02-20-26 FULL SHOW - A VA Rules Change Needs Feedback, Veterans, And Baseball

This episode sponsored by She's Birdie. You lock the hotel room door, then check it again, and maybe one more time, because even the nicest room can feel unfamiliar at night. That's why She's Birdie created Birdie Box. With She's Birdie, you can bring peace of mind with you. Birdie Box is a portable travel door alarm for hotels, dorms, Airbnbs, and anywhere you stay away from home. Just attach it to the door frame, switch it on. And if someone opens the door, Birdie Box blasts a loud siren and flashing alarm to alert you and everyone nearby. Because the best part of travel isn't worrying. It's sleeping soundly. Birdie Box from She's Birdie. Locking in peace of mind wherever you stay. For safer, more confident travel, visit she's birdie.com. That's S-H-E-B-I-R-D-I-E.com. The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock accident and injury lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandy Connell, ruin the day. On KLA, 8.50 a.m. 941 FM. Through the static and the noise she cuts through the frame. Mandy Connell keeping ignorance at bay. a Friday edition of the blog. Oh, wait, a Friday? Stop, Andrew. Stop. Well, let's see. Andrew? I know. Andrew? What? Uh-huh. Are you okay? I'm not. I just had a stroke three minutes ago right before the show started. Let's just start the whole thing over again. Let's pretend like that ever happened. Okay, here we go. For real, this time. Do you need me to, like, start the intro again? No. No, I don't. Are you sure? Welcome to the show. It's a Friday edition, all together now. Woo! Yeah, no, we're not going to... Anthony. No, we're not doing it. The Mandy Connell show is sponsored by Bell and Pollock, accident and injury lawyers. Now, it's Mandy Connell. Mandy Connell, room in the day. On K-O-A, 8.50 a.m. 94-1 FM. Well, let's see how we say this.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to a Friday edition of the show. All together now. Woo-hoo! That, my friends, is Anthony Rodriguez. You can call him A-Rod, and I am Mandy Mitch McConnell, yes, yes. For the next, let's see, now that we squander that 50. 50 minutes or so. We have a barn burner of a show. So much stuff is happening. Arod's going to roll back the Trump press conference on the Supreme Court's decision to say, sorry, buddy, your tariffs are not legal. But first, let me do the blog so we can jump into that. And oh my gosh, so much stuff on the blog today. Find the blog by going to mandy's blog.com. Look in the latest post section for the headline that says, 2.2026 blog. A VA rules change needs feedback, veterans, and baseball. click on that. And here are the headlines you will find within. Good evening, Mr. Mr. North from South American, all the ships and clips and see. Let's go to Press Plant. Today on the blog, good news for disabled veterans, but action is still needed. Scrolling, scrolling. I asked the FBI if there were an investigation into pedophiles at the Colorado House. The Supreme Court struck down Trump's tariffs. Michael Bennett hates wolves and wants them dead. Is it time to ban child marriages? Baseball eats the show at 1 p.m. Take that. shy comms, Leslie Herod-run nonprofit blows wads of cash scrolling. Tucker Carlson is pure grifter at this point. Why does, who does Epstein's estate benefit? Denver looks to destroy Alameda Boulevard. Epstein's Oro Ranch is being investigated. The Dem power grab is completely unnecessary. Always trust the dogs, the best from doggy daycare. That time, Dan rather warned about immigration. Charlie Munger gives the most Important decision advice. Zohran Mamdani voters are super salty. Those are the headlines on the blog at mandy's blog.com. Tick, tack, toe. A winner. Come on, Nancy. Yeah, no, she's not going to give it to you. Come on. I'm like, okay, the blog reading is separate from the debacle that happened at the beginning of the show. Separate. Anyway, so right now Donald Trump is speaking. Did you get it back to where we needed to go? Yeah, he is speaking about the fact that the Supreme Court just ruled in a six to three ruling that his tariffs are illegal. So let's hear what the president had to say about that. Mr. President, are you going to ask Congress to take additional action on tariffs now? I don't need you. It's already been approved. I mean, I would ask Congress and probably get it. When people look at the real numbers and you look at hundreds of billions of dollars that have come into our country, yesterday I was at a steel plant, as you know, and I went to a great place, great plant, great wonderful people.

And they were telling me, I said to him, you were there, a lot of the press in this room. Of course, I don't think this plane's big enough to take the press in this room. But a lot of the press right here, we're in Georgia. And I said to the owner, I made a speech at a factory. They made steel products. And I said, how are you? Nice to meet you. How's business? President, I'd love to kiss you. This is a very powerful man. I don't want to be kissed by that man. But a very powerful, strong man, he's been in the steel business for many years. His father started it. And he said, sir, I want to kiss you. He said, why? He said, because we were down to work in one hour a week, and then you came in and imposed tariffs, and all of that foreign junk that they were dropping into our country stopped. And we're now going to double shifts seven days a week, and we may be very soon going to 24 hours around the clock, almost seven days a week. He said, sir, I want to kiss you so badly. And I said, no, thank you. But you know what? And just to finalize it, he said, oh, this is a great place in Georgia. He said, all up and down the highway. Same exact answer, sir. We're all going out of business. We're going to go bankrupt. We're all going out of business. And now every one of us are thriving. And we're hiring people like we haven't. He said like I've never, and he's been in business for I think 45 years like we've never hired before. That's because of tariffs. And we're going to keep it going the same way. And you're going to start to see the results in a year from now. When all those factories start that are under construction right now, you see all the construction numbers are so good. Those construction workers are building factories that are going to be open, including not only AI, which is big, but car plants coming in from Canada who ripped us off for 30% of our market. Mexico ripped us off for a big portion. Over the years, they've taken our market. They've taken our cars. They manufacture them in Japan, Germany, and all over the place. They've taken our cars. They manufacture them in Japan, Germany, and all over the place. In our cars. All right, guys. I mean, we've got a little glitchy thing in the system there, but obviously Trump is not happy. And what happens next? No one knows. The court did not rule on whether or not the United States would have to return the $200 billion that we've collected in tariffs. Now, what's going to be fascinating is, will Congress act? Because all of the dire predictions about inflation have simply not occurred. Inflation hit a low for many, many years this past month. Still over 2%, but the dire predictions have not come true. And the tariffs brought in $200 billion.

You know, I'm not a lawyer, but he laid it out pretty clearly that the arguments being made by the Trump administration hinged on a certain portion of a rule that they interpreted to not mean what the Trump administration had to say. Then I went and read, I have not finished it, Brett Kavanaugh's, Brett Kavanaugh was in the dissent. He wrote a dissenting opinion that said, look. Even if you don't think that the president has the right to do it under these rules, and I'm paraphrasing greatly here, there are other authorities that the president has to levy tariffs. So I don't know. I don't know what happens next. Yes, Anthony. Later in the presser, he took it upon himself to announce more tariffs. Apparently, he announced a new 10% global tariff on all countries under section 122 over and above existing tariffs. So even more. And he may have the right to do that under that section, but that's not the section that the Trump administration was arguing under. You know what I'm saying? So John Roberts push back on the arguments that were made by the Trump administration. He, although John Roberts is the one who found all kinds of ways to make the Obamacare mandate attacks. Remember that. John Roberts is not afraid to go rogue. So I don't like when the president, any president, criticizes the Supreme Court and considering that this man has appointed three of the people on the court, one of whom ruled against him. In this situation, I don't necessarily think that he should be bitching about the makeup of the court. Okay, we're going to talk more about that on Monday, but I have so much stuff I want to talk about today that has more to do with us right now in this moment. Number one, I reached out to the FBI. If you missed the show yesterday, you heard you missed. Representative Scott Bottoms saying that there is an FBI investigation into a pedophile, not pedophile ring, he didn't say that, into pedophiles at the Colorado Capitol. And I said, I need some kind of verification on that because I don't believe you. I mean, there's no other way to put it. And I reached out to the... FBI via their public information officer who is authorized to speak on behalf of the FBI. And I sent them an email. I should have pulled up the email before I did this one moment. It was a very simple email. It wasn't super complicated. So it will only take me a second to read it. It said, let's see here. Pull that up. It says from me. Hi, hi person, who's the PIO. I'm trying to get confirmation about the existence of an investigation by the FBI that has allegedly been going on for three years into pedophiles at the Colorado House of Representatives. These claims are being made by a candidate for governor and current House member, Scott Bottoms, and I'm simply trying at this time to confirm that existence of such an investigation, thanks in advance for your help. So I said that, and this is what I got back.

While individuals are free to speak about interactions they might or might not have had with the FBI, we do not, as a matter of practice, discuss or describe any contact we have had or allegedly have with individuals. The FBI receives many complaints of criminal activity and how we handle them is a confidential process. Similarly, to protect the privacy of people who contact the FBI, we cannot confirm or deny any particular contact. As a general matter, allegations of criminal conduct are reviewed by the FBI for their merit with consideration of any applicable federal laws. Such a review does not necessarily result in the opening of an investigation, an arrest, or a referral to the U.S. Attorney's Office or local district attorney for prosecution. The FBI does not confirm or deny... any investigation, if there's a criminal prosecution, that information is made public by the prosecutor or court at the appropriate time. Oh, to the text who you just pointed out, yes, Gorsuch was in the majority that voted him down as well. So that's too, Donald J. Trump, because they, you know, I think probably adhered to the Constitution. I mean, call me crazy. So back to this. What they're supposed to do. Yeah, back to this FBI situation. So we still don't know if there's an FBI investigation. We'll see if Scott Bottoms wants to provide more information or verification or whatever. Now, coming up at 1230. Yesterday I saw a post by my friend Rob Williams. You guys may know him from his time here, losing it of the day. Yeah, that was a shot. And he is a passionate advocate for veterans. And there was an interim final rule entitled Evaluative Rating Impact of Medication in the Federal Register. And what it meant was the VA was trying to change the disability ratings for veterans if medication... was controlling their symptoms. This is a disaster. This, I mean, disaster. Number one, medication stops working. It does, especially psychiatric medications over time. drugs lose their efficacy, and that would mean that veterans would have to go through the whole process again. Lots of, lots of reasons, and we're going to talk to Rob at 1230 about this. Now, the good news is that the VA Secretary Doug Susan Collins did come out yesterday and say we have suspended this rule, but you are still welcome to comment. So he will comment, and Rob will comment. I have already commented. I have weighed in on this. I am not happy about it. We'll talk more about that at 1230 with Rob. Okay, so Michael Bennett hates wolves and wants them dead. That's my headline, but there's an asterisk. Of course, Michael Bennett doesn't hate wolves. I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't want wolves in my backyard eating my dog, but I don't hate wolves. That being said, Michael Bennett has wandered into something of a situation.

regarding wolves. Now, if you don't know how badly the wolf-free introduction has failed, holy crap. Not only have we spent a ton, a ton of money on wolves and paying for the livestock that they've killed. A lot of the wolves are already dead. Some of them have been shot. Some of them hit by a car. One of them was killed by another wolf. I mean, they're dropping like flies here. Can't imagine. Can't imagine. But Bennett went on the record with a newspaper, and this is where he really messed up. Michael Bennett said... I think it's right to suspend it for now, talking about the Wolf program. I think it's right to suspend it for now and to try and see whether there's any way to get back to a place where we're implementing the original plan with fidelity. But if we're not able to implement with fidelity, then we shouldn't continue. I agree. I 100% agree. with Senator Michael Bennett. If it's not working, we don't need to double down, right? We need to figure out why it's not working if it can be fixed. And if it can't be fixed, we all need to move on. Just three days later, though, in a different interview with a different newspaper, asked about the reintroduction of wolves, one of the most contentious issues in northwest Colorado, Bennett wouldn't open answer with a simple yes or no. Bennett told the pilot he met with Route County ranchers and that the state had not followed the process well. The senator said the pause for 26, due in part to the state's inability to source wolves, was appropriate and could give the state time to regroup and reconsider how to go forward. So he's waffling on this. Waffling. Waffling. So that's on there. And of course the wolf activists are like, Michael Bennett hates wolves and wants them all to die. That's why I put that headline in there. Mandy, maybe we should kill all animals that harm livestock and humans. Look, here's the thing. If you're a wild animal out there, if you're a mountain lion and you're not going around tearing up people's livestock or attacking people on a regular basis, I want you to go about your business. But unfortunately, in violation of the promises that the state made. to not accept wolves that had already been known to attack livestock. We brought wolves from Canada, excuse me, from Washington State that actually had a history of attacking wolves.

You know, anyway, let's take a quick time out. Rob joins me next. Keep it on K-O-A. I wanted to do something useful. If you are a disabled veteran or know someone or love someone who is a disabled veteran, you're going to want to hear this next story. And I'm going to tell you, if you are a disabled veteran, nothing you're about to hear is going to surprise you. Okay. Joining me now is my friend and tireless advocate for his veteran brothers and sisters, Rob Williams, to talk about an inter... rule change, which I want to be clear went into effect and apparently there was so much backlash they have suspended the rule temporarily. Is that correct, Rob? It is. It is. So far, it's... I was going to say... Suspended right now. And this is why we are still talking about it, right? Because normally it's like we would declare victory and move on. They did not eliminate the rule. They suspended the rule, which means it could be unsuspended at any time. So let's talk about what that rule change was going to do, Rob. Go ahead and share that. So basically, Wednesday night, under the cover of darkness... The Department of Veterans Affairs passed or put on the books a rule that said that if you are a veteran and your disability rating is less than 100%, excuse me, your compensation rating is less than 100%. What would happen is if you were... what you're being treated for is controlled by medication, your compensation will be reduced based on if your treatment is fixed by that medication. So if you're being treated for, say, post-traumatic stress or knee pain or something like that, and that is fixed by medication, the Department of Veterans Affairs is going to reduce your financial compensation that you receive for that ailment. because you're getting medication for it, so you don't really need that financial compensation anymore. They did not give anyone any warning, so veterans opened up their mail or their social media on Thursday morning, and they're like, or Wednesday morning, excuse me, and they were like, surprise, this is what's going to happen as of now. And to say that the veteran community was in an uproar is to... drastically undermined. It was just, it wasn't, no one saw this coming. No one was prepared for this. And, yeah. Well, I, and you know, one of my big beefs with the VA is that they're super good at giving out addictive drugs, right? So if you are disability rated because your back was destroyed during your military service, which is one of the most. common physical issues that disabled veterans have. Their backs are so destroyed from jumping out of airplanes and doing all the other crap that veterans do, that if you are, if that pain is managed by narcotics, they're going to reduce your disability rating. Is that what they were proposing? Precisely, precisely that. And let's set aside the...

let's set aside the veteran community for just a moment and the American citizen you should be completely outraged by this your veteran population we are multipliers to your economy to your community and to just surprise us and spring this on us and just It was uncalled for. And honestly, so this rule has now been rescinded temporarily. Right. And so it still exists. It's still on the books. And they could spring this back on us at any time. The GI Bill alone, things like that, we are multipliers to your economy. My children alone, both of my kids used my GI Bill. My daughter is a welder. My son went to school for automotive at one point and work as an automotive tech. We are multipliers to your country, to your community, to your nation. And just look at us as a financial obligation to your country is minimizing us. And that's a problem. That's a very, very real problem. Rob, let me interject on this just for a second, because you're talking about the economic benefits that veterans bring to the United States of America. But because you guys volunteered to go out and run towards danger, I have the liberty to come and sit on the radio like an idiot and say the things that I say. Arod has the chance to pursue his dreams. The welder that your daughter works with has the opportunity to live in peace because brave men and women decided they would take the responsibility of protecting the country. Forget the economic impact. Like I don't give a rat's ass about the economic impact. a lot more care and concern to the people like my husband, like you, like all of the veterans that I've met in Colorado, who have sacrificed not just during the time that you were in the military, but for the rest of your lives, dealing with the stuff that you got while you were serving. That's for me, that should be the end of it. That should be it. We owe you a debt of gratitude that goes well beyond making sure that you can rely on a disability payment that is maybe for some veterans the only thing that's keeping them from being homeless. Let's be real. Oh, I agree completely. What I need people to recognize is that we are more than just simply a line item on an economic budget. We are also, just like you're describing. Humans were people. And yeah, you're exactly right. The veteran population is facing a huge, huge suicide epidemic. And if the VA's answer is, we're just going to keep throwing pills at it until it goes away.

you're going to make this suicide problem significantly worse, significantly worse. Especially if a disabled veteran who's on medication for post-traumatic stress or other mental illness issues has to decide if I don't stop taking my medication, I'm not going to be able to pay my rent. Those are the kinds of decisions that we're really talking about here. So let me get to this before we have to take a break. Today on the blog, I put a huge post that Rob put together. It has all the information about how to make a comment. You can make a comment. And I want to... bury the Veterans Administration. I want them to get so much feedback that no pencil pusher will ever try this again. I want it to be so loud and clear that this will go the way of the dodo bird and will never rear its ugly head again. So all of that information about how to weigh in on this rule is on today's blog right at the top, can't miss it, has links of where you need to go. We have made this idiot proof, or I should say Rob has made this idiot. prove so all you have to do is follow the directions on what he said but please for the love of god don't wait don't put it off don't say i'll do it monday do it today that way you know it gets done do not procrastinate on this mandy thank you for your tireless support for veterans i can't thank you enough for your unwavering support of the veteran community Well, I was never part of a military family. And then I married a guy that the Army, a job he loved more than anything in the world, the Army broke into a million little pieces, put him back together badly, and then sent him on his way. So it's very real for me. And, and, you know, here's the thing I did put on the blog, like, this rule would not affect Chuck's disability rating because no medication is going to replace a finger and fix bullet holes, right? I mean, there's no medication that's going to do that. me it's personal but not financially personal it's just personal because all of these men and women deserve so much better than what we're giving them and and our generations saw the way that the vietnam veteran generation was treated and we were not going to let that happen and they were not going to let that happen to us right and the gwatt generation sees what's happening now And we are not going to let those that come behind us. We're not going to let that happen to those that come behind us. So we're going to come together and we're going to stand together to make sure that this does not happen to the generations that come behind us. Amen to you. Go to the blog today. Mandy's blog.com. Find it, comment, do it now. I've already sent my comments. They already know what I feel. And don't curse. Don't be ugly because they will discard your comment. If you get ugly or threatening or nasty or curse words, they will just delete your comment. nothing. So make sure you do it in a thoughtful way. Rob is laid out the best way to do it. It's on the blog. Good to see you, my friend. We've got to get together for our cup of tea.

Anytime you're ready. All right. We will talk to Rob later and we'll be right back on K-O-A. If you would like to make a comment, all of the information is there. The link to click. It is so easy on the blog today and I hope you do it. So let me scroll down here. Michael Bennett hates wolves. Time to ban child marriage. Did you know? Oh gosh, there's so much stuff. Okay. I got like seven minutes. Leslie Herrett, former state rep. Leslie loves to cry racism at every opportunity. Leslie was given a cushy position on the executive board for an organization that was designed. And funded by a voter initiative. And the fund is administered through the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. And they awarded more than $185 million in grants to 270 organizations last year. What were the grants supposed to do? Well, they were supposed to do things with mental health services, drug abuse prevention, and facilities with those with mental health needs. So 185 million, that's a lot. They just did an audit. You've really got to go and read this on the blog today. Through reviewing 734 expense reports from January 2022 through January 2025, the auditor found that 81% were related to meal reimbursements, and most of them, 94% did not have the proper documentation. Now, Arod, what happens to us here at Iheart if we submit expenses and don't provide the proper documentation? You get yelled at? Oh, no, they don't pay them. They don't pay them. They will not. I was trying to expense a parking expense, and on the receipt I got from the parking garage, there was no information, and they're like, sorry, we can't reimburse you for that. Great. Fantastic. Super excited about that. Anyway, the whole thing is laid out on the blog. What's really funny about this is that Leslie Herod was just hired by another nonprofit. Oh, yeah. This story should be big. I don't know if it's going to be. We'll find out. I've got a proof that Tucker Carlson is nothing but a massive grifter. That's on the blog today. Hey, if you live along Alameda Boulevard, remember the road diet that the Denver was going to put Alameda on and take it down to two lanes? Well, it's back. Oh, yeah. And I have questions. We all know that Denver adopted a plan called Vision Zero. Vision Zero, a Swedish design program created to bring an end-to-road deaths, has been widely adopted in the U.S. But, let me turn this. Oh, hang on, there we go. But after its introduction in Denver, we have actually seen crashes resulting in serious injuries and death go up and not just by a little bit. Since 2017, when Denver adopted the Vision Zero program, deaths in Denver traffic tests are up 82%. Crash is resulting in serious injuries in the city during the period of crime climbed 22%. Now, I have questions. Number one, Sweden is a bike riding culture.

It is very normal in Sweden when the weather is lovely to hop on your bike and do all of that. So creating a safer situation in Sweden where people are used to riding bicycles, sharing the road with bicycles, is super easy. Obviously, it's not translating to Denver. But would you ever, I mean, could you ever imagine that Denver City Council would go, hey, I know we adopted this, but yeah, it's not working. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. So, yeah, what exactly do you want to do next? They will not say it was a failure. Here's my question. And I don't know if they looked at this before they decided to shave off two lanes of Alameda, which is going to be an absolute nightmare. And if you live in the neighborhoods around this area, oh boy, you guys are going to see new levels of traffic that you're not going to believe as people go to avoid this part of Alameda. Instead of saying, this didn't work, or asking the question that I really want the answer to, in the pedestrian death situation or serious injury crash situation, who was it fault? Was it the car blowing through a stop sign or blowing through a red light? Was it the pedestrian walking out from between two parked cars or not paying or not using the crosswalk? Who is at fault for these accidents? Because I think that's really important to deciding how to solve the problem. In Las Vegas, and Arod can attest to this. You cannot simply cross the street on the strip. It's, you can't just walk across. There are concrete barricades that are between the sidewalk and the road. You know why? Because drunk people in Las Vegas kept wandering into the road and getting killed. So you know what Las Vegas did? They didn't narrow the strip. No, they didn't do any of that. They made it impossible for a pedestrian to cross the street. You now have to go up and over walkways and you're going upstairs and downstairs and upstairs and upstairs. But you know what? You know what it did? It prevented the people who were causing accidents by walking into the street from getting killed. Because Vegas looked at who is causing the accident, and then they fixed that problem. Why isn't Denver doing the same? Mandy, shouldn't Vision Zero start with zero, non-U.S. Citizens be given driver's license, especially truck CDL driver's licenses? Yes, it should. That would be fantastic. Correlation isn't causation. A lot of Gen Z started driving around then, too, just saying, guys, I hate to break it to you. I know we all think that it's young people that have the most fatal accidents. It is not. It is the elderly. Don't get me wrong. I don't want a young person to drive me most of the time. Mandy, what about the mess on Colfax? You mean the program that's going to make it easier for people to hop a bus to get one end of Colfax to the other? I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure. You may want to dial in if you're worried about that strip of Colfax. We also have a great column on the blog today by our friend Jimmy Sangenberger about the latest moves by Democrats in this state to subvert the will of Colorado voters by redoing redistricting, even though we already fixed that problem with our fair districting ballot that we voted for it to the tune of 71%.

I also have a super cool story on the blog today that you can read after I leave because baseball is going to start in just a minute. Apparently, female dogs can tell when a person doesn't know what they're doing. Oh, yeah. In a study where dogs watch people either complete an easy task or not and then be offered a treat by those individuals, the dogs went with the more competent people. Baseball's coming up. Let's hope it's competent. I'll see you guys on Monday right here on the radio on KLA.