04-24-25 *FULL SHOW* Pine Trees In Trouble, Kyle Clark On Nasty Colorado Bill

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I'm gonna jump right into it here.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I rarely start the show with an interview, but I'm
going to.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Today.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Around my neighborhood, we've noticed a few dead pine trees.
I use the pine the term pine generically. I don't
know if it's a pine or a spruce or whatever,
but something in that category, and don't know what's going
on with that. And then, sort of coincidentally, I saw
a piece in the Colorado Sun. Colorado's tree eating pine
beetles are surging back after a prolonged dry spell. I'm

(00:31):
also aware, though, that there's another bug around that could
be causing some serious problems. So joining us to help
us understand what is or might be going on with
our forests and trees that aren't in forests but elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Dan West.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Dan is the forest entomologist, meaning the bug guy for
the Colorado State Forest Service. Hey Dan, thanks for making
time for us this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, good morning, pleasure to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
So let's start with pine beetles.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
So it seems to me like they were the only
thing to talk about for a few years, and then
nobody talked about them for a few years. So did
it feel that way to you? And if so, why
did that happen and is it changing again?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, mountain pine beetle is an interesting one. We did
see about eighty percent of our pine forest in the
state were affected, give or take, from about nineteen ninety
six to two thoy and fourteen. And the reason for
that is that decline is because you'll recall right twenty
thirteen is when we had the Biblical rains or the
torrential rain one hundred year rain event that occurred along

(01:35):
the Front Range, and that really allowed trees to suck
up as much water as they possibly could, turn that
water into resin, and be able to defend themselves against
mountain pine beetle. Now, what we've seen, maybe ten years later,
just about eleven years later, is that mountain pine beetle
is resurging again. Has been for a number of years
pretty much. We've seen increases since twenty twenty all the

(01:57):
way back during the pandemic and now particularly along the
Front Range. I saw a pretty market jump almost twice
as many infested trees were recorded from our aerial survey
from twenty twenty three through twenty twenty four, so starting
to be slightly more alarming along the Front range where

(02:17):
for about ten years they really saw kind of a
hiatus from attack from these bark beetles.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
So the short answer there is what are weather means
the trees are able to defend themselves against the beatles better?

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well, yeah, tree take water and turn it into resin,
and then they are able to defend against these bark
beetles through attacking them. The challenge is is that in
Colorado we've had above average temperatures for the last thirty
one years, so that makes it hard for a tree
to try to retain as much water as they possibly can.
And then you throw on top of that, four out

(02:53):
of the last five years have been below or well
below average precipitation. One of those years in twenty twenty one,
actually five inches below one hundred year average. So it's
really hard for trees to basically defend themselves when it's
much warmer and they're not getting as much water as
they certainly need. So these bark beetles are just able
to then build up their populations relatively quickly. You'll recall

(03:15):
kind of middle school math where we were learning about
exponential curves. That's how these bark beetles build up their population.
Super quick, and in these years where trees just don't
quite have enough defenses, the bark beetles are able to
continue to build up their populations and continue to attack
otherwise healthy trees.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Obviously, the geographical scale of this problem may be the
answer to the question I'm going to ask you now,
but have there been any kind of advances in ways
that humans can try to prevent the spread of bark
beetle on a scale that matters, right, like separate from
you know, just around my house or something, And I
don't even know if that's possible.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Well, we do have some tools now that there has
been some fertile ground in research that has we figured
out how bark beetles communicate with one another, and we've
figured out a way to disrupt that communication. The challenge
is is that it's not it has to be done
every single year, and it's easily applied. They're made in
these little bubbles that you can staple onto your trees,

(04:17):
and it's kind of like the no vacancy sign, right.
It tells incoming beetles that, oh, hey, there's no food
for my babies in this tree, and they continue to
fly through the forest. So there is some challenges with that, right,
it pushes it to your neighbor's yard or to the
next track of land, and if you know we're not
doing that on a widespread scale, that becomes a challenge.

(04:38):
But you know, we still always have the traditional you know,
mechanical removals and trying to leave the residual trees make
them the most vigorous, but sometimes that's not feasible, you know,
in your neighborhood, or if you're trying to use trees
as kind of a screen so that you can get
some privacy, there's there's you know, there's some considerations there.
But and then of course the ugly side of all

(04:59):
of the entomology is we can still use chemical sprays
to prevent attack from trees, but that also isn't a
silver bullet because we can't use that stuff around water.
It's a nerve talks and is toxic to humans as well.
So you know, there's kind of challenges for everything, and
really that's not the one size fits all. It kind
of takes a forester to get in there and say, oh, hey,

(05:20):
here's kind of the suite of tools that we would
use to make this slightly better.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Okay, let's move on from the pine needle and talk
about the budworm.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
What exactly is this thing? How concerning is it?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well, it's a small moth in the adult form. It's
a little caterpillar that chews on the needles of both
spruce and Douglas fir. So the devils in the details,
you got to figure out which tree species you've got.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
It's our most.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Widespread forest pest in Colorado and has been for a
number of years. The total amount of acres that we've
seen in Colorado is continuing to inch up every every year,
and we haven't seen levels that we've seen in twenty
twenty four for seven years prior. So certainly impactful. But

(06:10):
the interesting thing about this little caterpillar or moth if
you will, is that it doesn't outright kill a tree.
It just reduces the amount of kind of tree, if
you will, The amount of defenses and sugars and photosynthe
that the trees produce. It just reduces that every single year,
and so over time we kind of start to see

(06:31):
this slow decline which then makes these trees vulnerable to
be you know, polished off by either a bark, beetle
or something else. So certainly, when you're driving across the
landscape and you're looking across the forest, when you see
that kind of rust color or brown tinge that you
might see on the needles, that's because of these caterpillars
that have partially feed on them. The needle turns red

(06:54):
and the tree just actually looks quite poor from afar.
So it certainly is a seventy five percent of all
of the disturbance that we see in Colorado. We're at
two hundred and seventeen thousand acres statewide. There's almost no
forest that isn't affected to this point. But you know,
kind of to put it into perspective, you lump up

(07:15):
all the bark beetles and the budworms and all the
things that we see. You know, on any one given year,
we're not really seeing more than about one percent of
our forest is affected. It's really more the long term
window that we really start to kind of start to see, Okay,
here's the trends, and here's why. When we drive up
and go skiing, we see miles and miles of you know,

(07:36):
dead trees, and so you know, we try to temper
it with like, hey, listen, in one year it's not
the end of the world. It's really more, you know,
we need to look at this thing over a larger scale.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
All right, last quick question for those folks who live
as I used to but don't now in an area
that has plenty of evergreen trees around.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
I used to live up near up near Netherlands. Right,
so on forty acres, we had lots of trees. Do
you recommend Do you think it's a good use of
an individual's time and money to try to protect individual
trees or is that just a spit in the ocean.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well, it kind of depends, you know.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
I mean, it's just like your stock portfolio, right, it's like, well,
what's your level of risk and are you okay losing
a few trees here or there? And that decision is
personal is personal for everyone. But really the deciding factor
is we have tools like these little semiochemicals that help
disrupt the communication, and we have other tools in the
toolbox to say, gosh, maybe this is the right plan

(08:39):
to head down, you know, to kind of also be
good stewards of the forest and think about my neighbors
as well, right, think about fire risk and think about
you know, view sheds and think about are we going
to have forest for forest for my grandkids. So I
do think that it's a worthy endeavor, and I do
think that right now, this is when these semio chemicals
and kind of treatments are better, is when the bark

(09:01):
beetles are still at fairly low levels. Granted, in some
parts of the state there's still little pockets that are
a little bit more than others. But you know, as
we're starting to see these bark beetles build up populations
along the front range, I really do think that getting
out looking at your trees and saying, man, I would
be devastated if these, you know, forty to fifty eighty
trees were to die. It would completely change my property

(09:24):
and maybe change my property values and how we use
this property. That is where I would say, man, let's
put a plan together and let's let's protect these trees
into perpetuity.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Dan West is the forest entomologist for the Colorado State
Forest Service.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
That's a great conversation, Dan, Thank you for making time
for us, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Glad to do it.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
We'll have you back, all right, folks, We're gonna take
a quick break. Think about that we'll be right back
on KOA. My show will end at about eleven thirty
today for the Rockies against Kansas City Royals.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yesterday's game got.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Postponed, so they made They're making today's a doubleheader if
the weather holds up, so we will see lots of
different stuff to cover with you on two plus hours.
We have remaining together today. A quick science story. But
the part of the science story that I think is
most fun is not really the heart of the story.
But from PSI Tech Daily, NASA's Lucy captures ice cream

(10:29):
cone shaped asteroid that defies expectations. So this is the
Lucy spacecraft that's flying by some asteroids and stuff. And
just a few days ago, Lucy passed within about six
hundred miles of a particular asteroid and they found that
it had a very interesting shape. And I'm not gonna

(10:50):
bother even telling you about the shape. It's up on
my website. You can go see it. The reason I
wanted to share this story with you is that the
asteroid has a name. And the asteroid's name is Donald Johansson.
I kid you not, with no spaces, it's one word,
Donald Johanson, And I just think that's awesome, and that's all.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
I have to say about it.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
So I'm moving on to the next story, and you
can go read more on the blog if you want.
Let's take just two minutes here on some national politics.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
So years and years.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Ago before I lived in Colorado, so that means it
was well over twenty years ago, I met with Senator
Dick Durbin from Illinois. I don't remember who the other
senator from Illinois was at the time, but it was
so long ago that Durbin might have been the junior
senator at this point. Though, Dick Durbin has announced that

(11:45):
he is not going to run for reelection.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
He's eighty years old, he's.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Been in the Senate for thirty years or will be
thirty years, and has decided not to run for a
sixth term in the Senate. And the reason this is
interesting is he's the number two guy in the Senate
and it's going to open. Not only is it going
to open, just a huge rush of people trying to
get his Senate seat. Because remember it's a very, very

(12:14):
very blue state, Illinois, which is part of the reason
that it is such a financial basket case. So whoever
wins the Democratic primary in Illinois is almost certain not
only to become the Senator, but also to be a
Senator for as long as he or she wants to.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right, look at Dick Durbin, been there thirty years.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
So it's going to open this massive fight and then
separate from who's going to become the next Senator from Illinois,
there's also going to be a separate freight fight for
who's going to become the Senate Democratic whip, right, the
number two job in the Democratic Party after Chuck Schumer

(12:59):
as the party leader. And why this is so important,
Not only are lots of people gunning for this leadership job.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
And I'll give you a few names.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Brian Shatz of Hawaii, Amy Klobashar of Minnesota, Catherine Cortez
Mastow of Nevada, just a few of the names of
people who want this job. The reason is not again,
not just that it puts you in an incredibly powerful
position being number two in the Senate. But Chuck Schumer,

(13:28):
who's number one dem in the Senate.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Is old. He should go.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
And whoever's got the number two spot will be in
a very good position to then jump into minority leader
or majority leader, whatever you know whether Dems happen to
be in the majority or minority at the time that
Chuck Schumer.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Ends up retiring, So there's that.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
I also will mention there are a ton of House
of Representatives members who are going to be running for
Senate or governor or all kinds of other things, and
you're going to see a ton of of House members
coming back. Jan Shaikowski, who is also an eighty year
old leftist from Illinois, will actually not be running for

(14:11):
other office but is retiring. I remember when Jan Shaikowski
was kind of young, and now she's just this leftist
old troll. The problem, you know, with Durbin, who I
don't like, and Shaikowski, who I don't like. The problem
with them leaving is in today's world, in today's Democratic Party,
there's a very good chance that they will be replaced

(14:33):
by someone even worse.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
But I can't do anything about it.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
The Dems are going to do what they're going to do,
So we'll just trade it like a spectator's sport. Coming
up in the next five minutes or so, this hour's
chance to win a thousand bucks in our keyword for
cash thanks to Maverick.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Keep it here on Kowai.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Evergreen trees were kind of pie and again I'm using
that are and sort of generically trees the pine beetle
attacks and I and I did go to look this up.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Let me see if I can find where I put that.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Anyway, a few people have asked, well, does it attack ponderosa?
Does it only attack does it only attack lodge pole?

Speaker 1 (15:18):
And that sort of thing? And here, let me let
me find this. Here we go. This is from the
Colorado State Forest Service.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
So actually the organization that our guest is the chief
entomologist for Mountain pine beetle is an insect native to
the forests of western North America and is also known
as the Black Hills beetle or rocky Mountain pine beetle
primarily develops in pines such as lodge pole, Ponderosa, scotch,
and limber pines, and less commonly affects bristle cone and

(15:48):
pinion pines. So yes, lodge bowl and ponderosa for sure.
And so it was interesting that a few people answered
that question. There's one guy who seems to be very,
very committed to eating moths in order to save the
forest from that particular moth.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
But you can decide for yourself. All right, lots of
different stuff to deal with today. Let me let's do
a little music stuff. I actually don't talk.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
That much about music on the show, even though I
love listening to music, and so many of you probably
know the band Fish, you know, a big kind of
jam band, very much in the Grateful Dead style of things.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
A lot of overlap in those fans, you know.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
To me, the main thing that I know about the
band Fish is the fish and that's phi sh is
the fish food flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
That is the main thing I know about them.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
But since Ben and Jerry's has been kind of an
anti Israel, anti Semitic company for quite some time, I
have not bought Ben and Jerry's ice cream for many years.
I have not eaten that fish food or any other
flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream for probably at
least five years, well since well before the war in

(17:07):
you know, the Gaza Israel mess I've been I've been
basically boycotting Fish for a long time. So I don't
but not the band, not the band, the fish food
ice cream. So now we'll talk about the music side
of this, which apparently is bigger than the ice cream side.
But I'm not a fan of either really, so I

(17:27):
don't know that much. But the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame does a thing where they ask fans to
vote on who should get into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame, and they do this every year, and
this year the band Fish came in first place with
three hundred and thirty thousand votes from fans. Second place

(17:48):
was Bad Company two hundred and eighty one thousand votes.
Third place Billy Idol two hundred and sixty thousand votes.
I think among those three, I'd probably vote for Billy Idol,
even though Bad Company is a little more classic, I'd
probably cast my vote for Billie Idol. Fourth was Cindy
Lauper two hundred and thirty seven thousand. Joe Cocker was
fifth two hundred and thirty four and then Soundgarden two

(18:09):
hundred and thirty three thousand, and then the only other
nominee to get more than two hundred thousand was Believe
It or Not Chubby Checker with two hundred.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
And three thousand votes.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
After that, below two hundred thousand, you got Black Crows,
Mariah Carey, Joy Division, and New Order the white stripes
and outcast. But at this point you're down to one
hundred and eight thousand, So anyway, that's kind of that's
interesting enough, here's what the fans like.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
But here was the part that really jumped out at me.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
And in a sense, it's almost my take on this,
like a like a business story in a way.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
So this is from Variety dot com. Does this mean
that Fish.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Is a shoe in to be named as an inductee
when the class of twenty twenty five is officially announced
this coming Sunday night, And the answer is not at all.
The fan vote is really more of a ceremonial opportunity
for the hoy ploid to feel like they're participating then
something that has much of an impact on the final result.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
So check this out.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
As the rock Hall always explains in the fine print,
the results of the fan vote are exactly equal to
one ballot in total, that tally counting no more or
less than the other any one of the other twelve
hundred votes cast by industry insiders who participate in the

(19:32):
election by invitation only.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Now, history is on the side of the winner of.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
The fan vote being selected by industry voters only. In
twenty twenty, has the fans' top choice not gotten in
when the Dave Matthews Banned handily won among fans with
more than a million votes but still didn't get inducted.
They did get inducted four years later. Fish has been

(19:59):
seen as a long shot that may be more popular
with the masses than the industry types who vote for
the rock Hall.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
So we will see.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
There is a website called gold Derby that has its
predictions naming the seven likeliest inductees, and Fish is not
among the top seven. So we will see whether there
will be a Dave Matthews Band style split between the
fans and the invited voters or a happy alignment. Anyway,
I just thought i'd share with you that a little

(20:27):
bit of music industry stuff. All right, let's switch to
some Colorado policy and politics.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
So there is a bill House.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Bill twelve ninety one here in the state legislature. Coloradopolitics
dot com says that it would require ride share companies
to conduct background checks on drivers every six months and
would prohibit them from hiring applicants who have been convicted
of crimes.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
There's more to it, though, right, There's more to it.
They are.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
They're all so it also would require in car cameras,
as I understand the bill, and in general, do things
here on or after July one, twenty twenty six, a
drive share company must ensure that continuous audio and video
recording of the driver is conducted for each pre arranged

(21:22):
ride from when the driver picks up the rider in
a personal vehicle until when the rider departs from the
personal vehicle. It should also notify the driver in an
online application that each pre arranged ride will be continuously recorded,
and ensure that each each rider is notified that the
rider is recorded. There's a lot in this bill, right.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
The companies have to develop policies.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
To prevent imposter accounts, account sharing, prevent sexual assault, physical
assault and homicide. Oh my gosh, prohibit the transport of
an unaccompanied minor unless the minor is part of a
duly authorized family account. It goes on on and on
and on. It's a very micromanagy kind of bill. So
the headline over at Colorado Politics where they talk about

(22:07):
this bill is Uber says it will leave Colorado if
the bill regulating rides share companies becomes law. Now, I
do think there's a lot of this, right, there's an
immense amount, especially when you have Democrats in charge. There
is an immense amount of micromanagement of business that happens
or is proposed through these laws from people who seem

(22:28):
to not know very much about the business or not
to have talked to the companies that are actually in
the business. And it's all about just it's not exactly
virtue signaling.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
It's close to virtue signaling, but.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's kind of like, you know, don't just stand there,
do something, when really the right answer in most cases
is don't just do something stand there. That would be
a better answer most of the time. Now, Uber has
written a letter to the leadership of the Colorado State

(23:03):
House and Senate, and the person who signed the letter
is named Camille Irving. That's the vice president of operations
for Uber, who says we've taken an industry leading approach
guided by safety experts to prevent safety incidents and to
support survivors.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
I hate the use of the word survivors in that context. Right.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
I'm not saying that it's ever okay for anything bad
to happen to somebody at the hands of an Uber
driver or any other professional in any other business. But
if somebody has some you know, modest or even more
than modest, negative event, again shouldn't happen. Person who did
it should be punished or jailed or whatever. But calling

(23:45):
them survivors, I mean, they didn't have stage four cancer,
they weren't at Auschwitz. I'm just really, really tired of
the use of the word survivor to describe someone who
dealt with something that might have been a little worse
than inconvenient. It might have been quite unpleasant. In fact,

(24:06):
it might even have been illegal. But survivor, all right, Anyway,
enough of that rant. Uber, this person says, has invested
in numerous safety features that allow users to share their
trip with trusted contacts, connect seamlessly in the app with
nine one one, and to give users twenty four seven support.

(24:27):
According to this person, serious safety incidents are rare. A
recent report found that there were no serious incidents in
ninety nine point nine nine nine eight percent of trips.
So if it's point zero zero zero two percent of trips,
so let's see, what would what would that be if

(24:47):
we're talking about percent, So let's see, that's uh, one
in one hundred right there, one in one thousand, one
in ten thousand, one in one hundred, there's a two
and in a mis million, two trips in a million
have some kind of serious incident reported? Do we need
all of this kind of legislation that would either massively

(25:11):
increase the cost to provide a trip and therefore raise
the cost for you to take a trip or just
cause Uber and Lyft to leave the state when we
are talking about two trips in a million, and again,
two trips in a million is two trips in a
million too many?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
I am not saying any of that stuff is okay,
it's not.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
But how much more are you willing to pay or
are you willing to risk losing the services of Uber
and lyft altogether in order to deal with the two
trips in a million? Where by the way, Uber and
Lyft are already doing a lot, at least they say
they're doing a lot to stop that two in a
million from happening. The Uber person already also noted this

(26:00):
taxis have no audio or video recording requirements, and yet
there is less of a record in terms of who
is in the vehicle. There's a lack of safety features
similar to those available in ubers app. There's no ability
for riders to easily notify loved ones or law enforcement
of where they are when there's anything going on while.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
On the trip.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Targeting only certain providers ride share providers is arbitrary given
that the bill purports to ensure that all transportation modes
are safe. So I just wanted to be, you know,
be aware of this. Lift is taking a slightly softer tone.
Lift is basically saying, we don't like this bill either,

(26:42):
but we want to work with the legislature to come
up with something that is more reasonable, more manageable, more implementable,
and won't cause us to have to leave Colorado.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Now, I will note some good news on the state
legislative side, and again remember keep in mind.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
That not only is there no.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Business, with the possible exception of an abortion business, that
the Democrats would not want to manage through law and regulation,
there's no business that they wouldn't want to micromanage absolutely everything.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
They believe you are either too dumb.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Or too dishonest as a business owner to properly manage
your own business, or that you are too dumb as
a consumer to understand what businesses you want to do
business with, and how all these terrible, evil businesses might.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Want to hurt you.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
So but every once in a while even these clowns
jumped the shark. And they did so with House Built
twelve seventy seven that I talked about with you some
weeks ago. House Built twelve seventy seven would have required
warning labels to be put on gas stations and every

(28:00):
other place that does retail sales of fuels like gasoline
and propane and all that stuff. And you would have
had to put a warning on the gas pumps and
other places, saying that burning fossil fuels releases air pollutants
and greenhouse gases known by the State of Colorado to
be linked to significant health impacts and global heating. Oh

(28:21):
it's not global warming or climate change anymore, it's global heating.
The bill did pass the State House because the State
House is massively dominated by Democrats, but Governor Polus's office
had noted that the governor was likely to veto this thing,

(28:42):
Environmental groups said, and I'm looking at the Colorado sun
here by the way. Environmental groups said that Polus's representatives
had warned them that he would veto it, so at
this point, State Senator Lisa Cutter, who is a Democrat
from Jefferson County and one of the main sponsors of
the bill, UH asked the Senate Transportation in any Energy

(29:05):
Committee to kill the bill at least for this year,
and they did unanimously. Right when it's when when the
sponsor of the bill, especially when the sponsor of the
bill is in the majority party, says please kill my bill,
then they do.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
And they did.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
And you know, the the radical environmentalist groups are out there,
you know, chirping about how you know, oh gosh, we
need to warn people about the harm from you know,
the gasoline they're putting up in there, putting in their car.
Remember that most of these people, a few of these
people really are dumb enough to believe that stuff, but
most of them it's just a grift, right, most of them,
these radical environmental groups what it is, a grift by

(29:46):
the people who work there in order to scare you
into donating money to them because they're telling you that
the world is coming to an end because you're filling
up your car with gas. In any case, I did
want to let you know that that bill has now
been killed, and thank the goodness for that. This next
bit I'm just going to do very briefly three quick things. First,

(30:06):
Ken Griffin is a billionaire head of a massive trading
company called Citadel, and he's a big time Trump supporter,
very big time Trump supporter. And what he said, I
think it was yesterday, might have been the day before yesterday.
He said that what's going on now in Washington, DC,
with tariffs in particular, but some other things as well,

(30:29):
is putting the brand of the United States at risk.
He said it can be a lifetime to repair the
damage that has already been done by turning investors and
foreign investors away from owning US bonds, away from owning
the US dollar, away from trusting the United States of

(30:50):
America in a lot of different ways. Using the Euro
as a reference, and I'm quoting from semaphore.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Dot com, Griffin said, the US.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Has become twenty percent were in four weeks now.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
It's backed off.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
A little bit in the last couple of days, but
let's call it fifteen percent poor or something like that,
depending on the dollar. What you know, what you're looking
at versus the dollar, So you know that's Ken Griffin said.
His gravest concern is whether people in the American government,
including the president, can behave themselves in a way that
doesn't diminish the stature. That's his phrase, diminish the stature

(31:25):
of the United States. So that's a billionaire supporter of
Donald Trump's. Now, there are some other polls out there,
Axios headline Americans souring on Trump's economic strategy.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Polls say, all right, so that's that's one, and.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Then bigger picture, Americans back Trump on immigration, sour on
his economy. So when asked how do you approve of
Trump on an issue by issue basis, the top one
was immigration, government spending, a little bit after that, the
Israel Palestine conflict a little bit after that, and then
going down the list, federal government management, social security. He's

(32:01):
only at forty one percent on the Russia ukon crane conflict,
forty on the economy, thirty eight percent on international trade.
And the reason this is interesting is that the economy
was always Trump's.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Strongest issue and immigration was right there with it. But
he was always very strong.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
On the economy, and he got elected because people felt
bad about the economy and bad about what Joe Biden
did to the economy, and they should have felt bad
about it. Joe Biden was the worst president on the
economy for.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
A long long time.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Polling right now shows people nervous that Trump is making
a lot of mistakes on the economy and trade, and
this is certainly a worrying thing, not just for him,
but for elected Republicans up and down the board, especially
in Congress, but not only in Congress. But on the
other other hand, there was another poll that I just

(32:54):
saw this morning, and they ask Trump voters, are you
happy with your vote or would you vote the same
way again? And a vast majority I forget the number,
but it was high eighties or low nineties something like
that of Trump voters said they're still happy with their vote.
So these are these polls. Neither poll means that the

(33:18):
other one must be wrong. It is entirely possible for
a lot of people to be not very pleased with
Trump's economic plans so far, and at the same time
to have the vast majority of people who voted for
Trump the first time not willing to say they made
a mistake either. They want to let it play out
a little more. I hear that a lot or and
this is very common in all of politics, and doesn't

(33:40):
just have to do with Trump supporters, but with supporters
of any politician, they're always reticent to say they made
a mistake.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
It's unusual.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
It's very unusual when you get to a situation like
Joe Biden's where plenty of people who voted for him
regretted it and were willing to say that to polsters.
You know, usually if you get even the you know,
twenty percent of people saying that they think they made
a mistake voting for a guy, that's an enormous number.
So in any case, I don't think Trump and Republicans

(34:06):
are in huge trouble yet politically, but I think they're
on a very dangerous path.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
We'll be right back. I really appreciate your time and
your company.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
So I want to actually respond briefly to a listener.
President Trump, when he was campaigning, promised that he would
end the Russia Ukraine War in twenty four hours. And
you probably think I'm going to go on a rant
here about how much he's failed at that, but I'm not.

(34:47):
In my back and forth with him with the listener,
I said, I wonder how many people believed that, because
I sure didn't.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
But I'm not convinced.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Actually if Trump didn't believe it, he he might have
believed it. And the listener asked in email, is the
new standard for presidential candidates to promise whatever you think
can help you get elected, but take no accountability afterwards
when you fail? And I actually want to take on
that question in a way that might surprise some people
who know I've been a little bit rough on Trump lately.

(35:20):
So first, the idea of a candidate promising whatever you
think can help, but taking no accountability after awards when
it failed, that would not be a new standard.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
That's what they all do all the time and have.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
For probably my entire lifetime, right, So it wouldn't be
a new standard. But I actually want to give Trump
credit for something.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
It is not sarcasm that's going to come next.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Okay, yes, I realized he said he was going to
solve the war in twenty four hours.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
I never believed it. But Trump is and has been.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Quite a bit better than your average president at trying
to do and actually doing what he campaigned on. And
I don't I'm not famous for having a great memory.
But when I think back to his first term, right,
what did he promise? He he promised he'd work on immigration,

(36:27):
and he did, did a fine job there. Promised he
would get taxes cut, and he did. He promised he
would nominate Supreme Court justices who were faithful to the Constitution.
And you know, none of these justices are perfect, but
Trump did that, especially with Gorsuch. I really like Gorsach.
That's the favorite of my That's my favorite of his.

(36:49):
Of his picks, between Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Amy Cony Barrett,
they're all okay, but I really like Gorsuch. And as
a general man. And what did Trump campaign on this
time again?

Speaker 1 (37:02):
The border? He did that already. Taxes will see what
he does.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
There's some ugly noises out there, I have to say
about some Republicans. And I'm not sure where Trump is
on this, being maybe willing to consider raising taxes on
higher income earners in order to cut taxes on tips.
And most people get tips already pay very little in
tax but anyway, anyway, so I don't know where he
is on where he is on taxes, but he certainly

(37:27):
wants to try to extend the twenty seventeen tax reforms.
He's doing a lot of deregulation.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Again, one can quibble or more.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Than quibble about the exact implementation of DOSH and they
made this mistake, and they made that mistake. But he
campaigned on reducing the size and cost and scope and
intrusiveness of government. He did campaign on addressing trade deficits.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
And even though I.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Don't think that that's an important thing, and if I,
you know, if I were running for office, I wouldn't
campaign on that. I wouldn't run on that because I
think it's a policy mistake. But that's not really what
I'm at right now. To the extent that he campaigned
on saying we're getting ripped off by international trade, he's
doing something about that too. Again, I think he's misdiagnosed

(38:21):
the problem and he's giving the wrong medicine for the
wrong for the wrong problem. But that's not my Again,
that's not my point. I actually have to give credit
to Donald Trump for doing much better than average at

(38:42):
aiming to fulfill his campaign promises. Really not sarcasm, Absolutely
not sarcasm. So there's that one other quick thing I
want to mention, you know we're talking about I mentioned briefly,
and then Chad actually to mention in the news.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
I think that was a coincidence.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
But we were both talking about these Trump's regarding the
Trump's polling, which is declining, and it's not it's not
a disaster, but it's.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Kind of bad right now.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
But I mentioned another poll that said that the vast
majority of Trump voters at this point are still happy
with their votes. And the other Ross who used to
work here, sent me a text saying, you know, don't
forget that part of what may be going on in
people's minds when they say they're still happy with their

(39:32):
vote for Trump is not just thinking about Trump and isolation.
It's about remembering what the alternative was. And the alternative
was Kamala Harris. And you may recall going into the
election what I said over and over and over on
the show. I said, I absolutely understand anybody who does

(39:52):
not vote for Donald Trump, and I do not understand
anybody who gladly votes for Kamala Harris.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
I understand voting or not voting for Donald Trump. I
didn't understand voting for Kamala Harris. She was a I
don't need to go through all that. So my point,
the other Ross's point, is that some percentage of the
people who say they're still happy with their vote for Trump,

(40:25):
are remembering that Kamala Harris was the alternative. And this
is something that I mentioned frequently, especially when we're going
into elections.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
It's not really election season right now, but.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Think about what it means to elect. Think about what
it means when you're you know, you're given a list
and you have to elect from among the choices.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
An election means a choice.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
We think of election meaning put someone in office. That's
how we kind of think of the word, at least
in that context.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
But if you think.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
About in other context where you've got to make it
decision and you're giving a little listen, there's a little
box next to each one, and you have to quote
unquote make an election. That's how I like to remind people.
That's what I like to remind people of. An election
is not just the act of putting someone in office.
It is the act of making a choice among alternatives.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
And even if you think one of the.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Alternatives is bad, and a lot of people thought that
about Trump, if the other alternative is worse, then the
bad alternative can win. And of course lots of people
thought Trump was great too. I don't mean everybody thought
Trump was a bad alternative, but obviously an immense number
of people thought Kamala Harris was an unacceptable alternative. That

(41:49):
was the first time in a while that a Republican
actually won the so called national popular vote. That's how
bad Kamala Harris won was. So let's never forget that
an election represent a choice, and if one side puts
up a choice that isn't great. That guy or gal
can still win if what the other side puts up

(42:10):
is even worse.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
I'm ross, thanks for being here, and no, don't bite me.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
But I.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Heard this story on the radio as I was driving
home yesterday and then I went and found it, and
this is just such a cool story. Just nerd out
with me on a little bit of science here we're
gonna have. That's not exactly it's sort of science. It's
more like archaeology. I'm gonna go to the BBC for this,
especially since this story comes out of England, and I'm
just gonna it's not very long, so I'm just gonna

(42:44):
probably read you most of it. So bite marks found
on the skeleton of a Roman gladiator are the first
archaeological evidence of combat between a human and a lion.
Experts say the remains were discovered. Check this out.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
The remains were discovered twenty one years ago.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
In two thousand and four in York in England, a
site now thought to be the world's only well preserved
Roman gladiator cemetery.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
How cool is this?

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Forensic examination of the skeleton of one young man has
revealed that holes and bitemarks on his pelvis were most
likely caused by a lion. Professor Tim Thompson, the forensic
expert who led the study, said that this was the
first physical evidence of gladiators fighting big cats.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
For years, our understanding of Roman gladiatorial combat and animal
spectacles has relied heavily on historical texts and artistic depictions.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
This discovery provides the first direct.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Physical evidence that such events took place in this period,
reshaping our perception of Roman entertainment culture in the region.
Experts use new forensic techniques to analyze the wounds, including
three D scans which showed the animal had grabbed the
man by the pelvis. The professor said, we could tell
that the bites happened.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Check this out. How do they know this?

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Listen, listen to this and just to ask yourself, how
do they know this is this is right up there
just in terms of the sheer, how perplexing this is
to the ordinary mind like mine.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
This is in terms of how do they know?

Speaker 2 (44:25):
This is right up there at the level of of
my thermis that I'm holding in my in my hand
right you know? You know the drill it keeps the
hot things hot, it keeps cold things cold.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
How do it know? This is kind of in that league?
Check this out.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
We could tell that the that the lion bites on
this dude happened around the time of death, so this
wasn't an animal scavenging after the individual died. It was
associated with his death.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
How do you know that? I need to know? You
know what?

Speaker 2 (45:03):
I need to find this dude online and send him
an email. He's from a university in Ireland. I'm gonna
do that. I'm going to email this dude and ask him,
how do you know that the bite marks and the
dead gladiator's pelvis happened around the time that the gladiator
died instead of after.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
How do you know?

Speaker 2 (45:21):
As well as scanning the wound, scientists compared its size
and shape to sample bites from large cats at London Zoo.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
The bite marks.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
In this particular individual match those of a lion.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
The professor said.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
The location of the bites gave researchers even more information
about the circumstances of the gladiator's death. The pelvis, the
professor explained, is not where lions normally attack, so we
think the gladiator was fighting in some sort of spectacle
and was incapacitated, and the lion bit him and dragged
him away by his hip. The skeleton, a male aged

(45:54):
between twenty six and thirty five years old, had been
buried in a grave with two others and overlaid with
horsebone bones. Previous analysis of the bones pointed to him
being a bestiarius, a gladiator that was sent into combat
with beasts. Senior lecturer at the University of York said
in thirty years of analyzing skeletons, she had never seen

(46:16):
anything like those bite marks, and that the man's remains
revealed the story of a quote short and somewhat brutal life.
His bones were shaped by large, powerful muscles. There was
evidence of injuries to his shoulder and his spine, which
were associated with hard physical work and combat. And the
professor says this the other professor, this is a hugely

(46:37):
exciting find because we can now start to build a
better image of what these gladiators were like in real life. Gosh,
that's a fabulous story, an absolutely fabulous story.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
And I still want to know, how are they so.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Sure that the lion bit the dude while he was
still alive rather than after he was dead.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
How do they know?

Speaker 2 (47:07):
I said, just a moment ago, traffic dude, Jonathan Steele
was talking about heavy jamming on I seventy, and to me,
that's like when I'm listening to Rush really loud when
I'm driving out to the mountains. That's heavy jamming on
I seventy. Could be a CDC as well. Are you
a big Rush fan? You're a little young to be
a big Rush fan.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
My dad's a big Rush fan. And then Dragon told
me what you like? So yeah, well, Trent, all right,
all right, I like lots of stuff. Play what you like.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
So two different listeners sent me versions of a similar
joke that I hadn't heard before regarding the previous topic
about the discovery of lion bite marks on the pelvis
of a long dead Roman gladiator in England, and one

(47:57):
listener's form of the joke was this what is partic
to say when the lion ate his wife answer nothing,
He's gladiator.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
That's awesome, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
We need the rim shot sound effect there, Zach, don't bother.
It's all right anyway, He's gladiator.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
I like it. Very good, well played, well done. A
lot of stuff to talk about today. Oh, I know
what I wanted to I know what I wanted to
mention to you. In fact, I should see if I
can find the actual audio to share with you in
a second here I will, but let me just mention
and then if I can find.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
The audio, I will, And that is you know. We're
coming up on the.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
NFL Draft, and Susie Wargin, who is of course our
Broncos sideline reporter, is doing a whole thing on draft
stories and KOWA is going to have eighteen hours of
draft coverage and that's presented by CRED, by the way,

(49:03):
a great organization Coloraden's for Responsible Energy Development.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
I am a big fan of CRED.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
But anyway, we're gonna have We're gonna have eighteen hours
of coverage from Thursday through Saturday of the draft.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
With our with our whole.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
KOA Sports Broncos crew, so hopefully you will. Hopefully you'll
dig that. Let me just see if I can get
you something here for.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Fun. Where has that gone? Yeah, let's try this, all right?
So just an.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Example, and I'm look, so I'm a huge Broncos fan,
you know that, been a huge Broncos fan for a
long time.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
And I these professional athletes.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
So people think, for example, that radio hosts have an
interesting job, or you must have an interesting life or whatever.
But I don't think that about about most people probably
don't think that very much about people who are in
their own line of work.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
But I think I must be.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Kind of an interesting, interesting life, interesting mindset to be
a professional athlete. And so Susie has done a bunch
of draft stories and they're all they're all pretty short,
and I thought, as we're going into the draft here,
I thought I would share one with you.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
And uh, have a have a listen Draft stories with
Broncos sideline reporters.

Speaker 5 (50:24):
Susie Wardship, he's a two time Super Bowl champ and
a Super Bowl MVP. Will Sunday be in the Hall
of Fame as well as the Broncos Ring of Fame,
and that would be Von Miller VN how are you?

Speaker 1 (50:36):
How do you?

Speaker 4 (50:37):
How's it going?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
It's going good. Hey.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
So let's go back to April twenty eighth, twenty eleven.
You're a Buckets Award winner coming out of Texas A
and M. Cam Newton goes first to the Carolina Panthers.
Broncos are on the clock, John Fox and Company select you, the.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
Denver Broncos selector Von Miller mine Backer Texas A and M.

Speaker 5 (50:59):
What do you rememb remember about that night at Radio
City Music Hall.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
I remember having on my family, you know, with me.
There was a lot of speculation about me going to
number three and the Broncos taking Marcia. Darius said too.
And it wasn't until the draft that night until they've
made that switch. So I was kind of you know, Guard,
it was a surprise.

Speaker 5 (51:18):
And you had no idea.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
I had no idea. And I knew that the Broncos
had a really good team that just had lost some
games that pushed them, you know, to you know, that
draft pick on the number two draft picks, so you know,
I always wanted to go to Denver, but they had
the number two pick and I didn't know I was
gonna make it, and it was just a pleasant surprise
on Draft down?

Speaker 5 (51:34):
Was there anybody Vaughn after you got drafted that you
called to maybe thank for being a part of your Journeyman?

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Everybody saw it on TV.

Speaker 5 (51:42):
Because you were the second pick, so it wasn't any
surprise to anyone. But did you take that moment to
thank somebody?

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Yeah? You know, John, I was John Elway's first pick,
so I always, you know, wanted to you know, prove
him right. And you know he was a Hall of fame,
the duke at Denver, you know, John Alway, and that
was just take of the GM. So I always wanted
to not only prove I'm right, to prove myself right,
and you know, just no, no, I appreciate it. I'm
picking me a number two is very first pig of

(52:09):
the gem.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
I love that.

Speaker 5 (52:10):
Von Miller, thank you for sharing your draft story.

Speaker 4 (52:13):
I appreciate thanks to This is.

Speaker 5 (52:15):
Draft stories on the KWA Broncos radio network.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
All right, So there's more where that came from, and
you'll you'll be hearing them from time to time and
here and there, and of course again if you're a
Broncos fan, we're going to have, like I said, eighteen
hours of coverage. You know from from today at some
point to Saturday with our with our whole KWA Broncos
Radio Network crew. So one one other thing, isn't that

(52:40):
an interesting way to live your life?

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Right?

Speaker 2 (52:43):
You go to college, you play ball, and then you
have it depends where you are, Like if you're if
everyone knows you're going to be the number one draft pick,
and every and and of course and everybody knows who
has the number one draft pick, and you're gonna be
pretty confident where you're gonna go for your first professional
job out of college. But I mean, think about even

(53:05):
some even von Miller, he didn't know whether he was
gonna be second or he thought he was gonna be thirty.
He ended up being second, and so he maybe ended
up going somewhere.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
He didn't think. And then and then what about the
younger guys? What about the what about the not the
younger guys? What about the guys who aren't quite at
that level? I mean the top guy like Shid or Sanders.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Right, Actually, he's an interesting case because there's a good
chance he could be number one, but there's also a
good chance he could be number three, four, five, depending
on how he does. And some of these workouts and
what teams need and all this stuff. I don't know,
But what about some of these these.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Guys who are you know, very good but not.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Necessarily first round draft picks and not necessarily sure they're
even gonna be drafted, And you're just going through and
you're waiting, and you're waiting, you have no idea by
the time you get to you know, draft pick number
thirty seven and they haven't picked you.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
You don't know whether you're gonna be thirty eight or
eighty eight or undrafted. And to make it as a
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Can you imagine what a nerve wracking thing, even more
nerve wracking probably than then, you know, applying for a
job and waiting for a callback for an interview.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Zach, did you want to say something? Yeah, no, I
just fully agree.

Speaker 6 (54:15):
I think you have no control over your destiny really
outside of I mean. And then it could get even
really scary with like a Laramie tunsel where it leaks
that the day of the draft that he you know,
was smoking a bong in college and all of a
sudden he goes from the lock at number two to
tumbling down the draft boards and finally goes off the
board at like fifteen.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Wow, yeah, I should I should mention I don't get
to work with Zach very often, but Zach knows a
hell of a lot about football, way more than I do,
so thank you for that. And of course the other
end of that maybe is Brock Purdy. Right, what's what's
the nickname for him? I'm mister irrelevant, Mister irrelevant, the

(54:55):
very last pick in the NFL draft, and he he's
been good but not great the last year two years,
but man, that dude turned into an absolute star in
this league. And he is a very good quarterback. And
he was the very last pick in the drift. And
then I mean, imagine, and you'll never know, right, if

(55:16):
you didn't get drafted, you you'll never know, like if
there was one more.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Pick in the draft, would it have been me? You
just you just never know. And I just think that's
a challenging time.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
And these are all young people, right, they all just
graduated from college, so they're all going to be probably
somewhere but well, I guess some of them leave college
before they graduate, not very many, but a few. So
they're probably between nineteen and twenty two, twenty three if
they red shirted that kind of thing. Imagine that that
pressure on a young person, and you've spent your whole
life from you know, pee wee football all the way

(55:51):
up through everything and college ball and everything you sacrificed,
and then you either you know, they either like you
enough or they don't.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
It's really something. It's really something. I'm not saying it's
good or bad. It's just it's very different from the
way most most people live. Anything else, anything else you
want to add, Zeach.

Speaker 6 (56:12):
No, I think the Brock Party is the really positive
end of the spectrum. There's also you know, if you're
one of those guys drafted late, you have that incredible
elation of oh my gosh, I've reached the peak. I'm
finally drafted, and then you immediately have to start fighting
for your job because you know, sixty of these two
hundred and fifty so guys that get drafted won't even
make the opening day roster.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Great point, really great point. All right, I'm going to
move on from sports. I'm gonna do actually a few
overseas kinds of stories here, a little bit of foreign
policy or foreign international interest stories.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
I got a few for them for you right now.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
So I was actually unaware that this was going on
until I read this story this morning. But apparently Japan
is having an enormous problem with rice. And let me
share a little of this with you. I think actually
a fascinating piece. This is from the UK Guardian Rice Crisis.

(57:06):
Japan imports grain from South Korea for the first time
in more than twenty five years. Subhead Japanese consumers, who
used to treat foreign grown rice with skepticism have been
forced to develop a taste for it amid domestic shortage.
I just think this is so interesting, and because you
can imagine how much rice did Japanese eat. Japan has

(57:29):
imported rice from South Korea for the first time in
a quarter century in an attempt to address soaring prices
and growing consumer anger. South Korean rice arrived in Japan
last month for the first time since nineteen ninety nine,
as the price of domestically produced rice continued to rise
despite government attempts to.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Relieve the pressure on shoppers.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
The price of japan grown rice is more than doubled
in just the past year, fueling demand for cheaper foreign
grain despite the heavy tariffs imposed on him. So you
can think about that right, So there's not enough rice
in Japan, so they have to import rice. But the
price of the imported rice is much higher than it
would be because of tariffs. So all of that, Japanese

(58:12):
people have to you know, suffer financially because.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Of tariffs, even though you know, the tariffs are there.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
To quote unquote protect the local rice industry, but at
least at this time, they're punishing the consumers in their country,
and that is what tariffs do.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
The quantity of South Korean rice, which was sold online
and its supermarkets supermarkets, is still relatively low at just
two tons, but there are plans to ship a further
twenty tons in coming days. While Japanese consumers have traditionally
been skeptical about the quality and taste in foreign rice,
and there was a whole thing back in the nineties
where they brought in some rice from Thailand and they

(58:45):
didn't like it and didn't eat it and all that,
but the current crisis has forced Japan to the Japanese
consumers to develop a taste. South Korea's rice exports are
expected to reach their highest since nineteen ninety, according to
a news agency. One restaurant owner in Tokyo switched from
Japanese to American rice last year when a shortage of

(59:07):
Japanese rice triggered a huge increase in prices. And he
told Reuters that the purchase of the product from California
that he now the price of the California rice has
doubled since he bought it last summer, but it's still
cheaper than Japanese rice right now. And he said, and
I quote, I have no qualms about eating imported rice.

(59:32):
Prices have gone up, so I'm always looking for cheaper options,
and my diners have not complained.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
So the price of rice in Japan has more than
doubled from the same period a year ago.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Oh here, okay, I love this.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
I love this part not because I love what's going
on over there, but because it's just a perfect representation
of government everywhere everyone, with the possible exception of Switzerland
they probably have a fairly efficient government, and maybe Singapore.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
But listen to this. This is that's just amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
This trend, the price trend for rice, has forced the
Japanese government to take the unusual step of dipping into
its vast rice reserves. Oh my gosh, we have a
strategic petroleum reserve. They have a rice reserve. In March,
they began releasing Now listen to this. This is just
a perfect government story. In March, the Japanese government began

(01:00:31):
releasing two hundred and ten thousand tons of stockpiled rice
in an effort to slow down price hikes caused by
a combination of record summer heat, panic buying, and distribution problems.
Japan had previously dipped into their rice reserves in the

(01:00:52):
aftermath of natural disasters or crop failures, but this was
the first time it had intervened over distribution issues.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Now here's my favorite part.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
The measure has had little impact because the Agriculture Ministry
says that logistical problems meant that only a tiny quantity
of the rice released by the government has actually gotten
to the shops that are.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Supposed to sell it. Okay, check this out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
This is laugh out loud funny unless you're a Japanese
person who wants to buy rice. About one hundred and
forty two thousand tons, okay with me. One hundred and
forty two thousand tons of stockpiled rice were released in
the first auction held in mid March.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
By the end of that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Month, only four hundred and twenty six tons, or zero
point three percent of the total, had reached supermarkets and
other outlets, and the government is blaming the bottleneck on
a shortage of delivery vehicles and on the time needed
to prepare the grain for sale. Oh my gosh, All right,

(01:02:02):
there's more, but I'll stop there. I will also know
if there was panic buying. Right, So, not only is
the supply of rice down, but then there was this
typhoon like a hurricane warning and earthquake warning, and some
people were panic buying because they want to be able
to eat if they can't get out, can't get.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
To the shop. And of course rice is good because
it lasts a really long time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
If you don't cook, it'll just sit there for months
or years, and so it's good. Kind of like the
way a lot of people were stockpiling things like you know, flour, sugar,
soup and cans, you know, other long lasting food at
the beginning of COVID, when you didn't know if there
were going to be supplies making their way.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
To the supermarket.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
So they've got everything going wrong, and the Japanese government
has this stockpile and they release one hundred and forty
two thousand tons, and only zero point three percent of
it makes its way to stores, you know, within within
a couple of weeks. What a perfect government story. Okay, this,
this next story is a very difficult story. It's kind

(01:03:00):
of a it's a sad and dangerous story, and I
don't think too many Americans will be paying attention to it,
but I wanted to make sure you know about this.
So two days ago, in Kashmir, which is this kind
of contested area of northern India bordering on Pakistan. They've

(01:03:24):
each kind of claimed that it's theirs, but India controls
at least most of it, there was an attack by
an Islamist militant group, fire rifle attack, and twenty six
people were killed and a lot of other people were injured.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
This was an attack on tourists.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
And I haven't seen a story that says exactly who
the tourists were, but I presume the vast majority of
them were from India. They I have not seen anything
saying that any of them were American.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
That region is very very close to China.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
The Chinese are you know, there's a relatively new middle
class in China now, So they are tourists a lot too,
so I don't know who was there, but twenty six
people dead, a lot of people injured. The Prime Minister
of India, his name is Narendra Modi. He's sort of
a Trump like figure. A little more emphasis on religion

(01:04:22):
than Trump has on Hinduism, but still a sort of
Trump like, you know, right leaning populist figure. Says India
will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
We will pursue them to the ends of the earth.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Now, what I want to share with you here is
India's reaction to this is as aggressive as India could
possibly be short of military action. India is really pissed,
and they are right to be.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
But listen to this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
The Indian government said yesterday that a particular water treaty
called the Indus Water Treaty the Indus is a big
river and I'm quoting now, will be held in abeyance
with immediate effect until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably aberjeurs its
support for cross border terrorism. And to quote, the suspension

(01:05:20):
of the nineteen sixty treaty would mean that India would
stop the water supply of the Indus River and its tributaries.
I want bother naming the tributaries into Pakistan, potentially impacting
millions of people in that country. The Prime Minister Modi

(01:05:42):
said terrorism will not go unpunished. Every effort will be
made to ensure that justice is done. The entire nation
is firm in this resolve. Wow, we do know the
majority of the victims were Hindus. I don't know much else.
This is one of the worst attacks in Kashmir's history.
And there is a history there, you know, terrorism and

(01:06:02):
Islamism and stuff like this is Indian security forces spread
out across Kashmir.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
A day after the attack.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Many businesses were closed to protest the attack, heating a
call from Kashmiri religious groups and political parties. A lesser
known militant group called the Resistance Front claimed responsibility on
social media.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Here's the other thing. In addition to the suspension.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Of the water treaty, India ordered all Pakistani nationals currently
in India to leave the country within forty eight hours,
and they gave a week to the military advisors in
the Pakistani High Commissions. These are Pakistani senior government employees
military advisors who work in New Delhi in India to leave.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
India is also bringing back its own.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Advisors from Islamabad in Pakistan.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
They are eliminating.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Those posts in these in the high commissions in India.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
They have closed a road link between the They.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Have said that anybody who came in from Pakistan who
has a valid endorsement in their passport can go back
to Pakistan by May first.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
This is close to war.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
And here's the one other thing you need to You
need to understand. The Pakistani government has for years and
years and years, especially their intelligence agency which is known
as the ISI, have turned to a blind eye or
even overtly supported terrorism and terrorists. For example, it is
unlikely that the ISI did not know exactly where Osama

(01:07:34):
bin Laden was when he was at a house right
near a huge military base in Pakistan. So the ISI
is full of really bad people who play both sides
against each other. They will pretend to support America and
then they will support terrorists, and they will actually support
America in something, and then they will.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Support terrorists again.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
And now I have no idea whether the ISI knows about.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
This group or knew anything about it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
But the Indian government is right to wonder whether if
the is I didn't know. Could they have known? Could
they have done more? The Indian government is mad. These
are both nuclear powers. This is a very scary situation

(01:08:18):
going right away here. So I would rarely ask a journalist,
and especially a journalist who really functions primarily as a reporter,
about their opinion on a piece of legislation, not least
because reporters generally would say, that's not my job.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
To give you an opinion on a piece of legislation.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
But every once in a while something comes around out
of the state legislature that directly affects journalists. And I
was alerted to one of these, Senate Bill seventy seven,
to be precise, by Kyle Clark of nine News, who
sent me a message saying, Ross, have you seen this thing?

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Senate Bill seventy seven?

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
And I thought it would be great to have Kyle
on to talk about it. I did go research the bill.
I hate it as much as Kyle does. But Kyle
will explain, Hey, Kyle, I haven't ended you on the
show in some time. It's good to have you back.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
Great to be back, Ross.

Speaker 6 (01:09:12):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
So what does this bill purport to do? What does
it do? Why do you object?

Speaker 7 (01:09:19):
The bill is trying to fix a real problem, which
is that records custodians at government agencies around Colorado are
inundated with a ton of public records requests and they
say that they can't keep up with them. Some of them,
they say, are you just gadfly types who are trying
to annoy them or trying to tie up their time?
So that's the very real problem. This seeks to essentially

(01:09:41):
create three lanes for access to public records in Colorado.
Journalists would stay in the current lane, which would become
the fast lane, and if a government records custodian determined
that you were in it for financial gain, they could
put you in a second slower lane. And if they
determined that you are just a lowly peasants a member
of the public, then they could put you in a
third slower lane where they don't have to respond to

(01:10:03):
your record's request as quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
So, in short, it's giving journalists a leg up on
speed with which you would get open records requests responses
from the government.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
But so, first of all, that's wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
We're all citizens, we should all be able to get
the information in the same way. And as Kyle said,
there is a problem here, And if there's a problem here,
you can do some things to try to ameliorate the
problem a little bit. And actually the bill does try
to do some of those things, but it has this
poison pill, so it creates these categories, so journalists versus
everybody else.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
And then, as Kyle said, it will be up to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
The judgment and I'm putting that in air quotes of
the bureaucrat whoever is supposed to respond to this record request,
to decide whether the journalist making the request is making
it with the right motivation. And if the bureaucrat decides
they're probably going to go make some money from this, uh,

(01:11:02):
then they'll say we're gonna We're gonna wait a while.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
And it's just it's just not right now.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
You Kyle, you saw I think my tweet yesterday, and
I think the example I gave might apply a little
better to you and your organization than than to me.
And in that aspect where let's say you are working
on a story that you think is a very big
news story and you want to get some open record
requests because you think there could be some blockbuster stuff

(01:11:29):
in there.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
That the coloradens really need to know about. And if
you get that information, and if the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Story turns out to be as big as you think,
you're gonna mention it on Twitter, You're gonna put it
on the website. You nine News might get more clicks
and more views, and you might make and I don't
mean you personally, the company might make an extra one
hundred bucks or thousand bucks from however monetizing the Internet works.
And now some bureaucrat is gonna decide whether you want
that information to make money versus for news.

Speaker 7 (01:12:00):
Entire process is from the idea of allowing hundreds of
records custodians around the state to make individual decisions about
one who qualifies as a journalist to whether they have
a financial interest.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
It's just it's dangerous. We don't want this.

Speaker 7 (01:12:15):
We don't want individual government officials having the ability to
punish or reward citizens or journalists that they like or
don't like. So one record custodian could say, well, I think,
you know, I think this journalist is a righty, so
I'm going to deny them the fast lane on this,
or I don't like lefties, so I'm going to deny
them that. We don't want to get into that kind

(01:12:36):
of thing. And it's just as a journalist, I don't
want special privileges when it comes to public records. I
don't want to be in a fast lane. They're public records.
I have no more of a right to a public
record than any citizen. We should all be in the
same lane when it comes to getting public records.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
I couldn't agree more and I'll just you know, I
think this is pretty obvious to listeners. But I mean,
I'm unaffiliated libert harry In, but a lot of people
think of me as slightly right leaning. Kyle is not
as open and describing his own politics, but I think
a lot of people think of him as maybe slightly
left leaning. Kyle, you don't have to agree or disagree

(01:13:13):
with any of that, but we are both here exhorting
politicians of all stripes who voted for this bill the
first time around, to not go along with any effort
to override the governor's veto. I should have mentioned earlier
if I didn't, that this bill did pass the legislature.
Governor Polus vetoed it. Said a bunch of things that

(01:13:34):
are correct about why he vetoed it, stuff that Kyle
and I have just talked about and I don't want to.
I mean, Kyle, do you want to say I don't
want to put worgin about Do you want to say
anything yourself to legislators who might be listening.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
I go and Rossie, you know.

Speaker 7 (01:13:50):
As I wrestled with whether it was even my role
to say anything about this, because while I do commentaries
on my weeknight program next, they tend to focus on
widely shared community values like honesty and transparency. We don't
get into advocacy for political causes, or for policies, or
for political candidate or parties. I don't tell you vote

(01:14:12):
for this guy, vote against this woman, or support this
legislative initiative. But this feels like it is squarely in
my lane as a journalist to say they don't want
special privileges from the government, because I'll tell you what,
as soon as a journalist starts getting special privileges from
the government, they owe the government something, They are under
influence from the government, and they might try to preserve

(01:14:35):
their access by not offending the government.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
I don't want that.

Speaker 7 (01:14:39):
I don't want any government fingerprints on the media, whether
it's in regards to who gets public records or in terms.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Of funding for media.

Speaker 7 (01:14:47):
That's a whole other, separate conversation that we can have.
I don't want entanglements with government. I want to hold
government accountable.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Couldn't agree with you more.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
I will also note to listeners the bill passed in
a bipartisan way, and I'm sure and Kyle and I
both believe that the bill is well intended, probably was
well intended. And as Kyle said to start this conversation,
there is a legitimate issue that needs to be solved
or at least ameliorated, of helping government deal with the

(01:15:17):
very large number of open records requests coming in. But
this bill just has this poison pill, these couple of
poison pills that make it unacceptable. Kyle. Before I let
you go, I just wanted to mention something to you.
I spoke with a friend of mine in the State
Senate who will remain nameless, who voted yes on the bill,
who will not vote to override the veto, And I

(01:15:40):
asked him, do you know if other Republicans who voted
for the bill are with you on not supporting overriding
the veto?

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
And he said yes, So I.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Don't know, you know if that's enough, But it does
seem like there's a little bit of movement in the
direction that we would prefer.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
Last I kept.

Speaker 7 (01:16:01):
It is set for a vote tomorrow on this override.
As you pointed out, it passed with wide majorities. It
passed with limited bipartisan support. Right, it was mostly the
Democrats and the majority mightus the few of them, two
of them actually, and with some Republican support, but not
overwhelming Republican support. Here's the deal, right, as far as
journalists go, Right, we're just one stakeholder in this process.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
And I know that the people who put this.

Speaker 7 (01:16:23):
Bill together heard from journalists on it, and journalists are
not of one mind in Colorado on this bill. Some
journalists are supportive of it, some journalists are silent on it.
And I just thought, when I saw this thing racing
to the finish line, that I couldn't live with myself
if I didn't say, hold on, this is a really,
really bad idea for a lot of people. And I'm

(01:16:44):
encouraged by the fact that we have folks all over
the political spectrum as well as journalists talking about the
danger of this. You've spoken out on it on the left,
The colorad Times Recorder has spoken out on it, on
the right of the independences to this spoken on it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:58):
I've talked about it on my program.

Speaker 7 (01:17:00):
Just ask legislators look at this again and realize the
can of worms that you could open with this.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
Yes, Legislators, please, I'll just say I can. Kyle's not
gonna go quite as far as I will. Legislators, please
vote no on any effort to override the governor's veto
of Senate Bill seventy seven. Kyle Clark anchors nine News
at nine pm and ten PM, and is the anchor
and managing editor of Next with Kyle Clark at six

(01:17:26):
PM weeknights. Kyle, thanks for bringing this to my attention.
Thanks for spending some time with us.

Speaker 7 (01:17:31):
Appreciate the opportunity, Appreciate your voice.

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Thanks. All right, we'll take you a quick break. We'll
be right back on Kawa. I love it when I
can agree with someone like that. Who I We're not
breaking now, right Zee, you just said, Zach, all right.
The break is when you told me it's going to
be all right. I thought I had I thought I
had done some stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
For now, all right, we're gonna keep going. Yeah. So yeah,
by the way, in case.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
You're wondering why not, because we've got pregame for the
Rockies Kansas City Royals game coming up in fifteen minutes,
so I'm just going to keep going for.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
Those fifteen minutes. I want to do a quick follow
up actually on.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Something we heard Chad Bauer mentioned a few minutes ago
on the news, and I'll go to Colorado politics as.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Well, but it's the same story.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
So Phil Wiser, the Attorney general of Colorado, has joined
a lawsuit that was already moving forward brought by some
other states. I forget which other states are mostly Democrats states.
I think New York and Illinois and a couple others
where the attorney general's attorneys general sorry are Democrats.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
And it's a state.

Speaker 2 (01:18:39):
It's a lawsuit suing the federal government over Trump's tariffs.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
And the argument is essentially that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
The legal basis that Trump is using as his source
of authority to impose the tariffs is not an actual
source of authority he can use, for example, calling trade
deficits in national emergency right. And for the record, I

(01:19:08):
think that argument is correct. I think that Trump's tariffs
are illegal. I'm not looking to debate that on the
show right now, and at least I could be wrong, okay,
but it is definitely not a ridiculous argument. So I
think there is a real argument to be had there.
For example, you're gonna claim that a problem that's been

(01:19:29):
going on for twenty or thirty years is suddenly a
national emergency and you get to grab all these powers,
especially when the Constitution says that tariffs and trade policy
are the province of Congress and not of the president.
Of course, as usual, Congress gave a lot of powers
to the president, powers they shouldn't even be allowed to
give to the president. But that's another story. So here's

(01:19:50):
actually what I asked Phil Wiser yesterday when I read
about this lawsuit.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
I asked him, why do you think you have in
this case? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
In order in order to be able to bring a lawsuit,
you need to demonstrate injury and I and it's not
easy to do. And by the way, I mean, he's
the government. So it's not really the same as what
I'm gonna mention right now. But if the government does
something that causes, for example, your taxes to go up,
so you are injured by being worse off financially because

(01:20:26):
it raises your costs that way, that is not sufficient
to grant you standing. So in this case, the government
is going to argue that they're I assume that they're
going to argue that their injury.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
They'll probably argue two things.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
Reduced sales tax and maybe other forms of tax like
income tax if jobs get killed, reduce tax revenue to
the state.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
I don't know if I can't argue that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
I have standing because the government is hurting me on
a tax basis, Can the state really argue that reduced
tax revenue gives them standing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
I don't know. I don't know what else could they
What else could they argue?

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
They could argue the employment thing, right, it's gonna hurt
the number of jobs in the state. But it seems
to me that the state is the If bad things happen,
the state would kind of be the secondary victim, right.
The victim of the tariff would be the company that
had to shut down and the employees who lose their jobs,

(01:21:34):
or the employee or.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
The company that has to lay off a few people.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
Maybe they don't shut down, but they cut ten percent
of the workers. That worker is a victim. But even
in that case, you can't really sue the government over
bad profit.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to get
a more you know, I'm not a lawyer, although.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
I read and study this stuff pretty well and probably
you know, pretty good at it. But I don't know
if they have standing. So it'll be really interesting to see.
I promise you early, I said I was going to
give you three international stories, and I only gave you two,
the Japanese Rice and the terrorist attack in Kashmir.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Just a brief mention of this.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
So, Vladimir Putin's army lobbed some rockets, some missiles at
Kiev yesterday. Killed so far. I think the number is
around nine people. And for the first time in a while,
actually for the first time in a while, Donald Trump
decided to say something a little bit critical of Vladimir Putin,

(01:22:33):
and he said on social media, I'm not happy with
the Russian strikes on Kiev.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
Not necessary and very bad timing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
Vladimir stop five thousand soldiers a week are dying.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
Let's get the peace deal done. And I just.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
Wonder whether Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin is not
the mutual admiration society that Donald Trump seems to think
it is. But in any case, it is interesting that
from Russia's perspective. Remember, Ladimir Putin is a former KGB agent.
He wants Russia, he wants to restore, if not the

(01:23:06):
Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, and he has he's a psychopath, right,
or he's a sociopath.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
He's a sociopath.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
So he doesn't care how many people he kills, including
his own people.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
And I don't know. Donald Trump doesn't seem to realize that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
Maybe he'll come to realize it at some point, but
Putin is all about game theory all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
It's all about how can I play this to my advantage?

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
And Trump is unfortunately, he's fairly easy to play. I
know Trump supporters don't like hearing that, but he's fairly.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
Easy to play.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
He's pretty easy to move based on whoever he talked
to last, based on appealing to his ego and stuff
like that. So what I'm kind of trying to work through,
and I haven't worked through it, and I don't have
an answer, is what is Vladimir Putin think he's achieving
right now by attacking Kiev? As Donald Trump so far

(01:24:08):
has been putting almost all the pressure on Ukraine and
very little pressure on Russia. This would seem to be
an act that would cause Trump to put more pressure
on Russia and start blaming Russia more for the war.
And how odd is it that Trump doesn't blame Russia
entirely for the war.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
It's a very strange thing. In any case, I.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Don't I'm glad that Trump said something that was at
least a little bit critical of Putin. And we will
see what happens next. I have two more minutes with you,
and I want to because we got the Rockies game
coming up. I want to just briefly cover a story
that I didn't get to yesterday, and that is about Tesla.
So Tesla's stock has been getting absolutely crushed for the

(01:24:50):
past couple of months. Now it's up in the past
couple of days, but it's down somewhere around fifty percent,
close since it's high shortly after Trump was elected. And
part of the reason it fell so much is political.
So in the United States, it used to be mostly
people on the political left who would buy electric cars.

(01:25:12):
It's their form of virtue signaling. I know plenty of
conservatives who buy electric cars just for the cost savings, right,
and it's fine. And it's not only liberals who buy
electric cars, but they were the drivers, if you will,
pardon the pun, they were the drivers of that trend.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
And now with Donald with with.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
Elon Musk getting so close to Donald Trump, a lot
of those people not only have they said I'm not
going to buy another Tesla, a lot of them are
trying to sell their Teslas. So there's that so and
and conservatives are actually some conservatives and Trump supporters are
saying I'm gonna go buy a Tesla just to support
Elon Musk. But I actually think that's sort of cheap talk,
and I don't think there's going to be as much

(01:25:50):
of that as Elon Musk would like.

Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
So he's lost those sales.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
And then in Europe, Elon Musk has kind of stuck
his nose into some elections over there, in particular the
German election, and so now you've got a lot of
Europeans also not buying Tesla's. So Tesla's earnings were down
I think seventy percent from a year earlier or something
like that. Yeah, so that's bad for them, and but

(01:26:16):
it was already expected, so the stock didn't really go
down on that news, and then Elon Musk said, Hey,
you know what I'm going to I'm gonna go back
to working at Tesla more. I'm going to do a
lot less work in government, maybe just one or two
days a week in DOGE. And so that's put some
optimism back in Tesla's stock.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
I'm not going to spend time.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
Here talking about what I think about Tesla stock, but
it's a really, really fascinating business story, so I thought
I would share at least that much with you. All Right,
go Rockies beat the Kansas City Royals.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
I'll talk with you tomorrow.