12-12-25 - *FULL SHOW* Rep Jeff Hurd; Broncos Underdogs; Indiana v Trump; Old Fire

Welcome to Ross on the News with Gina. Good morning, Gina. How are you? I'm well. How are you? Excellent. I'm thinking about your underdog thing, underdog movies. I have a very bad memory, you know, so I'm not really the, I'll get half an hour into a movie before I realize I've seen it already. I'm not kidding. I do that all the time. Hi, Producer Dragon. Hi there. Do you have a normal memory or do you do what I do? A little bit of both. Yeah. I can remember movies from the 80s, but the one that I saw last week, me. Yeah, yeah, that's, don't worry, Gina, that's going to happen to you. Great, can't wait. So I will, I will, so first, I want to ask listeners to text in with the same question Gina's been asking on the social media question. You can do the social media question. 2 at X.com slash K-O-A Colorado. Where else do you put up the, where else you put social media questions? On Facebook and X. Facebook and X. Okay, so you can check those out. But I want to ask you to text in your answer to the same question. What's your favorite underdog movie? And the reason that I, you know, thought it would be good is just after you and I were talking about that a moment ago, we got three texts in a row from three different people. saying the movie miracle about the 1980, you know, men's hockey, Olympic hockey team beating the Russians where Kurt Russell plays Her Brooks. Kurt Russell and a big shaggy wig plays Coach Herbrook. So a whole bunch of, well, three people in a row said that one. Anyway, Texas at 5669.0. And the other thing I wanted to mention that Gina mentioned is... Lindsay Vaughan, holy, can you imagine? That's like Philip Rivers getting called back to the NFL, or this may be even bigger, because Philip River's probably not going to win. Well, I don't know, maybe you will. I hope he does. I like him. Lindsay Vaughn becoming the oldest skiing downhill World Cup winner, 41 years old. Five and a half years after retiring from bad knees. Unbelievable. I hate how we say the oldest at 41. At 41. But when you're talking downhill skiing and World Cup championships and Olympic championships, that is old. Right. And the injuries like you mentioned and taking a hiatus and then coming back and still winning. Unbelievable. It's crazy. It's just a different. A different level of talent. Really unbelievable. We have an immense amount of stuff to do on today's show. As Gene and I already mentioned in about an hour and a half, we'll talk with Ben Albright, our Broncos insider, about the Broncos Packers game, you know, about what to expect, about what he's looking for, but also about why the Broncos are an underdog at home, even though they have a better record. Clearly, the bookies don't respect the Broncos record. And actually, we Dragon and I in particular have talked about this. Quite a bit. Dragon is more sympathetic to the Broncos than not. I mean, I love the Broncos, right? I'm just saying, yes, they're 11 and 2, but they haven't had a very hard schedule. To which Dragon says, you've helped them win? Well, yes. And also, like, you say, okay, yeah, the schedules may be a little easy, but they're winning. They're winning close games. Right.

The win is a win is a win. Exactly. That's what he says. But I think the bookies are saying that the Packers have beaten better teams. So anyway, and as Gina noted, we're going to get Ben at 734, which normally you would think of as something like the sun rising in the West, a thing that doesn't happen. And on his birthday. I don't know how old. Who's older? You or Ben? Ben, Ben must be older than you. Ben is older. Yeah. He even makes the, oh my goodness, you're so young comments when he's young himself. Yeah, yeah, he's way younger than I am. And since we're talking the Broncos games, you are going to listen to the K-OA broadcast. Of course I am. Okay. I'll be on the sidelines. You'll be on the sideline, right? I'll be on the sidelines. I'll be listening the whole time. I'll tell you what, though. You know, you put all this pressure on me as being responsible for what happens with the Broncos. Yeah, I'm 11 and 0. But this is, this is the biggest test because this is going to be the best team probably that they've played so far. I'm not worried. Wait, quick question for you, Ross. When you do the mic on the sidelines, when you say you're going to do a December 14th game, do you ever question the weather? Because it's going to be awesome this weekend, but I wonder if you're hesitant to be like, do I really want to do a middle of December game? I don't question it. No, you're in for no matter what. Yeah, and I'm doing the following Sunday too, and I think it'll probably still be nice. But in any case, no, like. Because it's going to be awesome. I mean, anybody going to the game. And I wouldn't mind, you know, I wouldn't mind cold and snow, although I'll tell you what, I was just in the stands as a. you know, a attendee at the game a few years ago. Was it a playoff game or just a game very late in the season against Cincinnati? And it was like the second coldest I've ever been in my life sitting in the stands up there kind of in the nosebleeds with the wind blowing and the wind chill was like minus 25 or something. And oh, is it brutal? So I prefer, I wouldn't want that, but I'd be fine if it was. 20 and snowing. Well, I would love to see 20 in snowing next weekend when the Jags are in town and see how the Floridians can really take that if that is the case, because that would be awesome. I guess you've been here long enough that, because for those who don't know, Gina used to be on the radio in Jacksonville. So, but at this point, you'd be rooting for the Broncos, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The only reason I rooted for the Jags is because they're, for the longest time, their stadium tickets were cheaper than parking. Anytime we went to a game. It was like a. $15 ticket, $20 parking, great Jags game. $15 ticket buying them from the stadium or buying from people who were just... No, buying from the... Well, I don't know, actually. I think at the time we were in the... We were in Jacksonville's heyday where they were really, really, really bad. That's the heyday, okay. People were just selling tickets just to get maybe the service fees back. So when they would cover the third row seats with the tarp or whatever? Oh my gosh. All right, let me do a couple of quick stories here because this is Ross on the news with Gina. So I want to briefly mention what happened in Indiana yesterday. So you recall that President Trump pushed the state of Texas.

to do a mid-decade redistricting to try to change a few congressional seats that are currently held by Democrats into seats that will be held by Republicans. And that is happening. Then Governor Gavin Newsom in California said, well, if they're going to do that to try to make some Republican seats, we're going to do the same thing in California to make some Democrat seats. And they had to get that through the voters, and they did. So that's probably happening too. A couple other states are on this path. But in the news lately, we've seen a lot of Indiana in the news because Trump and JD Vance, who actually went to Indiana twice to lean on the Republican politicians, have been pushing Indiana aggressively. Now, Indiana has very, Indiana's Republican Party has long held something of an independent streak. They're not really easy pushovers. I also note that Indiana has nine congressional seats. Seven of them are held by Republicans. So 78% of the seats held by Republicans, 22% of the seats, two out of nine, held by Democrats in a state where Kamala Harris got 40% of the vote. So Republicans are already overrepresented. That said, there are plenty of states where Democrats are massively overrepresented. And even if I think Massachusetts and maybe a couple of others, where there are no Republican members. of Congress, even though obviously Republicans, even in Massachusetts, make up something close to 40% of the vote, maybe a little less. But you get the idea. In any case, I hate all this stuff. I hate the gerrymandering. I hate the fact that we have so few competitive districts in this country. I think it causes radicals from both sides to end up in Congress, and we end up with very little common sense. Anyway, they were trying to push Indiana to do this. the governor who then said he would push the state senators to do this. And yesterday, and this wasn't even really close, yesterday they voted against doing the redistricting and actually a majority of the state Senate Democrats voted with all of the states, I'm sorry, a majority of the state Senate Republicans voted with all of the state Senate Republicans voted with all of the state Senate Democrats to say no. to say no to that. So it got just blown up. But here's the thing. It wasn't just that they were trying to show some independence, right? It wasn't just that they said, nah, we're not really down with this mid-decade redistricting. We don't think it's the right thing to do. That was part of it. But here's the other thing. JD Vance went to the state twice. Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, was making phone calls, lobbying people. And then Republican members of the state Senate started getting threats. They started getting death threats. Their kids started getting nasty texts. They started feeling all of this pressure. from directly from Trump and his team, but also from insane MAGA people in and out of Indiana who were threatening them, hey, you better do this. And that made them say.

Oh, hell no, we are not caving into this pressure. We're not caving into pressure from JD Vance. We're not caving into pressure who are from people we don't know who are threatening us. We're not caving into the club for growth. We're going to vote no just to show you that we can't be pushed around. And I'm very grateful they did it that way. All right, yeah, we'll do this and then I'll come back to the other thing because Dragon wants me to talk about fire, so we will. You put it in your show sheet at this time. I know I did. I know I did. I love these sciencey stories. Here's a headline from the New York Times. Archaeologists find oldest evidence of fire making. Now, what I found so fascinating about the story is the gap, the difference in time between the previous oldest discovered. evidence of human beings making fire to the new evidence of well it's not it's not homo sapiens actually it's neanderthals believe it or not but this is some some work that they did in britain and Before this, the oldest known evidence of humans making and using fire dated back around 50,000 years. This one now, and I'll quote from the New York Times, in what is now Eastern England, a group of Neanderthals used flint and pyrite to make fires by a watering hole, not just once but time after time over several generations 400,000 years ago. And that nuts to go from 50,000 years ago to 400,000 years ago. And I'm not going to take a lot of time with it. I put this in my blog at rosskomensky.com so you can go read it yourself. But the way the guy figured out, I mean, I'll just tell you one thing. Like, he was sitting out there trying to figure out. Like, I think I'm on to something here. And he remembered seeing a streak of red dirt somewhere. And like, that's a little weird. What is that? And basically, they went over and they did a whole bunch of testing. And they figured out basically that it was dirt that had been burned by a fire. But then they had to do a whole bunch more testing to try to figure out whether it was just, you know, a brush fire caused by lightning or whether it was actually created by humans. And they studied this for four years. trying to figure it out and analyzing the chemistry of the thing and digging more around it. And anyway, eventually they determined that this site had been a watering hole around 400,000 years ago. And it's just such a cool story. So there's that. What was the other thing I wanted to do? Oh, a football thing from last night's Tampa Bay Atlanta game. And I know you probably don't care about Tampa Bay in Atlanta, but there's a little bit of this that ties in to the Broncos, which is why I wanted to mention it. So the Atlanta Falcons tight end, Kyle Pitts, yesterday caught 11 passes for 152 yards and three touchdowns.

I forget which website I got this from. He became the eighth tight end in NFL history to have at least three receiving touchdowns and 150 yards receiving in a single game. But before this, the last tight end to have three receiving touchdowns and 150 yards in one game was Shannon Sharp for the Broncos in 1996. So this guy, Kyle Pitts, is the only tied in to accomplish it so far in this century, which is pretty good. I like that story. Speaking of football. Gina, Michiganer, have you paid any more attention to this, you know, some of the details of the Michigan football? You should have seen Gina's eye roll there. Yeah, now I have. Now you have. It's really hard not to. Yeah. It's all over the place. Whether you're a Michigander or U of M fan or not, everybody's talking about it. Yeah. And I think you summarized it pretty well yesterday. Even when we didn't have the details, you said, how can you just throw away your life like that? And that is the... biggest overarching theme that everybody's really saying about this situation. So apparently he had an affair with some youngish assistant at University of Michigan. And one of the things that's come out is that he gave her a 55% salary raise, right? So there's that. Then I guess reading between the lines, they broke up maybe. And he showed up at her place. grabbed a knife, was threatening her than threatening himself, and then dropped the knife and ran away, ran to a church, and they got him at the church. This guy is married, not to the woman we're talking about here. He's married with three kids to a woman named Kelly with an eye. We've been married to her since 2015. And what a mess, right? His annual income was something like... $6 million, maybe a five-year contract. I think it was, you know, $30 million kind of overall package. And now he's in jail. Clearly, the guy has some serious psychological issues. It's, yeah, he's 39 years old. I don't know how well. I mean, what's your guess as to this girl's age when you look at the girl he was fooling around with? Like early 20s? Yeah, I'd say I'd say early 20s. I haven't seen what what her age is, but in any case, the dude clearly needs some help. I'm not looking to downplay what he did, but the dude clearly needs some help. I hope he gets some help. I don't know that he deserves a lot of time in jail if you didn't actually hurt anybody. But wow, what an unbelievable story. Gina in studio with me is always, Producer Dragon behind the glass. Producer Dragon, if you would put my audio up, please. This is pretty funny. So we've asked you to text in to us your thoughts for your favorite.

underdog or comeback movie of all time. And I got a couple of great listener texts, Gina. And don't even if you haven't read them, don't read them yet. So have a listen. This is one listener's idea for the best comeback movie of all time. I think it's pretty clear what this is. Dragon, I have not filtered to make sure there's no swear words in this, okay? All right, so we'll just try. Or did Jack Crawford send you for one last wheel before you're both booted off the case? Now I came because I wanted to. People will say we're in love. Anthrax Island. That was an especially nice touch, Clarice. Yours? Yes. Awesome. I don't know the movie. You don't know the movie? No. Wow. You got to play the more famous bit. I ate his liver with a nice kiantines. Just like you were talking about how you have a poor memory when it comes to remembering if you've seen a movie. Yeah. I haven't seen a lot of just you must see movies. Like I feel like there's a lot of classics. Even Rocky and Rudy and Karate Kid, I think a lot of those are... You're just skipping around on some audio. We do not know what's going to pop up. Right. A census take I once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some father beans and a nice candy.

Awesome. You must see that movie. What is it? Silence of the Lambs. You absolutely must see silence. Okay, so that's one person's vote for one of the great comeback movies, which I think is a pretty fabulous one. And then the other one, which is also a talk about quite the underdog story. And Gina, you're not going to know this movie either. It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days sitting on the porch with my family singing and dancing down in Mississippi. Gene, I know you got nothing. Dragon? Nothing for you? I was born a poor black child? Are you kidding? Do you know who's saying it? Do you know the actor who's saying it? No. Steve Martin. No, still nothing. It is a brilliant movie called The Jerk. And Steve Martin, obviously, a very white dude. But. Born a poor black child. And then they cut to the scene of, you know, like a 1930s rundown hovel in rural Mississippi. And he's there with a, you know, big African American family. And then it's a story of how Navan, his name is Navin Johnson, how he gets fabulously wealthy. And then anyway, it's. So it is a comeback movie? It is a comeback. Or it's, it's an underdog movie at least, you know. And it's, oh, I love that movie, the jerk. Anyway, those are two great answers. Right? Who expects when you ask listeners what's a great comeback movie or underdog movie to get Silence of the Lambs and the Jerk? That's some serious creativity and I really, really appreciate that a lot. Let me keep those cards and letters coming at 56690 with your concepts there. Let me just follow up on a story Gina is rightly covering quite a bit this morning. And that is this Trump quote unquote pardon of Tina Peters. It's very clear. Gina said it. Phil Weiser has said it, although I realize you might not trust Phil Weiser because he's partisan and he's running for governor and he's trying to make a name for a bit, trying to build his name recognition among the Democratic base by opposing Trump every day in every way. That's clearly his strategy for his campaign is to run against Trump more than against anybody else because he knows the Republican in the general election is unlikely to win. So he's going to run against Trump so he can build up his. bona fides among the Democratic base. We're going to vote in the primary to determine whether he or Michael Bennett gets the nomination. Anyway, here's the thing. This is very simple. We've talked about it many times and is very clear under the law. The President of the United States does not have the authority to pardon someone who was convicted of a state crime. It is that simple. So just keep that in mind. I was thinking about this on my drive-in. I'm going to oversimplify it a little, but...

Broadly speaking, when a president does something, you can put the thing in one of two different categories. They're doing it for a policy reason they really believe in, or they're doing it for a political reason that, you know, they think is important. And it could be, and sometimes the thing could be both, right? You know what Trump is doing with the... Venezuelan tankers. I think that's sort of more of a policy thing than a political thing. I don't, you know, I don't think the public hates that. I don't think they love it either. The drug boat thing, right? The public outside of his base are mostly against attacking the drugboats. But I think Trump is doing that because he believes in it as a matter of policy. The other side, though, is politics. And then within politics, it's all about rounding up votes. And then... Breaking it down even further, when you're looking at rounding up votes, there are basically two different types of votes you can try to round up. I'm going to ignore people who will never vote for you. Okay? So the types of votes you can round up are people who lean your way, but they may need some motivation to actually just turn out and vote. And then the other category would be swing voters who may or may not. lean your way. And so when you hear Trump, let's say talking about affordability, he's going after primarily the second category. He's going after folks who don't normally vote Republican, let's say, or weren't sure about him, but they did vote for him in 24 because they were so upset about the cost of living. And he's trying to remind them or tell them, hey, I feel your pain. He's not doing a very good job of it yet, but he's trying to tell him, I feel your pain and I'm going to do something about it and I'm trying to make the cost of living better. The Tina Peters thing is the other category. That is trying to motivate his base and remind them here, I'm here for you. I'm fighting the fight. You want me to fight. And if you want us to keep fighting it, you need to turn out for my people, the Republicans in Congress, in next November's election. So I think that's what's going on here. I do think there is an aspect of Trump that believes this in the sense that he either believes or claims he believes that there was fraud in the 2020 election. I don't believe there was enough fraud to change anything. In the outcome of the election, there's always some, and I believe that Tina Peters is where she belongs. But in any case, with Trump, there's probably a little bit of thinking that she was doing something righteous, but also very much pandering to the base. I just want to tell you some of the movies that listeners have texted in as underdog and comeback movies. Some really good ones here. Dodgeball, Top Gun, Forrest Gump. Shawshank Redemption. Interesting. Gina, please tell me you've seen that movie. Shawshank Redemption? No. No. Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Yeah. Awesome. Willie Wonka, too. Yeah, someone said the original Willy Wonka. So, oh, no Shawshank Redemption. We need to make a little list of movies Gina needs to see. You see the original Willie Wonka, though, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yep. It's going to be a really, really long list, I'm telling you. Yeah, yeah, clearly. I do give you, you know, a bit of a little leeway on this because you're always out having fun.

Since I'm not always out having fun, I don't have as much of an excuse for not having seen these movies, but you're out at the pop-up bars and the whatever and whoever. I'm not, I'll actually go to a theater and watch a new movie before I sit at home and probably watch an old must-see movie. We still are going to give you a list of movies you must see. Okay. So, okay, the reason Dragon played that, and this is a story that is national but definitely relates to Colorado significantly. Headline from axios.com, Trump leans toward reclassifying marijuana. And this would be a great thing. And I say this as somebody who's never tried marijuana and has no interest in it. But marijuana is legal in many states, but it's still illegal federally, which is a very strange situation. But. It means a couple of things when the fact that it's illegal federally, even if these businesses are allowed to operate because the feds look the other way on this. There are a couple of key things you need to know. One, it makes it very difficult for marijuana-related businesses that are operating legally under state law, but it makes it very difficult for them to get bank accounts. Then they end up having to hold a lot of cash, have to protect a lot of cash. It's expensive. It's dangerous. raises the price of the product if you were a customer. The other thing is that you have very limited ability to have tax deductions for your business if your business is not legal under federal law. So for example, in a normal business, you could deduct. salaries as an expense of running your business. Or you could deduct the electric bill as an expense of running your business. But with marijuana, you can't. Right. So with marijuana, these businesses are paying tax on, they can still deduct the cost of goods sold. So if they buy some amount of marijuana for $80 and sell it for $100, they're only paying taxes on the 20. But they don't have other deductions, right? If you were selling wheat. Right. And you, if you were a retailing wheat and you bought some for $80 and you sold it for $100, you would pay tax on, you wouldn't be paying tax on the 20. You'd start with that. But then you would deduct how much in salary, how much in rent, how much an electric bill, how much for your accountant, how much for all these other things. And maybe you would end up effectively paying taxes on eight instead of 20.

but not with marijuana. So that's another thing that causes the price of marijuana to be higher than it otherwise would be and actually put some of these people out of business because you just, you can't deduct this stuff that other businesses can. Anyway, they are looking at reclassifying marijuana from Schedule 1, where it is now, which is the same category that has heroin, down to Schedule 3, which means it's a drug with a low potential for abuse that would make it easier for companies to do all these. things we talked about to transfer it across state lines and that sort of thing. It would not make marijuana actually federally legal for recreational use, but it would make things much better for the industry. And I support it even though I'm not a user of marijuana. Right now I wanted to bring in K-OA's bread to Stewart because this is a story that I feel like. pretty much any family can really relate to. And a resource that a lot of families should be aware of. If you've taken care of an elderly parent or an elderly loved one, maybe someone recovering from a surgery or an injury, you really know how expensive medical rehab equipment can really be. Well, Brenda, you learned about a new program and a nonprofit in the metro area that really can offer some relief, some stress release and some financial relief to families. You know, I stumbled on the store by accident. As you know, I'm taking care of my elderly. father right now and a physical therapist this week gave me a long shopping list including a walker wheelchair bedlift shower chair other things that i thought would cost me more than a thousand dollars that's when i stumbled upon the assistance league of denver on evans near monaco our official name is hospital equipment lending program that's the co-chair of the organization chris carroway i would call her the CEO or manager but she doesn't get paid she and the others there volunteer their time. I want to help people that are in need medically. And this is the perfect way to do it. We loan our equipment out for free. You keep it as long as you need it. When you're done with it, the only requirement is to bring it back. Some of the volunteers say working there is great training for working in the medical profession. I work at a pediatric clinic as a medical assistant right now, but in my free time I come here and volunteer because people are so grateful for getting equipment from us for free. That's Lucy Ziccarelli. Now, she and Chris work for free, but the items they lend out cost money. That's why they depend on donations. We purchase about 90% of the equipment that we have here, and that funding comes from the thrift shop that Assistance League runs right next to us. And the other 10% comes from the donations that people bring us, such as knee scooters, wheelchairs, transfer benches. We have just about everything here, except we do not take electronics. No, they also don't accept needles or anything else that has to be sterilized. Reporting live Brenda Stewart, K-O-A. I mean, it's really something that people should be aware of because it's a...

You know, you deal with buying this equipment. You want to help a family member near the end of their lives be as comfortable and, you know, as stress-free for you and it just as easy for them. But then it's just the whole idea of you have all this equipment. You do everything you can and then what? Well, and you don't, you know, need it for that long. And when you get done with it, what do you do? Well, people are donating it there. Like I said, this happened with my mom and I spent a fortune. on all these things. And I thought, why did I get rid of it? Now I got to go back and buy it again. And she just said, well, what do you need? And they put together a list. They said, they'll call me in six months to see if I'm done with it and ready to return it. She goes, if you're not, just ignore the calls. You bring it back. Whenever you can. Nicest people I ever met and I don't think enough people know about this organization. So again, the name of the place is Assistance League of Denver. They have a thrift store next door. Yeah. You just go in, let them know what you need. They check it out. I'm amazed at the amount of people that were in there volunteering in the warehouse of stuff that they've collected. That's a great story. And great information, as Gina said, great information for listeners to know. If I hadn't known about it, I'd be out right around the Christmas holidays, about $1,000. Spending a ton of money. And then stuck with this stuff eventually trying to figure out what to do with it. It's wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Thank you, Brenda. That's Brenda Stewart from our K-OA news desk. Super useful information. You know what? Here's a story I can do in 90 seconds, so I'm going to do this one now. So you will recall the stuff that was going on in the Eastern District of Virginia with Trump's hand-picked new U.S. attorney who he picked to try to go after James Comey and Letitia James. And so he put. One of his sort of personal attorneys who had never been around a criminal trial had no business being installed as U.S. attorney. She's an insurance and real estate attorney had no business being put there. She's just put there to be sort of Donald Trump's henchman to go after his political enemies. It's unclear what's going to happen with the James Comey thing because of these questions about the statute of limitations. But I told you last week that, I think it was last week, could have been the beginning of this week, that they tried to get. Letitia James indicted again. And they brought the evidence to a grand jury. And remember, you always hear about how easy it is to indict someone at a grand jury. They say a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich at a grand jury. Because remember, when you go to a grand jury, a grand jury is not like a regular jury in a trial. It's a very different thing. It's a group. They hear a bunch of evidence and decide whether in their opinion there is enough. probable cause to go ahead and file charges and then take this thing to an actual trial. So it's kind of the first filter as to whether the government actually has a case. But what's important to understand is at grand juries, the prosecution is the only side presenting information. The person who is the subject of the grand jury and may be brought up on charges.

might not even know there's a grand jury going on about about them, right? It can be very private. But in any case, there is certainly no defense attorney in there arguing, hey, the government's wrong. So normally, right, if you've got even a half decent, quarter decent case, you can get the indictment. So about a week ago, they failed to get an indictment against Letitia James. A grand jury said no. And then yesterday, a different grand jury in a different part of Virginia also said no. And one wonders, I understand, I don't like Letitia James, but one wonders at some point whether the DOJ should stop throwing good money after bad and just call it a day. Playing some nice music or did it relate to something? Just something. Just little. Unless you can relate it to something or other. I'd just like to have a little piece of mind from time to time, you know. A bunch of listeners have texted in, Gina, asking just to say the name again of the medical equipment sharing place. And I remembered if you don't. Assistance League of Denver. And we got a bunch of texts on that already. So that's a pretty cool. Piece of a bit of information. They're off of Evans near Monaco. I was really happy that Brenda was able to give that information. They were also actually on Colorado Gives Day because it's a nonprofit. So we've heard from listeners that have donated equipment. We've heard from listeners who have been able to benefit from some of the equipment. And it's just a great service of people who, you know, you usually only use this medical equipment temporarily. So it's nice to have that trade back and that opportunity. And a listener says if you're further up north, there's a place in Arvada called Dave. Locker that does something similar to this just about you know helping you out this is what we're here for on K-OA to try to find you good answers, help you solve some problems. All right, let me do maybe 90 seconds on a somewhat more serious story, and I think a very interesting story. We've been talking a lot about artificial intelligence. We had a guest on the show yesterday about AI, and the conversation about AI is everywhere. AI is driving moves in the stock market. It's just probably the biggest big picture economic story right now. Yesterday, the president. released and signed an executive order entitled Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence. And let me just share a couple of quick details. It directs the Attorney General of the United States to establish a task force to challenge state AI laws that they believe that the federal government believes are unconstitutional or not allowed. The order directs the Secretary of Commerce to publish an evaluation of state AI laws that conflict with national AI policy priorities. And the way they're going to try to enforce this is to withhold.

broadband equity access and development. So basically rural broadband money from any state that has laws like this. So that's going to be their hammer. I don't know if this is actually legal. I don't know if the president has this authority or whether this authority only rests with Congress. But I just wanted to say one other thing about it. I don't. hate this idea from Trump. I know some people are talking about it as if, well, it's just the AI companies buying Trump and buying their way out of being regulated. But when you start trying to regulate AI on a state-by-state basis, it's kind of like trying to regulate the energy industry on a state-by-state basis. And imagine the confusion and the extra costs and all this stuff if you were to try to have each state say, we're going to do it this way. California gets away with that from time to time. They used to get away with it with automobile, with fuel efficiency, but they don't anymore. And then you had these vehicle companies that often would make vehicles just for California. And they'd be more expensive and vehicles in other places would actually be more expensive too. It's complicated. But I do think that it makes sense at the highest level for AI regulation to be national rather than this patchwork of state stuff. In our next segment of the show, we're going to talk with Ben Albright, our Broncos insider, about why the Broncos are underdogs when they're at home against a team with a worst record, and it's Ben on his birthday. Let's bring on the birthday boy, Ben Albright, and Gina, producer Dragon, said, Ben just woke up. But you could be surprised about that in two different ways, depending on how well you know Ben. You could be surprised that like he wasn't awake much earlier, right? Or if you know Ben, you could be surprised that he's up at this godforsaken hour at all, even though Gina and Dragon and I have been up for a long time. And a texter did say, Ross, please make sure you address Ben today as Ben Old Bright. So there you go. Good morning, Ben Old Bright. Happy birthday. Thanks, guys. How are you guys doing? What are you doing for your birthday? Well, not sleeping in, that's for sure. I have nothing. I'm going to sit here and chill and hope that it's that all that I can hope it could be by doing absolutely nothing. We may get out about tonight. Well, let me know. I wouldn't mind meeting you for a beer or something. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, all right, normally. It's just sort of people who do a fair bit of sports gambling like you and a much, much, much, much lower level like me. Like I bet a lot, but I only bet 30 cents at a time. But normally it's only people like us who are talking about the lines. But going into this Broncos Packers game, the betting line is actually kind of in the mainstream of the conversation because, well, why don't you pick it up from there? Well, you know, the Packers have been a bit more prolific on offense or a pretty good defensive team. I think the line is in the conversation because the Broncos, despite being 11 and 2, having a superior record, are considered underdogs at home this late in the season. And so, you know, that's an oddity, a statistical oddity. I will say that in terms of public betting, the Broncos plus that two and a half is the second most bet line in the entire league of the week. So the public doesn't seem to.

favor the sportsbook's opinion that the Broncos should be underdogs at home. How does Ben Albright feel about the Broncos being somewhere in the neighborhood of a two-point underdog? You know, I think it's sort of fair. I mean, if you look at the tape on these two teams, you sort of see that and understand it. This, you know, the Broncos have played some good teams. I played some good offenses, but what I will say is that the Packers probably have the most speed on the outside of any team they've played so far. I'm not sure if Josh Jacobs is going to play yet, but Jacobs has been a thorn on the Broncos side for a long time, dating back to Williams with the Raiders. And there are elements or ingredients to this that certainly make it look like a game. It's going to be very difficult for Denver. That said, they've found a way to overcome almost every opponent so far this year. They are undefeated at home, and that two-and-a-half point line is certainly interesting. I kind of like the Broncos getting those two-and-a-half points. I don't know if I like the Broncos on the money line, but I certainly like them getting the two-and-half. I do love when quarterback Bownex was asked about being the underdogs. There's a great quote of him saying, I don't really care. My mom thinks we'll win. So that's really that all that matters. I just thought that was the best answer from the quarterback. But Ben, I'm just curious about when we talk about these underdogs, we're not the only ones this weekend too. Patriots have the same record as us. They're underdogs at home taking on the bills. Is this something that's more common nowadays? Are we just seeing this more and more of being like, yeah, the records maybe not reflect or maybe people are doubting or different or not sure about what we really see when it comes to this? I think there's an element for that. I mean, the Patriots schedule has been absurdly easy thus far in the season. And, you know, the bills are more of a battle-tested type team. So, you know, I think there is something to that. Records, you know, the adage is you are what your record says you are. But the reality is sometimes you can get away with having a very easy schedule and be propped up by that. I don't think the Broncos have had certainly not as easy as the Patriots. You know, I think what you get late in the season, you start to have some questions like, okay, is this team legitimate or not? I think the Broncos have answered that bell. You know, you beat Kansas City a couple weeks ago. You've handled business against everybody else. I think what's driving a lot of this is the Broncos haven't really put on dominant performances. outside of maybe Dallas and Cincinnati against teams that were short-handed. They haven't really put on dominant performances much this year. And I think that's, I think that's sort of why people are maybe questioning the record is they've needed late comebacks or had close, air quotes, close games against, you know, teams like the Raiders. Bonix has never.

faced Micah Parsons before. That guy's a one-man wrecking crew. I mean, there's a lot of good defensive end rushers in the league, but Micah Parsons is, as one website says, a wrecking ball of a player. Do you think Garrett Bowles will be lined up against Parsons? And I don't recall, does Parsons move around to get away from, you know, the offensive line player that he doesn't really want to go against? Well, they used to do that in Dallas. They used to move him all over. When Dan was sort of the defense in Dallas, they used to move him all over. Now that he's in Green Bay, he kind of sticks to his side. They move him a little bit, but it's mostly to his side. And so he'll be more up against Mike McGilichy that he will be against Garrett Bowles. But they do put him on either side of the thing on occasion. On the other side, they split it between Rashon Gary and King Lillian Barre. Gary started the season very hot, but it's been very cold ever since. And so they're trying to find somebody opposite him, similar to the way the Broncos have John Cooper opposite Nick Benito. Then real quick, can you give us the one thing when you keep talking about, all right, we have to see the Broncos be more dominant play? What is the one thing that you would need to see on the field to be like, okay, yeah, that was the dominant game? Consistency. I mean, you know, I think the defense has shown that. I think on the offensive side of the ball, it's been a little hit or miss. You'll have some great stretches, then you'll have some stretches where you just wonder what's going on, and you'll have the occasional game flow interrupted by some ridiculous trick play that doesn't work and, you know, things like that. I think just handling the basics and being consistently able to execute the basics will lead to bigger or better things. This is going to be a tough test. They're a good defense. They've got a lot of speed on offense. But I think the Broncos can pull it off. So you just said, Ben, that if you were a betting man and you are, you could see the Broncos winning a very close game. What's the current over under on this game and how are you feeling about that? I'm not sure where the over-underline is as of this morning. I think I like the over a little bit. This one feels like there could be a little bit of fireworks. Again, and I hate to keep harping on it, but Green Bay has a lot of speed. Most speed the Broncos is seen on offense this year. There's not really a way to replicate that. You can look at guys like Jane Reed or Matt Golden or Christian Watson, who's back, is kind of a long strider, but still has a lot of speed there. They just have a lot of speed on the outside, and they have a power run game on the inside. That spells trouble for a lot of teams, especially late in the season. When you're trying to slow down that power run game, you want to commit an extra body. Well, that takes somebody a safety valve you have over the top of the past game, and everybody has to, you know, the margins are thinner. Everybody's just got to execute. And so I kind of lean towards the over here. I assume that line didn't move appreciably overnight. So I'm looking at one betting platform right now. I won't mention which one. The over under is 42 and a half on this. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. That's about right. Yeah. And I would take the over on that. I would take the over on that out to about 45. So I think I think you're safe there. Okay. One last question for you. And this isn't so much of a objective question, but more like a gut feel question.

How about Philip Rivers coming back to play quarterback? Well, we're not 100% sure he'll play, but I think he probably will. For the Colts, how'd you feel about that? Well, I mean, you know, anytime you have a chance to go out there and get a guy that hasn't played in five years, it's a grandfather. I mean, you kind of have to take it, don't you? You too. You know, I will spoil the surprise for everybody right now. Phil Rivers is playing on Sunday. I don't know if he's going to start, but he's definitely going to play. And so that's going to be interesting now. He's going to be on the road against Seattle, one of the best defenses in the league. Right. having him come out there having a guy who's basically a year younger than me, laced him back up after five years and come back out there. That's a fun story. Last time that was done would have been Steve DeBerg in 1999 coming back to the Falcons after being away for five years and lacing them back up at 44 years old. So a fascinating story. It'll be a lot of fun to watch. Yeah. And right now on this betting platform, I'm looking at the Seahawks are 13 and a half point favorites. So they're not giving the cults. too much credit. And by the way, now we know how old Ben is. I was going to say you just called him old and he's a year younger than you. So Ben, are you now considered old? Or is this only in football terms that he's considered old? Oh, it's both. I mean, being 45 is that you are now closer to 60 than you are to 30. Wow. Wow, that hurts. On that note, happy birthday, man. And then keep in touch. I wouldn't meet up with you for a beer or even a meal or something tonight if you want. And I'm doing the sideline microphones this Sunday, so I'll see you at the game. Okay. Well, we'll get out of the bat tonight, man. I'll text you. Okay, sounds good. All right. That's Ben Albright, K-O-A. Broncos insider host of Broncos Country Tonight, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. weekdays here on K-O.A. Yesterday, one of the things that was going on in the news that I was telling you, there was going to be a series of votes about health insurance, Obama funding, that sort of thing. Gina's got an update for us on that. I'm not wearing a Broncos. You do the Broncos gear before the game. Gina and I are normally on. I don't remember what I normally have. I think it's normally on Mondays though that I'm wearing my gear. I've seen you do both. Yeah. Normally Monday is because it's been a victory Monday every single time. Right. But then I'm like, well, if it's not, did I just lose not wearing Broncos gear the whole week? Mm-hmm. So. You could wear it anyway just to kind of cheer him up for the next time. It's part of the Broncos superstition. So if I don't wear something Broncos oriented on Friday. The only question I didn't have an opportunity to ask Ben was his prediction for the game. Because last time he's had, have you seen he has his superstition of he's doing very, very odd predictions for the game? Because when he votes against the Broncos, the Broncos win.

Oh, when he bets against him? Yes. Well, he did say I would take the Broncos and the points, but not the Broncos in the money line, which would mean he thinks the Broncos are going to win by one or two. Right. But for the actual graphic that we put together with all of our sports people, he's been putting like 1 to 99. I think last game was 6-7-6-7 to nothing. You know, like he's making it more and more dramatic each time. That's funny. So I'll be curious to see what he does this time. All for the superstition. I hope Jonathan Steele is okay after that. That wasn't awkward at all. It wasn't for me. I don't know if it was. I don't know if it wasn't. Yeah, he was going. He works in a different floor than where we work. So we were just coming up in the elevator together and like said hi. Nice guy. Listener question, this is very, very basic listener question, but I'll answer it anyway. Ross, if you bet on the Broncos and take the points and it's tied in regulation, but then the Packers win in overtime by three to you win your bet. No, in all of these sports bets, it's only the final thing that matters. Only the final score. If it goes to overtime, whatever happened at the end of regulation is completely irrelevant. So for the final spread, for the final total points, for a number of touchdowns thrown in a game by a quarterback or number of yards. rushed in a game by a running back. Right, it's. It's the full game that matters whether it goes to overtime or not. Listener question, I probably missed it, but did you mention Lindsey Bond's downhill victory? Gina, did you or I mention Lindsay Bond's downhill victory? Yeah, probably not enough, though, because that is a crazy story. Yeah. Because taking a five-year break after being injured, now winning the World Cup downhill event in Switzerland, 41 years old. Olympic gold medalist. And just coming back and winning it all is crazy. Incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And then we've got another Colorado girl, Michaela Schifrin, she's not as old as Lindsey Vaughn. But she's just a freak of nature. Yeah, she just won like her 104th race or something crazy like that. All right, let me do two minutes on an international story that Gina has covered a couple of times today and yesterday as well. And that's this whole thing with the Trump administration seizing this oil tanker that was coming out of Venezuela.

I got a couple things to say about this. First of all, I kind of like this policy. I like it better than, or at least let me put it this way. I think this policy is legal, whereas I suspect that attacking the drugboats is not legal. I don't know whether that'll ever get to court. But in any case, this is a ship that has been sanctioned. for years for illegally transporting Iranian oil. Now, Venezuelan oil is also sanctioned by the United States. But this action where the Coast Guard landed on the ship took control of the ship was actually done pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal judge. further pursuant to the sanctions against ships that transport oil that is not allowed to be sold internationally because of sanctions. And this was one of those ships. In fact, this ship, here's what they did to try to avoid law enforcement. And I don't mean like in the very short term, like in the five minutes when they were being boarded, I mean bigger picture. They changed the name of the ship. They put a different flag on the ship, and it was sailing under the flag of Guyana, which is not the nation that it's registered, that the ship is registered under. And it even appears that they were trying to manipulate their... an electronic beacon that shows where it's located to try to make it seem like they were located somebody somewhere else. So they knew they were breaking the law and they were trying to avoid it. There's actually quite a lot of ships that do this. It seems like that particular segment of the industry is a very scummy segment. But I just want to say, you know, I think that. To the extent that the Trump administration has decided that it is in America's national interest for the government of Venezuela to be changed. And I'm not looking to debate with you whether it's a good idea for our government to be involved with regime change. Okay. I'm not saying that's a great idea. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea. We have very mixed results with it, to say the least. But. If they have decided that they want regime change, doing this and squeezing off the regime's money, rather than going in guns ablazing, seems to make some sense. And at this point, they have sanctioned six more ships, and Trump has said he's going to keep going with it. And at some point... The Maduro regime may indeed run out of money. It wouldn't surprise me. Again, it's not like an 80% chance, but there's some chance that the military in Venezuela will say, our nation is being starved because this guy is here. We need to deal with him. We'll see how it all plays out. In the next segment of the show, Congressman Jeff Hurd joins us to talk about some...

interesting bills that he's just gotten through Congress. But before that, we've got your weather. We've got your traffic with Jonathan Steele, assuming he is still talking after what I just did. And of course, we've got news with Gina. Congressman Jeff Hurd representing the fourth congressional district, a huge swath of western and southern Colorado, almost half of the... physical territory of the state of Colorado was in that district. I will just mention one thing by way of preamble, and then we're going to have Jeff do most of the talking. And that is that most of the time in the news, what we're hearing is stories about members of Congress, not literally, but figuratively beating each other severely about the head and neck. And it seems like nobody gets along, nobody gets anything done. But in fact, quite a few things get done. And Congressman Hurd is part of the group that gets things done. So first of all, Jeff, welcome back to K-O-A. And second, tell us about the snowpack water supply forecasting reauthorization act that you did with Democrats. Hey, Ross, great to chat with you. Congratulations on this new morning time as well. That's an awesome thing. I'm so happy to be able to reach an even bigger group of people, and I trust it's working out for you. Yes, you're right. You hear a lot in Congress about people arguing and fighting, and that's what, if it bleeds, it leads in the news. There's a lot of stuff that we're doing behind the scenes that actually helps Colorado. Water is life not only in western Colorado, but throughout the state. So Joe Neguse and I, a sponsor to Bill, and it just passed out of the house. It would basically help with snow monitoring and forecasting to make sure that water supply managers in Colorado and throughout the West have the tools they need to know how much water we have in any given season, what the reservoir levels should be, what we should expect, how much we need to irrigate our crops with. And so it's a tool that gives water managers the ability to manage this precious resource. It's not super sexy. You're not going to see it on the front page of the paper, but it's an example of stuff that actually matters to our farmers, to our ranchers, to outdoor recreationalists, everyone that relies on this most precious resource, and it's a bill that we just got to pass out of the house this week. Well, Congressman, it might not be super sexy, but it is cool sounding when you talk about terrestrial laser scanning technology in this snowpack forecast. Can you explain a little bit more about how this is used and why this is so important to make sure that both sides are really coming together to utilize this? Absolutely. So in the old days, when you wanted to measure snowpack, you'd send out, you know, scientists to go and measure snowpack with like sticks and measuring tools. Now we're using things like radar, LiDAR, advanced technologies that are deployed from aircraft and even from satellites as well to measure exactly how much snow we have, not only how deep it is, but like how much moisture content does it have in it. Those are the sorts of things that allow us to make real... important forecasting tools that we can use to actually figure out how much water we have. And so it's high technology stuff. It was a pilot program. We're going to make it permanent now. It's important for us in the West. You know, water is an issue not just in Colorado, but all in the Colorado River Basin. There are 40 million Americans that rely on this river. So it's a big deal for 40 million Americans.

And, you know, the headwaters of the Colorado River are in our state. 70% of the water that's in the Colorado River comes from Colorado, our state. And so we need to make sure that we manage this precious resource in the right way. Protect it, protect Coloradans, and make life better for those in not only my district, but throughout the state. All right, I've got two more things I want to talk to you about, Jeff. So another one is a bill that just passed, and I think maybe this one passed the Senate already. as well, renewing secure rural schools, or the secure rural schools reauthorization act, I guess the official name of the bill. What's this about? First of all, I love that you guys are doing this sort of policy stuff. It's great. This stuff is not super sexy, but it really does matter. Secure rural schools. Basically, we have so much federal land in Colorado. There's not a lot of economic activity necessarily happening that generates dollars for local school districts, for counties or local school districts. So secure rules, rural schools authorization basically says it helps rural areas where resources are stretched in. It just makes sure that there's a percentage of money that comes from operations on federal land. Think things like timber harvesting and other economic activities, that a portion of that goes to schools. And it basically makes up for the tax revenue that counties don't otherwise get because they have so much federal land in their area. And so this is a way for us to support schools to support counties. And it is bipartisan. Again, it's another one of those bipartisan bills that passed in the House overwhelmingly that make sure that counties throughout Colorado's 3rd and Colorado 4th and the other rural parts of our state. have the resources they need to educate students. Congressman heard a story that is making much more headlines than maybe some of the other policy things that we're having an opportunity to talk about today, obviously, is the rising cost of health care and both of those measures failing in the Senate. You've been quoted in saying that really both parties need to quickly work toward a solution, but what can that solution look like? Well, right now we're looking at a temporary solution that would extend the enhanced premium tax credit to reform them. There's a lot of abuse and waste that's happening in there. I'm part of a bipartisan group that would temporarily extend those with reforms, with changes. But long term, we need to be looking at the structural drivers of health care. Like, why is health care so expensive? The Affordable Care Act has been anything but affordable. And we need to fix those things. It's, you know, Republicans didn't vote for this, but this is the situation we're in now. And so we need to do everything we can to lower health care costs for hardworking families across not only my district, but across our state and our country. And so we're looking at those legal reforms, lowering the cost of pharmaceuticals. All those sorts of things that we need to do to stop the squeeze that middle class families are failing in Colorado. So, Jeff, you know, you and I both know that you and I have a small disagreement on this, and I don't know if you've changed your position at all, but you've been in favor of extending the Democrats' temporary subsidies, and I'm against that. Are you still where you were?

Yeah, Ross, this is one of those few areas where you and I don't quite agree 100%. I believe in a temporary need to address the individual market in the squeeze that families are facing, small business owners are facing with the premium cliff that's coming up with the expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits. I don't like it. I don't like the enhanced premium tax credits. It's a federal subsidy for a system that is not working, but I do think it gives us a bridge. in time to work on more structural issues that you and I probably agree on, Russ, that we need to do in order to fix health care overall. Yeah, and I think one thing a lot of folks don't understand is that even if these subsidies were extended, The premiums are still going up a lot because most of the increase in premiums is not being caused by the expiration of the subsidies, just being caused by the various things that are driving up the cost of health insurance, which are the things that you guys need to work on, right? Yeah, the cost of health care is going up here right now, but extending these enhanced premium tax credits helps. Substantially, it doesn't solve the problem completely, but you're right. There are underlying cost drivers that are going to keep the cost of health care rising up, but this helps make it less of a squeeze on families. And I've heard directly from folks that are concerned about this in my district, but fundamentally the system is broken. We've got to fix it. And I will tell you, Ross, this is not a solution that we can only do as Republicans. We want to have something that's... sustainable that works long term. We need to have Republicans and Democrats coming together in the House and the Senate to talk about things like tort reform, to talk about things like pharmaceutical benefit manager reform, to talk about the cost of prescription drugs to change our system from a health care system that awards volume. You know, basically the more test and procedures you get, the more payments you get is a medical provider to something that rewards value. Like what actually do we need to be spending money on? Those are the sorts of... big picture changes that we need to be working on. There isn't enough time to do it right now. So my enhanced premium tax credit fix is a short-term fix or a short-term way to address a part of this, but long-term, it's not sustainable and we need to work together to solve these things. And you're libertarian, Ross, you understand the dynamics and how do we incentivize people in a market to make smart healthcare decisions. that's a key part of the ultimate overall fix. I couldn't agree with you more on that last statement. We don't have time to talk about it more right now, but I think part of the problem of what's causing these increased health care costs is that. Consumers of health care are insulated from the cost that they are imposing on others, and so their consumption patterns are not what they should be. But that's a conversation for another day, Jeff. Congressman Jeff Hurd represents the fourth congressional district. He's from Grand Junction, but that district is a huge swath of western Colorado and then curving around kind of like an L into much of southern Colorado as well. Thanks for making time for us, Jeff.

Thanks, guys. Take care. You too. You too. All right. I like that guy. Don't forget that K-OA's A Heroes Thank You is going on now. It's a perfect opportunity to thank a veteran, an active military member, or a first responder with a $2,500 check, which would be pretty nice. It's going on through February 1st. All you have to do is submit the nomination name and their reason for it for that $2,500 at KOA, Colorado.com slash contests. You've seen the videos in the past on our social media channels. It's an awesome opportunity and plenty of tears shared as we give that money to somebody who is much deserving of it. It's a hero's thank you presented by Common Spirit Health and Fix It 24-7. We start in Superior with the third annual Superior Winter Festival, which runs from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow. There will be photos with Santa live performances, hot chocolate, and holiday shopping. Or head northeast for the three-day Thornton Winter Fest. It all begins tonight with Santa's a... arrival at 6.30 p.m. at the carpenter park fields, as well as a drone show, ice-gaining choir performances, food vendors, and a beer garden. The festival continues tomorrow and Sunday with the Winterfest 5K and fun run and fireworks set to holiday music at 7 tomorrow night. Of course, there's no shortage of holiday light displays. Here's more details from our lead Christmas lights reporter. It's Chadbauer. Denver Botanic Gardens has its blossoms of light at the York Street Gardens through Sunday, January 11th, and their Chatfield Farms location features. trail of lights. Denver's biggest drive-through Christmas light displays are back for the holiday season. Christmas in color has two locations at Waterworld and at Red Rocks Park. And there's the zoo lights at the Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance on select nights through January 4th. The 37th annual lights of December parade brightens the streets of downtown Boulder tomorrow. Enjoy holiday carolers, marching bands, fire engines, holiday lights, and of course Santa. The parade steps off at 6 p.m. 15th in Walnut before heading west to Broadway and then back east on spruce. That's Kayway's Connor Shreve. The city of Longmont has a number of holiday activities planned for its annual Longmont Lights. It all begins tonight at 5 with the opening of Santa's workshop, hot cocoa, fire pits, and holiday music, as well as the laser light show at 745. Longmont Lights continues tomorrow with a parade of lights on Main Street at 5 p.m. But if you're looking for a way to shake up your holiday tradition, Kayway's Brenda Stewart. The long-running sketch comedy, Santa's big... Red Sack returns to the people's building on East Colfax and Aurora. Since its debut in 2002, Santa's Big Red Sack has been the ultimate antidote to holidays' sweetness. It's a fast-paced comedy packed with original sketches, twisted carols, and a heaping dose of subversive cheer. This is the final year for the legendary show. And it runs through December 24th. More than 2 million pounds of ice have transformed into quite a display at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and convention. Center. The ice exhibition celebrates how the Grinch stole Christmas. It features five two-story tall ice slides as well as colored ice and LED lights to create the display. Dress warm because the temperature in the exhibit is a chilling nine degrees. They do give you a blue parker though to wear inside. A Colorado tradition back at the Denver Center for Performing Arts annual production of a Christmas carol through Sunday, December 28th at the Wolf Theater. Tickets are on sale at Denver Center.org. In sports, the Bronco. are back at home to face the Green Bay Packers and Empower Field at mile high on Sunday. Kickoff is at 225. K-OA coverage starts 8 a.m. Sunday morning. The Aves return to Ball Arena tomorrow night, hosting the Nashville Predators at 7 o'clock. CU men's basketball hosts UTSA tomorrow afternoon in Boulder. KOA coverage begins at 1.30. Colorado State men's basketball hosts Northern New Mexico on Sunday afternoon. And the Denver Pioneers men's basketball team welcomes in.

Cal State Fullerton on Saturday at 2 o'clock. That's Kayway's Kenan Dixon. And finally, Kway's Neabender has your concert news. The Colorado Symphony Performs its annual Christmas concert with three performances this weekend at Betcher Concert Hall. Tickets are available at Colorado Symphony.org. The Jefferson Symphony Orchestra will perform its annual holiday concert this Sunday at 3 p.m. That's at the Green Center at Colorado School of Mines. And Arapo Philharmonic will perform two family-friendly concerts at 2 p.m. 4 p.m. on Sunday at the Newman Center for Performing Arts. There's so many other weekend events going on for the holiday season. You can always text us at 56690. I will be heading to the high country to hopefully get a couple days of good skiing in because my first day skiing wasn't too ideal. Hopefully the conditions are a lot better after just getting slammed with snow in the high country. And the conditions to drive there will be a little bit better as well. A listener pointed out that earlier I called Lindsay Vaughn a Colorado girl. But she's not originally from Colorado. She's been here for more than 25 years. She got here in the 90s, right? But she was born in, what, Minnesota and went to high school in Missouri or something like that. But anyway, if you need that level of detail, if you think I shouldn't have called her a Colorado girl, then there you go. I do want to share one market story with you because it's a thing, Gina and I have both been following kind of closely in the business world. And that is the... a bidding war, the apparent bidding war between Netflix and Paramount, which is officially called Paramount Skydance, to take over Warner Brothers, which is officially called Warner Brothers Discovery. And when this thing first started going, I mentioned to you that I thought there was a decent chance that you would see some modest bidding war. And the news from Charlie Gasparino yesterday over at the New York Post, he also works for Fox business, Paramount Skydance is. considering raising its takeover offer for Warner Brothers Discovery by as much as 10% as it plots its next move to break up a merger agreement with Netflix. And I'm not going to get too much into a lot of detail here, but one thing just to keep in mind with these stories. There are usually things in these deals called breakup fees, and the numbers are usually astoundingly large. In meaning, if two companies enter into a deal to merge, and either company breaks off the deal, then usually they owe the other company a bunch of money. And again, the numbers are stupidly large, and frankly, I don't understand exactly why they're this large. But right now, because... Warner Brothers and Netflix actually have signed a deal already, and it doesn't mean it has to go through, right? If Paramount says we're going to pay more, and then the people who own the shares in Warner Brothers Discovery tender their shares to Paramount instead of to Netflix, then that's the way the deal is going to go, even though the company already has a deal with Netflix. But anyway, if this deal gets broken up because... Because Warner Brothers Discovery decides to go with Paramount instead of with Netflix. Warner Brothers is going to owe Netflix. Check this out. $2.8 billion. Isn't that unbelievable? They're going to owe Netflix $2.8 billion. So this is a thing to keep in mind when you think about how much Paramount.

We'll have to pay to pry Warner Brothers Discovery away from Netflix. Not only would they have to pay enough to make it to make the shareholders happy, but they'd also have to pay enough to cover that at breakup fee. Right? $2.8 billion. Pretty crazy. Anyway, so that's one thing going on in the world of business right now, and that money in markets commentary brought to you by Blue Heron Capital. Okay, this next story is a wacky little story, falls into the, they have pretty good taste files. You ready for this, dragon? So... The South Carolina, this is from News 19 WLTX in somewhere. I have no idea. Columbia, South Carolina. The South Carolina Department of Corrections said that contraband was dropped by a drone at the Lee Correctional Institution. So the drone flew over and it dropped off the things that you, you know, would expect. to be dropped off by a drone that's flying over a prison, including marijuana and cigarettes and loose tobacco and other contraband. And also, Dragon, are you listening? Also, old bay crab boil and steak for their holiday dinner, I suppose. So these prisoners seem to have some pretty good taste. Oh, let me just do another really stupid thing. Gina, can you please explain to listeners how it is you are able to remain? concentrating on doing the newscast when I was doing what I was doing for the first half of your newscast. Can you tell people what I was doing while you were doing the news? I debated while I was reading the news just going, you missed, you missed again on the air. That would be glorious. Zero sense because generally when you're done with some piece of copy on your table, you crumple up the piece of paper and then play paper toss into the trash can from, I don't know how long. big the studio is. 15 feet or something. Yeah. There's a lot of wind, though. Yeah, Dragon's always commenting on the wind because there's a really, really heavy breeze that clearly was sending it far left throughout the entire newscast. Was that like the fifth try? That was more than five. Way more than five. Maybe seven. That's about average for us. I was paying attention to the newscast. And I didn't see how many more were thrown after that. Yeah. But you were definitely overcompensating and then went from far left to far right to then. So I was just very impressed that you did the newscast without laughing or crying or yelling at me or something. As I kept throwing pieces of paper, I'm going to say, toward the trash can and then eventually it went in. Yeah.

But I think in the future, I think it would be just fine if you'd miss again. Missed. Missed. Yeah, that'd be fun. That would be really good. Depending on the story. Dragon would laugh is hard off. Right. Missed again. Embarrassing me in public, which I'm, I'm sure. Airball. Airball. Nice. Very nice. You know, we, I haven't. We haven't done this since kind of the beginning of the show, but let me ask you folks this again. And that is, what is your favorite underdog or comeback story? Actually, Dragon, if you could put my audio up, please. I'm going to play this. Gina played this much earlier in the show. But this is Broncos sideline reporter Susie Wargin talking with Broncos special teams expert J.L. Skinner. There's a lot of great underdog movies out there. Do you have a favorite underdog movie? I honestly consider Kung Fu Panda, an underdog story, too. Yeah, that's... I like Confu Panda a lot. That's one of my favorite movies, for sure. What do you like about that movie? Po, you know, Poe, he just, first of all, he, like, a big lovable guy. Then he became a dragon warrior. So it's like, from a guy making dumplings to the dragon warrior, that's the big underdog story you can make, for sure. Is that kind of how you approach special teams? Oh, yeah, no doubt. No doubt, 100%. I just love that. Because we got sent a few of those things with Susie interviewing a bunch of players, Jonathan Cooper, a couple other players. I thought that one was the best, wasn't it? I always love how supportive she sounds, no matter what they say. Oh, yeah, Kung Fu Panda, good one. Yeah. And then he gave a great synopsis of Kung Fu Panda. Yeah, go from making dumplings to be in the Dragon Warrior. Yeah, that's a pretty huge, you know, underdog story right there. And in case you are wondering why is Susie asking about underdog stories, it's because the Broncos are about a two-point underdog against the Packers this Sunday. even though they're playing here in Denver and even though the Broncos have a better record. So that's why Susie was asking about underdog stories. All right. We're going to just have a brief pause with news, weather, and traffic. And at least one of the things we're going to do when we come back is this week's name that tune. I actually, oh, Gina has one. Oh, we had one a couple weeks ago that we never got to for Gina. Well, don't you have one too? I do. We all have one. Yeah. All right, maybe we'll play rock paper scissors during the break. And we'll figure out whose song it's going to be. Keep it here on K-O-A. First, answering another very basic gambling question from a listener who asked, Does the over under have a half a point at 41 and a half points or 43 and a half and whatever it was? And the reason there's a half a point in the line is so that whoever bets on this definitely wins or definitely loses. There's no ties where the casino just have to give the same amount of the bet back. And tying is no fun in gambling. So they put the half a point so that there's no ties. Now, here's the other thing. Gina, I'm going to hand you this. Can you take this please?

Okay, and don't bother reading what's on it. Listener text, Gina, how much better of a waste paper shot are you than Ross? You mean that threat material that I spent minutes on making, you're just going to crumple up and throw away. Let me just say real. Let me just say real, let me say real quick, when Gina went outside the other day and threw a snowball at the window when we had that snow, I could tell she does not throw like a girl. Gina's got, Gina's got an arm. So, Gina's going to try. I will say you may find that you haven't densified that enough. It's still pretty loose and it may, especially with the wind like it is in here today. It may really get blown around. I'm going to try it sitting down. Yeah. And Ross does it standing up. And I cannot see. The arm of the chair is a little bit in the way. So I can kind of see it. Okay. Here she goes. Here she goes. Oh, that was pretty close. Much closer than any of yours. I'm baked it way off the right side. Try it again. This is great radio. You were overcompensating for the wind again. Okay. Oh, almost. Hey, folks, if you're listening on the podcast right now, that's the end of today's show. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget, you can catch us every day on the podcast, as you are right now, on your smart speaker, on your iHeart radio app, even on the computer at K-OA, Colorado, and the good old-fashioned way on your radio. Thanks so much for listening to the show.