02-10-26 FULL SHOW - A Bill On Human Trafficking, And A Cherry Creek Schools Mess

Hey everybody, Lady Luck here, and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on SpinQuest.com, which is an American-owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to SpinQuest.com. Get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit SpenQuest.com for more details. If you're someone who's tracking your sleep, your steps, and your macros, then you already know that what you eat is kind of everything. You should also know that Sprouts Farmer's Market can help make eating for longevity easier. Sprouts has all the high-quality, nutrient-dense, organic foods, and cutting-edge supplements you need. So whether you're focused on protein, gut health, or optimizing how you feel day-to-day, it's all there. And here's what no other grocery store can offer, an in-store wellness expert to help you find exactly what you need. So whether you're after longevity or on any other health journey, it's easier at Sprout's Farmer's Market. Your whole neighborhood goes black in seconds. Except your house. The Patriot Power Generator 2,200X from Four Patriots keeps your lights on when the grid goes down. It's the most powerful generator Four Patriots has ever built. Four Patriots gives you backup power without gas, fumes, or a loud engine, just lights, a cold fridge, and peace of mind when the power fails. Right now, save $500 and get two solar panels free. That means you can recharge twice as fast, but only while supplies last. Keep your lights on, your food cold, and your family calm when the grid goes down. Don't wait for the next blackout. Visit fourpatriots.com today. That's the number four, P-A-T-R-I-O-T-S dot com. And see why families trust four Patriots to stay ready. Anthony Rodriguez not here taking a day off after working like 90 hours in a row. I mean, whatever. It was like just like 100 hours. The guy replacing him, Shannon Scott, for the next hour anyway. I mean, Shannon, you're generally on the 90 hours in a row plan, right? I mean, that's just your schedule. You know, A. Rod was like, but I worked 15-hour days every day last week. Blah, blah, blah. It's fine. No, he'll be back tomorrow. Just kidding. We're happy to have Shannon filling in for him. For an hour, Zach will join us in the next hour. Shannon, I emailed you some stuff. You got that. Okay, there you go. In the meantime, let's do the blog, shall we? Because it is chalk full today. Chuck, you might even need two hands. You might even need... Some kind of assistance to lift it up today. That's how big the blog is. Find the blog by going to mandy's blog.com. That's mandiesblog.com. Look for the headline that says 2.10, 26 blog, a bill on human trafficking, and a Cherry Creek school's mess. Click on that, and here are the headlines you will find within. Good evening. Mr. Mr. North and South American, all the ships and clips. Let's go to Press. On the blog, human trafficking is too much of a thing in Colorado. Legislators are trying to address it. Cherry Creek School sees more turmoil. Trump rolls back Obama-era CO2 rules. Taxing vacant houses won't solve housing issues. Another reason to hate Mitch McConnell. DPS board president, Soshi Gatan, wants no consequences. For law-breaking kids, the homeless RVs are taking over Broomfield. Yes, you're getting ripped off at the airport.

legislation being proposed about it. Medicaid caregivers get a reprieve. Will robots save the Republic? Iran is testing my non-interventionist bones. Out of shape can mean short tempers. Isn't this the kind of old-fashioned matchmaking? Look, another tax disguised as a fee. We are not feeling optimistic. Speaking of systemic stuff and nonsense, Jake Paul, crying for his fiance, is everything the Olympics is about. NBC is crushing their coverage with one exception. The tyranny of the minority. Have a cuppa. TSA adds new crap to the luggage bans. Why doesn't the government crack down on fraud? Cheap places to visit this year. AI regret over Super Bowl spending. Those are the headlines on the blog at mandy's blog.com. Now, I've got a couple things that I want to draw your attention to. The first of which is that at 1 o'clock, former DA Mitch Morrissey, is going to join us to talk about a new Common Sense Institute report on human trafficking. Human trafficking is one of those things that I think most people don't want to really think about because it's so vile. It's so horrible. forcing someone into a situation where they are required to have sex with random people for money that they don't even get. You know, I can make an argument as a small L. Libertarian for the legalization of prostitution. Because if I am an adult woman and I want to engage in adult sexual relations with another person and they want to give me money for it, I... knock yourself out, right? I mean, in a way, isn't that kind of what Onlyfans is? Only it's not two ways, it's just one way, that the money is anyway. But we're not talking about that. We're not talking about an informed adult person making a choice of their own volition. What we have is people, women, specifically, and I'm sure there are boys that are also trafficked. I know there are. There are women and children that are put in a position by people who then force them into sex slavery and then they take all the money. And, you know, the devastating effects of this long term are significant. I've interviewed women who were rescued from sex trafficking. I've interviewed three women in my entire career about this. I could probably interview one every day if I really wanted to, but I'm telling you it is the most draining conversation you've ever heard because... All three of the women that I have interviewed and not connected to one another. These were years apart were trafficked initially by their parents. And when you hear that, I mean, for anyone who is a good and decent parent, which I believe a vast majority of parents are good and decent parents, when you hear about the depths of depravity that...

Parents who, by the way, all of these parents were all addicts. They were all addicts and they basically sold their daughters for drugs. Not even a lot of drugs in one case. Like basically a hit in one case when the girl was four years old. So from the time she was four until she was 12, she was kept by her trafficker and prostituted from the age of four to the age of 12. I met her when she was 40-ish somewhere around there. And she said, Like three nights a week, she still has nightmares at the age of 40. She was rescued at 12 by a pastor down the street. A pastor who saw this young girl and the way she was behaving. And one day she walked by the house, he went inside, had his wife come out, because he knew if he talked to her, she would never talk to him. Had his wife come out and say, are you okay? Our house is a safe space. If you ever need help, we are here. And she went home that night and thought about it and thought about it. Crawled out her window, went to the neighbor's house, and that's how she got rescued. So it was one moment. I have goosebumps right now thinking about these stories because they're so absolutely awful examples of how depraved humans can be. You know, it's easy to go through life and talk about how hard we have it. And I joke about it sometimes. Like, sometimes I find myself in my normal life complaining about things that are so... stupid in the grand scheme of things yesterday i'm in traffic okay and i'm not one of these people i don't normally freak out in traffic but i'm in traffic traffic is moving along in a nice clip everyone's kind of going along at the same speed roughly five miles per hour over the speed limit okay on 470 but we're all doing it as a group we've all decided we're all going to go five miles over the speed limit and then We'd run up on the two people who have decided we're not going to go five miles over the speed limit. We are going to go to the speed limit. And they just bottlenecked everything in an instant. Now, they were not breaking the law. So in theory, I should not have been upset. And yet, I found myself super mad about this for like 30 seconds. And then I'm like, wait a minute. I'm driving down the road in an automobile that I own in a country that allows me to do this without hassling me. I don't have to show my papers. I don't have to do all these things. And I'm complaining because I had a tiny bit of traffic after sailing above the speed limit for God only knows how long. It's like I'm constantly having to check myself. And when I think about the stories that I've heard about human trafficking, holy cow, it's horrific. And Colorado, I did not realize we have a significant problem with human trafficking. I don't know why I was surprised when I read the report from the Common Sense Institute. I mean, where we are geographically and the kind of lax attitude towards law enforcement that we have here, it's no wonder, right? It's no wonder.

So we're going to talk to Mitch Morrissey about this new study. It's just not good. Now, the legislature is trying to do something about it. But I love it when you're like, okay, who could possibly be against this? Increasing the penalties. Oh, I was telling you, when she was 40, she was still having nightmares about her time in sex captivity, which is what she called it. She was in sexual captivity. And when they did track down the man who not only trafficked her, but I guess he had like four or five other girls that he was overseen. He went to jail for two years. He kept her in captivity for eight years. She never went to school. She was never allowed to really leave the house. I mean, she was basically a captive. And he went to school or jail for two years. and she was too young to understand, like, how to advocate. And it was back in the day, so it was just different, right? It doesn't need to be different. I am just going to say it. I think men who pay to have sex with children and young teenagers deserve to go to prison for the rest of their lives. Hard stop, full stop. I don't care what happens to them in prison. I hope they rock. I just, because that kind of abuse, it becomes, Too much for some to bear. You look at the woman, Virginia Guthrie, who really started the Jeffrey Epstein ball rolling, she ended up committing suicide. Now, I don't think she committed suicide specifically because of what happened with Jeffrey Epstein, but I do think it sets in motion the kind of mental illnesses or the kind of mental difficulties that would lead someone down a path that could eventually lead in suicide. It's incredibly devastating. So we're going to talk to Mitch Morrissey about that at one. I have a couple stories on the blog that are kind of like, you look at them and you're like, okay, that's not that big a deal. But let me just start with this one. This is a very, very, very big deal. Now, the entire underpinning. Of our green economy, which we all know is a big fat line, it's going to make everything more expensive, is a 2009 rule passed by the Obama administration. Before you get super mad at Obama, I mean, you can be, but there was a real reason why they had to do that at that moment. In 2009, the Obama EPA declared CO2 a greenhouse gas and essentially a pollutant, therefore allowing carbon dioxide emissions to be regulated by the federal government via the EPA. Without that endangerment finding, which is what it's called, we found we believe that CO2 is endangering the world. Now, let me just break this down for you who didn't pay attention in biology class. The carbon cycle, as it's called, is just kind of the fundamental step of our entire existence on Earth. Like plants.

Suck in our carbon dioxide. They photosynthesize it. They release oxygen. We ourselves, I looked this up today. Shannon, do you want to take a guess how much of your body is made up of carbon? What percentage do you think of your body is carbon? 20. You're very close. 18.5. Very good guess, although you would have lost on the price is right, but that's okay. They don't ask hard questions on the price is right. Okay, so you just skip that part. But we ourselves are made of carbon. Everything in the world that is natural is made of carbon. Everything. The entire ecosystem is made of carbon. And yet in 2009, the Barack Obama Environmental Protection Agency declared it a pollutant. And that rule is what everything that we are dealing with is predicated on, right? The ability of the federal government to regulate carbon. dioxide emissions is what has really created a huge amount of problems, especially when it comes to car manufacturing. You want to know why a new car now costs an average over 50 grand. The average cost of a new automobile is over $50,000. Do you think it's just because carmakers are trying to gouge everybody? I can assure you carmakers who have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of new cars sitting on the lot right now that they can't sell because people can't afford them. We'd love to tell you, oh, we're going to make a car that's $15,000. We're going to do it. It can't. Because the federal government has made so many edicts that have added a tremendous amount to the price of every single car. It's the exact same as the housing market here in Colorado. The geniuses in the government have added so many edicts to what a home has to have in terms of energy efficiency. I mean, you can talk about safety edicts in one category and like, you know what, it's probably a good idea that in states like Florida where you have hurricanes, houses have to be built to hurricane standards. That just makes sense. That's like a rational, logical thing, right? You have to make it so it's wind resistant up to a certain number or a certain mile per hour. But they're not doing that here in Colorado. They're mandating what kind of appliances can go in your house. They've taken the least expensive and most efficient forms gas out of new homes entirely. They're requiring in some areas that you put in an electric vehicle charger in your home. Even if you don't have an electric vehicle. I mean, all of these things, these edicts, these mandates, they make everything more expensive. And this rule in 2009, this endangerment finding. And by the way, it wasn't just carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is the crux of the issue. It was also methane and NO2, which is nitrous oxide dioxide.

Now, the NO2 thing you need to know, I think, and I checked into this a little bit this morning, but I couldn't find a definitive connection. I'm looking for a definitive connection. I believe that's why your water heaters and your furnaces just got exponentially more expensive here in Colorado. Because now you have to have a low-knox emission water heater or furnace, and they are so much more expensive. so much more expensive than your standard regular furnaces and water heaters that we've all had for years and yet none of us have died from them right i mean do we have this big slew of people dying from nitrous dioxide poisoning or nitrous oxide poisoning from their water heaters and their furnaces is this a thing that is happening because i have not seen that you know what else i look for today this is totally unrelated but kind of related because i read something today about how it was a column And the column was Donald Trump shuttered NSAID or USAID. Millions of people will die. So I looked to see where these giant numbers of people are dying all over the world. Couldn't find them. Weird. So weird. So I'm guessing there's a lagging indicator there. So I should, maybe this year, Shannon, 2026 is the year that everybody's going to drop dead from us not funding left-wing NGOs all over the world. Any time now. Just dropping like flies. You're just getting, yeah, exactly. You're just going to have to, you're going to have to step over the dead bodies everywhere because of that. But this is in one fell swoop. By the way, it's not one fell swoop. I don't want to make this seem like Donald Trump made this decision because he tried to do this in his first White House and got cracked back on because of the procedure with which he did it. Not necessarily that it was a bad idea, but the procedure was the problem. So what did he do this time? He actually directed in the manner prescribed the EPA to go back and reevaluate the science on carbon dioxide and other things and then make a decision about whether or not to alter that endangerment finding. And the EPA came out yesterday and said, yeah, we're not doing that anymore. But they did it the right way. Anyway, now what's funny about this, and this is what I really love, absolutely love it. Last year. A group of climate-minded Democrats wrote Monday to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, accusing the agency of improperly moving to terminate a federal greenhouse gas tracking program that blue states have used as a model for their own carbon tax cap and trade systems. The greenhouse gas reporting program was created under a congressional appropriation during the Obama administration. It funded an EPA rule requiring large energy producers and other high emission industry.

to report their greenhouse gas output levels. Representative Sean Kasten, a green energy engineer. You know, if I said... that I was talking about doing away with this carbon dioxide rule. And I quoted a representative who was from the oil and gas industry. What do you think people on the left would say that would be like, of course. He's a shell. He's a shell for oil and gas. So let me just say it. Representative Sean Kasten, a green energy engineer. Of course. He's a show for the green energy industry. He had a key role, by the way, in crafting the regional greenhouse gas initiative. He praised in blue states and criticized. Yeah. So he says they're violating a congressional mandate. Lee Zeldin, I believe, responded with, okay, whatever. It's fine. It's totally fine. So we'll see what happens next. There will be lawsuits about this. Like the administration did this. They followed the proper procedure. They've done all the things the right way. They've crossed all the T's. They've dotted the eyes. They know they're going to be sued. But the chances of a stay happening about this are very small. Very, very small. So it's fascinating stuff. I mean, this has such huge ripple effects. And to be clear, you guys, for all the people on the left that are like, those conservatives just want dirty air and dirty water, that makes no sense. I don't want dirty air, but I understand the carbon cycle and carbon dioxide's role. By the way, I read a really cool thing, and then I could not find it again. I think it's in science, but I'll find it again, talking about how a one degree rise in temperature. And the carbon dioxide levels that we have in the world right now, those two things will create such an agricultural boon that we will have enough food to feed the world for the foreseeable future. It's not all gloom and doom when you actually look at the science.

And for 24 hours, 36 hours, arguing against something that over 80% of Americans already support. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little bit salivating at this. Like I think that would be kind of cool. Like super cool. So the question remains is whether or not Mitch is going to do the right thing or as this column from the federalist decides. He's going to John McCain it. Now, I am one of those people that is really open about my dislike for John McCain. My dislike for John McCain preceded his personal vendetta that left us with Obamacare. I think he's a warmonger. I don't like the guy. When he died, I had nothing to say because I'm from the South. And if you can't say anything good about someone after they died, don't say anything at all, right? Well, he's been dead long enough. I feel like I can let my feelings be known. John McCain screwed the American people because he is a petty, was a petty, spiteful man. That is why we still have Obamacare because of that. And there's a chance that Mitch McConnell might spike this just to screw over Donald Trump. Because there's no love loss between he and Donald Trump, none. Mitch McConnell is the old school Republican who stands on ceremony, even when ceremony doesn't matter, who's willing to try and, you know, he believes that the Democrats are going to work in good faith on occasion. He was a great majority leader and minority leader years ago, but he's not anymore, and he's not anymore the leader, by the way. John Thune is. But I am fascinated because if this happens, holy cow. Now, Democrats are arguing against this by arguing that this would nationalize elections, which I am also opposed to because nationalizing elections overall is clearly unconstitutional. The constitutional clearly lays out that states control how the elections are run, but, and this is a big but, we have consistently, over the years, allowed federal laws to impact. State election policy. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, who I have interviewed many, many times. He said the Save Act simply fixes a flawed section of a national election law, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. It bars states from requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in registering to vote. Instead, the states just had to use the honor system. So it merely fixes a prior federal elections-related bill. We'll see how this goes. We will see. But if Mitch McConnell, I mean, I'm just... It would be on brand. That's all I'm saying. I'm your host, Mandy Connell, got a lot of stuff on our plate today. None more important than the next story I'm going to share with you. I have a question about this, and I'm kind of being sarcastic. So Elon Musk has been all over X talking about how.

When AI and robotics really get up and running, we're not going to have to work anymore. Work is going to be a thing that we do because we want to, but life is going to be easy, peasy, lemon, squeezy. And I keep tweeting at Elon Musk, well, what about when people don't have purpose, right? Because when people lose purpose. It can be devastating. And the reason I believe that so strongly is you see what happens. And I'm going to use Eastern Kentucky as an example because that was really, it's still going on, but it was going on full war when I was there. They shut down the coal mines. There were no jobs. And you know what happened? Everybody got hooked on drugs. They became one of the like ground zero for oxy cotton addiction. And it was partially, in my view, because when people don't have purpose, they just fail. We talk about it in retirement all the time. Like if you don't have purpose, you're not going to have a happy retirement. Now, purpose could be something much different for anyone. Like my purpose in retirement might be, I might want to volunteer at a school and help kids with reading. Your purpose may be building model airplanes, right? I mean, you just have to have something to keep you going. You got to have purpose. Well, now Elon Musk is talking about something that I talk about all the time because I think it is the biggest issue facing our society and that is government spending in the U.S. debt. If you look at history, that is going to be what brings down the U.S. empire. And yes, I firmly believe that we are an empire. We're not one of those empires that spreads our fingers all over the world, but we are an empire. And now Elon Musk is saying, look, If we can't get the debt under control in time for robotics and AI to save us, we are going to go bankrupt very, very quickly. And I'm like, okay, great. How does AI and robots? How does that solve the national debt problem? And I mean, this genuinely, unless you're going to replace government workers with robots, I mean, that would be kind of cool. In some cases, could the service be worse? Now, I will say this. I've had some delightful experiences with government offices recently. The DMV, I'm looking at you guys. You are amazing here in Colorado. Just had a delightful experience at a DM. Okay, it took me forever to get an appointment, but once I was there, it was fantastic. But I thought I would ask you guys, because maybe you have insight that I don't have. of how AI and robotics is going to help. I mean, is he just saying we're going to grow out of it? Like our economy is going to explode because of what? I don't know. I mean, I would love the opportunity to talk to Elon Musk and ask him these questions because I worry about what happens to people when they don't have jobs. We've seen it does not go well. We love to assume that people are going to pursue their passions. Oh, you have a passion for poetry. You can sit around and write poems all day long. That lasts for like three days. And you're like, and now what? What do we do now? You know?

I was driving through a rough part of a major city. And I noticed something about the people on the streets. It was like 11 o'clock in the afternoon. And all over the street corners, there were men just loitering. Not like looking for work loitering like you see outside of Home Depot. I mean, just hanging out, shooting the crap with their friends. And I'm thinking to myself, first of all, how do you do that as an adult? Like, how do you even? It's so, I can't even imagine not working. I just, I don't know how you do it. But secondarily, it's like people do not rise to their occasion. They lower to the lowest common denominator. It's kind of sad. Mandy, if you want purpose in retirement, get a dog seriously. I know. I know. What does Mandy Connell folk think of the pictures of the subject from the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie? I generally really don't care, but this is weird as blank. If you're talking about the new images that have been released of the person who went up and did something to her ring camera, super creepy. Like this whole story is super, just got way, way, way creepier. But again, until there's news to talk about, I don't have anything to talk about it. Mandy, my father's sole purpose in retiring was to retire. I think he lived a whole three months after he retired. Exactly right. What does Mandy call? Oh, wait, I already asked that one. And last question. Mandy, Michael Brown, wrong, Dan Kaplan's wrong, but Ryan Shuling has the answer. It will be big if we still had journalists, it would be, okay, I don't even know what you're talking about. This texter is like, can I just say this? A texter's giving me crap for not covering something that was covered by a, quote, part-time journalist and podcaster. You know what? Sorry, I don't pay attention to part-time journalists and podcasters, and now they're being coy. about what it is. And now if you even send it to me, I'm not covering it just to be spiteful. When we get back, former DA Mitch Morrissey is joining me to talk about human trafficking in Colorado and a new report from the Common Sense Institute with all the ugly details. Joining me now is Common Sense Institute fellow and former district attorney Mitch Morrissey. Mitch, first of all, welcome, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So as a DA, I want to ask you this first. Did you prosecute cases about human trafficking when you were district attorney? Well, you know, I was there for 33 years. In the last 12, I was the elected DA. They didn't call it human trafficking, but I did handle a case where a grandmother was selling her four-year-old granddaughter down on Larimer Street. We didn't call it human trafficking then, but I did have a case like that. You know, I was never really assigned to a unit where kids were victims, but I will tell you that in 2000,

In 2012, we started in Denver, Denver's Anti-Trafficking Alliance. And what we were trying to do is address human trafficking with a multidisciplinary approach where we had 40 different agencies on board to help deal with this issue. We had symposiums. I met with victims of... of trafficking and, you know, had discussions with them and that kind of thing. This alliance, my deputies that were assigned to these cases won awards from the FBI. It was something that we were definitely involved in and wanted to try to have an impact on. The numbers of... Colorado human trafficking counts by years. Back in 2014, you know, back in 2014, we're looking at, what, 13 cases? Is that what I'm seeing here? And now some years were over 100. What are those cases look like now? And are they different than the cases in 2014? Well, what we know from looking at it over time is that About 80% of these human trafficking cases are sex trafficking. And then we also know that the majority of the victims are minors. And so that's consistent from about 2018 on. So what we're looking at are people that are trafficking. young people for sexual purposes. We're not talking about human trafficking where somebody is working as a servant in your house, for instance. They've been trafficked to you and you use them as a maid, that kind of thing, that kind of human trafficking. We're not looking at human trafficking where people are brought over to take care of different types of animals, maybe sheep, that kind of thing. We have seen cases like that in Colorado, but that's not the majority. of what we're seeing. What we're seeing here and talking about in this report and where you're looking at those numbers and you see we're almost 100 above what we were back then, what we're talking about are human trafficking of kids and minors for sexual purposes. I mentioned this before on the show, Mitch. I've interviewed in my career three women that were victims of human trafficking and in every single one of those cases. And they were totally separate from one another years apart. But every single one of those cases, these women were trafficked by their parents. To your point about the grandmother that was selling a four-year-old on Larimer Street, has the level of addiction that we have in Colorado exacerbated this problem? Because all three of those cases, the parents were addicts. And they basically sold their kids to support their drug habit. Is that part of the equation here in Colorado? It is. But, you know, as far as our report here goes, we really didn't look at those kinds of things. You know, this report really was to update a report we did from two years ago just had devastating numbers, you know, historic numbers of these kind of offenses. But certainly that plays a part when you see a family member that is willing to do this to somebody.

Their child, their grandchild, I remember that woman had a severe alcohol problem. I don't remember actually if she had a drug problem or not. I assume that she did. I'm sure she's long dead as long ago as it was. But no matter who the trafficker is, and I think it'd be even worse if you are being. put out there like this by a parent, by somebody that's supposed to love and take care of you. That's just incredibly sad to me, but... The one thing about these victims is they suffer as much as any other crime that I ever dealt with short of somebody that loses their life. The traumatic impact, the physical impact of the kind of acts that they're forced to commit when they're too young or their bodies aren't ready for this kind of thing. It's life. It's a lifelong.

traumatic problem with these people that are caught up in this human trafficking and actually being trafficked. Let's talk about the numbers that you guys did crunch. Are we making improvements? Are we sliding backwards or are we just kind of going along kind of the same? Well, we... It's exploded. The numbers have exploded, the number of incidents. We went to those low teen numbers that you were talking about 10 years ago or so to over a hundred of these incidents now statewide. So it really has exploded. In 2024, we thought, okay, it's gone down some. You know, it's still up there in record numbers, but it has gone down some from 2023. And then when we look at 2025, you know, when all the numbers are in, we may be worse than 2023. So if you take those three years, these are record numbers. These are numbers like we've never seen in Colorado. Now, you could take it two ways, and you could say, okay, this is just, you're just touching on this. And law enforcement has gotten better at one identifying human trafficking. And that was part of those supposiums that we did. So you know what it is. You go out and it looks like domestic violence and it's being portrayed that way. But the training indicates to you that there's trafficking involved here. Because some of these things are layered and some of them are difficult for law enforcement to sort out. So it may be that some of that training is... actually having an impact and law enforcement is recognizing when they are confronted with trafficking as opposed to some other crime. That would increase these numbers. If you're like, yeah, this is trafficking and you click that box and it goes to CBI or to the FBI, that's going to make it look like we've got more trafficking than we did have because it wasn't being recognized as this horrible crime. So. You know, yesterday I was down at the legislature because they were running a bill to increase the penalties for what we used to call the Johns, but the consumers, the people that, you know, the reason you're out there trafficking someone is because somebody's willing to buy. Somebody's willing to pay good, hard money or whatever to be able to engage in this behavior primarily with a minor. I saw Brian Mason testify, and he's the Adams County DA. And if you look at our charts, you know, it looks like Adams County's out of control when it comes to this. They have big numbers compared to Denver, which is high, but big numbers. And I was thinking about it and thinking, well, Brian, your guys may be better at recognizing this for what it is. They may be better at. getting a hold of these guys. Now, remember, you can go online, you can go into a chat room, say, I'm 13-year-old, so-and-so, Victoria. I'm interested in meeting people, that kind of thing. And detectives do that. And within...

sometimes seconds, usually in minutes, somebody is reaching out, contacting them, saying, I'm so-and-so, and starts talking, you know, and obviously starting to groom the person towards a sexual trafficking type scenario. And if you've got a couple of good detectives that are doing that, maybe out there in Thornton or one of those places that's in Adams County, that might be the reason those numbers are so high. I mean, This is a negative report. There's no question about that. But I think there may be some positives that could be taken from it in that what would go unreported as human trafficking 10 years ago is being recognized now and is being reported now. And, you know, Colorado is in the top 10, the top 15, however you look at it per capita or not. And that's never a good thing. You know, I kind of look at it like, okay, we've been working on this for, I don't know, for almost 20 years. And hopefully those things that we've done around training law enforcement and all of that have actually worked. And that might be one reason why these numbers are up as high as they are. I'm not in any way taking away from the fact that we've got a major problem here. And we need... to do better than what we're doing. And I think there's some legislators that are stepping up this year, recognizing the reports that we've written in the past on this and saying, you know, if you're going to go out there and you're going to pay for this, when you get caught, you're going to pay for it. The bill I was watching yesterday, it had carried a mandatory sentence to prison. And so, you know, if you've got some rich stockbroker that likes to engage in this kind of behavior with a 12 year old girl, he's not going to get probation. And even though he's probably never been. In trouble before, has a spotless record. The judge is going to have to send him to prison. Now, if that bill passes or not, I don't know. But I've talked to the sponsors, and I think they are moving in the right direction when it comes to this crime. I agree that the demand side has to be addressed. But are our penalties for the people actually doing the trafficking? strong enough because in my view if you're tracking children for sex i want you to go to prison and i never want to hear from you again i want you to rot there and die there so are we doing enough on that end to really go after the people who are facilitating this in the first place i'm not opposed to making the penalties stronger for the johns by the way i'm i'm all for that as well but what are where are our penalties for the people that are making this happen

Well, it depends on how you approach it. We were able to get on certain traffickers depending on what we could show as far as a criminal organization using those. People keep thinking as RICO statutes, but in Colorado, we call them COCA statutes. We could show that this was a ring, and this guy was the ringleader, and these were all the people, and this was a criminal organization. Well, that's a class two felony, and we could get class two felonies for this. And it's interesting. I have not seen this bill, but somebody talked to me about a bill yesterday while I was down at the Capitol that would... make traffickers serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole. In other words, making human trafficking a class one felony where it can be up to a class two felony, making that a sentence of life without parole, just like as if you murdered someone. So I don't know about that bill, and I haven't talked to the sponsors at that bill. And I can't imagine the fiscal note that would be attached to that. And one thing I learned as the DA, no matter if you had a perfectly good bill, if you had something that was going to make a difference, usually around DNA when I was trying to get other offenses. put into people that got convicted of some of the misdemeanors that would lead to solving serious rapes and murders. I never could get that done. But it was always the big thing that would... standing your way would be the fiscal note. And, you know, the state of Colorado fiscally is no better shape than it was when I was district attorney. So I imagine that even if these bills do get through the normal committees, there's going to be a joint budget group that's going to be looking at that fiscal note. And one thing about DOC, they hit you with the hardest fiscal note they can when you're talking about increasing the penalties. So both bills here. going to have an increased fiscal note. And, you know, that puts those cases, that puts those bills at jeopardy. I, you know, I understand it. I understand that there's a finite amount of money. But knowing some of the dumbass stuff that we spend money on here in Colorado, the fact that that would prevent these bills from passing is kind of infuriating to me. Honestly, genuinely. I want to ask you one last question before we run out of time, and that is this. We're talking about increased arrests, which are fantastic prosecutions, fantastic. But are we effectively really in any way chipping away at the bigger problem? How pervasive is this?

Well, when you do the things that we used to do with the alliance that we had, and when we were getting 200-year sentences on traffickers, when we were taking down organizations that were coming into Colorado, partially because the laws in Colorado weren't as stringent as they were in some other states, we talked to people like that. These are tiered rings. You might have a mid- level person that's involved in the trafficking in Colorado. And then they run a certain number of people that they have that are actually going out and doing the different sexual behavior. And so we'd talk to them and they'd say, well, we're in this city, this city, this city. Oh, yeah, yeah, we went to Colorado. We went to Denver. We went to Denver because Colorado, you know, it's light if you get. if you get sentenced there. I think that criminals do think about that. And they think about it, especially when they're in organizations like these. And if we could reach the guy that maybe not even in the state and get him convicted, we would get long sentences. And I know that the prosecutors in the state of Colorado are still doing that. I know the FBI is still doing that as far as, you know, they're always looking for people that are. pedophiles that are involved in human trafficking. They would just do trafficking where it was kids, if I remember right. But, you know, I think law enforcement has gotten better at this. I think they'll continue to do that. And I think we'll continue to see the numbers. The sad thing is, I think, that we're just touching the tip of the iceberg. I think that this crime is... much, much larger than we even know. I was afraid that that was the answer, but that's kind of what I thought as well. I appreciate the report. The report is a lot of data and statistics. If you want to get the background on the actual information that Mitch Morrissey is chatting about now, it is all in the Common Sense report. And I linked to that on my blog today. Mitch, I appreciate the report. I appreciate the conversation. Mandy, could I say one other thing? Yeah, please. I want to recognize my co-author, DJ Summers. He works for the Common Sense Institute. I'm the one that ends up talking about these things on television. But he does an incredible job. He is. I could not do these, and we could not have these reports without him. He doesn't get recognized. He's the head of our research. He's the head of communications at the Common Sense Institute. The Common Sense Institute does some incredible work. Due in large part, my experience has been because of DJ Summers. So I just wanted to mention my co-author on this report. He is the exact kind of nerd you want to work with on stuff like this. That's for sure. Mitch Morrissey, I appreciate your time today. All right. Thank you. He's a great guy. Yes, he is. All right. That is former DA Mitch Morrissey. You really should read the report. But this is one of those things where, you know, when you get right down to it, two things are as old as time.

slavery and prostitution. It's not called the oldest profession in the world for no reason, right? But forcing people to perform sex acts against their will requires a level of dehumanization that is sometimes worse than death. It really is. And whenever I think about this stuff, whenever I think about the three women that I interviewed, or whenever I think about what they've been through, and we never had graphic conversations about this stuff because it was radio, you know, but the damage that is done long term is just stunning. Stunning. And until we aggressively do something about the people who pay for this. And guys, I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, but women don't pay for captive sex. Men do. And I know not all men do. Not even a majority of men do. Not even, you know, overwhelming. None of that. I'm just saying it is definitely a problem perpetrated by men. And if all of those men who were perpetrating it went to prison, I'd be okay with that.

So much stuff to talk about on the blog. We're going to move over. I want to talk for a second. You guys, Zach, are you watching the Olympics? Oh, yeah, big time. I'm watching the Olympics, and I'm just going to say NBC, the technical aspects of their coverage has been off the chain. They have cameras everywhere. And watching the skiing, have you been watching the downhill skiing? So the downhill skiing camera work is unbelievable, except the drone noise is driving me crazy. Oh, the V. Oh, my God. Oh. And here's the thing, like the drone footage is so cool, because they're basically sending a drone down the mountain right after the skier. But couldn't you have the video without the audio feed? Thank you. And I will say, they've got great commentators, too. The coverage has been incredible. The coverage has been... The only issue I have with the commentators for the sports is that they assume too much knowledge sometimes on behalf of the viewer. Agreed. Right? Okay, so I'm watching curling. And, you know, I mean, after I watch enough curling, I am, I am an expert on curling, as we all are. But they're using the lingo of the sport without telling me what the lingo means. So I have no idea what they're talking about, right? Like, and like our curlers would do something. And I go, that was terrible. And then the commentators will go, that's perfect. But they don't explain why. So that's my only issue with the commentators, but they're obviously very knowledgeable, whereas I know nothing. I will say this. I'm watching the slope style last night. Do you watch the skiing slope style? Yes. With the rails. And it's basically skateboarding on skis, really, downhill. And at one point, I looked at Chuck and I'm like, I think this announcer is just shouting out words. Because he would be like, lickety split. She stopped that. That was a 780 car backer upper. I mean, the names of these tricks are so stupid that it's almost like he's just randomly shouting out words. It's funny to hear them in this event with so much decorer and pomp and circumstance. No, no, it's actually wildly entertaining. But yeah, the drone wine. And I got to tell you, as someone who likes to hike when I am in the outdoors and I hear that, and I know there's a, it just makes me angry. It makes me viscerally angry. when someone is flying a drone when I am trying to enjoy the great outdoors. It's like when you'd go on a hike and there'd be the person like blasting music off their smartphone. No. No. Use headphones or something else. No. I have had words with those people before. And nice words. I'm not a jerk about it. But I'm like, hey, number one, you're scaring off any animals you might see. You're not going to see any wildlife playing music. And number two.

super rude for everybody else who's trying to walk out here and enjoy the quiet and enjoy the nature one person turned it off the other person just looked at me and kept walking So many people are wildly oblivious. It's crazy to me. I don't think they are, though. I think they just don't care. I think that there are so many, and I'm just going to, the people that I have seen, they're all in their early 20s, right? There's no 40-year-old people walking around playing their music. Maybe there are. I have not encountered them. And there's a level of self-centeredness and narcissism there that they embrace. I will say the one person who turned it off. I'm relatively certain that as soon as I got far enough away from them, because I walked really fast, I'm pretty sure I heard them turn it back on. Fine. Let me get away from you, you know? But yeah, this is, but the NBC has just been doing a stellar job. Oh, and last night I'm watching the women's speed skating because I literally am watching it all people. A thousand meter speed skating and the, um, The Dutch, apparently speed skating is like a national sport in Amsterdam, not Amsterdam, in Holland, which is where Dutch people live. I always get that mixed up with the Denmark, Danish, and anyway, the Dutch people love speed skating and... And maybe you'll be able to give me more on this. Is Jake Paul a YouTuber turned boxer? Yeah. So this was news to me too. But I guess he was there supporting his girlfriend or fiance or something. Fiance. Fiance. Yep. Who's like the speed skating superstar. She blew through the Olympic record and the world record. And she's celebrating. She's around the ice. And then they show big tough guy, Jake Paul in the stands. And he is just. weeping on her behalf and I was like I don't know a single thing about Jake Paul I don't care anything about Jake Paul but man I like him a little bit more now because to be that moved when someone you love has that great an accomplice I felt the same way about Simone Biles husband he plays for the Packers I can't remember his name but he was he was I mean they would cut to him while she was on the beam and he was like you know just I love that. I love to see the families of these athletes who have supported them. The ice dancers that we have here that were so phenomenal. And last night, they came in, they're in second place in the individual competition. So they'll compete again tomorrow. But their families all sit together. I mean, I just. There's so much about the Olympics that I just absolutely love. I love it. It just feels, it still feels pure. That's, that's the word that I would look for, even though that may seem overly dramatic. But there is something pure about the kind of competition that we have at the Olympics, even if, you know, there's been some scuttle butt about comments that were made by skier. I just, I don't care. I really don't.

I don't care what they said. You're asking young people. You're shoving a microphone in front of them and asking them political questions and they're going to say things that are dumb. And at some point in the future, they may look back and go, oh, my God, I can't believe I did that. I really can't. But it's not like they're out there making political statements. They're being prompted with the questions from the media who are looking for the angle for the story. They're looking for the viral video. That's what they're looking for. Mandy, you didn't mention that Jake Paul's fiance is hot. Yes, she is. She is hot. And she is also fast. Because she, I mean, she killed it last night. Mandy, it's the only thing the audience that can hear that wine, trust me, you cannot hear anything while racing. Oh, I wasn't in any way, shape, or form talking about the racers. No, they can't hear anything. They got helmets on and they're flying down a mountain at a bazillion miles an hour. They can't hear anything. But dang, that is so annoying. Simone's has been placed for the bears, not the Packers. He used to play for the Packers. When they got engaged, she played for the Packers. I know this because I saw a photograph of her in all Packard gear. And it stuck with me. Remember that Jake Paul is after clicks, emotions equal clicks. You know what? That's a very cynical way of looking at this. But when they pan the camera to him and he was just unglued with genuine emotion, he's a YouTuber and a boxer. I didn't, if he was that emotion, if he was faking it, he deserves to be an Academy Award winning actor as well. So there you go. Biathlon, great. Somebody, was that used that, or was it A-Rod that said, I feel like the biathlon is the most American of sports, even though it originated, I think, in Scandinavia. It's like, oh, we're going to ski for a while, then we're going to shoot something. Ski for a while, shoot something. I mean, it's just really cool. Mandy, you forgot to mention who Jake Paul is. I'm not certain. I think he was a YouTuber who's now a boxer, right? I mean, didn't he fight somebody? Didn't he fight Mike Tyson? Did he fight somebody? Anthony Mason, something like that, just broke his jaw a couple months back. Jake Paul, let's see here. Around Christmas, it was somewhere around Christmas. They did like a boxing spectacle thing. Yeah. He's a YouTuber who kind of started this celebrity boxing trend we've seen pick up over the past few years. He kind of just lines up like way retired people, some tomato cans to kind of.

build up this this rep as a boxer he finally fought anthony joshua in a real fight a couple of months ago and like i said he got his jaw broken so he's he's a youtubeber slash wannabe yeah he is he is according to wikipedia he's an american professional boxer influencer and actor he is an actor who know yeah you got to start on the disney channel that's right that's before the uterus That's a throwback you don't hear of often. He amassed 5.4.3 million followers and 2 billion views before the app shut down. Then he launched his YouTube channel, Jake Paul, in May of 2014. He's been one of the highest paid YouTube creators since then. And now he's fighting people and marrying is going to marry a hot chick. So obviously, dude's doing all right. You know. Um, hey, Mandy, is Jake Paul's face still swollen? Yeah, he had a broken jaw two places about a month ago. I don't know what he looks like normally. He's got a big beard. So I don't know. Mandy, don't know how pure the Olympics are with a ski jumper shooting up their junk, L.O.L. That's a flashback to last week's conversations. Um, I will say this. I was watching the female ski jumping. And their outfits are not super tight. And I'm like, okay. If it were me and I had to go get measured for my suit that had to fit within two to four centimeters of, you know, tightness, I would just go and eat a ton of salt and try and get measured during my menstrual cycle. You can put on 10 pounds right there. Get measured, then lose the weight and you got all kinds of drag. Mandy, do you think that Jake Paul knows the name of the blog? If so, I need to ask him for it. I don't know. But now I have to find out.

somebody else because i don't see that i mean i see a lot of dumb stuff like party complaints oh sex assault allegations yeah but nothing came of that i got to tell you i i at this stage in the game and i realize that there's all that believe all women i don't I don't believe all women. And I think that there are women who have been victimized by powerful men. And I think there are women who lie about being victimized by powerful men. And it's really hard to discern the difference. Especially when there may have been sexual content or sexual contact that was consensual. It's just challenging, and it sucks because that means that the real victims will not get the justice that they deserve, or it will be even more difficult for them. On the blog today, I have an interesting story about caffeine. The headline, your daily coffee habit may play a role in dementia risk. Researchers tracked over 130,000 doctors and nurses for four decades. And what they found was there is a correlation, because correlation is not causation, but a correlation, those who drank moderately caffeinated coffee and tea at a reasonable level, more on that in a moment, seem to have lower risks of cognitive decline. The analysis revealed that not only did participants with the highest intake of caffeinated coffee have a lower risk of dementia, but there also appeared to be a sweet spot for where it was most effective. Over a follow-up period of 43 years, the team analyzed reported dietary patterns of this massive group of people. And after adjusting for variables such as smoking, physical activity, and underlying health conditions, the researchers were able to isolate the specific relationship between caffeine intake and long-term brain health. The analysis revealed that participants with the highest intake of caffeinated coffee had an 18% lower risk of dementia compared with those who reported little or no consumption. These participants also perform better on tests of overall cognitive function. While higher tea intake, whoops, crap, let me just scroll that, let me see here, it just, I hate it when like a commercial, not a commercial, an ad expands on the screen and then it's like, okay, well, it was anyway, I'll complain about that later. The participants, let's see, while higher tea intake yielded similar results, decaffeinated coffee did not, suggesting that caffeine is likely driving the neuroprotective factor. The cognitive benefits were most pronounced in those who consumed tea, two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups daily of tea. Now, Zach, are you a coffee or tea drinker?

I'm not big of in either, but I do. Well, you're going to have a dimension now. That's what's going to happen. You're going to lose your mind. Alzheimer's here I come. Yeah. There you go. I mean, is this the kind of thing that makes you go, okay, okay. I'm going to have to start drinking coffee now. I think there's one of these that comes out like every month about you can't eat blank because it'll lead to blank or you should be eating blank so you can have a blank benefit. And I've lost track of it all. And welcome to nutrition science in a nutshell. Well done because that is exactly how it happens. Exactly. So drink your coffee or tea or don't. Get dementia or do or don't. I mean, you know, we're all doing the best we can out here trying not to forget everything. I mean, what was I saying? of things have popped up on the internet that I'm going to get to during the show they popped up and but I want to talk about something that I posted yesterday and and this is pretty remarkable in my view but I saw this video of in the Iranian parliament MPs are burning the American flag while chanting death to America and threatening to use a nuclear bomb against the American homeland okay now We just watch the people of Iran try to rise up and take out this tyrannical dictatorship that has ruined their lives for the last 47 years. But because they have been disarmed, they had no real way to fight. And we watch video, I watch videos of the Iranian Guard opening fire on protesters who were armed with literally nothing. Estimates that I've seen for death is anywhere between 35,000 and 90,000, although that top number seems extremely high. And it's been really hard to get accurate news out of Iran because they are a totalitarian society that runs all the news media and they turn off the internet. But it was the closest that the Iranian people have come. to doing away with this murderous regime. Now, I looked up this morning. I did a quick search with my assistant chat GPT, and I said, hey, which countries sponsor the most terror? And they didn't have them listed, like I was like, I want one, two, and three, but Iran was right there, you know, a big player. Iran is the head of the snake, right? And when Israel is fighting Hamas or Israel is fighting Hezbollah or we are fighting Hezbollah or we are shooting at the Houthis, the reality is that Iran is funding all three of those organizations. And all three of those organizations are the reason for much of the instability in the Middle East. As much as people like to be like, you know what, if the Jews weren't just in Israel, everything would be fine. It would not be fine. Because it's not just about Israel. For Iran, it's not just about Israel for Hezbollah. It's not just about Israel for Hamas. When they're done killing the Jews in Israel, they fully intend to come and kill us here. Now, I don't know how many times we have to listen to them say death to America. I don't know how many times we have to watch them. Can you imagine if in Congress they brought in an Iranian flag and set it on fire inside?

I'm not going to lie. I was kind of hoping that it would start a larger conflagration and then their entire parliament were burned down. That would be pretty amazing. But it didn't happen. I mean, you know, safety first, whatever. But I saw this last night, and I was talking to a friend who lives in Israel, and the friend said, when is Trump going to do something in Iran? And I don't know the answer to that question. I think in Trump's mind, like that box has been checked. But the reality is much different. And my friend in Israel said, the Israeli people are ready to end this. Because they know that as long as Iran is allowed to exist, they will never be able to live in any semblance of peace. As long as Iran is re-arming Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis, as long as Iran is providing the funds to prop up these disgusting, savage organizations. then we're never going to have peace. So when are we going to do something? And then I'm looking at it from the United States perspective, right? We're going to have a confrontation with Iran. Under the current leadership, we will have some sort of confrontation under Iran. Here's what I'm afraid of is that Trump doesn't do something. And that we allow Iran to rebuild their nuclear program. We allow Iran to sort of reset and rearm. Economically, they're on the ropes right now. Domestically, they're on the ropes right now. They're as weak as they've ever been in my lifetime. In the 47 years that they've been in existence, now is the time. And I am a staunch non-interventionist. I don't want us getting involved with anything that we don't have to. But I look at this, the elimination of Iran as a bad state actor as they exist right now. I look at that as an investment in the long-term security of the United States of America. And I'm saying these words and I'm like, who am I? Have I been possessed? But when I look around the world and I look at China and I look at Russia, I look at them as threats to the geopolitical structure and geopolitical foes. But I don't look at them as an immediate threat to the homeland of the United States of America. But we already know what happens when we don't do anything about people like Osama bin Laden. We already saw how that story ended. Why should we not believe Iran when they chant death to America and threaten to drop or put a nuclear weapon in the United States of America before and before you tell me that I'm being cray cray. My friend Deb Flora, who is filling in for me on Friday, we're taking a little family trip this weekend. Deb's going to be here on Friday. She traveled to the border during the height of the border crisis, and she talked to Border Patrol agents who said, we're not worried about the Mexicans coming over the border. We're worried about all the people from all the stands. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran. The Biden administration just let them walk into the country.

Oh, you got, oh, you know what? You're probably just a good Iranians who just want to come here for peace. There are so many people that walked across the southern border from the Middle East. We have no idea what their intentions are. We probably don't have any idea where they are. None. We have no clue. And yet we should not pay attention when Iran says we're going to attack your country. I don't know. I don't know what to do. I don't want to put boots on the ground. I don't want a long slog like in Afghanistan. But how about we just back up Israel? How about we just say to Israel, whatever you guys want to do, we have your back. Because Benjamin Netanyahu is flying to the White House today, as a matter of fact. He's flying today, and he'll be there tomorrow to meet with Donald Trump. And there's a couple things that are very telling. A lot of the news media is like, oh, Benjamin Netanyahu is coming over because the United States is in negotiations with Iran over their nuclear deal. Let me just say this about that. The reason we're negotiating with Iran over the nuclear deal is because they broke the last one. They enriched uranium beyond what they were allowed to do under the last Iranian nuke deal. They already broke the rules. So why in the world should I believe for a second that they are going to follow the rules this time? These are people that are beyond the pale when it comes to the violation of human rights, the violation of women's rights. and the violation of the rights of the protesters that they murdered in cold blood who just want to be able to live freely. And when we come back, I'm going to play an audio soundbite from the president of Belgium that honestly, if the man had said it in front of my face, I don't know that I wouldn't have punched him in the face for it. And I'm not a violent person. They're pushing me, though. They're pushing me hard.

And I guess he was talking about, you know, women wearing a hijab in Austria, which, you know, do what you want, right? But listen to what this clown suggested about wearing a headscarf. Oh, I'm sorry, Zach. Can I have my audio? Okay, here we go. Oh, I didn't realize it was in another language. Let me read the subtitles to you as he's speaking. Okay? This is the president of Austria. He said this. Any woman can wear a headscarf. And if this continues, which brings me to my next question, with Islamophobia becoming increasingly widespread, the day will come when we will have to ask all women to wear a head scarf, all women as solidarity with those who do so for religious reasons. Why isn't he asking men to wear a headscarf? Why is it just women who are going to be asked to wear a headscarf? Oh, because women are second-class citizens in Islam, so therefore all women should be second-class citizens? You know, if you voluntarily want to wear a headscarf, I support you in that. It's kind of like earlier we were talking about prostitution. If you're an adult and you voluntarily want to engage in sex for money and you're not being coerced or forced in any way shape, more power to you. I don't care. That's your choice. And if you want to wear a headscarf as an expression of your faith, I support you 100%. But the second you start talking about forcing anyone else to do that against their will, now you've gone from a religious choice to totalitarianism, and I'm not going to play that. We already know that in some Muslim nations that women have been killed for not wearing a headscarf. That was what set off protests in Iran the first time. Not the first time, but the most recent time before the recent time. A young woman was beaten to death by the morality police for not wearing a headscarf. And now this clown, this Austrian president is going to suggest that in solidarity with women that wear headscarves? No. No. I don't feel solidarity when you force me to do something I don't want to do. I feel the opposite of solidarity. As a matter of fact, what is the opposite of solidarity division? Would you say? Yeah. Yeah, division, derision, something like that. As soon as I am ordered or forced or required or in any way, shape, or form made to do something I don't want to do because of your choices, no, I'm good with that. I'm going to look this up and find out the rest of the context of this conversation. And if he went back and corrected this later. Or if he just doubled down. Or maybe I'm missing the part where he says, and men, men should wear the headscarves too. Why don't Muslim men wear a headscarf in solidarity with Muslim women? I'm genuinely curious. If it's so important for women to cover their heads, why is it not important for men to cover their heads? I mean, we already know. Patriarchal religions often have different rules for different people. But I saw that and got super salty. extremely salty. Now, Zach, you have a significant other. How did you guys meet? Through a friend. Oh, real life meeting. And was like, hey, I know a girl you should meet and told her, I know a guy you should meet and set us up. So essentially you were a little bit match made. A little. Yeah, yeah. That'd be a good way to put it. Yeah. Well, I have this story from Stanford University and I want to run it by our single listeners. By the way.

The singles event is still going to happen. We're a little bit short right now on promo people. So we get some more bodies in here, but that is still going to happen. But in Stanford, this Stanford student created an app called Date Drop. Listen to how this works. You answer 66 questions about your personality, politics, what you like, what you don't like, who you are, how you grew up, religion, all that stuff. 66 questions. And then on Tuesday night at 9, You will be hit with a message from date drop because that's when the dates drop. This app actually matches you up with other students at Stanford because they're like, okay, you guys should be compatible. And apparently this is taken Stanford by storm. Every Tuesday night, people are like, so what a date drop give to you? Or my date drop was chopped. I just learned that that's bad, by the way. I didn't know that chopped was bad. But the reality is, is that it's encouraging young people to at least, like, connect with this person. Go have coffee. There's coffee shops that are like, hey, bring your first date, drop date here. and we'll give you a free coffee, right? So there's all these ways to facilitate face-to-face conversation. And I'm wondering from my audience, this is essentially digital matchmaking. Like back in the day, you'd have a person that knew everybody in the town and community and you would be like, I need a match. And she's like, you know, I feel like I've got a match for you over here. Farmer Joe's son is just dynamite. You're going to love him. You're very similar. And you put together and then you get married. Is this, would this be appealing? Because in a way, it does kind of the drudgery work of, you know, swipe left, swiping does that for you, right? And it narrows the field. And I'm guessing that it would probably do away with a bot problem that I understand dating apps have. I'm just curious, does this sound like something you guys would be interested in? Text us on the Common Spirit Health text line at 56690.

Apparently that was in 2018. And since then, since then, Austria has done all kinds of things. They have actually banned the wearing of headscarves for girls under 14 in schools. A lot of you are weighing in on the dating thing, Mandy, I would be willing to give the K-O-A dating platform a shot. I'm in my 60s, those. Let's be clear, I am not creating a dating platform for K-O-A. I am not doing that. This was about a Stanford University dating app. But I was asking that specifically because what if, and I think it'd be a lot harder in today's era to have a matchmaker that had a large group of people that you could choose from. But it would be interesting if dating apps were like, okay, based on everything you've shown us, everything you've done, here's your questionnaire, here are the people we've matched for you. And that's kind of what E-Harmony does a little bit. But wouldn't it be, I mean, do you think it would be better if they were like, look, we've set you up on a date. You guys are going to be having coffee. Yes. Okay, show up here. I do think that one of the things that gets lost on dating apps, I don't know if I've ever told you this. I hate talking on the phone. Despise it. Like I, when I'm talking to someone on the phone, I have to force myself to focus because I hate talking on the phone so much. Part of the reason is that there's no visual, you know, nonverbal communication, which is really important. And I think the dating apps... You cannot possibly understand what makes someone vibrant and interesting and whether or not their smell works for you. You know what I'm saying? So like, let's take it to the next level. Let's just say, okay, we're going to set up a coffee date and you're going to go to coffee. That's what you're going to do. What if there was a coffee shop whose sole purpose was to facilitate first dates from a dating app? Okay, you're going to go to Zach's coffee shop. where you're going to be sitting in there with a bunch of other people. There's only two tops in Zach's coffee shop. There's no community tables. There's no one working on their laptops. That's not happening. You're going to go in. You're going to have coffee with someone that we pick for you. And maybe you hate them. Maybe you hate them. Then you go back to the app and say, here's why I hated this person. But man, there is, there's such a need out there because people don't have the same. opportunities that they had when I was younger. You know, one of the most depressing statistics that I've seen in a long time, and I don't have the actual number in front of me, I saw the story some time ago, is that participation in civic organizations has absolutely collapsed. When I was a kid, I grew up in a relatively small town, and every adult was either in the Elks Club, the Lions Club, the Rotary Club, they were involved at their church. They were in Knights of Columbus if they were Catholic. Everybody had some kind of community involvement, some kind of nonprofit that they went and volunteered with and they did nice things.

It was now, as a child, I just thought, well, that's kind of cool if they're collecting glasses for the Lions Club, for kids who don't have glasses. Although I couldn't imagine why you would want to inflict glasses on kids because I had glasses and I hated wearing glasses. But nonetheless, the adults were doing something nice, right? Now as an adult, I realize that those were probably as much social organizations as anything else. So it's like those organizations where you would meet someone who would know someone who would say, you know what, you should take my cousin out. She's great. You would like her. She would like you. So you have that one degree of separation. And now so many people are working from home, I met my husband at work. If we didn't work directly together, we were not, you know, like he was not in my chain of command or any of that. But ultimately, it's been really, it's tougher, I think, for people to meet people than it ever has been before, especially fewer people are drinking. People aren't going out to bars. I don't know. I don't envy you guys out there. And I've said this so many times. I've said it to Chuck. I'm like, you know, if you die before me and statistically he will. I'm just saying. I don't wish it, but I'm just saying statistically he's more likely to die than I am. You never know, but I'm just saying. I don't know that I would date. I really don't. I would probably find a gay guy my same age that I could go to the theater and dinner with and just call it a day. Just be like, no, I'm good. I'm good. I feel like I've had my great love. I don't need to do that again. Mandy, what you're describing is it's just lunch dating app. But isn't it just lunch like really expensive? I don't know. One thing I found, says this texter when I used to date is that online chat communication seemed completely fine until you met them in person. And then found out that the awkward pauses were actually real and not text delays. So we did not connect. For me, this is going to sound so stupid. I bet it doesn't sound stupid now that I said that. I got to know how someone smells. Have you ever been put off by a girl by the way she smells, Zach? Yeah. And I've gone out on dates with guys, and it wasn't like they, it's not like they had B.O. It's not like they had a bad smell to them, but something about their smell put me off. And I can't date someone that I don't like the way they smell. You're going to be around them a lot. Yeah. But is that, I mean, is that common? Because I am legitimately not dated more than a handful of people more than once because I don't like the way they smell. Mandy, because how can I volunteer when I work 12, 10 to 12 hours a day? And sometimes my wife works just as long or she gets off at 9. I get off at 7 or 8. I get it. I totally get that. I feel for you. I understand it. I'm tired too. I'm very tired all the time. Mandy, these Olympic updates are killing me. By the time I rip my earbuds out, it's too late. I'm sorry, I'll let you know as soon as I can. Never in a million years, says this texture. I found my second husband on Match.com, and I feel like he misrepresented himself and lied to me. That sucks.

Maybe you and Chuck's story is the exact reason married couples can't have friends of the opposite sex. I still have friends of the opposite sex and Chuck does too. That we keep in regular contact with and try to see on a regular basis. I think that... In my case, because I was married and Chuck and I became friends, but the marriage, my first marriage was not, Chuck is not the reason that my first marriage did not work out in any way, shape, or form. My first marriage had significant issues well before I ever met Chuck. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I do think you have to have like the friends, the guy friends that I have one really good guy friend that I keep in contact with on a very regular basis. And I, you know, like I would never have a friend that I couldn't show my text messages to my husband. You know, I think that if you have a friendship outside your marriage or outside your relationship that you in any way, shape, or form hide the interactions that go on, I think that's where you have a real problem. But if you have a friendship with someone of the opposite sex... and you are, you know, open with your spouse about what goes on and you don't have anything to hide. I think that you can have a healthy relationship with someone from the opposite sex because of that. I mean, last night I was chatting with a friend of Rob who used to be on the show of chatting with Rob about something. And Chuck's like, what's Rob up to? And I was like, here's what we're up to is what we're talking about. So I disagree with that. I don't get me wrong. I'm sure that there are. you know, opposite sex friendships that turn into something more into story marriage. I'm sure that happens. I'm positive, but I don't think it necessarily has to happen. But one thing I will say is this. My longest running male friend, we have, you know, he has basically said, yeah, we should have slept together a long time ago. But we didn't. And now he's married to someone that he is, you know, wildly in love with. I'm married to someone I'm wildly in love with. You miss that window. But we've talked about it. We've just like, yeah, you know, back in the day, it was fine. But now, not so much. Mandy, I do, but when I was younger, I thought it was impossible to be friends with the opposite sex. Now, am I friend with any of my exes? No. And I do not understand the millennial obsession with staying friends with your exes. Why do you want them as a friend when you didn't want them as a relationship? Now, there's no reason you have to have animosity. And if you have children together, well, obviously you want to have a collegial relationship with your ex. But if you're just like dating someone and you break up, why in the world would you want to remain friends? I really don't understand that at all. Just don't. The difference between keeping things friendly and remaining friends. Correct. Keep things cordial and nice and all that. Honestly, Zach. Why are you hanging out? Let me just, let me ask this question.

If you don't have kids together, you don't have a pet together, you don't have any together together together, why do you even need to remain on for, why do you ever need to speak to them again? That's my question. Yeah. I'm out looking for an answer here. I think it would be just not burning bridges, you know, like not making a situation nastier that it has to be. But there's a way to just break it off and say this is not, you know, working for me, but it's like, no, we're going to stay friends. Why? And then I think if one person is trying to be like, hey, let's keep things at an arm's length while maybe trying to keep things friendly and that boundary is not being respected by the other person, then you maybe have to put the foot down and be like, all right, get out of here. In my experience, when someone says, no, let's stay friends, it's because they don't want to let go. Bingo. And they think that they're going to be able to weasel their way back into a relationship by hanging around and doing all the things that they didn't do in the relationship as your friend. I mean, I heard from friends about this. No, I'm just kidding. That was me. Jeez, Louise. Mandy X's are like previous employers. Eventually, they may get called for a reference. Yeah. Yeah. Mandy, L.O.L. I have a woman friend that's been a good friend since we were nine. She tells my wife that when I pass away, they're both going to buy a farm and become crazy cat ladies. And that's the kind of opposite sex friendship you need. The friendships that I've kept are with my male friends whose wives are not remotely threatened by other women. If you are marrying someone who has security issues, insecurity issues, I guess I should say, Then it gets harder to maintain those friendships. But lives that are secure in their relationships, they're like, I don't care. Mandy, my daughter's best friend is a gay man and she makes sure her man gets along with him. He's going to be her best man. Chuck had a best woman at our wedding. His friend Susan was his best person at our wedding. That's how we roll in the Chuck and Mandy household. Mandy, I'm single. 61-year-old female been single for over 20 years, sadly. Try it all the apps. It's so deflating. Still, yes, I try another app now looking for a job. It's the same drag. Very similar. No fun. Mandy, that's always the fallback to the old flame. Nope. Don't want to do it. I don't do old flames either. No can do. I had a very serious relationship in my 20s. It was not a good relationship. It was one of those relationships that when it's over, you're like, well, this has given me a whole list of I will never put up with that again. So it was an instructive relationship, but not a positive relationship. But he came sniffing around many years later. And he was in town. He's like, hey, let's go grab dinner. Literally like three minutes into dinner, I remembered everything I hated about him. Everything. So we eat.

I pay my half and I was like, I'm out dude. He's like, oh, I thought. I was like, no, no. Just being here has given me the ick. I, no, not doing it. Not doing it at all. It gives you some good clarity, though. It really does. I mean, some of the most. consequential relationships that I have had have been the worst relationships from the perspective of how the relationship was going. But boy, howdy, they made me clear on those, you know, those red lines in the sand. And when they popped up later, you're just like, oh, no, hard pass. I've done this already. I don't need to do it again. All right, guys, one last story before we wrap things up. Do we have somebody to play of the day? We do. We do. Okay, just checking. Unfit people. Pace, listen to this way, let me show if I get this out. Headline, unfit people face a 775% higher risk of blowing their top from stressful moments. This is fascinating. People with below average cardio respiratory fitness face a far higher risk of experiencing severe anxiety spikes when exposed to stressful situations compared to those with above average fitness. Less fit individuals showed significantly larger increases in both anxiety and anger when confronted with disturbing images. The relationship between fitness and anxiety works both ways. High anxiety reduces physical activity, which lowers fitness and increases anxiety vulnerability in a self-perpetuating cycle. Regular aerobic exercise offers a non-drug solution for managing anxiety and anger with physically fit people showing better emotional control and faster recovery from stressful events. You know, I have long known. Well, I didn't long know this. I don't want to say it like that, but I have long believed and felt it that your body carries a certain amount of stress all the time, right? Physically, you carry stress in your body. As a matter of fact, yesterday at Regen Revolution, I had trigger point injections in my neck and shoulder because those muscles were just kind of permanently seized. So they injected them with lydicane and a little torridol to just relax them so I can turn my head. And exercise gets that out. Exercise, man. Exercise is the key. It is the key to longevity. It is a key to a long lifespan. It is a key to happiness. It's a key to lower anxiety. It's a key to everything. And we act like it's not because we're stupid. We're meant to be in motion. If you're not in motion, that energy is going to go somewhere. And apparently it's going right into your psyche to make you crazy. Ryan Edwards knows. I feel like you're shaming me a little bit, but yes. I'm not shaming you at all. I was doing the last story of the blog. I got you. But I do. Like when I'm super stressed, if I can go lift weights or I can do something and get some of that energy out, I feel a million times better. No, I 100% agree. We walk, the wife and I walk every morning for like two and a half three miles. Oh, there you go. Which is really great. Good, good chance to connect.

You know, and stuff. We're not in front of screens. We're walking. We're talking. And we do that every morning. When my father had a massive stroke and I was flying back and forth of Florida, my stress level was off the chain. And I came back and I said, I'm going to go for a walk. And I walked like seven miles away from my house. Yeah. And I had to call Chuck and I'm like, you have to come get me because now I'm exhausted. I feel better, but I can't make it home. So he came and picked me up. So there you go. And now it's time for the most exciting segment on the radio of its guys. The Day. All right. We are ready for the dad joke of the day, please. Zachary. The dad joke of the day today. Why don't you hear pterodactyl going to the bathroom? Because the bee is silent. That is correct. I knew that one. That was a good one. Yeah. I mean, anytime a teradactyl enters the chat, you've got to figure there's something there like that. What is our... Word of the day, thank you. We're absolute pro-Ryan. Word of the day today is besmirch. But Smurge means to say something bad about someone or run down their reputation. Yep, absolutely. That's an easy one. All right. Did you turn my microphone off? I went to turn mine off. Yeah, whatever is Zach. Fine. Today's trivia question in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. Who plays Jenny, the love interest and can we just say selfish cow? She is selfish. She's horrible. Worst character ever in terms of just being a bad person. Robin Wright-Pen. Yes, you are correct. Look, we all know. That character was awful. No, she was awful. She was awful. Like, I always like the people that break down like villains of all time. Yeah, she's on there. She's absolutely a villain. Horrible, horrible, horrible person. Anyway. I'm dying and here's your kid. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah. I think, I think it's time. I think you're okay. I was giving, what was I gave a spoiler alert for yesterday? Oh, some movie from like 1973 and someone sent me an email and I like, stop it. Come on. Stop. I think they were kidding. Anyway, what's our Jeopardy category, please? Today's Jeopardy category is dessert. Okay, I feel good about this one. Also called a half-moon cookie. It goes back to new. What's a black and white cookie? That is correct. This dessert of Sicilian origin consists of cigar-sized tubes of pastry. Right. What's a canoli? That is correct. One-one. This fried crueller. Cruller. Oh, it's cruller? Yeah. This fried cruller-like delicacy from Mexico is dredged and dunked in sweet, beautiful cinnamon sugar. Maddie, what are, what are, oh my gosh. I know it. I have to tell you a story about why I can't remember the name of these. Churros! Oh, no, you should have. Okay. They've taken over the world. When we travel all over the world, there's churros everywhere now. Yeah, we go Disney. We love... Oh, I mean, how do you not? Angel food or red velvet on a stick. That's this. Maddie? What's a cake pop? That is correct. That's good. I wouldn't have gotten that one.

Literally mix mix in Tagalog, this double-talk dessert combines shaved ice, condensed milk, jackfruit, and other sweets. Ah, I know what this is. Hmm. Shoot. I don't know this one. I've had this before. I can't remember what it's called. Either Halo, Halo or Hollow Hollow. I'm not sure. I've never had that. Hollow Hollow. Well, good win. Anyway. Chiro. Golly. I should have had that earlier. What's coming up on, are you guys talking about the Olympics? I have been watching a crap out of the Olympics. Yeah, I've been watching quite a bit of it. Well, probably gets food at some point, you know, certainly. Super Bowl stuff still prevalent. We'll have Shelby Harris in the studio, which is always great. So we'll get his thoughts. He was out of Radio Row last week. So I'm sure he has some fun stories from that. And yeah, we'll have some fun. Dave's back. All right. Dave is back. So I'm sure he'll make some snide comment about me as he now does. Only when I'm listening. We'll be back tomorrow on Wednesday. In the meantime, keep it right here on K-OA. Hey everybody, Lady Luck here, and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long, I'm going to be celebrating by playing on SpinQuest.com, which is an American-owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live craps, live bubble craps. Head on over to SpinQuest.com. Get yourself a $30 coin pack for just $10.00. SpenQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Avoid where prohibited. Visit SpenQuest.com for more details. If you're someone who's tracking your sleep, your steps, and your macros, then you already know that what you eat is kind of everything. You should also know that Sprouts Farmer's Market can help make eating for longevity easier. Sprouts has all the high-quality, nutrient-dense, organic foods and cutting-edge supplements you need. So whether you're focused on protein, gut health, or optimizing how you feel day-to-day, it's all there. And here's what no other grocery store can offer. An in-store wellness expert to help you find exactly what you need. So whether you're after longevity or on any other health journey, it's easier at Sprout's Farmer's Market. Your whole neighborhood goes black in seconds. Except your house. The Patriot Power Generator 2,200X from Four Patriots keeps your lights on when the grid goes down. It's the most powerful generator Four Patriots has ever built. Four Patriots gives you backup power without gas, fumes, or a loud engine. Just lights, a cold fridge, and peace of mind when the power fails. Right now, save $500 and get two solar panels free. That means you can recharge twice as fast, but only while supplies last. Keep your lights on, your food cold, and your family calm when the grid goes down. Don't wait for the next blackout. Visit 4Patriots.com. That's the number 4, P-A-T-R-I-O-T-S dot com, and see why families trust four Patriots to stay ready.