This is Dan Kaplis and welcome to today's online podcast edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind, and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Here on the Dan Kapla Show.
I'm Christy Vernon Brown and for Dan today because he's at trial.
Thanks for joining in.
We have been talking about bills down to state legislature and just a huge variety of crime bills that would keep Colorado safe that have been killed almost entirely on a party line vote in committee after committee retail, THEFT bills, bill's fixing pr bonds, bill's fixing our sanctuary state status, and they just are they're run.
By good legislators. They would be supported by the.
People, as we saw on the Truth and Sentencing and other public safety ballot measures run last year. But when you come down to a committee that is controlled by the Democrats right now, they are being criminal friendly, not victim friendly. And we see this in every single one of these votes that we've been talking about. Right now, we are joined by Representative Brandy Bradley Hooman to bring
on in just a second. She was running a really good bill this year that would have stopped Colorado's insane standard for giving probation to child rapists. And yes, you heard that right, that's what Colorado does. Representative Bradley, thank you so much for joining me on the Dan Kapla show.
Oh thank you Christy for having me.
I appreciate it absolutely well.
I think I was reading George Brockler's article talking about your bill and he calls it probation for child rape in Colorado.
Question mark, yes, really, and.
Goes on to explain how this is something that actually happens in Colorado. Can you explain the situation a little bit before we get into your bill.
Absolutely. We were approached by a Brockler's office. I'd done some town halls and said, hey, what can I do to run some bills for public safety? And his deputy chief DA who is a godsend, was like, did you know in our state that you can rape a child? So you can rate ten children once and creed down to probation. And I was like, there's no way that's true.
And we started digging in on it, and yeah, sixty nine people got probation only seventy percent of child rapists get probation only in our state.
That is absolutely insane.
And so the standard is if you do it once to the specific child, you can get out of probation. But if it's more than once to that specific child, then you can't.
That's the same.
Well, that is what that's what they say. But there's they say that it's more than three times that you actually get an actual sentence in the DOOC.
Oh my goodness, that's horrible. And so what I mean, obviously your bill fixed it. Can you give a few more details on what your bill would have done.
Yeah, so we already have indeterminate sentencing for soolity four and Solony three child assaults sexual folks on a child. And so what Representative English and I have great by person bill, we have by person people in the Senate
that were going to cover it. We were just removing probation because we knew that seventy percent of these people get probation only, and so we were going to make sure that these sick individuals go to jail and then go through sex offender treatment program and then are released instead of a slap on the wrist. And the Democrats said, no, that's not fair. We want determinate sentencing because criminals need to know when they'll go to jail and how long they'll spend in jail.
Oh my goodness.
And so indeterminate sentencing, I think that's probably a term that not everyone is familiar with.
Can you explain it a little more?
Yeah, So for a selenty four, let's say position of trust. You know, the public defenders try to come to the scene and say, this is going to happen if you stroll past someone on a bus and accidentally touch their buttocks. That's not true in the state of Colorado. Soelenty four I saw on a child is inappropriate touching through clothing, but it's for sexual gratification, arousal, or abuse, and that's really hard to prove in a court of law. So you have to be the worst of the worst to
do that. So for that crime you get two to six years. So it's an indeterminate amount of sentencing that the judge uses his describe two sentence and we know the majority of people's sentence for that crime served less than a year on that. So then the public defender said, well, these people are going to send their whole life because the sentencing is to their natural light sometimes as well.
And we know that the person that has served the worst amount of time is the worst offender served less than twenty five years the sentencing.
Wow, no, it's crazy.
And it seems like time and time again, we have the majority of the Democrats in the legislature, at least those who are on the committees, voting on the side of criminals and not on the side of victims. Apparently not even when it comes to children. Now we're talking to Representative Brandy Bradley, who is actually my state representative in Douglas County. You're on the Dane Capel Show with Christy Burton Brown. And this is a bill that I believe just died yesterday in committee.
Is that right?
Well, this morning it went till two thirty am. And I'll tell you that we didn't get witnesses to be able to testify these people that signed up the testify. It started at one point thirty the committe Sure, my bill did not start until ten PM. And what a disservice to the people that wanted to tell their story in committee to wrap up at two thirty in the morning.
Right, instead of just continuing the next day or something like that.
Right now, that's insane.
Did you get was anyone allowed to testify on the bill?
Well, they were allowed to testify, but the public defenders took so much of the time with their mistruths and their false facts. I mean, one of the public defenders talked about an autistic child that inappropriately touched someone that was going to go to jail for forever. Well it turns out he didn't go to jail because he went to trial and a judge didn't find any proof. But he neglected to talk about these. Another man a youth pastor that raped many children in his church that he
got probation for. So these are the mistruths they bring. They bring. There's plenty of people on the wait list waiting in there. It's not fair that these criminals aren't getting their treatment and getting out of jail, and it's not fair to these criminals do not have determinate sentencing in You know, we don't know that the recidivism. We know that keeping these people in jail for longer periods
of time increases their recidivism. You know what it does, Christy, You keep these people in jail It keeps them from raping more children, is what it does, right.
I mean, that's a fairly obvious conclusion that I think the general public would agree with you on if they knew.
And that's one thing I think.
As completely unfortunate as it is that these kind of bills don't pass committee because even though, as you mentioned, Representative Bradley, you did have a Democrat co sponsor on this bill, I think when it comes to the committees, we are almost always seeing a party line vote on committees, and then it's not going to the floor and the
majority of people aren't getting to talk about it. But I think the fact that both you and District Attorney George Brockler are talking about this issue, and I'm sure you're not going to stop even though they're killing the bills.
I think the more these things get exposed.
To people, the more outrage is created, because the majority of people actually do want to protect kids public defenders aside. So I think this is just such an important issue to highlight and thank you for your work on this.
Yes, well, I appreciate one more note that the Public Defender's office actually said that they have criminals who can't stand being on lifetime probation, So they actually asked to go to jail, and Representative Codwell actually said, you're telling me that someone that is accused of raping a child would actually rather.
Go to jail.
I mean, this is the senseless stuff that they come and speak about that the people of Colorado need to understand that they're actually sitting there telling the committee members that these poor people that rape children violently actually would rather go to jail because probation is just too much for them to endure.
Wow.
No, that's yeah, just an insane outlook when you're completely focused on criminals in their needs when they've already made their own choice and they need to be punished for it, and victim.
People completely forget victims.
I think in this whole equation, too many legislators obviously not yourself and not some of your allies in the legislature, but too many forget the victims and are like, oh, we got to do the criminal justice system perfectly for the criminal, but not take care of the victims and stop people from being revictimized because we just give people chance after chance after chance, and it just doesn't work.
I mean, no wonder Colorado is the third most dangerous state in the nation right now, according to US News and World Report, because bills like yours and so many others that would keep our states safe are shot down time and time again.
Well, and we're four highest for rape and we're ten highest for human trafficking. So what are the Democrats doing? You know, they come to the table and this bill is not the answer. Well, what's the answer?
Because certain, right, what are you wating? Yeah, no, it's so true, so true.
Well, we have to take a break here on the Dan Kaplo Show. But thank you Representative Brandy Bradley for joining us and telling us about your bill that would have kept kids safe but got killed in committee.
Hey, thank you, Christy. I appreciate you getting the word. Oh, thanks so much.
Absolutely, that was Representative Brandy Bradley from Douglas County. If you have thoughts on this bill or and the others we've been talking about, you can call in eight five five four zero five eight two five five or text to five seven seven thirty nine.
Of course, the criminal Justice laws.
Are only one of the entire set of laws that are being considered by the legislature through the middle of May. Their rights back in the middle of the legislative session right now, Tabor of the taxpayer bill of rights a huge issue. What do they get to cut in the budget because of the shortfall, That's a huge issue. And then of course public safety because despite all the claims to make Colorado one of the top ten safest states of the nation, which I think Polus has said for
the last few years, that's not what's happening. Instead, we're the third most dangerous. Share your thoughts over the break. You're on the dan CAAPLA Show. I'm Christy Burton Brown.
And now back to the Dan Kaplass Show podcast.
You're back on the dan CAPLA Show. I'm Christy Burton Brown. I'm going to go to what a text is asking.
He said, is there anyone in conservative Colorado looking at all the laws and taxes figuring out what adjustments need to be made with federal departments like education being dismantled if any laws are no longer valid. You know, Polis and the liberals won't willingly stop trying charging us.
That is a very good point. They certainly won't do it of their own accord.
I think though, often what the laws that come down from the federal departments, assuming there are laws there issue, it would be regulations technically coming down from federal departments that attach to the states. Often those rules and regulations have funding attached to them, so it's like funding strings per string, so they say, basically, if you comply with this regulation, you get more money from the federal government.
That's often how.
It works, or regulations you have to comply with them, but it doesn't necessarily charge the average person money. It may require, like the state Department of Education to comply with the rules and maybe to hire more staff people, which of course, in the end our taxpayer dollars pay for that, so in a roundabout way, we're paying for it. But I think I'm not aware of anyone right now where we could get rid of, like taxes and fees that are connected to the federal government, if that's what
you're asking. Taxes and fees generally imposed by the state here in Colorado, other than of course, are federal income tax filing, and so that's a little different. So I think, yes, it's something to watch for, but I think it'll more be about the regulation side of things, like are there regulations that the state continues to comply with that are no longer rules under the new federal government. I think those kind of things will take a little more time
to work through and figure out. But you're definitely right that someone needs to be on top of it and make sure that there's not a lot of busy work still being conducted by the state that in the end is costing taxpayers money because we have to pay for the people who do it. So good question, and I think Ryan had asked it in a different segment of the show. What I think is actually going to happen to education here in Colorado if the federal Department of
Education does get dismantled, what are the effects here? And so I think the effects really will be to restore a lot of control to the state and to local districts. In Colorado, we're one of the few states in the nation that actually put into our constitution local control of education, which means that the local boards in school districts get to choose curriculum. The state may not mandate that on them.
They can set standards, but can't tell them exactly how to teach it and what books to use, for example.
So I think a state like Colorado that focuses so much on local control, should welcome the dismantling of a federal Department of education because it means less rules and regulations, less bureaucracy, more decision making on the state because if you eliminate some of those purse strings and you just get the money because it's the federal allocation that goes to the state, instead of the federal government being able to say, well, only if you take these tests, will
we give you money. Only if you have like DEI in your curriculum, will we give you this set of money. Like you eliminate that when you eliminate bureaucracy, because there aren't the people to make the rules and regulations and tie.
Money to that.
In my view, instead, the federal portion of money should go to the states and say, hey, you have this many students in your state, therefore you get this much money.
And so cutting.
Bureaucracy actually opens up the ability for that to happen, and more money to flow directly into the state, into the local districts, into the classrooms, hopefully increase the teacher pay that we can do. And so I think anytime you're cutting administration, you're dismantling bureaucracy. It's not dismantling education.
It's not dismantling funding. It's dismantling bureaucracy. It's a really really important point we need to emphasize, and it actually often allows funding to be way more clear and go directly where.
It needs to go instead of passing through all these layers.
Oh, we need to hire this person to enforce this rule, and hire that person to create this rule, and then this person to process that funding.
Like, that's not what we need.
And for anyone who's concerned about like special ed funding that comes from the federal level, or like the Free and reduced lunch program or things that help families or kids who really are in need, there has been no talk at the federal level of cutting those kind of funding.
Streams to the states.
And you don't need the Department of Education to give that funding to the state, like there are other federal departments that grants to the states can come through. So again, I think the main I keep repeating it, but the main foundational line here is cutting bureaucracy is not the same as cutting funding, and people need to stop claiming that it's the same thing. Not yet, if you're listening.
You probably already don't think that's what's happening. But there's a whole lot of people out there just listening to the headlines and not reading the actual executive orders and the actual things that are coming from officials themselves. And if I could change something, I would love to change the people would actually go to the original source and read what's actually happening and what's actually being said, not
how it's being reported and explained by the media. If you have thoughts, you can call in eight five five four zero five eight two five five, or you can text your thoughts to Dan at five seven seven three nine. Here's another text saying, I'm not surprised that the child rapists are not getting jail time. I mean, Colorado allows abortion up until birth. The Democrats don't care about children. Why would they care about children getting raped and holding the rapists accountable?
And this is in reference.
If you missed our last segment, we had Representative Brandy Bradley on and she was talking about a bill that
she ran. A District Attorney George Brockler is all over this issue talking about how in Colorado, if you rape a child, you can get out on probation, and apparently that probation was great to sixty nine individuals last year who did this to kids, and they were just immediately right back out on the streets, right back out in those homes and those schools wherever they were attacking children,
not sent to jail at all. So to the Texter's comment, you know, I think you're right that when we create a culture that devalues children, that doesn't view them as the precious gifts that they are, and doesn't view ourselves as having some sort of responsibility to protect them so that they can grow up with all the opportunities that they should be given in this life, it does bleed
over into other areas. And if you have a general view that you know, children are only worthy of protection at this age or in this environment, what is to stop you from setting your own standards of when a child becomes eligible for that kind of protection, or when they're viewed as a fully equal human and what level of protection we really want to give them. So I will agree with you that when you see people choosing
abortion until birth, they are choosing adults over children. When you see people choosing probation for child rapists instead of putting them in jail. You are seeing them choose adults over children, and I think instead we need to view children as equal human beings with equal rights that ought to be protected at every stage of their life against any adults who would cause them harm. So thank you for that comment. If you're listing and you have other thoughts,
text them to five seven seven three nine. Start it with Dan. I think though it'll be interesting to see. We talked really early in the show about the Continuing
Resolution at the federal level. So going back to the federal level, now, if John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennett are going to split in their votes, Chuck Schumer actually just announced that he is going to be voting with the Republicans on the not actually sure if it's the cure vote or the Continuing Resolution vote what, but he's yeah, I just saw that in the break. I'm gonna look it up again in this break to make sure I.
Read the headline right. The heck just tappened. How did he do that?
I don't know, but I literally saw headlines.
I will say I've been using AI for some research and it will summarize things for me and give me headlines and I go research it and it is completely wrong. I was listening to a cl because I'm a layer and I have to do these continuing education classes, and it said AI wants to please you, so it will often give you the answers that thinks you wants you want, not the answers that are real.
Tell you what you want to hear, tell you exactly.
That's it.
So I'm gonna double check. At the break, We'll see if Chuck Shrumer really has come over, if that was a fake AI headline, we'll find out. I'm Grauzy Burden Round. You're on the Dan Caplass Show. You can call in eight five five four zero five eight two five five or text five seven seven three nine.
You're listening to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast here.
Back to the Day A Capital of show.
I'm Christy Burton Brown, and yes, I was able to confirm that Chuck Schumer has indeed come over to the dark side and announced that he will be supporting the Republican bill and to continue I guess continue resolution to not shut down the government. And of course it's not the dark side, it's the light side. But this is what he would say. Oh, It's troubling and terrible, but he just must to do it. Ryan, what comments are you hearing?
What a loser? First of all? I mean, secondly, shouldn't he of all people know better? I mean, think about this. As much as we dislike her, Nancy Pelosi knew how the gears of government worked. She knew if she had the votes or not. She knew if she could corral the squad in dis place, and she did exactly she could. Heard Kats, what the hell was Schumer thinking?
What was he doing?
Theater?
I think it's a show, I think.
But if I'm a Democrat, I'm pissed off too.
He's like pounding a shower. We're not gonna We're gonna shut it down. This is a bad bill. Republicans do it. And then ah jkl.
And it goes back to what I said earlier in the show, Ryan, that another I heard from another commentator. I'm adopting it because I think it's right. Democrats don't know how to deal with this president care. They just don't.
Christy.
Is there an argument to be made that they're even worse this time around than the first time around with Trump?
See?
I think they are because I think the first time around, they were consumed with taking him down personally, right, so all the impeachments, all the like, he's so terrible, all the personal attacks. This time around, they know he actually has nothing to lose because he can't run again.
He's term limited after this time.
And they also know that he know he had four years in between these two terms to figure out exactly what happened, whatever mistakes he made in his first term, like not cleaning house and not quickly going after policy and demanding that it get passed. And he's not making those same mistakes so far in these first couple months. And I think they're shocked. I think they didn't expect it. I think they didn't think he was like politically spurt
and strategic. Oh, he's just a business guy, doesn't know what he's doing. Well, actually doesn't know what he's doing, and he had four years to think about it and to get the right people around him.
And so I don't think they know how to respond to that version of Trump.
It's even proving Senator Elissa Slotkin, right, Democrat Michigan, when she kind of gave away the game and said Democrats are on their heels It's like they took one big Mike Tyson punt circa nineteen eighty seven, Michael Spinks in the ring, and they're just flustered and they're they're flailing and they don't know how to respond.
And this is further evidence of that. Christine.
Again, if I was a diehard liberal Democratic voter and I watched what Chuck Schumer just did, I go, what is going on there?
These people have no idea what they're doing or how to do it right?
Right, which is is I think really interesting that Trump's like peeling back the curtain on all of this. Yeah, like they were able, you know, I think with Joe Biden in charge that the other Democrats could look better if they could look like they were together, because Joe Biden fell apart all the time and wasn't competent, so they looked a lot better.
Than they were.
But now you have Trump who knows how to play them and knows like, again, he had four years to study how to get all this stuff done. He figured it out and brought the right people along with him, and they're like, oh, shoot, we actually don't know what we're doing. I mean, even when you see John Higginlober, Michael Bennett split off. You see more Democrats following what appears now to be the lead of John.
Fetterman instead of Chuck Schumer.
I mean, wasn't a good move by Schumer to let Fetterman go out ahead of him on this.
When you look at it too, Christy, You've got three incumbent Democrat senators who would be up for reelection in twenty twenty six who are not running. Tina Smith in Minnesota, Gerry Peters in Michigan, and I think Jeane Shaheen in Hampshire.
That's three right there.
You have John Ossoff, who's in a very tough battle in twenty six for the Georgia Senate seat. He couldn't afford to come out and block this cr. There's rumors, I'm not sure if they've been confirmed yet that Brian Kemp might run as the Republican nominee against him.
I mean, I think he will walk all over.
As off and Ostof has to have some kind of pretense that he's a moderate, but that would not be the case here. So Schumer, who's in New York, he gets comfortably re elected. He didn't really think about these purple state Democratic senators. They're going to have a tough bill of goods to sell back to their purple state constituents. You know, Mark Kelly in Arizona, Mark Warner even a little bit in Virginia, or even you heard John Hickenlooper vacillating and what should be a safe blue state.
Well, I don't know, leaning toward maybe.
And then I think Schumer recognized, like you said, the math just wasn't there.
Yeah, and something he probably should have known sooner rather than later. But I mean works out for us. It looks like one after the other they just cave to Trump, which is, you know what they're doing.
But I think it is interesting the point.
You bring up, Ryan, about those three incumbent Democrats already announcing that they're not running for reelection. Right, it's my understanding that next cycle was not supposed to be a good pickup cycle for Republicans as originally designed.
Like, right, that's what.
And it's just interesting that on every level they're like backing off it, caving and giving in so early and so much.
Now.
I think politics changes every single day.
You could ever be like, oh, a year and a half ahead of time, I can predict exactly what's going to happen. You just can't do that. But it is interesting seeing the writing as it gets put on the wall, not all there yet, but seeing kind of where the signs are pointing. And I think there's no question that the Democrat Party has no idea of two things. First, how to deal with Donald Trump, this new version, this new together collected version of Donald Trump.
They do not know how to deal with him.
And when I say new version, he's still the same on all the issues, but I think how he's presenting them and how he's tackling them, and who he's brought along with him, that is what looks different right now in my opinion. And then secondly, what they don't know is how to message themselves. They have been all about the doom and gloom policy for too long. They had to go on defense about Joe Biden. No, no, he really is competent. No, no, world leaders really do look up to us, No, no, not.
Everything is falling apart.
So they had the last couple of years of being on the defense all the time, and then their other mode was attacking Trump. He's terrible, he's horrible, he's awful, He's a Nazi, everyone hates everyone, and now they're like, okay, shoot, Republicans control all three branches of power. Normally, what you'd want to do as a party is say, we're going to build the block to pitch our own, better, more optimistic, successful.
Version of America.
We're gonna make the deals we have to make, but we're gonna make ourselves look like the stars in these deals. And instead they're like falling apart, being insanely pessimistic, not proposing any better plans, acting like everything and everyone is dying and horrible and terrible.
And I don't think the American people are buying it.
It's exactly right, Christy, and just watch whatever Democrat comes out, whether it's Jasmine Krockett, Rasheta to Leib exception being John Fetterman. Sure, but any Chuck Schumer, any Hakeem Jeffries. Faces and voices of this party. They have been I think stamped with their reaction at that address to the Joint Session of Congress with not applauding a thirteen year old boy with cancer. They got a special appointment to the Secret Service. They're
negative Nellies, they have no positive vision for America. They're only a card that they play is Trump, bad Trump, evil Trump, Hitler, orange Man.
And people are sick of that. They've tuned it out.
So what vision, what plan do Democrats have that's a better alternative? Christy, you know this as well as anybody in politics. If you don't present that alternative vision, that affirmative vision of a way forward, like Bill Clinton did quite frankly ninety two, like Barack Obama did in two thousand and eight, that's that's how you win elections. The Democrats aren't offering that. It's lazy. That's the number one thing that comes to mind. It's just lazy. It's like,
well we'll just rip Trump. Nope, that's not going to do it right.
And for all their I think you're right, Ryan, and for all their claiming that, oh, we have the young generation. So I was able to do some interviews this last week for the Daniels Fund. They give scholarships out every years.
I've never done it before, so it's really really amazing to see these young kids, but a number of them, whether I'm talking to other interviewers who talk to these kids or hearing from kids myself, so many kids in that generation are saying what do I not like about politics, how divisive it is, that everyone is constantly attacking everyone else personally. And I think the Democrats are having no forward looking vision when they don't have policy plans, they
don't have better messaging. But then they also are continuing that divisiveness while claiming to be the party that young people resonate with, Like it's getting old and people are tuning it out, and right now with everything Trump is accomplishing, if what the Democrats get is.
People just tuning them out, they're not.
Setting themselves up for success, fine by me, but I don't think it's a great strategy.
And even when they're staking out political positions they're taking like the twenty side of eighty twenty issues like trans and athletes in female sports, they're dying on that hill wasteful government spending. No, we need wasteful governments, we do. Okay, if that's the argument you want to make, it's just silly. This is fodder, this is the stuff of parity, and they become a caricature of themselves.
Well in the eighty twenty issue is I think what Trump has, you know, mastered, And he certainly did that in his joint speech to Congress. So many of the issues that he brought up were not just Republican issues, they were literally eighty twenty they were American issues.
And that's what he's doing a good job of.
I mean even naming the while it was it a wildlife reserve after the little girl who was killed by an illegal immage who is a violent criminal. Yeah, most Americans want little girls like that to be safe. So these the Democrats just sit there and don't even clap for that. It's beyond insane, Like, come on, these are these are American issues. Let's be Americans together. And yes
it's Trump that's representing the American issues. Horrors that you might have to align with him on something, but Americans are going to tune you out if you don't. So we have sake a break now. I'm Kristy Burton Brown on the Dankaplai Show. I see I have a question I need to answer when I come back. If you have questions or thoughts, text them into five seven, seven three nine or call in eight five five four zero five eight two five five.
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
You're back on the Dan Caplis Show. I'm Christy Burton Brown in for Dan tonight because he's in trial, but I think you get him back tomorrow. So thanks for joining me. I'm going to go to the text line and answer a question. We were talking about the federal Department of Education being dismantled by the Trump administration. I actually Democrats using that kind of language, always dismantling the Department of Education, but I actually kind of like it, like, yeah,
it's an agency worth being dismantled. I don't think we should high or go away from that language. There are so many federal agencies that are bloated and huge. My dad actually works for the federal government and he tells me all these stories about federal employees who go from
cubicle to cubicle chatting all day long. There aren't enough projects for the number of people they've hired to do, and then it's super super hard to fire anyone until Trump came in office at the federal government, and so they absolutely need to be cut and dismantled. Some of these agencies shouldn't exist, and the ones that do exist need to be downsized. Like we always believe in downsizing in our personal lives and business, in anything that's important
when you want to be more efficient and effective. It's an answer, but somehow accordion fell either. It's a horrible, horrible thing when it comes to the Department of Education.
I'm so glad that your dad spoke up, because of course there is going to be that level of just waste and excess and bloat in a bureaucracy where these workers are coming out and they're so tone off. Christ's the rest of us who work in the private sector saying we shouldn't be accountable for what we're doing. We shouldn't have to answer an email of five things that we did last Yeah, how dare they come in here and tell us what we should be able to work from our bathtubs at home like we have been.
This is what they become accustomed to.
No, I know, and I actually ask my dad, is that you actually have to answer that email? Is that a real thing?
Because you know, we see all these things over social media and or like, right, are they just like sending that to a few people?
Is it really real? Is it just a story?
No, it's real, Like he literally had to answer the email and he's happy to do it. If you actually do your work how is that difficult? Here's the five things I did this week.
But more than what they were, that not that Elon had a team going through to these things.
Really really it was a pulse.
Check, literally, answer do you exist?
Are you a human with a pulse who's still alive collecting a government paycheck?
It's just, oh, here's five things.
And I was able to reply and respond to the email because I'm a living human.
Right exactly exactly. And you know the thing that's I don't know. I think maybe this is from because I'm from a younger generation. I don't think all remote work
is bad. I really don't, and I think it is too bad when everyone gets panded with the exact same brush, and they say, because there's so much bloat and waste and so many people who do take advantage of the fact that they get to work at home and therefore don't really work at all, let's bring everyone back, like, Okay, if you look at the modern world, it actually is
possible to do some jobs remotely. It actually is if you have the right check ins in place, if you have the good managers, it is actually possible to and sometimes actually better to have people.
Doing it remote.
They can travel to different sites better, They can do it at different hours of the day that actually can be more helpful than office hours. There's a whole lot of reasons you can actually look into it. I'd apply this to the business world, to the government, to really any area of life.
I don't think this is specific to government.
But my problem is I don't think government should be excluded and say, oh, we've come to a point in the world where we know that remote work is possible, but the government may not allow it. So I understand why they're like swinging the pendulum all, you know, all the way to the other way because of all the abuses and bloat in the system that have occurred. But I think they should get back to a balanced position at some point and say, let's evaluate which positions actually
can be done accurately remotely. Are the safeguards management techniques in place to ensure that people are actually doing their work, because I don't see a point to penalizing people who actually are hard workers and can do it remote and then they also have a better quality of family life, and they're also more likely to stay in the job because it works for them. I guess I'm a fan of having a work life balance, and I think remote
work can provide that for some people. So that'd just be my personal opinion of I think they need to swing to a balance. But I understand right now why they're like doing the five point email, like let us know you exist, like are you actually interested in keeping your job? Are you willing to show back up at work and show that you actually want this job. So there's a very important things to what they're doing, but
I hope they balance after a little while. The question I got though, is because we're talking about the Department of Education, are the standardized tests administered by the Federal Department of Education. Standardized tests a huge, huge issue in education, So they're not administered by the Federal Department of Education. They're administered by the state and in fact by the
local districts in Colorado. The Sea Mass is the one you take in Colorado, and then sometimes the p SET or SAT and I don't think they really do the act here in Colorado too much, but some kids certainly do. Depends on what college you're trying to get into. But the Sea Mass is the big one that's required. What happens is there the Federal requirement that you do the state testing that states that get funding for the federal
government that they do this testing. Which test you do can be decided by the state, so it's sort of a balance. And I think we talked a lot about when you shut down the Department of Education or dismantle it, cut it in half, which is what's going on right now, what do you lose with that? And I think the thing that people are afraid of losing is the funding. They don't want funding to be taken away from the
states and taken out of education. But what you should want to happen is the bureaucracy and the rules and regulations to get out of it, give more states the ability to let teachers not constantly be teaching to a test. That's a problem that if you talk to teachers across the state, they really do feel like they can't always teach the subjects to the kids.
They have to teach each to the test.
So instead of like do you really understand the science of reading, do you really understand financial literacy? Do you really understand science and history and how to evaluate literature and let kids use their imagination and teach them how to think, not always what to think.
You don't have the freedom to do that.
Even as one of the best teachers in Colorado, it's difficult to do that because you're constantly teaching to the test.
I like tests.
I'm not opposed to them. I think they are a measure of achievement and accountability. But when they are so common and administered as frequently as they are, you fall into the run of teaching kids how to take tests instead of teaching them how to think and how to learn. So if dismantling the Federal Department of Education shakes any of that up, it remains to be seen if it will.
I'm going to be a fan of that because I think there's a reason that the majority of kids in Colorado do not read and do not do math at grade level. Only forty percent of kids do, and there's a reason for that. So shake up the system. Let's dismantle it and get something better in place. I'm Christy Burton around you've been on the Dan Kapitala show. Thanks for joining me, and I hope you enjoy having Dan back tomorrow.