Ladies and gentlemen in this corner from the University of Colorado, thirty years in Lorraine, fighting for truth, justice and the American Way.
Dan Glasses, this is not Dan campus. This is Heidigan All filling in for Dan. Hope he's having a great New Year's Eve. Hello Dan, if you're listening. I'm so excited to be with everyone this afternoon to wrap up twenty twenty four and look forward into twenty twenty five and see what's ahead. I've invited lots of folks to come on and tell us their predictions and talk about the crazy stuff that happened in twenty twenty four. Ellie Reynolds,
you're on the line. What do you think is going to happen in twenty twenty five?
Oh gosh, I guess what I think is going to happen is I think that the Democrats are going to have a realization that they could lose even more seats in these upcoming years if they don't moderate, And then I think they'll be also a little bit of fight with some of the Democrats as the legislator to go further less than they've ever got before to fight a Trump administration. So I think we will see more progressive laws, which is not surprising, but I think we all should be on the lookout for it.
That's pretty insightful, Elie. I agree with you, and I think it's going to be a lot of infighting in the Democrat Party in Colorado is my prediction. But you know, you're on the front lines. You've been in politics a long time, but you're on the front lines of the education battles right now. You're a mom of a little guy, Teddy, he's adorable, and you recently had quite a win in Douglas County. Can you tell us a little bit about that battle and what's going on down there.
Yeah, we actually just did another interview today really on the success but also a lot of the unexpected pushback that we got. So I live in a place called Stirling Ranch, Douglas County, the Master playing community that's really growing and fastly growing, and we don't have any schools out there. While there is a neighborhood school that there
was a bond that passed for. I was really passionate about bringing a classical charter school to Sterling Ranch for my little guy, Teddy, who I looked around and I thought there's great classical charter schools in Douglas County, but I don't want to drive thirty minutes for it. So I thought, I can do this. I can start a school and I can model it after a great classical education, and I know there's a want here. And so we brought it to the Douglas County School Board and we
asked to be released to the States. We were successful with the Conservative majority actually releasing the application to CSI, which is the Charter School Institute. But some of the things I had I didn't really expect through this process is that people that were hired by the conservative board, like the superintendent and other people really in the district bought us tooth and nail, and it was something I
was surprised. I was surprised that a conservative board, that their staff and really would fight us over and over on a charter school. So that was surprising. So I see more education fights.
Coming, Yeah, I mean it's going to be a big year for school boards. We've got lots of races across the state. What is your take on how we approached the school board races? There are there any issues that we should stay away from that we should veer towards what's your gut on that?
Yeah, I mean my gut is what made us successful in Douglas County by getting the majority of those conservative seats was that we were able to mobilize people around a certain issue. And at the time, it was a masking issue, right It was dividing parents, and it was putting kids at home and they weren't learning, and it was really one issue that they were around they could center around. And I think that's lost right now. I think that all of the school boards really across don't
have something to grasp onto and run. You know, we joke all the time that's Democrats right now are having They're a party that stands for nothing, Like what do they stand for? We don't know right well, we have to figure that out. As conservatives, especially for the school boards, what are they going to run on? And right now I don't know, but my suggestion would be they figure out one issue they can rally around. Personally, I think it should be school choice and it should be supporting
charter schools. The schools have done amazing things for our kids and rallying around it.
Yeah, I agree with you, Ellie, and I think there's going to be a lot of conversation in the coming months about who the right candidates are, how we turn some boards and flip them. They've done a great job down in Pueblo and some other areas that we can look to to see how that's going to play out. Douglas County is going to be an important couple of
races there. So thanks for all you do, Ellie. I'm really excited about the new potential school in staf Ranch for all the families down there to have a classical option and keep up the good work.
Thanks, Happy New Year, Happy.
New Year to you too. So we've got a couple of text messages. One of the text messages says, Heidi, thanks for all you do. Thank you. That's very sweet. How do we educate consumers to understand that you when you tax a business, the business has to pass it on to the consumer, increasing inflation and prices, the same as increasing minimum wage, increasing the cost of goods. It's tough to own a business in Colorado, man, Do I agree?
Every morning I'm waking up with an alert that another restaurant is closing, mostly in Denver, and a lot of great restaurants are really struggling with the regulations and taxes and new fees and new policies that are layering on all of these small business owners. And you know, honestly, it's really frustrating as an entrepreneur to see that happen in Colorado, where I started my business Can't Bow Wow back in two thousand and grew it to the largest
pet care franchise in the country. I don't know that I could have done it today with the rules and rugs the way they are. So we've got another caller, Cary, Are you on the line?
H Hi, Heidi, Happy New Year?
How are you?
I'm good, Happy New Year, Cary Man. You are on the front lines of education in Colorado, Carri Hebbll you work with ACE Scholarships and really involved in the school choice movement. What does that look like in Colorado and nationally in twenty twenty five.
Well, it's an exciting time, and I think certainly on account of school choice really elevating at a national level, particularly with the incoming administration looking to put more emphasis on not only the quality the education that we're providing to our kids, but also giving parents a choice. Ultimately, as far as what would be in the best interest
of their child. So it's an exciting time. I love it. It's a phenomenal organization, and certainly it's a shout out to any and all of our donors who really put their money where their mouth is. So bravo and keep up the good fight.
Yeah, I mean A Scholarships is one of the just one of my favorite nonprofits in Colorado and nationally doing great work helping kids that normally couldn't afford to get a private education get one and get out of the public school system if they need to. And the families are just amazing. They do. They just do an amazing work. So thank you for all you do, Cauri. What are some of your other predictions? Do you have any other big ones for twenty twenty five.
Well, you know, it's interesting because I think, you know, certainly, with all that's happened over the past you know, a few years, you know what's sort of been shocking to watch and to listen to is you know, certainly with the Hunter Biden situation and the fact that we've been lied to over the past few years, and you know, it looks like, you know, Hunter will probably get away with his crimes that he committed and he'll get a
full pardon. So, you know, I think that's really drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle, as it rightly should. But I think, you know, certainly for Colorado and at a national level, where you know, the voters really spoke out this past election and the migration crisis. The immigration crisis right now is impacting you know, across the country.
Every city, every state is feeling the border crisis, and I think Colorado in particular, and the scenario that we had play out uh in Aurora, where we had you know, gang activities in our backyard, you know, trendy to a dagua uh. You know, we're threatening and forcing you know, residents to leave their properties, leave their home, putting threats on the management companies, you know, and even earlier this month, Hei, you know, we saw one of the gang members torture,
torture residents. And you know, I got to say that I'm really really disappointed with, you know, certainly the response that our elected leadership gave to this community. You know, since when is it acceptable to turn your back or to make you know, residents of Colorado feel that they've
been abandoned? You know, since when, and maybe it's because of you know, sanctuary city laws, but you know, a lot of these gang members have are part of these cartels, and you know, the laws that they think may have been legal with the cartels that they were under or abiding by, that shouldn't be tolerated in this country. And the fact that you know, we've got you know, some of our elected officials, the mayor of Aurora who basically had walk back his comments, you know.
And our governor says, it's in our imagination.
You know, it's our imagination. And you know, poor Danielle Jurinsky, who you know, was screaming at the top of her lungs to get some attention to this, and thank goodness she did. But that's you know, that should not be acceptable in any of our communities, regardless of your socioeconomic situation. No one should, no one should be left to feel abandoned by their city officials or by their you know,
police or anything. I mean, this was just horrific to watch this, you know, certainly play out, and I thought it was you. I don't know when JD. Van sort of shot back at Martha Raddit's and said, you know, when she said, oh, it's just a couple of apartment buildings, and he said, Martha, you are you hearing yourself? I mean this should not be acceptable. So I don't know. I think great change should be on the horizon. It feels like it's going to be very disruptive, if you will,
in twenty twenty five, which I don't know. I don't think that's such a bad thing. I'd like to see certainly more efficiency when it comes to how our tax dollars are spent, you know, certainly for our kids. As you mentioned earlier, I'm a huge advocate for school choice and really really giving kids a quality education and letting
parents decide what's in their children's best interests. So I think between education, you know, efficiencies in our government, and hopefully getting this migration crisis under control would be you know, certainly a god sense for this country at this point.
Wow, Carl, you just did a great job of wrapping everything up. We've got to go to break, but thank you for all you do at ACE. Check it out if you're online listening, check out ACE Scholarships. We have a few hours left. You can get a tax right off and donate. It's a C three very true. But thanks for all you do. Have a wonderful New Year's even We'll catch you after the New Year.
Sounds great, a right, everybody.
This is Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Caples. We'll have more talk about twenty twenty five and twenty twenty four, looking back and forward after the break. Happy, Happy New Year, Colorado. It's Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Caples. I like your choice of music, Jesse. It's very upbeat. Getting everybody ready to go out and party tonight. Are you? Do you have any plans.
Laying logan and watching football with the fellas, eat some pizza. I'll be in bed by ten if everything goes accordingly.
Good news is you can watch like a head, so you can watch New York and there you go.
Yep, exactly.
I don't know.
I like watching the network stuff. I'll watch the ball drop East Coast time and call it a night.
I know what, Remember Dick Clark's rocking New Year's He he was the best. He was that nobody does it like him.
I can't do the Seacrest thing but ever, but yeah, Dick Clark was the best.
No and Anderson Cooper and whoever. Else he's with get drunk on TV and make fools of themselves.
Pass. Yeah.
Most of the network stuff is pretty woke, pretty crazy. I just I don't get into it. But I have four so new Ye's Eve was kind of crazy. They all want to stay up. It's very cool to stay up till midnight. My older one is twenty nine, so you know, she's a little over it. But I have a fifteen year old and twins that are twelve. They have big plans tonight, big plans.
It's exciting.
Well, you know that non alcoholic champagne is a really big Yeah.
You get a little Martinelli's going and get them all hopped up on sugar. Good times.
Ah, you know, Jesse one of them. One of the cool things I'm looking forward to with Trump coming in the presidency in twenty twenty five is him following through on his promise to release all kinds of confidential information, whether it's the JFK shooting or yeah UFOs now.
He threatened to do that JFK stuff last time until he got a look at him and then he said it was a good idea that he didn't do it, So hopefully he follows through this time. Because I'm I think I know what's in there, but I need to know the whole thing.
I think everybody's ready to hear it, regardless of what the fallout is. But I also want to know about UFOs.
This is bothering, totally totally COVID kind of ruined that they basically told us UFOs exists during and nobody paid any attention to it.
So minor detail.
Yeah, exactly, They're just like, yeah, well, whatever, man, do they have COVID or not? Like, so hopefully we can get to the bottom of all that stuff.
Now, do we do have the bird flu coming our way?
That's what they tell us.
Oh my goodness. They actually think they're gonna be able to just lock everybody down just in time for the inauguration. We're gonna shut the whole country down for bird flu. And I don't know if you watched the Sunday shows, but Face the Nation had this doctor on. We talked a little bit about it yesterday. She was touting how everybody needs to get the vaccination for the bird flu, and I'm like, are you kidding me? Did you just watch the election? And RFK Junior getting promoted across the
country is the leader of the Maha movement. People aren't putting up with that stuff anymore.
No.
I saw that lady on TV too. She wants everybody to get tested and inoculated for something that doesn't exist for very many people.
Well, and the media here in Colorado is blaming the egg shortage on bird flu, which is bunk. It's their bad policy. They just don't want to own it because people are ticked off. They don't want to pay eight nine dollars for a carton of eggs if they can find them.
I can't imagine. I mean, if you were a family of five or six that eats a lot of eggs. I don't eat a little ton of eggs, so it really didn't affect me that much. But I saw those pictures and those shells were barren.
Yeah, we eat a lot of eggs in our households, so we're feeling it. I also want to see the Ditty and the Epstein stuff released. I mean, obviously Ditty's going through it right now, but I think half a Hollywood's going to be in trouble. And Epstein, why have they not released any of those files? Why has no one gotten in trouble except whatever.
Powerful people on that list, So host we'll see.
The other thing I want to see happen is Donald Trump came out with a very strong statement about releasing the hostages in Gaza. And there's a hundred hostages that they are still amasa's holding, seven of which are American citizens. They've been there four hundred and fifty one days in captivity. It is time to play hardball and get those folks out of there.
They'll get that done. Heath Daddy tell them that they'll be hell to pay if they didn't release them or something.
I'd believe them. Yeah, I do too. Something else I think this year in Colorado, I think the Democrats are gonna have to own the homelessness issue and deal with it. Denver is putting more and more and more money into solving the problem. It's not getting solved. It's getting worse, and people are getting more and more fed up about not being able to go to a Rockies game, go out to dinner because most of the restaurants are closing, and just enjoy our capital city. So I think that's
gonna be a big topic in Colorado. Is it enough to make people vote differently? I don't know, but I think I think they're gonna have to deal with it.
Yeah, I think you're right. The homeless less problem downtown, especially around the Union Station area, is rough, and it just seems to be getting rougher. And I don't know what the answer is, because the more money they throw it at, the worse it gets.
So you live down there, right, I do.
I love pretty close right by course, few just up the block a little bit, and I've lived down there for the last five or six years, and it's I mean, I'm in no danger down there, but I wouldn't want to raise a family down there.
No, you know, or go out for a night and stay. I mean we used to when I was younger. We'd go out dancing and go to the clubs and you're walking around at two am in the morning and it was fine. It wasn't a big deal. That still happens down there.
It's I mean, if you're in a group of people, I think you're fine, but it's still not as pleasing to the eye as it used to be. As as far as how much danger you're actually in, I don't know. I think sometimes thinks that gets blown out a little proportion. But I wouldn't, you know, want to take a young family down there to watch the Christmas lights and all that stuff. You know, don't think twice about it.
Nope, not doing it. Not doing that. I think another thing that's gonna gonna blow up A Richard Holtorf talked a little bit about it as he was closing out. Is the deficit, Like we've got almost a one billion dollar deficit that the legislature has to figure out here in Colorado. That may constrain the Democrats from doing some of their crazy stuf. I doubt it, but I'm interested to see if Pols is going to use that veto pen.
If he does, he's going to tick off his progressive left, and if he doesn't, he's not going to have a good shot at running for president. So we'll talk more about the upcoming year. This is Heidi Ganall filling in for Dan Caples. Happy New Year, Everyone will see you after the break. Happy New Year, Colorado. It's Heidi Ganal filling in for Dan Caplis, And I have a caller Kevin on the line. Kevin, I'm so sorry for leaving you hang and I got all fired up about what's happening welcome to the show.
That's okay, I got a question for you. Yes, the most egregious financial fraud perpetrated on the United States citizens occurred in nineteen thirteen in violation of the US Constitution and every state constitution, as well as God's law as
discussed in the Old Testament. And that's when the bank treasonous banks, the treasonist Congress, and the treasonist President Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, which stole our gold standard without amending the Constitution and gave the power of creating counterfeit currency to the banks which own the Federal Reserve and stole the gold standard away from the people which own the notes issued under the gold standard.
I'd like to know when these public so called public servants in DC, which are now the masters and we are the public servants, are going to stop being beholden to and afraid of the banks and restore our gold standard.
That's a great question, Kevin, and I know there's been a lot of discussion about the gold standard in the last couple of years, and I mean, our money seems to be becoming more and more or less valuable, our dollars, So what is Trump said about a gold standard? Yeah, do you know what Donald Trump is said about this? If anything, I.
Believe I heard mention of him making some kind of comment about possibly restoring or doing something in favor of the gold standard.
What would the implications of that be. You seem to know a lot about this on a like an actually tactical basis.
The Federal Reserve is the ninety nine percent dictator of inflation and deflation because with the Federal Reserve they can inflate and deflate counterfeit currency at will. Under a gold
standard that is impossible. And proof of that is the absolute fact that the same amount of gold or the same amount of goods that one ounce of gold bought two hundred years ago still costs the same or you can still buy those same amount of goods with one ounce of gold, because gold and silver maintain their true value under an honest system, whereas we're in a debt based system where you need more and more notes Federal Reserve notes to buy the same amount of goods, got it,
so you would need all It restricts the government and the banks from doing things like going to war or all of them waste that they create, and you wouldn't have all this need for yearly pay raises because the value of the money would be real and honest as opposed to debt based currency.
Got it. Well, thanks for calling in, Kevin. That's a really interesting discussion to have, and I maybe be part of the doge discussion. You know, I think Elonovivek are all about reducing spending and getting back to fiscal responsibility, you know, raining in our budget. I believe Donald Trump wants to do that. I know we talked about increasing the debt ceiling. He wanted to do that so that he could put his make sure his tax cuts get in, because tax cuts actually count as spending. So it's all
really confusing. I mean, I went to public schools. I had you know, I had a public school education. So maybe I'm just not getting it. But I think the country, we know the country's in trouble financially. We know we've got to control spending. We know we've got to stick to our budget. We've got to have a balanced budget. I mean in Colorado we were just talking about the deficit. A billion dollar deficit they've got to figure out. So
we've got it. We've got to do the right things for our economy, for our country going forward, for our kids and our grandkids, and if it means making some tough decisions around things that we need to stop spending on. It think there's plenty of fluff. I don't know if you're following Elon and Doge and Vivek's posts, but they're giving example after example after example of ways that we can reduce the spending. I think the bureaucracy is another
big issue. Man. When I was running for governor, I had a policy position that I wanted to reduce the size of our state bureaucracy by ten percent a year in my first term, so forty percent in my first term. And some of the old school folks in politics were like,
it's never going to work. You can't do that. I'm like, think of how amazing it would be if we put all that money back into the pockets of the taxpayers and they could actually spend more in the economy and spend more on, you know, things that they love and building businesses and investing in their kids and their future. It would all pay off in the end, because hiring more bureaucrats doesn't pay off in the end. It does
nothing to make our life better. In my estimation, look at education, we've seen an incredible and the administration hires. When I was a regent at University of Klorada for six years I spent I was the chair of the audit committee, chair of the finance committee. The number of administrators we hired, especially around DEI. When I left, I believe we had seventy eight administrators that were just focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. And I kept asking, like,
what is the expected outcome? What does success look like for this investment in administration. Could never get a straight answer, And I think the same things happening in K through twelve. We're putting all this money into creating layers and layers of administration. And yet if we put the money into the classroom so that teachers had smaller class sizes, they had more resources, they didn't have to buy books and supplies out of their own pockets, that would be amazing.
So why don't we do that? Well, because these politicians and these bureaucrats get a little taste of power, they get good jobs, good paying jobs. They don't want to give those up. It's tough you go in and try and take back the size of the bureaucracy in Colorado by forty percent. That's a lot of jobs. But the free market, if you let it do its thing, will take care of those folks and everyone will be better off for it. And for all the talking that Jared
Polost does about how libertarian he is, that's bunk. He's grown the size of government in Colorado a tremendous amount, and the budget in Colorado, I think you heard Richard Holdorff talking about the billions and billions of dollars that have been added to the budget, and they still act like they don't have enough money. They're doing everything they
can to get rid of tabor. And if you don't know what tabor is, if you're new to the state or you're just hearing about it, it's one of the reasons that Colorado's economy survived doing well as long as it did while the Democrats took over rule over the
last couple decades, and they're chipping away on it. Taber basically controls the government's the bureaucrat's ability to spend based on population growth and inflation, and they have to ask the taxpayers if they want to increase spending and they're allowing that to happen at the local level. So tho, as more and more counties get more and more blue, they're voting out of tabor, which is really voting out
of their best interests. I don't understand why they do that as voters, unless they just don't understand the implications. But you know, I'm on my soapbox about bureaucracy and administrative bloat and the crazy things we spend our money on in government. And you know, I truly believe we could have reduced the size of government dramatically with a
change and who we voted in office. We still can do that going forward Colorado, if you want to, but it's not going to happen under Democrat rule here in our beautiful state. So we've got to make some different decisions. Let's start at the school board level this year, in twenty twenty five, not this year. We've got a few
more hours of this year twenty twenty five. I've branded it the Year of the school board Races, and I want to do everything I can to help people all over the state run for school board flip wards, get more fiscal responsibility in place, stop hiring so many administrators, put more money back into the classroom, pay teachers better, make the classroom smaller size so the kids get more individual attention, and hopefully we'll see grades go up, more
success in the classroom, more attention by the teachers so that they can prevent a lot of the mental health issues that are going on by you know, engaging the students, giving them hope, giving them excitement about learning. Again, that's one thing Ellie talked a little bit about was classical schools. My favorite thing about classical schools is you walk in and the kids love to learn. They're there, they're excited,
they're engaged. It's really a sight to see. So I will I'll save some more comments till after the break. This is Heidiganal filling in for Dan Kaplis back in just a few minutes for our last segment of the year. Talk to you soon.