01-29-25 FULL SHOW - JeffCo Schools Puts On A Gaslighting Master Class

it out. Postrophe, no Apostrophe, Mandy's blog not no apostrophe. You know what I should buy Mandy's blog no Apostrophe dot com at U r L. I wonder if that's available, and go Daddy, hang on, hang on, people, Will I do this really inane stupid thing where I'm just gonna look in.

on the blog. You can look for the headline that says one twenty nine twenty five blog Jeffco's Schools puts on a gas lighting masterclass. Click on that and here are the headlines you will find within anybos.

Aurora City's council meetings. If you're gonna be stupid, you better be tough Window edition, four hundred days before rape investigations could even get going. Wacky Left Winger makes a better choice, of course, Stem's push the horrible bill gun bill out of committee. The executive orders are coming at lightning speed. One of the biggest bands on one of the biggest band's medical care for trans kids. Colorado Republicans have a choice where you are more likely to get

a speeding ticket. About those drones over New Jersey. About the new press secretary pot crushes your memory? Our kids are getting worse at reading. San Francisco's harm reduction policies have failed. How DEI took the military. This is why the internet is awesome. This OnlyFans trend is super gross. Trump is giving federal workers a deal to quit Happy University to the legendary marsha on links Lynch interview, The Lighthouse welcomes new media, baseball team uses doorbell to wake

up the dogs, and ninety year old life advice. Those are the headlines on the blog. A little bit dizzy right now.

what do you regret the most? Or you know it just really interesting questions because the answers are all different, though they're all very similar. So I love these videos and there's a really good one today by a couple of ninety year olds they've been married for sixty seven years. And it just I find this stuff so useful and I love it because in our culture we worship youth.

And don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with youth except it doesn't have an life experience under its belt to understand the areas where it is glaringly wrong. You know, I mean, I oh to be young again with it, Like everybody says, Oh if I knew what

I knew now, but I could be young again. Oh, we take over the world because you have to be you know, kind of that youthful exuberance requires a lack of a knowledge set that you simply cannot have gained yet because you don't have enough years under your belt. And these videos are the exact opposite. They go to the people who have a lifetime of perspective and they and they ask them about things, and they don't ask them, you know, what was your favorite job or something like that.

They ask about, you know, did you work too much? Do you regret not spending more time with your kids? I mean, it's just it's fascinating and I want to see us in the United States begin to give older people their due again. And don't get me wrong, not every older person, by just because or old, is going

to be smart or wise or make good decisions. But there's value in learning from people who have the ability to look back on a long life and see exactly what they think went right and what they think went wrong. So I love those videos, and I hope you like it's the last thing on the blog today. Then you can scroll way back up to the top because it is way back up to the top, and you'll see

that it is we I just found out today. I was talking to Cruise and Tour this morning about our upcoming Japan and Korea South Korea trip, and we have six cabins. I didn't know this, but we're rapidly approaching the date where they have to give back airfare. So when we plan these trips, there are dates that you have to give back your airfare that you've already prepurchased and your extra cabins and stuff like that. So the

airfare date is approaching. So if you've been thinking about it, mulling it over, you know, you know, giveing it some thought. You really want to go check it out. It's on the blog today and you can still go to Japan with us, but it's got to be like in the next couple of day to be able to take advantage of all the deal with the airfare and everything. So check that out that is on the blog, or just go to Mandy Connell trip dot com. Dave Fraser joins

us for Weather Wednesday, looking forward to that. Jamie Segenberger is popping by just for a few minutes at one because he's got to call him. And yesterday, if you listen to the show yesterday, I talked about a situation that occurred in a basketball game between Denver Academy of the Torah, a Jewish school, and Lotus Academy wait, the Lotus School for Excellence. Oh shoot, I can't remember what it's called. Lotus Academy for Excellence, a charter school in Aurora.

And what happened was a coach of a basketball team took it upon himself to hang up a Palestinian flag at the basketball game and refused to shake hands with the coach after the game. And it seems by the video replay that the coach was the one at fault here he has been suspended, but the Lotus School just jumped on it. They were very transparent. They immediately put out a letter to parents with what was going on. They went to the Denver Academy of the Torah and

met with them. I mean, they just they did everything the right way. And so when you compare that with what has happened to Jeff Co when their third in command of Jeff Co's schools, just around Christmas was found to be being investigated for possession of child sexual abuse material, so child pornography. He has since died in appearance suicide.

And Jeff Co's schools did everything the exact wrong way, and Jimmy Segerberger's written a column about it, and it's so it's so frustrating to me because I want to be able to have faith in my governmental institutions. I do. I really do not blind faith. I'm not stupid, but I'd like to be able to have a general sense that these institutions were working on my behalf and I

don't necessarily feel that. With many different institutions and the school districts in this state, some of them are focused like a laser on all the wrong things, and Jeffco Schools is one of them, and they've worked so hard to shut down parents who disagree with the direction that the school board is going that it just makes me suspect everything they do. The only way to have people be able to trust you is to be completely transparent,

especially if you're a public institution. Anytime it looks for a second like you're trying to hide something or obfusekate something to keep it out of the public eye, you immediately look shady. And you know what, I realize that in some cases, especially with a school district, there are student privacy issues that have to be handled, but the district hides behind those excuses when they're asked about things

they don't want to talk about. When people have asked for very simple data, Okay, we want a breakdown of how many of students in fifth grade were disciplined in this way. We don't need any names or identifying information. We need to know what the kids were accused of and what happened. And they'll say, I'm sorry, that's you know, that's a student privacy issue.

parents worried about that during the holidays. It's like, dude, you have to get in front of it. You have to be Lotus, a Caate Me and Denver Academy of the Torah. You have to get in front of it. That's what they did. Transparency is the key, and they just fight it. They fight it. It makes me nuts. So that is in the column and we're gonna talk with Jimmy about that in just a few minutes. I got to give a little credit to Kyle Clark on something, and you know, I love to beat up Kyle Clark.

It's fun. I mean, it's like a fun sport. And I don't mean literally, although I do think I could take him. And that's no slight on Kyle, but he is he's a slight fellow, you know, and I feel like I work out I threw him in punch. I'm just saying, I'm not saying I would, just to let you know, so don't go making any bets. But I do have to give Kyle credit because Kyle was trying to pin down Governor Jared Polis on whether or not Colorado is a sanctuary state. A Rod may have my audio.

Please listen to this exchange. You're gonna hear Kyle, then you're gonna hear the governor. Then you're gonna hear Kyle, then you're going to hear the governor. And Kyle is working overtime here to try and get the governor to admit what we all know. Colorado is clearly a sanctuary state.

text line if you'd like to disagree. But the reason I brought all that up and played that for you is hiding. Ganal is not buying what the governor is selling. And she has a great column in the Rocky Mountain Voice today she's coming in to talk about that and seless all of the ways that Colorado is indeed a sanctuary state. Now, I want to read something I found.

I went to the wayback machine on the Internet today because I wanted to go back to twenty nineteen when the sanctuary state laws were being passed here in Colorado by Democrats. There was bipartisan opposition to these bills, so they were passed by Democrats, opposed by Democrats and Republicans, but not enough. This is from the Denver Post in

twenty nineteen. While there's not a singular definition for a sanctuary city, anti sanctuary legislation in Congress usually defines it as a city that prohibits police from complying with ice detainers. By that definition, the state is made virtually every city in Colorado a sanctuary city, vulnerable to losing billions in federal grants if presidential action or legislation were to crack

down on sanctuaries. So the governor is actually employing the George Costanza strategy, which is it's not a lie if you believe it. So he keeps saying over and over and over again, we're not a sanctuary state. We're not a sanctuary state, but we're clearly a sanctuary state. So we can say it as many times as he wants. But the reality is this, that's like me saying a rod your hair is green, Oh good, and you're like, we're not supposed to go along with that. You're missing

the point. My whole skit it is it's green, obviously what it's obviously green. So we're just gonna end this conversation. I really think he believes we're not a sanctuary state, even though everything in reality shows. And by the way, that as they say in the South, that dog won't hunt now, especially okay, that dog won't hunt because now Denver is being called to the carpet in Congress because they're a sanctuary city. So Jared Poles can say only once,

we're not a sanctuary state. He's just making up his own definition, and you don't get to do that, you know. And I'm guessing that since Denver has been called to the carpet in Congress, the federal government doesn't view his denials with much credibility. So it's just really, really fascinating. Now, I do want to give Jared Police credit for one thing. He's been consistent. He keeps saying he doesn't want a sanctuary state, even as he signed the bills that made

us one. So the governor this, according to his spokesperson at the time, said, has been engaging the sponsors and has articulated concerns on the draft. He will continue to review the language as the bill changes. He never clarified what he was confused about, so, I mean, the document says Police would not support prohibitions on using public money to assist in enforcing federal immigration law, nor anything that would prevent federal agents from accessing secure areas of a jail.

The memo further outlines his apprehension about provisions that would prevent local governments from entering into contracts that require its employees to aid in the enforcement of federal immigration law, and elements that would prevent an officer from arresting or holding a person based on an immigration detainer. So we had concerns about it, but he still signed the bill. I mean, it didn't go into law without his signature

on it. So he says one thing, but when he has a chance to actually take action to stop it, he doesn't. And I don't get that. I really don't get that. So I just we shall see what happens here. But it's been a very interesting thing to watch things that have gone on. Now. I want to talk about this executive order, a memorandum that shut off funding to a lot of programs and created a huge kerfuffle yesterday.

I just heard rosstalk and about it when I was driving in And I want to say this because I only have a few minutes and then we've got weather Wednesday, so I'll probably come back to this later in the show. They have now rescinded yesterday's memo, and a lot of people are viewing this as a massive misstep. It was a terrible mistake in whatever. Here's how I view this. Trump has been throwing everything against the wall everything, and this is an example of something that the Democrats have

done very very well for a really long time. I call it thrust and retreat. It's throws something so onerous out there. You keep pushing the limits, pushing the limits, pushing the limits, and then you finally hit the limit. You hit something so onerous that it creates a huge kerfuffle, and instead of fighting for it, arguing for it in court, the Trump White House said, Okay, we hit the limit, back it up, we send it, and we'll move on. But now they know then, now they know where that

pushback starts. I got to tell you, I think Donald Trump has been plotting the first hundred days of his return since he did not win in twenty twenty. And we're seeing it. And I think they have a long term strategy that we are not privy to yet. So I don't see it as a massive defeat. I see it as a as a test. Let's see what happens if we do this. Now, you guys, you see what

else is happening. Though there was this huge kerfuffle about cutting off funding all these programs, you know what else happened. He's basically offering federal employees the opportunity to get paid till September if they quit by February fifth. He is about to slash the size of the federal government. And we're over here talking about a memo that's already been rescinded. I think we're watching a level of strategic thinking here that we have not seen in a white house in

a very long time. And you know a lot of it. I said this yesterday. Not everything he's doing will be found to be legal. Some of it will be rescinded, some of it will be struck down, but not all of it will. And a lot of the stuff that's happening right now are things that people like me have been begging for for so long, and they're finally happening, at least temporarily. Anyway, all right, we're going to take time out. We got Dave Fraser coming up from Fox

thirty one because we've got weather Wednesday. If you love snow as much as I love snow, tomorrow is going to be a great day. All right. We'll talk about that with Dave right after this. Fox thirty one and Chief Meteorologist Dave Fraser. Dave, we're going to talk about the weather in just a second. But I know you worked in Cincinnati, so I have got to share this horrifying story with you before we go any further. Are you ready?

go from nothing to a couple inches. So that wabble factor is the biggest challenge we're dealing with right now. I'm sitting here scratching my head looking at it. I have stuff that goes the city of Denver might see some snowshowers, to the city of Denver gets nothing. I can see Castle Rock maybe getting up to an inch, but I also have computer models to give Castle Rock nothing. And then you drive east of Castle Rock towards Kyowa

and there's four inches of snow. So I would just tell any of your listeners you know, if you live from Denver to say Aurora, you're probably going to see some snow. I don't know that your morning commuter is

going to be impacted. I think the airport is on the extreme northern fringe of seeing some light snow showers with minimal to no accumulation, but as you go south and east of there, So I would tell you if you live in Castle Rock and live down south towards Parker driving through the gap on the south side of I twenty five, be prepared tomorrow morning. Think of Lincoln going east to Parker RidgeGate Road, Hess Road. They could have snow on them and it could be a little

slick in the morning. But there's also a chance that that snow line moves just east of there and you may have to go all the way out to Lineman to find snow. So I would just say to people, be prepared on the southeast side and watch the forecast. It is going to change because of that wabble factor.

A couple other things about it quickly. It's a southern storm, and it's a Pacific storm, which means it doesn't have a lot of cold air, so some of you may see a little bit of brain, and the overall impact of the roads is only going to be for several hours through the morning Commoe. After that, the sun's going to come out. We're going to be forty five degrees and anything that Paul's is going to melt.

coming in as the fifteenth coldest. And if you remember, back in December we talked about the long range.

a little more challenging, and some are downright tough. And you know, sometimes you hit the putt and it comes up and look short. But you know what, I think, as long as we message, just as I did the cautionary tale of Hey, if you live south and east of Denver, be for hair for some slick roads in the morning. If you wake up in the roads on flick, good for you, head off to work and you've got no problems.

this is kind of cool. The system is training itself so that AI can actually operate it based on the cadence of the person reading. Wow, those black boxes will go away and the anchor will just sit and read and an AI component will run the teleprompter for them based on their voice and their cadence and reading. So it's pretty cool. AI is I heard you talking about it the other day, trying to get into it, and I've kind of peeked out of a little bit. I'm amazed,

I'm a little intimidated. I don't know what it does.

and we communicate. So this afternoon, when I go to work, Liz and Alden and I will scrutinize the podcast and we will talk about it and come to a opinion, and that if we have to, we will communicate on a tech spread that the entire team shares to let the morning crew know what we decided about snowfall totals, so that we can maintain a single message from the entire Pinpoint Weather team to anybody watching us on either of our stations or any platform we ship.

was a terrible choice, but whatever. Overall, I mean Sarah Huckabee Sanders, oh come on, I put her up against anybody, and this young woman, she's kind of, I'm just gonna say, kind of a badass. I actually put the whole conference on the blog today if you missed it. And if you're a person like me that has a favorite press secretary of all time, Aira Flesher, I'm always looking for somebody to take Airy off the throne, but I haven't found them yet. This girl has potential. She really does.

My favorite was when one of the members of the press essentially said, hey, are you going to stand up there and lie? And she was like, are you going to sit down there and lie? I mean I paraphrased. She was very very very good, very good. She also just tweeted out some information that is going to be confusing. She tweeted out, this is not a recision of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a recision of the

OMB memo. Why to end any confusion created by the court's injunction, the President's executive Order on federal funding remains in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented. So maybe my thrust and retreat theory was wrong. They're barreling ahead with this, which means I have to look at strategically where they think this is going to get them.

It could just be that they've decided that the fastest way to get the bad parts over with that are inevitable because of a massive contraction of government at a least a mild recession. It happened during the beginning of President Reagan's in first four years, we had a good recession. I mean, not like ya recession. I mean, it was a healthy recession, but it went straight down and straight

back up. I'm wondering if they're using the rip the band aid approach off, but it is definitely creating confusion, and that's unfortunate. I appreciate trying to keep people on their heels because it makes it more difficult to fight the number of things that they're throwing against the wall right now, but nonetheless, it has to be done so you don't throw the entire system into chaos. So we'll see what happens next. I don't know what this means.

Why I haven't really commented on it because I'm not clear on what all of this federal funding stuff actually does yet. I don't think anybody is or we're going to find out. We are going to find out when we get back. Jimmy Seckenberger's popping by for a few minutes because he's written a very interesting column in the

Denver Gazette about Jeff Co Schools. And this is another arm of government that has decided that the people they serve, the people who send their children to Jeff Co's schools, the taxpayers whose property taxes fund their whole regime, they no longer matter, and they have been dismissive and gas lighting to parents, and Jimmy wrote a column about it,

and it's not over a no big deal thing. By the way, it's a pretty big deal when your third in command gets investigative for child poor And we'll talk about all that next. Keep it right here on KOA.

any direct contact happened a couple weeks later. He was terminated from his position on the nineteenth of December, and then the word started coming out about his what is now known to be an apparent suicide on the first of January, and then I think it was the next day that the district January second, that finally put out any sort of outreach to families, to the community directly. Everything else, everything that they had heard leading up to that point, Mandy was.

question by members of the DACK about this. And then finally later on when a parent said, so, can we expect that you're going to go to the media first before coming to us, she goes and says, oh, oh, so we're back to this.

This is the exact opposite of what jeff Co has done over and over and over again. I mean, Jeffco was the first school district policy that I knew that was keeping information from parents when it came to children and their gender. I mean, Jeffco. Doesn't it feel a responsibility to the parents that it serves.

And why this is important too. David Wise was the other liaison to the DAK. He worked directly with the DAK. So you can understand why parents who are on the District Accountability Committee would be particularly concerned about not hearing a peep directly from the district themselves for weeks. That's a big sensitivity. But they At first I got a response from the chair of the DACK saying I'm looking into it, trying to find out when the video is

going to be posted, assuming that it was. She clearly assumed it was being recorded, which was what other members had reported to me. That it had been recorded, was their understanding. But Jessco then gets back to me in a Coorer response Open Records Act request response and says there is no recording. And I say why, And they get back to me and say, well, we had trouble recording. We're in a different room that wasn't equipped for recording,

and coloredly skeptical because and I mentioned this. There was a retreat of the board on January seventh where they got together and it was during the day and very little notice, and they were talking about their communications strategy and troubles with communication. And this guy by the name of Robert Greenawalt, who is really a watchdog in Jeffco Schools, and he put in a records request for the recording

of this meeting, they denied that a recording existed. Then he sent them proof that there was a recording, and they sent him the recording. Well, I'm not sure if there is there isn't really a recording.

be addressed and they immediately did it. And here the district, just like Denver Public Schools and so many others, fails to handle the moment, to meet the moment, and it's like they don't even know what to do.

Co unless they change their ways significantly right now. And I have a feeling you're gonna have something to do with that, Jimmy. You keep amplifying this stuff and you're doing a great job with it.

this stuff. Well, they are starting to find out from parent pushback, from my reporting in the Denver Gazad from what we're talking on the radio and all of that, that actually, you're not going to get away with it not anymore.

talk or baby talk in our house. She was like, look, you did something wrong, and if you had just owned up to it, we could have fixed the problem and then you could have gone about your day. But instead you chose to lie about it, and now it's a million times worse. And this is how I feel like with all of these governmental institutions that are anything other than please, here's everything you want to know about everything that happens. I don't trust them when they try and

hide stuff. And I keep talking about these stories and the hopes that it would be the last time we talk about a story like this, but it never is. That's the sad thing. So I want to talk about one form of open government being commandeered by protesters, and this has to do with the Aurora City Council. The Aurora City Council has been dealing with protesters at every meet at every meeting, and they are a group of people and family members of killing Lewis, who police were

trying to arrest on an attempted murder warrant. They asked him to turn around, and I watched the body cam video of this, so this is a fairly accurate description of what's going on. He had his back to them, he was inside a car or reaching into a car. They said turn around with your hands up. He turned around with his hand in his belt or his pocket to get his cell phone, which was a dumb thing

to do, and police opened fire. It was investigated. The District attorney said it was justified shooting, and everybody likes to judge the cops, but you're going to pick someone up for attempted murder. You're not going to pick someone up for jaywalking. This is a violent crime this man has been accused of. And so the officers were cleared and the family and friends of killing Lewis are very unhappy about that, and they want the Aurora City Council to do something. I mean, this is the thing I

don't understand. The Aurora City Council should not ever order the District Attorney's office to prosecute someone because protesters show up at the Aurora City Council. So I'm not quite sure what they're looking for here. But if the DA thought it was a winnable manslaughter or even murder case, the DA would have file charges. But I watched the video, and you know, I don't wish anyone would ill will. I don't wish anyone dead, even if they're accused of

attempted murder. I don't want that. I don't want police officers to have to go through the process and the impact that taking another life has on a police officer. I don't want any of that to happen. But I also understand police officers who want to go home to their families and not die. I absolutely get that. It's a pretty pretty strong thing. Well, here come killing Lewis's people to protest every week, and the Auror City Council for many weeks allowed them to come in and make

these comments and go well beyond their speaking time. They've been very disrespectful of the rules of decorum for the Auror City Council, and the Auror City Council gave them some leeway, and now they're out of patience, so they've made rule changes to try and rain this in. The protesters are not paying attention to the rules, so now they're doing virtual meetings because the Aurora ped said we

can't necessarily guarantee your safety. We don't know what these people might do, so now they're going to virtual meetings. And I'm here to just ask this question. Who among you has been persuaded by someone standing and yelling in your face over and over and over again, because I've never been persuaded by that, never once. And I don't know exactly what these protesters think is going to happen.

And I just think this is their way of expressing their grief or expressing their frustration, or, in the case of Tay Anderson, an opportunity to get his faced on TV, because of course he's there. By the way, Tay has a job. You know, we've always wondered because what was his all GoFundMe campaigns to buy diapers for his child.

He has a job now at Manuel Middle School. If you have girls at Manuel Middle School, tell them to watch out, as we already know that when he was on the Denver Public School Board, he was found to be exchanging creepy messages at a sixteen year old girl. I'm just throwing that out there as a warning. He's the restorative justice coordinator. Restorative justice is one of those things that sounds amazing on paper, but it requires a herculean effort by all kinds of people at one time,

and it's not a realistic situation. And I think it is a huge reason that discipline in schools is out of control because there are no repercussions. There are conversations, they make him say sorry and all that. It's just it's it's asinine. It's really asinine. And it's been successful in very small school situations, and they try to put into very big school situations and it doesn't work. But of course, Tay Anderson a restorative justice coordinator at Manual

High School, so good for him. You won't have to do any more gofundmes in the near future, so we I don't even know. I'm gonna move on because I don't want to. I'm trying not to beat dead horses, you guys, although I do have another dead horse story

at the bottom or on the blog. Today, joy Overbeck wrote a really great column about exactly how Dave Williams is trying to remake the Colorado Republican Party tomorrow, as a matter of fact, by calling a meeting before new officers are elected in order to remake everything about the Republican Party structure so he can try and remain in power. That's all I can is that he's trying to remain in power, and I think he's seeing tomorrow. If enough people show up to vote for these changes, then he'll

run for reelection. But if they don't, then he won't, and maybe he'll recognize that his political career is over. I certainly hope. So I don't know. Okay, put the dead horse back in the closet. It's fine, It's absolutely fine. So I want to talk about Mayor Mike Johnston real quick. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this either. Mayor Mike has found himself in a bit of a pickle. He has taught he has written a

bunch of checks. As my mom used to love the phrase that man wrote a bunch of checks that his ass cannot cash. Not talking about actual money, but that is exactly what Mayor Mike Johnston has done, and he's continuing to do it continuing.

moms with him to Congress. By the way, I've been thinking about that statement for like three weeks now, right since he said, you know, if the Fed sho it, we won't even have to send the police because fifty thousand Island moms would be at the border to stop the FEDS from do an immigration enforcing It was a dumb thing to say, and he even said at one point, I'll go to jail. And you know what Tom Homan is like, Okay, get in my way. I'll put you

in jail. I'll be happy to do that. So I thought about that statement about the Highland moms, and I'm thinking to myself, I think that Mayor Mike Kaufman is the mayor of all those Highland moms who get together to play bunko or majong. You know, they get together and they talk about stuff, and then they have the mayor's ear, and that's who he's governing for. He has now come out to tout on CNN. He was on with Jake Tapper and he actually said the following words.

He said, Denver had been and this is a quote, very aggressive on enforcement on gang activity. And this was in response to a question about Trendy Arragua, the Venezuelan gang that is running rampant in Denver and Arora. He said, this is also a quote. We were early with covert and overt operations in Denver to identify TDA numbers, arrest them, prosecute them. So we've been very aggressive on this. He said the same thing back in August, at the same

time he was telling us this wasn't a problem. So, I mean, maybe I miss it, but as Denver PD done a bunch of arrests of TDA, because all I remember is that the DEA did their operation this week and arrested a bunch of them. The ringleader of the apartment complexes that were taken over was just arrested in New York. So I mean, maybe there's a lot of stuff going on. We said this at the time, Maybe there's a lot of stuff going on under the surface, but it certainly does seem to be a weird thing

for him to take credit for now. So in a joint interview with Mike Kaufman in August, the mayors told nine News that exaggerated an inaccurate news coverage at the Venezuelan gang crisis was creating hysteria that made it more

difficult for the cities to combat TDA. Johnston said at the time, the threat from TDA in Denver, it's smaller than many other organized criminal networks that might have been here for decades, the one you know, like the Bloods or the Crypts or others, and so we're monitoring it closely. You know, we've not monitored that. I'd really like to see an answer to were any of the Venezuelan migrants that Denver paid a non governmental organization to place in housing?

Were any of them placed? Were any of them gang members? Did we pay to get these people into these apartment complexes? Has anybody asked that question? Has it been answered? I don't know, but I think we need to find out. I mean, that would be a real kick in the pants, wouldn't it to find out that not only is a Venezuelan prison game active in Aurora in Denver, but we, the taxpayers, paid to give them a place to take

over after they moved in. So you know, ooh, right now on Fox News they're showing a Dea police operation. I don't know if this is now No. I think that's a couple times I think that might have been the bus the other day. I don't know, don't get me wrong. I mean, if Denver has been working on this super hard in the background and Denver pet is doing over it and covert operations, I'm thrilled about that,

absolutely thrilled. But it also makes me look back at August and go, well, then why did you gaslight everyone? Why did you gaslight Danielle Drinsky? If you already knew it was a problem, why did you hang her out to dry? And don't give me the we couldn't compromise the operations. Admitting they were here isn't compromising an operation. Admitting they're here and saying yeah, we know they're here and we're working on it isn't compromising an operation. But

they chose to do the exact opposite. And this is exactly what we were talking about with JEFCO schools. When government tries to obfuscate, when they try to cover things up, I don't like it, you know. Yesterday in the press conference, one of the first things that Carolyn Levitt said, and I don't know if it's leather or leave it, I need to look. One of the first things she said was those drones in New Jersey. They were all authorized by the FAA to conduct research and other activities. Why

didn't the Biden administration just tell us that? I think I know they wanted to distract us from a bunch of pardons preemptively for family members, so they just let us wonder if we were being invaded. That seems like a great way to run a trustworthy government, doesn't it. When we get back, I'm super excited. One of the representatives is joining us to talk about a bill that is making its way through and it's about a cell phone ban for schools. And I realize that many of

you disagree with this. I think that now let me walk that back. It is not about a cell.

particular issue. I am for cell phone bands in schools. I think cell phones are incredibly destructive, and I heard horrible things from teachers, and I'm seeing things from around the country where other districts have ban phone usage in school and the teachers and students are all on board and getting great results. Maybe not all, but most. So I'm all for this. So what does this bill actually do?

place to limit cell phones in schools. And so it gives the school boards the ability to determine what they want that policy to be. But it also is, you know, it's a local control perspective on how to do that. So it does limit cell phones in schools via the school board that makes the ultimate decision through the stakeholding process with constituents.

idea and God forbid that ever actually happen. But the first of all, when drafting the policy that school boards can put in place for they can have you know, for high school students, they can say that cell phones just need to be off and in their backpack, so if there were an emergency that were to happen, students could turn their phones on.

the benefits are significant and significantly outweigh the cost. So I think that overall this system that will be put in place will help schools and maximi student learning potential. But of course if parents have those specific concerns, they can speak during public comment when their school boards are drafting up the policies that are specific and will work for their individual school district.

becoming friends with people that were in my classes. I feel so much better, I sleep better at night. I mean, it was pretty remarkable, and it's anecdotal, but there's more and more data out there that shows that we've got to control our kids' cell phones better than we're doing now for their own benefit.

hot topic for parents. I mean, there are parents who are going to fight with every fiber of their being to make sure their kid has a cell phone because having that connection to their kid is more important in their mind than the damage of cell phone could be doing. So it's going to be a tough row, I think at the district level. But I'm hoping at least this bill can be passed to force the conversation about what we're seeing and what the science we have right now says. So let's hope it goes.

And they're too young to manage this. And I love the people who say, one more thing that schools have to do that has nothing to do with education. It has everything to do with education. There was a teacher I was watching an interview on YouTube about this like two years ago, and she said that in her classroom she spends ten to fifteen percent of the time that should be spent on instruction dealing with kids on their cell phones. So yeah, it is a matter of education.

It's a matter of creating an environment where kids are best going to learn, which we already know is not going as well as it could right now. Mommy needs to know we're in the school to deliver the Starbucks, Mandy. I have a senior at BVSD. The new phone band is not a good thing, and I'd love to know more. Text or why not? Why is it not a good thing? Is it an inconvenient thing? Or is it somehow harming your student and their ability to learn? Those are the

questions that I have. Convenience is one thing. You know, guys, if you're gen X, you had the same childhood I did. We went to school and if we needed our parents, we walked our happy asses down to the office and we asked to call our mom or dad. That's how you did it, og style, and oddly enough, we all survived well, I mean, the fittest among us. Anyway from Ralph, I would be more inclined to limit cell phones if the idiots running schools had real arm security, combat vets,

no cops. We've seen cops fail far too often, and then he followed up with it's not about convenience. We can't trust schools to protect our kids. But then there's this text message teacher here. Sheriff trains us every year for active shooter. Sheriff always states cell phone used by students during an active shooter situation is detrimental to keep being kids safe. I have two high schoolers after training. I fully support no cell phones, especially after our training.

I like this one Mandy with the cell phones. My son's school has a big pocketed sheets hanging.

not just about being in class and paying attention. It's allowing kids to have a minute where they are not tethered to their cell phones. Seems to me having a cell phone in a classroom and an active cell phone in a classroom as a privilege. Maybe we should empower high school kids to be like college kids and let them have their phones and keep them off and be respectful. Except that's not working. That's adorable. I mean, do not have any high school students? Have you not been in

a high school? I mean, that's precious, it really is. And I think for a vast majority of kids they follow the rules, but not every kid will, and then they become a disruption for the kids that are not bringing their cell phones to school. It's not working, Mandy. I work with gen xers who tell me they need their phones because they're scared. They call into work sick constantly, do the minimum of that of what is required. They

have no idea how to take a phone message. And I could go on or not, and I'm gonna assume that you meant gen zers, because gen Xers we just don't answer our phones. It's fine, completely, Mandy. Do you have any control over the advertising commercials during your show? I don't know how many cars for kids ads, I can tolerate you guys. If I you know what a rod we should have started making copies of every text message we've ever gotten about cars.

wait for cops to arrive in five minutes? Yeah, yep, because they won't let armed individuals be in the schools as they should be. But none of this matters because your kid having a cell phone in a school shooting

is not necessarily going to be that helpful. And in the meantime, all of those times there's not a school shooting, all of those other hundreds of days, hopefully a vast majority of children are never going to have a school shooting never, never, never, And the rest of that time, we have anxious, depressed children who can't have a conversation with the people sitting next to them. Is that better,

because I don't think it is. Your comfort as a parent should not supersede what may be better for your kid in the long run. And I'm telling you, guys, there's a growing body of evidence that cell phones are an absolute disaster. Not cell phone Like, if your kid has a flip phone, no problem, whatever, it's fine. But having a smartphone and everything that brings into that kid's hand is not good. And we've done a bad job as parents. I know I have. I mean, my kid

spends way too much time on our phone. I feel like it's the ongoing conversation in our household. So I don't know, I'm just I'm looking for a reprieve for kids. I'm looking for a place where they can legitimately not answer a snap in three seconds, where they don't have to worry about anybody pinging them or anyone sending them something or you know what they're missing on Instagram. Just give them that space at school. I think they would be much happier, much much happier when we get back.

Oh boy, do have a lot of stuff to talk about today, including what I think is a horrible story. Our forensics department here in Colorado is in a complete disaster situation. We're going to get into that and what that means for rape victims in Colorado and what it means for rape victims is terrible, absolutely terrible. This should be declared an emergency, and I'll explain why when we get back. Keep it on KOA.

Right now, they get one of their chief investigators who's now facing I think like one hundred and one or one hundred and two felonies because she falsifies data, and now all of the cases that she has had anything to do with over her multi decade career are in question.

But that's what I'm going to talk about today. What I want to talk about is that right now, in the state of Colorado, if a woman or a man is sexually assaulted and goes to a hospital and has a rape kit done, a rape kit which would show DNA in many cases, a rape kit which is incredibly valuable to investigators and prosecutors who are trying to solve the case. Right now, in Colorado, it takes more than four hundred days before those rape kits are processed. Four

hundred days. That is over a year, over a year where rape victims know that their perpetrators are still out on the street, They know that that person is still out there possibly victimizing another person, and they have no sense of closure or safety or any of that stuff. Four hundred days. This should be the biggest story in Colorado. This should be the thing that everyone at the capital

is talking about right now. This should be the thing that the governor stands up and says, you know what, I am allocating X amount of dollars right now, and we are going to get these kits processed. We're going to get them to the ninety days that is the goal. Ninety days. That's still three months. And a friend of mine asked, how long does it take to process a

rape kit? I'm like, I have no idea. I have no idea what that physical process of taking what is gathered in a rape screening and processing, I don't know. Could be thirty minutes, could be five hours, I have no idea, but four hundred days. This is one of those situations where you have to wonder why this particular form of evidence has this kind of backlog. Is it not that important? Because that would be terrible. That would

be absolutely terrible. What I do know is that right now there are a lot of people working in the forensics field that are retesting. A lot of the former investigators now been charged with felonies a lot of her work, so they can't get to these rape kits. So what exactly are we going to do about it? What exactly is our Colorado legislature has found millions of ways to waste a ton of money on other crap? Are they

going to put the money together by the way. Connecticut and Massachusetts both cleared their backlogs in their labs within thirty days, both of which had the same amount of kits that they are currently processing in about a year. So how did Connecticut and Massachusetts do it? Why can't we send somebody there to find out and then do it, because we're leaving people who've already been victimized, We're hanging

them out to dry. And it's just it's ugh. It is very, very hard to be someone who is sexually assaulted who then has the strength and wherewithal to go to the police, to go through the added humiliation of a rape exam, which is not pleasant. And they do it because that's the only chance they're going to have to get justice, the only chances they're going to keep

that peron from doing it to someone else. And so they swallow their pride and they're hurt and they upset, and they go do it, and we can't even bother to test the kits for over four hundred days. This is just you know, we have Democrats right now who are trying to push through a gun bill that is absolutely going to be challenged in court because it's the most raconian gun bill in the country if they've passed it. It flew out of committee yesterday three to two, after

nine hours of people testifying, mostly against it. Of course the Democrats were, oh, yeah, we're going to do that. So they're willing to commit millions of dollars to defending a gun ban that is clearly going to be unconstitutional at some point. But they can't commit millions of dollars to get this cleared. They can't enlist the help of outside people. They can't hire someone on a contract basis to come in and help take care of this problem.

And why is this okay? Why was it allowed to get to four hundred days because at some point it was maybe one hundred and twenty days. Somebody should have sounded the alarm then, but they didn't. And now it's over four hundred days, and we have women who and you know, I try to be gender neutral, because men do get sexually assaulted, but let's be real, a vast majority of these people are going to be female, like

an overwhelming majority. So I want to be clear. I know that men do get sexually assaulted, but not nearly the numbers of women who are now waiting over four hundred days for the CBA to even be able to investigate their case. It's absolutely, absolutely terrible, absolutely terrible, and representative. SOAPER is working on this now representative, but buff uh, what's represented? I think it's Matthew Soper for some reason, I can't remember his first name, but he's working on it.

He's now returning legislation that he filed in twenty twenty one. He co sponsored protect Survivor's Rights to rape KIP evidence to ensure victims are notified before evidence is destroyed, and after he heard testimony from rape victims, he realized we are not doing enough. And he's absolutely right. So this is an absolute mess. I certainly hope others at the capital are paying attention to this because it's shameful. By the way, our wreck, our levels of sexual assault are

pretty high compared to other states. So yeah, yeah, we got that going for us when we get back. You know, President Trump has issued a slew of executive orders. They are so so many, so fast, it's really crazy. But one he issued yesterday I think is going to have a huge impact and possibly save a lot of children

from unnecessary medical procedures that they just don't need. It's called protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation, and it bans chemical and surgical sex change procedures for minors, not adults. And I'm always really clear to delineate that line. When you turn eighteen, if you want to go down that path, feel free. I support you in that journey. Go knock yourself out. But for children, we don't let them sign contracts for a reason. We don't let them get face

tattoos for a reason. We don't let them drive cars for a reason because they're simply not smart, mature, and nor do they have enough life experience to make decisions about their fertility before they're even old enough to understand what sex is. You know, I this is probably the best one out there in my mind. When we get back, I'm gonna talk about reading scores. You guys, I don't want to talk about that. I don't want talk about anything else negative. I'm sick of it. I'm absolutely sick

of it. Gosh, what can we talk about that's not awful? You know what we're going to talk about when we get back, bark at the park. You know every professional team has them, Ay right? I found it even better video than the one you sent me because the one that the Tampa Bay Rays play a doorbell sound to get the dogs going. This new Jersey team, they played a doorbell and you can hear the dogs going crazy. That's what we're gonna talk about next. Yeah, we're gonna

do that next. A busy broadcast day and I cannot get to the stupid Wall Street Journal story that I'm trying to get to. Er it is paywall that I read it already, so I can just share it with you. And it has to do with the National Wait a minute, let me make sure I have the right the National Assessment of Educational Process. It's known as the NAPE tests, and the NAPE tests are the only consistent test that

is given to students across the country. It's not given to all students, and they only given in fourth and eighth grade, so it's just they call it the snapshot, like this is just a gross macro look at education in the United States of America, and it shows some bad news. The sixty seven percent of eighth graders who scored at a basic or better reading level in twenty twenty four was the lowest share since testing began in nineteen ninety two. Only sixty percent of fourth graders hit

that benchmark, nearing record lows. The decline started before the pandemic, continued during it, and have persisted since. While the lowest achieving students fell further behind everyone else, The slides were brought affecting students across different states, school types, races, and economic backgrounds. I have a theory, and you know I'm gonna share it because I love to share them my theories. My theory is this that COVID did just incredible damage.

And that's just not my theory. That is being born out over and over and over again. But it happened at a time when a couple things happened around reading. Ten to fifteen years ago. We started adopting these reading curriculums where kids were just supposed to guess what words meant, which works when words are three letters long. You know, you can look at a picture, you can infer a meaning. But for higher level comprehension, that's a disastrous way to go about it, and at that time we get hit

with the pandemic. At that time, parents, I don't think parents are reading to their kids the same way parents read to me, because we are on our phones too much. I read to Qes starting when she was a tiny baby. I mean when obviously she had no idea what I was saying except I was there standing and I was reading her stories. I read stories to her every night before bed until she was too old, which honestly was like the first year of COVID.

If you listen to audiobooks, I still think that counts.

it means when it comes to sanctuary states. We'll do that right after this, as we invite our next guest, Heidi Ganal, to come on the show this morning in The Rocky Mountain Voice, where you can always find that at Rockymountain Voice dot com. She wrote a great column about, Yes, Governor, we are a sanctuary state.

of it's not a lie if you believe it. You know what I mean, because because I am often amazed at his consistency and telling people that we are not what we clearly are, and as a matter of fact, in our news just a moment ago, we had a sound bite from one of the guys who's helping immigrants, you know, figure out what to do next, and he said, well, with our sanctuary laws. And I'm like, okay, So here's a guy who's on the same side as the governor ostensibly,

and he's talking about sanctuary laws. It's almost absurd. But yet here we are having this conversation about what a sanctuary state is or what it's not. What did you find out specifically about that?

Jared Pulas know quite how to navigate this yet. Now, Jared is a master manipulator, He's a great politician, so he's going to leverage this however you can, to make himself look good.

really don't. I'm baffled. That's where my admiration for his political acumen comes from, because he's created man in his mythology.

very different. A lot of people don't pay attention to the day to day of what's happening in politics, and he'll get away with it, just like he did in our governor's race, lying about certain things and the ads and on the TV and on the radio, and we don't have the resources to push back necessarily, or to do counter ads, or to really educate the voters on a day to day basis between elections so that they don't get caught off guard and believe believe the things they put up on air.

city of Denver. I mean, it's this isn't a horribly difficult problem to solve, And I know that sounds simplistic, but if you let law enforcement do their job, if you let ice do their job, if you hold people accountable and follow the laws that are on the books around enforcement of these laws, then this would get cleaned up pretty quickly, I believe, But they've got to be willing to do that, and that goes against a big part of their party, that the progressive side of the base.

being a progressive. I don't think he feels any compulsion to try to moderate on anything, and to me, that says he doesn't have aspirations beyond maybe, you know, taking over Diana to get seat when she decides to retire, because he would never have to work with the other side then. But I actually think he's in over his

head here, Heidi. I really think that he is going to have to go and try and explain what's going on in Denver when in my experience, when you ask the mayor a question, he uses a lot of words, but he doesn't say a lot. So I'm wondering how that's going to come across in Congress where they're on time limits and these members of Congress have a point to make. I think it could be a disaster for the mayor, to be perfectly honest, I do too.

destructive things for that path. I don't think he's going to appeal to the middle of the road, but he certainly could win over the Denver voters to get to get seat when she retires, which maybe sooner than later.

that's what the Biden administration did. They defer to pol Us to let him and his bureaucracies run things here, and they have a lot of power that they can delete with a pen, I believe by doing away with some of the agreements.

didn't hear the beginning of the show. First of all, the blog is really good today if I do say so myself. But I have a couple of things on the blog. One is a dog wearing a ski mask holding one of those cameras that videotapes them as he goes through a house. And that, my friends, is why

I have the internet. That video right there, And happy tenth anniversary to the legendary Marshawn Lynch interview where he had to sit down for media day with the press and the only thing he would say is I'm just here so I won't get fined for the entire time that he sat with the media. I have that little video on the blog and you know what, as a member of the media, I find that frustrating, But as a human being, I thought it was hilarious. I think

you're just playing for the Seahawks. Yeah, yeah, so I love that. Like I said, as a member of the media, I'm super frustrated, but honestly, it was hilarious, completely hilarious. Another thing happened at yesterday's press conference that I find very interesting. The White House is inviting new media content creators who specialize in news, that are creating content for news to apply for White House press credentials.

They want to know all that stuff before they'll greed to come on the show. Normally, those are the very, very digitally savvy guests that I want to have on the show.

was just pissed off at the male. She was flying and she would land and he would kind of land and she would fly away and he would It was it was just like Get Lover's Coral in the Swan world anyway, Rob DAWs and Mandy Cottle, what's our category?