9-4-26 - 9am - Expand the DougCo Commissioners and Beef

0:00Why you deal with listening to Armstrong and getting on demand? We're not boring. Lot of news is boring. And tedious. And depressing. And makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world. About something about a comedic tone. What? We have a winner? Yes. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode sponsored by HomeBase. HomeBase is built for small businesses trying to do it all. The neighborhood coffee shop, the local gym, the family run restaurant. With HomeBase, you can schedule your team, track time, run payroll, and manage hiring from one easy app. So you can spend less time chasing time sheets. And more time running the business your customers love. More than 150,000 small businesses already use HomeBase to keep their teams on track. Start free at joinhomebase.com.

1:02HomeBase, built for small businesses that do it all. The judge in the Lindsay Clancy trial had instructed the jury. If there's any notes in the future, make sure we don't put down where everyone is numerically. Not only did the note indicate specifically, one loan hold out and put a target on that jurors back. Writing to an amplified in said the juror has been identified. Want the speed jury intimidation? How are you? Sure, yeah, why not? It's Friday. Let's get this over with and get out of here. All right. You had a day old Duffy Donut, day old Duffy, some role. But it was probably dropped off sometime in the afternoon yesterday, because I didn't see it when I left and I leave it roughly around two o'clock. I didn't see it so it was there. And then yeah, it was pretty good. You pop into my quay for a little bit. Yes, it's fine. What is it about the program that precedes me that the one common thread I seem to hear

2:14on a fairly regular basis is let's find something in the trash or that's old, it's been sitting out or it has been partially eaten and let's eat it here on the air. It was still in the box and you would have where do you keep your bread? In the pantry. Ah, so would you eat day old bread in the pantry? They're Michael. Yes, because same thing. Because no, it is not. It is the same thing. Same thing. Same thing. My pantry is the same thing. My pantry is 180 degrees from sitting out on a public counter of all places, a radio station, where people have been known to pick things up with their fingers, use old knives they found on the floor or they're just laying in the sink. No, my pantry is not. In fact, if you want to make that claim, we'll get term on the phone right now. And you can explain to her how her pantry is the same as that petri dish,

3:18that thing of the hallway. You want to do that? I can tell her right now. The clothes box, it was safe. You want me to tell her? You want to have a conversation with her? No. Okay. Hey, Gina had to throw in everybody under the bus here. Gina had some too. So if it's safe for Gina, it's bound to be safe for everybody else. I'm just beginning to think that Gina's brain cells are beginning to just kind of get infected. Yeah, it's like a, you know, some sort of disease that just spreads through here out here. Which is why I lie down in the place now every time. Yeah, way. And I really had half. Yeah. It had. Ross had the other half. Well, Ross had a hole, two halves, which will equal a hole. Because one of the, was one of the half of the hole, but one was already parked. They were both whole.

4:19Okay, all right. A rough half one shared that half of the, and half to another one shared that half. Okay, that's fine. All right, I just thought maybe you picked up a half from there, and much again, I would ask. And how do you know how those were split? No. Kissing, buddy. Very. Carefully. Yeah. Very carefully. So I've got something for you this morning that I want to make. Abundantly clear, I'm still running down. And I'm going to do it just the way I'm going to be very longurally about this one. I'm going to tell you what I know for a fact. And I'm going to tell you what I don't know as facts. And then I'm going to ask the questions that I think you are owed answers to, and which I think a certain group of county commissioners ought to answer. We have on this program before discussed the ballot measure in Douglas County, Colorado,

5:22which is now in excess of 400,000 people to expand the board of county commissioners from three to five. I'm for that proposal. And I know that there are people on both sides of that issue who agree or disagree. And that's fine. That's one of the issue. And that's one of the elections. And I can make a strong case for it. Quite frankly, I can make a strong case for it on the merits. I think 400,000 people represented by three were only two people can make a decision that affects 400,000 people at the county level. One of the most local, close representations that you have in our system of federalism. You need more than two people making a decision for 400,000 people. Remember, there's three. You only need two to pass anything. That is the governance reason for me voting yes.

6:24Now, I can give you a political reason to vote yes, and I can give you a political reason to vote no. But the people who worked on the petition worked their butts off. They got more than enough signatures. I think that I don't have the number in front of me. I talked about this what first of the week. It was something like 20,000, but they exceeded the amount they needed, and they worked very hard to get it. So then, once that is certified by the county, it now becomes a ballot measure. But the Douglas County commissioners, being the blowhards that they are, and being so concerned about their own viability and their own re-election and their own self-interest, decided, well, we don't like what the people did. So I think we will add something onto that. And we will do that. And the wording they used, I believe, was deliberately designed to confuse the voters in Douglas County.

7:26These are three Republican commissioners. And let me just, let me throw off an attention about that for just a moment. Part of the problem in Colorado is that the Republican party itself, and many, not all, but many of the people who are either elected officials in the Colorado Republican party, or who are members of the Republican party hierarchy, not people like me, just to some, you know, I'm just, I'm just a guy on the radio, the people who are in positions of power that have positions within the infrastructure of the Republican party. Too often, only look at their own self-interest, their own little fiefdoms, their own little self-interest, whatever they may want to be doing long-term. They use that little position as a precinct chairman or a county commissioner or whatever, because they are, and I know this in the depths of my soul, because unlike most of you,

8:29in fact, I would say in like almost all of you, I've been the highest pinnacle of power that politics offers in this country. And I can tell you that every senator I ran into, every congressman I ever dealt with, every president or vice president that I've dealt with, or maybe every cabinet member that I ever dealt with, was always looking ahead to see where can I go further? Where can I get higher? Can I go from a county commissioner, can I become a state resident, can I become a state senator, can I become a congressman, can I become a governor, can I become a senator? They're always looking ahead to the next thing. And that starts, not just with the elected officials, it starts with the people in the hierarchy and the infrastructure, so it's a precinct chairman, it's a county chairman, it's whatever it might be. I am so sick of all of these Republicans. I'm still a registered Republican, and I'm not going to become an unaffiliated, because I am determined that this party, if it is ever going to again

9:34establish any sort of power in this state, is going to have to get rid of the riff raff and get rid of all of the self-interest, which I know, I believe I'm not people trying to get rid of self-interest, yes, there are people who can set aside their self-interest and do what they think is in the best interest of themselves, but for the party and for the state and for the people that live in this state, you would not believe the number of text messages that I get from people who have just said I've had it. I'm talking about native color around, do you know the people that drive around with a little bumper circle in the car that says native? You can't get much more native than that, and you can't get much more native to someone like me who's grandparents settled here during the dust bowl down the same loose valley. The state is worth saving, but we will never, ever do it, as long as all of these Yahoo's, and I mean that as despicable as I can, Yahoo's that are on these little committees and they're on the, oh, look, I'm the vice chair of the, I'm the vice chair,

10:40the vice chair of the subcommittee of whatever precinct and blah, blah, blah, and someday I'm going to US Senator, I'm going to be a governor whatever, and that's all they ever think about. And they use those positions to not further the best interest of the candidate, but to further their own best interest. That's got to be fixed. But go back to what I'm running down right now, and it goes back to the Douglas County because here are some Republicans who in my opinion personify what is wrong with the Republican Party in this state, and that's why I'm willing to call them out, because they, the fumes, just fumes, they, they look and act like fumes. So here's what I'm running down, and again, I'm going to tell you what I know for a fact, and what I don't know, and I'm going to ask the questions that you ought to be asking them. So the ballot petition to go from three to five, just the signatures, that's going to be on the ballot. They decide that well, we're not really, you know, we don't want to dilute our power.

11:45We don't want five. I mean, we're really happy with just the three of us, where, you know, one of us has gone two of us can decide. Oh my god, 400,000 people. Of course you don't want to dilute your power. I do. I want to be represented by more than just three yahu's. I want to be represented by five yahu's. Three five yahu's are better than three yahu's, right? Because they're all going to be yahu's. Well, yesterday based on there, the commissioner's decision to add a preamble to the question that everybody signed their signatures on. So everybody thought this is what was going to be on the ballot. They decided that it's not good enough. We're going to add something to it. So somebody filed a protest, and yesterday they held a hearing, a hearing room in Castle Rock, when the commissioner sat down to judge the protest against their own ballot language. Now, just think about that for a moment. Signature gathers and people who signed the petition,

12:49signed a certain kind of language. That's what they signed up to be on the ballot. These commissioners decided that's too clear. That's too simple. That's to plain English. That's too much cowboy English. People might read that and actually understand what they're trying to do. So let's add something onto it to make it a little more confusing and maybe we can, you know, maybe we can kill this thing. So they did that. And there's someone filed a protest. That's what occurred yesterday afternoon in the Board of County commissioners offices in Castle Rock. There was a lawyer in the room. There was a lawyer in that room during that protest working on the side of the County commissioners. Now that by itself is not weird. Except that it was not the County attorney. Oh, the County attorney was there. I watched the video. I read through the transcripts. The County attorney was there and the County attorney spoke. I'm talking about a

13:51different lawyer. Her name is Riley Meyer. And she's not just any lawyer. Oh, no. If you've been in Colorado for more than 15 seconds, you'll recognize the name of this white shoe law firm, Brownstein Hyatt. Now, if you don't know that name, if you've been living under a rock, let me put it again in cowboy English. Brownstein is the biggest, largest, most powerful, most well connected law firm in the entire state of Colorado. White shoe law firm through and through. That firm represents the giants in Denver, the giants in Washington. So when the petitioners asked the Board of County commissioners right there in the room, who is this person? The answer they got was that is our advocate. The County commissioner said that woman is our advocate. That's the answer they got. Riley Meyer with Brownstein. So now we have the County attorney sitting in the

14:54Dias representing the County commissioners. Now we have we have a Brownstein high-farber lawyer appearing as an advocate for three County commissioners at a hearing about a citizen's ballot measure. Now just think about that for a minute. It's pretty strange. Pretty strange. Here's my first question, the simple question. Douglas County has a County attorney. A real County attorney, he's a real lawyer. He's paid by us, the taxpayers. And I know for a fact he was in that room yesterday because you can watch him sitting right there on the County's own video. So why did the commissioners need a second lawyer? A private one from the most expensive law firm in this state to help them sit as judges in their own hearing. We already pay for a County lawyer. Well, we said about this particular fight, a fight over the citizen's own ballot measure that made three commissioners decide they didn't need it to bring in Brownstein Hyatt on top of the lawyer that we already provide them. Which brings me to the second question. Who's paying her? I don't know.

16:03Be absolutely straight straight forward to you about that. I have no clue. I don't know who hired Riley Meyer. And I don't know who's paying the bill. Maybe it's in County, which means it's you and me. Maybe it's the commissioners themselves. I'm sorry. Almost choked to myself and I said that. But they could be paying out of their own pocket. Yeah, that's that'll be the day the health reason over. But maybe they are. Maybe somebody else entirely. I don't know you to somebody knows but we don't know. But I know this Brownstein Hyatt doesn't work for free. They don't take on the County commissioners. They don't represent County commissioners pro bono. And Brownstein Hyatt is not cheap either. So somebody wrote a check or a bathroom out of check to put a white shoe lawyer in the same room against a group of citizens with clipboards. And we have every right to know who and how much. Third question. And this is the one that I felt the hardest about because I want to be fair. I want to be absolutely clear. I am not going to accuse anybody of

17:08anything. I'm going to tell you what's on the public record and let you do what I do every week. You can draw your own conclusion. What's on the record? Hmm. We'll do that next. This episode sponsored by Homebase. Homebase is built for small businesses trying to do it all. The neighborhood coffee shop, the local gym, the family run restaurant. With Homebase, you can schedule your team, track time, run payroll, and manage hiring from one easy app. So you can spend less time chasing time sheets and more time running the business your customers love. More than 150,000 small businesses already use Homebase to keep their teams on track. Start free at joinhomebase.com. Homebase. Built for small businesses that do it all. For Barcelona, this is your favorite Jew Uber. Stop talking about defy rolls. I, you guys made me go get too long for me, more for my mom. Now you guys can be doing that. I'm not

18:11trying to eat a lot of sugar right now. Well, have a good long weekend. Love you guys. Such a wonderful son getting some defy rolls for his mom. And sweet. And I don't know what to take that as a compliment or really scary, but we made him do that. Yeah, we got that kind of influence. Really? Sponsors. That's right. Take note. You've been number two, four, six, four Michael. I know you live there, but not again, too much Douglas County. I know if it's happening there, it's happening elsewhere, but it's too much for the rest of the state. I would put it this way. Point taken. Thank you for saying it just straight out. You're right. It has been a lot of Douglas County, but the reason I keep chasing it is that the same game gets played in a lot of Colorado counties. And this is just the most recent clean example that I hear. Do you think it can't be the whole show? It's not the whole show.

19:18There's a wider lens coming. Appreciate you listening closely enough to call me out on it. Let me finish it. The third question. And this is the one that I thought the hardest about. I'm going to say what's on the public record and let you do what I do every week, which is, you know, make up your own mind. On the record, Douglas County has an economic development corporation. That's the outfit that helps decide which businesses will get a county in city. In cities that the commissioners themselves have to approve. And on the board of that corporation sitting right next to alongside the County commissioners who also have boards seats on that commission is a lawyer from Brownstein Highend. It's the same firm. It's on the economic development website. Brownstein also represents some of the biggest developers doing business in that very county. So the law firm that's representing some of the developers is on the same board,

20:22if it's the same board seat as the commissioners who then approve or disapprove some of the requests from those developers. So let me lay it out flat. I'm asking. I'm not telling. You've got a firm that sits on a county board next to the commissioners themselves, a firm with big clients who need things from those commissioners. And when the commissioners find themselves in a tight spot saying a contested hearing like they had yesterday, one week before a deadline, that same firm shows up in the room to advocate for those county commissioners. I'm not saying that's illegal. I'm not even saying it's a conflict. I'm saying it's a very small world, isn't it? And the citizens with the clipboards, the citizens who did the petitions, they're not in the, they're not in that little world at all. They're on their own. And they know where I stand because I always tell you that. I'm for the five commissioners. And even the woman that started the Democrat and I would, I didn't vote for the last time. I won't vote for. I can't vote for the commissioners who pulled this either. This isn't about parties,

21:25it's about a simple question of fairness. When 20,000 of your neighbors do everything right, and the people thereup against them, some of the most powerful law firm in the state into the room, that's not a fair fight. And you deserve to know who arranged it. I want to know. So here are the three questions. Every one of them is answerable. And every one of them is owed to you by the people you elected. Why did you need a private lawyer when the taxpayers already by you won? And that was there. That person was there. Who hired Riley Meyer? And who is paying the law firm brownstein hired? And how does a firm that sits on a county board next to you with clients who need things from you end up as your advocate against your own citizens? Now, I'm not asking brownstein because they don't work for me. I'm asking the three commissioners because they do work for me. And so far,

22:27they only answer anybody's gotten is an aim. Riley. Riley? Who's paying? Oh, by the way, I'm not asking that of her. I'm asking that of the county commissioners. This is just an example of what I mean. This is why Colorado cannot have nice things. Go back to my point about the Colorado Republican Party in general. This is an example of what I'm talking about. And unless and until throughout the state, I don't give a rat's ass which county you're in until we start demanding that the people that we elect and the people who sit in the infrastructure of the Colorado Republican Party start thinking about the interests of this state and ask themselves a simple question every single day before you do anything on behalf of the party. And I helping to make the party stronger. Am I helping to make the party better? Or am I doing this because it's going to make me

23:33get some office? Because I can tell you, unequivocally, I'm not seeking, nor do I want any office. I've been in a higher office than any of these people that I'm talking about. I don't need that. Then they're done it. But until we get answers to questions like this until we start acting like some sort of kangaroo commission like going on in Douglas County, this state's never going to change. I'm about changing this state. I'm about getting us back to the state that my grandparents settled in. Now I don't mean horse and buggy. I don't mean jaloppies. I don't mean the dust bow. Although we're pretty close to a dust bow right now. I'm talking about getting us to a place where free markets, where people look at our money first as our money, not theirs, where we are open and upfront about

24:34taxation and about fees. And we don't look around and say, hey, what can we take from all the producers? The people are working their asses off in this state and handed to people who are not doing anything. When are we going to stop paying for everything? Because somebody makes it across the Rio Grande River, makes it up here, decides, where am I going to go? Maybe that was a question during the Biden administration I asked all the time. They would get here, they'd drive the bus would stop somewhere over in federal or they might even get on the bus down in El Paso or somewhere, Brownsville. And they'd be asked, where do you want to go? I'm going to go to Colorado. Why do you want to go there? Because they got the best deal. Until we change, until we quit the, how many times do I come up on here with stories about, hey, we made a list again, where number one or where number three or where number four, and then I tell you what, this number one, three or four are, and you go holy crap that man. Those are not the list we want to be on.

25:39We want, this is not a game of golf. We're not trying to win with, you know, the lowest score, one, two, three or four. No, we want, we want to be number one, two or three in the good things, not in the bad things. We'll never make that unless we stop doing business the way we are. And that starts absolutely at the local level, at the county level. It actually starts even before that. The very people who are serving on precincts, who are serving on counties, who are serving in any part of the infrastructure of the Colorado Republican Party, starting to decide that I'm going to do things that I believe are in the best interests of what, getting Republicans elected. And until, until we start doing that, or as long as we keep playing, these kind of stupid games, Democrats are just watching us and going, tell, have at it. And we ought to be right now,

26:40as dysfunctional as this Colorado Democratic Party is, we ought to be whipping their asses. And here we are, arguing about stupid stuff, because people do stupid things. What's brown and sticky? A stick? This episode sponsored by HomeBase. HomeBase is built for small businesses trying to do it all. The neighborhood coffee shop, the local gym, the family run restaurant. With HomeBase, you can schedule your team, track time, run payroll, and manage hiring from one easy app. So you can spend less time chasing time sheets, and more time running the business your customers love. More than 150,000 small businesses already use HomeBase to keep their teams on track. Start free at joinhomebase.com. HomeBase, built for small businesses that do it all.

27:44This is your audience. You helped me build it. That's true. You know, those who sit there and don't throw that crap on me, you've been just a bunch of parts. This is anybody else. You're the guys who've been eating duffy rolls all morning or something. By the way, you know, has the weight thing coming? Huh? It's good. You're sitting on your ass all day long. Now you're going home. You're not doing your exercises. You're sitting around here and you're even duffy rolls all day. I'm doing physical therapy every day. Oh, well, I love that. I'm doing physical therapy. I'm in PT this high. It's sometimes as difficult as weightlifting, man. Is it really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you already have the, I know she had a bike now. Yeah. I've already had the bike. Oh, you already had the bike. Yeah. Even at the clinic. They're like, all right. Let's get you on the bike for a bit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm not a cardio guy. I don't like doing cardio. So if you all pick up a set of weights anytime, but you sit on the bike for 20 minutes. Yeah.

28:45That's what you could listen to the podcast of our show. I don't even listen to it live. Why would I listen to the podcast? You're on the bike. You could be listening to the podcast while you're sitting there treading yourself to nowhere. You could be listening to the show that goes nowhere. Well, listen to the Ross Kaminsky podcast. So another show that goes nowhere. You just listen to it. Yeah, but at least that one's worth listening to twice. If you want to listen to some real radio, you'd listen to the blonde chick. That is true. Yeah. That is true. Yeah. I don't know what real radio means. I can't define that either. So pick yourself at the grocery store this week. You're at the meat case. You pick up a pound of ground beef because it's the only way we can and you're going to go grails and burgers. Not not out snakes burgers. You're going to have hamburgers. You know, the plain stuff you brown for the kids, you know, on what Monday at noon. It's pushing seven bucks a pound. About 689,

29:45the last time anybody averaged roughly 10% more than a year ago. And a good deal more than it was before any of this kind of crap started. You feel that and you should feel that because that's real money. And think about this. Maybe not you, but for some people, ground beef is the staple. And that's where it hits the hardest because that's the only thing they can really afford. This week, the government of the United States walked up beside you at that meat case. They pointed across the aisle. See Walmart over there and look over here. Costco. Give me your phone. Look at that. Amazon. They did that to you. Yes, it's all fart. It's Costco. It's Amazon. They did it to you. So we're going to go investigate them. Now, I know this is a show, but I must spend a little

30:46time on what's on why that's mostly a show. There are two beef investigations going on right now. And I think somebody staped them together in that stupid headline. Costco, Amazon, and Walmart. I want you to keep them apart. And when you do all of a sudden, you'll go, oh, I get it now. The first one is old and it's serious. It's already sitting in a federal courtroom in Minnesota. That one is about the beef packers, the meat packers for companies, JBS, Tyson, National Beef, and Cardio. They kill and cut about 80% of the fed cattle in this country. And the case against them is that they use that consolidated power to keep the people raised the cattle. That case, I think, has some real teeth in it. We'll get back to it in a minute. Now, the second one is the one that made the news this week. Unto the Justice Department told the entire world it had sent some very

31:47serious letters. We sent letters to eight grocery chains. Krulger, Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Albertsons, Aldi, Publix, and I've never heard of this. You heard of this one, Dragon? A whole doll, a whole deli. I don't know that one. Not only I'm a Louis. That's the show right there. Now, let me tell you why that's the show. Starg with the number of the government gathered. On the first of January of this year, the Department of Ag went out and they can't, they counted the cattle in this country. 86.2 million head of primary of Bonan and Ribbots. That is the smallest herd in this country since 1951. 75 years, right? So why so small? Mostly because of the drought. Years over to cross the great plains in the West. The grasses burned up. The haze gone, high prices have gone through the roof.

32:47And tens of thousands of ranchers, which we've talked about before, did the only thing they could do. They sold the cows they couldn't feed. That's the first blow right there. Then there was a second blow, a flesh eating parasite called the New World's Spring Ra. Spring Ra. Came up through Mexico, came up through Baja de Quila. And we shut the southern border to keep life cattle out. So that cut off a whole supply line on top of the drought so that you got two different problems as you got one result. And that's fewer cattle on the pipeline. So understand what that price record of the meat case actually is. It's the sound of a shortage. Guarantee is what's causing the prices. Not the grocery chains, a drought, a parasite, and a hard old business that has been shrinking for years. That's the price right there. Here's the part that ought to make you go, huh? The Packers, everybody wants to blame the big four. Right now they're actually losing money on beef.

33:51They're not making a killing. They're losing money on beef. Tyson lost $138 million on beef in a single quarter this summer for the entire year. They're they're even telling their own investors to brace for beef losses somewhere between $560 million. Beef volume down almost 16%. They're just there's enough cattle to run through the plants. You can't goug if you're losing money, can you? I mean, isn't gouging mean you're making a boatload of money? That's what they always accused of oil and gas companies of. Now, let's hold that up against the grocery store theory. If Walmart and Costco and Amazon were secretly rigging the price of your burger to pick your pocket, somebody in that chain would be getting rich. The Packers aren't mostly just asking your rancher. They're not getting rich. So, if nearly everybody in the chain is losing money or barely hanging on, who's running the conspiracy at the meat case? Because apparently the gun was think of some wild conspiracy. There is a real antitrust story in beef. I don't know if it really

34:58does exist. Four companies controlling 80% of the slaughter. Yeah, in the 1970s, it was a fraction of that. And the open cash market where rancher can haul cattle in and take the best bid in the room has gotten so thin that just a handful of buyers can lean on the price. And there's no almost nobody left to bid to bid it back up. That's not top radio hunch. In fact, this past July, a federal judge in Minnesota looked at the evidence, ruled that the price fixing claims against those four Packers was strong enough to go in front of a jury. And he certified the classes of the people who buy beef and impart the ranchers who sell the cattle to take those companies toward trial. So that's really going to happen at some point. At what point? I don't know, but at some point. But all over right now is alleged. Nothing's proven. A jury still has to waive it. So, what happens next? This episode sponsored by Home Base. Home Base is built for small businesses

36:00trying to do it all. The neighborhood coffee shop, the local gym, the family run restaurant. With Home Base, you can schedule your team, track time, run payroll, and manage hiring from one easy app. So you can spend less time chasing time sheets and more time running the business your customers love. More than 150,000 small businesses already use Home Base to keep their teams on track. Start free at joinhomebase.com. Home Base, built for small businesses that do it all.