5-5-26 - *FULL SHOW* Leland Vittert; The REAL Speed Camera Bill; Muslims Only

Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better, feel more creative or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match. Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried Mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed. No dispensary run, no second-guessing, just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal, third-party tested, and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to Mood-M-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight. Mood helps you get there. Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better, feel more creative, or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match. Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried Mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed. No dispensary run, no second-guessing, just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal, third-party tested, and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to Mood-M-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight. Mood helps you get there. There's long sleeve Epic Gina over there and producer Dragon not wearing pants in a long sleeve hoodie, which seems appropriate for today. It's as warm as he dresses. behind the glass. It is a messy day out there. And as Gina and I were talking about a few minutes ago, I'm grateful for it. We will take all the moisture we can get. We have a lot to do on today's show. There are a lot of things going on in the news. We are going to keep you updated on weather stuff throughout the show as well as we always do here on K-OA. I would like to take a moment and drop in on a press conference going on in Washington, D.C. right now, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Seth is speaking. And we haven't dropped in on one of these for a while, but given the sort of increase in turmoil in the last 24 hours, I'd like to have a listen. This is live. Let's see what he's saying. And preventing shortages that hit the world's poorest people the hardest. Once again, America is using its strength to lift up others. Iran is trying to subjugate the world. To what remains of Iran's forces, if you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower. The president has been very clear about this. We prefer this to be a peaceful operation, but are locked and loaded to defend our people, our ships, our aircraft, and this mission without hesitation. To Iran, let innocent ships pass freely.

These international waters belong to all nations, not to Iran, to tax, toll, or control. To our partners, allies, and the rest of the world, this is a temporary mission for us. As I've said before, the world needs this waterway a lot more than we do. We're stabilizing the situation so commerce can flow again, but we expect the world to step up. At the appropriate time, and soon we will hand responsibility back to you. To the incredible Americans executing this mission right now, simply thank you. Your courage, your readiness, your unmatched professionalism and precision are why the world can breathe easier today and every day. You are and always will be the greatest fighting force in human history, unmatched always. Project Freedom is underway. Commerce will be flowing, and America is once again leading with strength, clarity, and purpose for the benefit of the entire world. All right, let's leave it there. So that was, I think, better than he usually is. I'm not much of a Hexef fan, but that was all right. I think what I really take away from that was his comment about the U.S. wanting to hand over whatever is left to do. to some unnamed group of allies. And whether that would, you know, you would think optimally it would be some combination of Gulf Arab countries who have their own interest to protect because they can't sell their stuff without the straight being open. And maybe European countries that can't buy the stuff without the straight being open. And I do agree. with what Pete Hegseth said and what President Trump has said in the past, that other countries do need to step up more. And I'm not going to get into the, you know, all the stuff about the beginning of the war. And I just, I note that we started the war without asking them. And it makes it a little more difficult to go to them now and say, you know, riskier whatever. But the other thing that I think is important to, to note. Is that especially when it comes to navies, and I mentioned this, I think I mentioned this yesterday, that, you know, our European allies are really not strong enough, just generally. Just generally, they have. They have spent, they have allowed the U.S. to spend our money to provide defense and deterrence for them so that they could spend their money on buying votes with overly generous welfare systems. And it's left them in a bad position. It's kind of a military analog to how they have done so much damage to their own industrial base by allowing the far left anti- decent energy sources, right? The people who hate oil, the people who hate natural gas, the people who for many years hated nuclear. And so you had these countries except for France, but you had, you had Germany in particular, England as well.

shut down nuclear plants, coal plants, and so on. And now, because manufacturing is so energy intensive, they can barely afford to manufacture stuff there anymore because they let their greenish parties destroy effectively, destroy is a little bit overstated, but do serious damage to their industrial base. And it's a similar kind of thing. They've just allowed left-wing politics to cause bad priorities. And hopefully they will sort it out. Hopefully they will figure it out. I mentioned yesterday that the Fifth Circuit in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana. upheld a, well actually issued an order that said that out of state sellers of Miffapristone, the abortion pill, which and these pills are the way about 60% of abortions are completed these days, ruled that Louisiana can bar the mailing into that state of these pills from out of state. So I mentioned that to you yesterday morning on the show. Later yesterday, Samuel Alito Samuel Alito, who is the Supreme Court justice who has jurisdiction over the Fifth Circuit for these kinds of situations where you need some kind of short-term temporary decision, put a hold on the Fifth Circuit's decision, meaning that for now... The abortion pill can still be mailed into Louisiana. Now, he gave about a week for both sides to respond to the court with their best arguments. This is not for a full court case, which you cannot possibly prepare in a week, but to give arguments as to what the Supreme Court should do next on a maybe slightly longer lasting but still temporary basis as to whether to continue to allow the pills to be mailed into Louisiana. I'm going to talk later in the show more about this issue. But what I would say about it is it is an incredibly double-edged sword, incredibly sharp on both sides of this double-edged sword. politically for Republicans because the pro-life side desperately wants one thing. But if they get their way, then millions and millions of moderate and maybe otherwise unmotivated voters will show up for Democrats. It's a very tricky situation. Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better, feel more creative, or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match. Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried Mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour, I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed.

No dispensary run, no second-guessing, just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal, third-party tested, and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to mood, M-O-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight, mood helps you get there. The headline that was most in the news that I cared about least. And Gina, I would like to know whether you care about this story at all. But here's one of many headlines. The 10 best looks from the 2026 Met Gala. Is this a thing? Are you into fashion and that kind of thing? I like the Met Gala because I think it's really quirky and I like the themes that they do for it sometimes. Probably the most I did was scroll through the articles like that. Here's what everyone wore at the Met Gala. And I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled looking for Lady Gaga and she was not in attendance. So then I closed it out. She always dresses great whether she's at the Metdown or not. That's one of the things you love about her so much. But this year's theme was costume art, which I felt like it was very vague because you could go many different ways of what you. First of all, I kind of also forget that this is a fundraiser for the Met. I always just see it as a big runway. Here's what everyone's wearing. But it is a huge fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So they raised like $42 million for it and stuff like that for the costume institute in the area. I heard on some news broadcast that tickets were like close to $100,000 or something. I don't even. I mean, can anybody go? We've pulled money. Can I just show up on the red carpet? I don't know. I have no idea how it works. I have no idea. It was also, one of the things I thought was interesting about the story was how some people were boycotting it because Jeff Bezos and his wife were two of the hosts. They weren't the only host, but they were two of the hosts. Right. And I don't know. You know, I was going to be really cynical about the whole thing, like rich people dressing up for other rich people in clothes that nobody can afford and really nobody can wear. But maybe the way to look at it, and I'm trying to not be cynical here, maybe the way to look at it is just another form of art, right? Right. So maybe, I don't know, you tell me. I mean, it's fun. I enjoy maybe just, like I said, scrolling through the photos and seeing what people wore. Sometimes I love to be super judgmental and be like, you are that, you know, because it's kind of like really. Heidi Klum showed up as like a... marble statue. Just Google Heidi Klum because she executes an incredible Halloween party every Halloween that everyone knows that she has to deliver for this as well. And she looks like one giant marble statue. You can't even recognize her. I see it. And then for some reason, a bad bunny showed up as an old guy. Like just also unrecognizable where he was just like old hair gray, beard gray, walking with a cane. No idea. I had no idea how people interpret costume art as the theme or why they choose what they choose. But obviously a lot of designers go into play with it too.

Well, Heidi, I see her. She looks like almost like a white marble version of the Statue of Liberty. I mean, not holding a torch up, but short of that. Yeah. Pretty good costume. Anyway, I'm just, I'm trying to be less cynical about it than I was going to, than I was going to be. Because I saw that, I'm like, I don't care. But, but, you know, maybe the art there is. is kind of fun. I don't know. It's also still rich people dressing up for rich people and there's no getting away from that. And there is, I got to, I'll say one other thing. There is something about Mrs. Jeff Bezos and I forget her name, but who as far as I know hasn't really achieved anything in life other than marrying him and buying huge fake boobs. And, and so she's there as, I don't know, it's sort of like, to me, it's just some. who is in there because they have a lot of money but have no other reason to be there. And I don't know. Rubs me the wrong way a little, even though I got nothing against Jeff Bezos. You know, I don't know. I don't know, Gina. Well, I don't know either. It's definitely one of those events that most people go, who cares? Yeah. But clearly people do care because not only was I seeing so many photos on social media, I was seeing people create AI generated photos of artists who weren't even there to be like, look what so-and-so were. And they were just thousands of retweets and things like that. And they weren't even there. Weren't even there. I love that part. All right, when we come back, State Senator Byron Pelton joins us in studio to talk about the new speed camera bill and to clear up some misinformation out there. We'll talk about some other stuff going on in the state legislature as well. You're listening to Ross on the news with Gina here on Kay. Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better, feel more creative, or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match. Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour, I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed. No dispensary run, no second guessing. Just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal, third party tested, and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to mood, M-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight, Mood helps you get there. Stay away. State Senator Byron Pelton represents Colorado's first state. State Senate District, most of northeastern Colorado. He's the caucus chair for Republicans in the Colorado State Senate. He is a U.S. Navy veteran. And so first of all, good morning, Byron. Thanks for getting here. You were already up early after feeding the cows. So thanks for showing up. Oh, thanks for having me. This is awesome. So you know what? Just for fun, I would like you to tell everybody what you just said about.

what is like for you being here and why? Because this is kind of cool. It's completely surreal because I grew up in Colorado, grew up on a tractor, listening to 850 K-OA, king of agriculture. And I've never been in the studios before. So this is just really awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks so much for being here. And last time I had you on, we tried to get you in studio and something happened, and we did it by phone. So it's good to have you in person. Thank you. So a few things Gina and I want to talk with you about. We've got to start with Senate Bill 152, which as bills go is modestly interesting. But what's very interesting is how badly this story has been butchered by reporters in various places. You know, Westward had it wrong and then they deleted theirs and put up a new one that said why they got the first one wrong and some other news outlets, including some TV news got it wrong. And some of them have not taken down their wrong stories. So I just wanted to spend a little time with you to clarify. So let me just start with what they said. And you can clarify that and then you can go on to what it actually does. Okay. So what they said in these news articles was that the bill that you are the co-lead sponsor of along with a liberal Democrat, another co-lead sponsor, they said that it will suddenly allow municipalities with speed cameras to give tickets for people going between six and nine miles per hour over the limit. They said that will be a new ability. for these municipalities. What is the truth? The truth is, is that anywhere right now, because of the Senate Bill 23200, you can get a ticket. You'd get a warning first, but then you'd get a ticket anywhere between one and nine miles per hour. And just to make clear, when Byron says Senate Bill 23... 200, the 23 means it was passed in 2023. So this is a law that's been in place a couple years already. That is correct. And one of the things, and I had to tell you, Ross, well, one of the things that I was able to get on that bill on 23, 200 was the caps. $40 cap is all they can charge if you're doing over the speed limit. So when we were, when they were passing that bill, I was able to get those caps on as an amendment. to say, you guys can't make these money-making machines. That's what these are not supposed to be. If you want to use them for safety, fine, use them for safety, but you cannot make them as revenue enhancing. And then that's how we got to 152 because we had several towns in my district, Kersey, Hudson, Eaton, even Greeley, that are using these cameras. And Kersey kind of was having some problems where they thought they could charge $340 a ticket. And then they made almost a million dollars off of the tickets. However, Jersey City Council did give the money back. So that was good news. But they were not allowed to do any of that stuff. So we're trying to put some sideboards on these speed cameras. I'd like to get rid of them all completely. However, they're here. I'm in the super minority. So there's no way I can get rid of them. So now with Senate Bill 152.

One to five is always a warning. So you'll always get a warning. You'll never get a ticket. Six to nine, you'll get a warning first. Then you'll get a ticket for $40. Unless you're in a school zone or a construction zone, then it's $80. And this, just so people understand, does not take points off your license and does not get reported to your auto insurance. That is correct. Now, the only thing we are adding. is that if you're doing 25 miles and over, you're going to get charged $120. Right now, there's nothing. So if you're doing 25 miles and over, there's no, nothing that you get charged. But this one is going to be $120. That was the only thing that we did add. And the only reason why we added that is because that's a very egregious speed limit on there. And we came to a compromise because... The governor and CML, the Municipality League, Colorado Municipality League, wanted to charge $300 from a machine because of criminal going over 25 miles an hour. That's a criminal charge. And my thing was I don't want a machine given out any tickets whatsoever. But with this bill, it is still technically just doing the speed cameras. You would receive this in the mail. It would be a picture. It would say that you're fine 40 bucks because you are going over the speed limit. Is that pretty much? It's exactly how it's done right now. But it's just. But we're shrinking the way they're doing it. So we're shrinking it instead of one to five will always be a warning. Right now. No matter how many times. No matter how many times. It's always a warning. then you from six to nine will be $40. The other thing that we're doing in this bill is that we're adding transparency because before it was just like, oh, we'll just put it on our website where the camera's going. Not anymore. You've got to do a social media campaign. You've got to put up signs saying that the camera will go here. You've got to have it. It's got to be fully transparent. And. We're also making sure that these companies can't come from out of state to take advantage of these smaller municipalities like Kersey and say, we're going to charge you X amount of dollars to have these cameras so you can make money off this. No, you have to do it on a flat rate. You cannot charge these folks. So it's been like revenue sharing, right? Like the camera company gets a percentage of the ticket. That's correct. Yes. That's disgusting. That's why we're shrinking that down and we're putting those guardrails on it. And that's because I will tell you that Kersey, when I saw the reporting from 9 News, that when Kersey did this, it was they got the town got over $300,000. The company got over $600,000. So these are things that we're trying to clamp down on. Now, Ross, I will say that on Highway 119, when they started doing this, the tickets went down in that construction zone. This is Boulder to Longmont stretch, right? Yeah, that is correct. So that is...

That is what the cameras are there to do is exactly that aspect, not to make money for municipalities. Where is this bill at in the legislative process? And then if fully approved, when would it go into effect? So it will go into effect. I think we did, I think we talked about putting the safety clause on it. So it wanted to affect right away. So we didn't have folks doing this. I think that's what it has on there. I'll have to look again. Yesterday, it was in seconds on the floor. So today it will be thirds on the floor in the Senate. Then we have to send it over to the House. Now, I will tell you that the governor, like I said, the governor and CML would like to see a $300 fine on the 25 and over. The governor has, his folks have met with me several times. I'd keep telling them no. Again, these are not supposed to be money-making machines, and I don't want a criminal ticket going out by a machine. If you want to set a deputy or a police officer right behind the sign doing the same thing for anybody 25 and over, fine, pull them over, do the whole ticket, traffic stop, everything. But these are not supposed to be money-making things at all. We're talking with State Senator Byron Pelton, Republican caucus chair in the Colorado State Senate, U.S. Navy veteran as well. I'll tell you what, can you stick around? Yes. Because we want to talk with Byron a little more about a... a bill that he actually did an interview with Keenan on our news desk already about House Bill 1430. But I want to get into it in a little more detail what Democrats are trying to do to preempt the potential effect of a ballot measure that may or may not make the ballot, probably will, but hasn't yet, that would require that. that gas taxes and other transportation related taxes, that the money actually gets spent on the roads. Democrats are not very happy about that. So Byron will talk about, talk with us about that. Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better. Feel more creative or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match. Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried Mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed. No dispensary run, no second-guessing, just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal. third-party tested and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to mood, M-O-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight, Mood helps you get there. Hi. I'm Ross with Epic Gina over here with her longs. I'm not Gina. And dragging behind the glass. And Kenan joins us in studio as well. Kenan Dixon from our news desk. And State Senator Byron Pelton has kindly agreed to stick with us for a few more minutes because I wanted to... elaborate on a conversation and have Keenan jump in as well because Keenan's had part of this conversation already with Byron about House Bill 1430, which is a democratic effort to preemptively gut the effect of a ballot measure, which if it makes the ballot, I think would be.

likely to pass because it seems so common sense. So I'm probably going to let Keenan ask most of the questions of you since he started on this with you already, Byron. But just before we get to that one very quick thing, just briefly describe what the ballot measure would do, right? And then what... 1430 would do. Just do it very briefly and then Keenan can get into the weeds more with you. Basically what the ballot measure says is that any money that is collected by the state of Colorado that's supposed to go to roads will go to actually fixing the roads. So the 18 cents that we pay in gas tax would actually all of it would go to roads, not to multimodal, not to transit, not to anything else that actually go to fixing the roads. That's what it says. And then 1430, what are the Democrats trying to do with this bill? 1430 would take all the money away that's in the budget now. That goes to roads. They would lower all kinds of stuff to take money away. And then that way. So when the ballot measure passes, it would just basically be money for money to go back into there. And that's all it would do. So there's no extra money that would be spent. The $700 million that would be going to actually fix on the road. would not, you would just actually keep the money that is currently there and that's all it would do. It basically just Nolan voids the ballot initiative. Keating, go ahead. What's the point of... 1430 being thrown out there now as 175 has kind of gained some traction. I think the point is, is that the governor hates it, the Democrats hate it, everybody hates it because it takes away from their narrative of their green energy agenda and then their greenhouse gas roadmap. So they hate it because the roads are in such disarray right now. that something needs to be done and something needs to be fixed. They're worried about this ballot initiative actually passing, and it will make the ballot, and it will pass. How do you think this process of roads? I think everyone can kind of agree that the roads in Colorado are not great. We see the national numbers and the statistics, but how is that something that has become? politicized right now during this legislative process? I think because the priorities in the budget, the budget has grown. I think we're, I think when I first got into politics, it was $36 billion. Now it's $44 billion. I mean, it has grown that much, but we are not seeing an improvement on our road conditions. I represent seven counties. One of my counties, just one county. Morgan County has 70% of their roads in one to three years of drivable conditions. That's what the asphalt is rated at. That's from CDOT. So the fact that 70% of their roads are in poor conditions.

that now we're just throwing caution to the wind and saying, well, good luck to you guys out there. We'll see how you guys can get your products to market. So, I mean, it's pretty a frustrating thing for most of Colorado to see how bad our transportation system is. Let me jump in with a question here. And for those just joining, we're talking with State Senator Byron Pelton, who represents most of Northeast Colorado in the state Senate. This gets very in the weeds, so I'm going to ask you to do your best in plain English so that even I can understand it. So the Democrats are talking about in this bill, if the ballot measure passes to slash the gas tax, so that basically there would be just as much money going to roads as there is now, even though there should be a lot more. But part of this has to do, I think, with the intricacies of Tabor. And so that it's they're not just being vindictive like, oh, we don't want to spend more money on roads. It's that they want to still be able to siphon off as much money as possible to other things. So can you just please explain how that works with Tabor why cutting the gas tax helps Democrats achieve their goals to spend money on other things? Because the more money we get, the more, the less money that. I'm sorry, the more money that the government gets is the, then when we reach the Tabor cap, once we hit that cap, then all that extra money has to go back to the people. So then we don't get to have that extra money. So if they lower the gas tax, that'll get us underneath the cap further. So then that way we're just using money out of the general fund. So we don't have to, which is what the ballot measure would say. So then that way they can still siphon that money off and keep taking their taper refunds away. But once we hit that cap, then we hit the cap, then the taper refunds get to come back into the pockets of the people. Still not entirely sure, I understand. But it's very complex. Keeney, you got one more in a moment we have left here? Yeah, one more. And I think just for context with... ballot measure 175, it would essentially take around $700 million and give that to roads, allowing those roads to be repaired. That comes from the general fund that does not raise taxes. So it's not new money. It's money that's already existing. 46 Democrats yesterday in the old state house and Senate said it would take about $539 million from schools and Medicaid. What is your response to that? And how do we... find the balance to make sure that those things that are necessary to be funded are funded as well as roads getting funded. I like that I said that schools and Medicaid where the people of Colorado said schools should be a priority. Amendment 23, pass. Boom. That should be the priority. That should be number one. We always use it as a pawn when we're talking about the budget here at the State House. The other thing is Medicaid. Medicaid dollars that they've already taken away Medicaid dollars and given to...

covering all of Coloradoans, which is hurting my rural hospitals out there when we don't get to draw down from the federal government with that extra money. So that's another thing that they're doing right now. So the fact that the people of Colorado are telling them we want roads to be a priority. So great. Priority one, schools, priority two, roads. Then let's pay for all your greenhouse gas roadmap and all this other stuff. After that, there should be prioritization because that's exactly what the people want. And the fact that they're talking about it would cut from schools. It won't cut for schools if we do the school finance act first instead of balancing the budget off the backs of kids like we've been doing. We always wait until after the budget's done to do the school finance act, which is wrong. We shouldn't be doing that. So I don't believe what they're saying. I think that we can make a priority system. We can pay for our schools, pay for our roads, pay for Medicaid, and then everything else comes after that. Well, and I would add, the Democrats always try to come up with the most sympathetic victim of Republican tax cuts or even just spending money where it's supposed to be spent. Oh, yeah. It's all politics all the time. Well, and we've heard her over and over and over again that our budget woes are because our budget woes are because. The folks that are in power right now have overspent the budget time and time again. State Senator Byron Pelton is Republican caucus chair in the Colorado State Senate, U.S. Navy veteran as well. Great to meet you in person. Thanks for joining us in studio here on The King of Agriculture. Thank you for having me. So Gina's going to give us an update on some news, weather and traffic. A lot of weather especially going on today. And then we got lots more to talk about, including the DOJ coming after Denver's assault weapons ban. Your whole neighborhood goes black in seconds. Except your house. The Patriot Power Generator 2200X 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.com. And see why families trust four Patriots to stay ready. Okay, this is actually genius. Are you ever overwhelmed with choices at the dispensary? What if I told you that you could shop cannabis by the exact mood you want tonight? With mood, you don't shop by strain names or confusion. You shop by how you want to feel. Want to relax after work? Sleep better, feel more creative or be more social. Mood makes it simple. Pick the feeling, and mood recommends products to match.

Mood has gummies, flour, pre-rolls, and edibles designed around your mood. I tried Mood's sleepy gummies, and within an hour I felt calm, settled, and ready for bed. No dispensary run, no second-guessing, just a smooth, relaxing experience delivered to my door. It's federally legal, third-party tested, and backed by a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Go to Mood-M-O-O-D.com. That's M-O-O-D.com. However you want to feel tonight. Mood helps you get there. Stay safe on the roads. Be careful. It's not, it's a little splashy right now, but tonight is going to be worse. Tomorrow is going to be much worse. Don't drive if you don't have to. I wanted to mention a quick thing to you because whenever we talk about taxes, not whenever, but frequently when we talk about taxes. Listeners will text in, and especially when you talk about schools and Democrats saying, oh, yeah, we need to tax you more for schools. People will text in and say, well, what about marijuana taxes? I thought that money was supposed to go to schools. So I just want to say two quick things about that. First, the marijuana tax revenue gets divided up a couple into a few different things. The biggest bucket, though, is school-related. But it's not probably exactly what you think. It is not money that just goes into school budgets. It is money for school construction. It is specifically for that kind of construction and infrastructure stuff for schools. And the issue with that right now is that in most of the state, especially Denver, Jefferson County, other big counties around Denver. The number of school kids has been declining and the registration in these school districts has been dropping. And so if anything, there are schools closing. Now, that doesn't mean you never need to spend money on school construction and renovation. You know, you still need to modernize and keep things up to date and so on. But, you know, when this stuff passed. back in 2014, I think it was, somewhere around 2014, give or take. You know, I think it was still in people's minds. Colorado's population was growing rapidly that we're going to need to build more schools. And that's why this thing was sold to the public. Hey, we're going to use the money for school construction. So, you know, when you hear about taxing and schools, don't let your mind drift to marijuana taxes. That money is restricted to school. construction, not funding teacher salaries and things like that. The other thing to keep in mind is that due to primarily, well, due to a few things, massive competition within the marijuana business, the increase in legalization in other states, and then going back to competition, not just on price, but you've also had lots of marijuana dispensaries going out of business. And I'm only guessing on this part now, but it is absolutely true that in today's young adult population, and I mean like younger than Gina, however old that is, they.

They're drinking much less. And it wouldn't surprise me, although I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if they're smoking pot a little bit less too than folks slightly older than they are. They just, you know, these sort of Gen Z types, the younger Gen Z types, I mean, it's all you can do to get them to drink a white claw. And I'm not being sarcastic. Like my friend Joe, who used to own Lucas Liquors in Lone Tree. He was going to leave that store to his son, right? He was going to retire and leave the store to his son. And it became clear that basically was a dying business. So he just shut it and he left Colorado. And the primary reason is people are drinking less. So I'm speculating about how much marijuana people are smoking. But for sure, the amount of marijuana being purchased in Colorado. has declined massively. And some of that would be due to a decline in marijuana tourism because so many other states have legalized it. My point is, if you go back to the peak of pot tax revenue, which was unsurprisingly, that first big year of COVID in 2021, if you go back to the peak of that. To last calendar year, 2025, the amount of marijuana tax revenue collected in the state of Colorado dropped from peak to last year by an incredible 45%. 45%. So in 2021, over $423 million was collected in marijuana, Texas. Last year, $236 million, a massive drop. The last time we were below $236 million in marijuana taxes in this state was 2016. So again, for all these reasons, marijuana tax revenue is plummeting. And so even though $236 million is still real money, okay, that's even more money than Dragon makes in a year. Not by a lot, but by some, it's not big money when you're talking about government. When you're talking about school construction, perhaps, and modernization and upgrades and whatever around the whole state. So again, the finances here are tricky, but don't, don't. go to this idea of marijuana taxes being out there to support school funding because it's not it's really not what they're for you know what i promised you the thing about a denver and the doj coming after denver's so-called assault weapons ban i didn't get to that because i wanted to answer the listeners question so we're going to do some quick news weather and traffic here and then i'm going to come back and talk about this and the

mayor of Denver's unsurprising reaction to the federal government's unsurprising action. Is there a theme today? Cinco de Mayo. Oh, wow. All right, excellent. One of my favorite American national holidays. One quick clarification of my, or correction of myself. The marijuana, when you buy it legally. You pay three different taxes on it. There's a sales tax, there's an excise tax, and then there's the regular state sales tax. So the retail sales tax, that money can go, the first 40 million of that goes to school construction. Above that, some of it can go to what's called the public school fund, but that amount is not. enough to move the needle on overall conversations about school funding. And then the other big tax, so you know, somewhere around half of all the taxes goes into this other thing that they call the marijuana tax cash fund. And that goes into stuff like substance abuse protection. regulatory stuff and health education and homelessness and stuff like that. So it is some, a little bit of the marijuana tax money can go to funding schools, but very little. All right, so I just wanted to get that clarification. All right, I promised you this story. I'm going to do this quickly. I may come back to it later on and we'll also just have to see how it develops because it's pretty early right now. But I am looking at a letter that was sent to the mayor of Denver and to the Denver City attorney, Machiko Brown. was sent about a week ago, and it's signed by Harmy Dillon, who is the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. And what it says, and I'll just share with you part of this, this letter is to inform you that I have authorized the filing of a complaint in federal district court against the city in... against the city and the Denver Police Department alleging that the ban on AR-15 style of firearms violates its citizens, Denver citizens, Second Amendment rights by banning constitutionally protected arms. And then that's the main thing that you need to know. Another small point here is that they say we will consider defer filing the lawsuit. if the city is willing to enter into negotiations in an effort to resolve the matter. And as Gina has reported, the mayor said, our answer is hell no. And still quoting from the mayor from yesterday, no, we will not roll back a common sense policy that has kept weapons of war off these city streets for 37 years. And he goes on from there. So just one other quick comment. And then we're going to do some news, weather, and traffic and get to Leland Vittert. And I'm going to come back to this topic later on. Mike Johnson asked me when he found out I was moving.

Are you considering moving into Denver? And I said, no, half of my guns would be illegal in Denver, and I'm not going to do that. And I meant that absolutely seriously, right? That was a key reason that I would not consider living in Denver. I do think it's a little strange for Denver to believe that when they are surrounded by places that can have these particular weapons, that somehow magically the weapons. respect the border between Adams County and Denver or Jefferson County and Denver. And somehow no AR-15 can ever come into Denver because they've got this law or no so-called high capacity magazine that everybody has already will be in Denver because of this law. I will say, I think that if this goes to federal court. The city is more than 50% likely to lose. I'm not going to say it's 90% likely, but I think the odds would be against the city on this case. Leland Vinterd is host of On Balance on News Nation, the best show on cable news, 7 p.m. Mountain Time with a replay at 10 p.m. Mountain Time. Also go to warnotes.com and sign up for Leland's. free daily or at least the days when he has a show, weekdays, email. It's his brain. It's his show prep and it'll make you smarter and it's really good. So Leland, we need to start off with the burning question of the day, which is the question that we asked the mayor of Denver last Friday and that is, are you ready for it? Gina, do you want to ask Leland? He's your buddy. You know him well enough to ask him. It's all you. It's all you. Yep. Leeland, Vittert, we need to know. Do you fold your underwear? Do I personally? Yes. No. Is there a follow-up to that? Why did you personally? Does that mean someone else does? Yeah. We're not going to answer that. Oh, my gosh. Does Leland's wife fold his underwear for him? I left with more questions and answers. Yeah, more questions and answers now. Leland. Gosh, you just never know. In your war notes yesterday, the title is No Time Like the Present. So let's jump in on that. No time like the present to do what? Well, President Trump is in a race against time. Time does not stop. The midterms are approaching. He has to create some kind of inflection point for the war in Iran. And that's what you're seeing happen in real time, which is this daring the Iranians to either attack shipping and restart the war or. to be humiliated because the U.S. has reopened the Strait of Hormuz and Iran is still blocked. So it is now putting the choice back on the Iranians and forcing them to either put up or shut up to use the turn of phrase. Did you see the tweet from the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf?

Yesterday, well, there's probably more than one, but I'll just tell you what it says, even though you saw it, I'm sure. He says, we know full well that the continuation of the status quo is intolerable for America. Now that's, I mean, it's not surprising that they think that, but it's kind of interesting that he said it. Well, the only people who follow American politics closer than Americans is Iranian leadership. They understand where the fault points are and where the pressure points are. And that's what they are counting on. I would say that they have badly misjudged President Trump, and they've badly misjudged the situation time and time again. They didn't think he would attack. He did. They thought that by attacking their Arab allies or Arab sort of neutral states, they could force a quick end of the war by getting the UAE and the Omanis and the Qatari's and the Saudis to put pressure on the United States. It didn't work. They are now more isolated than ever. So whatever the Iranians calculus it is, it does not appear to be working. I think I want to talk a little bit about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the press briefing that he had today saying, yes, the ceasefire is still holding. How can you argue that when we see both sides still firing at each other? Well, we live in an interesting world where, Jenna, I'm not sure facts have necessarily a huge impact on what people say. I'm trying to choose my words carefully there. But in a larger sense, the ceasefire serves both sides well, right? President Trump needs a ceasefire because he doesn't want to be seen as at war. And the Iranians don't want to be seen as at war because then they're going to get pummeled. So it serves both sides well. I think. When Dan Cain said that the Iranians are grasping its straws, if you have a blockade, it is only as good as the last ship that went through. And what you're seeing right now is the United States beginning to break that blockade. Well, once you break the blockade, it is unclear what the Iranians are going to do to try to exert any kind of pressure over the United States. I think you're right that the Iranians misjudged Trump. I also think to some extent Trump misjudged the Iranians and maybe thought this would be like a slightly more difficult version of the Venezuelan operation. I don't know. I'm guessing on that. But you and I'm sure Trump have seen some of this polling, not just about the war, but Trump overall. And he's not running for reelection, but he doesn't want to see. Democrats win the Senate. They're almost certainly going to win the House. So how do you see the immovable force versus the brick wall or whatever of Trump wanting to win the war, whatever means to him, whatever winning means to him, while understanding that it's unpopular and gas prices are hurting his people's chances of winning in November, what's going to give? We don't know.

If things don't change soon, Republicans in Congress are going to give because they're going to be giving up their seats. I think that you're seeing, though, a president who is torn between his own domestic political considerations and his legacy. Trump wants big legacies. We've seen that. And that is what he's fighting for right now. So I don't I don't really see a clear off ramp. The only thing I would say is for those myself included who predict. six months from now that we think we know what the midterms are going to be about. I would only say that four months ago, we knew the midterms were going to be about health care. And I haven't heard anybody mention health care in three months and three weeks. So things change. And the way the world looks becomes very different. Now, is suddenly the economy going to be vastly different than it is? Maybe not, but that's not to say there won't be other issues that will create problems either for Republicans or for Democrats. Going off of Ross's question a little bit, when asking about what does winning the war look like to the president, do we really know and understand at this point what the way forward is from here? Is it still a regime change? Are we looking at, okay, the Strait of our moves opens and then Trump will celebrate? And that's the winning of the war at this point. Well, Pete Hegseth today basically said regime change is up to the Iranians, the Iranian people. So I thought that was a significant change. In the... Question of what does Trump's off-ramp look like? I would say we're seeing it in real time because if the straight reopens and you have a U.S. escort operation going on and commerce flowing and oil prices coming down and a blockade of the Iranian staying in force, you can declare victory and walk away. That's no different than what George H.W. Bush did. And certainly no different than what we had when we had the no-fly zones, other southern Iraq and northern Iraq over Kurdistan and the like. That's a very easy and very tenable situation for Trump to declare victory and walk away from. Last thing for you, Leland. Tell me a topic you're going to cover on your show tonight that does not involve President Trump. Well, right now in politics, everything involves President Trump in America, and that's the way he wants it. It's been that way for the past 16 years since he came down the golden escalator. Sorry, not 16 years, 11 years, making me do math at 9 o'clock in the morning. It doesn't work, Ross. 9 a.m. Eastern, I should say. I think two things. One is the move of the African-American vote towards Republicans. And number two,

There is a assumption by Republicans that the craziness on the Democratic side, the swastika painting in New York, the beatings of elderly people in Seattle, the Nazi tattoo Senate candidate in Maine, the Hamas enthusiast who's a Senate candidate in Michigan, that all of these are going to create some kind of Democratic party that no one in the middle is interested in. The Democratic Party, especially those far-left candidates, are setting themselves up as not just being against Republicans, but against Democrats. And the burn the House-down vote is being way underestimated. So the burn the House-down vote is going to hurt who? Those... It'll hurt Republicans more than Democrats. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. Leland Vinter's show is called On Balance. It airs on News Nation 7 p.m. Mountain Time weekdays, 10 p.m. replay. It's the best show on cable news. And War Notes is a must read. War Notes.com to go sign up for free. Thanks for making time for us, as always, Lee Lyndon. We're still dying to know who folds your underwear. Like little gremlin's running around Leland's place folding. The histories of life continue, Ross. It's like UFOs. We'll get close, but we'll never find the answer. Thanks, Leland. See ya. All right. I guys got a sense of humor. All right, a listener just texted in because Leland just mentioned UFOs. A listener just texted in, UFO means unfolded object. Wow, that's a good one. That's good. So I took a picture of that and sent it to and just sent it to Leland and he got it unfolded object. So there's that. All right, let me just tell you about a goofy story. This is one of those stories that I think is publicized a little bit, makes the news a little bit just to kind of make people mad. But this is a thing that's really happening. And I do think there is an interesting. There's a particular interesting legal question about it. So in a place that Gina has probably heard of, oh no, I thought this was in Michigan, but it's not. It's in Texas. So forget the Gina thing. I thought this was Michigan. Grand Prairie, Texas. There's a big indoor water park there. It is somewhat related to Gina because it's called the epic waters indoor water park. But in any case, it is a big indoor water park in the town of Grand Prairie. And it is well known as one of the top water parks in the country. And a group rented it out. to celebrate the Muslim festival slash holiday of EID, which is the end of Ramadan. So Ramadan is a full month where observant Muslims don't eat during the day. It's like a half day fast every day for a month. And then you get to this festival at the end where you eat and party and have fun and all that. And so this group.

rented out the Epic Waters Indoor Water Park for what they call their third annual DFW Epic Eid event. It's scheduled for June 1st. The key to this story, what has gotten this thing in the news, is that when the flyer went out for the event, it says, and I'm looking at the flyer, it says, closed to the public. Muslims only. And there's been a pretty significant outcry over this. And there's two different aspects I want to tackle just briefly. One is, if you did something at a place like that and sent out flyers saying Christians only or Jews only, can you imagine what the public outcry would be? For some reason, because of a certain... I don't know whether it's wokeness or formerly called political correctness or simply fear people have been kind of unwilling to push back on this incredible separateness. that sometimes, not always, that sometimes characterizes the Muslim community. And Islam itself is a religion combined with a political system that I will just say as sort of a tangent, I don't think is entirely compatible with a free country. In any case, close to the public Muslims only. There was a big outcry about it. They have now changed the flyer to say, well, modest dress. So they don't want you showing up in a, you know, as a guy, they don't want you showing up in Speedos. And as a girl, they don't want you showing up in a bikini, I suppose. They want modest dress. And they're saying, well, modest dress. And they've taken out the Muslim only thing. But we know what it is. It's Muslim only. Now, let me just say for the record that all else being equal, if you are going to rent out a venue and you want to make it Muslim only for that day, that's up to you. Jewish only, Christian only, whatever. I don't care. And it doesn't have to be religious, right? It could be redheads only. It could be people with full sleeve prison tattoos only. It could be Vikings with long be only. It could be anything. Here's the issue with this particular event and why I think it's a fascinating legal question. And that is that this facility is partly funded. by a sales tax. So it is partly government funded. So if this thing is, well, I say government funded, it's taxpayer funded because government only has the money that it takes from taxpayers. So as this facility is now a quasi-government facility.

Can it be used for an event that excludes people based on religion or includes people based on religion? That would seem to be a clear, I think, violation of the First Amendment. So the question then becomes, does their rental of the whole facility for the day overcome that? And I think the answer is probably not. Now, as I said, within the flyer, they deleted where it says close to the public Muslims only. And now that line says respectful environment. They're going to have halal food, which is sort of the Muslim version of kosher. They're going to have a private prayer area for Muslims at the water park. It is a full on blending of entertainment and their religion, which again is fine in almost any circumstance. But is it fine at a place that is funded by taxpayers? And I think the answer is no. Then the question will be, and I don't know that this is going to go to court or anything like that, but will changing the flyer to remove Muslims only? overcome the fact that we all know that it was always intended and probably still will function as Muslims only. And we will just have to see how it all plays out. This Muslim organization in Texas renting out a water park for a day and saying Muslims only. They have since changed that after some blowback, but the original invitation said Muslims only. And what I said was I wouldn't. I wouldn't care. I wouldn't think it's an issue. I wouldn't think it's a legal issue, except for the fact that the water park is taxpayer funded. And I realize that the group is paying a rental fee, but I still think that's a thing. So a listener texted in what I think is quite a good question and a fair question. What's the difference between that and a school district renting out a school auditorium to a church to have church services? on the weekend. And I do think it's a perfectly reasonable question. My answer would be that I don't believe that a church that's renting out the auditorium would say if you are not, if you don't believe just what we believe, if you are not a member of our denomination, then you can't show up, right? The church does not say, let's just say, for example, let's just say a Presbyterian congregation is renting out a school. auditorium. That Presbyterian congregation isn't, and I think can't, even if they're renting the place out, I think cannot, but just for purposes of my argument, does not say if you are Catholic or Jewish or atheist or Muslim, you can't come. They don't say only Presbyterians may come into this building at that time. And that, I think, is the important difference. So I want to take another moment on the gun ban, on the assault weapons challenge by the federal government against Denver. It is a very, very interesting thing. It's not surprising.

that the federal government is doing this. In fact, I saw an email from the guy who runs the Colorado Shooting Sports Association. And I'm on just their email list with not special for me. Thousands and thousands of people got this email. And the guy who wrote the email who runs that organization, I believe, said that he met with, I think it was with Todd Blanche, the current acting attorney general. And they were talking about various gun rights issues. And I guess this guy told the attorney general, hey, there's a ban on these quote unquote assault weapons, which I like to call black guns that scare liberals. There's a ban on them in Denver. And I guess it didn't take very long for harm meet Dylan. who is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights to threaten Denver with a lawsuit and basically saying we've authorized the filing of the lawsuit, we'll hold off on filing the lawsuit if the city is willing to negotiate with us. The mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston said, hell no, members of the city council are saying similar things. And, you know, we will see. I would also like to acknowledge. A listener text that I got about this, and I'll just read it to you. Civilians have no business owning weapons of war or hoarding weapons and ammo. Civilians should not be able to own over a certain amount of both. I believe in our Second Amendment, but these crazy macho dip. bleep are ruining it for everybody. And I would like to take, I don't, I don't spend much time talking about guns on this show. I've got my opinions and I've got my guns and I don't talk about it very much. But now that this is coming up as a big thing right here in Denver again, I just, I do want to talk about it for a minute. The vast, vast, vast majority of people who own this particular kind of firearm are. Law-abiding citizens, well-trained, gotten all the permissions needed to own the guns. Most people who own ARs and AKs, most people use them for target shooting. Some people use them for hunting. They're not necessarily the top weapon for hunting, although they're more okay for hunting than most people might recognize. After all, they shoot a 2-2-3, and you might go get a bolt-action rifle that shoots 2-2-3 to go. Shoot coyotes. Oh, you know, but whatever. That's not the point. The point is, and I say this truly with respect to this listener, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. But just as a general concept, who are you or who is anybody else to decide how many of a particular thing I should be allowed to own? Whether it's a gun, whether it's ammunition, by the way. Do you think that if somebody is like a bad guy, do you actually think there's more risk in a bad guy owning a thousand rounds of ammunition versus 100 or 200? Are you going to say that your level of comfort as to how much ammunition I should be able to own? And by the way, I own thousands of rounds of ammunition. And I don't go shooting very often because I feel like it's not enough. And ammunition is kind of expensive right now. And I don't want to have to buy more.

But if you're worried about a bad guy, is a bad guy with a thousand, like is a bad guy likely to get off a thousand rounds before somebody takes him out or before the targets all move out of the way? I think a bad guy with 20 rounds or 50 rounds, or let's just go extreme, 100 rounds, when's the last time a bad guy even got off 100 rounds? And maybe that Las Vegas thing, I don't know. I don't know. And that was really bad. But usually you're talking about somebody who gets off. And I look, I'm not, this is a difficult thing to talk about, right? People do get killed and there are bad guys. And we have lived through more than our share of this stuff in Colorado. Indeed, the first time I was on K-O-A for more than a few, more than two days in a row was to cover the Aurora. theater shooting. It's terrible. But my point is, You are probably not preventing what you think you may be preventing with many of these laws. And then when you get to this thing where you say, you know, people are ruining it for everybody by hoarding weapons and hoarding ammo, the gun isn't jumping out of the safe and shooting people. Who cares how many guns a person owns? Do you think a person who owns as many guns as I do, and I'm not going to tell you how many that is, is more dangerous? than somebody who owns one or three or five? Do you think most bad guys own as many guns as I do, actually? Probably most people who own as many guns as I do are very low risk of being a bad guy. So I don't know, and here's a listener who says he owns over 100 guns and has over 10,000 rounds of ammo. And I will tell you what, nobody scares me less than that guy. That's the guy who, if the bleep hits the fan, is more likely to help you and so much less likely to ever hurt anybody. So I just think, be very careful in these conversations. I realize they are emotional. I realize there are bad guys. I realize people do get killed when bad guys get guns. But the idea that somehow banning this one type of gun or limiting the amount of ammunition is somehow going to save lives in any important way, I think is wrong. And then there's the matter of the Constitution, which we should never forget. several inches of snowfall expected. Joining us on the KUA Common Spirit Health Hotline with the latest is Fox 31 meteorologist Greg Perez. Hey Greg, appreciate your time as always. Okay, let's talk a little bit about the timing of this snowstorm because right now tech center foggy conditions, rain on the roads, but I have a feeling that it's going to be a whole other story later tonight.

Yeah, absolutely. We're going to start to see that rain transition to snow later on this morning, probably between 10 or 11 o'clock, but we're not going to few real accumulations until the overnight hours. That's when temperatures are going to drop back down to below freezing. I do think we're going to be seeing around 5 to 6 inches in the Denver metro area causing major problems on the roadways and possibly even some school cancellations too. Pushing you on the spot here when we talk about five to six inches of snow for the Denver area. Do you remember the last time we saw that much snow for the Denver metro area? It certainly was not for this year. We have not seen that in the last couple of months. We're expecting that snow, as I said, over the next couple of hours or so. We have not really seen that snow in the Denver metro area, I believe, since last winter. We had a couple of spurts, as I mentioned, about one to three inches in Denver this winter. As of right now, though, I think this is the first time we've seen this in about eight, nine, maybe even ten months. Wow. Who will likely be the biggest winners in this snowstorm, the biggest snowmakers that we could see? I assume the high country and a lot of ski resorts are kicking themselves that they wish they could be open right now. Yeah, absolutely. We are. So areas like Estes Park, they could be seeing upwards of 15 inches of snow. Areas like Georgetown around the same, 13 to 15 inches of snowfall there. So I think the highest amounts are going to be to the north and to the west of Denver. But even areas like... say to the east of Georgetown along the foothills, around 5 to 10 inches of snow down there. And down towards Castle Rock, same thing goes, 5 to 8, maybe even up to 9 inches of snow. So a lot, a lot of snow. And again, this is a spring system, so this is wet, heavy snow that could cost in power outages. Greg, it's Ross. Let me ask you sort of a more macro question. In general, it seems to me that in recent years... weather forecasting, while always challenging, has gotten somewhat more accurate. And first, I'm wondering if you think that's true. But second, I'm very curious how the models and the systems you use to predict have changed specifically regarding the amount of snowfall. Well, yeah, I mean, we've been integrating AI a little bit more, and that certainly has helped us. Outside of that, I do think that the models have just been getting better and better with technology. As you mentioned, things have been improving as far as the global forecasting system goes. Now we use this new system called the graph, which is integrated within IBM and WSI. That's our Mac system that we use. Those are the graphics that we use each and every day. So those are consistently improving as technology improves. And I think that's one of the main reasons that we've been able to get more accurate forecasts, not only in the short range, but also in the long range too. I know you guys look at several different ranges or several different graphs of what people are predicting. When you look at what we're going to see with this incoming snowstorm, is it all pretty much on the right track? Is some predicting more than others?

Yeah, it's been pretty much on the right track. We've been staying around 5 to 6 inches since yesterday morning. Sunday morning was a little bit of a different story. We did have a little bit of a difficult time predicting how much snow was going to be. And the reason for that was because we didn't know how quickly temperatures were going to cool and how that ground was going to interact with the snow. So as of right now, we're seeing that snow come in a little bit earlier, cool the ground off a little bit more so, and then that's going to prime us. evening round overnight tonight into early tomorrow morning. Yeah, when you were talking about the snow earlier this morning or coming in later this morning, I was surprised because I thought it was going to be more of a snowmaker later on in the afternoon, which I know you mean is now sticking on the roads. So tomorrow morning commute, is that going to be the most challenging out of all of them? Absolutely. If you're able to work from home tomorrow, do it. I expect some cancellations. I expect some delays as far as school goes. So keep that in mind, especially if you have kids. Tomorrow morning is going to be slick. It's going to be icy on the roadways. If you can avoid, especially I-70, make sure to do just that. You know, one of my favorite lines from Yogi Berra was it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. So with that in mind, I'm kind of curious to whatever extent your crystal ball is clear. After we get through this and have a little bit of nicer weather, do you have an expectation for whether the month of May, which as Gina has reported, is often our wettest month? Do you have any expectations for moisture in this month after this storm? Yeah, so we're drying out a little bit more on Thursday and Friday. By the weekend, we are going to be continuing to see those May showers, isolated showers and storms on both Saturday and Sunday and on Sunday's Mother's Day as well. So we're going to be keeping a close eye on that. But to put this on to perspective, May averages around 1.8 inches of snow, 1.7 inches of snow for the entire month. We're going to be getting around 5 to 6 inches just in a matter of 24 to 36 hours. Wow, I didn't know it was so little snowfall for the month of May. So it's our wettest month, but not when it comes to snow. Correct. That's absolutely correct. Yeah, when it comes to snow, our snowiest month, as we know, is March, April coming in at second, but then it really starts to downturn as we get into May. Fox 31 meteorologist Greg Perez. Thanks, Greg. Appreciate your time. No worries. Thank you. All right. That was good stuff. Interesting. Are you going to give yourself extra time to drive to work tomorrow? Neither one of us can really work from home that, that, you know, with two people in studio, with like a two-person show, like I could do the show from home, but I think the dynamic is, it's much better when I can see you. I've had those times back in the... COVID days in Jacksonville where we had to do a couple shows from home. It was one in one house and one in another house. And boy, it's so hard to do any type of back and forth when it's practically just think two cell phones. It's not like you're really doing anything where you could see each other. So yeah, no, not really an option. But I guess I'm not too mad about the snow because I bought this brand new car, four-wheel drive. I was so excited for it. I was like, finally a winter where I can actually conquer all these roads and then.

Want long. So I was like, all right. And meanwhile, Gina got up like Wolf Creek Pass in the winter and her two-wheel drive Volkswagen or whatever that was you used to have. Also, you probably shouldn't say me. You should say my husband as I was backseat driving being like, look out because I was way too scared to be doing that. Not our smartest move. Would not recommend. For real though, folks, as Greg said. Be careful when you're driving. Right now it's basically just wet. But by the time you get to tonight, it could get a little more treacherous and tomorrow morning probably quite treacherous. And I will echo Greg's advice, which is don't drive tomorrow if you don't have to. When we come back after some news weather and traffic, I want to share with you. some news about three different bills that are now laws that Governor Jared Polis signed into law yesterday. One of them, I think, is kind of dumb. One of them I think is all right, and we actually had a bill sponsor on the show talking about it. And the third one, I think, is interesting because of who was in favor and who was against, just a little tease. I'll tell you about all of them right after this. I'm epic. Gina, what did somebody say on your Instagram about Dragon Cinco to BioMusic? He said that we played, I think it's Celia Cruz, who is a Cuban singer. Is Cinco de Mayo strictly Mexican or is it all like, you know, Southernish Hispanic, like is Cinco de Mayo celebrated in Cuba? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Why would Cuba celebrate Cinco de Mayo? Is it a Mexican, is it, or is that like a Mexican historical thing? I don't even know the origin of Cinco de Mayo. I probably used to know this, but I definitely don't know it now. Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's victory over the Battle of Puebla. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Definitely Mexican then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But it's not their independence day. No, I know that. Yeah. Okay. All right, there you go. Not Cuban. The other thing, though, and we didn't acknowledge us because the show kind of expired yesterday. But yesterday, Dragon did a little thing with the bumper music. It was all Star Wars all the time, except... And a bunch of people did catch it. Can you tell people what you did? Yeah, I played the famous fight music from Star Trek as the last bumper music. And that upset a few, but made a few happy. So, yay. We should have, I wish you said that first, because then we could have played it off. And one listener caught the Cuban singer that we fully is. Oops. Blame Google, because all I did was, you know.

songs for Cinco de Mayo and this list popped up. Maybe it's a Cuban song about Cinco de Mayo. Maybe. Maybe. Don't know. Don't know. Don't care. And it's in the system. Yeah. In our system, our music catalog, so I knew it was safe to play. Okay. No, no Spanish swear words that we would need to worry about. Probably not. Let me share with you three different law. They are now laws. They were bills. They are now laws. that Governor Jared Polis signed into law yesterday. And they're very different from each other. And I've got, you know, something of an opinion on each of them that I would like to share with you. The first one is House Bill 1144. And this bill is entitled... prohibit three-dimensional printing of firearms and components. Now, this is a bill that originally, so it does what it says it does. It basically says you cannot use a 3D printer to make a gun or even part of a gun or an unfinished frame or receiver or what they call large capacity magazine. or what they call a rapid fire device, which might be a certain kind of trigger, right? But you cannot do, you cannot use a 3D printer to make any of this stuff unless you are an FFL or a student at an accredited gunsmithing program or that sort of thing. Now, the bill originally also included a prohibition on receiving instructions. like digital electronic instructions on how to 3D print these things. And they could either be instructions that. would tell you in words what to do or they could be a kind of code that you can put into some of these machines that would be programmable that would just tell the machine do this do that and do the other thing and you you load the code you hit a button and you come back a little while later and you've got the part that you want and governor Jared Polis said he wouldn't sign it if included that so they took that out But they still kept going with the rest of the bill and it was signed. And of course, this is sponsored by Senator Tom Dan Sullivan, who has made it his mission to destroy gun rights wherever possible. And I want to be careful when talking about him because he did lose his son in the Aurora theater shooting. Nevertheless, he went into politics with the specific mission of attacking Second Amendment rights. And he does it all day every day. And it's kind of frustrating. Now, here is my separate from anything to do with guns specifically and 3D printed this or that.

My problem with this law and with laws of this type, and when I say this type, I do not mean a law about guns. When I say this type, what I mean about this law is I very, very much object to unenforceable laws. You're never going to be able to stop someone who's got a 3D printer and wants to make 3D printed parts. You are never going to stop them from being able to do it. There is no purpose to this law. It just... adds more complication to our legal system. It's not really going to affect anybody as far as I can tell. They are talking about this as a class one misdemeanor for a first offense. They're talking about a class five felony for a second or third offense or second or subsequent offense. But how is anybody ever going to know? And I object to the merits of the law as it is. I just think that unenforceable laws are such a massive waste of time. The next thing that was signed into law yesterday, and Gina will remember when we had state rep Megan Lukens, I think she's from Steamboat on the show, talking about money that kids make when they do online work and what this bill and now law does. is it requires that parents or whoever is involved with compensating the kids for their work set aside some of that money into a trust account for the kid until the kid reaches the age of majority, 18, or is otherwise declared emancipated by a court. And at that point, the kid can get the money. So the idea here was that... parents or other people can't almost like you use kids like slave labor or serfs or something like that. It was like known as the kid fluencer bill because it was all these younger kids that maybe parents get famous on social media or get some big account that they're generating revenue from and then pocket that money and then the kids grow up and go wait what. what's in it for me. So it was one of those bills that I think really came to light with social media as they were seeing that there was a lot of monetary updates to what you could be doing with your children on social media. And that was something that was hoping to protect them a little bit more down the road. Yeah. And I don't, you know, on the one hand, it's a bit of government meddling, I think, and we don't need government meddling and everything. Conceptually, though, I think that's kind of good that if a kid is going to be making money, that the parents or someone else can't just siphon it off and spend it. There might be people actually disagree with me. And it's not all of it, some of it.

Right? Some of it. By the way, the bill also does clearly say you are not allowed to make money by making or distributing. And I'm quoting now, online content of a minor with the intent to sexually gratify or elicit a sexual response in the viewer. So it's explicitly not about any of that stuff. It's, you know, using a kid who maybe is selling, as Gina said, kid fluencer. So maybe you're talking to other kids about particular toy they might buy. or going to, you know, some pizza place for kids or that kind of thing. And the kid is making money in advertising or something else. Some of that money needs to be set aside for the kid. And I think that's fine. The last one that was signed into law. And I think this one is quite interesting because it's very bipartisan. It had Republican and Democrat support. It did have, I think, mostly Democrat opposition, but not enough to keep it from passing. And one of the things this bill does, it's called overtime threshold for agricultural employees. is it raises, believe it or not, the number of hours that an ag worker needs to work in order to qualify for overtime pay from 40 hours in a work week to 56 hours in a work week. So it used to be if you worked over 40 hours, you would get overtime. Now if you work over 56 hours, you get overtime. So why might you ask, would Democrats support that? Is that what you are asking, Dragon? I am curious. The reason that they are supporting it is that the result of the previous thing was not. Ag workers working more than 40 hours and earning overtime. It was ag workers' bosses making sure they never worked more than 40 hours and therefore they didn't work as much as they might want to and didn't earn as much as they might want to. So by extending it to 56 hours from 40, workers will get actually more hours that they will be allowed to work and they will be able to make more money. Because before, they wanted to work and the bosses wouldn't let them. because those next hours cost too much. Now that the next hours don't cost too much, at least up to 56, it's a win-win for everybody. One of the laws that Governor Jared Polis signed into law yesterday is a law that makes it illegal to use a 3D printer to make guns or certain parts of guns and so on. And I said that this is an unenforceable law and I disapprove it for that reason in addition to being against the merits of the law. A listener who... is a former police chief somewhere in Colorado. I won't use his name or name the department where he was a police chief texted in and said the 3D printing law would most likely be enforced if law enforcement was given information that a person was 3D printing and seized the printer with a search warrant. It's an add-on charge for a DA to get someone to plead to other charges.

So there you go, which I think that's right. And this guy would know a lot better than I would. So I assume it's right because he said it and he knows what he's talking about. I also think that makes me object to it even more, right? I've just. Making laws to make criminals out of people who aren't hurting others really bothers me. I know there's a whole argument as 3D printers get more ubiquitous, bad guys are going to go make their own guns. But it doesn't seem like bad guys have a very hard time getting guns anyway. I don't know. I don't like it. I don't like it. One other just very quick thing. We know about the weather. We've talked about it a lot. It's going to get worse later today and tomorrow. And I only have, separate from anything to do with driving, I got one piece of advice for you when it comes to your plants at home. If we really do get this heavy, wet snow that they're talking about, and I assume we will, that can break things, especially... trees with with brittle limbs or you know young fragile trees. And so what my wife and I do when what I recommend to you, and this is not like sheer genius. It's just more like a reminder to go do it is get out there with a broom and just knock the snow off, especially if you've got trees with bigger leaves or kind of thicker but still brittle branches. that can hold a lot of snow or even plants where the snow will just weigh the leaves down and maybe break the stalks and the stems. Just get out there with a broom and lightly brush this stuff off and you'll see the leaves pop back up and the branches pop back up as they're relieved of the weight and you may save yourself a bunch of damage to trees and plants that you care a lot about. So. With that, have a wonderful and safe rest of your Tuesday. Thank you, Gina. Thank you, Dragon, for another great show. Michael Brown up next. Keep it here on K-O-A.