THOMAS FREY POPS IN AT 1 To talk about all things future. Find Thomas and his blog by clicking here. We may be talking about revolutionizing higher ed like this column lays out. Or maybe not.
WANT TO WIN A CATERED SUITE FOR A ROCKIES GAME? You're in luck because The Q's Criminal Justice club is trying to go to the Skills USA competition to show off their criminal justice skills and to raise money they are giving away a catered suite (no booze included, it is a school raffle) that will be hosted by none other than me and Chuck. The game is Tuesday, July 1st, and you can buy your very affordable tickets here. The Q and her Criminal Justice teacher Richard Vaccaro are joining me at 2:30 to talk about it.
WHY SCHOOL CHOICE IS SO CRITICALLY IMPORTANT Kids in certain neighborhoods are trapped in failing schools. The way schools are zoned in Denver Public Schools shows that children from black and brown households are far more likely to zoned for schools that aren't doing a good job teaching kids. Now I can make an argument that kids from poorer households are a very challenging population from homes where education is not stressed enough by parents, but if we already know that we should have already figured out some way to mitigate that. That being said yet ANOTHER study shows how important school choice really is. It shows the Denver schools are highly segregated by INCOME, which is actually a better indicator of future performance by students than race. I find this part interesting:
Take Denver where nearly 90% of teachers in schools with primarily White students received a rating of “effective” or higher, while 63% of those in high-minority schools received this distinction, a roughly 30-point gap. The same pattern exists in Douglas County, where 82% of teachers in predominantly White schools earned an “effective” or higher rating compared to 42% of teachers in “high-minority” schools.
Unless we're willing to talk freely about why kids in those high minority schools are underperforming at such a high level we can't fix it. And no one wants to talk about cultural differences that begin in the home and are carried over to the schools. From economic and home life instability to discipline issues to making sure kids are doing homework there are BIG issues that keep kids from succeeding and they are only partially tied to what happens in the classroom.
THIS YEAR'S COLORADO BUDGET IS 3.3 BILLION MORE THAN LAST YEAR I wanted to make that the headline before I shared this story with you about the drastic cuts that had to be made in order to balance the budget. Do you think a 3.3 BILLION dollar raise seems like a massive shortfall? Me either. I want you to remember this when the Democrats come for the rest of your TABOR refund. And they will. And they will come for TABOR as well.
SOME JUDGES BREAK THE RULES TO DONATE TO DEMOCRATS And of course they donated to Democrats, we know who our judiciary is. Luckily it's a tiny number of judges who are appointed to work as private judges to oversee mostly divorces of super rich people who don't want their business spread via the public venue. I just thought it was the least surprising story ever to see who they ALL donated to.
MONARCH IS OFFERING $39 TICKETS FOR SPRING SKIING Find out more here.
YES, THE BRONCOS ARE DOING A NEW STADIUM At least that's what I'm taking away from chatter from the Owner's meetings going on now. Check this out:
“We want to create what’s the best option for the next 40 or 50 years, not 10 or 20 years,” said Penner. He went on to mention possible locations the front office has looked at around the metro area.
“We’re still looking at the current site, other sites around Denver, Lone Tree, Aurora,” said Penner.
They want to be able to do what Dick Montfort has done, which is build out the entire area AROUND the stadium and they can't do that at the current site. There just isn't space.
WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN LOUISVILLE? I got this via someone ratting out the Louisville Fire Department for some VERY questionable monetary issues, and this blog lays out a whole bunch of OTHER issues that the burb is having right now. It is long but makes a LOT of accusations about City Council and staff not doing their jobs properly. I'm going to try to get the author on the show next week.
THIS SEEMS PRETTY HIGH TO ME FOR MASS SHOOTINGS A professor from CU has a new study out that he says shows that 2,337,3000 have been present for a mass shooting event. That is 7% of the population of the US. Even in Colorado, that seems pretty high to me. You can read it here, and I'm going to reach out to have him on the show to discuss.
SENATE WORKING TOWARDS GETTING TRUMP'S AGENDA DONE And this is really good news because they need to get to work making their budget work with the House's budget and they can't do that until the Senate votes. Hopefully this week.
THE NRA IS SUING OVER THE EXCISE TAX As well they should, and I sure hope they sue over the new gun bill that is even worse. Now they are suing over the excise tax passed by anti-gun voters in Colorado.
I DON'T HATE DEPORTATIONS, BUT DUE PROCESS IS NECESSARY I've been pretty open on vacillating on the Mahmoud Khalil story. If you're here on a visa and you give material support to a group labeled terrorists by the government, I'm fine with kicking people out. BUT, and this is a big BUT, even those people deserve due process. We have to trust our system to do the right thing. If we don't, why do we have a system? This editorial lays out the importance of due process, even for people that have expressed unpopular opinions.
WE'VE GOT A MEASLES CASE IN PUEBLO And yes, the person was unvaccinated for measles.
A CASE OF VOTER FRAUD SENDS A WOMAN TO JAIL I wish in these stories they would tell us who they voted for! A 70 year old woman in Castle Rock got 20 days in jail for forging her dead landlord's ballot. Good. Regardless of who she was committing fraud for.
WHEN DO WE LEAVE CONVERSATIONS AND MOVE TO STORIES? I saw this the other day and HOLY COW is this spot on.
When does this transition occur? I am married to one of these men now.
VOICE OF AMERICA IS TOO FAR GONE TO SAVE Whatever it once was, Voice of America has become another media arm of the Democrat party. Read this from a former head of VOA:
Early on in my tenure, the VOA Urdu service, which broadcasts to Pakistan, ran an English-language video that was little more than a Biden campaign ad. Likely intended to be seen by Michigan voters, the video featured President Biden asking for the votes of Muslims. Shockingly, this wasn’t the first time VOA ran a campaign ad. During the 2016 campaign, VOA’s Ukrainian service ran Robert De Niro’s infamous ad insulting Mr. Trump, calling him a punk, a dog and a pig and saying, “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
Outside groups called my attention to the new ad. Career VOA managers couldn’t deny that the video violated the charter as well as basic journalism standards. Under pressure, they took it down.
I wanted to make sure this and other violations of the charter didn’t happen on my watch, so I tried to determine who was responsible. A formal review process, involving one of my lawyers and several career civil servants, recommended firing the contractors who made the video and issuing milder punishments for their VOA managers, such as a few days of leave without pay.
Senior officials had never before been held to account this way. They sued the agency for violating their First Amendment rights, even though they were working for the government and had violated the VOA charter. Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in their favor. My effort at reform failed.
It's time to stick a fork in it and call it a day. And I say this as someone who loves radio more than most.
IS CHATTING WITH AN AI BOT CHEATING? Talk about stuff we didn't have to worry about ten years ago. Now there are questions being asked about relationships with AI bots, especially if someone is in a REAL relationship with an actual human. Is sexting with a bot cheating?
OF COURSE THE YANKEES HIRED A PHYSICIST TO MAKE BATS And so far, the new "torpedo" bats have proven to be quite effective. Read about them here.
THE LEFT'S IMAGINARY COVID AND BIDEN COVER UP RECKONINGS This column is on the way the Left is congratulating themselves for FINALLY realizing every decision made by them (and the Trump admin) was completely wrong when it came to Covid. What is NOT happening is any apologies to those of us who argued (correctly) that they were wrong WHEN they were wrong and doing immeasurable damage to the American economy and children and old people. It reminds me very much of the "reckoning" happening now by journalists and Democrats about how they all actively covered up Joe Biden's significant cognitive decline. They will pat themselves on the back for writing STUNNING and BRAVE books about it now, but where they hell were they when aides were running the country? Save it, you guys WERE the problem so you don't get to be the solution now.
REP JOHN KENNEDY IS A NATIONAL TREASURE For questioning just like this one.
ABOUT THAT GUY WHO JUST QUIT THE FDA If you read about the resignation of Peter Marks in the media you'd think he had unimpeachable credentials and had done his job in an error free way. This column tells you the truth.
DOORBELLS BROKEN, BUT THEY HAVE A FIX Watch below or click here.
ABOUT THAT THIRD TRUMP TERM The short answer is he isn't going to serve a third term.
And here is an adjacent bite.
THIS KID IS AMERICA'S HERO Watch below or click here.
WASH YOUR NASTY WATER BOTTLES And here's how to do it. Watch below or click here.