you would want to mention.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, some of the most important things to ask, in my opinion, is, first of all, lodging, because that could be a very important thing. You're going to be there three, four, five, ten days, so you want to know what the conditions of your lodging is, how many bathrooms they have, believe it or not, a simple question like that. I went to an outfitter in Missouri with Chloe one time, and they gave us the suite in a prefab home. And it was our own room. You could barely walk. And there were 20 guys probably spread out in the room, in the house there, with two bathrooms. So accommodations, I think, are very important because that's something that you're going to really suffer or is going to make your home more enjoyable. The other one that is very important of course is the deposits. What happens with your deposit? Normally you have to put in 50% ahead of time and a lot of times you have to pay the other 50%, 60 days before you arrive. What happens if your flight is canceled? If your flight is delayed? If weather? or some contracts that these health feeders have, you know, acts of God. Okay. What does that mean exactly? Right. I mean, that's like very general. So that's probably some of the top things that I recommend. And of course, experience and referrals, how many, how many years they have been in the business, their guides, you know, I mean, are there guides, you know, like bedded guys that have been doing this for more than three, four or five years. I mean, those things are probably some of the top three that I would recommend first. Yep. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, here's going to be a couple here, and we'll always kind of talk about Colorado there a little bit, but a few things here we thought of together was what Colorado units are you licensed and permitted to guide in? I can't get into names or anything, but I can tell you with our attorney, Kevin Flesch, and Kevin helps people that have wildlife violations as well, but he's also been involved in some cases where there have been some outfitters that were hunting where they were not licensed to hunt in. or we're hunting in the wrong units, and that can be a big problem for you. And when it comes down to the end of the day, you're responsible, right, Sergio? I mean, you want to trust your guide, but you better know that guide to trust him where you're hunting, and that's why you want to ask, you know, are you licensed to hunt here? Is this where we're good to go?
SPEAKER 11 :
That is correct. That is correct. And a lot of that, I think you can access the Colorado Outfitters Association and be sure that they're licensed still up to date. They haven't been fined or suspended. All those kind of things are important.
SPEAKER 06 :
And DORA is the Department of Regulatory Agency. They also, outfitters, have to be listed with them. Right. If you're talking with an outfitter and they're not listed with DORA, again, Department of Regulatory Agency, or maybe – and I know some – let me just say this. I know some outfitters that are good that are not part of the Colorado Outfitter Association. Hopefully that will change. But I'm telling you, just do some checking because as Sergio said, hey, these hunts are expensive. You've taken your time. You've booked this out. And you just want to know these answers. You know, and other things. Are they fully licensed and insured with the state of Colorado – How long have they been outfitting in this area? And that's important. Not how long have they been outfitting, because you know what? If a guy moved here from Arkansas, been hunting whitetail, and now he's guiding elk and never done, this is his first year, I would want to know that, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
You don't want to have more experience than your guide, right? Hopefully, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then what are the guides' experience guiding on that property? And again, I'm being pretty detailed here because I had a hunt three years ago where I went on a horseback hunt. First time I'd ever done that and got there. Guides were from South Africa. The outfitter did some work in South Africa, so he was running short of guides. So he brought some guides over from South Africa. They're hunting elk. For the first time, I mean, dude, didn't know how to call, didn't know how to do anything, and I'm just like, oh, my. So what are your guides' experience guiding on the property I'm hunting? Hey, do the guides know CPR or first aid? Are they certified in any way, otherwise trained in any emergency response? Know where you're going. Know that your guide is licensed there. Know that that tag that you have is there on X-Maps. Another great thing, just mentioned offhand, right? Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
I use that religiously, thanks to you, actually. And, yeah, it's a very important tool. There's no excuse anymore to get a ticket for not knowing where you are. I mean, that thing works with signal, with no signal. And it has all the tools you need to be in the proper place at the right time, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, then you want to get in, of course, what big game, if you're hunting big game, what big game species do they offer? Elk, mule deer, bear, antelope, moose. What's the typical success rate for your hunt? And how is success measured there? What's the average shot distance? And here's something I'll say here. Be honest here. I've talked with a lot of outfitters and they say, oh, I talked to guys, you know, what's your effective range and archery? They'll say, oh, I can shoot, you know, 75 or 80 or a guy says I can shoot 40. They don't want that effective range to change on the last day. that's right okay or now he's going to shoot 80 and he just said at the first of the hunt he could shoot 40 yeah so know your range know your gun i highly recommend shooting your gun when you get to wherever you're going you may have done a lot of target practice here but if you're flying especially wouldn't you agree oh absolutely you want to shoot it when you get there and of course if you are uh borrowing the outfitter's gun you want to be sure you you shoot that once or twice before you go out in the field and
SPEAKER 11 :
Most reputable of fears will actually want you to do that before they get you out on the field.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then, hey, if they offer archery, muzzleloader, or rifle hunts, do they maybe specialize in one more than another? Sergio said, how many hunters are going to be? In camp at one time, how many guys per hunter? I mean, all of these are just things that you don't really think about. You're excited. You see that maybe they have some good reviews. And then, I don't know, when you see good reviews, what do you kind of, or is there any kind of hot points you look in reviews to help?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, a lot of times, the first thing I look for is, Hundreds of reviews, hopefully. The more reviews, the better. Because if they have 10, 5 reviews, well, you know, they could be all their bodies.
SPEAKER 06 :
And the last one was three years ago? That's right. That's weird.
SPEAKER 11 :
So you need to have a lot of reviews. That gives you a good, you know, gauge and a good average of what's happening. And I think one of the best things you can do is worth a mouth. I mean... If you don't go with a person like me that actually has bedded out fitters, then, you know, talk to your buddies and the friends of your friends. And if they've already been there, you know, I think that's one of the best things that you can get as a reference. Yeah. You know, I mean, you have referred me to quite a few fitters that are excellent, and then I have sent them clients. And I trust your judgment. You trust mine. And that's how I would suggest to go by. Sure. Because those reviews, you don't know who put them in there.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Fred Eichler, if you're listening to the show, most of you probably know that name. Fred's a good buddy. Yeah. I was asking him, matter of fact, we were at Cabela's for an event. I think you were there that day. But I was talking with Fred and I said, how do you go about reviews? He goes, Scott, I want to talk to people that were not successful on their hunt. Because if they didn't kill anything. and they rebook for next year because the outfitter, all the other stuff was great. And they know that outfitter worked hard. It just didn't happen. He goes, then that's who I want to talk to. You know, everybody's going to say they were great if they kill something for the most part. Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
And that's what we're talking at the beginning of the show that, I mean, you can tell if the outfitter has done their homework properly and that that's all they can do. There's the things they can control. If they're doing those and you can tell they did it, that's a good outfitter. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sergio Alcazar is with us, if you're just joining us. He's with AOC Global Adventures. All right, a couple of things to touch on here real quick, logistics and accommodations. As Sergio talked about, hey, do you provide meals and lodging, or is that separate? Is everything undercover in one fee? What's the typical lodging setup like? Is it a tent, cabin, lodge, whatever, just so you know. If you're somebody that likes to have your own room, You need to express that there to find out because there's nothing worse than going there. Dude, I had a guy one time on a fishing trip in Alaska, and we were on a boat on the water the whole time. This guy snored. Dude, so bad. I mean, honestly, I thought he was joking. We're in a bunk bed, and I'm on the top bunk. I mean, there's not eight inches above me to the ceiling of this boat. And this guy just, I mean, I can't even imitate him on the radio. And I was like, what in the world? And I looked down there, and he was sound asleep. But I mean, all night, we didn't sleep. People at other, and it was a pretty good-sized boat, people at the other end. there nobody could sleep yeah and i mean it was so i'm i'm asking are there any snores yeah that's that could be a good question it was terrible um but uh seriously asking what about the lodging hey how do they handle the meat and the trophy care field dressing packing it out taxidermy prep things like that uh do you provide transportation during the hunt Whether that be horses, ATVs, trucks, or do hunters provide their own? Here's one, too, and again, you've got to be honest with yourself. What physical conditioning level should I be in to hunt with you? Because, I mean, hey, as we age, some of us are not looking for the 13,000-mile climb, 13,000-foot climb up a mountain, you know?
SPEAKER 11 :
That's another one that's very important. Yeah, you don't want to, you know, book an elk hunt and know that you're going to be hiking, you know, five, six, seven miles a day and going uphill and downhill. I mean, some people are not in good condition, and that could ruin your hunt. So, I mean, and there are some outfitters that would specialize. If you are disabled, that's very important, too. You know, do you have facilities, and can they accommodate someone with disabilities? So all of those things are very important, and a lot of times they're not discussed. And then once you get there, it's like, well, I cannot even go up to the blind or whatever. I mean, it's important. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, we've got to take our last break real quick here on Sportsman of Colorado. Once again, Sergio Alcázar is with us, ALC Global Adventures. If you're looking for a great hunt somewhere anywhere in the world, give Sergio a call, 303-921-3055. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER 09 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
You're listening to KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sports from Colorado. My name is Scott Watley. We are glad you're with us. Hope everyone's having a great day. Sergio Alcazar is with us, ALC Global Adventures. Once again, Sergio's number, 303-921-3055. You're just joining us. We're going over some things to help you when choosing an outfitter. Don't want you to get caught in a bind, getting ripped off. Hey, there's a lot of great outfitters out there. But sometimes there's some unscrupulous ones, and we want to help you out. to not find those and when you find them hey what to look for sergio said this right in his opening couple of comments all right deposit requirements now these things need to be written down all right and kevin flesh will tell you that as our attorney um don't ask the guy well what happens to my deposit if i get sick oh call we'll always we're not going to keep your money we'll always rebook if that's not written down there what's what's in writing is what counts right
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I was going to say, you really want to book with an outfitter that has a good contract and read the contract. And if you have any issues with any of the points, you can always negotiate something with the outfitter. And if you agree on something else, as you said, have him write it down in there, sign it, and be sure you have something to back up what you guys discussed. Because, yes, you don't want those kinds of surprises.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. As Sergio said again right at the beginning, how do you handle cancellations, rescheduling, or refunds? I like paying with a credit card because a credit card gives you a little more teeth. Some of them may charge you 3% or 4% or whatever to use a credit card. In my opinion, that's still worth it. because then, you know, you can get with your credit card company, but I'm going to tell you what the credit card company is going to do. They're going to ask you if you had a contract. They're going to ask you what's in writing. And, again, that's another way to back yourself up there, you know, with paying with a credit card. If you pay them in cash or give them a cashier's check or a check, I'm not saying you still can't get it, but you may end up having to get an attorney. You never know.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, no, I always like to pay with a credit card, too. Plus, you get points, maybe, so that's another bonus.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah, sure.
SPEAKER 11 :
Even that 1% or 2%, look at it, it's like insurance against the possibility of a dispute down the road. Another thing that I think is very important that a lot of people don't discuss is tips, even though tips are completely optional.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that's a great point.
SPEAKER 11 :
Some outfitters, you know, when it gets time to do that, I actually had an opportunity. an issue with an outfitter in Canada when my client was giving a tip to the guide, you know, he was giving, you know, the hunt was about maybe $1,300 and he was giving less than 10%, which is about the norm, right? But it's up to you. And the outfitter in front of the guide was telling the client, hey, you know, in the contract it says it's 10%. And then the client was a little upset. He's like, this is supposed to be on me, whatever I feel I should give. And we reviewed the contract, and the outfitter actually had in there a section for tips. he did mention to my client is in the contract but in the contract he put in there that he recommends 10 but he understand that some people cannot afford so it's up to the client but he was actually trying to make the client feel bad that he was not doing a 10 tip so this is another thing to discuss and a lot of times now they're putting it in writing so that's another sticky point sometimes right and a lot of them i see i don't know what i've seen some
SPEAKER 06 :
And, again, if you're successful, the guy helps you pack out your animal, whatever. Nothing wrong with a 20% tip, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
No, no. But at the end, it's a personal thing, right?
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure, sure.
SPEAKER 11 :
Or just like in Mexico, what I was telling you. They make it easy on you. It's $400, and that covers everybody. You don't need to give a tip to the cook and this other person. That's also sometimes something that works well for clients. Just give one tip to the outfitter, and he spreads it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right, and then let him kind of divvy it up. Because you may have your chef, the kitchen staff, you may have the laundry person, you've got guides, skinners, different trackers, all kinds of things. And before you know it, you can spend a few thousand dollars right there.
SPEAKER 11 :
That's what I mean. So I think that's another thing to discuss with outfitters ahead of time.
SPEAKER 06 :
When you ask for references and you're going to call somebody, do you kind of go through what we're talking about with them? Maybe a hunter that's been with them? You kind of go through this with them?
SPEAKER 11 :
I normally, every time a hunter comes back from a trip, I make it a point to talk to them and basically just in general, get their opinion, how they felt about the hunt. And if there's anything in there that I can provide for input to the outfitter, you know, I let them know, hey, you know what? the client didn't like this or he loved this and things like that. So yeah, we always try to do that. It's kind of like vetting it again and trying to check on them, be sure they're still doing the right thing. But yes, absolutely. We always talk to clients after they're on. Yeah, great.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, a couple more things here I want to mention. Once again, I think I said this before, but just to make sure you got it. What's included in the price? Is your tag included in the price or do you have to get your own license, meals, lodging, guide, transportation, meat care? What is extra? Just say, hey, look, what is extra that is not covered in my price so there's no surprises at the end? Especially here in Colorado or even Arizona, New Mexico, whatever. Hey, does that outfitter possibly help with the application process for tags and points and things like that? Because that can be confusing in different states, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, and some people actually use special companies, right, to help them apply for that. That's another thing. But, yeah, that's a good thing to ask the outfitters. And some of them, you know, you can buy a landowner voucher. And you also want to see, you know, that's another way to get into a nice area. Ask those questions, too, because sometimes some outfitters here in Colorado that I have, if you don't get the license through the drawing process, they have some landowner vouchers that you can buy. So that's another option.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. All right, and then what happens if you don't draw a tag? Now, this kind of gets back to how they – on your deposit and all. So what happens if you pay for the hunt, you know, you give them a deposit, whatever, and then you don't draw the tag? Will that deposit – are you going to be fine if they keep your deposit and roll it over to the next year, or do you want your money back? Again, better be in writing.
SPEAKER 11 :
Better be in writing. Yes, absolutely, because that's another sticky point that can happen. But most outfitters, they would actually roll your deposit over if you don't. I have some outfitters that when you book the hunt, instead of asking for 50%, they ask you for maybe 10%. And then once you draw the tag, then you give the other 40%. That's another way to do it.
SPEAKER 06 :
That makes sense for me, too.
SPEAKER 11 :
Helps the client.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, because if you draw it, you're going to go.
SPEAKER 11 :
That's right, yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
And it is going to get trickier to draw tags here in Colorado, man, the way all this point thing is going. I mean, it's confusing now. It was a lot of people.
SPEAKER 11 :
Every year is confusing. You have to read the whole thing. And then every year I have to call them and I talk to them. And a lot of times, you know, it's hard to find the right answers. One thing that I learned, too, is that when I have questions about certain regulations or things and I'm talking to someone in the Colorado Division of Wildlife, if they tell me that it should be this way, I actually write their name and the time I spoke with them. So if I'm ever in the field and someone's going to give me a ticket for something, I say, no, I actually called this time and I talked to this person and that actually has helped me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, because I'm being honest. I've asked two or three people the same question and gotten four different answers. That's right.
SPEAKER 11 :
So all you can do is say, I did my homework, I called, and this is the answer I got. So, yes. Protect yourself.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Well, Sergio, appreciate you coming in, man.
SPEAKER 11 :
It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is ALC Global Adventures, 303-921-3055. Hey, if you're looking for a great hunt, again, I promise you can trust Sergio. He'll get you hooked up. And a lot of great places around the world to hunt, a lot of places here in Colorado to hunt. But Sergio's got some great connections. We'll be glad to help you. But hopefully some of these tips will help you as well. And, hey, tell your friends, listen to our podcast, and catch our show on Sundays, 8 to 9 p.m. a.m. and p.m. then once again the Thursday from 9 to 10 if you miss our show here on Saturday so thanks for being with us hope you have a great rest of your weekend and we'll talk to you next week
SPEAKER 14 :
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.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for the New York City mayoral race, posed for a picture with Islamist imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the unindicted conspirators behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Will he be able to overcome the backlash from the radical imam controversy? The Sekulow team discusses the mayoral election in NYC, the ACLJ's legal work – and much more.
SPEAKER 06 :
On today's show, Mom Dommy makes a shocking campaign stop with an unindicted co-conspirator of the World Trade Center bombing, and so much more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to Sekulow, another Monday. We're here. Will Haynes is joining me in studio. What up, fam? We're all together again. 1-800-684-3110. Give me a call to be on the air. Of course, we are covering all the breaking news, all the news, Will, that covered this weekend, which wasn't a whole lot. It was kind of a quiet weekend for once.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it was quiet.
SPEAKER 06 :
It was quiet after President Trump said, no tomahawks. That's what you told me. He said no tomahawks. That's right. He didn't give them to our friend Zielinski. No, no tomahawks to Zielinski. I think there was a protest or something, but I missed it. I was busy living a life, spending time with my family and those kind of things. But I'm sure some of you are out there. You do have to hand it to the left.
SPEAKER 05 :
For the first time, though, they didn't burn down every city in America.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, because you just see the audience. That audience can't light a match. Okay, there's a lot of elderly, I'll just say that. I don't want to be offensive to those listening right now, but boy. I mean, that looked like Branson, Missouri, but, you know, not the good kind. But it's like all the people that couldn't, they wouldn't even allow them into Branson. It was a rough crowd. Like, I didn't, again, I didn't spend much time watching it. I'm sure a lot of you did. I think these protests and these events are fine. There's nothing wrong with them. Go do what you want to do. Say what you want to say. I do love when they interview most people. They have no idea. what they're talking about, why they're protesting. Even some of my friends who are out there protesting, if I just give them a little nudge, they don't even know what they're doing, but it's okay. You know, I'd rather you be direct. I'd rather it be a no, we don't like the elected president of the United States than some vain, like vaguely, like let's come up with a brand that's associated with it. Like I find that, I find Free Palestine more appealing than No Kings because at least I know what they stand for.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and also if there was indeed a king, I don't think the government would be shut down by the minority party right now holding the entire government.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's not what we're here to talk about today, but maybe you do want to call in on that. Did it interrupt your city? Maybe it did. Give me a call. I'd like to know. 1-800-684-3110. Was the courthouse busy? What happened on the lawns there? 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard. Of course, though, one of the big elections heading in just a couple weeks now is the New York mayoral election, which has gotten national attention. Q of Zoran Mamdami, who has been making his campaign stops. Again, a very gifted orator. I've said that before. I think it's going to be a very, very unlikely chance that he loses this. But I feel like he's trying his best to come up with reasons for people not to vote for him and kind of waving it in their faces. What we're talking about right now is that during a campaign stop, and look, this wasn't like a photo line of a thousand people who happened to get a picture with someone. Because I've got pictures with people. People take pictures with me all the time. I don't know who they necessarily are. They seem like nice people in the moment, but who knows? Maybe they could be. unindicted co-conspirators of terrorism and that's what he did he took a picture with one of the unindicted co-conspirators of the World Trade Center bombing in the 90s and then bragged about it online you know put it on social media so again it wasn't like just a random person it was like it was an honor
SPEAKER 05 :
to be with this person, Will. That's right. This is a very controversial figure for obvious reasons. This is a imam in Brooklyn. The actual conspirators of the people that perpetrated the terror in 93 attended this mosque. This is an imam that has very radical views, believes in Sharia law over democracy, including all of the worst punishments you think of when you think of Sharia law. He has had statements referring to jihad against New York and then has, you know, would cover that up and be like, I don't mean like an armed jihad against New York. But this is not someone that you would expect. Good kind. The leading candidate for mayor of New York just, what are we, 24 years after 9-11 would be promoting as a campaign stop where he went to Friday prayers with this imam in a radical Islamic mosque in Brooklyn. But yet here we are.
SPEAKER 06 :
It's a young group of voters that are coming out in support. This is a group of people who were very little, if not kids, including the man himself, by the way, who was very small, was a kid during 9-11. So we'll talk about that coming up and so much more. Give us a call. 1-800-684-3110. Be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. We've got a few lines still open for you at 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. Of course, we're talking a little bit of the No Kings rally that happened over the weekend. How did it affect your town? Love to hear from you about that. Or did it affect you at all? I will say where we were, I'm sure there were thousands of people downtown. I was not one of them. Again, living our, maybe our suburban life. Not a lot of knowledge of that happening when you're at, you know, middle school flag football games. But you know what? I assume a lot of people went down there with their signs and did whatever they want to do. And you know what? God bless them. They can do whatever they want. Again, I just wish the brand was a little bit clearer, a little bit easier to understand. But with that, phone lines are open for you, as I said. Now, we do want to switch our attention back. to what we were talking about. And of course, this kind of comes into a bigger rhetoric that's happening throughout the country, including something that happened to Winsome Sears over the weekend as well in Virginia. This is kind of the ongoing political discussion coming from the left. Now, you have a situation where Mamdami, who is, like I said, I think is going to run away with this election. I think there's very little he can do at this point, I think, to lose. You have a group that's very young, supporting him you have including by the way himself i think is 33 years old uh you know someone born in the 90s he was born in the 90s uh you know was very young during the september 11th attacks you're talking about a 10 year old who i'm not even sure was was where he was living at the time um so to say that that doesn't really have the same kind of impact on you it doesn't so when you have uh uh a sliwa or you have on the other side cuomo talking about sort of this old new york I don't think Zoran has ever lived in what was old New York. Old New York in the 90s, in the early 2000s, when things got very clean. Yeah, I think if he grew up in the last decade, which really he did, the last decade, 15 years, it's kind of been on the downward trajectory for New York. So maybe they see that this is the only way up. Now, I don't know if the only way up is to be having your afternoon prayers with unindicted co-conspirators of the World Trade Center attacks. Of course, this is the first World Trade Center attack we're talking about. That's right, in 93. The 93 bombing. Again, he was two.
SPEAKER 05 :
When Mondami would have been two years old. Two years old.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And of course, you post about this online, beautiful picture of him and these faith leaders. But of course, if you dig a little deeper, there's always going to be a secondary message to what that means. And it's a very different message. And like you said, Will said, a very different New York than it was even 25 years ago. I still think that New York is very important. I think we have a clip that we're going to play a little bit later with Bill Maher kind of pushing what I've been saying the whole time, which is when you control New York City, you actually control a lot of what's going on. In the country and a lot of what's going on in the world. It's one of the biggest hubs for pretty much all industries. Some have changed the post-COVID world. But let's say in the last five years, other than that, when things got crazy, you're talking about what people would call the capital of the world would be New York City. So when you run New York City, though, he may be giving campaign promises he can't live up to. It doesn't mean you have no sway on what the future looks like. And when that future is a democratic socialist, and again, I'm not using that pejoratively. I'm using that as that is the term of which he runs under.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's right. And then you also see what that plays out as. We've seen how he's been very dodgy on the way that he would address the Palestinian protest when it came to the phrase intifada now or bring the intifada here. Things of that. He had to try to walk a very narrow line to try and not seem like a radical. but at the same time still appease that base. And it's what he believes. Like, I don't think that at the end of the day, if you were to be in a room with him, be like, do you believe most of what they are calling for on the Palestinian protests? That's not like saying we're assuming something about him. That would be probably in line with his ideology. we know that that's what his major party the the democrat socialist of america believes he is obviously running as a democrat as far as the ticket there but then you also have to think about this imagery he's he's clearly not afraid of this this isn't something that people are uncovering and hiding he is okay with these associations This is an individual who has been called an unindicted co-conspirator of the 93 World Trade Center bombing. He was the vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, which is an American extension of the Muslim Student Association and the Muslim Brotherhood. He was vice president of that. That organization was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land terror financing case. So his roots to radical Islam, this imam, are not necessarily in the shadows or just speculated about. This is a very radical individual. There are, I would assume, dozens and dozens of more moderate Islamic leaders. If he wanted to have a meeting or go to a prayer in New York City just ahead of his election, he could have done that. You feel like this is a choice or it is a very close association, which should concern people.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think it can go either way. I've met a lot of these young politicians and a lot of times when you get down to it, you actually talk to them in person. You're like, this is a good guy. This person is just saying what they think is going to win them election. Not that that makes them a good guy, but this person is not necessarily the radical that they portray. When you look at who he was 10 years ago, you're talking about someone who was releasing a lot of hip hop music, He's a big pro wrestling fan. He's a big sports guy. Not necessarily who you would think would be in line to be mayor. I'm not even sure how all of that came together. But even then, some of his hip hop music was a bit radical at the time. But he kind of speaks of a new New York. And that is a bit alarming. When we're talking about what the future looks like, I want to play you a clip. This is, again, I like to go to Bill Maher and from the Club Random podcast. I always think it's interesting because we're going to be opposed on a lot of things. But there are many times where I think more recently in the last few years, he's certainly lined up with a lot of conservatives more recently. But I do think as a Democrat, he brings an interesting point of view, which is what I've been saying here for the last few weeks. But I think it's always good to hear from the other side of the aisle saying the similar thing. So here's Bill Maher on Club Random.
SPEAKER 08 :
New York is New York. It's the media capital, the financial capital. It is a bellwether like no other city is in this country. So don't tell me that who the mayor of New York is doesn't matter.
SPEAKER 07 :
Let me play devil's advocate for a second. Do you think, let's say, you know, on the seize the means of production, do you think the mayor, that one person, if he is a democratic socialist, do you think that he would have the power and influence to be able to, like...
SPEAKER 06 :
usher in socialism definitely has the power and influence to elect jd vance or whoever is the republican candidate next time and he doubled downs on this so again saying you know what you may not think he has the power but he has the power to actually sway what the future could look like because we all look to new york to see how things are going when you have someone who is saying they're a democrat socialist and then you see a city unraveling it's i could obviously have ripple effects around the country doubles down on it take a listen
SPEAKER 08 :
It is a walking commercial for the Republican Party. I think the Republicans are going to... When you let the Democrats, socialists, and now they're actually calling themselves socialists, when you let them take over a major American city, this is what you get. The state-run grocery stores, which work so well in Cuba and the Soviet Union and Venezuela. Just bad ideas. And again, this ugly streak. Ugly streak of anti-Semitism.
SPEAKER 07 :
Who's the most popular politician on the left? AOC? I don't know. One of, but who's... You know, Bernie is... Bernie, yeah. Bernie is... I mean, he's not a capitalist, you know?
SPEAKER 08 :
No, he's not. And he's also not president.
SPEAKER 07 :
He's not. And never would be.
SPEAKER 08 :
But neither is Mamdani. No, but he will. Trust me, he will be featured in the campaign.
SPEAKER 07 :
They boogeyman everybody.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, but you don't have to boogeyman him.
SPEAKER 06 :
He does it to himself. All right. Yeah, it featured in the campaign commercials on either side here because we know where this could be headed.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's right. And even that you don't have to boogeyman him. He does it to himself. Once again, this photo op, this posting, he put it out there as well. That's what I'm saying. He's asking for it. This is his ideology. And when we're talking about New York, which has seen a decline. uh, in recent decade, I would say, as well as what New York was in the unity around New York after the nine 11 terror attacks and what, uh, America city became in that, that 10 years, I'd say even after nine 11, uh, I think this is shocking to anyone that lived through that. And you mentioned he was 10 years old when nine 11 happened. Uh, but, uh, Just even the fact that we're at this point where the frontrunner for the mayoral candidate is posting a picture with a divisive character like this imam and proud of it and will still probably win the election. is what is so shocking, I think, to those of us that lived through 9-11, lived through those years, and even the never forget mantra that America lived by for so long, when you have someone that is that closely tied to those type of events, tied to terrorism in that way, in multiple different ways, it is shocking that this is where we are at this point.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right, hey, phone lines are open for you in our next segment. Stay on hold, by the way, if you're on hold, but we'll have, we do a few open lines at 1-800-684-3110. We'll try to take some calls coming up here in the next segment, but we will, oh, we just lost a couple calls. So you know what? It's a good time to call in. His phone lines are wide open now. 1-800-684-3110. Let's keep this conversation going. We're also going to be talking about some of the work of the ACLJ. We've got a big, big movement happening coming up next with the pro-life causes. You're not going to want to miss that. CeCe Heil is going to be joining us. And then later on, we are going to be joined. Are we going to be joined still yet? by mike pompeo not anyone on my list that's on me sure uh by uh mike pompeo will be joining us we have packed packed show so stay tuned give us a call support the work of the aclj all those things i always say aclj.org go there now do what you gotta do be right back Welcome back to Secula. We do have like two lines open, two or three lines, 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Senior Counsel here for the ACLJ. CeCe Hiles joining us in studio with an update of our work that we do, obviously, for pro-life pregnancy resource centers that are always under attack, it feels like, in some different ways, whether it's from the government, from big tech, or from really all sources, as really just a... A lot of times volunteer run often organizations that are just there to help mothers, expected mothers have other options. And we've said that the whole time. You go there, a lot of times they're there to help you through pregnancy. A lot of times they are there to help you post-pregnancy. They'll have baby formula or they'll have days where you go and get clothes. They'll celebrate birthday parties, diaper days, all those kind of things that happen. And a lot of times people will try to convince you that the pro-life community and the pro-life cause, it ends after a baby is born. And it's just simply not the case. It's always this lie that I feel like just gets repeated over and over and over again. And it drives me crazy because it's just so not that the heart's of the people that I've ever worked with. The heart's the exact opposite. If you're looking for a place to even have your baby and you want the baby to be adopted to a family, a lot of times they'll assist in that. There's so many different ways these pro-life pregnancy resource centers will help out mothers in need. However, it doesn't seem to be the way that the mainstream media or the state-run media often wants it to be featured and the ACLJ had to get involved once again.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right, and so this is a situation, if you've been paying attention, you know that the House Committee on the Judiciary, Jim Jordan, who's the chairman, just did a hearing, held a hearing, and uncovered the fact that Google was censoring under the Biden administration, which we all knew was happening. But the uncovering of this was censorship of conservative groups, and Google has said, hey, we're going to, Stop doing that. We're going to put these people back on YouTube. We're going to kind of open this up. But what we did was we sent a letter to Jim Jordan and to the White House Religious Liberty Commission pointing out that don't forget, don't think that this is a resolved issue. because I'm sure the Biden administration was not just coercing and coordinating with big tech on some conservative issues. Don't forget that PRCs, pregnancy resource centers, are always the biggest target. And we point out because we have clients, we point out how they've been targeted, that the Google ads actually require PRCs to sign a certificate with disclaimers. which they do not do. Google does not require that for any other advertisement except pro-life advertisements. Then it goes on to show that Google Maps actually removed PRCs from default visibility. So unless you're specifically looking for and saying that you want that, it will not pull that up, which cost one of our clients a drop of 60 to 70%. They saw a drop in their visibility and leads because of that. Also, Google provides about $10,000 per month for their nonprofit grant program. That lets nonprofits use basically $10,000 worth of free advertising. Our client didn't get $10,000 a month. They've gotten less than $50 in over two years. So we are seeing there is extreme bias. There is extreme targeting of crisis pregnancy centers, pregnancy resource centers. And we want to draw this again to the attention of the House Committee on the Judiciary to say, please don't forget about the PRCs. This is not done yet. There needs to be more investigation. You need to continue that because there is something bad going on here. And we have no doubt that it's probably, you know, that happened between the Biden administration and Google.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, NCC, when you know how much money the lobbies for a big abortion are, how much money they can spend, how much time... and resources they can spend to lobby these groups and say this is what you need to be doing as compared to the non-profit small just salt of the earth people that run these prcs but they aren't big operations they don't have a big lobby behind them to go and talk with decision makers or talk with big companies to say hey here's what's going on here's the truth about what we do But that's where people like the ACLJ come in. And with the help of those that support the ACLJ, we can do this work to combat what's going on. But when you see what's going on in Massachusetts, where we're in federal court fighting the state trying to silence PRCs, now you have big tech trying to silence it. And this letter is very thorough that we sent to Chairman Jordan as well as to the White House. I mean, it has graphs that show the actual dip in where the leads that were coming in and the cost spiking for these PRCs. So it wasn't just that the leads weren't coming in, but also the cost to acquire those leads, to get in front of eyeballs, to share the work that they do went up. And that's why we have to fight this and we have to go to not just Congress, but to the White House to uncover this. And we also know that the Judiciary Committee is wanting to speak with our attorneys, wanting to get to the bottom of this. They were receptive to this letter that we sent just last week. But we can't stop just with fighting a state here or going to Congress here. This is a very expansive issue. portion of our work here at the ACLJ because we know that they don't just go one place and try to shut it down. Those that lobby for the abortion industry are going to go everywhere they can to try and shut down the life-saving work of PRCs.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. And the abortion industry's pockets, we know, are very, very, very deep. And we also know that they are willing to to spend their money to make sure that they get their way and if that means that they're working with like the biden administration and putting pressure on big tech to censor uh you know prcs they will do that and so that is why it is very important for us to keep representing these prcs and like you said yes jim jordan reached right back out to us and said yes Thank you. We want to talk to you more about these cases. And that is, again, how we can bring our clients and they can have a hearing and they can be witnesses. And we have the facts and we can prove that this targeting and censoring is going on. And if there is a federal government tie, hopefully we can put a stop to that.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right. And look, the ACLJ is involved in all these cases. We're always involved in pregnancy resource centers. It's something that we spend a lot of time on because, again, we're not the pregnancy resource center. But a lot of times these groups do not have the money. They do not have the budgets to fight these cases, whether that's in court, whether that's civilly, whatever it needs to be. They often do not have that in their budget. I mean, we saw what happened here when you have just a plummeting of people coming in. Of course, you're going to have supporters. A lot of these are nonprofits and are supported by donors, and donors want to see that there are results. Of course, they want to see that they're giving money to something that's making a big impact. And when I ask you to support the work of the ACLJ, it's because that impact is large. And a lot of times it is because we can step up and help these organizations when they are in need. So I ask you to give and to give whatever you can, whether it's $5, whether it's $50, whatever it is, the ACLJ is built. on the backbone of individual donors that give at small levels. We're not built on the backbone of major donors or major sponsors. It's just not how it's worked here. Of course, if you want to be a major donor or sponsor, feel free. We'd be happy to talk to you. But that is not the core ACLJ supporter. It's people that give on an individual level. Often they give, sometimes you'll sign up to be an ACLJ champion. That's someone that gives on a recurring automatic monthly basis. way but not always most of the people that give give at one time or they give throughout the year as they feel moved and that's okay and we ask you right now to think about it and pray about it as we head into the second half hour of the broadcast today we know we lose a lot of you so a lot of you don't get us on your local radio station but you can find us broadcasting it's the new millennium will Has been for a minute. I know. You can find us online now. On the internet, we're there. ACLJ.org, broadcasting live on all your favorite platforms, YouTube, Rumble. We are there 12 to 1 p.m. Eastern time each and every day. And of course, archived however you get your podcasts. You can find it all in the ACLJ app. None of that happens again without you. And some phone lines are open right now. So you know what? If you're thinking about calling in, great time to do it. I'll take some calls in the next segment. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow.
SPEAKER 02 :
And now your host, Logan Sekulow.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome back to Sekulow. Second half hour coming up. Mike Pompeo is going to be joining us in the next segment. Between now and then, I'd love to hear from you. And of course, at the end of the show, I take as many calls as I can. That's at 1-800-684-3110. We were talking about the news of really just continuing the conversation about the New York mayoral election. We got a call coming in about that. Of course, Mondami, who is currently leading and looks like he's going to take potentially a landslide a victory here. And of course that comes with a lot of baggage and a lot of potential for New York to have some troubles. If you're a conservative or if you're just concerned for New York in general, I know a lot of these policies are, are concerning. And with that, let's go to Rachel in New York who is watching on YouTube. Rachel, go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for your work. I just have not even a question, just a comment. How can people be taken in so much by this guy? I mean, his charisma and all that and everything like that, but I don't get it. I mean, all these people are so doomed by it, and all his proposals are just euphoric, well, fill in the blank with whatever you want, but... I just don't get it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Rachel, I understand what you're saying is how can so many people feel, like you said, duped by this. And I think here's the problem also is you have not great options going on in New York right now. So you have one that's a young, charismatic speaker who's saying a lot of things that young people like to hear. And you're saying a lot of things that older liberals like to hear. Like when I'm talking about hardcore liberals, they like to hear that, you know. Then you have who he's running against, which is Curtis Sliwa, who, again, you may like, you may not like, doesn't feel like he'd be a current candidate for mayor of New York. I think he does some good work. I think he's historically done some really good work, but has been kind of a, sadly, and I don't mean this in offense, but he's become sort of a cartoon character, a caricature of himself, if you will. And then you have Cuomo, who honestly has kind of become the same thing, which is a guy that comes with an extreme amount of baggage. I like a lot of the policies that he wants to put in place i like uh you know what i think he could do some good things with new york though he is definitely much more liberal than i would uh vote for personally i understand why that would be an option for a lot of moderate or conservatives they go we got to vote for cuomo here but cuomo comes with all the covet stuff everything else that happened under his leadership a not so fun exit from being uh governor of the state uh so you are given really bad choices You are given the choice of a charismatic young guy who's going to try new things, or two old school guys, one of which is covered in controversy, and one of which just doesn't feel like has the chops to do it at this point.
SPEAKER 05 :
And there is a new poll that the New York Post is reporting on out of Gotham polling that shows that if Sliwa were to drop out, then Cuomo is within the margin of error. Now, polls are polls. You can't just take one poll and say this is what's going on. Definitely the energy does not feel like that when you look at the way that it's being covered, as well as the fact that these things don't seem to hurt Mondami, which is very bizarre. It's like he's able to keep doing this. So I don't know if you can take... give this poll any credit, but the fact that, one, it is also a three-person race when it comes to that with Cuomo running as an independent, that does harm the chances of stopping some sort of win by this charismatic person that is clearly running away with it at this point. When you have that opposition vote broken, given two options to other people, then it does make it a lot harder to overcome that. I don't see Sliwa dropping out. And even if he did, some of the other polling shows that it wouldn't matter anyways, that the hill is too much to overcome for the other candidate. We'll see. It's coming up soon. But things like this are not seeming to damage his prospects at winning. When you think, even just 10 years ago, that would kind of be the end. That would have not happened.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Look, we get back, Mike Pompeo's going to be joining us. We're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about what's going on in Gaza. Of course, the sort of the restart and the ending already of a ceasefire and the rebuilding of a ceasefire, what it all means. We've all heard a lot of mixed reports. We're going to talk about that with Secretary Pompeo. And of course, a couple of phone lines are still open for you. 1-800-684-3110 or 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard today. We'll be right back with more on Seculo. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. Three lines open right now. If you want to get on hold, it's a great time to do it. Because the next segment, I'm going to take all the calls that come in. Again, 1-800-684-3110. We're joined now by Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, Mike Pompeo, who I believe is on. We wish we got him. Yes, got him on there. Via phone today, Secretary Pompeo, we have the New York mayoral race not only heating up, but felt like it was headed towards pretty one-sided. Some new polls maybe suggest otherwise, but I do think it's going to be an uphill battle for anyone trying to take on Mamdani right now as... Even over the weekend, though, it feels like he is doing things that maybe are trying to sabotage, but maybe in a way is appealing to a certain base. He had a campaign stop, as we've said earlier on the show, and featured an unindicted co-conspirator of the 93 World Trade Center attacks. Again, this wasn't like a private meeting. This wasn't even like a photo line. This was something set up and then posted on social media. What does it say about New York politicians and even American politicians when they're appealing to young people, they're trying to appeal to even maybe an older group, maybe those people that showed up to that No Kings rally, that they're willing to do so under such extreme measures with extreme people, including terrorist sympathizers and those involved?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, this is actually a really bad thing for the American political process and a terrible thing for the city of New York. It's clear that Mamdani believes that he's got this thing once in his pocket. He is willing to go to the fringes of the fringe to make the case and lock in his base, which is where he thinks he'll win this election. I hope there's enough people in New York City who see this and just say, you know, I may agree with some of his economic stuff, but this is a bridge too far. And common sense prevails. He will be a disaster for the city. But to be rallying with someone who was an unindicted co-conspirator from these attacks on the human lives there in New York City. is beyond the pale. I'm not surprised that he did it. We've seen him engage in this kind of, I'll call it anti-Semitic pandering. That's the kind of thing I think I can say about it. And so I guess I'm unsurprised. I hope the people of the city of New York, when they go vote, will not do what the polls are showing, but instead, common sense and wisdom can prevail.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and I guess even when you look at the beginning of his campaign where he did, you know, pander to the free Palestine pro-Hamas crowd a lot, obviously, but he still tried to a little bit walk the line where he wouldn't answer the questions when they asked him about, you know, when they chant Intifada now, do you agree with that? Do you know what that means? He still kind of tried to dodge that. fact that now he's openly you know posting photos with fringe characters I mean there's there's a lot of mosques in New York he could have gone to but he went to a fringe one with a history that is very well known and not this secret thing that was uncovered and he's promoting it is it almost worse that he thinks it's fine to do this or that he'll just get elected anyways I
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I think you got it. Two things, really, it seems to me. One, it seems that he's enormously confident. He is unworried about any blowback. He's unworried about even Democrats who are Jewish. He's unworried about Democrats who actually care about the protection of human life. He has just decided, I got this thing won and I am going to virtue signal. to the people on the far left that says, trust me, I may have had to say a few things during this campaign that bothered you, but I am with you. And then I think the second thing that says is, this is what he really believes. This is actually who he is. In the final days of campaigns, you often see this candidates revert to norm, right? They revert to actually who they are. especially when a candidate believes that they've got an insurmountable lead and the clock has been run. And so I suspect that Mr. Mamdani was actually, in being with that man, was conveying a message that is deeply consistent with who he is as a human being and how he'll govern as mayor if he's elected.
SPEAKER 06 :
I mean, Secretary Pompeo, I think it's like you said, it's alarming. And like I said earlier, I've met with, you know, younger political leaders who often feel like they are just saying what has to be said to get elected. That's not a good thing, by the way. I think that that's a bad thing. And when you have this guy's record and you look at what he has done and then you have 10 years ago him saying very similar things. But of course, he's a young guy. I think this is also something we have to take into account is young. We talk about September 11th. We talk about the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center. The kid was two years old in 1993. 2001, he's 10 years old, just recently moved to New York, likely. It's going to affect that current generation of young voters very differently than it has affected maybe every generation of voter until right now, which is most of us who grew up with that being a very real reality inside our country. We have gotten 25-ish years post-September 11th, and it does make you start, you know, it's the never forget scenario, but when you start looking at it, it becomes an issue when it comes to a whole new generation that has not brought up with, really, it's a different kind of terror, but not with that kind of terror at their doorstep. I feel like that's even indicated in some of the protests that happened over the weekend.
SPEAKER 10 :
In no doubt, that's part of what happened in the protest. These folks have no context against which to put this. They haven't gone to schools that taught them about these things. They haven't bothered to become educated. They've just been in their little bubble, and so they don't appreciate what those of us who were of age when September 11th happened in 2001, we saw the horrors. We saw what actually took place. And so for them, this is just something that they've heard somebody tell about, or they may have heard a conspiracy theory about it, but it doesn't strike them the same way. You see this not only with Modanian, and his polling success. But you see this in some of the broader polling on anti-Semitism and terror as well. The next generation has not taken on board the lessons that we all took on board after 9-11, which said we're going to be serious about preventing terrorism in our country and we're not going to tolerate folks like this knucklehead who Magdani campaigned with us past weekend.
SPEAKER 05 :
Shifting topics here a little bit where we saw over the weekend that Israel and Hamas traded a little skirmish. It was initiated by Hamas that shot at IDF forces and then Israel retaliated. But other than some shakiness there, it does seem that the ceasefire has broadly held. The president was swooping in to message on that and to make sure that it held. But we also see that the vice president, Jared Kushner and Witkoff are all headed back to Israel tomorrow to try and work on phase two of this deal. I want to get your take both on what happened in the fragility of the ceasefire over the weekend, as well as the work ahead for the team that's headed back.
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, I'm going to show a week ago, I guess it'd be a week ago tomorrow. I said that this would be a very difficult transition, uh, that Hamas no more is seeking peace than a man in the moon, right? They are, these are terrorists. They are resistance people. They are funded by Iran, even though weekend, um, there, there, there was not a change of heart, just a change of tactics. Oh, when they decided to sign on to president Trump's deal. And so I am unsurprised by the fact that they have shot many of their own citizens now are violating this ceasefire. And so I think Mr. Woodcock, Mr. Kushner, and the vice president's trip to the Middle East suggest they can see this too. It is going to take continued real pressure on Iran, on Hamas, and frankly, on our Gulf Arab allies as well to say, all right, it is go time. We all committed to this. And I would say that especially with respect to Turkey and Qatar. President needs to continue to remind them that they signed up for this deal. They are essentially guarantors of the 20-point plan, and they need to do the hard work that's going to be required to actually deliver that 20-point plan. And when they do, it'll be a great thing, not only for Israel and its security, not only for America, but it'll be a good thing for the civilians living in Gaza as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
Secretary Pompeo, we always appreciate your insight and guidance here on this broadcast. Thanks for calling in today and making some time to talk to us about these important topics. We do have a few lines open. I would love to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110. Let's go ahead and take a phone call because it's related to what Secretary Pompeo was saying. Let's go to Eric, who's calling, who's watching on Pluto. I assume that's on the Salem News Channel. We're available live each and every day. Eric, go ahead. Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. No problem. Go ahead, Eric.
SPEAKER 09 :
So I just wanted to offer some insight as to why the youth of America are so opposed to American values and yet so supportive of Islam and Muslim values. And, you know, the Pompeo had mentioned that 9-11, the lessons haven't landed and they don't. absorb that lesson in the same way. It's not just that. It's that a lot of our youth believe that they have actually been lied to about 9-11. They don't believe the story. And I don't want to debate that. But the point is, is that if you believe that right or wrong, you must also believe that Muslims were in a way victimized.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, Eric, I think that you're right in the sense of the conspiratorial nature of society the last decade and 15 years. And look, I think we could say that that's true for all time. But I'd say social media that is ramped up for younger people, people that were not necessarily that engaged in what was going on in politics, now all of a sudden have access to all of this. They're asking a lot of questions. And of course, they're watching a lot of people who are also uneducated or are educated to the point of creating chaos, spouting out conspiracy theories specifically regarding September 11th and other major American events. You don't hear about those for as much as a lot of the other events in history the tragedies history where america has been under attack you only hear about it in the most recent ones you only hear it about it when it comes to september 11th october 7th uh things where people start spewing out their versions of the truth which who knows where they're coming from saying you know there's pre-warning we all knew this this all happened this was you know all the things that is said and you are right it certainly creates a disinformation i have people being taught uh you know middle schoolers being taught the moon landing wasn't real And of course, you may want to have that debate and have that conversation, whatever. I don't care. But it is proven, you know, it's fact, at least in American history, it's fact. You can debate that later on in your life. But that is a big problem. We got a lot of calls coming up in the next segment. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Seculo. We are going to take some more phone calls. We got two lines still open. 1-800-684-3110. 1-800-684-3110. And look, we do this show each and every day. I want to make sure people who know us who are just joining us right now, maybe you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel. We do this show each and every day or rumble. 12 to 1 p.m eastern time and then of course you can watch us archived hundreds of thousands of you do each and every day and we appreciate that you can find us on all the platforms you get your podcasts on whether that's video or audio or you can find us on aclj.org available everywhere of course our incredible legal work none of this gets done without you so i just want to take a second before we take the calls to say thank you for those that support financially and if you consider supporting financially make sure you do that through aclj.org i see sometimes people throw a few bucks through our super chats and those kinds of things on YouTube. And while that's appreciated, uh, no, you get a tax deductible donation by just going to ACLJ.org and it helps us out. You have to pay those kinds of processing fees that go to Google and all of that. So, uh, we appreciate it. But if you're brand new, I don't ask you to give financially. I ask you to subscribe and just join us for this conversation each and every day. Like join, join us. Like I joined will this weekend at the no, uh, no Kings rally. No, I was at the no scrubs rally. Oh, you don't want scrubs. No, no, You were hanging outside, though, of my best friend's ride. Yeah. You were trying to holler at me. Let's go ahead and take some phone calls. Love it. Monday. It's Monday. It feels like Friday. I can tell because people are watching. Terry's calling in Florida. Terry, go ahead. Bring us back home.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good morning, fellows. Good morning, fellows. I, too, have been seriously mystified who in their right mind would vote for Mondavi. And I came across an article this morning in a famous magazine. I don't want to mention about 700 languages.
SPEAKER 06 :
No idea where we're going here, but let's, let's just see where we're going. All right, go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. There's 700 different languages spoken in New York city.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
And maybe these people are legal or not. Only half of them speak English. So are these the people who are voting for Mondavi?
SPEAKER 06 :
No, Terry, I actually I don't say this. Yes, it's a multicultural area. I lived there. I love it there. It's my favorite places in the world. partially is because of that it is is the melting pot of the world if you want to hear about new york city that is where you go to hear every language being spoken at every street corner and it's a beautiful thing however i don't think that's the case i think the people that are voting in this election that really care about this election are new yorkers and i think a lot of them especially young new york see this as their only option I know I've said that. You go, how is that possible? They have dealt with Cuomo before as their governor. And as much as I actually like some of the messaging of Curtis Sliwa, he's not going to become the mayor of New York. As much as I like some of the messaging of Andrew Cuomo, and I actually really like Chris Cuomo's show. I think it's one of the few kind of balanced shows that you can watch on television. However... I don't think, and look, now they're saying that the polls are getting closer. Will read those polls, that maybe there is something here. And maybe when you do have something like you're, I don't know, campaigning when the nun had died in co-conspirator of a terrorist attack, maybe that older generation goes, hold on, what are we doing here? But he's got a bit of the Obama in him where he is a very good speaker, a very good orator, can dodge questions, but still have some sort of answer that feels eloquent. He's good. Let's not pretend. He's not even like a Newsom where you're like, you're good, but you're also, you come across like Harvey Dent. He doesn't come off like Harvey Dent. He comes out like a pretty cool guy.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and that's one. He is young. He's been able to use social media and things of that nature to reach the younger voting demographic in New York. And I think that's where you're seeing the base. You're seeing SNL cast members that are campaigning for him and then doing skits, making fun of people not voting for him, which... May have some issues there. I don't know. I'm not an expert on that. But that was a questionable choice of who they allowed to mock people that would not be voting for Mondami when she is actively campaigning for him in videos. But yeah, I think that is part of it. He gets that. He has a team that's young that gets how to use social media. And while Terry may have a point, that is a part of the New York campaign. demographic as well, is that there are people that are a melting pot. Not all of those would be voters in this election, but I really think it is the youth vote that they're able to get. There's a lot of young voters in New York, young professionals that go there and that maybe are a little disenchanted by someone like Andrew Cuomo or Curtis Sliwa. And how could you not? And you also see when they're trying to play catch up, when you see what Cuomo tried to do and even Eric Adams before he dropped out, the way they were trying to have a social media strategy, like, look at my day. I'm really cool. It came across as very cringy and did not help them be more endeared to the people of the city.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. And again, I think that any of these candidates would likely be better for a lot of things, including the Jewish people of New York City. But of course, you're seeing a lot of the Jewish community come out. And New York is always a different place. And the New York Jewish community, a lot of them are going to support Mamdani. It's just the way things happen. Let's go ahead and go to Thomas, who is in New York. Thomas is a retired NYPD sergeant. So I think he's got something he could say about this. Thomas, go ahead.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, how you doing? I've been in the city for over 55 years now. I mean, we moved here from Europe when I was like three years old. I worked for the NYPD for over 15 years. Basically, I know Curtis Fleetwood. I appreciate him. I supported him. I gave him gifts. You know, but the thing is now, we can't take a chance. The only one stopping that can stop It's Cuomo. That's it. There's no Republican could beat Mandani. Okay, let's just say, to get with the facts, the facts are that. I mean, Lord willing, Cuomo comes ahead of everything because he's the only chance right now. I'm no Cuomo fan. He screwed us with a lot of stuff, including back with COVID. I had a property. I had to lose my property. They weren't even paying me rent. I'm no fan of Cuomo, but to save the city, the last few years, look, I can't believe I have 92 and 91-year-old parents. I retired... 20 years ago, I retired. Basically, you know what? I came and leave the city. I'm trapped here. And that's the fact. I mean, it's Cuomo who finished. And I know Curtis, he's not, he's, I don't blame him. He wants to stick with it, but to the love of the city, he should have quit. And that's the truth because he couldn't get it. No Republicans
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, and Thomas, to your point as well... Yeah, we're only cutting you off because of time, because I really think you're making very valid points that most New Yorkers are feeling. And one, I mean, incredible retired NYPD sergeant and knows that city. I mean, as we've said, Curtis Lewa wants what's best for the city, but he ran for mayor in 2021 against Eric Adams in a head-to-head race and only got 27% of the vote in just two candidates. So...
SPEAKER 06 :
he's just a spoiler it's very it's very difficult especially in a three-way race for him to do anything other than i understand he has the party behind him and you know cuomo's out there he lost the primary so there's a whole nother discussion there but thomas i appreciate your call i wanted to let you talk as long as you could uh ellen let's quickly go you're only about 30 seconds ellen because we're running out of time i'm so sorry uh go ahead though
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. Hi guys. Sorry. We watch you every day. I'm very disappointed that people are kind of saying that Sliwa doesn't even have a chance. Um, we got forced out of my dad's company was forced out of New York city because of high taxes. So you guys who want to think it's okay. Oh, you know, we're young. We have our little businesses. We have our jobs. Guess what? Your taxes are going to go through the roof. God bless you. But we are supporting Sliwa. Anybody who's still living at the New York from the family, they're all supporting Sliwa. I think that might be more support than people know.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, Ellen. I mean, look, I'm glad we were able to have both a call from our last caller and you to kind of counterbalance that. The polling would indicate otherwise, but you know what? Polls are polls. You never know where things are going to land. But Ellen, I appreciate your call. And it's not, again, that we have anything against. So I think he's done some amazing work for the city. I think he continues to do some great work for the city. I saw some great videos over the weekend. Commendable work. It's just, we're talking politics now and the numbers here. And the numbers are showing that Madami is going to run away with it. If it goes down to a two-person race, you never know. The question is, do you think Cuomo's going to be better? That's up to you to decide. Before that, hey, packed show today. I appreciate it. Support the work of the ACLJ while you're at it. Go to ACLJ.org, and we'll get back to some more ACLJ talk coming up in the next few days, but we appreciate you chiming in here on a Monday. You can sign our petitions also at ACLJ.org. Talk to you later.
In this episode of the Best Stocks Now show, veteran money manager Bill Gunderson provides a comprehensive market analysis as earnings season kicks off. With the S&P 500 nearing an all-time high and Bitcoin approaching correction territory, what does this mean for investors? Both novice and expert traders will gain valuable insights into the complexities of the market as Bill, along with chartered financial analyst Barry Kite, dives into earnings expectations and investment strategies. From deconstructing traditional asset allocations to highlighting the importance of earnings growth, this episode is a must-listen for anyone keen to optimize their retirement portfolios.
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 03 :
And welcome to the Monday. It is 10-20-25 today. This is Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management. And I'm here with Barry Kite, our chartered financial analyst. And we are off to the races. So far, the gates have opened, and they've broken out with a pretty good start here to the market here so far this week. We're going to have 90 S&P 500 companies reporting earnings this week. The Dow is up 244 points. That's a half a percent. Puts it at 46,435. The S&P is up 47 points. I want to say that might be an all-time high here. We're up 70 basis points, 6,011 is where we're at on the S&P. And the NASDAQ doing best of all. It's up 1.1% right now, which in this market translates to 244 points with the NASDAQ at 22,924, very close to its all-time high. We're seeing the bond market behave itself here today. We're under four. That hasn't happened since back in April of this year. We're at 3.99% today only. And we've got gold hitting a new all-time high at 4,334. And we've got Bitcoin holding that all-important 200-day moving average with the rally of 3,200 a day. It's at 110-853. So welcome to today's Best Stocks Now show with professional money manager Bill Gunderson, president of Gunderson Capital Management, a nationwide fee-based only firm. This is my 25th. 26 year i believe in the industry and have been doing a radio show and a newsletter during that entire amount of time barry doesn't quite have as much experience as i do but he's been around long enough to have seen a thing or two as it relates to uh financial planning and analyzing the markets, etc. So I'm sure we've got, hopefully we've got some information here for you today that will be useful. You know, the biggest angst, Barry, I've spent half the week last week down in Longboat Key, Florida. At the South Florida Business Conference, a lot of Bitcoin owners down there that I talked to. And, of course, I would say that's probably one of the most common questions that comes up. What do you think of Bitcoin? How do you like Bitcoin? Well, I think I've stated my feelings about Bitcoin. I don't invest in it for my clients. I don't have that much faith and trust in it as I do proven companies, right, publicly traded. But I understand, you know, they want a better currency. They want to get away from the U.S. dollar. That seemed to be the common theme. But they also expressed quite a bit of angst last week, especially Thursday and Friday. As Bitcoin dipped clear down to $106,000, which puts it at almost 15% from its all-time high. So we consider that correction territory. And it also came right down to its 200-day moving average, which is technical support for Bitcoin. And, you know, if it were to break that 200-day moving average, I would have even a bit more angst if I were a big Bitcoin holder. But it's holding it so far today. And, you know, if it were to go down below that and hit that 20% off of its all-time high, which was $125,000, that would put it in bear market territory. So you have to be very careful and watch for that.
SPEAKER 04 :
And there was a lot of short interest amongst some big holders of Bitcoin. So they were hedging, kind of doing some hedging against some of their big Bitcoin positions.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and they're scrambling today to cover those short positions, it looks like. But it's a war. It's a battle. It happens in every asset class. I don't care if it's oil, if it's gold. If it's the tech stocks, if it's China, there's a battle that goes on between the bulls and the bears on a daily basis. Well, we're now well into earnings season. Earnings season is off to a good start so far. Man, I can't remember the last bad earnings season. I really can't. Right now we're looking for 8.5% growth in earnings. versus the same quarter last year, all right, which was also a very good quarter one year ago. We're seeing record earnings on the S&P 500. And as I gave my spiel down at the Florida Business Summit, I always showed the chart of earnings for the S&P 500 since 2006. We've now got 20 years on that chart, a bar chart. And you can see the upward slope of earnings since 2009 after a couple of receding years, which led to the 53% correction bear market in the S&P 500 in 08 and 09. The market finally bottomed in March of 09. It's been climbing ever since, except for the COVID year. That's an extraordinary item on that income statement. And why? There's no better explanation than indexes and stocks follow earnings. You know, Barry, that was an eye-opening moment. It shouldn't be. It's just logic in my mind. But people, they make the stock market too difficult. And as I presented my little hour and a half presentation, it was mostly people from the medical profession, neurologists, urologists, people that own medical clinics, etc., etc., etc. And I just showed my graph of the S&P 500 graph. And the total earnings of all of those companies comes down to one number, earnings per share. And it's gone from $60 per share back in 2009. March of 2009 was the bottom of the market. And we're headed for $350 per share, according to the analyst right now. And there's no better explanation for this bull market which has carried the S&P 500 from 660 on up to 6,660. That's a tenfold increase than the earnings increase of the market, and that's why I watch earnings so closely and base my investments on earnings. And, Barry, I stood up before them all, and I put about ten symbols on the grease board, right? I said, what do all of these stock symbols have in common? AT&T, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, you know, on and on and on with all of these big blue chip stocks, Intel, IBM. I said, what do they all have in common, Merck, and others like that? I said, their earnings growth has been very subpar over the last 10 years. And if stocks follow earnings, it only makes logical sense that you want superior growth earnings in earning stocks. And I said the other thing that all of these big companies have in common is they're the most owned stocks on Wall Street. And almost every portfolio that transfers to me from one of the big Wall Street firms, I already know what's going to be in that portfolio. A lot of those, most of those, and a lot more of those aforementioned stocks. And I showed the earnings growth of some of them. AT&T, for instance, minus numbers. Disney, for instance, single digits, many single digit earnings growers. A lot of them are in the Dow. And then I gave them examples of companies in today's world that are growing by 20, 25% per year. I said, which one do you want to invest in? And I could see several of them squirming in their seats, Barry, because I know that their big Wall Street wire house firm has them in those big soggy stocks that are going nowhere. And to make matters worse... Most people are in a 70-30, 60-40 asset allocation, okay, stocks versus bonds, depending on their age. And we talked about other factors besides your age that impact the bond market and the stock market, which should be taken into account, in my opinion. And I said a vast majority of America's retirement money, because of this asset allocation formula, is in bond funds. And then I showed the average return of an indexed bond fund, which includes all different types of bonds, etc. And it was 1.8% over the last 10 years.
SPEAKER 1 :
1.8%.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that really waters down your portfolio considerably. You can improve that performance markedly by owning the individual bonds as opposed to bond funds, which are going to give you, the individual bonds are going to give you that coupon rate, which is going to be in the 5% to 6% area and hold them to maturity. That does a heck of a lot better than a bond fund that's averaged 1% to 2% over the last 10 years, which really waters down your portfolio. Then, of course, on that stock side of that asset allocation, doesn't it make sense to just kind of drift away from the big old soggy stocks of yesteryear into a little bit more vibrant portfolio, the NVIDIAs of the world and the Ubers of the world and the DoorDashes of the world? Those are the growth engines of today. This is Bill Gutterson of Barry Kite. It's the Best Stocks Now show. A lot to talk about when we come back. And welcome back here to the second quarter of today's Best Stocks Now show. Earnings are so, so critical to the market. I've said it many times. In real estate, it's location, location, location. In the market, whether it's the private markets or the public markets, earnings drive the bus towards valuation and capital appreciation. So we are in earnings season now and there's estimates out there on the street for the rest of this year, 2025, all of next year, 2026 and 2027. And the market currently is looking at the 2027 earnings estimates and trading on those numbers. And that's why it's so critical to not only look at today's earnings reports, but also future estimates and where they're at, because the market has already priced in today's earnings. Looking back over the last 12 months, it's now looking forward 24 months on individual stocks and on the markets themselves. And we'll trade on those stocks. Those future estimates, well, let's take a look at how we're doing so far. And like I say, I can't remember the last bad earnings season that we have had. We now have 12% of the S&P 500 companies now reporting earnings. who have reported earnings eighty six percent of beat their eps estimates and eighty four percent of beat their sales estimates and very always get the argument when i present my uh... you know that but the stocks in the market trading on future earnings expectations and someone always ask me do you really trust those those analyst out there and the companies, and I say, yes, I do, because the analysts are getting their information from the companies. And if anything, the companies are sandbagging the analysts, and actually the earnings estimates out on the street are probably understated. And the reason I say that is, look at this so far. This is pretty typical. 86% have beat their earnings estimates. In other words, Barry, they sandbagged 86% of the analysts out there and came in and beat the estimates.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, in recent memory, probably the biggest upset in terms of how earnings had to be... had to be notched down from what was expected was 08-09 and most of it was due to essentially bank earnings and write downs of portfolios some would argue at that time was extraordinary losses in reality they ended up being very ordinary in terms of what was happening in that business but But that discovery process took a little while. Well, yeah, it was way in advance. That was a very unique situation. Usually, if you follow estimates and you follow them closely, you're going to see a bit of writing on the wall in terms of potential downturns.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and I started to see it in 2006 that those estimates for 07 and 08 were starting to be ratcheted downwards. That's a bad sign. We're still in an environment where earnings estimates continue to be ratcheted higher right now. So you got 12% of those S&P have reported. That's what, 60 companies. We're going to get another 90 this week. 86% have beat their EPS estimates. We started this quarter with anticipation of 7.3% growth, and now we're at 8.5%, which also proves my point that estimates are going up, they're going higher. And this will be the ninth straight quarter of earnings growth. uh... and of course uh... we've still got a long ways to go but uh... we continue to watch uh... those earnings now the other part of that earnings and uh... price target equation or is the multiple that you multiply those earnings by right now the forward p e ratios at twenty two point four it has dropped a little bit we were at twenty three But the average price target for the S&P 500 out there on the street right now is about 7,300 over the next 12 months. And the charts of the S&P, the NASDAQ, and the Dow all still look favorable. But we take it a day at a time. We take it a stock at a time, an index at a time, one week at a time, and we stay vigilant. At all times. Okay, let's get into some of the news here. Earnings this week. Okay, let's take a look at who's going to be reporting this week. We're going to have technology. We'll be under the microscope. Updates from Tesla. which is probably one of the top five earnings reports. Netflix, probably in the top ten. Intel, which is pretty important. Are they making a turnaround? Have they put it into place? We don't own Intel, but Intel will report. Texas Instruments, SAP. T-Mobile, the venerable old AT&T, one of the stocks that I always use as the poster child of a soggy stock. IBM, Lamb Research, QuantumScape, that's a big one. They're making the solid-state batteries for the EV cars that may come into place. And then it's Soggy Wednesday, Coca-Cola. Procter & Gamble, 3M, General Motors, Philip Morris, Honeywell, Illinois Tool Works, and a soggy stock that emerged from soggiedom and has become a very relevant stock once again. General Electric will report this week. You're going to get Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman. In the energy sector, which has been a very poor sector to be invested in in 2025, we have no exposure at all. You know, you're down to $2.39 a gallon in gasoline, Barry, with oil at $58 per barrel.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, under $60 a barrel.
SPEAKER 03 :
Energy sector, you have Halliburton, Baker Hughes. We don't have any exposure to the oil sector. Get some of the big airlines reporting, some financials, Chubb, Capital One. Tractor Supply, VRT, which has been kind of an important AI stock, a smaller, aggressive kind of stock. That's the earnings that we're going to get this week. How about this news here? This really caught my eye. NVIDIA and Taiwan Semiconductor, two of the best stocks in the entire market today. No, it's not Procter & Gamble and AT&T. They have been disrupted by many disruptors along the way. And I gave examples of companies that have been disrupted. I said, look, Disney's been disrupted by Netflix to some extent.
SPEAKER 04 :
Intel's been disrupted by NVIDIA, right? Well, you've got some companies who have been a disruptor, and then eventually down the road they mature enough, and then what happens? Somebody comes along and disrupts them. Yeah, you have to look at an IBM, even a... You know, is Cisco over the years?
SPEAKER 03 :
Cisco's been disrupted by Arista Networks, okay? Do you want to own the disrupted or the disruptor? NVIDIA and Taiwan Semi completed their first made-in-the-USA Blackwell chip wafer. Okay, well, that's not the complete chip itself, but very close to it, and I'm sure they could take it to the finish line if they wanted to, but Taiwan Semwise is not willing to give that up, but they did it in Phoenix. This is a historic moment, Jensen Wang said. It's the very first time in recent American history that the single most important chip is being manufactured here in the U.S., That's big news. It really is. 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. I put several hours of research in during the wee hours of the morning each day to bring you the very best cutting-edge stories that I can. To get two free weeks of my newsletter, go to GundersonCapital.com. To talk to us about our fee-based only money management services, call us at 855-611-BEST. Now, back to the second half of the show. Call out the instigator because there's something in the air. And welcome back here to the second half of today's Best Stocks Now show. And I want to add one more thing to that Taiwan Semiconductor NVIDIA story. It actually is a Blackwell chip, fully loaded, you know, Barry, like a fully loaded baked potato. It's got everything in it. Why is that important? Well, with, you know, naval China warships circling Taiwan and buzzing them on a daily basis, how important is it for us to be able to make a Blackwell chip here in America instead of being totally reliant on Taiwan. And it continues that whole supply chain big correction that is taking place. Of course, rare earth is at the center of it all right now. I was reading about antimony this morning and how many things antimony is in. China has 90%. They mine 90% of the world's antimony. which has a lot of defense. It's in semiconductors. It's in almost everything. And we're trying to onshore a lot of this stuff so we're not dependent on other countries.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, I think of it as if you were a company. You want to be in as much control of your own supply chain as possible. We talk about a vertically integrated supply chain. And so as a country, it's something that's important. You get reliant on supply.
SPEAKER 03 :
um you know certain components elsewhere and you know you've got to at least make some at home and it's given other countries leverage so china is using the rare earth obviously as leverage in this whole trade negotiation and there is talk that maybe They're getting closer. I mean, the ultimate solution, I don't know if it will happen, would be to give us to give them full access to the chips and them to give us full access to the rare earth. That would be the ultimate. And that's what Jensen Wang is pushing for. Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER 04 :
He's like, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it would be good for Jensen and his pocketbook. Okay, the other thing I want to mention is I got to see my nephew's presentation. And, of course, he worked right alongside Clayton Christensen at Harvard University, who wrote the book. the bible called the innovators dilemma when new technologies cause great firms to fail okay and i would say that the market is littered you know how many stocks that i followed over the years buried that aren't around anymore that failed to keep up that failed to innovate and uh... this is the bible on the whole innovation disruption, the innovators dilemma. It's mostly a dilemma to the companies that are being disrupted. What do you do about it? and he gave a great presentation. And then, of course, I followed with my presentation, and I put on the board about six or seven companies that have been disrupted totally. I mean, Intel is a perfect example with NVIDIA and AMD, really, both of them, and Broadcom. Totally disrupting Intel and Intel falling by the wayside and now needing an investment by the U.S. government and even one by NVIDIA to try to help them out. So it's a real thing. Disruption is, and in today's world, it is very much a real thing. China's Q3 GDP up 4.8% year over year. That's its slowest pace since 2024. It is better than expectations. Hey, Barry, we were just at 3.8% in the most recent quarter. I remember when China was running at 7%, 8%. And, of course, it seems like the scales are being balanced a little bit out there on this whole trade imbalance.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, Europe's interesting because, I mean, they're getting, you know, essentially getting a bunch of cheap goods from China in terms of, you know, I think BYD is working on building maybe their fourth factory in, you know, in Europe at the moment. I think it's going to be somewhere around maybe in Spain, but... The point is they're benefiting kind of from some of these trade changes where things are selling into Europe more.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And they're getting cheap goods, and then it's also crowding out some capacity at home. I mean, look at Germany. They've been certainly weaker on a GDP standpoint. Yeah. Partly they've benefited from an inflation standpoint. On the other side, they haven't benefited in terms of growth.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, China buys no U.S. soybeans in September amid trade tensions, so this has not been good on the U.S. farmer. But there is talk, there is talk of a grand deal to be made. How about this? I couldn't believe this. You've got an ETF company, volatility shares, looking to push the envelope
SPEAKER 04 :
five times leverage barry i'm not for that at all i mean we're at three right on on etfs okay and here's the math though on a third so you know when you get into these three-time leveraged uh you know deals so i mean you know if something goes down 33 percent essentially you're you're close to zero in terms of your initial investment and There's times where you can look where the NASDAQ was down over 33% in 2022. What was that due to a five-time?
SPEAKER 03 :
That's only a 20% drop at most if it's five times.
SPEAKER 04 :
Those happen, you know, 20% drop. That's just a normal correction. Those historically have happened every 18 to 36 months.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. I'm not on board with that. I mean, ETFs were invented in the first place to spread risk around, right? It was actually to hedge. Lower risk. Yeah, to hedge.
SPEAKER 04 :
Just like options were created to be a hedging tool.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, now they have these single stocks. ETFs that are leveraged, that totally defeats the purpose, in my opinion, of this whole ETF lowering your risk level. Blackstone, Jonathan Gray warns that investors are underestimating AI's disruptive power. I would totally agree with that. I mean... You look at the disruption dilemma, and almost every industry is looking to add AI to their lineup of technology to keep up with the rest. And even in the medical industry, AI has become a big thing, as I listen to a lot of these physicians and whatnot down in that neck of the woods talking about it. How about the prediction markets? Kalshi trading volume surges among high drama of the Giants and Broncos NFL game. But this Kalshi is quite an interesting deal. It's disrupting the... The sports betting, it's disrupted. You know, we backed out. We owned Flutter. And I saw Flutter, you know, like start to break its technical support. And it's Kalshi that's coming along and disrupting them. Now, Kalshi is a private company. But Kalshi, you know, is doing all these different propositions on like when will the government shut down and blah, blah, blah. And the word Kalshi in Arabic means everything. So in a way, I mean, remember when the big hedge, the big short, he knew the mortgage market was going to blow up. They had one of the big banks create a vehicle for him to invest in to profit from that. Of course, he made a lot of money. But now with this Kalshi. There's going to be a lot more opportunity to hedge or to pick on very bad business models, etc. Or, you know, it's even extending that of Robinhood. They're looking at the prediction markets. And I think maybe interactive brokers also. So anyways, very interesting story. This cash a United States antimony to bolster critical minerals portfolio with an all-stock bid for Lovato Resources. So, you know, that's been a hot little stock. United States Animoid, that's way out there, however, on the risk scale. I just want to remind you of that. We continue to shift away from wind and solar. That's a big move. Vestas, which is the largest wind energy company in the world. is nixing their Polish wind turbine plant on weak European demand. Now, you know it's weakening when Europe starts to back off.
SPEAKER 04 :
If they don't have a demand for it, you know it's weak.
SPEAKER 03 :
Forget about it. You know they need power. And, of course, nuclear is all the rage and a very investable theme right now as the power, the energy that is being gobbled up by data farms is enormous.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know you're on the wrong side of the power investment theme if you're in a spot where you're not going to do a project. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Apple has pretty good sales going with the 17. We don't currently own Apple. We haven't seen much innovation out of Apple in quite some time. And Kathy Woods is loading up on Alibaba. Maybe it's time for us to sell our Alibaba there, Barry. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER 05 :
On a winter's day.
SPEAKER 03 :
And welcome back here to the final segment of today's Best Docs Now show. Barry, I've got to mention Burns Steakhouse in Tampa. You've been there, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I've been there. I knew you were going to enjoy it. I didn't want to spoil it, and I knew you'd heard a good bit about it. Well, it really is a one-of-a-kind restaurant, really, in America.
SPEAKER 03 :
Do you know, I mean, I'm not a drinker, but their wine collection is worth $80 million.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I didn't realize it was that much. When you said that on the show on Thursday, I was thinking insurance-wise, Lloyd's of London must be carrying that.
SPEAKER 03 :
An earthquake would disrupt them big time. But anyways, what an experience that was. It's a good steak. We were in the owner's room.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's been a long time since I've been, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we had every appetizer on the menu, every steak on the menu brought to our table. It was just an unbelievable experience. And if you ever, ever... You can get into the dessert bar upstairs, which are all these little private booths, and they just have a dessert menu, a whole different waiter staff, wait staff up there, a whole different kitchen up there, and it's only dessert. So you can at least get a taste of Burns by going to just the dessert. And I would say this, that St. Regis Hotel on Longboat Key is probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at. And, you know, look, I've been around quite a bit, stayed at some nice things. It reminded me a lot of Cabo San Lucas down there at the tip of Baja. How was the weather?
SPEAKER 04 :
Was the weather nice?
SPEAKER 03 :
Beautiful. Gorgeous. I mean, the bay was calm as a lake, and the sand was white, and the sky was blue, and the clouds were billowy and white. I mean, that St. Regis Hotel, if you live in the area, we have a lot of clients and followers in the Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch, Tampa, clear down to Naples area, Orlando. Man, go check out that St. Regis Hotel on Longboat Key. It really is something. If you just go there in the lounge, I mean, they have live music every night, piano. They had a Latin jazz band on Friday. Man, I had a good time down there.
SPEAKER 04 :
You like a good jazz band. That's a winner.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, okay. And they have, you know, for the kids, they've got a big pool that they can swim in that's full of stingrays without their stingers. and fish. They've got a giant lazy river with grottos with jacuzzis in the grottos. They've got a huge sushi bar built up high overlooking the Gulf of America. Is it the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico? I still see Gulf of Mexico most of the time. when I see it referred to. And that crystal clear water to dip your toes into, that's all good. Okay, earnings season is upon us. Yes, I do look at the earnings of every company that reports. Some of them are not consequential, obviously, but others are very consequential.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's like their stats. I like how you say it's like looking at the back of a baseball card.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and, you know, when I was speaking down there, I said the first thing I look at when a player comes to bat is his batting average, his home runs, his RBIs, whatnot. And, of course, when you go to the horse races, which I grew up going to the horse races when I was a kid, and we do plan on going to the Breeders' Cup next week out in San Diego. You look at the track record of the horse. He's never won in 66 times. You think all of a sudden he's going to wake up and mow him down in the stretch? No, I don't think so. And that track record of a stock. uh... is very very important that's the starting point and it's very easy to eliminate a stock very quickly and the physicians seem to like the whole concept of baseball i mean they're all tampa rays fans down there and they know about money ball and fielding the best twenty five players on your team when you come out of spring training and you know and i said look your portfolio has room for twenty five maybe thirty players in it and uh... don't you want to have the very best of the best you want to have an 0 for sixty six uh... horse running in your uh... stable uh... in your portfolio do you want to have a utility infielder batting one sixty eight or a relief pitcher with an ERA of 10.47. No, you want to have the very, very best, and there's limited space in your portfolio. Why fill it up with dead weight? You've got to make that thing vibrant. It's like a garden. You plant that garden, and over time, some of the plants are not quite thriving like the others are, and you've got to pluck it. and replace it with another one. You've got to send him down to the minor leagues. Or if you're a horse 0 for 66, you've got to maybe move him to a track that has a very low grade of horse where he can win or retire him to the farm. That's probably even better and make him a pet for kids, right? But he's probably grouchy after being 0 for 66. Probably kick the kid off. I don't want you on my back. I don't like the jockeys.
SPEAKER 04 :
Send him out to the pasture.
SPEAKER 03 :
So anyways, those are some concepts that I talked about. And of course, I always give living examples of companies that were once, you know, in the disruptors dilemma, there's obviously talking about, my nephew starts his presentation with showing all of these companies that at one time were major companies in America, right? Control Data, I remember Control Data, I remember Xerox. These were disruptors at one time, but now they've totally been disrupted. Most of them are gone. Hewlett Packard was a major disruptor. Intel was a major disruptor. But unfortunately, they couldn't quite keep up with the times and fell behind. And many of them are not even around anymore. IBM chooses Grok. You know, a lot of people are telling me I should be using Grok. Now, I've got to check that out. I haven't used it yet. Grok is a major competitor to Anthropic, major competitor to OpenAI, major competitor to Gemini. I do know this, that OpenAI is dominating right now. This chat GPT is dominating. over Google's Gemini and the others by far and they're going to be able to monetize it but my little nephew he's not little he's way bigger than me I am he could probably beat me up if he had to take me in a wrestling match but he was saying he doesn't see the revenue model really working for these big AI companies Unless they're able to charge a whole heck of a lot for very sophisticated AI searches. But right now he's not seeing the revenue models really working for those companies. So I don't know if I want to have any exposure to Anthropic through a private equity deal or not. Well, to make an appointment with us for a free portfolio review, maybe you're in a bunch of soggy stuff, give us a call at 855-611-BEST or just sample the newsletter. You get four free weeks at GundersenCapital.com. GundersenCapital.com. Have a great day, everybody.
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.
Welcome to the Kim Monson Show podcast. Kim Monson is your host. Principles Over Party. Brad Beck shares details regarding his introduction of a political platform to Boulder High School students. Susan Kochevar discusses her concern that the Supreme Court refused to hear a court case involving Alex Jones. Candidate Ivy Lui notes why she is running for Falcon School District 49 school board. Candidate Elizabeth Taylor explains why she is running for Roaring Fork School Board. And we’ll talk with State Farm agent Roger Mangan. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Kim Monson Show airs on KLZ 560 AM every Monday thru Friday, 6-8 AM MST. You can listen to the live stream by going to www.klzradio.com
In this compelling episode of Rush to Reason, host John Rush dives into a whirlwind of topics—from the GOP’s messaging failures and Colorado’s political future to the dangers of conspiracy culture within conservatism. A thoughtful caller discussion unpacks the GOP’s struggle to connect with voters and the possible rise of figures like Victor Marks in the gubernatorial race. John takes a firm stand against anti-Semitism in the conservative movement, calling out figures like Stu Peters, Laura Loomer, and Candace Owens for spreading hate and distraction.
The show also takes a reflective turn as John opens up about the recent passing of his father, sharing his biblical view on death, the afterlife, and the spiritual dangers of false comfort and demonic deception. What begins as a political talk show evolves into a deeply personal and spiritual message about faith, discernment, and where to place our hope.
SPEAKER 13 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 14 :
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 03 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 15 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did, get a job first. You haven't made everybody equal. You've made them the same and there's a big difference.
SPEAKER 11 :
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 12 :
Are you crazy?
SPEAKER 05 :
Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 13 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, hour number three, Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Brad and Lakewood, go ahead, sir.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, you and I have talked about this before, so I might be a tad bit repetitive when I start out. The Republicans don't know how to message. With this government shutdown, it's fairly obvious when all the Republicans voted for it and two Democrats in the Senate voted for it, The Democrats are the problem, but yet they continue to use the same Saul Alinsky trick, blame the opposition for the same thing you're doing. Why can't the Republicans articulate their message that we have the filibuster and we're five votes short?
SPEAKER 04 :
That's a great question, and you know me. I feel like the same way you do, Brad. One of the biggest complaints I have with our party is the fact that we – you just said it – we message terribly. I don't know why it's so hard for us to get our message across because it's not that difficult. Now, I will say in this particular case, I think – We could be messaging better, don't get me wrong. I agree with you 100% on that one, Brad. But I also think that the average middle-of-the-road voter, which is what either side needs to win, I don't think you really need to at this point in time on this particular one. I think they realize full well exactly who's causing the shutdown.
SPEAKER 07 :
But I read these comments, like on Hickenlooper Bennett's Facebook page, people keep telling Hickenlooper to stand firm, and it's the Republicans' fault, so...
SPEAKER 04 :
Keep in mind that those people that are actually responding to those particular pages, those are your hardcore lefties. Those are not individuals that are in the middle of the road. In fact, most of those people are probably not even on those pages at all. So reality is you're going to have that hardcore lefty that's going to say that no matter what. Don't let that bother you because that's just who they are.
SPEAKER 07 :
Do you think there's ever any chance of a Fetterman joining the Republican Party?
SPEAKER 04 :
That's a great question. I was thinking about that last week. Maybe if his party continues to push him, you know, out the door like they're doing, basically, and continuing to browbeat him like they've been doing. Yeah, actually, Brad, I think there might be a chance.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. I think the Democrats actually might throw him out of the party first. They might.
SPEAKER 04 :
They might. There's talk about that. You could very well be correct.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, no. Why are we continually in recess or session all the time? I called up Scalise's office today and say there's a couple of good bills that could be brought to the floor. Massey's H.R. 1040, which would actually end the double taxation of Social Security, or MTG was saying that she introduced a bill to have Antifa declare a terrorist organization. But every time you turn around, Mike Johnson has the house out of session or on vacation or whatever you want to call it. Wouldn't it make more sense? call session, get these bills passed, and then they'd be ready to go to the Senate?
SPEAKER 04 :
I would be doing that. That would be the way I would do it, Brad. I can't disagree with you there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Do you think Trump just has poor judgment? Now, obviously, we're far better off with Trump. He's not going to be perfect. At times, do you think he has poor judgment character, or do you think it's the case of Nobody's going to be 100% perfect.
SPEAKER 04 :
Nobody's going to, yeah, no, I think it's more of the latter. You know, we live in a day and age, Brad, where, I mean, even as employers, I mean, I've got folks that I coach whereby you've got certain employees whereby you're putting up with certain things because you know the alternative is probably going to be far worse than the one you have right now. So there's just certain things as an employer you actually put up with knowing you don't have much choice. I think Trump finds himself in that same position.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, especially when we only have 220 employees. Republicans in the House. Now, about MM and LL, I don't see the Colorado Republican Party doing much to fight that either. And one thing about Democrats is they refuse to give up. Next year, they're going to be doing something to mess with the progressive, do a progressive income tax and get rid of the flat tax. Why aren't we as Republicans, like the Independence Institute or Advanced Colorado, doing something to fight that, say, like, let's lower it down to zero, because even Polis supports bringing it down to zero. Why aren't we doing a petition drive to counteract that?
SPEAKER 04 :
Brad, we have a hard time figuring out who we're even going to get behind for a governor. So at the end of the day, no offense, we don't have enough collective will in this state on the conservative side to accomplish much of anything. I hate to say that, but that's where we're at.
SPEAKER 07 :
Who do you support for governor?
SPEAKER 04 :
Nobody yet. No one. Way, way, way too far out. I have no idea. I watched – I was going to mention this, so I'm glad you asked. I watched a little bit of the – debate's not the right way to say it, but the forum, the gathering they had up in Fort Collins where I think everybody was there. Not everybody. There was probably half, I want to say, maybe, of everybody that's on – You know, there's, what, 19 or 20 now. There was about half of them that actually went up there and were at that particular forum. Victor Marks, who's one of the bigger names right now, was not there. I'm not sure exactly why. And I'll just say this straight up, Brad. Out of the – I want to say there was roughly 10, maybe 12 – I don't think there was even 12. There might have been 10 candidates that were there up – and I should have written this down, but I didn't. But out of all of them that were there, there were probably four – that really I felt like have any kind of a chance of moving forward. I think a lot of guys have thrown their hat in the ring to make themselves more well-known, politically speaking, which I'm not blaming them for doing so. But the majority of those that were there, even at that forum, will never make it much further, period, in what they're doing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Who are the four? I would go... Right now, if I could vote, I would vote for Greg Lopez.
SPEAKER 04 :
The four that I think will move on out of everybody that was there that I was listening to will most likely be Mark Baisley, Scott Bottoms, Barb Kirkmeyer, of course, just because she's a politician and knows exactly how to roll things through, and probably Jason, the sheriff. Those four probably will move forward out of the group that were there.
SPEAKER 07 :
You don't think Greg will move forward?
SPEAKER 04 :
Maybe. So I guess maybe there's five that might move forward. I mean, Greg will no matter what, just because that's his will. And I'm not trying to belittle anybody or be mean to anybody. I don't see Greg making it past the primary. I'm sorry. It's just not going to happen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, Scott Bottoms appears to have the momentum.
SPEAKER 04 :
Scott's got the momentum and the hardcore of the party. Scott, and I love Scott, and I've interviewed him, and he thinks just like I do, but he won't make it past the primary either because that middle-of-the-road voter, and if he does, we're losing because that middle-of-the-road voter won't vote for Scott no more than they would vote for me.
SPEAKER 07 :
How about Barb Kirkmeyer? far more liberal than I would like.
SPEAKER 04 :
She is, and as far as that goes, Barb is probably more electable, but the problem I think I see Barb having is getting enough other hardcore conservatives behind her. That's a problem we've got in the state right now. They're not going to get behind her, so she doesn't have a choice. She doesn't have a chance either.
SPEAKER 07 :
So do you think we have any chance at all of winning the election? Republican governorship?
SPEAKER 04 :
The only person right now, and I'm not putting my name in the hat for them because I don't know them well enough, they've not been fully vetted, I'm not sure exactly how things are going to move forward, but I think right now, momentum-wise, Victor Marks probably has as much chance of winning it as anybody does.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I had never even heard about him until a couple weeks ago, so... But I've been hearing a lot of really good things about him, and he seems to have a lot of people really fired up.
SPEAKER 04 :
He does, and I want to make sure I'm crystal clear on this. I'm not speaking badly of anybody else. I'm simply just saying this as spitballing strategy, Brad. I have no dog in the fight, and I'm not putting my name behind anybody. I never do on the primary side. I don't endorse anyone. I never will, so I'm not. I'm simply speaking out loud. about each individual candidate, but as far as momentum in the party minus the hardcore folk on the right, which that, you know, those 20 people that are basically running the party right now, which I'm going to do everything possible to get them out of this state, frankly, because I'm working on that every single day as much as I can, Brandt, because they're screwing up the party. They're not helping it. Other than those 20 knuckleheads and some of their followers, yeah, I think Victor's got probably more chance of winning it overall than anybody else.
SPEAKER 07 :
Who were the 20 knuckleheads you were saying? I didn't catch that.
SPEAKER 04 :
The Rhino Watch knuckleheads.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Those bozos that really are having really great influence in the party, but those bozos need to go bye-bye.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, yeah. They're awful.
SPEAKER 04 :
They have no idea what they're doing, Brad. They're in it for the money and the glory only. They are not doing anything to help the party out at the end of the day. Zero zilch. Nothing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Now, about this Charlie Kirk assassination, there's all these conspiracy theories going around. Do you believe any of them? Nope.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don't believe any of them. Candace Owens and all of that are on her side are total knuckleheads, Brad. I don't know what they're really trying to accomplish when it's all said and done other than to get views and clicks for themselves. Most of these conspiracy theories are nothing more than that. How can I be ahead of somebody else? How can I be in the news? How can I get myself up above everybody else in viewership and ratings and clicks and so on? All these conspiracy theories, in my opinion, are exactly that. It's so funny, Brad. All these people that supposedly are hardcore Christians, and yet they want a definitive answer as to what happened. And even the doctor himself, from what I've read, is saying, listen, I don't have exact answers as to what happened. All these people of quote-unquote faith, Brad, have no faith when it comes to that end of things. In other words, what I'm getting at is, you know what, it may not be explained as to exactly everything that happened and what happened to the bullet and what happened inside of his body, because at the end of the day, they're not in charge.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, have you ever heard of this guy named Stu Peters?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and Stu's a wackadoodle, I'm sorry to say, but he is. And I know there's people listening to me that think Stu's a great guy. I'm not one of them.
SPEAKER 07 :
I just heard about him in the last couple weeks.
SPEAKER 04 :
Stu is another guy. And I think, you know, here's the thing with Stu. Does a blind squirrel find a nut every now and again? Absolutely they do. Does that mean that, you know, Stu is right on everything that he does? And I know I'm going to take some flack for this because there's people out there listening. I've even got family members that think Stu's a great guy. I'm not in that same camp. I'm not. I can't. How should I say this? I'm looking for the right words. Again, I think Stu is right in a lot of cases, but Stu goes way too far in most. Let's say it that way.
SPEAKER 07 :
He appears to be very anti-Semitic, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Stu's a Jew-hater. Which for me, really quick, Brad, for me means I can't really trust anything else the guy says because he's a Jew-hater.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, anybody that wants to blame all the problems of the world on one religion or one race or... You've got people that seem to think we should repeal the 19th Amendment when they start blaming one group way too much. Correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
And thank you for summing up, Stu. That's my biggest problem with Stu is, yes, occasionally I think he's right on certain things. The problem is what he's right on gets overshadowed by everything you just said.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, can I make a quick comment about the football conversation?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, no, and by the way, everything you just said, I'm glad you brought up because we've got people out there that'll look at guys like Stu kind of religiously, if you would, Brad, thinking that that guy, basically he's holier than thou and whatever he says is right. I don't see him that way, so thank you for bringing that up.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, the problem I have with football nowadays is I think we need to go back to the days of Bud Grant where defense wins the game and offense sells the tickets. They don't let the defense do their job. Over 500 touchdown passes, that's all good and well, but would he have done that in the days of Tarkington? And if Tarkington was allowed to play today under the same rules of Marino? they'd be throwing 600 or 700 touchdown passes, you know?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. That's a tough one, Brad. I mean, every game, as you know, every game, doesn't matter whether we're talking football, baseball, basketball, whatever, it all morphs. The players become better and better over time. You know, the reality is it is what it is. It's like politics. You're not going to go back in time, so you've got to learn to deal with what's there right now because it's not going to change.
SPEAKER 07 :
And as far as, like, baseball, I don't like it. I remember the days when it was 10 teams in the AL, 10 in the NL, and then they had the division championships. Now they're going to this best of seven, best of five wildcard stuff. I lost interest in all that. And the old players had a lot more charisma. I remember watching guys like Barron Mantle and Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra and Killebrew, you know. So the players today, they just don't have the charisma that the old players have. And personally, I think a lot of players today wouldn't make it in the old days because nowadays we have too many teams and the talent's diluted. That's my personal opinion.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I'm getting messages, by the way, where people think that I should just be on PBR, Brad, because of my views with some of these other knuckleheads. And by the way, these are the Jew haters that send me these messages, Brad. So we have them that actually listen. And I don't get where these people come from, Brad. Like you said a moment ago, not to get away from the sports thing, but just to go back and talk about some of the texters and people that listen to the program. Brad, I don't understand these people. I don't get where that mindset comes from. It makes no sense to me. And these are, by the way, Brad, supposed Christians that send me this garbage.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, what's PBR? I don't even listen to that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Public Broadcast Radio.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, see, I listen to people like you and Mark Levin.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don't listen to PBR or any of that kind of stuff anyways, because it's just, A, and you guys all know me, I am not that. I am by no means a liberal like what would be on those particular stations. I think of all, Brad, you of all people know I'm not that guy.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, but I listen to a lot of stuff, even if I don't agree with it or like it, like a,
SPEAKER 04 :
Stu Peters, I'll listen to him just because I want to see what the... Yeah, yeah, and occasionally he's one of the few guys that somebody will send me a little clip, and I might, you know, spend a minute or two listening to Stu. Again, the problem with Stu is while he's right on some things, he's wrong on so many others, he invalidates the stuff he's right on.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, when he continually blames one religion for all the problems of the world... You don't have much credibility.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, again, these guys that are right sometimes, they lose all credibility because of their wackadoodleness in other areas, Brad.
SPEAKER 07 :
Laura Loomer is Jewish, and I think— Oh, Laura Loomer, she's another wackadoodle.
SPEAKER 04 :
That woman is darn near insane, I'm sorry to say. Oh, sorry about that. She's a wackadoodle, Brad. I mean, and she is somebody that I do think at one time was pretty spot on. But these guys get off in these weirdo spaces. And this is the one thing, Brad, I'm glad you brought this up because I was going to talk about some of this today after things I read over the weekend. I don't understand why they get so far off track. I don't know whether it's because they start getting some traction and people start clicking on some of their posts and they start making some money on this. And so then it sort of just feeds this conspiracy monster, I guess you could say, Brad. And then they get totally off track.
SPEAKER 07 :
And it is easy to get caught up in the hype because I really liked her and I thought she was really good.
SPEAKER 04 :
She used to be. At one time, Brad, I think she was, but she is a wackadoodle now. Is that why they don't want her going anywhere near... Oh, absolutely, because most of what she's ever predicted in regards to anything with any validity to it at all has never come true.
SPEAKER 07 :
I see. So maybe... And it is easy to get caught up in the emotion when you... Some of these people are very influential and they can...
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think it's two things, Brad, and you just said it. I think they get caught up in the emotional thing. And here's the other fact of the matter. They get caught up in the money as well because when they start getting to the point where they gain some traction on especially the social media aspect of things, Brad, the money gets really big. I don't think people really understand how much money is in it for these people. It's a huge number on a monthly basis, Brad.
SPEAKER 07 :
I see. Now, do you think MM and LL are going to pass?
SPEAKER 04 :
That I have no idea, and I haven't studied enough of some of that stuff to really know. The one thing about Colorado, and, of course, those are the ballot measures to retain excess tax revenue. In Colorado, as bipolar as the voters are, I mean, they'll shoot down things like that and yet vote in the same legislator that will pass them. So it's liable to fail, but yet that really doesn't change anything at the end of the day because they won't vote these knuckleheads out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, the Independence Institute keeps saying they're gradually moving towards zero income tax, but they've gone from 4.63 to 4.40.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I don't see us moving in that direction, Brad, despite what they say.
SPEAKER 07 :
It's taken them forever and a day. You'd think they would have had something on the ballot to lower it a little more.
SPEAKER 04 :
You'd think. I want a ballot measure that caps property taxes, period. It caps them totally, period. They can't go any higher than X.
SPEAKER 07 :
I agree. Didn't they have something on there a few years ago and Advance Institute pulled it?
SPEAKER 04 :
By the way, yeah, I think you're right. And I think that's what I just said. I think that's a measure you could get passed in Colorado.
SPEAKER 07 :
And when Advance Colorado did that 117 no tax, we couldn't raise fees without a vote. They got outspotted by the Democrats. So why didn't they go back to the drawing board? They should have wrote it right the first time, but why don't they try it again and go, no, we can't raise fees without a vote.
SPEAKER 04 :
Great question. That's a great question, Brad. We should. We should.
SPEAKER 07 :
I'll let you go.
SPEAKER 04 :
Brad, all great questions. Thank you. I always enjoy when you call. I appreciate it. It's a great conversation and went a little longer with you before the break, but I appreciate you calling. I mean that sincerely. Golden Eagle Financial coming up next. Al did a great interview of late. Listen in. Find him, by the way, at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 12 :
TJ here with KLZ and Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial. And Al, I have a question for you. I've been putting money away for a while in a savings account or maybe a couple of investment accounts, but what am I doing wrong and what can you do better than that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think a savings account is important because all the financial gurus, including myself, agree you should have three to six months savings that you have ready liquid access to. But retirement planning is a bit more long-term and And it's a bit more strategic. We want to take a look at the sum of money you'll need way into the future. And we want to look at how that money can last by providing you income for as long as you live.
SPEAKER 12 :
What kind of planning or strategy do you provide for folks with that that have a big savings but haven't made that next step?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, that's a good question. If someone has a large amount in savings, one of the things I do is we have a conversation about their risk tolerance. Nobody's comfortable losing money, but having money in the market over a long period of time is a mechanism to accumulate wealth. And so we talk about the different levels of risk and the different products that are available. And we don't put everybody into one box, but I have an enormous assortment of financial products. And it's not that there's good ones or bad ones. It's there are some that are more appropriate for some people, but not for others.
SPEAKER 12 :
And that sounds excellent. How can folks get in touch with you for that meeting?
SPEAKER 05 :
You can reach me at 303-744-1128. And if I'm not there, it goes to voicemail, but I return my voicemails promptly. And we could have a conversation in the office. If you live a considerable distance away, we can have a long phone conversation or a Zoom call, whichever you would prefer.
SPEAKER 12 :
And as always, you can find him at klzradio.com slash money. Al, thanks so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you, TJ. Thanks for the conversation.
SPEAKER 12 :
You bet.
SPEAKER 18 :
This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 5CC. Okay, got a couple of text messages on my comments about Demarius Thomas. So I might as well further that. And I don't want to get super in-depth because this isn't the radio program for that. We don't get into a lot of theological things and so on. And again, this is not really the right place and time to do so. Let me at least give you my, you know, 10,000-foot overview of how those sorts of things work. And this is just me. Everybody has their own beliefs. I get that. But I think you really have to look at Scripture to really get your belief system correct when it comes to, quote-unquote, the afterlife. And I really say that kind of tongue-in-cheek because, you know— afterlife meaning those that are Christians that are saved, where they go versus those that are not. And I guess that's what people say when they say afterlife. I look at it as a continual of life because that's how I see things. It's really not an afterlife. It's just a continuation of our life, of our soul. Now, I'm somebody that doesn't believe in ghosts, period, period. Now, do I believe there can be demonic things that happen, and people might even think that that's a ghost they saw, but in fact it's what demons can do and so on? I think demons can do all sorts of things and frankly don't get near enough credit for the things they do because people credit other things happening instead of that. Because Satan is very much a force, evil is definitely out there, and he can use that evil in all sorts of ways. So I firmly believe that a lot of things people think are quote-unquote supernatural are demonic instead. Let me start there. I also am somebody that doesn't believe that anybody that's ever gone on to heaven is looking down upon us. Nowhere in Scripture does it talk about that. That is a huge misconception. And I'm not going to get into all the different faiths that are out there from Catholics to Protestants and so on. I just don't believe that that happens because, again, it's not scriptural. And I've talked about this in the past. I have my own belief on where we actually go and the timing of and so on. I'm not going to get into that today, but I'm not somebody that believes that somebody can be in heaven and look down upon us. You're not finding that anywhere in Scripture. So to me, that's a feel-good measure that even a lot of preachers get into because it's easy at a funeral to say that so-and-so is now going to be there and be your comforter and so on. And by the way, I think they take away from God and Christ himself Holy Spirit in doing so, because frankly, we should be looking at the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, for that comfort and what we should be looking at for approval, not some dead loved one. We shouldn't be living our lives for a dead loved one, is my point. We should be doing that for Christ and God and the Holy Spirit working through us to make that happen. That's what we should be using. Not some, again, not some dead loved one that went on to be with him or went somewhere else, depending upon what their faith was. So I'm not somebody that believes in that. You know, just my dad passed last Thursday. Do I think he's up there looking down on me right now? No, he is not. Did my dad go to heaven? Yes, I believe so. He was a believer. Taught us the same things. Passed that on. So no, I don't think he's up in heaven looking down upon us. I have my own belief on how all that works, but no, he is not. And some would say, well, geez, John, that sounds really, you know, that sounds kind of cruel in a way. No, if you went to my whole explanation of where I think he's at and how it all works, you'd understand my thought process. And again, it's too deep of a subject to get into on radio, but no, he's not looking down upon me. And no, I'm not going to live my life for his approval. I live my life for God's approval, not my dad's approval. And my fear of a lot of even pastors, preachers, priests, and so on, when people die and there's a funeral and a service of sort, the whole message is, in a lot of cases, this is what this person is now going to be doing in your life. It's wrong. Because now people are looking to the dead loved one instead of God himself, which I think is completely wrong. Sorry, any of you pastors and preachers that are listening to me, if you do that, stop, because you're giving false hope. I don't know how else to say it. You're giving people hope in a person that has gone on before them, not in Christ and God himself. And that's the problem I have with that whole viewpoint of somebody has died and now they're looking down upon you, because no, they're not. In fact, I think it's really anti-scriptural, and in a lot of ways I think it's anti-God. It's anti-Christ, because you're looking at the wrong thing then at that point in time in your life versus what you should be looking at. So I'll leave it at that. That's a deep subject, which, again, I don't have really the right time and place to do that. That's really more of a longer, might even be a podcast-type topic that maybe Neil and Bob and I can all get into and get their opinions, because they're very spiritually-minded as well and understand—Neil's an ex-pastor even— I really, again, this whole DT thing to Marius Thomas in 33 is the age that he died at, and that was a score yesterday, and he must have, no, he wasn't there. It's not how things work. Do I believe it's a coincidence? No, I just believe it's a game and the numbers add up. That's how I look at it. It had nothing to do with him and him being inducted into the Ring of Fame that day and so on. If he hadn't been inducted, would it still have been 33 to 32? Yes. Yeah, that I firmly believe. Is it a coincidence that we inducted him yesterday and that was the score? I don't necessarily believe in coincidences. It's just the way the score added up. That's the way that I would explain what happened yesterday as far as all that goes. So, all right, let's do this. Geno's Auto Service coming up next. If you've got anything that you need done to your vehicle as we head into the fall-winter months, we're in fall right now, winter's not that far away, give Geno's a call today, genosautoservice.com, and Geno starts with a J.
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
The best export we have is common sense. You're listening to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right. And I've had a couple of messages on the whole, you know, Jew thing and the Jew haters and so on. And, you know, some are saying, you know, I just hate what they do. You can hate what they do, but don't hate them. For example, I hate what the left does. I don't hate lefties. I hate what they do and what they stand for. And I think that's the difference between our side and them, by the way. Their side would just soon annihilate all of us. Just be done with those conservatives. They're a bunch of knuckleheads. Shoot them all like you did Charlie Kirk. That's what the left would say. I would never say that about them. I cannot like what they're doing but still love them because I know that they need to go to the same place I'm going. They need salvation just like anybody else does. So I don't hate them, but I hate what they stand for and what they do. And that's an absolute right way to look at things. And you can do both. Problem is, most people that hate Israel hate the Jews as well. In fact, they're going to blame the Jews for everything that's happened throughout, you know, the beginning of time. You know, our banking system and on down the line. I mean, I've heard all of the stupid conspiracy theories all through time, and it's just that. Conspiracy theories. I mean, you can go through almost anything out there and come up with some sort of a excuse as to why that happened. True or not? But that's not how it's supposed to be done. And I think some people just have a hard time just accepting that not everything can be fully explained. And some people really struggle with that. I don't. Sometimes there's just no explanation. It is what it is. And maybe for me, because I've worked around mechanical things my entire life, and I've seen things at times that, for example, will break, and you look at it and you think, how in the world did that happen? And I get it. There's probably a logical explanation as to why, but sometimes there isn't. Sometimes it's just like, you know what, it just is what it is. And maybe for me, because I've done that my entire life, Whereas at times it's like, you know, I don't know why that did what it did, but it did. And I can accept that and move on. There are people out there, though, and I think certain personality types struggle with that because they have to have a finality to whatever it is. And so they're just always looking for that. Now, I also think there's wackadoodles out there that are trying to find everything they possibly can so they get more likes, clicks, and whatever. Candace Owens. There are people like her that, you know, she is grasping at straws to try to figure out a way to make herself relevant. And she's got a certain amount of followers that will buy into whatever it is she says, keeping her somewhat relevant. But she's dying on the vine. I'm sorry to say she is. She was a very relevant person at one time and has ruined her reputation. She's no longer relevant. Not in my view. Stu, you know, who Brad was talking about, some of those types of individuals, I find them very irrelevant. I'm sorry, they just are. But I do think that there are those people that they try to find relevancy. And again, a blind squirrel can find a nut every now and again. So sometimes they'll even come up with something that's actually factual. But at the end of the day, they're irrelevant when it's all said and done. John, you're next.
SPEAKER 17 :
John, I'm going to ask you a question that I've never in my 64 years on this planet figured out. How can a Christian hate a Jewish person when our religion is based on Judaism?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, we're grafted in. I mean, Scripture's very clear on that, John, that we are grafted in. We Gentiles have been grafted in to that original tree. That's a great question. I don't know, John.
SPEAKER 17 :
It makes no sense. I want to say it's satanic. It's Satan working to try to get people to hate each other, but...
SPEAKER 04 :
I don't know, John, if I can necessarily, now that you say it that way, I don't know that I can disagree with that. I think there's certain things that get implanted into some people's heads, and all of a sudden, you know, just because a particular group of people does something that maybe isn't 100% – pardon the pun here – kosher, but because it's not 100% kosher, they're now against the entire tribe, if you would, and you can't do that. You and I both know that. You can't do that.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, you can't. It's just crazy. I commented on Friday when you weren't here to Andy that I was hoping the Giants would just be respectable yesterday.
SPEAKER 04 :
They were very respectable, John.
SPEAKER 17 :
So I watched the whole game. Here's my takeaways. I don't know what Richard said. I was in a meeting. No, go ahead. You're fine. So you can't miss extra points.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, you cannot. That was one thing they missed early on in the game, as you know.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. You can't chase that extra point trying for two-minute conversions that early in the game.
SPEAKER 04 :
That I agree with as well. Right. And keep in mind, too, though, there was also a fourth down and goal that we could have done a field goal and shouldn't have to where we might have even had a whole different outcome at that point because we would have put points on the board and we didn't, John. So we screwed up, too.
SPEAKER 17 :
And John Madden used to always say that. you never take points off the board and not going on a fourth and two, going for it, that's taking points off the board. Your kicker is a great kicker. He's not going to miss that chip-shot field goal yesterday on that fourth and two. But the other thing is, and this is the thing, Jackson Dart yesterday made a rookie mistake when he threw that interception. If he eats that ball... and makes the Broncos go the length of the field after it changes the whole concept of the game. So I'm taking good things, and some of my buddies that are Giants fans are losing their minds today, but I'm taking good things away from it other than the fact that our regular kickers on IR and we need to find somebody else because this kid can't kick. I mean, he missed two extra points, and that should never happen in the NFL. True, true. Because he missed one, if I remember right, I think he missed one against the Eagles, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yeah, and you'd know more about that than I would.
SPEAKER 17 :
I think he did. I can't remember fully. So that was my takeaways from the game, but I just wanted to comment on that. I didn't hear what Richard said. I heard something. Bronco talk today that they were like, that was the greatest game they ever saw, and I was like, what?
SPEAKER 04 :
No, it wasn't. That was the most awful game I've ever saw. Sorry. I would say that differently. Best fourth quarter probably most people have ever seen, but no, that was the worst game I think I've ever seen, John.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, as a Bronco fan, I would agree with you. As a Giants fan, I enjoyed the first three quarters, and I was just hoping, oh, and the last thing was when they got the ball back to go for the field goal at the end How do the Giants, and this is where I am going to beat the coaches up, with your best players on defense or your defensive linemen, do you only have two down linemen on first down?
SPEAKER 04 :
And by the way, they had been pretty well at taking care of our offensive line because we had some holes there, as you know, and they had been pretty good at exploiting those. Why did you give that up? I don't know.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. I mean, well, Bill Parcells, when he was coaching the Giants, used to say it best.
SPEAKER 04 :
When you go in to prevent defense, you prevent the win. That's true. And by the way, I would agree with him on that 100%. I hate that about teams, John.
SPEAKER 17 :
I would have, if I was coaching or if you were coaching, I would have blitzed on first down. No, I agree with you. I would have blitzed on first down and make Knicks beat you. Yes. Not give him all the time in the world.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, so...
SPEAKER 04 :
And I get it. What they're trying to do is shorten up the field because it's always tough when you get to the red zone to actually make a touchdown at that point. So the teams will play in a defensive manner that they'll give up some points, or sorry, some yards, but at the end of the day still not let them score. I get it. I get the analogy, but I don't like it.
SPEAKER 17 :
I don't like it either, especially when your best defensive players are defensive linemen and you don't have them on the field.
SPEAKER 04 :
And they had exploited us all day long.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, I would have.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, I was watching the game. I mean, I was there, John. Literally, they were exploiting us. You were there? Yeah, I was there, sat next to a Giants fan, by the way, who was a very nice gentleman, by the way. And at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, they exploited us all game long. I don't know why they didn't keep doing that. They should have.
SPEAKER 17 :
So just a point, because I've never been to a Broncos game since we moved here. I don't know why. I just never have. Yeah. How many Giant fans were in the stands? Quite a few. It seemed like... Quite a few.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, not as many as what, you know, if you get a Green Bay game here, it's, you know, it's about 50-50, unfortunately. But for the Giants, it was probably 10%, I would say.
SPEAKER 17 :
Oh, okay. Well, that's a... It's a pretty good stand. I mean, it's a pretty high number. And was it a full crowd at the start of the game?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 17 :
Okay, so one last question, John, and I know we started on a different subject. No, you're fine. You weren't one of those people that left in the third quarter, were you?
SPEAKER 04 :
I actually did, not because of that. I had some things at home I needed to get done before dark that I just didn't have any choice, and that was going to be my plan.
SPEAKER 17 :
really you know all along and and we had went early to meet some other folks for tailgate and some things like that so i'd been there since about 11 30 and i had stuff i needed to get to i would have done that no matter what oh okay okay but i i don't understand fans that leave until it i would now if i was a fan and my team was losing by that much halfway through the fourth quarter i might have left but not at the beginning of the quarter and it on tv they were showing it seemed like When the Giants got it to 26, it was like they headed for the doors like an exodus. I don't know. All right, John, you have a good rest of the week.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, no, you as well, John. I appreciate it very much. Thanks so much for the phone call. Let's take a break. Come back. I've got a couple of text messages I want to comment on that, frankly, I think are deserving of. I've got one individual commenting on some of my comments about Demarius Thomas and so on, and I want to add something to that that I hope would help this particular conversation. individual as well. So we'll come back and do that. Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning, again, $56 off tune-up special when it comes to your furnace. Give them a call today. Go to klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
This isn't Rage Radio. This is Real Relatable Radio. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, text message came in. This, by the way, is a texter that I text a lot and I feel a good relationship through texting. Never met on an individual basis, but really feel like I have a great relationship via the text line. And I have a lot of them, a lot of you, and I appreciate each and every one of you. I really mean that. So this text came in. My best good first cousin died in a hunting accident two years ago tomorrow. Tomorrow is also my birthday. By the way, happy birthday. I will say I do think that I'm cursed. I've always hated my birthday now, and I really hate it and dread it. To your point, I need a definitive variable, a verifiable explanation as to why it happened on my birthday. Now, here's what I will say. I can't give you, nor can anyone, give you a definitive answer as to why that happened on your birthday. I don't know. Only one person being God himself knows that answer. I don't know. I will say this. No, you're not cursed. I can say that definitively. That I do know. You're not cursed. You might feel like it. And by the way, I will say this. That feeling of being cursed, that is demonic. That comes from Satan. That is not coming from God himself. I can assure you of that. That I know as much as I'm talking on the air right now. That is not coming from him. That comes from the evil side of the aisle. So that I do know for a fact. Now, I also know that things happen because we are in a fallen world. Death is a part of living because we're in a fallen world. The fall of man in the Garden of Eden is why we all have to face death. And it happens to each and every one of us. There's two things that are a surety in life. I know it's kind of a joke, but it's true. Death and taxes. Those are the two guarantees in life. Okay? Outside of that, I can't tell you what the guarantees are. But I also know, in this case, you're not cursed. That I can tell you definitively. Now, why did that particular event happen on your birthday? Tell me why my mom died two days before my birthday. Okay? I can't answer that. Okay? I have no answer for that. Does it put a shadow of whatever on your own birthday when things like that happen? If you allow it, yes. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. That shadow, by the way, isn't coming again from God. That shadow comes from Satan. That I do know. God's not putting a shadow on you because of somebody's death. And again, for believers, death is something to, and I know it's hard to say this, and I'm not trying to be coy when I say this, but if you're a believer, death is something to celebrate, if the other person's a believer, and not dread and not regret. Because as believers, we all know the end. And that part of funeral services I do agree with and I do get and I think should be restated many, many, many times. The whole they're going to look down on you, I talked about that already. No, I don't agree with those messages that come up in funerals because that's not the way to look at things. To know where we all go at the end, and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to turn today's program into what happens after we die, but with my dad just passing and all of that, some of this is very, I guess, very appropriate for me in my life right now, and it's even a reminder to some of my loved ones that are probably listening to the program right now. We know where we go. That's the plus side. That's the positive side of dying when you're a believer. Case of my dad. I know her. I know her. I'll see my dad again. Believe that wholeheartedly. So why do bad things happen on certain dates? Like in this case, why did your cousin die on your birthday? That I can't answer. I don't know. Again, no more than I can answer. Why did my mom die when she died? It's a date. I think that's probably the best way to look at it. It's just a date. There's just no meaning to it whatsoever. Yes, it's your birthday, but it is just a date at the end of the day. And no, you're not cursed because somebody passed on or around your birthday. That's not how it works. Again, that one I can guarantee you. So if there's any encouragement I can give to you is quit looking at it that way. Stop thinking that you're cursed just because a person that you were really close to died on that day. Again, it's a date at the end of the day, and as believers, we know where we're going, and we should celebrate that fact and not look at it any other way. That's how I look at it. Now, everybody handles death differently. My wife always reminds me of that. I'm somebody that looks at it the way I just explained. And I don't have a lot of downtime crying and going through all of that. Those emotions for me, those were all Thursday night. I got through that. Friday was Friday, and then off we go. And I know not everybody deals with things that way. It's me, and I'm weird, and I know that. Charlie knows that. My wife knows that. I get that. Some people take longer to grieve. I understand that. I'm not that person. You know, I had people texting me that, man, y'all just take the weekend even next week off with everything just happened. I'm like, shoot, no, I'm going to be at work. I'm going to be on the air Saturday. I mean, I took Friday off. It was preplanned because I already had a funeral. If that hadn't been the case, I'd have been here with Andy on Friday. Now, as it turned out, it worked out well because I was able to get some other things done with my dad and other things and some things I needed to get taken care of and clean out his room and do some things that way. So it worked out well and it gave me extra time that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And I needed that because that worked out well. But at the end of the day, no, I don't need to take the week off. I mean, I'm okay. And for those of you that are always, you know, that are, by the way, graciously asking me, how am I doing? Am I okay? All of that. You know what? I appreciate that. And I mean that sincerely. I really do. I've got great, great, great listeners. You guys are fantastic. Guys and gals, because it's both. And I mean that. And I love each and every one of you. And I appreciate the support you guys give me in times like that. I really do. Many of you were very supportive when you heard what had happened last week. And I appreciate that greatly. Believe me, I do. But in this case, I want to give at least some comfort to you that texted and think you're cursed because of somebody dying on your birthday. You're not. That I can assure you. You are not. Not how it works. Again, as much as I'm sitting here talking on air, I can assure you of that. That is not how that end of things works at all. So and again, I do appreciate each and every one of you. You guys have been super supportive over the last few days. And I mean that sincerely. But no, I am good. Family is good. We're doing very well. My dad was at a point where we're just I'll be straight up honest. He was at the end. and his quality of life wasn't there anyways, and it is now. That's probably the best way for me to say that, and that's exactly how we are all looking at it as a family. But again, I appreciate the thoughts and prayers that you all have given us, and I mean that sincerely. Veteran Windows and Doors is next. Dave Bancroft, who will help you when it comes to your window and door purchases. He takes out the middleman, therefore saving you thousands, in some cases, I'm not exaggerating, in some cases tens, of thousands of dollars based upon other quotes you might get from other window and door companies that are out there trying to sell you the same thing. And just taking the middleman out saves you all of that money. Give Dave a call today. 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SPEAKER 03 :
Suck it up, buttercup. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, that's wrapping up today. I appreciate you guys all listening. Tomorrow, Andy and I will – I didn't get a chance to do this today. I wanted to talk more about the forum that went on up in the Fort Collins area this past weekend with some of our gubernatorial candidates here on the conservative side. Didn't get a chance to really put a lot of time into that. Andy and I can do a little bit of that tomorrow, so rest assured I'll get to that. And again, had a question earlier from Brad asking me, who am I supporting right now? No one. there's a lot of things that have to shake out between now and the primary and will. So with that, we'll be back tomorrow. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
HR2 Implications of Gov. Shutdown. Trump, the Marxists Playbook, and The Fall of Portland. 10-20-25 by John Rush
SPEAKER 05 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 17 :
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 15 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 12 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did! Get a job, Turk!
SPEAKER 06 :
You haven't made everybody equal. You've made them the same and there's a big difference.
SPEAKER 07 :
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 06 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 05 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Hour number two, Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Again, thanks for listening. Appreciate it. Text line 307-200-8222. Government shutdown. We'll talk about that for a couple of minutes here. And I read today where there's some predictors, you know, folks out there that predict what they think may or may not. And again, these are predictions. I have no idea whether, you know, these folks are, you know, correct or not. They're just, you know, thinkers and prognosticators, I guess you could say. They think we're getting close to the end, that they will, you know, the left at this point, the Democrats are going to have to give in and get things back on track. By the way, I would agree with that. And the reason I agree with that is if you look at the polling that's out there as to even Trump's approval through the shutdown, he's not losing any points. And this is not what I think the left was looking for. I think they were thinking, oh, we shut the government down. It's going to make the right look really bad, going to make the Republicans look bad. Yeah, I think people are smarter than that, even though there's a lot of dumb voters out there. And I'm not talking about the hardcore lefties. They're going to be on that side no matter what. It doesn't matter. That one third of the country that just can't stand Trump no matter what, you're not going to change their mind. They're the people I just got done talking about in the last hour that were at the No Kings protest rallies. You're not going to change their mind. But the others, I think you are. And I think some of these people are smart enough to know that. Well, wait a minute. You guys are basically wanting to go backwards in regards to some of the spending cuts we've had, which some of them will even tell you aren't enough, that there should be more spending cuts. They can look at the deficit and know what it's doing. They know that, for the most part, we're borrowing money to provide for some of the programs that the left once reinstituted. And I think people are smart enough to realize that, yeah, we can't go backwards. In fact, we need to cut more than what we've already done. In fact, the net taxpayers are going to look at this and they are looking at this saying, wait a minute, I don't want my hard-earned dollars going to some of these things that you want to go ahead and add back in. In fact, I don't care that some of these, you know, quote unquote, cuts are coming. And they're not even cuts. Some of what's happening with Medicaid and that is, you know, some of the health care stuff that they're complaining about are things that were going to expire anyways that the left had already written in. Joe from Jersey talks about that all the time. So at the end of the day, this isn't, you know, this isn't even our side that's done this. This is what they did. We just allowed them to be done and over with. which is fine. So, again, long-term, this isn't boding well for the left. They're frankly losing points on this, and I've said this all along. They let this thing go long enough, and these will be huge talking points going into the midterms next year. So they should probably come back to the table. Try to sit down and figure out what is it that we need to do to get things back on track. Go ahead and get government, you know, reopen, quote unquote. And let's move the ball forward because this government shutdown thing isn't working for them. Now, here's the other thing I think will happen, which I believe the predictors are correct. There's talk that if this thing carries on through the end of the month, that a lot of the even SNAP benefits that a lot of folks get will not be happening in November. And those people vote. I get that. Some of them vote so they can have more at the end of the day, so they can receive more because they're net tax receivers, not net taxpayers. Right. But even them, they're going to look at this and say, wait a minute, you guys promised me X and you've not been able to deliver that. Now you've shut government down and I'm not I'm not able to do what I need. You know, I can't, quote unquote, feed my family. So. This isn't going well for the Democrats, I think, from what I've read, and I don't know the internal workings of the Democrat Party, but what I'm read from what I've read. They're realizing that this isn't going very well. Now, one other thing I forgot to mention during the last hour at the end. I think some of you probably saw Nancy Pelosi breaking the crown. You know, no kings. By the way, she looks like a fool every time she's on camera. I don't know how else to say it. I'm sorry, but she does. And you talk about somebody that's not aging well. Nancy needs to hang it up. She looks a lot like Joe Biden now, and I mean that in all sincerity. She's at a point where she needs to hang it up and call it good. She's not functioning well. Had a hard time even breaking a really small, flimsy, plastic crown, which the whole symbol of was just stupid anyways. But it's Nancy. It is what it is. So anyways, at the end of the day, Nancy needs to call it quits. But the left needs to give in. They need to tell the AOCs of the party that, yeah, this isn't boding well. We need to move on from this and get government back open again because this isn't working out too great for us. So veteran windows and doors coming up next. Speaking of a way to save money, you can do that with veteran windows and doors. Taking the window and door and going direct to you, cutting out all of that middleman expense that most window and door companies have. Dave does not do that. Dave Bancroft, the owner. Veteran windows and doors. Find them at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 16 :
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Dealing with estate jewelry doesn't have to be complicated, and you certainly don't have to go into a pawn shop and feel totally uncomfortable. David here with Mile High Coin, and we help hundreds of clients each year with their jewelry and watches, whether it's high-end hallmark pieces like Tiffany, Cartier, or Rolex, or mid-range brands as well, or even damaged or broken pieces that you don't wear. Most people are surprised with what their jewelry is worth. Gold is at an all-time high, and we highly encourage people to take advantage of the market. there are options when it comes to selling your jewelry and we will educate you on which option is best for you we work with people who have lost loved ones and need help sorting through the valuables that were left behind we also work with people who are simply downsizing and getting rid of the unused or unwanted items call our office today at 720-370-3400 or visit our website milehighcoin.com and complete our contact form and we will call or email to schedule an appointment. Our office is safe, private, and we guarantee that you will enjoy the experience. Putting reason into your afternoon drive, this is John Rush.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, one other thing I was going to mention, too, that most of you probably saw the news on, and that is that a higher court has determined that Trump, in fact, can send troops into cities like Portland. A U.S. appeals court has basically said, yeah, that lower court, no, they're wrong. Yes, he can. In fact, we're going to put a stay on that particular order until this thing gets all shaken out. But Trump federalized 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to protect an immigration and customs enforcement facility. The state and city filed a lawsuit challenging the move, and U.S. District Judge Karen Emmergut in Portland blocked the action temporarily by ruling that Trump likely acted unlawfully. A ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 on October the 20th that Trump is authorized to deploy troops when the president is enabled with regular forces to execute the laws of the United States. So... That is interesting. That's a Ninth Circuit, by the way. They're typically going to side with the lower court in this case because they don't like Trump. I'll just say it straight up. They don't like Trump. But in this case, I think they've figured out that, yeah, when it comes to federal buildings and him keeping those things safe, in this case, ICE buildings that have been under attack. Yeah, as president of the United States, he does have that authority to do so in the lower court was wrong. So that's another loss, by the way, for the left. It'll be interesting to see how this continues to shake out and how many other cities that Trump decides to go in and do this. But Trump basically calls Portland a war zone, which, frankly, I don't think I can disagree with him. I've seen pictures. There's some, you know, man on the street type interviews with Folks that are I don't even know what side of the aisle they're on. These guys really are just sort of reporting it. This is what it is. They're not saying they're from the left, the right, whatever. They're just basically walking through Portland saying these are the things I'm observing on a daily basis. There's been a lot of criticism, by the way, for these particular individuals from folks on the left, politicians on the left saying that's not really Portland, but it is. It's been a while, by the way, since I've been to Portland. It's been a decade or more. It wasn't good then. And it's done nothing but progressively been worse and worse and worse since. So I can't disagree with Trump in this. I think he's spot on from everything that I have seen. Haven't been there personally. But what I've seen with video from these particular individuals and what's interesting about these videos is you can tell that they're not like cut this, cut that, stitch this, stitch. No, these are guys that are literally taking, you know, a five minute video and just walking down a particular street. And you can see a lot in five minutes. And even stopping at times and interviewing somebody, asking them, you know, what's your problems? Why do you live on the street? This, that and the other. I mean, it is disgusting. It really is. So you've got that plus all of the unrest that's there. Yeah, Trump has the right to go in and do what he's doing. And for those that would be on the left saying, well, that's not right. Now he really is a dictator. No, he's using his authority as president to clean messes up that the left has started. And remember, the Marxist playbook, folks, is to create as much civil unrest as possible. That's what Marxists like to do. And if they can use the homeless even, and those that are the educated idiots of the world to do so, they will. It's exactly what they will do. So that's right out of the Marxist playbook, create chaos, never let a crisis go to waste, those sorts of things. That's exactly what they're doing, and they're doing it in a lot of cities. But Portland, by the way, has been one of those that just continues to get worse and worse and worse. So that was good news, I feel. I'm sure Trump and his folk would say the same thing. I'm going to talk about the city of Denver budget, but I think I'll do that a little bit later in the program, which for those of you maybe that don't realize this, and I kind of did, but I forget at times. And, Charlie, you might know this off the top of your head, but how much do you think the city of Denver's budget actually is, Charlie? Do you have any real quick thoughts on that, what the actual overall arching budget is? Charlie says no. Now, remember, they've got the airport and some other things that they do, so it's going to be a fairly large budget, but this is bigger than I thought. $1.6 billion is the city of Denver's budget. That's a lot of money, by the way. That's basically, you know, think about this. You know, that's a thousand millions plus another 500,000. Because a thousand millions is a billion. So that's a lot of money that they spend and that Mayor Mike Johnston is essentially, you know, overlooking. He's not in charge of all of it. I get that. But they're still facing, by the way, a $200 million shortfall. So I will talk about some of these things and what he's talking about doing. And some of it involves, by the way... some of the things that I just mentioned with Portland. So it'll be interesting to see exactly how he handles all of that and what he ends up doing. Again, I might talk about that a little bit later in the program. But $1.66 billion is the city of Denver's budget. Keep in mind, I haven't double-checked this one. I don't think it's gone up a whole lot. CDOT covering the entire state and all the different projects they have, road maintenance, plowing, all of that is about $2.5 billion. So it's about a billion more than the whole city of Denver's budget. But think about it. They take care of the entire state on all the transportation end of things. And that includes some upgrades and different things that they have slated and so on, capital improvements, etc. But the city of Denver's budget is $1.66 billion. So huge, huge amount of budget. Okay, this was an interesting article. I think I can talk about this in enough time before Richard joins us here at 4.30. And as I was reading this, I thought, okay, first thing I thought about was this doesn't make any sense. And let me explain. The title of this, this was in Apple News, but this comes out of Bloomberg. Inside the credit card battle to win America's richest shoppers. The fierce fight between Amex and Chase is playing out over higher fees, extravagant events, and every perk imaginable. And as I read through this, and for those of you that don't know, a lot of the higher-end cards with higher-end fees, you pay a higher fee, but you get a lot in return. So, for example, you can get an Amex Platinum card, and with that they will include a certain amount of things that you can fly with. They give you flight credits. They give you hotel credits. They'll give you an Uber credit every month. They give you a certain amount of access to, of course, all the clubs that are in the airports and so on. On top of that, they will pay for your TSA pre-check and clear and on and on we go. A lot of travel benefits. And they'll have other types of perks that come out at different times. You can get inside deals when it comes to concerts and stuff like that if you're one of those people. But as I was reading through this, I found it interesting that I thought, okay, yeah, well, this is going to be for mostly older Americans, older millennials, maybe even some boomers. And I just thought, okay, Gen Xers. And I thought, okay, that's who the target of it. And I was totally wrong. The majority... people that they're targeting with these cards and perks are young people and yet all I ever hear from those that are younger and even articles that are written along these lines as they can't afford to buy a house they can't afford to do this they can't afford to do that they're they're working harder and longer and yet they don't have the same thing to show that their folks did at the same age and yet these expensive credit cards with all their perks are targeting those same individuals the zoomers if you would And so I'm partially confused because I hear that these same individuals that are going after all of these perky credit cards also can't afford to buy a house. So which is true? Is it that they really can't buy a house or is it that they don't budget things correctly to actually go buy a house because they're doing things like what I'm talking about with these perks on the credit card? And my gut feeling is it's the latter. By the way, they're doing things with credit cards that when I was their age, never thought possible. I never would have been able to do some of the things these kids are doing when it comes to these cards. Personally speaking, even having access to the clubs and so on at the airports, I only attained that within the last couple of years. And I'm not exaggerating. That's something that I looked at and thought, man, that's quite an accomplishment to be able to do that. But anymore, I guess it's not. Because a lot of these younger people have them through these cards. Now, this is a part of this article that I did think was interesting. And that is that the highest earners pay more with credit cards than lower earners do. And I guess that makes some sense because higher earners have figured out that there's more perks by using credit cards than by not. So let's use our card. So those that make less than $25,000 a year only pay for about 18% of their purchases with a credit card. In fact, they pay more with a debit card than a credit card, and then they use cash and other or kind of the split for the other. It's about not quite 25% across the board, but pretty close. Those $25,000 to $50,000 in income, it's about 22%. $50,000 to $75,000 of income, it's about 25% to maybe not quite 30%. $75,000 to $100,000 is about 30%. 100 to 150 is 40%, and those that make 150K or more, it's 50% spent using credit card. And again, I think for most people that understand the value of using the credit card and the perks that they can get back, spend more on credit cards than not because they understand the value that's there. And I've had this conversation before on some of my other radio programs, Ready Radio, Fix It Radio, and so on, in that, A, you get some protection out of buying on the credit card. You can earn points, of course, by using a credit card. I am an anti-debit card user, by the way. In fact, I am one of those that tells you when that thing comes in the mail, go stick it in a drawer someplace or a safe that's safe where no one will ever get a hold of it and put that debit card away. By the way, to me, one of the dumbest things you could ever use. That's me. And I know some people will disagree with me, but... I think it's dumb to use a debit card. You don't get near the protection, near the safety you get out of using a credit card. So why would you not just use a credit card? And I've heard everything from, well, you spend more on the credit card. Okay, yeah, so be disciplined. You still have to be able to pay the bill, so be disciplined. You still have to know what you're spending, absolutely. But a debit card is, in my opinion, stupid. But I'm looking at the list here as to how many people actually use them, and a lot still do. That one I don't understand. You can earn a point, you know, points, plural, for every dollar you spend on a credit card, why would you use a debit card when they do the same thing at the end of the day? That one I'm beyond, I'm befuddled over. That one I don't get. But looking at the chart, it's right here in front of me. But my point was, You hear from the younger generations, plural, that they can't afford to do the same thing that their parents did, and yet I'm reading an entire article here talking about how they're the age group that credit card companies are targeting to actually have them use their card. In fact, it says right here, there's good reason for premium cards to try to corner the market. High-earning Zoomers and millennials are richer than their Generation X and Boomer counterparts at the same age. So believe it or not, they're doing better than their parents did. In some cases, grandparents, depending upon how the generations work in that particular family. So the next time you hear somebody talking about how they can't afford this or they can't afford that, remember what I'm saying today and ask a few questions as to, well, do you have one of those perky credit cards? If so, how did you get that? How much do you use on it? So on and so forth. And, you know, is this really, and I say this all the time, is it really that you can't afford what your parents had or is it that you want a higher lifestyle than what your parents had at your age? And frankly, it's the latter in most cases. A lot of young people today want a high, they want the same lifestyle their parents have right now that might very well be in their 50s and 60s. definitely late 40s, they want that same lifestyle, and yet aren't willing to make some of the sacrifices that a lot of us made to get where we're at. And so I always question that whole, okay, you say you can't afford X, or this generation says it can't afford X, well, what are their expectations? What do they feel entitled to? In other words, what's reality? Because most of the news articles, by the way, that you read that talk about this generation can't do X, Y, Z, well, I'm not sure that's really the case. I'm not sure you're not really comparing apples to apples. And I've read a few articles to you all where some people have written some things along the lines of what I talk about, although most still don't. They just go out and say, well, yeah, kids today can't buy a house. Well, that's not really true. It's that their expectation of the house is way higher than what I started out with and you guys all started out with. And you have to wonder, if they lowered the expectation, would they be able to buy a house? I mean, I can tell you what, the first house I bought was, I don't want to say it was a dump, but I did a lot of work to it. Let's just say that. It's a house that probably in today's world, most young people wouldn't even look at. Probably wouldn't have looked at it in the first place. The yard was all overgrown and overrun with all sorts of weeds and bushes and so on. Everything needed to be trimmed back. You couldn't even see the house for all of the weeds and junk that were all around it. I had to recarpet the entire place moving in. Everything needed paint. I mean, lots of things needed to be done and taken care of. The house, the bones, the structure, all of that was good. But cosmetically speaking, most people looking at it would have turned and walked right out. But I saw potential and bought it and did all that work, and off I went. I'm not sure a lot of kids today would do the same thing is my point. So just a side note. All right, Golden Eagle Financial. Speaking of finances and everything I just got done talking about, to get yourself on the track to retirement and stay there, number one, have a plan. 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SPEAKER 15 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive. This is John Rush.
SPEAKER 16 :
And we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Richard, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I'm doing well. It's Monday. Can we turn the wind off yet?
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, man, I hate the wind.
SPEAKER 03 :
Just saying. I am about, I don't know, I'm about tired of it. I'm just saying.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, especially when it's not just a breeze, but it's wind.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a... And it's just uncomfortable. You know, Dad, right? It's just not very fun. That's the only thing I've got to say.
SPEAKER 16 :
I agree. I agree. All right, what was fun was, not for three quarters, but what was fun was the Bronco win yesterday. And I'll tell you what, miracle finish when it was all said and done.
SPEAKER 03 :
Miracle finish, to say the least, Dad. It was an insane being. I'll be honest, I didn't get to watch near as much of it as I... would have liked, to be honest with you. However, you know, birthday parties and things of that nature. But, yeah, I mean, the Broncos played just awful. Terrible for three quarters. Didn't turn it on. Down 19-0 entering the fourth quarter. They get a touchdown, and you think, okay, maybe there's hope. Then, I'll be honest, the Giants go back down. They kind of get a lucky bounce themselves. They go down, and then it's 26-8, basically midway through the fourth quarter, and you're like, okay, this is done. And honestly, I thought the Broncos were done, Dad. Their touchdown drive to get it to 26-16, they were not very – how do I say? They weren't very anxious to get that drive done.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I thought that was interesting. And obviously, I have theories behind it. But my theory is I don't think the Broncos thought that they were going to do anything, to be honest with you. I don't think that they thought they were going to win. I think they just kind of chalked up to, okay, we'll go down, we'll do this. Well, they get that. They get into 26-16. The Giants go out. They basically go three and out. And on that third down, they throw an interception. Well, now you've got the ball inside the 20s. with about six minutes or something. It was a crazy turn of events. Did the Giants give the game away, Dad? Absolutely they did. But at the same time, did the Broncos take advantage of the situation? They did. And I think that both things can be true. Two things can be true at the same time, which is, The Giants gave it away, but the Broncos also took advantage of it in every way that they could imagine. So now it's good. It's a win. And in the NFL, you're 5-2 for the first time in, I think, for the Broncos, like 19 years or something like that. A long time. And here's another crazy stat. I think it was – it's only happened two other times – or basically one other time. But for 1,600-and-something straight games, a team leading by – I think it was 18 or 16, something like that with like six minutes left in the fourth quarter is basically they were undefeated. 1,601 games down 18-plus points in the final six minutes. There you go. And they were undefeated. And then obviously the Broncos win. They're now 1,621-1. And then if you actually go back, it's only the second time in history that it's ever happened. And basically it happens every 1,600 games or so roughly.
SPEAKER 16 :
Amazing.
SPEAKER 03 :
So we'll have to wait 1,600. It's just crazy, Dad. I mean, again, it's. It's a situation that they should have never been in. I think they're a better team than the Giants.
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, and the reality is they just played absolutely awful the first three quarters. And I will say this. I mean, there was some bad officiating. Yes, there was some bad coaching. Absolutely. I don't think the players were really into the game. I think they overlooked the Giants, to be honest with you. I don't think they thought they were going to be that much of a contender, which, by the way, in the NFL is a dumb thing to do because any NFL team on any given Sunday can win a ball game. You'd think by now these folks would know that. I don't think they did. Frankly, they they they did turn it on at the end. They were able to pull it out and win. But man alive, it wasn't pretty at all. Not till the fourth quarter was not.
SPEAKER 03 :
No. Well, here's the idea that it wasn't it wasn't pretty. You know, at the same time, they also don't grade wins by being pretty. Right. No, no.
SPEAKER 16 :
At the end of the year, it's by how many L's and W's do you have?
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly, right? That win-loss column. That's all that matters. I'm with them there. I will say this, though. They have a – and we can enjoy this game. Broncos should enjoy this game here for a little bit. Next weekend, you have the Cowboys coming into town who have a very not good defense. Just not – I don't want to say terrible because it's a very harsh word. Not a very good defense. However, they have an incredible offense, and Dak Prescott for them right now is playing out of his mind. He is just playing exceptionally well. And I think that if the Broncos have another game like they did last week, it could get bad and ugly in the sense that the Giants, with a rookie quarterback, and while he showed some things, if they play a different team, Dad, they play the Chiefs, the dreaded C-word. I think that game is probably 30-0 entering the fourth quarter rather than... whatever it was, 19-0. And so they've got to get it figured out. I know they know it. We can get technical as to why I think it is. And with Sean Payton, he does some funky things. Well, I'll say this, and I'm not going to get super technical. One thing I wish with Payton, Dad, and he's done this even with Russ, he changes person. And I know because you go to the games at times and you see this. And a lot of times you miss this when you're not actually at the game because you don't see it all the time. He changes personnel every play. Well, folks, in the NFL, when you change personnel, the defense has every right to match your personnel. What do I mean by that? So if you swap out a tight end, even for another player, right? But in the case of the Broncos, they may be swapping out from three wide receivers, one tight end and one running back to one wide receiver and three tight ends, and one running back. And so that takes time. But it really doesn't take as much time as the officials take because the officials have to give the other team, the defense, a chance to substitute. So if you ever see an official... over the ball, and he's kind of folding his arm out to the quarterback, he's basically saying, nope, you guys have to wait to allow them to substitute. The other thing that it does, Dad, is it forces these players to come into the huddle, then Sean Payton has to call the play into the huddle, Bo Nix has to relay the play, and Sean Payton has some wordy play calls, not saying that's right, wrong, or otherwise, just saying it as a fact. And then you get to the line of scrimmage with maybe 12, 13 seconds left, and for me, it's infuriating, and I know that The college game is a lot different and a lot of things going on. I just would like to see – I would like to go a little bit more huddle, or no huddle a little bit. Now, you have to be careful with that, right, because the more you do it, the more tired your defense gets.
SPEAKER 14 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 03 :
And so if you fail in it, right, you go three and out, and you only took – We were doing that yesterday anyway, so – And that's the thing. You've got to try something. And honestly, Dad, what took them to actually succeed yesterday was they kind of got into that four-minute, sort of a little bit faster pace. That rhythm. Huddle. No huddle. Yeah, exactly. A rhythm. And so it's like, I don't mind you switching out personnel. But my thought, Dad, is, okay, let's say it's first and ten. Okay, you get three yards. So second and seven. Then maybe that second and seven play, maybe you get a first down, right? So now it's first and ten again. Why don't you go fast? Keep the same personnel in there. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hit them again.
SPEAKER 03 :
And go fast. Yeah, hit it. You'll do something else. Whatever that looks like. And so, again, I know for some of your listeners it's probably a little bit too technical, but there's just some pieces there that I'm frustrated with because I see some potential out of Bowe. Because a lot of people are comparing Bo to Tebow and so on and so forth. Dad, do you know that he was the only player, the first and only player in NFL history to have two rushing touchdowns and two throwing touchdowns in the same quarter? I didn't know that, no. Yeah. So Bo's not in the business of Walt all the time. But is he the guy? And the answer is I don't know. I don't know yet. I think I see some potential there. And there's times where I'm, you know, the Jets game, I'm like, okay, probably not him. But then we talked a few weeks ago about the Philadelphia game, right? And, you know, how they kind of came back and I was that way for most of the game and then Bo redeemed himself. So I don't know. I don't know if he's that guy or not. But at the same time, I think you've got to help him in however you can. And that's one of the ways of helping him, right? You'll get him a little bit faster paced. Let him use his feet. And, Dad, for crying out loud, you see it because you can see it on the sideline. And, again, you don't see this on TV. Folks, any time an opposing team plays here, it doesn't have to be like a long drive. It just has to be a long play. They are sucking wind. Yes.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER 03 :
They are huffing into that oxygen. That's right. And so it's like – Even if you use your advantage, right? You know, the Nuggets have done it for years, right, where they go a little bit more fast-paced at home. And use what you have here as an advantage. I know the Rockies haven't figured it out yet. But if you're the Broncos, like you said, Dad, get that first down, then go, right? Go a little bit of tempo. Go a little bit faster. Get these guys, you know, huffing and puffing because, you know, you play football. When you're tired, you're just not as quick, right?
SPEAKER 16 :
You spend more energy. That's right. No, absolutely. And no, everything you're saying is exactly right. And again, you just... I don't know. And you sit there, you watch a game like this, you see the momentum or lack thereof, which we didn't have much. And I get it. And I will say this. And this is something that a team has to overcome. There were... You know, several calls, and you could see them on the replay. We had a couple of offsides calls, by the way, that we were not. I mean, it was very apparent in the replay that the ball was snapped prior to our guy running across. It was right on the edge, but, you know, to the naked eye looking at the play, might look like he actually came across. When you look at the replay, no, in fact, he wasn't. There was a couple of those. We were just, you know, being really sharp on the ball. That particular player was being sharp on the draw, if you would, you know. That's probably the best way to say it. And yet we got called on that. And it's like, OK, and I get it. Some of those just take the wind out of your sails. There were several different situations where, you know, we got called for pass interference and it wasn't. They didn't get called for pass interference. I mean, there's a lot of ticky tack things along those lines. But if that's the way it is, that's the way it is. You still have to learn as a team how to overcome that, just like you do in every other area of life. And we weren't doing that yesterday.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and you said it best, rhythm, right? Rhythm for a football team, I know a lot of people don't think about it, but it's a big thing, and momentum is too, right?
SPEAKER 16 :
It's big in sports, period, but every sport it's big in. But probably, I don't want to say that it's the biggest in, I would say the two biggest sports that I think rhythm really matters is football, basketball.
SPEAKER 03 :
I would absolutely agree with you. I mean, you look at, you know, and sometimes all it takes is one play, and that's what happened with the Broncos. Again, I don't think the Broncos thought they were coming back until that interception happened, and then it was like, oh, oh, wow, we actually have a chance here.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and the one thing, too, that people forget, and this is true, especially in, well, it's true in basketball, too, but in football, man alive, there's a lot that can happen in two minutes, and the great players of the world, the Elways, the Mannings, the Bradys, and so on, both Mannings, by the way, that last two minutes, oh, man, all bets are off. Anything can happen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and lastly, I was going to say we're going to run a break, but to your point, I think that that's sort of what happened. And you saw the new kickoff rules. Everything in the NFL is fast. I mean, again, and... You had him the last drive for the Broncos, right? The very last one they got him in the field goal range. You know, Bo Nix makes a great throw. They go up and spike it. Then they actually get an offside, which helps. It doesn't get talked about enough, but because the defense guy, again, that was stuck in wind. He was tired. He was on the other side of the ball, gave the Broncos an extra five yards, which if they don't get that one play to Courtland Sutton the very next play, They were actually already in field goal range. Would have been a long field goal, but still would have been in field goal range. But I think you hit the nail on the head, and rhythm is so big, and it's something where, again, if I'm Sean Payton, you've got to figure out a way to take advantage of it and get your quarterback into a rhythm. Agreed. Because the more that happens, I think, the better he'll be.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, more to talk about. We'll come right back. Don't go anywhere. Ridgeline Auto Brokers coming up next. Look for a new used car. They have you. In other words, what I mean by that is they can help you finance a car. They can take your car and trade. They can sell your car. If you're not even looking to buy a car, you just want to get rid of the car you have. Whatever it is you need, they are your one-stop shop. Go to RidgelineAutoBrokers.com.
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SPEAKER 16 :
Group Insurance Analyst is next. And again, they are a broker. They shop what's best for you when it comes to your insurance needs. Talk to them today. Go to e-gia.com.
SPEAKER 13 :
The good news for seniors on Medicare is that you have more options today than ever before. The challenge is that all of these new options can be very confusing and making the wrong choice can cost you thousands of dollars more out of your pocket. Call Paul Linagro at GIA Insurance and his team of Medicare specialists will help you find the right plan for your needs. As independent brokers, GIA Insurance can help you navigate the maze of Medicare options so that you get the right plan to fit your needs and at the best premium. GIA never charges fees, and your premiums will never be any higher than going directly to the insurance companies or buying online. Receive the local hands-on service that you don't get with a call center or online. Whether it is a Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplements, a standalone prescription plan, long-term care, or final expense insurance, GIA has got you covered. Call 303-423-0162, extension 100. 303-423-0162. Or go online to e-gia.com.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. One other thing I want to add about the Broncos, because I've seen some posts about this, and I don't know every individual where their faith lies and so on, but there's people out there talking about how Demarius Thomas, he was inducted into the Ring of Fame yesterday. He was 33 years old when he died. And, of course, the score yesterday was 33 Broncos, 32 Giants, and that he must have been there and had some sort of influence, and so that's why there was 33 points. And all I'm going to say to all the people that say that – That's hogwash. That has nothing to do with it. It's simply a matter of how many points were scored yesterday. I get it. They inducted him into the ring of fame yesterday, but trust me, he wasn't there, and he had nothing to do with that score, period. It doesn't work that way, Richard. Are you there, Richard? Are you with us?
SPEAKER 03 :
Sorry, sorry. Yeah, I'm here. I was going to say, it's really cool, right? It's kind of a cool little thing. But at the end of the day, is it, you know, Demarius Thomas helped them get to the 33 points and where they got two two-point conversions to make it for two eight-point scores and his number was 88. No, the answer is no. It has nothing to do with it. But at the same time, it was cool to see yesterday the anniversary of the Super Bowl 50 team. And I'll be honest, again, up until... Again, the fourth quarter, it was probably an embarrassment to those guys. Anytime you get those celebration things, honestly, I get more nervous that what was going to happen yesterday for most of the game happens. They lay an egg for whatever reason, and they just don't play well. Then you get all of these guys that have come there for the special occasion, and it's a major letdown. all of the things and unfortunately they were they were able to to to you know kind of pick it up and and finish it and do what they were supposed to do and and ultimately that i think it was a great game for all of or you know it was a great game right at least for broncos fans you know kind of something obviously for the giants fans but like you said as far as the other stuff and i do think Demarius Thomas deserves to be in the ring of fame. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER 16 :
I'm not taking anything away from that. I'm just simply saying that, you know, sorry, I don't want to get too spiritual, but spiritually speaking, was he there? No. I can definitively tell you he was not there. Period.
SPEAKER 03 :
that it's funny because I think sometimes we, and I do it too, right? You know, you're in that same position because they scored a touchdown the last time you were in that same position, right? Or you're, you know, you don't want to talk about the no hitter because then they're going to, they're going to get the hit the next pitch. And it's like, as much as we like to think that our words and actions have an effect on these things, they don't, I don't think it has anything right at the end of the day. It's, you know, it's human beings making, you know, playing a game, And they're going to either make a play or they're not going to make a play. And that's kind of where it's going to end up at. So, no, I'm with you. Although it is fun sometimes to say, you know, this is my lucky underwear for the game. And they won because of it. As much as we say that, I don't think Demarius Thomas had anything to do with anything yesterday.
SPEAKER 16 :
One more thing before I let you go, because this is big news still. CSU, which, again, they're just up the road, and we have great teams in Colorado, not just the Buffs. We've got other college teams in Colorado as well, and I want to play as much news on some of those as possible. But CSU evidently did not like the direction things were headed, and their coach was canned over the weekend.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, unfortunately for Mr. Norvell, he sort of just bought his time with a few of their last few games. They actually kind of played well against Fresno State, which I think was ranked at the time, but then they lose to Hawaii this weekend.
SPEAKER 16 :
Which is their homecoming game, which is even worse, because typically homecoming games are set up for you to win pretty much no matter what.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, especially in high school and stuff. But, I mean, Hawaii is no slouch of a team. No, they're not.
SPEAKER 16 :
But CSU should have beat them. They're a better team.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, they should have, and that's where the struggle, you know, therein lies. And so I feel for him. I know he'll get a little bit of a buyout. And I guess kudos to CSU, Dad, because if they had actually waited until the end of – actually, if they had waited until January 1st, his buyout drops to only like a million bucks or something like that. And ultimately – I am glad that they kind of exceeded that in that regard.
SPEAKER 16 :
We're not going in that direction. We need to head. We've got to make a change.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and it's not about the money, right? We'll figure out that little extra, whatever we need to do to make it work.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, and this is me talking. I'm just throwing this out there because I'm not trying to create anything here, but he was their first black head coach. And so then I got to wonder, okay, is it really because he was a great coach he got hired, or did they simply hire him because he was going to be their first black coach? And I don't know the answer to that because I don't know his coaching history. You do.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, he was at Nevada before. He did well at Nevada. Did he do exceptional? No, but he did well. And honestly, CSU, they're probably looking at it as, hey, you know what, we've got to make it right. We're moving into the reformed Pac-12. We've got to kind of move into – we've got to kind of figure something else out here in order to do this right. And I think they kind of look at it as that. But, yeah, I mean, to your point, I don't know. I mean, I'll just say this. He had some good recruiting classes. And college football is different. I know a lot of people are going to say that you can win at CSU. The only thing I'll say to that, Dad, is because people are going to point to Sonny Lubick and how great he was for as long as he was. And he really was. However, the game is a lot different now. And I'm not saying the game of football. I'm just saying the business behind it.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, the game of college football is different today. That's the way to say it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, yeah, the business. Let's just say that's the way it is. The business of college football is way different than it ever was when Coach Lubick was there. And, again, don't get me wrong. He was exceptional, and he was tremendous, and he won there, and he succeeded, and he did a lot of things. I know he's even involved in some respects there still. It's just not the same. And so I feel for CSU. And the same way that it feels for CU because, honestly, if it wasn't for Prime, CU would be in the same boat. We'd be probably recycling coaches. And then once you find a good one, they're going to get hired away. And so I don't know which direction CSU goes. They're just going to have to – But, again, hire someone, hire a young and up-and-coming guy, and you basically cross your fingers and hope he hits. Because that's the only way to do it, unfortunately.
SPEAKER 16 :
One last thing, and I'm not a huge baseball fan, so I really have no stake in the game. Don't care about it, truthfully, one way or the other. I know a lot of listeners do. Dodgers looks like they're on their way to another, well, they are on their way to another World Series. Looks like they're on their way to maybe winning another World Series. What are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, baseball is so irrelevant now, and it's unfortunate because their pitcher slash hitter, Shohei Ohtani, did something that no one else in the history of baseball has ever done, which is he hit three home runs and struck out 10 batters in six innings. It's insane. He's an insanely talented guy. But baseball is just so irrelevant these days. I just don't know how many people – honestly, of all the people I've talked to, not one of them has watched any second of it. Yeah, I don't know how he cares. I watched a little bit of it. I watched a little bit of it because it was on the TV one day, but they don't. So, no, the Dodgers are likely to win. I think it's Blue Jays-Mariners game seven tonight, if I'm not mistaken, tonight or tomorrow night. And, unfortunately, baseball has got to change something, Dad. They've got a lockout coming up on their hands here, not this offseason but next offseason. And they've got a lot to fix in the meantime. And if they don't, they're really going to face a reckoning, and it's not going to be good.
SPEAKER 16 :
Gotcha. All right. With that, I'll let you go. Appreciate it very much. We'll talk more about that in the weeks ahead. And up next, Cub Creek Heat and Air Conditioning. Again, don't forget about their $56 off. Tune-up special. And I can't just say it's $56 because they've got three different tune-ups that they can do on your furnace depending upon what you need. In other words, what your needs are, what you're willing to do, not do, what all they need to do coming in to take care of your furnace. Talk to them today. Just go to klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 08 :
Life gets busy, but Cub Creek Heating and AC makes staying comfortable in your home easy. Whether you need a tune-up, inspection, or even a full HVAC replacement, just hop online and choose the date and time that works best for you. Cub Creek's automatic scheduler is quick and easy, and their online assistant is always standing by to answer your HVAC questions. In most cases, there's no need to call. The smart sign-up system asks all the right questions, so you can book with confidence. Still have a question? No problem. Someone from the Cub Creek team will call you back as soon as possible. And if you'd rather schedule over the phone, you can find our certified Ream Pro Partner Cub Creek's contact info on the KLZ Advertisers page. For a limited time only, mention you heard this ad on KLZ Radio to save $56 on your tune-up. Make your life a little easier with Cub Creek Heating and AC. Schedule your furnace or AC service today at klzradio.com slash HVAC.
SPEAKER 15 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we're back finishing out this second hour. No car review this week. We'll have that back again next week. And I should mention that any of you that are looking at cars and always want to know about a particular car, and I help a lot of people throughout the week. I know I say that a lot, but I do. And you're always welcome to send me a text message saying, I'm thinking about this car, this new car, this new truck, this whatever. I had somebody the other day asking me, hey, I've got this vehicle. I'm thinking about buying this particular camper trailer to put behind this particular truck. Will that work? Yeah, I will answer all of those questions for free. I don't charge for any of those things. If you ever have a question when it comes to those things, by all means, send me either an email or a text message. I'm always happy to answer those for you. With that, hour number three is next. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I'm a rich guy
Join John Rush as he kicks off this episode of 'Rush to Reason' with insightful conversations on furnace maintenance and the importance of tuning up your home appliances as winter approaches. Dive into expert advice from Hunter of Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning, who shares valuable tips on keeping your furnace efficient and avoiding common pitfalls. Discover how even seasoned homeowners can benefit from professional insights to ensure a warm and hassle-free winter.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 11 :
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 09 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 11 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did. 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 10 :
It's Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 08 :
And welcome, Monday edition, Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. Hunter, Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning joining us now to start our day off. Hunter, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 06 :
I'm trying not to get blown away, John. How are you?
SPEAKER 08 :
It has been windy today. Now, back in the old days, that would blow out pilot lights and things along those lines. Not so much anymore because everything is electronic, giving a whole other set of issues.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. I mean, we still do have our pilot lights occasionally, but we have seemed to figure it out in our venting processes so far. We don't see the blown out pilot lights as much. But we do have, with the new electronics and everything else and the new venting systems, our own issues with that. number one this time of year when the furnaces first kick on we tend to find a lot of animals in the in the flue pipes and stuff um so just be aware of that if your furnace doesn't kick on that could be an issue check the inlets of those um and then don't ever cover those um those vent covers because if you do um then we're we can't vent we're gonna have issues on that end
SPEAKER 08 :
Gotcha. In other words, there are certain things that need to be done no matter what. And by the way, this is where you come into play. You've got a great furnace tune-up special right now, which for a lot of folks, Hunter, we're getting cold enough at night now where I'm guessing by now most everybody has at least had the furnace on once, twice, maybe even more, depending upon their comfort level. But the evenings are getting colder and colder, and that's going to be common practice now.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. And I mean, especially if you leave your thermostat set in auto or whatever. I know my furnace has kicked on multiple times. I do have a couple of my customers that are the native Coloradoans that just refuse to turn it on until they have to turn it on. So there may be a few out there that haven't turned it on yet. And that's all right, too.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you know, to each his own. On the same token, the last thing you want to do, for me personally, I would want to be at least testing it. Maybe you're going to go ahead and wait until you finally put that thing in auto. But I think I would at least be getting it turned on, make sure everything's functioning correctly. And for those of you that do some of this stuff on your own, check your filters. I know we talk about that a lot, Hunter, but there's some basic things folks can do. But for some that just aren't handy and they maybe just don't have that ability and or time to do it, you can do all of that for them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, give us a call and we can come out and schedule a tune-up and we can make it fit to what you need. We can go through, we can check that filter for you. Obviously, we'll be able to tell right there if a critter crawled in that blue pipe or not. We'll be able to check anything, if it's a high-efficiency furnace, drains, anything like that that you can't You can't actually see, but basically ensure that you're ready for the winter.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. I also know that in the past, you and I have talked, and not only the filter end of things, but there's other things, too, that you guys can go through and do a tune-up with. In other words, looking at the flame itself. Is it working as efficiently as it possibly can be? And for those of you that think, well, maybe I don't have a high efficiency furnace anyways, there's still things, Hunter, on any furnace that you can look at and determine, is this working proper or not?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. We can run what we call a combustion analysis, and we do have a tune-up that includes that option. furnace is burning. The unfortunate side of things is a lot of companies, when they install furnaces and stuff like that, they just throw it in and it's a one-size-fits-all. If you read through a lot of the manual, most manuals will actually tell you to run this combustion analysis on your furnace and then check the gas pressures and set the gas pressure once you... install that furnace. And a lot of companies don't. We're pressed for time. We're pressed for help. And it's a lot of times it doesn't get done. So it is a good thing to do. And it can it benefits Tremendously. I mean, the benefits from it can be we can reduce rust because if we get that flame burning perfectly so there's not a bunch of moisture in it, then we're not rusting out heat exchangers. The big thing, though, on that is we can, by running those tests, we can confirm or ensure that your heat exchanger isn't cracked. Because the readings on that will come back and then not only that but making sure that furnace is set primarily and it is tricky up here in Colorado at elevation where a lot of people at sea level and different things can get away with the gas pressure not getting set and being set from the factory. The way we change elevations so much in such a short period of time in Colorado, those furnaces really should be tuned up.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. So that was a question I was going to have as well, is I know from other types of appliances that there's different, in some cases, different settings for different elevations. And I'm assuming the same thing is true when it comes to your furnace. And depending upon who did the install, did they do all of that is, I guess, kind of what we're talking about.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. And I would say even most companies don't. It's just the way the industry is.
SPEAKER 08 :
Like I said, there's... Oh, I missed that last part. Do I have you, Hunter? I lost you for one minute. You said most companies don't, and then you're gone. Say that part again.
SPEAKER 06 :
I want to hear that. Oh, I apologize. No, you're fine. Most companies don't run those analysis, and they don't have the time to do it. Okay. And that's where it is important to have it done later. Even if that furnace is 10 or 20 years old, we can maybe extend that lifespan out on it and, number one, get –
SPEAKER 08 :
save you some money by getting that efficiency to where it actually should be okay all right again that's that was one thing out because i figure with a lot of other appliances it's very similar i got to believe it's the same uh in that regard as well and even here in colorado folks uh you know that furnace might come with one setting and to your point hunter even along the front range area here you could be putting a furnace in at you know 5500 uh elevation 5200 elevation putting it in at at seven thousand eight again there is a huge variation just even going up the hill and you've got a, you know, you've got a very large, uh, customer base, uh, area, I guess I should say a large footprint. That's what I was looking for. And that, that elevation can change two or 3000 feet.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's yeah, that's totally true. And then the other thing that people don't realize too is, um, that gas pressure, when, when I talk about setting the gas pressure, going to the furnace, that's just our gas valve. And that's essentially just the set screw inside that gas valve. And, um, So it's basically, it only knows how much, it's basing it off of how much pressure is coming in. So especially with like all of the Excel meter changes and different things like that, I have seen a lot where they change the inlet pressure coming into the house to that gas valve on that furnace. And that can throw that efficiency off as well. If we get too much fuel to that flame, then we're burning too rich. And that's not good for the furnace or not enough fuel. And then that's, Okay. Okay. Again, for those of you listening, there's a great special right now, $56 off. Hunter, I know you've got more than one.
SPEAKER 08 :
a particular way of doing this. So for those of you out there listening, go check things out. You can go to klzradio.com, look for Cub Creek there. Once you find the listing, you can go right to the website. They can even set their appointment and everything online, Hunter, right through you, saving a lot of time and a step if you would. They don't have to talk on the phone to make an appointment is my point.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, no, absolutely. You can do it on your lunch break. You can log on. Just go to cubcreekhvac.com, and right there, there's a book online tab right there, and you can book it right there, and it'll show you the schedule and allow you to pick the time that works for you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hunter, as always, I appreciate it. Thanks for all that you do for not only me, but our entire listening audience. I appreciate you greatly.
SPEAKER 06 :
We appreciate you guys.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, Hunter. Have a great rest of your day.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. You bet.
SPEAKER 08 :
Hunter, and that is Hunter again, Cub Creek Keegan Air Conditioning. Again, CubCreekHVAC.com or just go to KLZRadio.com and find them there. Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. Now, Dave Hart is actually looking for an employee, a business development manager, somebody that will help him go out and acquire future customers, and some of those customers might be right here on KLZ Radio. So if that's something you're interested in, you're looking for a job, don't have to have a lot of roofing experience, some sales experience would be really nice. but we can train you on anything along those lines. And last but not least, if you need anything done when it comes to your roof, give them a call today, 303-710-6916.
SPEAKER 02 :
Homeowners in Colorado are getting letters from insurance companies dropping their coverage, all because their roof is getting old. Even if it isn't leaking yet, insurance companies don't want the risk. But there's a smart solution that can help protect your home and your policy. RoofMax. Roof Savers of Colorado can apply RoofMax, a plant-based treatment that restores flexibility to aging shingles and extends the life of your roof for up to five more years at a fraction of the cost of replacement. It's fast, affordable, and often helps homeowners meet insurance requirements without a full tear-off. Call Roof Savers of Colorado today at 303-710-6916 or visit RoofSaversCo.com for a free roof assessment and protect both your home and your insurance coverage. Roof Max of South Aurora, giving old roofs a new lease on life.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, and when it comes to that collection of things that you've had kicking around your house, that collectible ring, could be a brooch, could be a watch, whatever. In fact, might be a coin collection. If you'd like to know what the value is today and then turn that into cash, they can help you with that as well. Free appraisals for KLZ listeners, 720-370-3400.
SPEAKER 05 :
Dealing with estate jewelry doesn't have to be complicated, and you certainly don't have to go into a pawn shop and feel totally uncomfortable. David here with Mile High Coin, and we help hundreds of clients each year with their jewelry and watches. Whether it's high-end Hallmark pieces like Tiffany, Cartier, or Rolex, or mid-range brands as well, or even damaged or broken pieces that you don't wear. Most people are surprised with what their jewelry is worth. Gold is at an all-time high and we highly encourage people to take advantage of the market. There are options when it comes to selling your jewelry and we will educate you on which option is best for you. We work with people who have lost loved ones and need help sorting through the valuables that were left behind. God. Country. Life.
SPEAKER 09 :
Now back to John Rush.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, we are back on this fine Monday. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. And question of the day today, name the actor, this was from Friday, name the actor who voiced the yellow M&M in the Candice TV commercials. That was actually J.K. Simmons. Question of the day. Today, approximately how many tons of space dust settles on the Earth each year? Approximately how many tons of space dust settles on the Earth each year? That is the question of the day. Today, again, answer that on our Facebook page. If you would, rush to reason. We appreciate that. All right, no King's Day, which was, I guess, Saturday. And I'll be quite honest, we saw a little bit of it from our vantage point here at the 12th story of where we're at here in Aurora. They were doing a couple of No Kings events nearby. One of them was over here on, what was it, Iliff in Havana, I want to say, Charlie, in the corner. Parker in Havana, sorry, Parker in Havana. Iliff is really close. At any rate, there were a few people that showed up for that, and if you looked out at some of the other events that happened across the state and across the country, you know, do I believe all the estimates as to how many people actually showed up for the No Kings Day? I have no idea. I mean, they say there was like 7 million people total across the country, but... how in the world they come up with that number is beyond me. I'm guessing all of the organizers try to get an estimate of how many people were actually at their event, and then they report that in. The problem is, at those events, you've got people there that are for the event, some that are even against the event. So how many of that 7 million, that rough number, are actually for the event versus those that were against it? Who knows? I do know this. I saw some Man on the Street interviews, and I understand Man on the Street interviews. They always take the the probably the most outlandish interview, and that's the one that you see posted to social media. Although, I don't think some of these are that far-fetched. Because a lot of them were, what are you protesting? You know, what is it that, you know, what is it about President, because usually they would come back and say, I just don't like President Trump. And they would come back and say, well, what is it about him you don't like? What has he done that's been like a king, for example? And it's crickets because they can't answer. In a lot of cases, I truly believe that a lot of these protesters are literally there just because, well, A, some of them are paid. But the ones that aren't paid, literally, I think with those people, it's I don't like Trump, so I'm going to protest. Which they have the right to do. I've said that before on air. I'll continue to say it. I will protect every single person's right to go out and peacefully protest all day long, no problem. Where I have a problem is when they become unpeaceful. That's not how this works. If you want to peacefully protest and so on, be my guest. I have no problem with that whatsoever. And I didn't see a lot of unrest with the protests over the weekends. In other words, I didn't see a lot of information out there, a lot of news out there on them not being peaceful. Good for them. There were a few situations where things got tense and they were not so peaceful. And, yes, there's always those. Those outliers, I think for the most part, most of them were fairly peaceful. But again, most of these people, when you sit down and really ask them, what is it that you're protesting and what has even Trump done? I know you don't like Trump, but what's he actually done that's king-like? And in most cases, they can't answer that. There isn't – they don't know. And – At the end of the day, you just sort of have to laugh because in most cases, they really have no idea what they're protesting against. And again, as I will say in the largest gathering, this is an article out of 9 News, largest gathering was at the state capitol. There are a bunch of other protests around. I don't know. I didn't look to see what the number was at the capitol, frankly, because honestly, I don't care no more than I look to see when there's a conservative protest. I don't look at the numbers regularly. on that either. I'll just be straight up honest. Again, at the end of the day, and this is what I've said even on our side, at the end of the day, what are these doing? Zilch. Nothing. And I've said that about our side. So, folks, I'm talking about this in general. You can protest whatever you want. Be my guest. And, again, I will honor your right to do so on both sides of the aisle. I have no issues with that. But I've said this publicly on air before, and I'll say it again. Whether it's our side or the other side, what do they really accomplish at the end of the day? Nothing. Zilch. Zero. And I'll continue to say this, even from our side. You'd be much better off... For the time and money and effort and everything else that's put into a protest, if you spent that same amount of energy trying to get really solid candidates elected, you'd be much better off. We have a representative form of government. I get it. We have the freedom of speech, freedom to protest, assemble, and so on. I understand that. But I also understand that in at least my lifetime – I've never seen these protests really accomplish anything when it's all said and done. I've watched everything from, you know, when I was a kid, you could see the protest for the Vietnam War. Did it end the war? No, it did not. I've watched protests involving, of course, other wars that have come up. I've watched the Antifa stuff that happened, you know, throughout 2020 and other times. And reality is, you know, even on our side, again, have any of these at the end of the day changed the outcome of anything? Rarely, if ever. It makes people feel good, I think, at the end of the day, but it really doesn't accomplish much. Now, I'm not saying that protests shouldn't happen and that there are certain things that you shouldn't be vocal about, but I do go back to, at the end of the day, for the amount of time, effort, money, resources, and so on that are spent on protests, this goes for both sides, by the way. Wouldn't you be much better off focusing on something else? The no kings is a great example, because at the end of the day, we don't have a king. We still have a very representative form of government. Trump has done nothing at all to make things like a king. In fact, quite the opposite. He's more of a believer in freedom. than most presidents we've had in several decades, and probably since Reagan, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that. So all these people that are running around talking about him being king, that's a narrative that they've been pumped full of. It's brainwashing, basically. And these individuals that are on that board have no idea what they're talking about. Because, again, you can't ask them, or you can ask them a question, and they can't answer with any kind of validity as to what he's done to be a king. It always comes back to, I just don't like the guy. Okay, I get that. There's a lot of people I don't like. Doesn't mean they're a king. I didn't like Joe Biden. I didn't like Obama. Did I ever say they were kings as far as running the country goes? If anything, they probably acted more like a king than our current president does, and And I challenge anybody to argue me on that because there isn't anything Trump's done to act as a king. And some of some of might come back and say, well, look at what he's doing with the National Guard. Yeah, look what he's doing. Going in, cleaning up cities whereby we've got federal buildings that are being trounced upon that there's not there isn't law and order there. And he's going in and promoting law and order. How is that being a king? Well, he's deporting individuals that are here. Yeah, they're here illegally. They didn't come the way they're supposed to. And he's deporting them again, rule of law. How is that being a king? In fact, if he was really a king, he wouldn't let the protests even happen in the first place. Those would all be shut down if he was a real king. So, I mean, I could go on and on. I won't because you guys get the drill, and most of my listeners understand exactly what I'm talking about. Those of you that are on the left, I'm not sure you get this. In fact, I'm guessing you don't get this because you're in favor of some of what's going on in that regard. But you really need to go look in the mirror and say, okay, at the end of the day, A, what am I accomplishing with all of this? And B, what is it that he's really doing that's king-like? And I think most lefties, even if they were to really sit down and analyze that, they would come back and say, you know, there really isn't anything he's doing that's king-like. So that whole – just a side note to those of you that are on the left, you'd have been better off with a different type of protest name, to be honest with you, because you really sound silly because we don't have kings. In fact, your side acts more like a king because you're trying to force the way people think, act, behave. than what Donald Trump does. Your side is major on pushing an agenda that makes you think a certain way versus the current president. So your whole name is stupid in the first place. It makes no sense. You'd have been better off picking a different name. Call it what it is. It's an anti-Trump protest. You'd be better off saying that versus calling it a no King's Day. Messaging matters, and on your side, this one you blew. I'll just tell you straight up, you've blown it. Now, you've got a lot of people on your side, but there's a lot of lefty loons out there, so there's no surprise that there's people that are on your side, because they're looney tunes. I get that. There's plenty of them out there that'll join the cause. And by the way, there's people that'll join a protest just to join a protest. They don't like whatever, they're going to join it. They don't know why, but they'll join it. So you're going to get a certain amount of people on your side, no matter what, but... It's just ridiculous. Now, there have been a couple of situations. There was one story in here about a deranged teacher that's basically talking about Charlie Kirk and he should have been assassinated using the finger to the neck and acting like you're shooting yourself in the neck. And that person is probably going to lose their job, which they should. I mean, that's the nut jobs that are on your side, by the way. And those of you that that are. I hate to use this term, correct thinking leftists, but those of you that are more rational, let me say it that way. Those of you that are rational leftists that are listening to me, you can't condone that behavior, by the way. No more than I would condone it if it was happening on our side. And there are some rational lefties that are out there, albeit I use that term loosely because to be a leftist is really hard to be rational because the thought process doesn't go together. But, okay, I'll give you some credit for being rational. Those of you that are, there's no way you can condone that type of behavior. Again, no more than I can condone things that happen on our sides. You guys know me. I'll call it out on either side on a regular basis and do. So at the end of the day, all of these quote-unquote no-kings protests, I just shake my head at. Number one, makes no sense. The name doesn't even make any sense. You should call it what it is. It's an anti-Trump protest, even an anti-conservative protest. protest really is probably more what it is. It's not even anti-Trump. It's anti-conservativism. It's really what most of these folks that are protesting, the non-paid, the paid protesters are only there for a paycheck. Just keep that in mind. The majority of the paid protesters, they're there for one reason, one reason only. It's a paycheck. They might believe in the cause, but on top of that, they get paid. So they're in for that reason, that reason alone. Everybody else is only there because they can't stand Trump and conservatives. Period. Only reason they're there. Outside of that, they have no idea why they're there. And they'll use any name they can to try to promote that particular agenda. All right, Dr. Scott is up next. And he is a doctor that, again, wants to make sure that you are cared for the best way possible, not with big health care, not with big pharma, but with direct care to you that fits you individually. I was having a conversation this morning with someone talking about that, that, you know, health care is not one size fits all. And most good doctors, of course, will even tell you that. The problem is there's a lot of good doctors inside of the system that can't get out of the system for obvious reasons. They would agree with what I'm saying, but unfortunately have to deliver care that's one size fits all because that's what's mandated to them. They can't tailor care accordingly, and the time they even spend with you is very limited because of what big health care and big insurance says they can do and not do. That's not the case with Dr. Scott. Call him today, 303-663-6990.
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SPEAKER 08 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
The best export we have is common sense. You're listening to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, and we are back. And I apologize. I should have mentioned this coming into the show today. I talked about it a little bit on Saturday on my other shows, but I wasn't here. Friday I had a funeral I needed to attend to for family members, and that was already preplanned. But Thursday I was not able to be here. My dad passed away. Thursday night, you guys have heard me talk about him and his journey and Alzheimer's and dementia and all the different things that we've gone through with him over the course of the past, oh, it's been more than a year, but he's been in memory care for a year, and he finally passed away. Lord took him home Thursday night, which... It was a good thing. It's bad, always sad to lose someone, of course, especially your own father. But knowing where he was and the journey that he had had over the past year plus and just what had happened in his life, mentally speaking especially. And if any of you have been through that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't. It's not a fun thing to watch to just see the memory of someone and what you knew of them and, in my case, how much he had taught me over the years and all the different things, especially when I was younger and learning how to fix things and just all the different things that my dad taught me on everything from just day to day and how to work hard and how to be a proper human and be a conservative, of course, and all the different things that he taught me throughout all of the years and then to watch a lot of that really fade away because that's what you know dimension alzheimer's does and to see that was yeah that was difficult to watch and especially over the past quarter i would say the last three months especially really watch the decline uh happened there and you know my lovely wife and especially sister that did a ton to take care of him they had a lot more time than than i did of course and spent a lot of time handling a lot of different things. We all did, but my wife especially did a lot to help out and, again, to watch the decline. And those of you that have been through that know exactly what I'm talking about. And, by the way, not saying that for sympathy, just letting you all know where that's at. And I've talked about some of that in the past and the journey that we've had as a family and so on. And here's what I have learned. And I will throw this out to any of you that are listening, because we all can learn from one another. If any of you ever get into a situation where you're looking for advice on, hey, I need to know about such and such, or what should I expect in this particular case, and so on, we learned a ton. And I am more than willing to pass some of those things on to all of you that if any of you have any questions at all, please reach out, send me a text message, send me an email. I am more than willing to help you with different things that that we learn not that i'm any kind of an expert when it comes to those things but i will tell you i learned a lot in the past couple of years when it comes to things along those lines and and i will also say this if any of you are going through similar situations uh feel very uh bad for you i understand exactly where you're coming from it's not an easy thing to do and in some cases uh it can drag on for many many many years And again, my heart goes out to you because I know exactly what you're going through. And no, it's never an easy task. But just want to give you guys an update. Joe Nixon joining us now. Joe, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Great, John. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER 08 :
I appreciate it. Public Interest Legal Foundation, PILF. Talk to us about what you guys have going on right now. And you guys always have things going on, but there's a particular case of late that we want to talk about.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. We have a lot going on. And we are the – it's dope brag, I think, to say that we're the nation's premier election integrity law firm. Correct. We do a lot of work, and we're very successful at it. And we take on tough issues and win. So you're trying to clean up voter rolls, keep elections secure.
SPEAKER 08 :
And this latest one, really quick, and for most people listening, it's one that I'll be straight up honest, Joe, I've followed this a little bit. I've been reading about it over the past couple of weeks. But this one involves the, you know, Louisiana versus, is it Calais? I'm probably saying that right. Calais.
SPEAKER 04 :
Calais.
SPEAKER 08 :
Calais. Calais. OK, Calais. And that one has to do with, you know, quote unquote, you know, race based districts. And there's lots of folks now coming out talking about how, well, it's not going to be fair if things get changed. I though, Joe, I guess I look at it and say, well, wait a minute. Shouldn't shouldn't districting and all that be based upon, you know, strictly population, not upon the color of one's skin? Maybe I'm looking at that differently than I should.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, there's been a lot of cases from the beginning of the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act is actually a good piece of legislation designed to make sure that people weren't discriminated against in voting, right? So, you know, one argument that has been very well litigated is, are people drawing lines in a way that hurts people? specific minority group. And the fact is that that happened. And so those things have been mostly remedied. A lot of the remedial work regarding Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has been done away with, as the Supreme Court found in Shelby County, that the situation is completely turned. What's happening in Louisiana is very interesting. And, you know, you're not supposed, the 15th Amendment says you're not supposed to use race as a basis to draw lines. That means either for or against. In the state of Louisiana, the legislature was very clear it was purposefully trying to draw a second line. district or black community okay and and so so they took race into consideration and drawn the line so the 15th amendment says you're not supposed to take race into consideration when they did that they violated the 15th amendment so the question is i guess you know like justice thomas says where is the space between the two goal posts the 15th and 14th amendment on one side and the Voting Rights Act on the other. The Voting Rights Act says you're supposed to consider race in order to determine whether or not you are prohibiting a community from electing a candidate of their choice. The 15th Amendment says you're not supposed to consider race. Well, you can't deal with the Voting Rights Act unless you look at race. But if you do look at race, you may be violating the 15th Amendment. And so, you know, where's the room between the two goalposts to get a right? It's very difficult for legislators to draw lines. Yeah. And get it right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I know that everything you're saying, explaining makes makes total sense. So along those lines, this particular case, what's it involving? In other words, what's the lawsuit over?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, the state of Louisiana had in drawing its congressional lines determined that there was. a large and compact enough group of black voters to draw a district in which that community would elect its candidate of choice. The legislature decided, well, maybe we need to draw a second one. And so they went out of their way to draw a second black district. When they did that, They then let race predominate in their decision-making, which according to the 14th and 15th Amendment... You're not supposed to do.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
So the question is, did Section 2 require the Voting Rights Act, require the Louisiana legislature to make the decision that they made? Or does the 15th Amendment prohibit it? And so that's the big question the court has to decide. And where's the room between those two goalposts for legislators to get it right? Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
In other words, this one's not an easy one.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's not easy. It's hard. So a real good example of a problem is a county outside of Houston. Houston, in the surrounding area, is one of the most diverse areas in the country, maybe more diverse than New York City. Anyway, so they had a county judge who was from India who, who proudly announced that we've done a great job in redistricting. We have four county commissioners, one of whom is a white, is an Anglo who will be elected, one of whom is Hispanic, one of whom is black, and one of whom is Asian. So each of the four groups gets their own commissioner. The problem is that he just publicly announced that race predominated in his decision-making. Now, no one sued that county, and no one I don't think will, but that's a perfect example of someone of good conscience and well-meaning who probably violated the 15th Amendment.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hmm.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you can see where it cuts. It's no longer a situation where we're not going to allow this community to elect somebody of their choice. So we're going to divide their vote, craft a vote. It's no longer that kind of situation. It's one where we are going to allow race to predominate in our decision-making process.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, okay. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 04 :
Keep going. The law is, was there racial intent? not racist intent. Racism is something else, but was a racial intent. Completely different standard.
SPEAKER 08 :
Gotcha, gotcha. Where do you guys fall when it comes to this particular case? In other words, do you have any involvement in this? Where do you guys fall in all of this, I guess going back to my first question?
SPEAKER 04 :
We filed an amicus brief on behalf of a group of legislators who who wanted to challenge what the legislature did and say that this was based on race and therefore unconstitutional. And the amicus brief was written by our president, Christian Adams, and he just did a wonderful job. One of the best written briefs I've seen in a long time. But, I mean, look, we are a country who needs to get race behind us.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, agree. Agree.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right? Agree. The more we keep looking at it and the more we keep using that as a measuring stick, the longer we're going to have a problem.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's right. And in fact, I've said many times on my program, Joe, that in a lot of cases, you know, I feel that in a lot of cases, some of these districts are drawn in such a way that at the end of the day, those that are there, they're not benefiting from the way things are drawn because the particular party, in fact, that wants those drawn that way is doing nothing but using those folks as a pawn. They'd be much better off getting out from underneath that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and so that's exactly right. And the problem is that the reality is that there's one party who associates themselves closely with racial minorities and, in my opinion, often use race as a proxy for politics.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's right, absolutely, 100%.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and so they go to court claiming disparagement, against a particular minority group when really it's just that their political party is not doing as well at the ballot box as they wish.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER 1 :
100%.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. How do folks help you guys? Is there ability to help you guys on the financial end of things? None of this happens for free, as we all know. So how do we help? How do we get involved?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we live and die on donations, and we are grateful to all of our donors in We have been very successful. So, yes, so you go to our website, publicinterestlegal.org, and there are places. It's easy to donate. The other thing that you can do when you go to our website, we list all of our work. all the briefs that we do, but we also do videos of interesting situations. Like, for example, we sued Michigan because Michigan had about 27,000 dead people on its rolls. It wouldn't take them off. So we actually went and found gravestones, and there was a very fun and interesting video where we show the gravestones and actually ask them how they're going to vote.
SPEAKER 08 :
Unreal.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's hilarious. Well, I mean, look, you can make a lot of points with humor.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER 04 :
And we do with that one.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's awesome.
SPEAKER 04 :
Nevada had people registered at commercial addresses, and some of the addresses were remarkable. Bacon Lots, 7-Elevens, post offices, you know, on and on. And so... We went through a drive-thru and asked if a particular voter was there, and they went, well, no, they're not. And I said, well, we'll just have the root beer float down.
SPEAKER 08 :
That's hilarious.
SPEAKER 04 :
That is hilarious. Publicinterestlegal.org. And we love our donors, and we are so grateful for them. Because, look, you cannot challenge him. The voter rolls, you cannot challenge the efficacy of, you know, maintenance programs. You cannot do that unless we have people who support us and allow us to do that kind of work.
SPEAKER 08 :
You can also go there, folks, which I just did. You can donate. You can do a newsletter. You can sign up for the newsletter, which I'm assuming, Joe, you guys will send me now, especially because I just signed up for that, and sign me up for all the different things that are coming up on a routine basis. So those of you listening that want to be more involved in this, that's how you do it.
SPEAKER 04 :
John, that's awesome. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 08 :
You're very welcome. Joe, it's been a great joy having you. I've talked to Jay Christian many times, never talked to you, but I appreciate you joining us today.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, call back. I'll be happy to do that. All right.
SPEAKER 08 :
I appreciate it, Joe. Nope. Have a great evening. Thank you for the update. And again, it is the Pacific Interest Legal Foundation, PILF. It's publicinterestlegal.org. We'll put that in our show notes as well. And up next, Cub Creek Keating and Air Conditioning. You heard from Hunter here at 3 o'clock. And get on the list to get that tune-up special done today. You can do that by going to their website. Find them at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 09 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, and we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Appreciate you all listening. Somebody texted in, by the way, and said, isn't it interesting that when you look at a lot of the video from the No Kings protests, and there is quite a bit of video out there, and again, is this every single protest? I think, though, the answer is probably to a certain extent, yes. What this particular texter said is, isn't it interesting that the majority of protesters are old boomers, old lefty boomers? Yeah, you are correct. You're spot on. I've noticed the same trend. Most of the time, it's not a bunch of what they call now Zoomers. That's Gen Z. They're called Zoomers now. And even Gen Xers in that. Not a lot of them. It's mostly old people. There are a few young people sprinkled out, but they're boomers. You're correct. Those of you that texted that, and I've heard that from numerous texters, not just one, you are correct. It is in most cases a bunch of old boomers. You're right. And by the way, mostly lefty, angry boomers. And mostly women. Thank you, Charlie. Yes, mostly women. And in a lot of cases, just nut jobs. I don't know any other way to say it. They're really nut jobs. In fact, the majority that I have seen interviewed are exactly that. Old, white, boomers, somewhat senile because they have no answer as to what they're protesting. And I hate to say this, but I've known some of these individuals. I have some distant family, not necessarily my family, but some distant family whereby they fit that description. It's like, what are you protesting? You really don't have any idea what you're protesting. I was talking to a couple last night, good friends of ours. And was having that exact same conversation. They have family members that, for example, won't buy from Amazon because that's the evil big corporation. And I thought, well, number one, it's really not that. And by the way, they're very much owners of on the left. Bezos is definitely a lefty. But yet you're protesting them because you don't like how big they are. And the fact that, you know, the actual quote was, he should be giving his money away to those less fortunate. And I said, well, in a way he does. Because every single person that works there, he matches their FICA tax, all sorts of other things. And I get it. It's all part of the overhead cost of what you're running when it comes to a company and so on. But the reality is they do much more than that. And I'm not giving Amazon a pass by any means because Jeff is definitely on the left. but he does do a lot of things to employ people and keep the wheels of motion moving forward. And I know a lot of people, myself included, that buy products through that site because it's convenient. And he provided a great service. And I'll give the guy credit. When he first got started, He did things out of his garage, packing books and shipping them out on his own and so on, and then built it into what it is today. And I'll give him credit for that. Even though he's a lefty, I'll still give him credit. Anybody that's done things like that, I'll give credit no matter where they're at, politically speaking. So good for him. But yes, thank you for that text message because you're spot on. You are 100% correct. The majority of people that you see at these protests fit your description in a great way. And all I can do is shake my head. I really, I don't get it. In fact, my wife just sent me a picture of the No Kings protest in Golden. And yes, I will tell you that the majority of people holding up signs fit the description of what Charlie and I just mentioned. It's just unbelievable. And I don't get it. Again, I don't get it. Andy texted me a moment ago, too, and even was agreeing with me on just the whole protest thing and what has it accomplished. And even the Tea Party, which a lot of people would attribute to a lot of the protests, and the Tea Party did a lot to change the makeup of the conservative party. Although I will tell you that while they did protest, they were actually also working simultaneously at the same time to get the right people elected into office. And that's really the accomplishment of the Tea Party. That's what you really can credit them with. And Andy agrees with me on that. You know, it wasn't the protest themselves. It's what they were doing behind the scenes to get folks elected into politics that really made the most difference. So I go back to my original statement. What do these really accomplish at the end of the day? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. It might make people feel good at the end of the day, but it really isn't accomplishing anything, politically speaking. Just factually speaking, it's not doing anything. It makes people feel really good. And honestly, folks, it's why from the time I was young until now, I'll be straight up honest, I've never been in a protest. And I believe in free speech. You guys hear me talk about it all the time, but I've never went to one. I have no desire to go to those things on either side. Of course, I'd never show up for one on the left, but I wouldn't even go to an anti-protest for what the left is doing because, again, I look at it maybe more rationally. At the end of the day, what are you accomplishing? Nothing. Zilch. In fact, I will go as far as to say all you've done is waste my time by showing up to one of these. And not to criticize any of you that are out doing some of these things and the anti-protest and so on. I mean, if you want to go do that, again, I will protect your right to do so all day long. Is it for me? No, it's not. Do I feel like I've accomplished anything by being there? No. Do I feel like even some of you that have been the anti-King protest, you know, the anti-No Kings protest, did you accomplish anything? I'm sorry to say, no, you didn't. You didn't. So for me personally, I'm just not somebody that ever – I've never done those things. I've never marched outside of an abortion clinic because, again, at the end of the day, did I feel like it was going to fix anything? No. Have I went down to Capitol Hill and, you know, been there for a lot of the anti-whatever protests that our side will even put together? No, I have not. Because for me personally, does it really make any changes? The answer is no, it does not. And that's not to be critical and rude to any of you that like doing those things. If you like that and that's in your wheelhouse and it works for you, great. It doesn't for me personally. In fact, I think even from our side, what I will say I think really irks me is when those sorts of people – will almost shame those of us that don't go and make us feel like we're a lesser conservative because we're not at the protest. That's wrong as well, by the way, folks. Don't ever do that. People have all sorts of reasons for doing the things that they do, and just because they don't get on board with your protest doesn't mean they're a bad conservative or a bad Christian, for that matter. In fact, I might go as far as to say the opposite. They might be actually better at things than you are because they might be using their time and money and resources in a much better way than actually you are. So never shame someone or make them feel bad because they didn't show up for a protest. Last thing you should ever do that our side should ever do, by the way. Because, again, I'll stand by what I'm saying. How many of those things actually change anything at the end of the day? And I'll just tell you straight up, they don't. They don't. So no King's protest, biggest bunch of malarkey, frankly, I've ever seen because most people have no idea what they're protesting. They're protesting Trump really is what they're protesting. They just won't admit it. And they have no real, solid, factual things to stand on as to what Trump has done to actually be a king, because he hasn't. And they can't justify what they're even doing in the first place. So, all right. Paul Leuenberger is next. And great guy, by the way. In fact, I heard from Paul when my dad passed. He was one of the first folks to send me a text message and just say, hey, you know, really, because he and my dad were pretty close. And in fact, I will say this. The reason Paul... is with us and is a big advertiser of ours was because of my dad initially in introducing me and Paul. So I owe that to my dad, and I know Paul feels exactly the same way. So, Paul, thank you. You're a great support to our family, and I really mean that sincerely. He's a great broker. He'll help you and your family as well when it comes to your insurance needs. 303-662-0789.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Live and local, back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, that's wrapping up this first hour on today's program, by the way, this fine Monday. I've got several more things to cover today. We've got not a lot of other guests. I'll be frank. I didn't have a lot of time with everything going on with my dad, you know, late last week to book a lot of guests for today. You got me today. I don't have a ton of guests. I've got a couple more guests that might join us here throughout the rest of the show, but not too many. So it's just me. So, frankly, if you've got something on your mind, things you wanted to talk about, something you want to add to today's program, by all means, text or call in. But we'll be back for the next hour. Don't go anywhere. Rush to Reason, Denver's Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 07 :
Average guys. Average guys.
In this episode of America's Veteran Stories, we delve into the profound life and service of George Champa, a courageous World War II veteran. Tune in as George shares his personal experiences from being at the front lines in Normandy to later working with the occupation forces in Germany. Through the harrowing tales of survival and the heavy responsibility of handling fallen comrades, George recounts the untold stories of valor and sacrifice that define our history.
SPEAKER 07 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America's fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America's Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here's Kim Monson.
SPEAKER 08 :
And welcome to America's Veterans Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings. Returned stateside realizing that we need to know these stories. We need to broadcast them and archive them. Hence, America's Veterans Stories was born. But we have such a treasure trove of interviews that we thought it might be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear history from the men and women who lived it. And today we're going to be doing part two with World War II veteran George Champa. George, welcome to the show. So tell us a little bit about yourself, George. I know people can go back and listen to the other show, but just do a quick recap of where you grew up and what you did those first days at D-Day.
SPEAKER 10 :
My name is George Shapa. I'm a World War II veteran. I served in Normandy and five campaigns in France, Belgium, and Germany. I'm 95 years old. Uh, I, uh, the Wooden Graves Illustration Company is not something I wanted to do. I wanted to get the Air Force. The mags were not quite good enough until I was actually, uh, after I was drafted, I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And the Air Force was looking for pilots because we were, you know, pretty short on pilots at that time, which was March, 1844, a couple of months before the invasion of Normandy, France. And so they had no guy requirements. And so I took the test and passed, but my company commander wouldn't let me go. And he just put me in the company because he was irate because I didn't get his permission. And it was a situation where the guys at the Air Force Base right next to us were looking for pilots and they were recruiting. At that moment, I didn't think I had to get my company commander's approval. I just said, yeah, you know, I fought this guy in 2023, but now you lowered the IRA cards to 2030, and so I just took the test. So my company commander transferred me into another unit that was going overseas right away, and they were short one man, and so that was me. And so I went to the Navy, and... On the ship going overseas, the guys are always kidding me because when you're carrying a chopper, a president said, no 18-year-old gets put on foreign soil, but when you carry a shipper, I'll take your hand. And so then we arrived in England and we provided our company up. There's 120 to 150 men and officers, four or five crews at the headquarters. And they sent us in the different directions. And so, we went to Dispo, England, and we were in the 4th platoon. So, while we were there, we didn't know...unknown to us, if they had selected us, one of our platoons should be in an exercise called Exercise Tiger, right off the coast of England, in preparation for the invasion. And we were on an LFT. There were four LFTs out there in this Exercise Tiger. And... we all the teams were sunk by a German e-boat, and there were almost 800 guys that were killed. Oh my gosh. And so we lost 16 guys, 24 guys of our first platoon, and so that was a big blow to us. And I didn't think about it at the time, but later I thought, wow, I had a 25% chance of being out there. It says the platoon is out there because there are platoons participating. Of course, a platoon would not be participating if it were a war war. So, I escaped death, and that'd be all. Then, on a ship going over tees, again, we got a big explosion in the middle of the night. There was a German torpedo plane that dropped the torpedo, and maybe going to shut it down before it took the ship to do a huge explosion in the middle of night. So, again, I escaped, yes, but I'm really hit by that torpedo. Then we got in the invasion of France, and, of course, there were like 4,000 ships out there altogether, 10,000, 5,000 ships. And we were on a ship that we were bringing on this troop ship And so we were anchored offshore, broadside to the shore, and the Germans were firing artillery at the ships out there. And we could hear the 88s be moving over our heads. And we were all standing on one side of the ship against the bulk of the ship, like, drifting in the water because of all the weight on that side. We didn't have a turn to get in the...get on the rope ladder to get down the landing track. So, finally, that finally happened. So, we started in the shore, and we could hear the 88s, and you could see ships getting ripped and exploding, and the tanker exploded, and bodies in the water. And we were going in, and we could hear the 88s going over us. I guess whoever was driving that, I thought at the time, he turned around and went back out, let me see, back in again, back out, and back in again. We went in, but I found out later in the year for it, actually, that the reason we turned around a few times before going in, the guy driving that landing trap was looking to approach the land so he wouldn't have to wade in the water because the Germans had to... I forget what they call them now, but they were... huge chunks of iron were kept the ships and the landing craft actually going in all the way. So we had to wait for sure. So our job was to gather the dead. There were many paratroopers who were dropped there in error. Paratroopers came down over and they drowned. I remember they were landing below the bodies and wrapping them in their parachutes and We had a detachment separate from us. We were segregated at that time from the Negroes, but we had a service company. They job was to dig a grave like a day and at least one grave a day, but they did that for only days, like two, three days at the most, because we got German prisoners from then on digging the graves. So we initiated 17 temporary commissaries throughout the rest of Belgium and Germany.
SPEAKER 11 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
And it was documented that we buried about 75,000 red Americans and Germans because we handled the German dead, too, because they didn't. So stop me when my time is up here because I'm trying to talk fast. We're getting a lead chapter that I did. It's called 537th Major Extraction Company. So we went through... We went through France, the temporary cemetery in Belgium, and just in Germany. We participated in the Battle of Borg, which was the largest battle the U.S. Army ever fought. And we had 17,000 buried in the temporary cemetery before we moved here in Belgium, not quite in Germany, but we moved from there, and it's about 17,000 buried there before we moved into Germany. Wow. And then we got into Germany, and they had to be more temporary cemeteries. They ended up in Eisenach, which was 100 miles from Berlin. And that temporary cemetery was disinterred, and the war ended, but Mary H. and none of these... We had the Memorial Day services there during the Assyria for Mary, and all of the bodies had to be disinterred, and they had to re-identify their bodies. They were put on boxes and shipped to Holland and London and buried again in another temporary cemetery where they were until the war ended about two years after the war before they were just returned again from temporary graves and put in a casket. And at that time, which is 1947, a couple years after the war, the Mexican had a prerogative of having a loved one to be married, shipped, the U.S. and private cemeteries that they chose at no charge, they'll remain there. So these cemeteries over there that have up to 10,000 graves, that only represents 40% of what was there because the other 60% were returned home. But I tell that story a lot because people actually into the cemeteries don't even realize But that's the case, and they don't even realize that there's no date of birth on the crosses and the stars of David, only the date of death, which is approximately a lot as I know. So I didn't see that until 50 years after the war, when I went back. My late wife had passed away in 1981. For 10 years, I lived by killing. Then I met the woman I'm married to now in 1991. And so 1994, he and my two kids talked me into going. I had a chance of going back to the 40th anniversary when Reagan was president, but I didn't want to go back. But 10 years had gone by, 1994, when I became the next president. And they took my kids and my fiancee. So that's when I realized that there's no date of birth in the crotches. And that really bothered me a lot when I found out why American Federal Monument Commission that I talked to said that's the way we've been in World War I. And so we just followed World War I. Stupid. Very stupid. Because when people go through the cemetery over there, There's a number of them, however. There's about seven in France. There's two in Belgium. There's one in Holland. There's one in Luxembourg. I've been to every one of these cemeteries in recent years, except one. You can see them in it. They have no idea how old the soldier was doing still because they didn't have a date of birth. And so there's no way it can be changed now because they're all white marble crosses, marble encoders from Italy, and they're all engraved. And so there's no way it can be changed. If something bothered me then and still bothers me now, and I've been back there many times Since the 50th anniversary, when I went back the first time, I've been back there every five years for the five-year anniversary. Awesome. And a couple of years, about three other years in between. So I've made a lot of trips over there because I've done films over there. My films are about the icons of freedom. I started doing filming when I was 81 years old in 2006. I've done six films. My most recent film is My Laugh. I lived at age 94, and when I was leaving, we were after doing the drama on June 12th. A couple of days after that, I got another birthday on the 95th birthday. So, six documentaries, this one was done. Well, I was doing it, and I couldn't make it clear, and I thought, The sixth one was done in June of 2019, which is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. And so I took the governor of D-Day Veterans with me, thanks to American Airlines, who has helped me a lot on my drone, my last four drones, actually. And over there, we had actually 22 people on the airplane. There were seven veterans and their companions, and two American Airlines pilots that I chose to come with me and help with our work over there, and just my mechanic crew and my job. So there were 22 of us on the airplane. And then when we got there, I picked up another three people because I had a shouted death driver, and I had two people who came from Belgium that have been with me on several of my good friends of mine through my trenches.
SPEAKER 08 :
So... Well, and let's just talk, yeah, let's just talk just a little bit about that quickly, George Champa. And that is, it's Let Freedom Ring for All is your website. And if people go... What's that?
SPEAKER 10 :
That's right. Let Freedom Ring for All. And people can see my website. They can see excerpts of all of my films. I'm very familiar with the introduction and two of my films, and John Boyd gave the introduction on one of my films. And the films, you know, had awards, a couple of them. First prize in one, second prize in another. But I have been very, very busy since 2006. For 14 years, doing this, you know, I've been going through no progress. And I'm telling you, I work day and night, lack of sleep, and I don't know how I did it, really, with everyone's health or age. I went younger, young for my age, and I've gone through a lot of stress, a lot of blood and tears, as they say, but I've been very fruitful. very rewarding for me to do what I did. And the films were out there. I was showing them in school. I took the young high school history teachers, four of them on my first film, and I took two other history teachers from another school on my second film along with a young female journalist and a young male high school student. And so those first two films were on PBS stations. for a couple of years. My other films have been on other stations. All of this has been for no profit. I've had to raise the money to fund it, which is a really difficult part. There's a lot of
SPEAKER 08 :
I understand that. But, oh, my gosh, it's so important, George Chompa, what you have done here. And that website is Let Freedom Ring for All. This is Kim Monson with America's Veterans Stories. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk, and it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients, and they do that through over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients, but additionally, They are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That's AmericanValuesCenter.org. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 08 :
And we've got on the line with us George Champa, World War II veteran. And before we get into the occupation, George Champa, I'm looking at your website, Let Freedom Ring for All. It is absolutely a beautiful website. And there are... How many films did you do? Seven films? Is that right? And people can... Six? Okay. Can order those. And... You know, this is so important that the next generation understands this history. So this is a beautiful work that you have done on this, George Champa.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Okay. You worked for 11 months on the grave registration detail after the D-Day landings. And then once Hitler had, or the Nazis had surrendered, you then worked with the occupation forces. So tell us a bit about that, George Champa.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. We ended up in Germany, as I said, near Eisenach, and at a disinterred cemetery that we had there. We didn't want any...the government didn't want any cemeteries to remain and to terminate. So, I and a couple of other fellows were sent to Mannheim to terminate. We were in the Army in the rocket station and our job there was the 233rd Salvage Reflecting Company. I don't know where you get the word salvage. Our job was to receive equipment from all of the organizations that were going back to the state, guys being discharged. So, we received all kinds of equipment except vehicles across the road from us to the vehicle yard. So, I worked one day on and one day off. And so, in that work, I met a lot of German people and I'd ask them, you know, I didn't speak out when they saw what they were doing there. Invariably, they would say, whenever anyone did speak out, somebody would turn them in, and they'd end up in a concentration camp like the rest of the people that were put in concentration camps. And then one day, I went to a circus, and I met a girl there. And to make a long story short, she was on a flying trapeze with two other girls. And so I met her, and before I met her, one day a gentleman that was handling the vehicles across the road from us came over and asked if I could give him a pair of paratrooper boots. Everybody wanted paratrooper boots. And so I said, sure. And just kiddingly, I said, yeah, if you'll give me a Jeep. And he said, sure. So he gave me a Jeep. So I had a Jeep illegally for seven months.
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I almost got court-martialed over it. Anyway, I'll tell you about that in a second.
SPEAKER 08 :
George, go back. I didn't understand. What is it that everybody wanted? They wanted paratrooper what? Boots. Oh, boots. Boots. Okay, got it. Boots. Okay, got it. Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, paratrooper boots were better than the other boots that the GIs had.
SPEAKER 08 :
Got it. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
They look better. In fact, I have a pair here in my house. It's five TV issues. I can show you what they look like. Anyway, to pick up from there, long story, but I met this German girl in Flying Trapeze. So she, this was in Mannheim. Then went to Heidelberg and went to Heilbronn and Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. And so I had one day on and one day off, so I used to follow her around. And I got to know the circus people, the GI, that met this lovely little girl, Margo. So anyway, my wife doesn't believe it. Nobody believes it. And we had a very platonic relationship. It was not my idea, hers. But anyway, believe it or not, you know, I tell guys, you know, I do this girl on the circus. Oh, the beard lady? I said, no, not the beard lady. The young lady on the flying trapeze. Anyway, I sent her her name on a friend of mine, Dr. Margo. And in fact, on one of my film covers, you see the mirror. No, no, excuse me. Not her, you'll see me holding a little two-year-old German girl. You'll see my Jeep with little German kids in my Jeep. She'd say, my Jeep. And it sounds like the MyPolo man. Yeah. This is my Jeep. And so anyway, I followed her around from place to place. So I got into trouble a few times, stopped by the military police. But the third time I got stopped, there were a couple of fellas that kept wanting to borrow the Jeep. And I would lock it up, and I'd come in at night. I'd throw a chain around a steering wheel to the side of the Jeep so we couldn't drive it. But one morning, I came in in a hurry, and I didn't lock it up. We took the Jeep out, and we got drunk and got in an accident. So next thing I know, they're towing the Jeep in the yard. When they come to me, they say, George, the commander wants to know where we got the Jeep. And we've got to tell him. So what happened was I met with the company commander along with these two or three fellows. I can't remember now, two or three. Anyway, the company commander's name was Lieutenant Sterling Carpenter. I'll never forget that name because he looked at me, where'd you get the Jeep? And I explained to him how I got it. He said, don't you know that government, that stolen government equipment? I said, well, sir, I didn't steal it. I just borrowed it. Well, it didn't go over too well. But anyway, he said, this is very serious. I'd have to think about this overnight. Come in tomorrow morning. So next morning, he looked at me. He said, I know how old you are. I had just turned 20. Okay. And he says, I know how you are, how old you are, and I know what you did in the war. And you did a horrible job. And he said, you know what? I'm going to look the other way.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
And so he did. We did. I could have gotten a short living or prison for stolen military equipment. But anyway, I got out of that deal. A few weeks later, I shipped out to come home, went to Bremerhaven. While I was up there at Bremerhaven waiting to come home, this is now in December of 45. Everybody waiting to come home wanted to get home for Christmas. Well, on the 19th of December, it was obvious we weren't going to get home for Christmas unless we got on a Queen Mary. Everybody went AWOL. So I got on a train. You had to carry your rifle after the war. I had my rifle over my shoulder. And it was cold. I had overcoat on. I got on that train. I'm standing up all the way, 350 miles. It seemed like I was all by myself in that one car. And then down came my friend. And I met her father, who was her sister's P.O.W. And he was my size, and I was small. You know, I only weighed 112 pounds when I landed in D-Day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I didn't weigh much more than that when I met her. And so I met him, and I met her mother, and I knew her sister, because her sister was with her in a flying trapeze, and another girl. And so I spent Christmas with them. And so then when we left... We went to the train station and it was raining and we got into a telephone booth and just looking at each other. And, you know, I really, I really, I don't know, it was infatuation and loneliness and love, but, you know, she had tears in her eyes and so did I. And so the train came, and I got out of there and started walking toward the train, and then I started walking backwards and waving to her. So that was the end of that. So anyway, she was four months older than I, so she would have been 95 in February. So she's still living. I know the address street where she lived. And I thought about writing a letter there, but that happened.
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, in the last interview that we did, George Champa, at least kind of what I heard is that meeting this girl, you said platonic relationship, but with the very difficult 11 months that you had had on the grave registration detail, that that was really a gift to you to be able to kind of come to terms with things.
SPEAKER 10 :
Absolutely. You hit it right on the head. If I hadn't come home right away, as it was, my sister said I used to have nightmares, but I don't remember ever having a dream or a nightmare about it. But I really got a chance to chill out, and it was a great relationship for me. I got to meet German people who I hated, the Germans, because what I saw in the war, and I got to see I think it was just regular people and fun-loving people and playing their accordions. And I never forget the... I'll take the name of that song. I can't think of it now. Roll Out the Barrel. Oh, yeah. Roll Out the Barrel.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Roll Out the Barrel is fun, yeah. And accordions. And anyway, and her sister's name was Heidi, the German name. And Margo was my friend's name. But, yeah, I think God had a hand in this. People tell me God has a hand in my doing these documentaries because they're all about the high cost of freedom. Because I and people doing the same job as I did, and also the medics, we saw it firsthand, everything. infantry as tough as it was you could get away from it you got you got the reliefs uh you got skills where you got away from the combat but we never did get away from it and i i figured six times i told you two times there's been about six times that i know of that i escaped death and uh i almost got hit by a buzz bomb i got a piece of a shrapnel home uh it uh The thing I can't believe when I think about it, how lucky I was to live through it all, even though I wasn't in the infantry. We carried a rifle, but our job wasn't to seek the Germany. Our job was to stay alive. The very unfortunate guys, and that's also many of them that bothered me so much. I don't think I've told you before, but as a kid, I had a big fear of death when I was five years old. And again, I was seven years old because of a couple of deaths in the family and witnessing the funerals and the wakes in the homes of the little kids. So I became very, very nervous. We moved to California when I was nine years old in 1934, the two-year-old Chevrolet, nine of us in that car going to California. Amazing. And, you know, do you have children? I do. If you have children and you ever went any place with them before you ever got there, what did they say to you? Are we almost there?
SPEAKER 08 :
Are we there yet?
SPEAKER 10 :
Are we there yet? I originated that in 1934. Good for you. It took us a week to go cross country without stopping at a restaurant, a hotel, and my mother heating up a little Monson burner. I still have that. eating canned goods, because we never ate in a restaurant, stayed in a hotel or motel, drove straight through. They'd drive at night to keep from hearing me. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? So, yeah. Anyway, then when we got here, they put me in a Catholic school, and I was... I started the first grade when I was five, because in Boston, no kindergarten. It started... school in year five and you had to have your consuls removed before you could start school and so when I came to California at nine years of age I was in the fifth grade in a Catholic school and at school you had to attend the funeral mass with the parishioners and so I dropped out I wouldn't go to that school so they had to put me in a public school and for some reason or other I got back again to Catholic school in the sixth grade and I dropped out again I went to public school in the eighth grade because I didn't like the priest. He didn't pronounce my name right. When he'd come in the classroom, call out names, and I would say, George, she, I'm, and my name is Champa, and this is an Irish priest, so I'm never afraid of Father Hennessey. So I got out of there, and I went to public school in the eighth grade, and I was the smartest kid in the class. I knew how to diagram a sentence. The other kids didn't know how to diagram it. You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I do.
SPEAKER 10 :
Diagramming a sentence? Mm-hmm. They had me go to the blackboard to show them, you know, the noun, the pronoun, the adverbs and adjectives and all of that. And so that's what I did. I went to college school, eighth grade and then high school. I graduated the same day I was 17, June 16th, 1942. And so I worked for a year in an airplane factory. And I worked on these, let's be me, dive bombers. My job is to sew them up on the tarmac and be finishing touching.
SPEAKER 08 :
The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977 and it is time for a facelift and the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently. to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military, to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom, is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado, in Golden, at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977, and it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org.
SPEAKER 05 :
In these tumultuous times, it is necessary that we each have a freedom library to know and understand our history. Bury Him, A Memoir of the Vietnam War by Captain Doug Chamberlain is a must for your personal library. In this honest and gripping memoir, Captain Chamberlain recounts the chilling events that took place during his command of a company of young Marines at the height of the Vietnam War. Chamberlain painfully recalls the unspeakable order he and his Marines were forced to obey and the cover-up which followed. Purchase the book at marinedougchamberlain.com. That's marinedougchamberlain.com so that you gain perspective on this time in our history.
SPEAKER 06 :
All Kim's sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That's Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 11 :
God bless America, land that I love.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back to America's Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out my website, AmericasVeteranStories.com. I'm thrilled to have on the line with me World War II veteran George Champa. He was on the grave registration detail. He landed at Normandy on D-Day. He also served in the occupation forces after the war was over. But we were talking about him growing up and what he was doing. He worked for a year with airplanes, these dive bombers. So tell us about that, George Champa.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, well, working on doing the finishing touches in the cockpit got me excited about buying one of those. And my brother was in the Air Corps, so my brother-in-law, when I looked at them with their hats chipped and walking on a swagger and all the other guys in the Air Corps, and the girls were all in love with the Air Corps guys. And I thought, oh gosh, this is where I want to be. So I tried to sign up when I turned 18 because I worked in the Douglas Aircraft for one year. And I flunked the ITF, and I think I told you that before. My eyes were 20-22, so I didn't make it. I tried twice. And so then after I got drafted, I had the opportunity to try it again because they lowered the eye requirements to 20-30, which I took the test and passed. My company commander wouldn't let me go. I told you that story.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
And how I got crazy registration. So going back to the Army of Occupation again, so I think I pretty much finished that story. I don't want to repeat myself.
SPEAKER 08 :
Let's talk about you going back to Normandy. As I was looking at your website, Let Freedom Ring for All, I saw a picture of a guy that you and I both know, and that is Ralph Peters. He is from Holland. And it's amazing to me, George Champa, that even today, Ralph Peters, his grandfather, his father, and now Ralph, they take care of graves of American servicemen. And, you know, going back to Normandy when I went back in 2016, the people of Normandy revere you World War II guys. It's just kind of an astounding experience to witness.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yes, they actually throw more praise on it than they do here in this country. They're amazing. People over there in France. When I talk about France, I'm talking about Normandy. The Normandy people are unbelievable. I think I said to you in my recent film, And you can see excerpts of my recent film on my website as my others. And the Normandy people are unbelievable. The first generation is mostly gone now, but they taught their children well, and their children taught their children well. And they treat you like a rock star over there. But getting back to what you just asked me about Ralph Peters, Ralph Peters, There's a young man that I met in Harlem, and he did some work with us when I was doing a film there called They Will Never Forget about people who adopt graves of American soldiers. And this is where Ralph comes in. Ralph does not beautify graves. We have our ABMC, American Battle Monuments Commission. They're the ones responsible for building the cemeteries and maintaining them. But what Ralph and people like him do, they adopt a grave or more than a grave at more than one cemetery. And they go there from time to time and put flowers there. And an interesting thing that happened when I was doing that film, at the end of the film where we interviewed people who adopted graves, I realized that nobody had adopted a Jewish grave. And so I'm looking at this grave and I said to Ralph, Ralph, No one has adopted this grave, and it was raining, and you're quitting. The fun was done. I said, I feel really bad about this. And so I said, will you see if this gentleman's grave has been adopted as from Massachusetts where I was born. He was a lieutenant. And he went into the office and found out, yeah, that grave has been adopted. So I looked at another grave, Albert Schley, and I said, check on him. So he did. He went in there and found out, no, he had not been adopted. So I said, you know what? I want to adopt it. I said, I won't be here to put flowers on the grave. But Ralph said, well, I'll do it for you. So Ralph and I are co-adopters of Albert Schley's grave. It turned out Albert, what Ralph does, and other people like him, they research who the soldier was. They do marvelous things. Right. And Holland, especially, is really big on this. But anyway, when he found out Albert was from Illinois, he couldn't find his parents. They were gone. Nobody in his family, but out from the newspaper about Albert. Albert was 19 years old when he was killed. That was the age when he was killed. And he was a violinist. And he... Anyway, we found out where he went to school, everything about him, Ralph did. And so then, a couple of years later, Ralph found that... He found McFellow's nephew And so Ralph got in touch with his nephew, and so did I. And so Ralph goes there from time to time, and when he goes, he takes a picture of himself by the grave and the flowers. So Ralph and I have been friends ever since that. And he's a lot older than when I met him. When I met him, he was, let's say, he was... I'm talking about 12 years ago. But I had met Ralph's father, and Ralph's father has passed away. Ralph actually still lives with his mother, I think, and he was very slow about getting his driver's license and various things, but a great guy. And so there's other people that do the same thing. Some of the people there in Holland, they have their own website. And they have all these pictures of these guys that are buried there in Holland. And in Holland, there's 8,300 graves there. And so they learn all about who that soldier was. And some of them meet the next of kin by going to the States. And sometimes the people from here go over there. and meet these people. And so I know a number of people over there who do this, who have a website and adopt many graves. And there's a museum there called, remember the museum, which is just two miles away from the Henri Chapelle Cemetery. Under Chappelle Cemetery, at one time, it was 13,000 graves, a little over 13,000 graves in a temporary cemetery that we had buried those bodies. And now, it's over 9,000 graves. What happened to the others? Two years after the war, as I said earlier, the Mexicans had a prerogative of having a revenge at home in the casket. Any cemetery they chose, there was no charge. That's what happened to the others. So it went from 13,000 plus to 9,000 plus. And the greatest, if you haven't ever seen a cemetery, any of you listening who travel to Europe, be sure to go to American permanent cemetery, military cemetery, and you'll be glad you did. I tell you, you cannot believe. You cannot believe. You'll never forget it. Although, as I said a little earlier, people who go there and see the graves and come away not even knowing the date of birth. Because often I talk to groups and I say, I mean, you've been over there and they put up their hands. Okay, what did you see on the grave stones? What does it say? And nobody, I haven't found anybody that knows the date of birth on the tombstones. Unbelievable.
SPEAKER 08 :
So was the date of birth on their dog tags, though?
SPEAKER 10 :
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's definitely known how old they are. They just... for some reason, didn't put it. They didn't do it in World War I. They just carried the same thing through in World War II. So, yeah. Let's talk. All of that, the date of birth is not on the dog tag, but all of that information is known because Grazer Illustration Guide had to make records of all of this. Okay. And so it's all known. It's all known. They just didn't do it. They didn't know. They just didn't do it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Interesting. Huh.
SPEAKER 10 :
Do you think it was because... Nobody's asked me that question before. I had to think for a minute. Yeah, it's just, it isn't that they don't know. I talked to the ABMC. We're in Arlington, Virginia. I was in touch with them quite a bit. And they said, no, it was just done that way because that's the way it was done in World War I. That's the only answer. If you contact them now yourself and say, why wasn't the date of birth on the tombstones? It would be interesting. Call them up and ask them that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Okay, that would be on my list.
SPEAKER 10 :
American Battle Monuments Commission, Arlington, Virginia, get a hold of the PR person and say, you know, I know this was no date of birth. Why? I've got to do that myself also. I haven't done it. I haven't done it except initially back when I was there for the 50th anniversary. That's 25 years.
SPEAKER 08 :
Do you think that... I've been to Arlington, but I don't recall whether or not date of birth is at Arlington. Do you recall that?
SPEAKER 10 :
No, because I have never been to Arlington. Okay. I don't know. Apparently not, because he said it wasn't done... for World War II, but now for more recent burials in Arlington, I don't know. It's a good question. I'm going to check on that myself because guys are getting killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, or whatever. They probably have their date of birth on the markers. I don't know. It's a good question.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay, we'll have to check that out. Yeah, we've got about, George Champa, we've got about four minutes left. And I just want to talk a little bit about this work that you're doing with Let Freedom Ring for All. You said the mission is to reach high school students in particular, stressing the importance of freedom and delivering the factual message so that many young American lives that were sacrificed to ensure our safety and lifestyle that we all enjoy. So to, you know, to inform people, this is noble work. This is important work, George Champa, that you're doing. We've got just a couple of minutes. Tell us just a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and you know, I'd like to take a couple of minutes, and you may not even want to broadcast what I have to say, but I've seen thousands of young men's bodies. And I think now what's going on in our country, you sacrifice at a young age. You didn't get to handle many of them, even a girlfriend, wife, children, like I have. I feel very guilty about it. And I think you guys need your life for what it is. on in this country, and so fear for what was going to happen with this country, where my kids and my grandkids, I won't be around to see it. But when they're destroying statues like Christopher Columbus, you know, and I'm Italian from first-generation Italian-like parents, and they were very proud Americans. And we've got Columbus Day in the Catholic Church, you even have the Knights of Columbus. And now all of a sudden we decided to rename Columbus Day to GMP's Day. And I think, what the heck is that all about? I mean, black people have Martin Luther King holiday, and now they're going to take an Italian Columbus Day away? But I just heard yesterday from somebody, I don't know how true this is, it was reversed. There were two senators who came up with a legislation to rename that Columbus Day. But those people, I think Columbus, Ohio will probably be changing their name. And you know what? If it keeps going on as bad as this is, they'll probably change the name of America to something else. Name that's America, that's Gucci. And so I'm just wondering where the country is going to go. And the sacrifices all these young people made for freedom. And you know what's going on in the country. I don't have to tell you. You can see the pictures and hear. If you can't see, if you're blind, you can hear what's going on. And it's not good. And it doesn't seem like it's getting any better. And there's this Antifa that's definitely a terrorist organization. And they come right out and say they want to abolish the way the U.S. is. They want to change it. And so that upsets me a lot, being a World War II human gone through. And now I have to listen to this crap? I don't like it. And we've got to do something about it. It's got to change. How to change it, I don't know, but you know, I'm not a racist at all. And I have had black friends, and still do, and Jewish friends, and liberal friends, and I'm a conservative. But you know what? I think all we can do when you talk about religion and politics is what you have experienced, and that's what you become. But then sometimes when you experience something and become something, you can also change. I changed from one political affiliation to another. And so, you know, what makes you change is experience. experience. Right. That's what it's all about.
SPEAKER 08 :
We're not a perfect country, but you saw so many young men give their lives to stand against tyranny and evil. And we do have a responsibility to fight tyranny and evil. And I so thank you, George Chompa, World War II veteran, for this great conversation. Thank you for joining us for this episode of America's Veterans Stories. While some of the details may be a bit dated, the courage, sacrifice, and stories of our veterans never go out of style. For more incredible stories, past and present, check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com or catch new episodes each week. Until next time, thank you for listening and for honoring those who served. We indeed stand on the shoulders of giants. God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for listening to America's Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
Join host Rick Hughes on 'The Flatline' as he delves into the vital concepts of spiritual growth and personal faith development. Throughout the episode, Rick emphasizes the significance of understanding and nurturing the soul, the centerpiece of spiritual life. He guides listeners on how to navigate the challenges of insecurity, frustration, and doubt through faith and wisdom. As our bodies age, Rick shares insights on keeping the soul youthful and spiritually vibrant, ensuring it becomes the seat of rational thought and divine perspective.
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 Flatline. I'm your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, I'd like to invite you to stick around because it'll be simply 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and no manipulation. That's right, no con games, no asking for money, not trying to sell you anything. Just want to give you some information that will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If I'm able to do that and you want to orient and adjust to the plan, that's good. That's your choice, your decision. So I hope you'll stick with us. The Flotline has been playing this morning in 112 radio stations across America. I don't know where you are. I wish I knew where you were. I wish I knew who's listening to me today because I never know. I record these shows in my studio and they go up over the internet and they go out to the various radio stations and I have no idea who hears them. That's why I always encourage listeners to write to us at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama. P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama. Don't send money. We're not asking you for money, but we love to hear from you if you're learning anything and if this is helping you because our objective is to locate positive volition, people that are hungry for truth, and hopefully to help them find a local church where well-qualified pastors teaching the Word of God. That's how you grow up spiritually. I'm not a pastor. I've never claimed to be a pastor. I'm an evangelist. I'm a recruiter for God, for the Lord Jesus Christ. My objective is to introduce you to the Lord Jesus Christ and hopefully you will receive him as your personal savior. It's the simplest thing in the world to do and it is the single most significant thing you'll ever do in your life. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved is what the Bible says. A lot of people don't believe that. A lot of people think you got to add something to it, but it's not necessary because the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone would brag about it. So there is an opportunity to start your life over again today. Today, brand new life. If any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things become new, quoting the Bible. So it started for me when I was 22 years old, I accepted Christ as my Savior. And what a wonderful thing, that was all the way back in 1967. Put the years together and you can see I'm not a young spring chicken. And then we're in our 70s now and we're trucking along as the Lord allows us to move along. And what I want to talk to you about is something that may be very essential for you to understand. Because I know a lot of young people are not up listening to the radio this morning. A lot of you are my age. You're in your 50s, 60s, 70s. And you are the ones that are listening to the radio stations wherever we're playing. So I want to tell you today some essential principles that are important for you to remember as you age, as you get into the latter years of your life. And here is one of them. Your body may age, but your soul is forever young. Your body may age, but your soul is forever young. The Greek word for soul is psuche, P-S-U-C-H-E, psuche. And that's the invisible, immortal part of you that God created. Basically, you have a body, a soul, and a spirit. And when you're born Adam's original sin is imputed to your human spirit and you're born physically alive, but spiritually dead. That's why you have to be born again. And that's a spiritual birth, but the soul is the seat of your spiritual life. This is where everything takes place in your soul. And it's manifested by your actions and the results of your actions. So if we take your mentality, your thoughts, what you think, what you desire, what are your motives, and if we add your volition, yes or no, yes I will, no I won't, if you add those two together, then hopefully you get the right thing. Good decisions limit bad decisions, limit future options. Good decisions opens the door for you. So you have volition. That's important to remember. That's self-determination. you're listening to this radio show you determine you would listen the guy doesn't sound too freaky or weird and nut so i'm going to listen to what he has to say you said i will and that's your volition you have mentality that's your mental clarity that's the ability to think thinking skills rational or irrational But if you can think rationally, you can comprehend what I'm telling you. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you understand problem-solving device number one and two, how to rebound your sins, how to confess your sins, and how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then you can understand God's plan in the spiritual sense. What God has in the Word has to be deciphered spiritually. The human nature can't get it, and the Holy Spirit acts as a spiritual interpreter for you. So if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5, 18, be filled with the Spirit, how does that happen? When you confess your sin, you go to God, 1 John 1, 9, you rebound, that's cleansing your sin, and that puts you back in fellowship with God, back under the filling of the Holy Spirit. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, then you can make the rational application to the word of God as it's taught to you. So then you have a conscience. You have volition, you have mentality. This is all in your soul. I'm talking about what's inside your soul. Your soul has a conscience, invisible part. That's your moral reasoning, your moral compass. And hopefully it's always pointing towards virtue. Virtue first in the Christian life is very important. Your motivational virtue to live for the Lord Jesus Christ is your personal love for God. And your functional virtue to serve God is your impersonal love for all others. So you have a volition and a mentality and a conscience and you have a self consciousness. You have self perception unless you have some dementia issues and that's where they always get attacked in that area. But at least this morning, if you look in the mirror, you recognize yourself and you know who you are and what state you're in. So here's the principle. Your soul, your volition, your mentality, your consciousness, your self-consciousness, your soul is the staging area for all rational thought in your life. What's the enemy of rational thought? Do you know what that is? It's called emotions. Emotions are the enemy of clear, lucid thinking. The number one enemy of your mentality as you grow older can be self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself because of the situation you're in. In Philippians 2.5, the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. which meant that you should have the same intentionality that he had and the same confidence in the Father's plan that he had. And God wants you to be the same way. He wants you to think like the Lord Jesus Christ thought. That's it, Philippians 2.5. So as you get older, if you are in your 50s, not so bad. 60s, getting worse. 70s, uh-oh, here we are. Then the battle switches inside internally. And it's not any longer the lust patterns that you're fighting now. It's not your lust for sex, it's not your lust for power, it's not your lust for approbation, not your lust for attention. It's not your chemical lust. Your lust patterns trend to change, they tend to change. And you get into insecurity and frustration, confusion, sometimes even doubt. This is a change in the arena of contention inside your mind, from having fleshly desires to now battling the soul's mentality. Now it's no longer about the flesh. Now you're past that, and now it's about your mentality, what you think. Are you insecure? Are you frustrated? Are you confused? Do you have doubt? Because only a strong spiritual life can keep you encouraged. only a strong spiritual life can keep you focused as your body begins to disintegrate and it will and so we have a warning in the bible about that mentality of your soul as you get older listen to this warning in proverbs 4 23 above all else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Your heart, the Greek word for heart is kardia, K-A-R-D-I-A. We get the English word cardiac, cardiology, et cetera. There's another word in the Bible for your mind, and that's called the nous, N-O-U-S. We're talking here about the part of your soul that is a mentality of your soul. The heart is referring to the mentality of your soul, especially the memory center where your word of God or Bible doctrine is stored and recalled when you need it. And the challenge as you get older is to keep those lanes of thinking open. As you get older, you have to be able to recall and not let the rate of forgetting exceed the rate of learning. You've got to keep that lane open, not let it get clogged up with stinking thinking such as self-pity and et cetera, things we've been talking about. So this is where you have to, as you get older, you have to guard your heart, not let the adverse circumstances affect you to where you get full of self-pity and frustration. where you get insecure, that's not the spiritual life. The Hebrew word for guard, guard your heart, Proverbs 4.23, were written in Hebrew. That Hebrew word is nasar, N-A-S-A-R, nasar. And it is an imperative mood verb in the Hebrew, meaning this is a divine mandate recorded by the Holy Spirit for your application. If you can learn and store the word of God in your heart, then this is what's called divine wisdom. Divine wisdom is the word of God you've learned and stored in your heart. Proverbs 2, 10, for wisdom will enter your heart. There it is. Wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. There's the word soul. Then discretion will protect you and understanding will guard you. So we have the word heart and we have the word soul right here in this passage. God wants you to put in your heart his word because it will sustain you and give you understanding and discretion in your life as you get older. So that command to guard your heart is an indication of where the real enemy is as you get older. where the real attack will come from as you get older. It comes from what you think. This is where you have to be very careful because Satan will do anything he can to neutralize your spiritual life, anything he can to knock you out of the arena of contention. So your thoughts, what you think, can be hijacked. or even redirected through this never ending call to worry, to be afraid, to be afraid of the pandemic, to be afraid of the food shortage, to be afraid of social tension, to be afraid of political intrigue. What about my poor children? You know, it just gets into everything and you fail to think clearly. Using the faith rest drill, problem solving device number three, using grace orientation and biblical orientation, essential for you. If you're going to live right, you must think right. That reminds me, I need to tell you, we've redone the book on Bible promises and principles, and it's revised with more different promises. All of it's organized alphabetically by category. It's a small book. It'll be easy for you to carry around. If you want it, just get in touch with us. It's free. We'll send it to you. All right, so don't let your thoughts be hijacked by worrying, by being afraid, by being full of self-pity, because as the fog ascends across America, fog, F-O-G, maybe you've heard me mention that. That's what's going on in America today. Failure of spiritual leadership, open rebellion in the streets, and God's word rejected, fog. failure of spiritual leadership, open rebellion in the streets, God's word rejected. As this fog descends across America, you will find it very hard not to be frustrated. Very hard. So how do you actually do what the Bible says, guard your heart? How do you do that? Well, the mechanics are found in Philippians four, eight Philippians four, eight, think about the right things. So just as you worked hard to keep your body in shape when you were young, running, you know, on the treadmill, doing your yoga, doing your Pilates, doing everything you have to work even harder as you get older to keep your soul's mentality in shape. to keep your soul in shape. Psalm 73, 24, with your word in my soul, you will guide me and then afterwards take me up to glory. With your word in my soul. There it is again. This is how God guides you through his word in the mentality of your soul. So why is your soul important? Well, because of rational thought versus irrational emotions. You can't live the Christian life based on irrational emotions. It'll distract you and destroy you. So when first Peter two 11, the Bible says, dearly beloved, I beseech you as travelers and pilgrims and foreign lands abstain from fleshly lusts, which make war against your soul. Make war against your soul. There it is right there. This is why you have to guard your heart. You have to keep away from the emotions and not, it's always the battle, emotions versus rational thinking. You know, emotions always react to situations. And As a mature believer, you can respond. If you have something that goes crazy, haywire, weird, you can get mad, angry, jump up and down, kick the ground, curse, do whatever you want to do. That's your emotions. It's not going to solve anything. Or you can use the spiritual solution. Human solutions are no solutions. Divine solutions are the only solutions. What do I do? Faith, rest, and drill. Stand behind the promises of God. Realize the Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. Take it easy. Laugh about it. Satan just trying to get to you, trying to frustrate you, trying to get your mind off of the Word of God in your soul had you ever learned it to start with. If you haven't taken in the Word of God, if you haven't applied the Word of God to your soul, then you have no biblical wisdom. And you don't get wisdom unless you study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Scripture, scripture, scripture. Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Scripture, scripture, scripture. You can't have wisdom without doing those things, studying and growing. So why is your soul important? Well, I'll tell you why. Because it is saved for eternal life. Your body of corruption will go to dust. It will be destroyed. You're in the process of dying. Face it, we're all dying. All of us are. We cannot go to heaven in this human body. It won't work. And so the body of corruption is being destroyed and we will be given a resurrection body, a beautiful, unbelievable body where our soul will live forever and ever and ever. Psalm 34, 22, the Lord redeems the souls of his servants. and none of them who trust in him shall be desolate, which means abandoned or forsaken. So the Father will not abandon you. He will not forsake you. You will die. You must die if you want to get to heaven and have a new resurrection body. And dying grace is a phenomenal part of the Christian's life. being able to face that time in your life and not be afraid. Look forward to the promotion. I call it being called to the home office, and that's going to happen for you and me and every living person alive. If you're not a believer, if you've never accepted Jesus Christ, it's not a very nice thing because it's the lake of fire. It's hell for you, not because God wants to, not because he's mad at you, because you in your arrogance rejected God's life preserver. He sent his son to die for you. He sent his son to take your place on the cross. And you said, no, I don't want that. Okay, it's your decision, your choice. You face your own destiny, you decided it. I pray you're smart enough not to do that. I pray you're smart enough to say, Father, if it's real, show me, let me know so I can put my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the greatest conflicts in your life this morning are the conflicts in the mentality of your soul. They are invisible and they are unseen except for God. God can see what you're going through. God does know what you're thinking. He can see your irrational fears. He can see your emotional outbursts. He sees these things because he's omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. So our greatest conflicts are what we think in our mind. Again, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ never got full of self-pity. He never doubted the Father's plan. He forged ahead, even though he was treated very unfairly. All the way to the cross, he put his faith in his Father, where he said, not my will, but thy will be done. Many people try to hide their thoughts from God. Maybe you've tried that this morning, trying to not let God know what you're thinking. That's impossible because those who try to hide their thoughts from God, their intentions and their desires, they can't hide it. Their intentions and their desires are called the mentality in their soul. And the Bible says in Proverbs 24, seven, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. God knows what you're thinking. So this tells us that if we think right, we'll do right. Right motives, right intentions, right desires are all the responsibility of your own personal volition. And it has to be based on biblical wisdom in your soul. Therefore, Romans 12 three says, stop thinking, there it is, I told you it's thinking, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. But think in terms of sanity as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. Thinking in terms of arrogance means you justify what's wrong and you say it's right. It means you lie to yourself and lie to others. Self-justification, self-deception, and then eventually self-absorption. You can tell it lie long enough to where you eventually believe it actually happened and it didn't. This is important for you. You must understand this. You must have a right sort of thinking in your mind. You cannot think in terms of arrogance. That's emotional thinking and that will destroy you. You have to think divine viewpoint. That's why we have to establish the flat line in your soul. What does it mean to think in terms of arrogance? Well, self-justification leads to jealousy, bitterness. Self-deception leads to implacability and anger. And self-absorption leads to revenge, motivation, malice, violence, et cetera. Now you can do that, or you can do what the Bible says, but in Psalm 32, nine, I like this little short verse, because sometimes it's descriptive of what we really are. don't be like a horse or a mule that has no understanding psalm 32 9 do not be like a horse or a mule that has no understanding thick-headed muse don't understand much god doesn't need you to be thick-headed he needs you to listen and learn and apply and so paul wrote in philippians 4 8 finally my brethren whatever things are true whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there's any virtue, if there's any praise, these are the things you should think on. Think on these things. Here's your spiritual life right here. It's lit between your ears, it's in your head, it's your soul, the invisible, immortal part of you. That's where your spiritual life takes place. And he says, concentrate on these things. Think on these things. That verb is what we call a present middle imperative of the word logizomai. An imperative mood is a command from God. This is not a request. This is a command from God. This is what you must think on, focus on, concentrate on. This is where your concentration must be regardless of your age. Why? So you can form soul stability. So you can stay out of arrogant preoccupation with yourself or political or personal issues. And by doing things, these things, you are guarding the mentality of your soul. By doing what? What I just read you. Think on these things. What if things are honest? What if things are just? What if things are pure? You cannot afford to be overwhelmed by anxiety and stress in the later years of your life. So whatever things are true, what does that mean? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is truth. You must have the ability to distinguish the truth from the lie. And evil is the lie. You know what the most evil thing in the world is? Organized religion. Most evil thing in the world. More people will go to the lake of fire in the name of organized religion because they rejected Christ as Savior. The Bible says you're saved by grace through faith. Organized religion says you're saved by keeping a ritual system, by doing this or doing that, and that's not salvation. And so whatever things are true means you must understand what the truth is compared to what the lie is. Thus insight and discernment from biblical wisdom And this is what the Apostle Paul said puts on the belt of truth. Put on the belt of truth. Stand firm, Ephesians 6, 14, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist so you know what the truth is. Whatever things are honest, honest, Isaiah 32, 8, he who is honest plans honest things and on honesty he stands. So whatever things are honest means that you're not allowed to deceive people. You're not allowed to bamboozle people. Whatever things are just, whatever things are divine standard. Divine standards, what's that? James 2, 1, show no partiality as you hold your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not allowed to be partial. You're not allowed to be racially prejudiced. Whatever things are pure means thinking free from the influence of evil. Whatever things are lovely, and this is an interesting word, and this is not referring to a beautiful sunset, but rather referring to the beauty of coming face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever things are a good report, speaking confidently or favorably about a person or about circumstances. if there's any virtue think on these things that's what he said if there's any virtue think on these things because as we ought to think then we will love as we ought to love if we think like we ought to think we will love like we ought to love so to think as we ought to think is to be motivated not by any personal desire but to be motivated by the divine standards of the word of god called biblical wisdom in your soul Grace and truth are God's standard of thinking. Grace and truth are God's standard of thinking. John 1, 17, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth are given, are realized through the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the Lord Jesus Christ prayed in John 17, 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. This is where you live the Christian life in the mentality of your soul. So to reach your own potential and to be accomplishing your capabilities, you have to think correct thoughts. You have to think the correct thoughts. You have to arm your soul, establish your soul with a biblical inventory of what the word of God says so that you can have the right kind of spiritual life. Because if you don't arm your soul, you're going to be a sitting duck in the angelic conflict. I hope you're listening. I hope you're paying attention. Because you might not have any control over your DNA, but you have a lot of control over the formation of your soul. Study, grow, learn, apply, live, glorify God to the maximum. And you will hear, well done, my good and faithful servant. The soul is important. It's where you live your spiritual life and the mentality of your soul. I hope you're learning. I hope you're listening. And I hope most of all you will apply. If you have a question, please don't hesitate to contact us at rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. Until next week, this is Rick saying thank you for listening. Be back same time, same channel next week. Until then, may God bless you richly.
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.