09-27-24 FULL SHOW - A Deep Dive On Ranked Choice Voting With Kent Thiry

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No, it's Mandy Connelly, Dona.

Ninem God wait to saday him the ny US through Fred Mandy Connell where sad Day, Welcome.

Local, Welcome to a Friday edition to the show. I'm your host for the next three hours. Mandy Connall joined today for at least are you with me the whole show or part of the show. Whole show? Yay, Grant tis back with us for the full three hours and before we jump into the blog because mainly got a lot of stuff coming up. If you don't listen to Ross's show right before mine, and why wouldn't you, I mean,

You know in my it was nineteen seventy eight and since then, every time anybody on the air has ever called me, I'm like, okay, what's going on because some of these are not gone. Well, so I have no idea why you're calling.

I just heard No this is easy, Yeah, this is easy.

Well, I don't know.

It's not easy at all to me. The guy sent me this text message, Mandy, how deep does Chuck go? Phason stop with camel deep? I don't even know what that means? What phason stop with camel deep?

What is that? That sounds familiar?

Now I'm gonna look it up. So obviously not stop with camel Okay, let's see here phase, stop with Camel the miraculous hump returns from the Moonson.

Okay, that sounds familiar.

Bit I stop with cambell Is. Apparently the band See that's what I thought, But they didn't jar did they know? Because the rule is that these songs have to chart at some point.

See I never knew that.

But yeah, okay, how about this one from the same texture. How about this one Sufficiently Breathless by Captain Beyond.

I think he was part of the Doctor Demento show at one point. Captain Beyond, If that's the same guy, I'm maybe wrong, So don't don't call me the listener. Maybe going to know you idiots.

It's an American rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in nineteen seventy one, consisting of Deep Purple singer Rod Evans, former Johnny Winter drummer Bobby Caldwell, former Iron Butterfly guitarist Larry Reinhart, and former Iron Butterfly bassist Lee Dorman.

Yes, I had that confused with something else. I know what he's talking about. That now you know what's really? What's what's really. I'm the youngest of sixth first off.

And my oldest brother is sixteen years older than me. So he listened to to do Wop, you know, because I was born in sixty four and so I and my dad was, you know, a World War two vet. So he's listening to Glenn Miller.

I love it all.

Yeah, there's and you know as well as I do.

You can walk in the house and they'll be Gregorian chant on. I don't care.

Yeah, there's just I like, oh, it's it's Fa Zone. Fa Zone is the name of the song.

Okay, yeah, yeah, And I would have never thought of that one mean, I wouldn't have remembered that.

Just wait, wait a minute, Chuck, I just realized that forgot something. Hey, Grant, it's Friday. That means all together now woo okay, sorry, Texter, please ask check about the Flying Burrito Brothers. Everybody knows about the Flying Burrito Brothers.

So the Flying Burrito Brothers used to play a bar in my hometown that you've been to and Grant has been to, called the Union. And then they had friends in a band called the Bogus Brothers, of course, and if you you can look up the Bogus Brothers, I mean they have a I think they have a Wikipedia pagey, what did they go.

Eat at the burrito Buggy?

Let's see if you were taking my thunder there. That was prior to the burrito Buggy. Now that's when the bagel Buggy was.

Oh, the bagel Buggy.

Yeah, that was the seventies.

This is what you guys miss when you don't go to Athens, Ohio screaming at the.

At the uh at the radio right now because he went to OU and he knows what all this is.

Yeah, exactly, all right, that's all I wanted. I just wanted to see if you know what those things were. So I actually feel better that you didn't, because I sure didn't.

Well, I know what they are. I just would have never pulled him out, is remember, and once you sounded like okay, I remember that, but you know it wasn't something that was fresh in my mind.

All right, and Ross Scott it in Wait a.

Minute here you you Ross did get it?

Yes, he did. How how much of the interest is one point two seconds? He got it?

Okay? Well, yeah, I was playing youero point eight seconds.

Yeah, I know, but I have to make it over one second to the first row.

Yeah you know.

Once again he owes me.

All right, my friend.

I love you, have a great day. I look.

Okay, now we're going to do the blog. Go to mandy'sblog dot com. That's mandy'sblog dot com. Look for the headline that says nine to twenty seven twenty four blog a deep dive on ranked choice voting with Kent theory. Click on that and here are the headlines you will find within Anything.

Wants in Office, Happened Iragon, All Ships in Time?

That's as Plant Today and the blog The people who want to ban a Slaughterhouse are on today This as the slaughterhouse is upgrading after an EPA fine, Let's do a deep dive on ranked choice voting comedian Matthew Brossard Today at two thirty a Colorado jove, which leaves the morons in charge of the GOP. The Abs and Nuggets are back on TV Aurora PD looking for another known gang member. What happens when you stand up to the DPS mob. The slum lords are continuing to slum lord.

So there you go.

I've got a lot of stuff on the blog today and we've got three guests coming up. The first guess Mandy Less blogmore Chuck, y'all. I have to live with him, and if he gets too famous, he will become insufferable. And our relationship only has room for one person who is insufferable because of a minor level of fame, and that is me.

If you need two and a half hours of Chuck, go listen to my episode of the podcast for Granted podcast with Chuck.

Yeah, Grant did a whole interview with him. So there you go there, you go today, we are going to hear from Pro Animal Future. They are the organization that is running the slaughterhouse band that is trying to shut down a slaughterhouse in Denver, and ultimately it's about making a seat less meat. That is the end result. Making as eat no meat would be the end perfect result.

I'm out.

I do realize this means I have permanently missed my opportunity to be on the Rhino Wall of Shame because now I'm no longer a publican in name at all. So I missed that window that's slam shut, and I'm devastated, just devastated.

Ah.

Yes, Mandy, I have to laugh at you infants who think lou Reed is classic rock. Maybe early club music, but classic rock it ain't. But Steve, it charted on the rock charts, it played on rock radio, so that means it fits into the category that Ross set forward. Mandy. The divorce men's stories are sad. We're gonna get to this later, but most of them come across as guys that never stood up from themselves in their relationships. Yeah maybe maybe maybe, Mandy, Thank you and check for the

Texter.

I'm well thought out, stinger. You just fired off right there, go back and read it again and you're yes, I judge. Here's the thing, y'all, you judge too. I'm just open about it. Everybody has their moments of judgment, right, everybody does. And by the way, I don't judge people on the kind of car they have, unless you're a super driver, in which you're horrible, I will judge you. There you go. In any case, Mandy, I'm inspired by you to do

That's correct. There's some other exemptions as well. Okay, that's the gist of it.

And then three oh nine would close a slaughterhouse that has been operating in Denver for a very long time, also correct.

Also correct, for about seventy years. They have been polluting the city.

So let me ask you to tell us a little bit about Pro Animal Future to start, so we know where you're coming from totally.

So I want to start by explaining the concept of agricultural exceptionalism, which is the romanticized idea of animal farming that many people share. When we're kids, were taught old Nick Donald, head of Farm, that farmed animals have happy lives and nice deaths. This could not be further from

So ultimately, the goal of pro animal future is to have no one eat meat.

That is not the goal.

Our nearby goal for the next few decades is to ban factory farming in the United States. As far as eating meat, I would love to see a world where no animals are harmed for meat. The first time I went to a slaughterhouse was a pig facility in Michigan, and I watched as workers beat the pigs off the trucks they forced them inside, and then I heard the screams of pigs as they were killed in gas chambers.

So philosophically, I am on the other side of this issue. I am a carnivore. I think that our teeth structure, in our eyeplacement shows that we are predators, and therefore we are sort of biologically programmed to eat meat. And I too, have also been to a slaughterhouse. When I was ten, my dad wanted us to understand what the cycle of life was for our food. I lived in a rural area. He never wanted me to think my meat came from the grocery store, right. He always wanted

Absolutely, and kind of to speak to that. Over the last couple decades, animal farming has really consolidated. The average slaughterhouse is double the size that it was in nineteen eighty. These big, massive corporations have put a lot of the small farmers out of business. But even if an animal has a great life on a small farm, they're still going to be slaughtered at a small fraction of the natural lifespan. What if I had a dog and I said, I'm going to give him a great life for six

No, that's a ridiculous assertion, because the only reason that those exist is for food. We would not have the numbers of herds, we would not have the heads of cattle if we did not use them for food or get milk from them to use for food. So to say I'm going to have a pet that its purpose is much different than that of an animal, to make that comparison to me is in our culture a little bit ridiculous.

I want to push back because there are many cultures where they do breed dogs just to eat that.

Sure, I think ogriculture. Sure.

Do you think culture is a good barometer for morality or should we look at scientific evidence? You know, there was a time in our culture where men had complete dominance over women. You and me wouldn't be allowed to be working the jobs that we have now if we just looked at culture to determine our morality. I'm saying that culture should change based on a new understanding of the world. The agriculture revolution was ten thousand years ago.

I think it should be a matter of personal choice, and I think the agenda behind this, quite frankly, is to make meat so expensive by shutting down the available slaughterhouses in our area, that it becomes out of reach by design for a lot of people.

Animal agriculture receives billions of dollars in government subsidies every single year. Without this government support, animal products would cost two to four times more than they currently do. A big mac would be thirteen dollars. This industry is already supported by the government. The average dairy farm hasn't been profitable. It's only been profitable for two years in the last twenty years because of all the government support that they get.

So stee but that's a very that's a very nanny state answer, because ultimately you're saying we've already priced it out of the market. The nanty state is telling other people the choices they should make. Yeah, that's what you're trying to set up, though. That's the endgame is to make it impossible for more people to be able to afford a premium meat. That's the end game here.

The endgame is to eliminate the factory farming system. But let me ask you this. We agree that humans should have a choice, should animals not have a choice?

And humans on the same level, on the same level.

I don't have to because it's not the choice between humans and animals. I put pigs, chickens, and cows at the same level as dogs and cats because that's what the scientific evidence shows. Do you think that we should take what they want into account?

You know, here's the thing about that specifically. I have a dog. I love my dog. I absolutely love my dog. But if I were starving, I would eat my dog for the same say it is, I mean, it's like.

But I understand, but none of us is starving right now.

Farms.

We are trying to ban factory farms, but superior farms. The industrial slaughterhouse, the largest industrial lampslaughterhouse in the US, is the face of factory farming. Here in Denver. Industrial slaughterhouses and factory farms are part of the same supply chain. There are no factory farms in Denver. Since we're from here, we have a lot of local activists here, we wanted to run a campaign in Denver. So we're tackling the industrial slaughterhouse here because it's part of that same system.

And what about the people that get tossed out of work who have already come out and said, look, they take really good care of us. We've been here for over a decade, and our jobs are going to go the jobs that we like.

We included a provision in the legislation for the City of Denver to prioritize affected workers in their employment assistance program. But I do not think that we should trust the people who currently work there because they're mostly management. We should be asking the people who work on the kill floor. And we've interviewed former workers, and one former worker told us that the number one thing he wants people in

We should win eating from that lawsuit. What happened, it

The EPA investigation actually showed that they were mishandling anhydrous ammonia, which is a very dangerous chemical. Superior Farms has claimed for the last year that they were doing everything correctly. This new report shows that they were.

Lying about that.

They're lying about that, why should we trust them about the other things?

They say, Well, everybody who's being fined by the EPA is going to say they didn't do it. I mean, that's a pretty standard response. Nobody immediately capitulates.

They said that they were mishandling the ammonia and now they're fixing it. So why were they claiming that they were doing everything correctly for the last year when this shows that's not the case. We also have the Clean Water Act violations which have been going on for over four years. But I want to go back to the jobs question. I think that we all have a line with animal cruelty. Let's say it we're nineteen seventy four

You keep throwing up in comparisons designed to evoke an emotional response instead of talking about the reality, which is this is a legal product which people want to consume. Your organization is trying to make it prohibitively expensive and then shut down the farming that makes meat affordable in the first place.

So you're theaters uncomfortable with the way animals are treated on factory farms and its det waterhouses. They feel like it's a really hard choice to not eat meat because of the way our society is structured. That's why we're tackling this at a systemic issue. Forty nine percent of Americans want to ban factory farms.

I follow up question too those people and if your meat costs double, would you still be in favor of banning it? I guarantee you that number would drop considerably.

Do you think that it's acceptable for animals to be confined by the hundreds of thousands in sheds where twenty five percent of them die before they even reach the slaughterhouse.

I buy my meat from a rancher that is doing things, cows grazing, things of that nature. I try to be a responsible consumer, but ultimately I have to trust other consumers to make those choices. I think that if you want to be a vegan and make animal rights at the center of your life, I think that's fantastic, absolutely fantastic.

There's no evidence of us doing that. The one in California is the same company, and an investigation revealed lamps being kicked front around, suffering well before they died.

But that hasn't happened here.

We have evidence based on testimonials that there are many animal welfare violations at the plant in Denver. We don't have video evidence, but I don't see why it would be different. If it's the same company and there's so much worker testimonial corroborating that investigation.

Well, perhaps go at it from that point of view, but I'm a firm no on both of these. Weginion to get to three eight.

I'm not.

Notoriously cruel. They also confine wild animals for their entire lives, and every fall their bludgeon to death or gas to preserve the product. Over ninety percent of fur comes from fur factory farms. It's unnecessary animal cruelty. We have alternative materials, just like dogfighting is unnecessary entertainment. This is unnecessary animal cruelty, and we should evolve beyond it. Because you're right that humans are different from other animals. We have moral agency.

Natalie, you are a fine advocate for your position.

Thank you. You really are.

You are a fine advocate. I still think you're wrong, but I think you are a fine advocate for your position, and I very much appreciate you coming in today to make your case. You might have changed someone's mind.

You never know.

We'll just see what happened. Just on the vote.

Sing a little song for you before we are, but we're very late.

So yeah, you know that song.

Eight six seven five three oh nah yea. Iine vote yes. I'm three eight I'm three oh nah ye ie. Just so everyone can remember, vote yes for animals this November if you want to see a better future for everyone.

That is Natalie Fulton with pro I'm sorry, pro animal future, Natalie, thank you. We'll be right batch. I have to say I really appreciate someone as passionate about what they're talking about as Natalie is, and I think she did a really good job representing the yes on three oh eight or three oh nine vote. The problem is is that you guys, I'm from a rural area. I grew up with the people who grew and raised cattle for food,

The Mandy Connells Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock Accident injury Lawyers.

No, it's Mandy Connell.

Sat Nicey's great Then conn there is a sad thing.

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the second hour of the show. I was trying to skip forward in time, but I would then miss my next guest who is joining me, Kent Theory, is one of the people behind the rank choice voting initiative here on the ballot. He's been Kent, You've been very busy over the last few years sort of reshaping how politics has been going. You were behind the ballot initiative to open the primaries. You've been behind other ballot initiatives that have that have really had a

Back and forth.

I sort of you know, and I kind of wanted to give you the opportunity to give a solid primmer on what this ballot initiative actually does, how our system would work if it passes, and then why we can get into the why we need to do this or we don't whatever after that, but let's start with what it actually does.

Yeah.

Well, thank you Mandy for shedding some light on this subject because it's so important. What it does is it establishes a very tidy, integrated, three step process step one and all candidate primary, everybody on one ballot and with their party affiliation number two. The top four advance from that all candidate primary. Step three you got to get you got to earn a majority of support, and we

Step two.

Four of those advanced, which creates tremendous diversity.

You don't just get the fire left and fire right, but you get center right, and center left and maybe

So let me ask you to clarify what happens, because I think the primary ballot is easy to understand. You cast one vote on the primary ballot, and if your person is among the top four vote getters in that primary, you were going to see them on your general election ballot. So let's say we've got candidates ABC and D, just to keep it simple, and candidate A. No candidate gets over fifty in the first go round, Okay, so we'll just go in. A came in first place, D came

Yeah, So at that point, since no one has demonstrated to a majority of people that they're preferred, then you go to the person who is in fourth place, in last place, and that person Das and Dog gets taken out. At that point, they've lost. Just like losing in a primary in the currencyste you lose, you don't get to advance.

If you do, you stop right there.

If not, you then take their placed person and reallocate their number two votes and then you automatically are going to get a winner because at that point someone's going to have over fifty percent.

Okay, So this is one of those things that as a person, and I've also been open with my audience about the fact that in two thousand I voted for Ralph Nader because I was voting for the viability of a third party candidate.

Right.

So I'm not opposed to anything that shakes up the two party system. But the biggest concern that I have seen on the against side is that this destroys the two party system. How do you respond to that?

Yeah, well, I'm more conservative than you on this one, because I actually am very nervous about moving away from the two party system, and I think what we're doing is going to save it.

The fact is the two.

Party system has been losing customers at an amazing clip. Half of Colorado voters are now independent, more than Democrats and Republicans combined, and the numbers going up higher and higher.

So this is where this is what I The next question I'm going to ask you is what I love about the potential of ranked choice voting. But even as I talk about the potential, I also think to myself, you know, socialism sounds great on paper, but the reality of socialism is much different than the paper version of socialism, and I have concerns about ranked choice voting. I want to talk specifically about what happened in Alaska, because this is immediately the thing that gets brought up. In Alaska.

It in the.

Primary, and the losing primary candidate their voters did not vote for the Republican in the general, and a Democrat ends up winning a House seat for Alaska, which is really crazy, just really crazy. How do you explain to people that this is not going to gain the system in that way to where if you have three Republicans running and one Democrat running, the Republicans are not just going to eat each other.

Yeah, now, this one has been so misrepresentative and misunderstood, So I'm glad you're bringing it up first, Mary Peltola.

That Democrat that got in actually.

Got more first place votes than the other two candidates right away from the first round. But put that aside for a moment. Alaska is misunderstood. Alaska only has twenty eight percent of their voters registered Republican. Now that's twice as many as our registered Democrats there's fourteen. But fifty five percent of Alaska voters are fiercely independent.

And the reason it's viewed as this.

Rock solid Republican state is because they had closed primaries, and so the two parties, even though they had less than fifty percent of the voters.

Got to set all the rules of the game, and that led to Republican domination.

So what happened in that general election is the Democratic candidate appealed, not the two Republicans were still focused on the twenty eight percent plus some of the independents who always vote Republicans, So they were kind of focused on the thirty five percent that were safe Republicans, and they let her focus on the other sixty five percent of the population.

And so they learned a lesson.

Because one of the great things about ranked voting is that you've got it represent the entire electorate, and it makes sense for you to to be thoughtful with them and sensitive to them because they can determine why or not you get re elected.

So essentially, and this is kind of how I have have viewed it from the outside looking in. The two Republican candidates didn't get they didn't pay attention to the new rules of the game, because ultimately, the real positive for me and ranked choice voting is the potential to change the way campaigns are run. Because to your point, you can no longer just focus on the tiny, little and getting smaller Republican or Democratic Party here in Colorado,

Yeah, well, certainly there won't be zero. That's not the way democracies work. I mean, when women's suffrage was put in, when when minority voters were allowed, I.

Mean, all these things there are.

It's clearly the right direction to go, but there's always some speed bumps. But the factors elected officials are really quick on this stuff, as much as those two Republicans for some reason didn't seem to really get it. So let's talk about the Alaska state legislature, which had been totally gridlocked for over a decade.

They actually formed a bipartisan.

Majority governing caucus d's and rs to together, and they didn't even invite the French left in the French right, they said, you guys have been holding us back for a decade with not wanting to compromise on anything. So they offentually essentially formed almost a new party, and that group is working together because now to get re elected, the path is to get stuff done, as opposed to performative art, where you want to demonstrate how you never compromise.

So I got a bunch of questions on our tech line because let's kind of do these as quickly as possible, but thoroughly as possible, because these are all good questions. One of them is from Benita. Ask him how you would audit ranked choice voting? How would that process work?

Yeah, this is where I'd have to have our elections experts give a technically satisfactory answer. What I cantenue to tell you is that there's existing methodology and technology to do it. It's been on multiple times. It exists out there. And the great thing that's happened now that there's sixty four places doing ranked voting across the country is there's an entire ecosystem of promolo support groups for voter education, material,

So we already have the ability to do this, like we have the technology and we can make this.

Happen absolutely Now.

It takes hard work, and we want to develop, with the clerks a very significant and thoughtful implementation plan. We're already in conversations with the governor and going through what should be the line item and his proposed budget that would include millions of dollars for supporting the clerks. So I'm not saying it's easy. But we did Vork by mail. A lot of people said, oh my god, that's going to lead to a cluster. We pulled it off well.

So all they were wrong again. So this one is no more or less difficult. You've got to be on your game, you've got to have resources, but it's totally doable.

A lot of people on the text line are sending some variation of are you trying to meant democrat power in Colorado forever? Because their concern is and I'm going to use the first Congressional district as an example because it is reliably Democrat and my friend Valdemar Archiletta outstanding candidate on the Republican side. He is fighting a don Quixote like quest in that district just because of the

Yeah, here's what's it would be amusing if it wasn't such a serious topic. I just had an hour long debate with the head of the Democratic Party in here in Colorado and the lead attorney, and they are petrified that passing this will take away their super majority status because we're going to put more and more power back in the voter's hands and put voters in the middle center, left, center, right and center, put their voice and choice back in

And so that's kind of.

How we know we're doing it right, and we're focused on the voters because party leaders on each side now at the same time, there's a number of hard core partisans who have endorsed this, including Governor Polis and where Mike Johnston from Denver on the Democratic side, and on the Republican side, people like Dick Wadhams, who was the Republican Party chair for the entire state and ran a bulk of the successful Republican campaigns.

He's on the team as well because he.

Thinks this could be to step forward to actually restore relevance for the Republican Party.

Well, I don't know if you answered the question specifically. I mean, and I've kind of been bouncing this around. There are districts that there's almost a zero percent chance the Republican's going to win in the general anyway. So this would just kind kind of allow you, as a right leaning person to at least have a say in. You know, you could vote for your Republican candidate first and then vote for the least crazy on the other side,

Yeah, Okay, I hear what you're saying. I apologize for going down a parallel path, but what you say is exactly true.

A district that's dominantly Democratic should elect a Democratic person and the one that's dominantly Republicans should But what happens in the real world is exactly what you just said. Let's say there's a district is sixty five to thirty five Democrat over Republican, and so that thirty five percent their first vote will be for Mandy Conham because that's

They actually have a voice.

And if you're the moderate Democratic state senator, for example, you don't have to just run to Bernie Sanders to try to get votes. Suddenly, you market yourself and you listen to all the people in the minority because they're very relevant for you. And I talked to one of our state senators just a couple of days ago who had an actual competitive race and went door to door and it literally changed her perspective on some policies by her going and knocking on the Republican doors.

And the independent doors. Not just a democratic she said.

She said, if I win, I'm going to be a way better leader because now I spent time listening to them kind of for selfish reasons, but.

I got a lot out of it.

I have a follow up question on how the ranked choice votes are counted, and this one seems like an interesting question, Mandy, what happens of all the second choice on candidate C went to candidate D when they were eliminated, then there was so then you, I mean, how does that work if you don't I mean, you would have to have a clear majority though, if you cleared out two candidates, right, No, I guess it could be fifty to fifty.

Well, but fifty fifty exactly only happens about one out of every twenty thousand elections.

Yeah, once you get to where you're eliminating, you've eliminate number four.

You want to eliminate number three? Yeah, you're guaranteed to get a majority with someone.

Okay, Also, let me get some I've got a bunch of questions coming in here, Mandy. I'm sorry to harp on this, But what he's describing is bolder and the more popular moderate Democrat lost because of ranked choice voting. And I'm talking about Bob Yates. He should have won easily and he lost because of ranked choice voting, and the progressives, the radical progressives, beat him with ranked choice

Yeah, I mean there's hundreds of elections in our state every year, and in any system, you're going to have some anomalies.

I mean, it's just it's the nature of the beast.

And I don't know enough about that campaign to know exactly how the different competitors didn't in fact campaign. But what I do know is that this system requires that you get a majority support, and there's almost no way to gain anything given you have to get to that majority.

It either exists or it doesn't.

It's not like Top two in California, which is a flawed system, because you can gain it with Top four, and you need that majority I've never yet had anyone be able to describe to me a real world scenario where someone gained it and succeeded.

And I've I mean, I've been.

On this trail for six months asking the question because I'm sure it's happened somewhere, but not a single opponent has ever been able to cite.

A single example of gaming.

All right, last comment, and I'll let you respond, and then we've got to wrap it up. No rank choice voting. I do not want to see two Democrats in the general for governor or senator. I want both Republican and Democrat policies to have their voices. How do you respond to that?

That's why we feel so strong about top four that in our state, at least in the next fifty years, there's never going to be a case where one party would get all the top four spots.

And if it does happen, it doesn't it means the other.

Party has virtually no support, correct, in which case they don't deserve to be in the ballot. So just like why I can't comment on the Bowler situation, you know, in a highly liberal spot or a highly conservative spot, that's what they are. That outcome is appropriate. We're not trying to make moderates everywhere. And I'll close this for this, Mandy. It's not that we're looking for a world where every

Yeah, Kent theory. I appreciate what you're trying to do here. I'm going to be putting my voter Voter Guide out on Monday, but considering the disastrous state of the current Republican Party, I'm relatively certain at this point it's a yes for me.

Now.

That won't help you because my endorsement is the kiss of death, but I'm just letting you know for what it's worth, I'm convinced I'm ready to shake things up and I'm ready to do something different because what we're doing now clearly is not working.

Ken.

I really appreciate your time today.

Yeah, thank you, Mandy so much.

And I agree that this is a time where the status quo is broken and America needs to step up.

And fix it.

All Right, that's Kent theory. Thank you Kent. We will be back right after this. Let me just read this one text message from our Common Spirit health text line. Hey, Mandy, that guy buzzwords told me all I need to know about him. The fringe right. Who's that? I'm not a Trump fan, but my word, who's fringe right?

Who is that?

Exactly? I know the fringe left exists, and I think they want to use ranked choice voting to entrench their scheme, which is a one party state, one party state where they lie and say that independence just love them. So okay, so you're willing to admit there's the fringe left, but the notion of a fringe right is you can't figure out who that is. Well, let me tell you that is here in Colorado. That's Tina Peters, that is Ron Hanks.

No?

I do not, because we are incredibly polarized in our world right now, and I think for many people on the right it is like EW Democrats, for many people on the left ew Republicans. But I think as politicians begin to adapt to the new reality and start walking around and listening to people and finding out their hopes and fears and what kind of solutions they're looking to problems,

No, I'll tell you I am unaffiliated there. You absolutely love this idea of bring choice voting. Yeah, it made a lot of sense to me.

I see. I just here's the thing. I love it when people are basically like, we can't change it. Yeah, we totally can. And since the beginning of the United States of America, we have changed the way we cast our ballots on multiple occasions. First of all, a gentleman cracked back at me on x or Facebook, I don't

No, you're not.

Stop trying to make it more complicated. Follow the very easy directions. Put these four people in order, or just vote for one, or just vote for two, or just vote for three or whatever. But you can only vote for someone once. Not that complicated. The best reason for rank choice voting is that Dave Williams is against it. Correct Texter, correct one hundred percent. Mandy. Do you know if anyone is reading the State Blue information booklet that came in the mail voter guide. I think a lot

The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock accident and injury lawyers.

Well, no, it's Mandy connella.

Tenny icy.

Many donald sad thing.

The two minute and drill at two.

Hey we go too, minute, warrios, weapons fire, stories of today that we don't have more time for.

He love triple.

Let's go.

This will take longer than two minutes. Here's many coddle.

All right, my friends, We've got some stories and this one there's more too, I promise you. But we don't know why RTD fired now former police chief Joel Fitzgerald. As a matter of fact, RTD, as far as I know, hasn't even confirmed that they fired him. How do we know because according to the Colorado Peace Officers Standards and Training website, which shows the status of employment for peace officers,

Too.

All Right, you guys, good news in the world of inflation. Inflation is down to two point two percent in the month of August versus two point five in July. This is very close to the fed's two percent target, which means that there's a good chance the FED will continue to drop interest rates through the rest of the year. Now in the meantime, we're just gonna have to wait until I believe the next rate will come in October,

Missed missed the Nuggets championships, missed the ABS championship.

I mean, I hope they're good this year, don't get me wrong on off runs. So why didn't you just do this? Yeah, it's a bad luck. Still what now? Maybe they were working on the app because now you have two options. You can pay for the Altitude Plus app. It's like twenty bucks a month or something. It's gonna get you all the games ninety yeah, or you can just watch it on nine News or My twenty.

Right.

That's what that's the part that frustrates me is that they could have done these twenty games. Yeah, for the past five years when they were in this dispute.

On nine news in My twenty yep, and they didn't. But Obviously, we don't negotiate things like this at a high level grant, so we're probably out of the loop just a hair well, neither did they very well.

Exactly.

We'll be right back. This is a super fun story. Apparently a dossier that the Iranians have on jd Vance was given to a left wing reporter named Ken Klippenstein. Ken Clippenstein decided to just publish it on X. Now what did this dossier have? It had things like private personal details, personal phone numbers, family details, social security numbers, home addresses, the whole nine yards, and Ken Clippenstein, with his five hundred and nine thousand followers on X published it.

Yeah, he almost ruined sports for me when he came back the second time around.

But how can everything be so negative? He's just he's he's one of those people that has this it just inate ability to only see the bad, right, and he only saw the bad when Ken Clippenstein was suspended from x for violating their terms of service, doxing is prohibited, and this is like the king of doxing. So now I hope mister Clippenstein is happy because now he has allowed bad actors. And hey, it's not like anybody's tried to killed Trump or anything a couple of times. So

We already know this.

Now it may not be on behalf of the Iranians. They just may share a common goal, to be clear. But two people have tried to murder President Trump, and now this guy thinks that publishing a dossier that was gotten by I believe hacking on X says if it's no big deal, as if he's somehow doing a public service. Now let me ask you guys this.

Now.

I realize I'm talking to a right leaning audience, but does knowing where JD Vance's children are make you more or less likely to vote for Kamala Harris. I'm being genuine because I certainly can't imagine that. Cannot imagine that. So we'll see what happens. But Ken Clippenstein and I hope he's sad to see his five hundred and nine thousand followers on X go bye bye, because they will

Maybe?

Maybe not, But we shall see what happens now. I just wanted you to know about that. When we get back, we're gonna do something fun for the last half hour. Comedian Matthew Brizard coming in next. Keep it right here on Kiawa. There is a guy, and I'm just gonna assume because I know Mel the wonderful pr person for comedy works well enough to know she probably wouldn't write the following paragraph herself. Matthew Brossard is a disgraced financial

I had a hand in that. I did have a hand in that.

I think it's an interesting way to present yourself because in a way, it's like a humble brag of like, yes, look how good my genes are and how smart I am.

I need to sell myself in some way.

It's the one place you're not allowed to be humble, as in writing that that description for yourself.

Now are you can?

Really?

He's easy to work with, It shows up on time, and it costs less than other comedians.

And good at math and good at maths in case somebody has a complex equation at the comedy club that needs to be solved.

If you need financial advice or just someone to explain how compound interest works, I'm a good backboard.

So let me ask you two questions related to your background. Number one, I'm assuming that you grew up in a household where it was Matthew, where are you going to college? Not if you go to college, where are you going to college?

Yes?

So, how do you get from computational, mathematic and financial world into stand up comedy?

It was for me the ultimate act of rebellion. It was funny because it's not that crazy of a thing to do.

But for me.

I was like, ah, I thought I was gonna be I was told I was going to use math in some capacity.

I was told.

I was not told yeah, or a model or anything.

There was just like your your like, your skills in this world are mathematics, not not even interpersonal skills. You were you were good at math. We're a math family. So you're going to do a job based around that. And I believe them. And then I did a open mic when I was twenty four years old, and I

There was a whole world outside that they're allowed to go into.

I felt like I was like I was going to ask it sounded like you found out you were not Asian when you were twenty three years old. You're like, I'm good at math. That's what we're gonna I mean, I'm making a stereotypical joke, but it's a positive.

I'm Jewish and it's pretty close.

I think Jews and Asians relate to the same kind of pressure from their parents.

What did you What was that conversation like when you were like, hey Mom, hey Dad, I've decided that after get it, get it. Where'd you go to school?

Rice?

Okay, so you went to a very good school in Texas and you come back and say, hey, I'm just gonna throw throw caution to the wind. I'm gonna go after this stand up comedian thing. What happened there?

In true So, in true actuarial form.

I did not quit my job to start doing comedy. I was still you know, timid enough and well trained enough to like hold on to my job as long as possible and and try to, you know, keep a day job while doing comedy at night and just see how far I could go before it tore me in half. And luckily I got fired from my job, we know, because of comedy, because I was really just stretching myself too thin and traveling and not telling my boss.

Where I was.

And it's actually an important job. It's like something you could just mail it in, right, Yeah, if when you miss an audit, you get in a lot of trouble. When you got fired, were you at a position where you thought, I'm not going to starve if I just go full board with comedy thing.

I thought I was going to starve. I didn't think it was going to work out. I guess start have to find a job as a waiter.

Woe is me.

I just moved to la and I had that job. I was able to work that job. Remote was the deal I worked out with. My boss was really really cool of him. And then I screwed up something really bad and I basically had to resign in shame. And I had like two months of being afraid, and then I booked a bunch of college shows. So not that harrowing of a journey all things considered.

This is just I mean, is it just because you're good looking that you've just been able to coast through all these various things? Is that what you attribute it to.

I've just gotten so lucky at every stage in my life, just everything, just I jump off things, and that's appeared for me.

Sometimes I just feel very very grateful for that.

I will tell you that I my little production company that I have on the side is called Serendipitous Productions, because I, like you have made some decisions that have looked like dumbassy from the outside looking in, but they all kind of panned out.

Yes, stumbling upwards or what.

Yeah, that's a great way to put it for failing.

Upwards is the term. But yeah, just that kind of oops. Ohoh things ended up better. Uh yeah, it's a weird. And the job you have is like this is a really what what you do is highly sought after, highly competitive, and for every position like this, there's a thousand people who worked as hard as they could and didn't get it and are bruised and battered because of it.

Well, now they have a podcast. Yeah, so that is true of comedians as well. I would say all the failed stand of comedians all have podcasts.

It's required.

So do you have a podcast?

I'm so bad about it.

I have one with my fiance and we probably do one episode every four months.

Because she was like, you know what, I'm not going to take care of this one.

I'm gonna I'm gonna let you edit this and see too that it gets done, just to show that you care about it. And guess what, I don't. So I tried to do a podcast with her. We've had some great guests. We've had, like you know Mit Tail Lane and Taylor Tomlinson. We've had really wonderful people on the podcast, but they need to do more of it.

You talk about your now fiance. I actually was going to ask you because over the last few years I've been with my girlfriends four years, six years. I'm like, be gonna put a on it. Why did you take so long? Matthew?

Oh?

Why did I take so long? I didn't know there was pressure.

I don't know. I don't know why it took so long. She proposed to me, So that's how long we waited.

Okay, so why did you take her so long? We'll ask her that question at a later time. But you just told me. She's actually now doing stand up as well.

She also does comedy. Yes, so she started like four or five years ago. She did improv when we met. And she was a professional swimmer when we met.

So how does Wandn't be a professional swimmer?

Is really?

Really good? Really really really do you.

Do professional swimming?

Very college national champion and had you know since a very young age was a phenom, like eleven years old, was competing at nationals and you know, my fifteen years old was a finalisted Olympic trials and just just very very good. It's very impressive, very impressive athlete, and had a great career as a national team member and represent the United States and won a silver at Worlds and

Oh yeah, well yeah those two am, those shut downs and six am starts probably not great.

Yeah, so she wasn't doing she wanted to do comedy then, and then basically a couple of years of afterwards, she moved, We moved to New York together. She stops swimming and she starts working and finally feel comfortable to start doing open mic since she's done an excellent job, and she comes with I think she came with me last time here. She's not here this time, but because she's too busy doing comedy in New York, and I for her, Good for her.

How do you come up with your bits? Because I got to tell you, I love all the medical stuff you do because it sort of mirrors the stuff that I find interesting. I always have medical stuff on my blog because I want my listeners to know the latest stuff, but of course you make it funny or if I just make it informative. If you make it funny, why what takes you in that direction?

I like a joke that can start with a piece of information that I find interesting, that is not widely known, and then try to build the comedy around that. So I do like when comedy can be kind of informative while it happens to be funny. I was fortunate and that you know, my mom was was a microbiologist and my dad was a chemist. So I was constantly bombarded with tidbits of fascinating information that that that's stuck in my head, and over the years I found a way

Park I was it called bagra was a hard medication?

Yeah, the person of the audience yelling out what everything originally was for.

Because that's kind of nerd I am. You'd be rare one one hundred people knows that in terms of like asking the crowd. It's pretty because I girl, Matthew, I know all that stuff. Father, like your right hand shout outer in the crowd, like I do that. Do you know the eyelash the stuff you used to make your eyelashes longer?

That I do know?

The late not la Si. It's I did know at one point, wasn't.

It for I don't remember Clackoma.

I knew it was an eye disease. I just didn't know which one.

Yeah, And they noticed it was giving people longer eyelashes. So maybe Lene was like that's ours now.

Sad but true though, I mean, it really is your entire bit. I got to tell you if you don't know anything about IUDs, Matthew is your guy to not actually tell you how they work, but to tell you how they work in a way that is both charming and wrang and.

A lot of a lot of it's intrect, which is fun as well.

So when you are dealing, I'm fascinated by the relationship you have with your girlfriend, Like do you ever just say, okay, listen to this. Do you ever bounce stuff off her? And when you do something and you think is going to be really really good, and then you kind of get the dull stare of the dairy cowl back. You're like, dang, does that happen a lot?

It's it's oftentimes yeah, it's not a good way to go about it. It's just like when she's sitting at her desk, look is this funny? So try to try to take it and work on it and then bring it to her. And you know what is nice to us? You know, we go and walk together and we talk a lot, and when someone says something, we're like, ooh.

That's good.

And then sometimes there's a custody battle or whatever says something or like that might be I said it, but maybe be funnier coming from you. And then you said this, and I maybe I could play with that a little bit. So so it's fun kind of bouncing it is around.

Will you talk about your girlfriend in the in the act. But you know, some comedians can be critical and a little I think a little harsh about their snouts. Is that I always wonder like how does that play at home? You know what I mean? But you're not You're very complimentary and kind to your your girlfriend, now fiance, does that change when she becomes a wife? I mean, you know, everything goes downhill once you get married, but you should do it.

I'm not sure if her whole rule is you can say whatever you want about me if you make enough money.

So there's certain jokes I want to do, and she says, here, here's how much money you have to make to do that joke.

She gives you a bar that's pretty highs a great joke too, but that's convenient. You should actually set up a Patreon, like I could go fundme or something to be like my wife to be says, I can tell certain jokes if we make this amount of money and then you just like walk up with a check.

There you go.

Yeah, that's why I would donate. Not a bad idea.

I would donate the passive aggressively donate. I would do that. I would help you with that. I would five ten bucks, twenty bucks, whatever, and then you're in you can hear the real you.

That's a really good idea.

I do.

I have a million of them, a million. I feel free taken with it.

Yeah, good publicity. And then at that point now I'm like it just that good.

But they won't know which jokes, right, I mean just he just says, there are jokes in this set that you had to pay for.

This has been a very productive creative session, and I really appreciate.

That work that it details. But I'm really good at big ideas. Okay, so if I had minions, Like, if I had minions, I could have already taken over the world. But I come up with these great ideas and then I and no one's listening, and then I say them, and then and then nothing ever happens.

There's that sounds like, I don't know what I'm allowed to say on this program curse. I was gonna say it sounds like a lot of a specific drug. The symptoms of one specific drug is you have a lot of good, big ideas, but you don't have the detailed follow through.

I'm not saying that there was anything like that involved. I'm just saying that I have always been a big idea person. So mile has all right? Have you you've played here before? Yes, I always asked medians about comedy works because it's such a great venue.

It is.

I would I would say, if you asked one hundred working comics what their favorite club is, they would you would hear mostly comedy works.

It's just always ahead of the curb takes.

Her of comics, great crowds, phones, the bags. It's just it's it's it's a good experience all around.

The bad thing was the first time I'd ever done that on Saturday night when I wait to see Billy Gardell, I don't hate it. Do you guys ever have pushback when people like with kids or babysitters or stuff like that. Now a little bit, she's a little oompikito is a little bit there. Yeah, when you decide what kind of comedy you're gonna do, like, how do you approach this?

There's only two sets. I have the set I want to do. In this set I have to do.

Okay, so it's always finding how much so I want to do? Is going to have certain things that aren't necessarily going to work? Every time I have a lot of math jokes right now that are not that sounds. I swear they're good. If you're listening to this, I swear they're the best math jokes you guys.

Kaminsky is like, oh my god, this guy's the funniest comic ever.

Because you do math jokes. They're solid. They're really solid. If you're like math, there' like come see the show. I swear you'll you will enjoy them. That's a hard cell for some audiences.

I got to make sure in the.

Right place against them up to my speed.

I have some political stuff that may cross some lines for both sides, and that's very fun for me because it makes me feel very alive on stage when you don't know. If you see a joke that you know gets a laugh every time, you're not going to say it with as much enthusiasm y I say it. If you're pulling the pin in a grenade and waiting to see if it's a dud or a hit, you're going to be very alive and a much better performer for it.

So it's a little like putting, you know, your tongue on a sore tooth a little bit, just to like wake yourself up, just zip you there. Yes, do you ever just think to yourself if things are not going as well as you were hoping, maybe you're not connecting or you know, not every show can be a gem, right, I mean that's just the same here. Do you ever think to yourself, screw it. I'm throwing in all the

Yeah.

I did not get into this job because I respect authority. So yes, a lot of times when I feel resentful of a crowd for not liking certain things, I will do more of those things just to push It was a very spoiled response, but sometimes you just want to well, if this is what, if I found what you don't like, then I want to make you like that.

I'm going to do it so much that you're gonna have to laugh, and just if it's.

Just laughter that's uncomfortable, or I'm just gonna go out my way if like there's sometimes with the clouds sound and I'm not gonna like me anyway, at least I'm not going I'm gonna bomb with my dignity doing something that I'm proud of is The worst is when you just start doing jokes for them and they still don't like you anyway.

It just feels awful.

Do you remember the first time you ever bombed?

The third time I did comedy.

See, I've had one show in my life since I got my own show in two thousand and five that I did not do enough prep for. And I did a five hour show and it was from five am to ten am, and I am at like nine thirty and I don't have a single I can't think of a single story. I can't think of a single topic.

What else.

I'm like flopsweating, I've got to I'm like I got pit stains. I mean, it was the worst half hour of my entire life. And if you ask me of my listeners, they would not have known that it was that bad. But I will never forget that and I have never underprepared from that day. What is it like to think back on that flop? And how does it change how you approach stuff now?

That one?

I mean I bombed the third sets through probably the one hundredth set. The first two just not going to go well. Are there bombs that make me like change? How I there's some sets you just didn't prepare enough for, and I could definitely relate to that. That's often not stamped well in general some nights if I say, I think, I know I said, and you got there, and then you do it kind of the wrong order and have

That's really actually very boring. Yeah, yes, that's kind of like smart.

So I always noticed when I sit and write a set list, I actually end up trying more stuff, which is odd because you think if you don't plan, you're gonna go off course.

Where is it?

Actually, if you don't plan, you stay very you have a more predictable route. You're gonna just do the just kind of you don't have time to think of what jokes and new next. You're just going to automatically default to the safest.

Joke you can do next.

But and it doesn't it kind of give you like an island from which to dive into the stream list.

I mean, truly, if I had just a flow chart on stage.

Is do this joke.

Now, if that joke works, to this joke at bit bombs, go back to this. But if it works, skip to this right yeah, so yeah, and it makes you present.

That's actually a really interesting window into the world of how a comedian's mind worked. I appreciate that.

There's there's oddly like what I feel in my mind is there's a good wheel will meter next to me on stage like that kind of like te just this number, like the Applauso meter. Yeah, and it's going up and up. The crowd likes me because this show work, this show to works, this woe's work. Okay, now they like me. I've done it, totally, bunch of shows throw. Now I'm gonna do a bad one, a new one that I don't think is there yet, just to see and it works,

A good joke. But if I do another new joke again, I'd lose them.

Now I have no good will, and now I have to kind of restart and do a bunch of I know, tried and true jokes.

Maybe you should do what rock bands do Now, we're gonna do some jokes off our new album, and then everybody can go get a beer. Yeah, and you just work stuff out like that.

I do do that a little bit. Sometimes I'll be like, hey, I just film special.

Here's some jokes that are I'll say, oh, yeah, I'm going to work on some new stuff. And by new stuff, I mean we're doing these jokes for a couple of years now.

They still don't work, and you're just gonna keep just hammering away at it.

And I'll just pull out a note card and just look through a couple Sometimes it's fun to do that with the crowd of just here's some new jokes. I'm gonna try them off this note card, and they're not is for me. When they're new, it's a little tedious. Sorry, But when they're new, it's not so much that they're bad, it's just that they're not connected. I have a long joke of connected ideas. What you actually have to do is like building mosaic. You have to have all the

Do I have any other jokes about men's fashion.

No, but I'm gonna get this one working, and then one day I will need a joke about men's fashion.

And it's to get the perfect puzzle.

Matthew Brissard is this weekend at the Landmark South Comedy Works location, and I feel like you're probably better for a for a smart audience, I hope, So I'd like to be well, I mean, you're a computational math nerds, so what else? I mean, what else do you need to know?

Well?

Everyone, if you're an idiot, you can still come. Uh, there will be no math at the actual event. Maybe a math joke. But Matthew, thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it, and you're gonna crush it this weekend. Now I should ask you if you want to play our dumb game that we play at the end of every show. But some people are like they lock up in any kind of competitive situation. But I feel like you're smarty and you could probably pull us off.

I have a website of over five hundred puzzles I designed myself on Monday find.

It dot com.

You do the cross road every day. I really really get intense about.

Games you're in. It's called of the day and it goes like this here, sit right over there, right, and now it's time for the most exciting segment on the radio. Oven's gone hit it, Ryan.

Do it?

No, Ryan's got it.

Of the day.

All right, First we do Dad joke of the day. I don't know if you do any Dad jokes because you're not Dad yet. So we'll see what is our dad joke of the day. Please grant dad joke of the day.

What occurred when the cup of coffee got offended by a joke?

I don't know?

He steamed?

Hah. Yes, there you go, Dad joke of the day. Today's word is today? Please we guess badly what this word might be.

So what is it? Grant?

I thank you? Guys will both guess correctly. Okay. Lucid lucid. Lucid means you're awake, in paying attention and conscious aware.

It's aware.

Yes, I was going to say, it's when your ego has been let off the leash.

Oh I like that.

You are.

Much You did yes, I think we're right about that. Today's trivia question what Romantic Comedy stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as friends who are considering taking their relationship to the next level. And if y'all don't know this, thank you, Brian.

I thought you were going to say here today the Billy Crystal movie.

Harris, and yeah, stop it anyway, Okay, now here's how this works. Matthew. We played Jeopardy and it's a blood sport on this show. So if you know the answer to the question, you do not have to wait until the end to yell out your name, Matthew, and then you answer in the form of question to yell out your name, and then you answer the form of question. What do you'll recognize? I've been doing this for a long time. We're just letting you know.

Here it is.

Ryan's won the last three what's her Jeopardy category? Well, we're going back to sports, so he'll probably for me to really know right category one.

Okay, we will do propositional book titles, Oh god, Okay. This novel was originally published as Latour DuMond in Quatre Ving's Yours Matthews Ahead.

Around the World in eighty days. Will wait, Matthew, I heard I took Spanish and not French, so eighty is.

Actually literally four twenty cat is four twenty. They don't have the word eighty. Oh wow, wow, it's.

Right now.

Okay. Next question.

This Stephen King novel has Chester's Mill, Maine suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field.

Manny, what is it? No, that's the clown one day?

Correct chess with the preposition I know.

Preposition preposition?

Matthew, what is into thin air?

Incorrect?

Okay?

Crying anything, but I can't. I can't think of it right now? Is it under the dome?

Moving on?

Okay?

And this Nick Hornby novel, a twelve year old misfit and a thirty six year old man child strike up a friendship, Manny?

What is and men?

Incorrect?

That is a preposition, strike up a friendship that teaches them both valuable lessons.

And it's not creepy at all that a man and a trial just strike up a friendship. That's a thirty six year old man child. Yeah, no, what is it about a boy?

Oh?

I got that.

I've seen that movie.

Ye Radius.

Ran If you know this Hemingway novel is about Robert Jordan, who fights on the losing side many for whom the bell tolls. Correct, I'm back to one hate hemywell all right, and last one Virginia Wolf used a us.

Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? Never mind a Virginia Wolf? Youse, Stream of Consciousness?

And this novel about the Ramsey family vacationing on the Isle of Sky.

I need to read more books. Carlo Sky. We have no idea. What is that to the lighthouse? Yeah, that was a horrible category, but I think Matthew, you one was zero yeah, well at zero yeah, when we're out of time because we got to make room the unfortune coming in grace. Don't see Matthew? Were sorry the smart guy this weekend at Comedy Works. We'll be back tomorrow. Keep it right here on. We'll be back Monday. Keep it right here on.

Kowa