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In episode 2068, Jack and Miles are joined by founder of Abominable Pictures and Emmy Award-winning Executive Producer, Jonathan Stern, to discuss… Hackers Politely Asked Meta AI To Hand Over Obama’s Instagram Account, GOP Continues with the Saddest Attacks On Talarico, Denver Airport To Open Its Illuminati Tunnels To The Public and more! Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked Todd Starnes Wants To Know If James Talarico 'Has An Affinity For Frilly Underpants' THEIR NEW GIRLFRIEND IS WOMEN Denver Airport To Open Tunnels at Center of Conspiracy Theories Denver airport’s solution to train frustrations: $300 million of walkways through old baggage tunnels Myths and Legends Behind Denver International Airport A Local's Guide to DIA Conspiracy Theories Myths and Legends Behind Denver International Airport Watch DIA's old luggage system toss baggage into the air Denver Airport Saw the Future. It Didn't Work. Next Question: Has there been any effort to resurrect DIA’s failed ‘baggage system from hell?’ United abandons Denver baggage system An investigation into the underground tunnels of DIA Commission launches investigation into agency head as Colorado defense attorneys’ complaints crescendo LISTEN: Road Of The Lonely Ones by MadlibSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Film Festival Tickets: https://buytickets.at/thedopeyfoundation/2216905 Listen Without ads on patreon: www.pareon.com/dopeypodcast This week on the Wednesday Dose! The episode kicks off with a classic hippie Dopey email from listener MB, who recounts a spectacular Phish tour nitrous disaster. After days of ketamine, booze, overpriced cocaine, and lot balloons at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Colorado, MB face-plants into the dirt while clutching multiple nitrous balloons, destroys his glasses, spends a miserable flight home dry-heaving and hallucinating, and somehow survives a concussion-level experience. The story ends on a positive note with nearly ten months clean and sober and a request for dream guests Gibby Haynes and Jason Isbell. Dave then dives into Patreon and Spotify comments, including continuing fallout from the Dopey Sticker Contest. Selby files an official election challenge, claiming the contest was stolen and accusing Dave of failing to refresh Patreon before announcing a winner. Dave doubles down, insisting Felix Heads remains the champion despite accusations of voter suppression, corruption, and sticker fraud. Along the way listeners discuss ADHD, religion, Knicks fandom, kratom recovery, Long Island stories, and the eternal mystery of white crack dealers. The heart of the episode is an incredible interview with Michael Muniz, a 69-year-old Brooklyn native with 36 years sober. Michael tells a quintessential New York story that stretches from Brownsville gangs, schoolyard fights, and witnessing the neighborhood transformation of Brooklyn in the 1960s and 70s to marijuana, acid, cocaine, crack addiction, homelessness, Rikers Island, and ultimately recovery through Phoenix House. Michael shares stories about seeing his deceased father's face in the clouds during an LSD trip, discovering crack in the Cypress Projects and instantly becoming obsessed, losing everything while sleeping on subway trains and wandering New York's tunnels, robbing his mother, surviving violent encounters, and eventually finding his way into Phoenix House. What began as a plan to simply get clean long enough to save money and return to crack eventually became a lifelong recovery journey. The conversation explores therapeutic communities, recovery philosophy, family loyalty, homelessness during the crack epidemic, the culture of Brooklyn neighborhoods, Rikers Island in the 1980s, and the power of second chances. Michael also describes a dramatic courtroom moment where, facing serious federal charges, he convinced a judge to give him probation instead of prison after speaking honestly about recovery and wanting a different life. By the end, Michael reflects on his 36 years of sobriety, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, acting career, and belief that recovery is a lifelong process. Dave and Michael bond over drug dreams, gratitude, family, and the reality that while the desire to get high may never fully disappear, a meaningful life in recovery is infinitely better. The episode closes with Michael from the band Good Kid performing a live version of “Good So Bad,” All that and MORE MORE MORE on the Wednesday dose of that good old Dopey Show! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Some heavy stuff coming coming your way! Andrew's incredible and lovely mother passed away in April, and he's very thankful that he recorded this episode with her as a guest cohost in February. They set up in her small Colorado town and talked to some wild strangers who walked by. Guests include a young mother raising her daughter in the remote mountains, an odd woman who seems to have completely lost her mind, and a heartbroken emotional guy who gets really mad at Andrew. Recorded on 2/10/26 on Grand Ave in Paonia, Colorado. Thank you for listening to this very special episode.Go to https://Quince.com/podoutside for free shipping and 365-day returns!Visit https://Betterhelp.com/outside today to get 10% off your first month!Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at https://shopify.com/outside !Check out Kiersten Gerard's new EP called "Saltwater", now streaming everywhere!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Joe pulls back the curtain on a system that feels increasingly rigged against the average citizen, exposing how institutional capture and political elite privilege leave the American taxpayer carrying the heaviest burden. Joe breaks down the stark double standards in our justice and immigration systems—from a federal judge retaining a lifetime appointment despite severe misconduct findings, to the tragic real-world consequences of unchecked illegal immigration highlighted by a devastating hit-and-run case in Colorado. It is a raw, uncompromising look at a political class that appears entirely insulated from the very laws they dictate to the public.Moving into the second half, the broadcast examines the systematic erosion of personal liberty and financial security under the weight of state overreach. Through the lens of rampant congressional insider trading and multi-million dollar net worths that dwarf the average household, we illustrate how the political establishment lines its pockets while ignoring the needs of working families. From government overregulation that dictates what you can do on your own property to aggressive, camouflaged surveillance cameras monitoring remote highways, this segment maps out a disturbing reality: ownership and privacy are rapidly disappearing when permission is required for everything.Ultimately, this episode challenges the fundamental illusion of modern American politics, arguing that there is no longer a true "Party of the People." By connecting the dots between domestic policy failures, the cultural targeting of children in schools, and the cautionary tale of civil unrest currently playing out on the streets of Europe, the show serves as an urgent wake-up call. Don't miss this powerful analysis of a system at a breaking point and the critical need to reclaim the voice of the American taxpayer before the millstones pile too high to remove.
It's News Day Tuesday On the program today: Today is primary day for six states across the country. If you live in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, or South Dakota make sure you get out and vote today. Self-proclaimed Democratic strategist, Yemisi Egbewole, uses her panel time on CNN to smear Graham Platner and James Talarico. Egbewole calls Graham the "worst of the everyman" and claims her grandmother would label Talarico as "too progressive". Washington Post journalist, Marianna Sotomayor goes after Michigan candidate for senate, Abdul El-Sayed as an "unconventional" candidate that could lose the Democrats a state they already have. Founder and editor-in-chief of Bolts Magazine, Daniel Nichanian joins the program to suss through the more important primary elections happening today. Josh Jager, bargaining committee chair for UAW local 2093, joins the show to discuss the nearly 1,000 workers on strike at the American Axel factory in Three Rivers, Michigan. UAW Local 2093 members are picketing outside the Dauch Three Rivers Manufacturing Facility (formerly American Axle) located at 1 Manufacturing Way, Three Rivers, MI 49093. If you are in the area, then head on down and show them your support. If you are not in the area, maybe send over some pizzas to the picket line. You can also get up-to-date information at the UAW Local 2093 website. In the Fun Half: John from San Antonio calls in to give us his thoughts on the day's primaries. Mason who's Twitch channel is One Hand Politics, joins the show to discuss his experiences as a participant in Dave Rubin's Surrounded on Jubilee. Sid Rosenberg, who is a purple Zionist, claims that Zohran Mamdani wants all Jewish people dead. Governor of Colorado, Jared polis is a lunatic. All that and more. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: RITUAL: Get 25% off during your first month. Visit ritual.com/MAJORITY. WILD GRAIN: Get up to 40% off @Ridge with code MAJORITYREPORT at https://www.Ridge.com/MAJORITYREPORT SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.
Country music and Braves baseball go hand in hand.In this special collection of interviews from the Whiskey Riff Raff Podcast, Atlanta Braves stars Austin Riley and Kyle Farmer, along with Braves broadcaster Ben Ingram, sit down separately with the Whiskey Riff Raff crew to talk all things country music and baseball.Austin Riley discusses his favorite country artists, who controls the locker room aux cord, growing up in the South, and why he'd love to spend his entire career with the Atlanta Braves.Kyle Farmer shares his love for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen, explains why "Still Going Down" became his walkout song, reflects on joining his hometown team, and reveals why the Braves clubhouse is full of "Ella Fellas."Meanwhile, Braves broadcaster Ben Ingram talks about the crossroads of country music and baseball, critiques the team's music taste, names the most country player on the roster, and tells the story of trying to get Ella Langley in the broadcast booth but ending up with Jason Aldean instead.From locker room playlists and walkout songs to hunting season and hometown pride, these conversations showcase the strong connection between country music and Braves baseball.whiskeyriff.comshop.whiskeyriff.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Beau Martonik sits down with Bill Vanderheyden of Iron Will Outfitters — 10 years of engineering broadheads and arrow systems built around what a setup actually needs to do when conditions are not perfect. They open with Bill's Colorado elk hunt — 10 miles back in the wilderness, a 4-hour chase into dark timber, and a frontal shot at 30 yards through a 3-inch window in the pines. From there the conversation gets into the science behind why that shot worked and what most hunters are getting wrong before they ever get to a moment like that. Topics include what actually makes a bow setup forgiving in hunting conditions, why FOC doesn't tell you what most people think, the physics of penetration and the speed vs. heavy arrow debate, why mechanicals on elk are a bigger risk than most realize, steep shot angles, effective range, and how to practice the shots that actually show up in the field. 00:00:00 – Intro 00:04:37 – Colorado Elk Hunt — 10 Miles Back, Frontal Shot Through the Pines 00:21:41 – Pin Setup and Shot Confidence in the Field 00:24:24 – Bighorn Sheep Hunt — Steep Cliffs, No Rangefinder, 55 Yards 00:34:10 – What Actually Makes a Hunting Setup Forgiving 00:44:42 – Penetration Physics — Momentum, Arrow Flight, and Blade Geometry 00:57:13 – Why Mechanicals on Elk Are a Risk Most Hunters Underestimate 01:02:29 – FOC — What the Number Actually Tells You and What It Doesn't 01:10:15 – Whitetail vs. Western Setup — How Much Actually Needs to Change 01:14:20 – Moving Deer and Shot Timing 01:25:05 – Steep Shot Angles — Tree Stand and Mountain Scenarios 01:32:55 – Holding Under Pressure and Practicing Real Scenarios 01:41:21 – Effective Range — How to Actually Define It for Your Setup 01:47:42 – The Iron Will Wide Broadhead on Elk 01:51:36 – Axis Deer Hunt in Hawaii — Setup Considerations 01:54:58 – Closing + Where to Find Iron Will Instagram: @eastmeetswesthunt @beau.martonik Facebook: East Meets West Outdoors Shop Hunting Gear and Apparel: https://www.eastmeetswesthunt.com/ YouTube: Beau Martonik - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJon93sYfu9HUMKpCMps3w Partner Discounts and Affiliate Links: https://www.eastmeetswesthunt.com/partners Poncho Outdoors - Poncho Outdoors makes tough, sharp-looking, no-BS apparel for hardworking outdoorsmen who put in the time year-round. Go to ponchooutdoors.com/EASTMEETSWEST to save $10 and free shipping Amazon Influencer Page https://www.amazon.com/shop/beau.martonik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome, to a Dark Minisode.For today's Dark Minisode, Zane from Colorado shares his unsettling experience as a live-in manager at a remote alpine property near Cortina d'Ampezzo in Northern Italy. Left alone during the 2020 lockdown to maintain the empty hotel, Zane expects isolation, silence, and the usual groans of an ageing building — but what begins with Zane relishing the opportunity, soon escalates into something darkly atmospheric, claustrophobic, and deeply eerie, this account explores what can happen when an old hotel is emptied of the living… and something else is left behind.Stay safe,Kevin.We're giving a full weeks trial of our Patreon away! Just head over on the link below and away you go!www.patreon.com/thedarkparanormalIf it's not for you? Simply cancel before your trial expires, meanwhile enjoy FULL access to our highest tier, and thank you for being the best listeners by miles.By making the choice of joining our Patreon team now, not only gives you early Ad-Free access to all our episodes, including video releases of Dark Realms, it can also give you access to the Patreon only podcast, Dark Bites. Dark Bites releases each and every week, even on the down time between seasons. There are already well over 200+ hours of unheard true paranormal experiences for you to binge at your leisure, and joining that weekly Patreon only show is our new video & Audio show, "After Dark", where you get a glimpse in to my genuine unfiltered thought process in a very informal non-edited 30 minute continuous recording.Simply head over to:www.patreon.com/thedarkparanormalTo send us YOUR experience, please either click on the below link:The Dark Paranormal - We Need Your True Ghost StoryOr head to our website: www.thedarkparanormal.comYou can also follow us on the below Social Media links:www.twitter.com/darkparanormalxwww.facebook.com/thedarkparanormalwww.youtube.com/thedarkparanormalwww.instagram.com/thedarkparanormalOur Sponsors:* Check out Acorns and use my code acorns.com/darkparanormal for a great deal: https://www.acorns.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/darkparanormal for a great deal: https://www.quince.com* Check out Shopify and use my code shopify.com/darkparanormal for a great deal: https://www.shopify.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
The investigation into Ted Bundy's second year of killing began with a traffic stop nobody planned. Sergeant Bob Hayward, a twenty-two-year veteran of the Utah Highway Patrol, was sitting in his cruiser outside his own home in Granger, Utah, at 2:30 in the morning when a tan VW Beetle passed with its headlights off. He chased it. He searched it. What he found inside — a ski mask, a pantyhose mask with eyeholes cut by hand, a crowbar, an ice pick, rope, and handcuffs — was a kit assembled by someone who had thought about what he was going to use it for.The driver was Ted Bundy. He had no record. He was released on his own recognizance.Two days later, Salt Lake County Detective Jerry Thompson read the arrest report and connected the name to Carol DaRonch — the eighteen-year-old who had fought her way out of a Volkswagen nine months earlier after a man posing as Officer Roseland tried to handcuff her at a mall. Thompson called Mike Fisher in Colorado, who had the Caryn Campbell case. He called Bob Keppel in King County, who had eight names and a stack of tip cards.For the first time, three states realized they had been working the same case for nineteen months without knowing it.The women between those states — Nancy Wilcox, Melissa Smith, Laura Aime, Debby Kent, Caryn Campbell, Julie Cunningham, Denise Oliverson, Lynette Culver, Susan Curtis — crossed jurisdictions nobody had connected. Five states. Five agencies. No shared file.This is the second of five conversations in Ted Bundy: History's Hidden Killers. The investigative thread that finally tied the cases together — and the survivor and the accident that made it possible.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#TedBundy #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #Utah #Colorado #CarolDaRonch #Survivor #SerialKiller #TrueCrimePodcast #ColdCase
There's a moment in a pediatrician's day that doesn't show up on the schedule. It's the bruise that doesn't quite match the story, or the awkward pause after a parent answers a question just a little too quickly or the child who won't make eye contact or let go of your sleeve. In these moments, pediatricians become more than clinicians. They become interpreters, advocates and sometimes the only line of protection. To help us understand the latest on child abuse, we are joined by Denise Abdoo, PhD, CPNP. Dr. Abdoo is a pediatric nurse practitioner who specializes in child abuse and neglect. She is also an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Some highlights from this episode include: What's changed in treating child abuse over the last decade The impact of social media on child abuse The most easily missed signs in a pediatric visit Recent changes in laws, reporting and expectations For more information on Children's Colorado, visit: childrenscolorado.org.
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Ted Bundy crossed a state line in September 1974 and became a new person. Washington had his name. Washington had his composite. Washington had two hundred thousand tips. None of it followed him to Utah.He arrived in Salt Lake City as a first-year law student with clean plates and a clean record. Between October 1974 and August 1975, he moved across Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. Nancy Wilcox, sixteen, vanished in Holladay. Melissa Smith, seventeen, the police chief's daughter, was found in a canyon nine days after she disappeared. Laura Aime, seventeen, left a Halloween party and was found on Thanksgiving Day. Caryn Campbell, twenty-three, walked down a brightly lit hallway at a Colorado ski lodge and never reached her room.On Taylor Mountain back in Washington, forestry students found four skulls: Lynda Healy, Susan Rancourt, Kathy Parks, Brenda Ball. Their families were burying daughters while Utah was just beginning to look.The break came from two directions. Carol DaRonch, eighteen, who had fought her way out of Bundy's Volkswagen on November 8, 1974 — the only survivor who could identify him. And Sergeant Bob Hayward, parked in his own driveway, who chased a dark VW at 2:30 AM and found a kit in the front seat that no law student has a reason to carry.When Detective Jerry Thompson connected the name Bundy to DaRonch's case and called Colorado and Washington, the files crossed state lines for the first time in nineteen months.This is the second of five conversations in Ted Bundy: History's Hidden Killers. The killer who used geography as a weapon. The survivor who refused to disappear. The accident that finally made three states see the same man.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#TedBundy #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #Utah #Colorado #CarolDaRonch #Survivor #SerialKiller #TrueCrimePodcast #ColdCase
"With animal welfare, we're basically waiting till the roof falls in — when the animals are at the shelter, that's the roof falling in. We have to catch them earlier." This episode is sponsored-in-part by Maddie's Fund, OcuTrap, and The Kitten Conference. What if the animal welfare system stopped waiting for families to walk through the shelter door — and started showing up before they ever got there? That's the question driving BJ Adkins, disabled veteran and founder of Animal Angels Foundation (AAF), a prevention-first nonprofit serving seven counties in central Alabama. After years of fostering and watching intake numbers refuse to budge, BJ decided to stop patching the system and start rebuilding its missing layer. AAF isn't a rescue organization. It's prevention infrastructure: programs designed to solve the problems that force pet surrender before surrender ever becomes an option. Those programs include SNIP, a spay/neuter assistance initiative with a $100 stipend for income-qualifying owners; The Bridge, which addresses the financial and housing barriers that most often precede surrender; Finder-to-Foster; Adoption Boost; Landlord Partnership; and Sniff and Greet. Connecting it all is the Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN) — a shared technology platform that replaces organizational silos with real-time coordination across shelters, rescues, vet clinics, and community partners. Three participation levels and no cost to join means even change-resistant organizations can get on board. To measure what's working, BJ is partnering with a University of Tennessee researcher to build the evidence base for prevention-first animal welfare — while already fielding calls from Colorado, Tennessee, and the Canadian SPCA. The data is being collected. The network is growing. And if BJ has anything to say about it, the roof won't have to fall in anymore. Press Play Now For: Why BJ compares the current animal welfare system to waiting for the roof to fall in — and what "upstream" intervention actually looks like A breakdown of AAF's six core programs and how each one targets a specific point of failure before shelter intake How the Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN) replaces organizational silos with a shared, real-time coordination platform The SNIP program's $100 stipend model and why removing financial friction matters for low-income pet owners BJ's strategy for bringing change-resistant organizations into the network — with three levels of participation and no cost to join How AAF is partnering with University of Tennessee researchers to build a data-driven case for prevention programs Practical advice for new nonprofit founders: research first, build relationships, and find the gap nobody else is filling Resources & Links Animal Angels Foundation Website Animal Welfare Resource Network (AWRN) Maddie's Pet Forum (where Stacy and BJ connected)
What happens when you wake up one day and realize you've been asleep for 20 years successful on paper, but dead inside? For Brian "Dixon" Dixon, that realization came after a near fatal pulmonary embolism. But it didn't have to. In this powerful episode of Productivity Smarts, host Gerald J. Leonard sits down with Brian Dixon, Colorado based adventurer, speaker, and author of the upcoming book Hold My Beer, I'm Going to Change My Life. Dixon shares his raw, personal journey from decades of misalignment, chasing the wrong career, surrendering his dreams, and becoming a "man zombie," to a life changing breakthrough at age 52, when he finally launched a paraglider off Lookout Mountain, a dream he had buried for 25 years. Gerald and Dixon explore the "provider trap" that causes so many men to lose themselves, the small signals of misalignment we ignore until a crisis hits, and the antidote: Hold My Beer energy, a non negotiable, committed launch toward the one thing that still lights you up. Dixon offers a simple "man zombie test" to check in with yourself, explains why most people never recover their fire, and proves that it's never too late to stop talking about the old days and start living the new ones. Whether you're feeling stuck, burned out, or just vaguely numb, this episode will give you the permission and the push to say, "Hold my beer, I've got something I need to do." Ready to wake up? Listen now and learn how one committed launch can start a positive flywheel that changes everything. What We Discuss [00:00] Introduction [02:01] Meet Brian "Dixon" and his upcoming book [04:39] The "hold my beer" moment that changed everything [05:35] Living 20 years in misalignment and autopilot [06:46] Financial collapse and personal reset after 2008 [07:42] The life-threatening health scare that sparked change [09:12] Rediscovering a lost dream: paragliding off Lookout Mountain [10:56] Turning one decision into a life transformation [13:55] Defining "hold my beer energy" [14:27] The hidden danger of the provider trap [17:55] Losing yourself in responsibility and routine [19:00] Why making time for yourself is essential [20:52] How to realign your life before a crisis hits [22:09] The "man zombie test" and self-check questions [24:05] Tackling misalignment one decision at a time [25:11] Why commitment, not interest, drives transformation [26:19] Building a positive momentum flywheel [27:08] Reigniting passion at any stage of life [30:13] Signs you're losing your fire and how to reverse it [31:56] It's never too late: overcoming the "I'm stuck" mindset [34:35] Where to find Dixon and what's next Notable Quotes [05:56] "My passion and my fire for life went to sleep, and I call it a man zombie stage. I basically went into autopilot for 20 years." – Brian Dixon [08:35] "After the pulmonary embolism, I said: I am halfway through my life. I am 44 years old and I have been asleep this whole time." – Brian Dixon [15:21] "I feel like men can lose themselves inside of that provider ship piece – they don't have any guardrails for their own dreams." – Brian Dixon [21:56] "The big thing is, it's tough for men to actually know they're asleep. If you're taking a nap in the middle of the night, you don't know you're asleep." – Brian Dixon [22:23] "When is the last time you did something just for you? Not for your boss, not for your spouse, not for your kids? These check-in questions can help you avoid the hospital." – Brian Dixon [24:20] "Eat the elephant one step at a time. Find the one thing that's most misaligned. Then hold my beer – non-negotiable. Nothing's going to stop me." – Brian Dixon [24:44] "When you launch a paraglider, we call it a committed launch. Life or death. That's how you should treat Hold My Beer." – Brian Dixon [30:56] "If you ever find yourself where most of your conversation is about how things used to be, that's a trigger signal. Your fire is going out. You should be talking about what you're planning on doing right now." – Brian Dixon [31:35] "You don't quit snowboarding when you get old. You get old because you quit snowboarding." – Brian Dixon [33:59] "It's never too late if you can kindle that fire again." – Brian Dixon Resource and Links Brian "Dixon" Dixon Website: www.gowithdixon.com Book: Hold My Beer, I'm Going to Change My Life (coming Fall) Productivity Smarts Podcast Website - productivitysmartspodcast.com Gerald J. Leonard Website - geraldjleonard.com Turnberry Premiere website - turnberrypremiere.com Scheduler - vcita.com/v/geraldjleonard Kiva is a loan, not a donation, allowing you to cycle your money and create a personal impact worldwide. https://www.kiva.org/lender/topmindshelpingtopminds
Abounding Grace is an outreach ministry of Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado.Pastor Ed Taylor is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Church –you can find more about him at edtaylor.org.Books by Pastor Ed along with other curated discipleshipresources from his home church bookstore are available at calvaryco.storeIf you like what you hear on Abounding Grace – don't forget to follow us, and share it with your friends and family!
This week on The Whiskey Trip Podcast, Big Chief returns to Arvada, Colorado, for his third visit with Patrick Miller, founder and distiller of Talnua Distillery and a pioneer of American Single Pot Still Whiskey. Patrick shares updates on Talnua's continued growth and his mission to bring this historic Irish whiskey style into the American whiskey landscape while embracing Colorado craftsmanship and innovation. On the first half of the show, the guys sip Talnua's Bourbon Cask & Stave Series Bottled-in-Bond American Single Pot Still Whiskey, aged a minimum of four years in ex-bourbon casks with charred American white oak staves, followed by their American White Oak Cask Bottled-in-Bond expression, aged four years in first-fill charred American white oak casks. Both are bottled at 100 proof and showcase the rich, grain-forward character that defines Talnua. On the second half, they pour the Sherry Cask Bottled-in-Bond American Single Pot Still Whiskey before diving into the 2026 Olde Saint's Keep Special Release, a unique collaboration finished in six different casks sourced from fellow Colorado distilleries. The show closes with Talnua's newest Single Barrel selection for Bluegrass Lounge and Hazel's Beverage World, bottled at a robust 116.7 proof and aged in a former Elijah Craig barrel. From tradition to innovation, this episode highlights why Talnua remains one of the most unique and respected craft distilleries in America. Pour a glass and Take the Ride with Big Chief. Cheers.
Colorado hasn't elected a Republican governor in nearly 30 years. Three Republicans on the primary ballot are hoping to change that. Purplish takes a closer look at the field; yesterday, we heard about the two Democrats on the primary ballot. Then, as the average American farmer nears retirement age, there's growing concern about who will take over for them; a new program hopes to inspire and support the next generation.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone concerned about the direction of our country. The speaker takes a closer look at a Colorado congressional candidate who's been flying under the radar, but his radical views and actions are anything but subtle. From his time as a Yale law student to his current run for office, this candidate has a history of pushing a far-left agenda that's out of touch with the values of his constituents.This episode delves into the candidate's background, revealing a pattern of behavior that's more about ideology than representation. We explore his connections to prominent progressive politicians, his involvement in radical activism, and his voting record on key issues like healthcare and immigration. The speaker also examines the candidate's claims about his moderate stance on certain issues, questioning whether he's truly committed to representing the people of Colorado or just trying to sell himself as a more palatable alternative.One of the most striking aspects of this candidate's record is his history of pushing a far-left agenda, from suing the EPA over slaughterhouse rules to advocating for a tax on meat, dairy, and eggs. His voting record shows a consistent pattern of supporting policies that benefit special interests and ignore the needs of his constituents. The speaker also highlights the candidate's connections to prominent progressive politicians, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have praised him by name.If you're concerned about the direction of our country and the kind of politicians we're electing to office, this episode is a must-listen. The speaker takes a closer look at the facts and exposes the candidate's true record, revealing a pattern of behavior that's more about ideology than representation. Tune in to hear the full story and decide for yourself whether this candidate is truly representing the people of Colorado.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In a scathing critique, Michael takes aim at the proposed high-speed rail project in Colorado, calling it a "monument to modern transportation" that's anything but. With a tongue-in-cheek tone, Michael dismantles the project's promises of speed and efficiency, revealing a train that's slower than driving and funded by a complex web of fees and taxes. This episode delves into the Save Act, a bill that aims to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, to the Columbia's efficient and secure election system, Michael highlights the stark contrast between the US and other countries when it comes to voting and identity verification. Michael also takes a swipe at the Colorado Department of Transportation, calling them "the dumbest people in the face of the earth" for their handling of the project. With a healthy dose of sarcasm, Michael pokes holes in the project's claims of speed and efficiency, pointing out that the train will be slower than driving and will only reach a top speed of 79 miles per hour. If you're tired of hearing empty promises and want to know the truth about the high-speed rail project, tune in to this episode to hear the speaker's unvarnished take on the matter. With a healthy dose of humor and a sharp tongue, Michael will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about transportation politics in Colorado.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Denver fix and flip market 2026 is producing a strange combination. Strong showing activity and soft offer volume. One Arvada property sat through 57 showings in 44 days. The deal that finally came in fell apart when the buyer’s grandmother refused to release the down payment. That’s the market Derek Marlin is navigating right now. Derek Marlin founded Elevation in 2014. The company does fix and flips, wholesaling, fee-based project management, and runs a brokerage team at eXp. He also runs the Elevation Academy and the Broadway Collective, a Denver co-work space that recently hit 100% occupancy. His team runs 3 company flips at a time and operates at roughly 85% off-market acquisition volume. In this conversation, Derek Marlin and Chris break down the Denver fix and flip market 2026 from the ground up. Motivated sellers are still anchored to 2021 valuations. Carrying costs add up fast when deals drag 6 weeks longer than planned. Derek also walks through his 4-offer model. It gives sellers a cash offer, a fix-in option, a fee-based consulting path, or a partnership flip. The partnership flip now requires putting the seller on title in an LLC before Elevation funds the rehab. That change came after too many sellers changed their minds mid-project. In this episode we cover: Why 57 showings in 44 days produced almost no offers and what Derek Marlin thinks that signals about buyer behavior in the Denver fix and flip market right now The Arvada flip case study at 8506 Union Circle, $60K rehab, listed at $725K, 57 showings, one terminated contract, and a final sale near $700K How a grandmother ended a $719K deal 3 days after inspection by refusing to release the down payment funds The 4-offer model Elevation uses with every seller, and why the partnership flip structure now requires LLC title transfer before any rehab capital goes in Why Derek Marlin is running 85% off-market and what ratio he actually wants to hit The tear gas house case study, a SWAT-raided Centennial property taken to studs, $405K in rehab, sold near $1.4M, with the client clearing $181K in 6 months What Elevation Academy covers in a full day and what the $997 includes Derek Marlin’s outlook on the Denver fix and flip market, optimistic long-term, defensive on underwriting right now Derek Marlin’s direct, data-grounded take on current conditions is the kind of real-time Colorado flip intel you won’t find anywhere else. If you are active in the Denver fix and flip market in 2026 or thinking about getting started, this episode is worth your full attention. Watch the Youtube Video https://youtu.be/dt6dUPU0vz4 Timestamps 00:00 Derek Marlin and Elevation intro — flips, wholesaling, brokerage, education 02:29 Denver flip market read — healthy but disillusioned 07:30 Motivated sellers anchored to 2021 — how to reframe the conversation 06:47 Arvada flip case study — $60K rehab, $725K list, 57 showings, 44 days on market 11:05 Grandma terminates the deal — undisclosed down payment source kills $719K contract 12:25 Velocity of money — why Derek dropped to $700K instead of waiting 20:32 Off-market acquisitions — 85% off-market and the target 70/30 split 27:39 2026 deal flow — 3 company flips, 5 consulting clients, 7 wholesales 30:39 Price Points and Wholesaling — Why Derek Stays Below $900K and Passes the Rest 33:39 Tear gas house — SWAT raid, $405K rehab, $1.4M sale, $181K client profit in 6 months 37:30 Elevation Academy — $997 full-day training, June 5th, what’s included 39:24 Denver market outlook — optimistic long-term, defensive on underwriting Links in Podcast Elevation: elevationinvest.com Elevation Academy Flip mentioned in this episode: 8506 Union Circle, Arvada, CO
This episode of the show is a real treat, folks! We've got a fantastic conversation with the one and only Kenny Wayne Shepherd, blues mastermind and guitar virtuoso. But before we dive into that, our host Mandy Connell tackles some serious topics, from the absurdity of expecting women to perform at work despite debilitating period pain to the importance of exposing kids to nature and its benefits for their immune systems. She also shares her thoughts on the Colorado education system, which is, quite frankly, embarrassing. Mandy's conversation with Kenny Wayne Shepherd is a must-listen. They talk about his incredible journey from a 16-year-old prodigy to a blues legend, and how he's evolved as a musician over the years. Kenny shares stories about his early days, including how he learned to play the guitar from his grandmother and how he met Stevie Ray Vaughan. He also talks about his latest project, a cover album that's sure to delight fans of rock and roll.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Investor Fuel Real Estate Investing Mastermind - Audio Version
In this insightful interview, Stacie Staub, CEO of West and Main Homes, shares her transition from the tech world into real estate and how she successfully scaled her brokerage to nearly 400 agents. She discusses the importance of building a strong company culture, fostering agent loyalty, and maintaining a relationship-driven business model. Stacie also provides valuable insights into the Denver real estate market, leadership strategies, and creating systems that support long-term growth. Professional Real Estate Investors - How we can help you: Investor Fuel Mastermind: Learn more about the Investor Fuel Mastermind, including 100% deal financing, massive discounts from vendors and sponsors you're already using, our world class community of over 150 members, and SO much more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/apply Investor Machine Marketing Partnership: Are you looking for consistent, high quality lead generation? Investor Machine is America's #1 lead generation service professional investors. Investor Machine provides true 'white glove' support to help you build the perfect marketing plan, then we'll execute it for you…talking and working together on an ongoing basis to help you hit YOUR goals! Learn more here: http://www.investormachine.com Coaching with Mike Hambright: Interested in 1 on 1 coaching with Mike Hambright? Mike coaches entrepreneurs looking to level up, build coaching or service based businesses (Mike runs multiple 7 and 8 figure a year businesses), building a coaching program and more. Learn more here: https://investorfuel.com/coachingwithmike Attend a Vacation/Mastermind Retreat with Mike Hambright: Interested in joining a "mini-mastermind" with Mike and his private clients on an upcoming "Retreat", either at locations like Cabo San Lucas, Napa, Park City ski trip, Yellowstone, or even at Mike's East Texas "Big H Ranch"? Learn more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/retreat Property Insurance: Join the largest and most investor friendly property insurance provider in 2 minutes. Free to join, and insure all your flips and rentals within minutes! There is NO easier insurance provider on the planet (turn insurance on or off in 1 minute without talking to anyone!), and there's no 15-30% agent mark up through this platform! Register here: https://myinvestorinsurance.com/ New Real Estate Investors - How we can work together: Investor Fuel Club (Coaching and Deal Partner Community): Looking to kickstart your real estate investing career? Join our one of a kind Coaching Community, Investor Fuel Club, where you'll get trained by some of the best real estate investors in America, and partner with them on deals! You don't need $ for deals…we'll partner with you and hold your hand along the way! Learn More here: http://www.investorfuel.com/club —--------------------
Investor Fuel Real Estate Investing Mastermind - Audio Version
In this episode, Meg Aubale shares her journey from luxury home construction in California to becoming a leader in Nashville's condo development market. She discusses her innovative short-term rental condo model, strategies for navigating changing market conditions, and plans for expansion into Colorado and other Southeast markets. Meg also explains how technology-driven property management and elevated guest experiences are creating strong opportunities for investors. Professional Real Estate Investors - How we can help you: Investor Fuel Mastermind: Learn more about the Investor Fuel Mastermind, including 100% deal financing, massive discounts from vendors and sponsors you're already using, our world class community of over 150 members, and SO much more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/apply Investor Machine Marketing Partnership: Are you looking for consistent, high quality lead generation? Investor Machine is America's #1 lead generation service professional investors. Investor Machine provides true 'white glove' support to help you build the perfect marketing plan, then we'll execute it for you…talking and working together on an ongoing basis to help you hit YOUR goals! Learn more here: http://www.investormachine.com Coaching with Mike Hambright: Interested in 1 on 1 coaching with Mike Hambright? Mike coaches entrepreneurs looking to level up, build coaching or service based businesses (Mike runs multiple 7 and 8 figure a year businesses), building a coaching program and more. Learn more here: https://investorfuel.com/coachingwithmike Attend a Vacation/Mastermind Retreat with Mike Hambright: Interested in joining a "mini-mastermind" with Mike and his private clients on an upcoming "Retreat", either at locations like Cabo San Lucas, Napa, Park City ski trip, Yellowstone, or even at Mike's East Texas "Big H Ranch"? Learn more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/retreat Property Insurance: Join the largest and most investor friendly property insurance provider in 2 minutes. Free to join, and insure all your flips and rentals within minutes! There is NO easier insurance provider on the planet (turn insurance on or off in 1 minute without talking to anyone!), and there's no 15-30% agent mark up through this platform! Register here: https://myinvestorinsurance.com/ New Real Estate Investors - How we can work together: Investor Fuel Club (Coaching and Deal Partner Community): Looking to kickstart your real estate investing career? Join our one of a kind Coaching Community, Investor Fuel Club, where you'll get trained by some of the best real estate investors in America, and partner with them on deals! You don't need $ for deals…we'll partner with you and hold your hand along the way! Learn More here: http://www.investorfuel.com/club —--------------------
She wanted a steak. She got one. After 606 days behind bars, Tina Peters is out, and the Colorado political machine is absolutely melting down about it. Ashe plays Tina's first interview with Steve Bannon and breaks it down with three of the people who know this case better than anyone: election analyst Seth Keshel, cybersecurity expert Clay Parikh, and Mesa County Report author Mark Cook. From Jenna Griswold's 600 exposed BIOS passwords to disabled database change tracking to a DOJ statement that may have spooked Jared Polis into acting, this is the most comprehensive breakdown of the Peters case you will find anywhere. And Tina's already talking about prison reform. Because of course she is.
In this episode of Hope Illuminated, I'm joined by Brandon Wilcox, peer support specialist, community crisis innovator, and suicide attempt survivor, from Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, a grassroots Colorado organization serving the state for 15 years through a statewide crisis line and innovative community-based support models. Our conversation centers on one of the most evidence-based, underused, and beautifully human tools in suicide prevention: the caring contact.Brandon opens by sharing his own lived experience with suicidal intensity — a term we unpack together as a more precise and less stigmatizing alternative to "suicidal ideation." His story is told with both vulnerability and strength, modeling exactly the kind of open, imperfect, human connection this episode advocates for. He describes what it felt like to receive messages of support in his darkest moments and how something as small as a text saying "thinking of you today" was not small at all.We walk through the robust research on caring contacts — decades of studies showing that simple, non-clinical, non-demanding outreach significantly reduces suicide risk among people in crisis and post-crisis. We unpack the do's and don'ts with practical specificity: don't ask voyeuristic questions about the method or the moment, don't load the message with expectations or advice, don't assume silence means the message didn't land. Do be honest about not knowing what to say. Do send sunsets. Do keep showing up.We also explore mutual aid as an emerging model in crisis response, the importance of soul care and awe as long-term resilience practices, and why the prevention ecosystem benefits most when people with lived experience are centered, not just as recipients of support, but as leaders, innovators, and voices of change. Brandon's work at Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners exemplifies this philosophy in practice. For more on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/164
Ariel and the Tramp talk about our unique dynamics and the new experiences we've come across within the lifestyle so far. Visit us at UnapologeticSwingers.comAlso visit our partners: Shivers.Store and use the discount US at checkout for 10% off your order and our newest sponsor, The Scarlet Ranch! Colorado's premier Lifestyle club
Editor's note: This episode contains some explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. A town with no mayor, no trustees, no clerk, and no publicly funded water system.In our seventh episode this season, we travel four hours east of Denver to Hartman, Colorado, where a modern-day "Hatfields and McCoys" feud drove the entire town board to quit.After years of bitter infighting, contested elections, financial disputes, and a physical altercation at a town meeting, the tiny plains community's government effectively collapsed. Hartman has become an unlikely case study in how a century-old abandonment law leaves residents to confront what happens when a town can no longer govern itself.Can Hartman be saved, or has it already become a ghost town in waiting?This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens. Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.
Did you know that fat tissue is metabolically active and can contribute to chronic inflammation throughout the body? In this conversation, rheumatologist Dr. Isabelle Amigues and obesity medicine specialist Dr. Lindsay Ogle explore the powerful connection between obesity, inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, and metabolic health.They discuss how adipose tissue influences the immune system, why inflammation isn't just about autoimmune disease, and how GLP-1 medications may offer benefits beyond weight loss. Learn why reducing inflammation is about more than the number on the scale and how metabolic health impacts overall wellness.
Join host Lucas Sherraden as he sits down with Jason Smith of the Summit Living team based in Colorado's beautiful Breckenridge area. Jason shares his insights on building a successful real estate business, honing team dynamics with no "dead weight," and thriving in secondary home markets. He discusses the importance of consistent, value-driven marketing and the power of authentic client engagement. Discover how Jason's commitment to being familiar and impressive drives his team's success, while also maintaining work-life harmony. Tune in for actionable strategies and inspiring stories from a seasoned industry leader. Connect with Jason at https://www.lifeinthesummit.com/index ---------- Be sure to leave a rating and review and don't forget to go to www.builthow.com and register for our next live or virtual event. Part of the Win Make Give Podcast Network
Kelly Brownell interviews Jon-Paul Bianchi, Director of Systems Change at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, about the foundation's systems-change approach linking food, health, early childhood, and family economic security to address inequities affecting children and families. Bianchi describes his path from PhD research to policy work and then to Kellogg, and explains how integrated grantmaking focuses upstream on policies, practices, resource flows, narratives, and long-term investment in people and relationships rather than isolated programs. He highlights Vermont's inclusion of food quality in childcare ratings and the foundation's Farm to Early Childhood efforts connecting procurement, regional food systems, and state policy, with examples from states like North Carolina, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and notes Brazil's national local purchasing policy as a model for success. Transcript As I was mentioning before we got started, I've long admired the work of the Kellogg Foundation. Working with the concept of food systems or connecting agriculture with nutrition and thinking about regenerative agricultures. There are a lot of places where your foundation was out front. So, I salute you and your colleagues for that. And it'll be interesting to find out what's happening right now. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and how did you get into the philanthropic work and your work with Kellogg in particular? I'm Jon-Paul Bianchi. I'm the director of the Systems Change team at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. And what that essentially means is I'm the director of national programs at the foundation. But we call it systems change because we really do see in the different areas of work that we focus on- health, family economic security, food, and early childhood- that these things are all interconnected by some distinct systems. But also, common systems that overlap across them. And so, that's the approach that we take. And I'll spend some time sort of diving into that today. You know, to answer the question of how I got here... you know, a master stroke of luck. I was set to be an academic researcher. I was working on my PhD at the University of Wisconsin. I was ABD and decided that I didn't want to be a researcher and I wanted to work in policy. And I moved to Colorado to take a job sort of sight unseen, being the policy director of an organization that worked in K-12 and children's health, and food and early childhood education. And did that for a few years and learned to translate research into practice; into policy. And was giving a presentation and got a tap on a shoulder from somebody that worked at the Kellogg Foundation who was interested in what I was saying. And we had one conversation, and six months later, I wound up having a new job and leaving Colorado and moving to Michigan. That was 15 years ago. Well, you went into this with a great background having done the science as a graduate student and then into the policy world. And you're right, the intersection of those two is really where the magic can occur. You began talking about this, but let's talk about it a little bit more. So, when you say that there are systems that cut across different problems like food and health and economic security, etc., and I know you structured your team to reflect that cross-cutting kind of view of things. But tell us a little bit more about that. And how is this different than what's usually done, and how does it affect the way your work gets carried out? So, big picture at the Kellogg Foundation, we envision a society where every child can thrive. But we know that there's too many kids and families that still can't access good food or quality childcare, or their parents can't find quality jobs because of inequities that are embedded in the policies and the practices and narratives that shape our systems. And so, having a multi-issue integrated grant making team, it's made us more effective by better understanding the points of intersection and collaboration across those bodies of work. So, our food systems program officers are in the same team, and they work closely with our program officers in early childhood and family economic security and health. And those collaborations strengthen the work in a variety of ways. We have experts in each of those areas, but because they're spending time with each other and working in the same team, they're exposed to, and they learn about each other's work and each other's worlds. And that creates powerful collaborations in the foundation, but more importantly, out in the field. And it helps us to see that we can't fix any of these systems, including food systems, with surface level or patch kinds of solutions. We really have to work together to get upstream and focus on policies, focus on practices, focus on resource flows and narratives that really sustain the inequities that we see. And so, the foundation partners with organizations to dismantle barriers in food systems in the other areas so that children and families can access quality food. But I think we also recognize that's about investing in people. And it's about investing in people over time to drive transformational change in any of these systems, including food. For people listening to this who aren't in the world of philanthropy or academics or science or policy they might be saying, "Well, this kind of makes common sense. Isn't this the way it's usually done?" And in fact, it's not usually done to have this cross-cutting work accomplished the way you're doing it. It's actually a pretty impressive thing. Yes, thank you. And I have a lot of respect for our philanthropic partners and peers, and we work very closely with a lot of large and small foundations. And I think the adage in philanthropy is you know one foundation you know one foundation. So, we do it this way and somebody else will do it differently. And I think there's a lot of connection for us back to our founder. You mentioned Will Keith Kellogg at the top of the call. He was ahead of his time in terms of understanding the interconnectedness between food and the land and opportunity and people's education. And a lot of that came out of his tradition as a Seventh Day Adventist. But also, I think just as a person coming up in the Depression and seeing what happened afterwards and really beginning to understand in his own community of how these things were sort of connected to one another. And so, for us, both inside and outside the foundation, systems change really means betting on people long term to reshape those systems from the outside in. But also, from the inside out. And that's really what we're striving for. You mentioned the history of Dr. Kellogg. The history of that family is so interesting, and what went on in, you know, the sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, and how the concept of breakfast cereals came about. And how the focus on natural foods was so important. It's worth spending a little time even on just Wikipedia to try to find out what that history is, because I find it fascinating. So, let's go back to food and go a little bit deeper and talk about what this systems approach looks like in practice. You're a philanthropic organization. You exist in the context of a capitalist society where businesses are out to do as well as they can. How is the foundation's work different from, say, funding a food pantry, launching a single nutrition program somewhere, which is what typically might be done? Yes, I think what we intend to do and how I think our systems approach is a little different from, say, you know, funding a single nutrition program, is that we mean to design and redesign practice and policy based on how kids and families actually live their lives. Right? So, where food and health and early childhood and family economic security show up together in a community, right? Families experience these things simultaneously in their everyday lives. They don't experience these things in silos. And so, we try to have our team and our work reflect that. So, instead of treating food as a narrow problem to fix with one program, we try to think about how the entire system around a child and their caregivers works or doesn't work and find those opportunities and levers to move that whole system. I'll give you a concrete example that will bring in our colleague Linda Jo Doctor, who you mentioned at the top of the conversation. Early in my time at the foundation, I was a reviewer for the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant. This was an Obama era competitive grant process for building early childhood systems in states. And the state of Vermont did something really interesting that I had the good fortune to review as part of that team. They included the quality of food and access to fresh, healthy food in childcare centers as part of their quality rating and improvement system for childcare. They didn't just talk about teacher quality or curriculum or reflective practice. They actually said, "If we care about child development, then what children are eating every day in those childcare centers is part of what quality means." That's a systems approach. They connected food policy and procurement directly into early childhood policy and practice so that nutrition and education and child wellbeing were all being advanced simultaneously. I brought that back to the foundation and brought it back to Linda. And we had a really great conversation about it, and then another, and then another, and then another. And that experience helped shape how I think and how many people think about our work at the foundation. And it led to things like the expansion of our Farm to Early Childhood work, which again, leans heavily on procurement as the strategy to drive systems change, but connects it into early childhood policy. Tell us about that. You know, the Vermont example you gave is a terrific one. And you talked about Farm to Early Childhood. What does that mean in practice? In practice for the foundation, it really leaned heavily first on, sort of, understanding the landscape of where there was capacity to connect regional food hubs, farmers and producers and growers to systems of early childhood. At the same time that you have these burgeoning and developing systems of early care and education with regard to financing and sophistication, you have something similar going on in them in the food system movement, depending on the state that you're in. And so, we work diligently in a subset of states to really connect those policy levers, pull them together, and try to create essentially more situations like Vermont, you had partnership at the local community level, at the regional level, and then at the state systems level. So, syncing up the actual practice on the ground, syncing up how the relationships between different organizations are formed and maintained with regards to better food and early childhood. But then also trying to codify that into state policy and practice. And we did that for a number of years and had remarkable success in places like Iowa and Wisconsin and even in North Carolina, and a handful of other states. And we very much saw this as a build off our successful farm-to-school work, but doing it in a system that comparatively in terms of early childhood, was a little more fragile, right? And it wasn't necessarily as easy to do it, but all the more important and helpful because of the age and the vulnerability of the kids and families that we're talking about. The systems approach is very powerful, and so I'm going to ask a question not to be challenging, but to in some ways give you a softball for proving the systems approach. If at the end of the day, the most important thing in a childcare setting is to get healthy food into the bodies of the children so they can thrive intellectually and medically and everything else. Couldn't you accomplish that by just giving a good shopping list, a Costco shopping list to the daycare directors, and they could go buy good foods? And why does it need to be connected with farmers and, you know, the broader connection into the community at large, why is that important? Yes. Well, backing up, I wouldn't want to state, as an early childhood person, that the only thing that, you know, makes an early childhood program high quality would be the quality of the food and that that would, you know, lead to optimal child development and school readiness. I think, you know, there's other things in there that actually matter too. But this is definitely a key component. I would say, you know, to your question, that that system that you named already exists. We have the Child and Adult Care Food Program. We have the ability to subsidize the cost of food, and to have that good shopping list in play. But, I think, what the systems approach does is it asks different questions, right? It seeks to say, where does the food come from? How is it grown? Who is benefiting economically, right? How are schools and childcare centers and farmers and communities connected? And how do we strengthen those, connections and relationships so that we can begin to shift policy and practice so that children and families can reliably have access to good food. And they know that it's coming from the community in which they're situated. And the people on the side that are actually producing the food, the farmers and the folks doing procurement and others, that they're actually connected to it too. And they know where the food is going. And so there is this social kind of interstitial benefit to connecting those systems in a way that I think brings value beyond just you get a healthy meal today. I think it begins to shift culture. And if you could shift culture in the institutions that people are participating in, you can actually shift culture in people. So, you could see if a parent that potentially wasn't exposed to that before, or maybe didn't have access, or didn't know how to get access to that kind of food, if their expectations suddenly shifted because in their childcare program they're getting access to quality food, that then becomes an opportunity to engage in a different way. But it also becomes an opportunity for that parent to become empowered and to come together with other parents and other community members and begin to insist that's a reality in everyday life for them. That becomes a norm rather than an exception. I really like your answer because, you know, in some ways, people in our country have become distant from their food. You know, it used to be you could just go to the store, and there might've been one agent between you and who grew the food. The farmer would deliver it to, and now there are factories and machines that process the food, and 10 steps, and it comes from different countries, and all that kind of thing. And what you're talking about is shrinking that gap again to decrease the distance, so people are more in touch. And you could easily see that if the food is coming from farmers and the daycare providers know that they're going to feel better about the food. They're more likely to tell a story about it to the children. The farmer might come to the daycare center, or the children go to the farm. And you could see there's a lot more going on here than nutrition, and that's the beauty of this systems approach, isn't it? I mean, the children want to have a garden, right? I mean, how many times have we seen that? It seems like a small thing in early childhood, but just that simple act of having a garden and being able to understand how things are cultivated and grown. Even for a small child, and I have two small kids, we have a small garden in our backyard: it's meaningful. And it also, I think, establishes a norm that the tomato that you pick off the vine or the pole bean that you pick off, that you eat, that you find just unbelievably delicious, then that becomes normative for them. That's a normative experience, and kids are not as frightened by things when they encounter it. And I think we have a real opportunity in the early childhood space to link up those two systems to say, "Yes, we can affect change." And I think that, again, back to this notion of investing in people long term, the investment in those kids long term and what they come to expect will be the norm matters very much to how we think about our work at the Kellogg Foundation. So you're talking about both practices and policies and a cross-sector approach to these things. And let's talk about policy for a moment. Where does policy typically break down? And what kind of people need to be at the table, and what sort of partnerships need to be established in order to have better food policy? I think if we take seriously that food policy is cross-sector, I believe that we need to build tables that look like the food system. And that means not just public health experts or nutrition advocates or academics, but farmers and food workers, and those childcare providers and teachers, and leaders in K-12, and tribal leaders, community organizers, local state government officials, right? And the funders, right? The funders who are willing to invest in the long slow work of doing systems change. And, you know, one place I would highlight is in your home state of North Carolina. For years, there was significant investment that helped really build a dense ecosystem. You established regional food hubs and meat processing infrastructure, and anchor institutions into schools and early childhood centers. And a really strong network of organizers and philanthropic partners. And that made it possible to fully integrate farm to early childhood in your state's definition of early childhood. And as an aside, I would say North Carolina was also one of the leading states back when I was first coming into the field of building out a high-quality system of childcare. North Carolina led that. And so, these two things converging is a very powerful example, but again, we're getting back to local sourcing. We're getting back to bigger things than just doing food education, right? Those things are now built into the system. And they're not just a side project of the system. They actually are the system. So, you're talking about a foundation doing a lot more than getting proposals, seeing what needs to be funded, and then sending money out the door. You're talking about connecting people in innovative and unique ways. And building bridges that didn't exist before. And getting people to understand the systems change approach. And it just can lead to so many interesting and innovative things that just weren't possible using traditional models. So, really my hat's off to the work you do, and I can see why it's creating such powerful outcomes. One piece I would be remiss if I didn't say this, right? What makes all those partnerships work or fall apart? Usually, it's not the brilliance of a single policy idea or practice idea. I. Sort of. Sound like a broken record, but I'm going to come back to this. Investing in that people infrastructure that sits underneath it is really important. And the places that we find that make progress in any of the issues we're talking about, family economic security, food, health, Medicaid, early childhood, K-12, right? The places that make progress really do have varied and diverse voices at the table, and they're able to build real trust. And they're able to cultivate champions and also the next generation of champions and the next generation of champions who can move between those sectors, right? And the funders are involved, but they really understand that they're financing relationships and governance and people. They're not financing programs. And I think as a grant maker, that's an interesting distinction to think about. Think we know it implicitly and we know it when we see it. It's a lot harder to stick it in a white paper and define it and disseminate it in Stanford Social Innovation Review, for example. No, I totally agree. In the work that we've done over the years with, uh, community partners in Durham, it's been my impression that they get this systems thing from the very get-go. That they understand that if poverty is too severe, then nothing else is going to work, and if housing is a problem, then these other things are going to be affected in pretty serious ways. And they understand the importance of these. And in a way you're letting the flowers bloom. You're taking, I think, what some people understand intuitively and would like to accomplish, but they've been forced into silos. And then once a funder comes along and can allow this to prosper, I think it's sort of a natural thing that occurs. I think so. And I think the tricky thing there is to not be seduced by the programmatic solution. Like, do you remember several years ago when the notion of collective impact was this very popular term that folks talked about? And it's a good thing. I mean, I think the framework and the model is powerful, and it's a useful thought exercise. But what I found in a lot of collective impact work was that it focused very much on aligning the programs. Sufficiently funding the programs and aligning the programs, but not the human side of design and redesign of how do those programs function, right? Who do they serve? Who's at the table when building them or rebuilding them? Do you have the ability to change them midstream if you feel that you need to? And I think a slightly different approach with systems change is you're sort of engaging in a loose hold of the policies and the practices and the issues to give people and the people infrastructure and the relationships time to come together and figure out how they want to move them individually, and how they want to move them collectively. And that's a subtle difference. That's a nuance that I think has really worked in our particular corner of the world. One thing I bet some people are interested in is how the Kellogg Foundation might be distinct from Kellogg as a company. You've described beautifully the innovative work you're doing. The company is off doing what it does commercially. How do these two things intersect? And what's been the history of the connection between the foundation and the company? Yes. So, when the foundation was founded in the 1930s, Will Keith Kellogg, as you said, he endowed the foundation and created it separate and apart from the company. So, it's an independent philanthropic organization. And so, while we bear the name of Will Keith Kellogg, the foundation does not have a formal connection or stake in the company any longer. As you may know, the company split into two companies a few years ago, one called Kellanova and one called the W.K. Kellogg Cereal Company. And since then, I believe both companies have been acquired. I think Mars now owns Kellanova, and Ferrero, an Italian company, owns W.K. At present, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation does not have any connection to either of those companies because they've been acquired by other groups. And aside from having some stock with the foundation, that was sold to support our endowment, we don't have any formal connections anymore. But I think the proximity of the foundation to the company in Battle Creek, and I think the shared history of Battle Creek and the shared history of Mr. Kellogg's vision is actually important to note. And I think it does matter to how the two institutions are connected. I said this a little while ago in the conversation, but in the 1930s, Mr. Kellogg knew that you couldn't separate food from health and education, family economic security, and he knew this while he was making cornflakes, right? And so he helped make sure in the late 1930s that children in Battle Creek had access to fresh milk in schools at the same time that he was doing work in soil conservation and in building healthy land. And he had a sense of knowing that how the food is grown and how kids are nourished, it's part of the same story. And I think that DNA has pulled forward into the foundation, and it makes it a really special place to work because we still carry that memory of him, and we still carry that vision of him into the work that we do. Thanks. You know, a long time ago, when I first became familiar with the Kellogg Foundation, I wondered about the history and the independence of the foundation from the company. And I pretty quickly came to learn that the foundation, as you said, is quite independent from the company. But you've enriched my knowledge even beyond what I've known over the years, so thank you. That's a fascinating history. So, let's end with one final question. If you fast-forward and kind of look ahead, what do you think is on the way? And what does success look like to you and your colleagues? Yes, it's a good question. I mean, I think if we got this right, you know, 10- 20 years from now, success would look like children and families living in communities where good food is just a part of everyday life. It's normal and reliable and not something that folks are lucky to find. I talked a little bit about how Mr. Kellogg thought about this in the '30s, but we also see what's possible in other places, right? When that vision can become a reality in terms of policy and practice. So, we had done some work in the country of Brazil. And we see now that national policy in the country of Brazil now requires that at least 50% of school food be purchased from local sources, grown with high-quality standards, right? That one decision reshaped incentives all along the food chain. What farmers grow, what institutions buy, what kids eat. That's a powerful example of institutions using their everyday purchasing power to build healthier and a more just system. So, you know, 10- 20 years from now, if we've done our job, it would mean that the kinds of innovations in places like Brazil or North Carolina or even in Michigan with our 10 Cents a Meal program, that those types of things would have become the norm. That schools and early childhood centers and hospitals and tribal and local governments would be routinely buying good, locally rooted food. And that workers and farmers are earning a fair and stable wage, and they have incomes. And the communities most affected by hunger and inequity are actually at the core of leading and designing new systems. And food policy would no longer be a patch on top of the inequity. It would be one of the main ways that we build healthier and more equitable futures for kids and families. BIO Jon-Paul Bianchi is the Director of Systems change at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, he leads WKKF's national grantmaking strategy focused on early childhood care and education, health equity, employment equity and food systems. As a longtime philanthropic leader and national expert with a focus on early childhood education, Bianchi provides strategic oversight to the foundation's national programmatic work to support thriving children, families and communities. Bianchi holds a doctorate of Education from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education and Human Development, a master's degree in child development and a bachelor's degree in child and family studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He helped found and currently serves on the board of Valley Settlement in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
In Denver's housing market, a perfect storm is brewing. With a 60% increase in inventory compared to this time last year, the city is experiencing a significant shift. The usual supply and demand dynamics are out of balance, and buyers are struggling to find affordable options. The market is being driven by a perfect combination of factors, including the fact that Colorado is the least affordable state in the country. This, coupled with a declining population and fewer buyers, is making it tough for sellers to find willing buyers. A recent report from Realtor.com highlights Denver's position as the market with the fastest falling home values, a trend that's been ongoing for a few months. Jeana discusses the importance of realistic pricing with their guest, Gaye Ribbel, a team leader for the Empower Home Team with Keller Williams. Gaye shares insights on the current market trends and the challenges sellers are facing. They also touch on the topic of sellers who are holding onto unrealistic expectations, and the impact this has on the market. If you're considering buying or selling a home in Denver, this episode is a must-listen. Gaye shares valuable advice on how to navigate the current market and make informed decisions. Tune in to hear the full conversation and learn how to succeed in today's competitive housing market.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
-LEADERSHIP ALIGNMENT BLIND SPOTS- This week Edgar and Kendive beneath the surface of leadership to uncover the hidden values, motivations, and blind spots that shape how teams actually operate. Through real conversations and practical frameworks, exploration on how to close the gap between intention and reality so leaders can build trust, clarity, and lasting alignment across their organizations. The purpose of The True Alignment® podcast is to start the conversation around alignment, both in business and personal life, and it is up to you to see that conversation through. As always, if you have any questions, possible topics, or are looking to take your alignment further, please reach out to us at info@truealignment.com. Alignment Survey Links & Show Notes Who we work with Edgar Papke Ken Sagendorf Music Music by, local Colorado band, The Skinny
The Angels suffered one of their most frustrating losses of the season as they blew a 6-2 lead and fell 9-8 to the Colorado Rockies at Angel Stadium. What looked like a comfortable win turned into a disaster as the Angels pitching staff completely lost the strike zone, issuing an unbelievable 10 walks and handing momentum right back to Colorado. On this episode of the TODDFOX Postgame Show, Todd Fox breaks down the collapse, the bullpen struggles, and how a game the Halos should have won slipped away. We discuss the turning points, questionable pitching decisions, defensive miscues, and the inability of the Angels staff to throw consistent strikes when it mattered most. The offense did enough to put the Angels in position to win, but the pitching staff's lack of command proved costly as free passes continued to pile up and the Rockies took advantage of every opportunity. Todd Fox reacts to the blown lead, the growing frustrations surrounding the team, and what needs to change moving forward. How do you lose a game after leading 6-2? Can the Angels fix their pitching issues before they derail the season? Join the conversation live as Todd Fox breaks down another painful night for the Halos. Subscribe for more Angels baseball coverage, postgame recaps, MLB reactions, fan discussions, and sports talk from Todd Fox and the HITI Network. #Angels #Rockies #ColoradoRockies #LosAngelesAngels #MLB #ToddFox #PostgameShow #HITINetwork #AngelStadium #Halos #MLBRecap #Baseball #BlownLead #BullpenCollapse #SportsTalk #BaseballTalk #MLBHighlights #AngelsBaseball #RockiesBaseball #MLBNews #PostgameReaction #BaseballPodcast #HalosNation #PitchingProblems #Walks #BaseballCommunity #GameRecap #Anaheim #AngelsFans #MLBTalk Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump getting blindsided as his MAGA movement is in full collapse and Meiselas shares the stories of MAGA supporters who have abandoned him and Meiselas interviews Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser who is running for Governor of Colorado. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summer is officially here, and Jeff and Jordan are celebrating the end of a busy season with a listener Q&A packed with laughs, life updates, and a little friendly bickering. From what they'd really do with a $10 million lottery win to tattoos, future plans, Big Brother, and whether Colorado is home for good, nothing is off limits. Plus, why Beetlejuice pants may have sparked the debate of the day. Tune in for Part 1 and get ready for more listener questions in Part 2! Thank you to our partners:AG1 - Visit DRINKAG1.com/TOGETHERMESS to get a free Morning Person Hat and free AG1 Flavor Sampler in your Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription (an $82 value!)Hungryroot - For a limited time, get 40% off your first order PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com/togethermess and use code togethermess.Zenni Optical - Go to ZENNI.COM/PODCAST and use code PODCAST15 for fifteen percent off your first order.We would love your feedback... If you enjoyed this episode, tell us why! Leave us a review and make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.Executive Producers are Riley Peleuses + Ian McNeny for YEA Media GroupIf you are interested in advertising on this podcast or having Jeff and Jordan as guests on your Podcast, Radio Show, or TV Show, reach out to podcast@yeamediagroup.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This Detroit Red Wings podcast tackles Red Wings trade options & free agency paths as Steve Yzerman weighs how aggressive to get this summer. News and analysis breaks down the Elias Pettersson trade scenario, Bobby McMann free agent fit, and what a real roster shakeup could look like for Todd McLellan's group. (0:00) Remembering Claude Lemieux Opening with condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones of Claude Lemieux, who passed away at age 60. (1:12) Intro Warning the residents along TPC Michigan, Oakland Hills, and Detroit Golf Club fairways that the WWP crew is coming to town. Fortify your windows. (4:10) Red Wings Offseason Paths Walking through Max Bultman's three scenarios (article here) for the Detroit Red Wings: targeted adds (Bobby McMann, Michael McCarron), the bigger free agent swing (Alex Tuch, Mason Marchment, Vitek Vanecek, plus a Cossa-for-Howard trade), or the bold Elias Pettersson trade with Nate Danielson as the headliner. Why the rising cap makes Pettersson's $11.6M hit less scary, which option two terrifies us, and where McMann fits as the most realistic add. Also: is there a chaotic option four where you reset around Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond and move on from Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, and Patrick Kane? (31:15) Stanley Cup Final Preview Carolina's buzzsaw run through the East versus Vegas methodically dismantling Colorado. Predictions, the Mitch Marner/Carter Hart factor, and why this might be hockey sickos' dream final even if Gary Bettman is seething about the market matchup. (43:35) Bruce Cassidy Situation Cassidy goes on Spittin' Chiclets to call out Vegas for blocking interviews. Big dog move from Vegas or lame excuses? (45:20) Prospect Profile: Alberts Smits The big Latvian left-shot defenseman drawing Moritz Seider and Jakob Chychrun comps. Why he could go top five and what the floor looks like. (51:00) Prospect Profile: Ryan Roobroeck The big winger with a cannon shot and serious compete questions. Anthony Mantha vibes - should Yzerman, Draper & Co. swing on him at 47? (56:50) Worlds: MBN Wins Bronze Michael Brandsegg-Nygård and Norway take bronze at the World Championships, beating Canada & Emmitt Finnie in overtime. Finland takes gold as Switzerland loses a 3rd straight final. (58:25) Overtime Mailbag: Patreon Questions Vegas aggression paying off, what it would take to move into the top five, who's next in the rafters (Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk), Robert Thomas trade packages, and Sebastian Cossa's development path with NHL goalie coaches. --- Refresh your wardrobe with Quince - go to Quince.com/WINGEDWHEEL for free shipping and 365-day returns! Support the show: Patreon.com/WingedWheelPodcast Head over to wingedwheelpodcast.com to find all the ways to listen, how to support the show, and so much more!
Ep 125 - The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies - Devon O'Neil In January 2017, three families set out on a backcountry ski trip to Uncle Bud's Cabin in the heart of the Rockies outside of Salida, Colorado. What was meant to be a fun getaway turned into a desperate search when two members of the party didn't return from a quick ski run. In this episode, we'll dive into the remarkable story told in Devin O'Neil's book, "The Way Out," revealing not only the thrilling events but also the profound effects on the families and community involved. O'Neil, a seasoned journalist, captures the essence of resilience and courage that emerged in the face of tragedy. We explore what happened, the lessons learned, and why this story resonates deeply with outdoor enthusiasts and communities alike. Check out this bonus article written by Devon O'Neil about his own personal avalanche experience – https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/avalanche-trigger-mt-baldy/ This podcast is produced by Ashley Saupe and sponsored by Rocky Talkie and onX Backcountry. → 60% off onX Backcountry Premium or Elite, code valid through summer - SHARPEND60 → 10% off Rocky Talkie radios at RockyTalkie.com/SharpEnd → 15% online Responder Alliance trainings, including the Responder HUB - SHARPEND → 10% off Wallpoppe - SHARPEND → 15% off SWOOP. garments - SHARPEND → 10% off any wilderness med course with Desert Mountain Medicine - SHARPEND → Use code SHARPEND to waive the activation fee on ZOLEO → Global Rescue Insurance: https://partner.globalrescue.com/thesharpendpodcast/index.html → 20% off American Alpine Club membership with code sharpend26
In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with author Frank Hayde to explore his latest book, Hoffa's Connection. Hayde, a Kansas City native and noted mob historian, brings forward a largely overlooked figure in organized crime history—Sylvia Pagano. The conversation centers on Pagano's rise from Kansas City to Detroit, where she operated at the intersection of organized crime and labor unions under Jimmy Hoffa. Known for her effectiveness as a union organizer, Pagano infiltrated workplaces, signed up members, and quietly maintained ties to powerful mob figures. Her ability to navigate both worlds made her a key behind-the-scenes operator during a volatile era in American labor history. Hayde details Pagano's role in helping broker alliances between the Mafia and the Teamsters during a turbulent strike, marking a turning point in the relationship between organized crime and labor. Drawing from FBI wiretaps, he reveals candid conversations that shed light on her relationships with influential mob leaders like Tony Giacalone and Moe Dalitz, emphasizing her strategic importance across multiple crime families. The episode also explores the life of Chucky O’Brien, who grew up surrounded by Hoffa and organized crime figures. Through Hayde's research and interviews, listeners gain insight into the generational impact of mob ties, as well as the strict code of silence that governed both mother and son. Beyond individual stories, the discussion expands to the broader national network connecting crime families and labor unions. Pagano's reach extended well beyond regional boundaries, illustrating how organized crime leveraged union influence across the country. This episode offers a fresh perspective on the enduring mystery surrounding Hoffa's disappearance by examining the deeper historical context—and the overlooked players like Sylvia Pagano who helped shape it. It's a detailed look at power, loyalty, and survival within the American Mafia. The book is Hoffa’s Connections:The Story of Sylvia Pagano: the Kansas City Girl at the Center of the Mafia’s Alliance with the Teamsters Union xxx [0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers out there, good to be back here in the studio of Gangland [0:03] Wire. This is Gary Jenkins. I’m a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, later sergeant. I have this podcast, Gangland Wire. I’ve got a website. If you want to go check my website out, I’ve got a few things for sale on there. And you can go rent the documentaries I’ve done about the Kansas City mob on Amazon. Just search my name. I’m all over the internet. Just search my name and mafia and you’ll find more you ever wanted to know about me and the mob and what I’ve done. And today I have a really a former Kansas City boy, a Kansas City native who has done several books on the mob, particularly the Kansas City mob. And he’s got a most recent one that I find just really fascinating. It’s a little known story that will help shed the light on Jimmy Hoffa, a little bit more light than most of you ever knew. There’s some questions that I had myself that’s not really in the in the popular culture about Jimmy Hoffa. It’s Frank Hayde. Welcome, Frank. Thanks, Gary. Great to be with you again. All right, Frank. We’ve done Mafia Dreams and Mafia and the Machine. So tell the guys a little bit about yourself and your books. [1:13] I grew up in Kansas City. My family stretches way back in Kansas City, and they were involved in the political machine under Pendergast, and so I heard a lot of stories about those days growing up. Later in my career with the National Park Service, I worked a short stint at the Harry Truman National Historic Site, where I learned more about local history, more about the political machine and the mob in Kansas City. So that’s where my interest started. [1:39] And then many years later, I wrote The Mafia and the Machine, and then followed that up with some of these other books, including this most recent one, Hoffa’s Connection, the story of Sylvia Pagano, the Kansas City girl at the center of the Mafia’s alliance with the Teamsters. You know, that’s the mouthful, I know. You know how it is with the subtitle. You can try to get the, summarize the entire book in your subtitle. So, that’s what that is. Yeah. When you look up a book or you see it online or whatever, you want to know quickly what it’s about. So I see that title, Hoffa. Oh, that’s interesting. I thought everything was done about Hoffa. Then you got this subtitle in here and you say, oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t know about this. And I didn’t myself, this Sylvia Pagano. And the story starts in Kansas City. It’s a fascinating story, guys. I want to tell you, it is a fascinating story. [2:31] But before we get started, Frank was a park ranger, a law enforcement park ranger for the National Park Service for 20 years. And he has a really interesting mob interaction when he was in, I believe you run a temporary assignment out in California. Tell the guys about your mafia interaction as a law enforcement officer. [2:53] Yeah. So I was actually at the park service 32 years. 20 of those were law enforcement and just retired. But in the summer of 2024, I got to go out to Redwood National Park on what we call a detail, which is a temporary assignment. They were shorthanded and needed a little extra help. And I knew the place pretty well because I had worked there earlier in my career. So I went out there and it’s a beautiful place. And I was on patrol and I came upon a campsite and there was some violations going on. Nothing major, just the typical stuff that we see as park rangers. And I contacted the occupants of this campsite and I got their licenses and I was back in my vehicle running the licenses. There was a male and a female and the female, I noticed it was a New York license and Brooklyn address and last name is Scarpa. I said, no, that can’t be. That’d be too much of a coincidence. And ran the information, recontacted the subject. And I asked the female, I said, by any chance, are you related to Greg Scarpa? She said, oh, yeah, that was my grandfather. And Greg Jr. was my father. [4:02] And I guess I had to laugh. And by then, I had already written a ticket or two, I think, for just petty offenses. And so I handed her ticket and then asked her if she’d take a picture with me. But she was real nice. She understood that people don’t mind, and she was great. She took a picture with me, and she was more than happy to talk about her father and her grandfather. And it was all very interesting and just quite the coincidence. Yeah, really. That was quite a coincidence. Not only the main coincidence was that you knew her. And then a lot of people might know the name. You really knew the name. Yeah, no. And you had this whole interest in it to talk about. Yeah, I can tell you that 99% of park rangers, you have no idea. Now, if you’re a Brooklyn cop, that’s different. But I was probably the only park ranger alive that would have made that connection because of my interest in the topic. I’ve been trying to get Greg Scarlett Jr. to come on. He’s made some intimations to somebody else. He followed my Facebook group, and I followed his. And so I don’t know. I reached out indirectly. I don’t know exactly how to get a hold of him. Maybe I’ll package this little story up and I’ll send that to him. Maybe that’ll get him to come on the show. Except you wrote the tickets, damn it. That’s the problem. I hope he won’t come after me to write in his daughter’s tickets. Yeah. [5:25] All right, Frank. So let’s go in this most recent book, Hoffa’s Connection. How did you, Sylvia Pagano, how did you even get onto that name other than, did you start, she’s Chucky O’Brien’s mother, who most guys know if you’re really into Hoffa at all, or even on the little bit, Chucky O’Brien was, everybody thought he was like his illegitimate son a lot of times or his surrogate son. And he was really close to Hoffa and drove him around. I was going through your book. He was a guy that Hoffa could send around to other mob people because he was half Italian himself and both sides trusted him to carry messages and do meetings and things like that. So how did you get onto this originally? So I got a call from Jack Goldsmith, who’s a very interesting man because he is the learned hand professor of law at Harvard University, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, former assistant attorney general under President Bush. But for me, the most interesting thing about him was that he is Chucky O’Brien’s stepson. [6:29] And he was working on his book, Inhofe’s Shadow, when he contacted me. It’s a great book. I would recommend it to all the wiretappers. But it’s about Chucky. And he wanted to know if I had come across any information on Chucky O’Brien in my research for the Mafia and the Machine, because Chucky was from Kansas City. I said, what? Chucky O’Brien was from Kansas City? Because I knew all about Chucky O’Brien, but I had no idea he was from Kansas City. So that shocked me. And I don’t think very few people knew that. His Kansas City roots were scarcely known. Everybody just thought of Chucky as a Detroit guy. But when I finally read Goldsmith’s book, it’s about Chucky, but he touches on Sylvia. And I found what he wrote about Sylvia to be completely fascinating, especially because she was Kansas City. And so I thought, shoot, she’s in my wheelhouse. I thought, wow, she would make a great subject for a book. But I balked at it because she was so secretive that she left hardly anything information, hardly any documents exist about Sylvia. It’s just she wasn’t like the men that she associated with who were so extensively documented. There was just very little known about her, not even very many photographs in existence. [7:44] But fortunately, I got together with Pat Faisal in Kansas City. He’s a terrific researcher. You’ve worked with him a lot, Gary. You’ve had him on your show, I think. I think he’s written a couple of really important books on local history, and he had come across her independently of me, and through his own research, he had stumbled on just a brief mention or two of Sylvia Pagano in various FBI documents. [8:09] And so we decided to put our heads together, and Pat helped me with the research, did the lion’s share of the research, fed it to me, and then I would write the story. And that’s how it came together. [8:21] Interesting. And Frank, one of the coolest things, the research that Pat found was those wiretaps or bugs that the illegal bugs the FBI had in her house. And so they got a lot of really great conversations and they’re all transcribed and out there for somebody to find. So to me, that was fascinating. [8:45] Yes, that was probably our best source are these transcripts from the illegal microphones that the FBI placed in homes and businesses of organized crime associates all over the country back in the 60s. Got some great information from those. Sylvia talking freely in her apartment. Candidly, because she doesn’t know anybody’s list. And they had him in Tony Giacalone’s home juice company in Detroit also. And Sylvia was often a topic of conversation over there as well. By the way, Tony Giacalone was Sylvia’s paramour for many years. They had a long affair. People who think that Sylvia had an affair with Hoffa that produced Chucky O’Brien, [9:28] And that is not accurate. Chucky, we know who Chucky’s father was. He was a criminal out of St. Louis from the time he was a boy and went to prison when he was a young guy, was recruited from prison to come to Kansas City and work as a driver, for none other than Charlie Banagio. And so that put him right at the center of the action. [9:53] And Sylvia, having married the young man that put her right, she was already at the center of the action because she knew all the movers and shakers in the North End at that time already from the time she was a girl. But they became very much a part of Banagio’s network. And this was one fact that really blew me away that I didn’t know. And I don’t think you know it or Owsley or O’Malley or really anybody in Kansas City that Charlie Banagio was Chuckie O’Brien’s godfather. Yeah, I didn’t know that. Yeah. That is interesting. So Sylvia Pagano, she lives down there in the North End, what we call the North End folks, which is our little Italy. There’s a big church that anchors that neighborhood. And that’s where all the people came from Southern Italy and Sicily, moved into Kansas City and were associated with the church down there. After them, the Vietnamese came in and the church sponsored a lot of the Vietnamese and settled in that same neighborhood as it became a shifting neighborhood. So she’s down over there in Little Italy or the North End. And she meets a guy named Michael. Was it Three Fingers? [11:03] Oh, yeah. Frankie. Frankie Three Fingers. Coppola. Coppola, yeah. So tell us about that relationship. Yeah, that’s really interesting because Frankie Three Fingers… Hasn’t really been chronicled much as part of the Kansas City family. Because he was a roving guy, he had a lot of clout in both Italy and the U.S., and he had memberships in multiple families, and he was a high-ranking status too. So wherever he went, whether it was Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New York, New Orleans, he was all over the place, and he was well-respected wherever he went. But he was in Kansas City for quite a long time. He was strongly associated with Padagio. And it appears from all the evidence, as well as testimony from organized crime experts in Detroit, that Frankie Three Fingers escorted Sylvia to Detroit after her marriage with Charles O’Brien ended in about 1941 in Kansas City. [12:13] So Sylvia arrives in Detroit on the arm of Frank Coppola, and that put her on the fast track to getting to know the upper echelon of the Detroit family and mobsters, top mobsters beyond Detroit. Coppola was associated with Costello in his slot machine racket down in New Orleans. [12:36] And later, after he got deported back to Italy, He worked with Lucky Luciano to put together the whole narcotics syndicate network that included the French Connection. So tremendously influential as a mobster. Sylvia could really not have picked a more influential and well-connected guy as a boyfriend. That really put her on the fast track to getting to know a lot of the most powerful guys in the country. Really interesting guy. Frank Copeland. I’ll just say it and maybe someone else can run with it. I don’t know if it’ll be me or not, but he would make a great subject for a book. Yeah, he’s not very well known. And the mob used to have this guy, Nikolai Gentile. He traveled around to different families and brokered different deals. I think back before communication was so fast and you didn’t fly from one city to the other, you had to take a train. That’s a whole day on the train to get one city to the other. Telephone communication wasn’t that good. You didn’t hardly make long distance phone calls back there in the 20s and 30s. I don’t think they were hard. So you have guys like this that then travel around and take messages that are trusted by the different cities. And so he had to be one of those guys. [13:52] You’re exactly right. In fact, he knew Nicola Gentile. [13:58] Gentile is also, I speak about him in this book also. He plays a role, a pretty important one, and he describes some events that are really fascinating. This story actually doesn’t begin in Kansas City. It begins in Pueblo, Colorado. There’s three geographic areas that are really emphasized in this story. Pueblo, Colorado, Kansas City, and Detroit. But Nicola Gentili and Frank Coppola knew each other in the United States, and they knew each other in Italy. And you’re exactly right, they had a similar role as traveling diplomats within the mafia. Very interesting. Not too many other guys, especially later on. They had Johnny Roselli, who was really well-traveled, and some others. But in those early days, a couple of these guys, Coppola, Gentile, I don’t know if there was any others or not, but that was what they did. They were all over the place, and they were so well-connected, and they really had memberships in multiple families. And that seems to have faded away later. You didn’t hear too much about guys that had more than one member. So occasionally somebody would switch families, but yeah, they were really interesting, [15:11] real, what you would call international mystery men, I think. Interesting. So she had an affair with him, and he brought her up to Detroit and started making connections in Detroit, if I remember the story right, with the Jackalones. And so what. [15:27] Take us on from there. How does she then move in with Hoffa? And she’s like in the middle between the Peckerwood truck drivers and the Italian mob, which they both needed each other and they worked well together for a long time. So how does she end up in the center of that? Yeah, she’s still quite young when she gets to Detroit. She’s just early 20s, maybe mid 20s at that point. But and here she is she’s immediately meeting all of the wise guys but she was still she needed a job she needed work i’m sure coppola helped her out to some extent but he had his own wife he had his own he probably had another mistress or two as well i mean she needed to make a she needed to make a living and raise her son chucky and um she got a job with the teamsters at that time in In Detroit, unions were strong. There was a lot of unions, and it was the capital of industrial unionism at that time. And so that just became a natural choice. She ended up meeting Burke Brennan initially, actually, even before Hoffa. Brennan was Hoffa’s right-hand guy. [16:36] And he gave her a job with the Teamsters as a salter. She was an organizer, and a good one, and a legit organizer. But her specialty was salting. Now, what’s that? So she was a union representative, and she would get a job in a factory or a warehouse, just an ordinary job. And she would go to work, just like everybody else, punch the clock. But while she was there, her real objective was signing other people up to join the union. So she’s like a secret agent in a way, buried into the normal workforce, but with a real different agenda. And she was real good at it. And the union guys noticed that she worked really hard and she was loyal and that she would keep her mouth shut. And so those were the same qualities that the mob guys admired. So this was at the time, though, and this is very important, when most of the unions and the mob were still at odds with each other. Back then, the gangsters were getting hired by companies to break strikes and to oppose unions. [17:47] And there was a particularly bad strike going on. It lasted a long time. The Teamsters were striking the Detroit Lumber Company. This was at about 42. And it was violent. And Hoffa could see the writing on the wall that the Teamsters were losing the battle. It went on and on. It was violent. And that’s where Sylvia Pagano stepped in. Burt Brennan told Jimmy Hoffa he should talk to Facci. Facci was Italian for face. And that was Sylvia’s nickname that she got when she was young back in Kansas City. Had a very pretty face. And so they called her the face. So Hoffa talked to Fauci and she set up a basically like a summit meeting peace conference, more or less. And they brokered a deal where the mob switched sides and became allies with the Teamsters against the Detroit Lumber Company. So that was really the moment that changed history, brought the mafia into the Teamsters orbit and vice versa. And that’s all traceable right back to Sylvia Pagano. [18:55] Wow. That’s interesting. I always wondered what the genesis of that was with Hoffa and the mob. And of course, we can see how it developed, but what that actual birth of that was. I think you’ve stumbled across the birth of it. You also… [19:11] We’re able to stumble across the birth of the Eastern families and New York families connection to Hoffa, which that that gets even bigger. Tell us a little bit about that. She was involved in that, believe it or not, guys. And just like in Detroit, back in New York, there’s Johnny Dio. He was busting up labor union strikes for the companies. Yeah, I think that to some degree in New York, New Jersey, that some Teamsters locals had already been infiltrated by the mafia independently and maybe unbeknownst to Hoffa in Detroit. But it really became a big thing with Hoffa and with Sylvia’s brokering that alliance. Little isolated examples of mob infiltration, I think, were already happening in Detroit. But once again, as Hoffa’s progressing in his career, moving up the ranks, he always had his eye on the top job. He wanted to be the president of the IBT. And of course, he knew he needed help in the Northeast for that, to realize that goal. And so with Sylvia helped set up meetings with Tony Ducks Corral Johnny Diagordi Tony Provenzano and Sylvia had gotten to know Provenzano in Detroit because he had strong connections to Detroit let’s see his cousin was married to. [20:39] Tony Giacalone’s cousin was married to Tony Pro, I believe, or vice versa. That’s your book. Yeah. I’d have to go back and read my own book. Yeah, it’s hard to keep up. Hard to remember all the details. All these players. Giacalone’s cousin was married to Provenzano. And so Sylvia had already met Provenzano in Detroit. And Chucky, her son, had already started calling him Uncle Tony. And so she had this great connection to Provenzano. And so she helped facilitate the Teamsters Mob Alliance in New York and New Jersey, just as she had in Detroit. And then it goes on from there. Then she later, we’re moving forward now, but she would later become the link between Hoffa and his closest contact in Cleveland, which was Moe Daylitz. She became the link between Hoffa and Alan Dorfman in Chicago. And she became the link between Hoffa and the Sevilla brothers in Kansas City. So she really was, and this is all, they taught, there’s a, from those FBI tapes, those illegal FBI tapes, we have Tony Zarelli and Nick Sevilla in Florida speaking about Sylvia Pagano and her relationship as a liaison between the Detroit family and between the Kansas City family. Like, there’s your proof right there. Not that you need it. She was really… [22:09] The guys, a lot of them really liked, adored her in the sense of she did have an affair with a couple of them, and she was a good-looking woman. A lot of them had, Moe Dalitz was known to have a crush on Sylvia, possibly an affair with Sylvia. But she was more than your mob mole, right? She was a dealmaker. She was an advisor. She was a liaison. She brought money to the table. She did deals with the guys. She helped broker some pension fund loans, all these things. So what I like to say about Sylvia is that we all know that the mob never inducted women into their ranks. But if they had, Sylvia Pagana would have been their first choice because she worked hard. She was loyal. [22:56] She kept her mouth shut. And she really lived truer to the code than some of the men did. She was 100% omerta. She really was. and she learned that in the north end of Kansas City, where Umerta was extremely strong even up into this century after it wasn’t so strong in other places and so she passed that on to Chucky O’Brien. He was also a real strong adherent to the code of silence. Yeah, I think we have to remember Chucky O’Brien was half Italian. His father was Italian. No. [23:33] So his mother, Sylvia, was the Italian. Mother, Sylvia, yeah. Yeah, his dad was Irish. Yeah, I got that mixed up. Exactly, asked backwards. But yeah, he was half Italian. And so he really talked the talk, and he moved right in. All these guys were like his uncle, Uncle Nick, Uncle Quirk, and that kind of thing. So he came back to Kansas City. Tell a little bit about Chuckie O’Brien and Kansas City. Yeah, so in 1950, he’d been in Detroit for about nine years by that point. 1950, he’s getting into high school age, and Sylvia sent him back to Kansas City to live on Independence Avenue with his grandparents, and he went to Cardinal Glennon High School. [24:13] And became a good athlete, started dating a gal from the old neighborhood who was a lot like Sylvia. I think that’s really interesting because Chucky really idolized his mother, but he never really, when he was young at least, got to spend as much time with her as he wanted. He spent a lot of time back in Kansas City. He spent a lot of time at his uncle’s house in Detroit because Sylvia was so busy with Hoffa and with the mob. So here’s Chucky in Kansas City. He meets a gal from Sylvia’s old neighborhood who has other things in common with Sylvia and who even looks, in my opinion, quite a lot like Sylvia. And he would eventually take her back to Detroit and marry her and have a family together. But his main objective, it really in Kansas City wasn’t so much going to school. It was becoming a truck driver. He wanted to become a truck driver so that he could put himself on the path to becoming a union organizer like his hero and surrogate father, Jimmy Hoffa. And according to Chucky, Uncle Nick and Uncle Cork got him his first job as a driver and got him his first union card with local 541. [25:23] And this was right at the time when Local 541 was becoming ground zero for labor strife and union corruption in the United States. And Gary, you said a key word earlier, which was Peckerwood. And that’s who was running the Kansas City Teamsters at the time. It was dominated by Peckerwood guys, country boys, basically, and like Hoffa. And these guys were just as bad as the Italian gangsters who were more famous. They ran those locals with intimidation and terror, and they were violent, and they were very ambitious. They had political power. [26:08] Make a long story short, in 1953 in Kansas City, we had an inter-union labor war. And it was the Teamsters versus almost every other union in town. And Teamsters were trying to dominate a lot of these other unions is what it was. And so you had a complete paralysis of the entire construction industry for three months. Imagine just all construction stopping for three months in any metro area and how devastating that is to the economy. 23,000 Kansas Citians were out of work. The Teamsters were refusing to pick up or deliver supplies. And that eventually morphed into violence and sabotage. You had guys going into battle at construction sites. People were getting badly injured. People were getting kidnapped. It was, and then furthermore, we had four military defense projects centered in the Kansas City area, and this is right at the height of the Korean War. So these military installations were suffering work stoppages also. So this was unacceptable in Washington. And Congress swooped in with hearings and an investigation. [27:17] And they called this, basically, it was, I think the exact language was something like the most forbidding chapter in the history of American unions, something like that. It was a big deal. This history has been mostly forgotten. But Kansas City was [27:32] completely paralyzed for about three months. And that was the union that was the local mainly primarily local 541 which chucky was a young member of he was too young at that time to get drawn into the politics of the union i don’t believe that he was on the front lines of these these battles and violence that was happening he was just a brand new truck driver at the time but he was part of that in the sense that he was a local a member of the local at the time this stuff was happening so yeah that’s that’s what happened when Chucky came back to Kansas City. [28:07] Interesting. And that must have been the time when Roy Williams started moving up the ladder and the mob was moving in and they moved this auto ring and some of his people out. And Roy Lee Williams must have, with the support of Nick Civella and the local mob, must have moved right on in. Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. The main guy behind all the strife and violence I was just talking about was Orville Ring, classic quintessential Peckerwood guy and then after all this happened Hoffa swooped in and helped negotiate an end to these conflicts in 1953 and, And Nick Civella and his crime family, they were all watching all this from the wings, planning and scheming. Wow, there’s a lot going on here. How can we capitalize on this? [28:50] So in the aftermath of it all, the Savellas basically intimidated Orville Ring out of the Union. He went back to his farm. Later, he was killed in an accident on his farm, which a lot of people thought was the mob, that the mob did it. But it looked probably just an accident. And I think a tractor rolled over on him or something like that. But yeah, Roy Williams. So at this time, just basically the Italians were taken over from the Peckerwoods. There were still some useful Peckerwoods, and they worked together. And Roy Williams was the key guy there. This is when Nick Civella and he started working together to take over the Teamsters in Kansas City. You’re exactly right. And the rest is history. Really? really. Roy Williams is an interesting guy. He was a war hero from World War II. He had several bronze stars and he was a huge war hero, but he knew which side of the bread got the butter. And so he went with that and he went with Nick Civella. And he did, he bucked up to him a few times, but Nick Civella, actually in a famous scene, Nick Civella had him picked up and driven somewhere and shined a bright light in his eyes and said, you will go along with this scheme. [30:05] So it’s, but he kept going along to almost, he almost, he did become the president of the union for a short period of time, almost right there at the end of his life and when everybody was going to jail. But he was Nick Civella’s protege and Nick Civella’s puppet for his whole life and the whole Teamsters union was. [30:24] Yeah and that story you mentioned with the white spotlight shining in his eyes they kidnapped him and took him into this empty warehouse and i always point to that as just one of those. [30:34] Terrifying stories about how the mob used to work and yeah man and that wasn’t the only time that they intimidated roy williams in that manner so he like you said he was this tough guy war hero He was a big guy, and yet even a guy like that can get intimidated into doing whatever these guys tell him to do because his tactics that they used were just terrifying. Yeah. I read one thing where he later on, he claimed when he turned and gave evidence and talked to the Bureau that he claimed that they also threatened his wife and children during one of these sit downs with him. I mean, they did the same thing to Alan Glick out in Las Vegas. Tuffy DeLuna was out there, and he read off Alan Glick’s name of his wife and his children. He said, you may find yourself expendable, but I don’t think you’re going to find your family expendable and read off their names. So there’s two good examples of them. Say that Bob never messes with your family. There’s two good examples of them using the family and family as threats. Yeah. [31:40] It’s very tough. Yeah, it is. I heard knowing Mo Dalitz, to me, that was key because he was such a mover and an operator. Talk a little more about that. He had been in Cleveland. He had to set her up with Bill Presser. And that was primarily Jewish mobsters in Cleveland, seemed to me like. And then he also had all those connections to Chicago to get to Red Dorfman, his son, Alan Dorfman. Talk a little more about that relationship with Mo Dalitz. In Mo Dalitz’s biography, I can’t think of the name of the author at the moment, but that author states that Sylvia was one of Mo Dalitz’s lovers. I’m not sure if that’s true or not. I do think that Mo Dalitz, at the very least, had a crush on Sylvia, but also respected her very much. And she, just as she had with the Detroit family before, she brokered an alliance with Daylitz. What happened was Daylitz had a laundry empire, was a rum runner and a racketeer and a leader in the Jewish mob. But he also had a lot of legitimate businesses, including a laundry empire in Detroit and Cleveland. [32:53] And while he was still in Detroit, before he really made his move to Cleveland, his permanent move to Cleveland, his laundries, along with other laundry owners, they bonded together in an association. And they were very anti-union. And they were basically at odds with the Teamsters. And until Sylvia swooped in. And Sylvia had her own connections by now to the Laundry Workers Union also. So she’s working for the Teamsters, and she’s very close to Hoffa, but she then married a guy named John Paris, who was the head of the Laundry Workers Union. [33:32] So Sylvia knows Hoffa, and she knows the head of the Laundry Workers Union very closely, and she knows Dalitz. So she’s the one who’s positioned to bring these people together, sit them down at the same table, and start working together, start negotiating. And that’s what she did with Daylitz. And so that led to Daylitz paying off Hoffa, basically, to settle this contract on terms that were favorable to Daylitz and the other laundry owners. [34:07] But you could say that Hoffa, in that case, sold out his members, at least at that time. Now, I do want to make it clear that most rank-and-file teamsters for many decades loved Hoffa because he definitely did negotiate some great contracts that brought truck drivers into the middle class, got them very good pay and benefits. And it’s only fair, it’s only right to give him credit because as somebody once said about Hoffa. [34:33] He was always a criminal, but also always a teamster. And he worked very hard for his membership. He never stopped working. And it was sincere, I do believe. But there were times when he, the ends justified the means and he did whatever he had to do to keep the union alive, but also to serve himself and enrich himself. And that was one of those cases where the membership lost out a little bit when Hoffa and Daylitz formed their alliance with the initiation and the help of Sylvia Pagano. Interesting. So let’s go back to Chucky O’Brien for a minute. He goes back up from Kansas City. He ends up back up in Detroit and working very closely with Jimmy Hoffa. And you talked to his son. Yeah. And to make that, and he was probably a huge help and some insight into what his father was like. So talk about Chucky O’Brien when he got back with Hoffa. Yeah, so he goes back to Detroit. [35:31] And he steps right back into the Hoffa family circle because Sylvia became part of the Hoffa family. She was Josephine Hoffa’s best friend. Jimmy Hoffa relied on her not only for important work in the union and for important connections to the mob, but he also relied on her heavily as Josephine’s personal assistant and caretaker. Sylvia worked extremely hard serving other people. And she was an excellent caretaker to Josephine who needed a lot of care, had very poor health, made worse by severe alcoholism. And Sylvia was a wonderful caretaker. But Chucky stepped right back into that family orbit. Later, when his own kids were small, Chucky and his wife and his kids moved into the Hoffa house. They’d all lived under the same roof for quite a few years. But Sylvia was really the glue that kept it all together and Chucky’s son who’s also named Chuck O’Brien he was a young boy at this time so his memories of his grandmother. [36:42] And Jimmy Hoffa started when he was a young boy and continued up until Sylvia died when he was in his late teens, but he was a great source for the book helped out a lot I really appreciate him And it was interesting to have direct access to someone who actually lived under the same roof with Jimmy Hoffa. So he was not privy, young Chuck was not privy to any inside information or any mob dealings or anything like that. But he later moved to Kansas City and went to work in the River Key for his uncle at the Godfather Lounge, which just a couple of years later was torched in the River Key War. And then young Chuck had worked in professional hockey for a while. And then he became a truck driver and joined Local 41. And so all this history just comes full circle and repeats itself. And I was a little fascinated by these Sylvia’s grandkids who were born and raised in Detroit. They both ended up back in Kansas City in the land of their parents and their grandparents. And they ended up in the same neighborhoods that Sylvia had been born in many years before. [37:57] Interesting. And Chucky O’Brien, then he’s kind of Hoffa’s driver sometimes. And Aaron Renner on up to the end of Hoffa’s life was even implicated at the very end. Some people claim that he helped set Hoffa up because he was the one person that Hoffa trusted. And that one movie, The Irishman or whatever, really threw a lot of shade on Chucky O’Brien. So how did you deal with that. [38:21] Yeah, I think Chucky got a real bad rap, and as I used to study Hoffa and read all the Hoffa books, I always thought, I always had a very low opinion of Chucky O’Brien, and he became the butt of a joke, and he was portrayed as this blundering, not-too-bright guy who either helped kill his surrogate father or was duped into giving him a ride to where he was killed without knowing what was going on and without being able to, realize it to the point where he could have maybe helped Hoffa. I think Jack Goldsmith put all that to rest. He really changed my opinion of Chucky in his book, but I realized that Chucky had been misunderstood in many ways. Was he involved in Hoffa’s disappearance or not? I think Goldsmith basically vindicates Chucky. [39:15] However, I do believe that there’s still some evidence that could strongly suggest that even in light of what Goldsmith wrote, that Chucky could still have known more than he let on. But he was so committed to Emerita that he took a lot of secrets to his grave, I believe. What’s interesting is some of the other co-conspirators in the Hoffa thing ended up dead, like Sally Buggs, and got killed in Little Italy a few years later, and the prevailing wisdom, at least, was to, keep him quiet about the Hoffa case. And they would have probably done the same thing to Chucky if Chucky could have pointed the finger at anybody or implicated anybody. And I’m sure he could have. I’m sure he knew some things about that. He was so close to Giacalone. Chucky was very close to Tony Giacalone and to Tony Provenzano. [40:07] And I think that Chucky survived because Giacalone trusted him 100% just as Sylvia Pagano’s son. Giacalone’s trust in Chucky to not give anybody up was just so rock solid. And he loved Chucky. And I think that he was also honoring Sylvia by allowing Chucky to stay alive. So I know I’m straying from your initial question, Gary. There’s so much going on with the whole Chuck O’Brien thing and his involvement. It gets very interesting. You have to get really down in the weeds with it to understand all of it. But I think that Goldsmith’s book is a great read for anybody who’s interested in Hoffa and the whole case. I definitely would recommend it. So it may come down to Chuck O’Brien. And was he more loyal to the mob, to the mafia and their code? Or more loyal to Hoffa and the Teamsters? as Hoffa as an individual, not to the teams or his union, but Hoffa as an individual. Was he more loyal to Hoffa or more loyal to the union or more loyal to the mob? And giving up those guys, he has to turn his back on everything. [41:21] The union and the mob. And so I can see where he, whatever he knew, [41:25] he was not going to say a word. It would be to his advantage. He has no, they didn’t have a hammer on him. Wasn’t a criminal. They didn’t have a life sentence hanging over his head for anything. They did have, they did prosecute Chucky on a federal case. It was a small time thing. He took some, maybe took some gifts from a, from an employer in his role as a union guy, some small gifts. And then he had also got caught up in a cargo theft case, which is all documented in the book, Office of Connection. But the law enforcement did have a couple of cases that they could apply pressure onto Chucky. But he didn’t say a word, and he just went to prison and served his time. He didn’t have to serve too much time. He was only in for about a year, I think. It was a low-level felony. But he just, he’d never thought once about turning state’s witness. He just went and served his time and got back out and went on with his life. [42:25] Yeah. It’s those 50 and 75-year sentences that’ll make the right attorneys. You get even, I used to say, when they came up, those sentencing guidelines for cocaine dealers, you could make a guy talk about his mother when he’s looking. He’s 40 years old and he’s looking at a 50, 75-year sentence. Yeah. I do have to say, though, if there’s one guy that might, and there was a few of them who went and served a hard time. Yeah, a long time until they’re old. Rather than give anybody else up. And I think Chucky would have been one of those guys. I do. Yeah. [42:57] Having been raised by sylvia pagano he was just so committed to that culture and those traditions and that way of life and and omerta yeah sylvia even had almost a kind of a halfway making ceremony for chucky she arranged for the top guys in detroit when he came back to detroit from kansas city in the early 50s tony giacalone put together a little event where chucky walked into the back room of grecian gardens restaurant in detroit and all the top guys were sitting around a table and he made a pledge of loyalty to them at that time and then he sat down and broke bread with them and he didn’t prick his finger and burn a card and he wasn’t made into the family but it was all halfway a little bit and they did that for sylvia and because they just valued her so much they respected her and they needed her they she was the connection to their most valuable asset, which was Jimmy Hoffa. So that tells you a little bit about how much respect they had for Sylvia and also for Chucky’s unique role. Here he is. [44:05] He’s he’s the son of charlie banagio’s low-level chauffeur yeah and yet he’s sitting down with guys like meyer lansky in florida he’s sitting down with all the top guys in detroit chicago inu acardo rica rosanova all these top guys in chicago then he would sit down with them on behalf of jimmy hoff he was he probably i say in the book that he probably had more chucky o’brien the son of, Banagio’s chauffeur probably had more sit-downs with high-level mobsters than Nick Civella did. As Hoffa’s representative, that was the life. And he knew how to handle that kind of thing because he was raised by Sylvia. So he knew how to say, what not to say, how to behave himself in those types of meetings. So that came naturally to him. And he was Hoffa’s gopher. He drove in places. He took Hoffa’s wife to her medical appointments. He did low-level stuff like that, but he also did more important work, more sensitive stuff, like sitting down with mob bosses and relaying information back and forth, just like as Sylvia had taught him to do. [45:16] That’s fascinating. I tell you what, guys, Frank Hayde, Hoffa’s Connection, the story of Sylvia Pagano, the Ken City girl at the center of the mafia’s alliance with the Teamsters Union. I might have links in here. You better get this book. This is untrod territory. Unplowed ground, as we used to say on the farm. This is fresh stuff that you’ve read. There’s so many books out there about Hoffa and his disappearance that they just want to, come on, we can’t do this. I can’t do this again, Hoffa’s disappearance. You’re never going to find his body. You’re never going to figure out exactly who killed him. Nobody’s going to talk, and anybody that could is dead. But this unearthed some really fresh, interesting information about Hoffa and his connection with the Italian La Cosa Nostra in the United States, the entire United States, really. Yes. Thank you, Gary. That was a very nice little summary of it. And I really appreciate you. You’ve had me on your show before, my other books, and I listened to your podcast. Can’t get enough of it. You do terrific work. All us wire trappers love you, man. And we all appreciate you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Are you still doing the, are we still buying you cups of coffee and that kind of stuff? Yeah, you can always buy me a cup of coffee and hit the donate button. [46:29] I forget about doing that. I’ve been doing this so long and I got a few guys that hit it regularly and some never do. I do this for the pure joy of it anyhow, but it helps to have a little extra money coming in now and then. When you were selling books yesterday, you love writing this book. You love all that research and putting it together and educating people, but it’s nice to get paid for it too. [46:50] It’s a small-time racket, but hey. It’s a small-time racket. Another interesting thing, Frank, we were talking about people doing time, getting so much time, and trying to force them to talk. Yesterday, Frank had a program at the library, and we had a local guy who was a subject of his last book, Mafia Dreams, who was a mob hanger-on guy when he was a young guy. And he got caught up in a murder, an accidental murder in a way. That it’s a long story and you have to get mafia dreams to learn about it. The next generation of the wannabe. [47:25] Italian mafia guys in kansas city and so that guy was there he did 25 years 25 years for what we call felony murder another guy he transported a friend of his to a drug by only the guy killed the man was selling the or tried to kill the man that was selling the drugs and the fbi had it set up and ran in and shot and killed the kid who almanese had carried up to the drug ripoff and And so they charged this driver with felony murder, and he did 25 years, just got out about four or five years ago. He could have talked. He had enough to buy him a lot of grace on that 25-year sentence, and he did every minute of it. He never said a word, and it was hard time. It was state time here in Missouri. Yeah, I think that’s true. I think he is representative of Kansas City in a way, because I do believe that in Kansas City, the Code of Emerita persisted longer than most places. And yeah, when you’re 24 years old, I think he was 24 at the time that he was sentenced. Maybe he was 25 and you get sentenced to 25 and a half years. [48:38] And you have the chance to whittle that down by giving up information on your friends. And you don’t take it, and you choose to do the 25 and a half years, that’s hardcore. And he did, and those are the best years of his life that he’ll never get back. But he is out now, and he’s making a legitimate living and keeping his nose clean and just trying to make up for a lot of lost time. Yeah, he is. 25 years will straighten your mind out, won’t it? Yeah. Man. All right, Frank. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Hey, thanks again, Gary. Don’t forget to donate Bob the Bob Gary cup of coffee, y’all. Thank you. Okay, Gary. Okay, Frank. That was great. Talk to you later.
Welcome to the June 1, 2026 Monday News Edition of the RV Lifestyle Podcast. I'm Mike Wendland, and this week we have a show that every RV owner needs to hear before they hit the road this summer.We start with a story that I believe goes a long way toward explaining one of the biggest problems facing the RV industry right now: quality control. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just released the May 2026 recall report, and it covers nearly 15,000 RVs across more than a dozen separate recalls. And before you assume this is routine housekeeping, let me tell you what is on this list. A Tiffin motorhome with a fuel tank punctured by a screw during manufacturing - NHTSA's own guidance says to park it outside and away from structures until the repair is done. A Jayco motorhome missing the water heater safety valve entirely - not defective, just absent. A Winnebago Solis with a propane hose routed directly over the exhaust heat shield. Grand Design Lineage motorhomes with two separate recalls in the same month - unsecured seats and solar panels that could detach at highway speed. And a long list of brands - including our own Brinkley Model Z - with shock bolts that were never properly tightened at the factory.Here is the part that matters most: manufacturers are not required to notify owners immediately. Some of the letters for these recalls are not going out until July. Two months from now. You should not be waiting. Go to NHTSA.gov, enter your VIN, and find out right now whether your rig is on this list. It takes thirty seconds and it could save your life or someone else's. We cover every brand affected, every defect, and every manufacturer phone number you need.From there we move to our RV Blunder of the Year, and I want to be upfront with you: this one comes with an asterisk. According to Cowboy State Daily, someone driving an RV pulled into the Maverik gas station in Montrose, Colorado, and emptied their black water tank - the toilet waste tank - directly into the station's underground diesel fuel supply. Not the dump station that was right there on the property. The diesel tank. We dig into what is actually confirmed, where the sourcing falls short, why the station's silence is a little suspicious, and why the story is worth telling regardless of whether every detail holds up. The lesson at the end of it applies to every new RVer on the road this summer.Then we get into the April 2026 RV industry shipment numbers, and they are not pretty. Total shipments came in at just over 29,000 units for the month - down more than 17 percent compared to April of last year. Through the first four months of 2026, the industry is running nearly 13 and a half percent behind 2025's pace. Towable RVs - the heart of the market - are down more than 20 percent year over year. We connect those numbers directly to the quality control failures we covered in the first story, because they are connected. Consumer confidence does not survive a steady diet of recall lists like the one we just walked through. That said, there is a genuine bright spot: motorhomes finished April up 13 percent compared to last year, and Park Model RVs jumped nearly 30 percent. We break down what those numbers mean and what to watch for the rest of the summer.We close with a story that felt like a breath of fresh air after everything else this week. Alliance RV - one of the most respected independent manufacturers in the business, known for their Paradigm, Avenue, Valor, and Delta lines - just held their seventh annual owner rally in Goshen, Indiana. Nearly 400 rigs and 800 owners showed up. And when someone from the audience asked founders Coley and Ryan Brady straight out whether they planned to sell the company, the answer was a flat no. Ten-plus years of runway ahead, their words. In an industry where Thor Industries and Winnebago have absorbed so many brands it is nearly impossible to keep track, Alliance is planting a flag and saying they are building something different. We tell you why that matters and what it means for RVers who value buying from a manufacturer that still has skin in the game.
Sponsor Link:This episode of Space Nuts is brought to you by NordVPN, your trusted partner for online security. To access our exclusive offer, including four extra months for free, visit www.nordvpn.com/spacenuts.Cosmic Queries: Unraveling Stellar Mysteries In this enlightening Q&A episode of Space Nuts, hosts Andrew Dunkley and Professor Jonti Horner tackle a trio of intriguing questions from listeners. From the complexities of hydrogen fusion to the potential for life in Martian caves and the mysteries of stellar activity, this episode is a deep dive into the cosmos.Episode Highlights:- Hydrogen to Helium Fusion: Ken from Maroochydore seeks clarity on the fusion process in stars, questioning why the mass of helium appears greater than the sum of its hydrogen components. Jonty explains the concept of binding energy and how it plays a crucial role in energy production during fusion, demystifying this fundamental stellar process.- Caves on Mars: Mark from Brisbane wonders about the possibility of limestone caves on Mars and whether they could support life with a stable atmosphere. The hosts discuss the geological differences between Earth and Mars, the challenges of oxygen presence, and the implications for future human habitation in Martian caves.- Understanding Stellar Activity: Casey from Colorado inquires about the changing activity levels of stars and solar cycles. Jonty elaborates on the magnetic forces driving solar cycles, the variability of different stars, and the fascinating world of asteroseismology, revealing how stars can change over time and what that means for our understanding of the universe.For more Space Nuts, including our continuously updating newsfeed and to listen to all our episodes, visit our website. Follow us on social media at SpaceNutsPod on Facebook, Instagram, and more. We love engaging with our community, so be sure to drop us a message or comment on your favourite platform.If you'd like to help support Space Nuts and join our growing family of insiders for commercial-free episodes and more, visit spacenutspodcast.com/about.Stay curious, keep looking up, and join us next time for more stellar insights and cosmic wonders. Until then, clear skies and happy stargazing.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts-astronomy-insights-cosmic-discoveries--2631155/support.- Introduction to Hydrogen Fusion- The Binding Energy Explained- Potential for Life in Martian Caves- The Nature of Stellar Activity- Understanding Solar Cycles and Variability
Abounding Grace is an outreach ministry of Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado.Pastor Ed Taylor is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Church –you can find more about him at edtaylor.org.Books by Pastor Ed along with other curated discipleshipresources from his home church bookstore are available at calvaryco.storeIf you like what you hear on Abounding Grace – don't forget to follow us, and share it with your friends and family!
DESCRIPTION President Donald Trump has officially endorsed Pam Evette in South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial primary, but the endorsement sparked immediate controversy. During today's show, Tara examines Trump's surprising reference to Henry McMaster Jr. as Evette's future lieutenant governor pick—a claim Evette has repeatedly declined to confirm publicly. The conversation explores allegations of political deal-making involving Governor Henry McMaster, the failed congressional redistricting effort, and whether Trump's endorsement was strategic support or a subtle warning shot. Callers weigh in on the future of South Carolina politics, concerns about establishment influence, and comparisons to political shifts seen in other states. Later, gubernatorial candidate Rom Reddy joins the program to discuss the endorsement, polling trends, government spending, and his vision for South Carolina's future. KEY TOPICS Donald Trump's endorsement of Pam Evette Henry McMaster Jr. lieutenant governor controversy South Carolina congressional redistricting battle Claims of political deal-making and establishment influence New gubernatorial polling data Caller reactions from across South Carolina Rom Reddy interview and campaign platform Concerns about the future direction of South Carolina politics SEGMENT BREAKDOWN Segment 1: Trump's Endorsement Sparks Debate Tara analyzes Trump's endorsement of Pam Evette and focuses on the portion of the statement mentioning Henry McMaster Jr. as a future lieutenant governor candidate. The discussion centers on whether Trump intentionally highlighted a politically sensitive issue for Evette's campaign. Segment 2: The McMaster Connection The show explores allegations that support from Governor Henry McMaster came with expectations regarding future political appointments. Tara argues that Trump's comments exposed an issue Evette had previously avoided addressing publicly. Segment 3: Redistricting and Political Fallout Discussion shifts to South Carolina's failed congressional redistricting effort. Tara contends that political leaders failed to support changes sought by Trump and examines how those developments may have influenced the endorsement. Segment 4: Listener Reactions Callers from across South Carolina share concerns about establishment politics, open primaries, voter engagement, and comparisons to political developments in Colorado. Several callers discuss why they believe the gubernatorial race remains highly competitive despite Trump's endorsement. Segment 5: Rom Reddy Interview Gubernatorial candidate Rom Reddy joins the program and reacts to Trump's endorsement. Reddy discusses polling, government spending, taxes, economic development, and concerns about what he describes as the creation of a long-term political dynasty in South Carolina. Segment 6: Looking Ahead The show concludes with discussion about the increasingly crowded Republican gubernatorial race, emerging polling data, and questions surrounding how much influence Trump's endorsement will ultimately have on primary voters. TOP QUOTES "Donald Trump endorsed Pam Evette in the governor's race. That's not even the interesting part." "A big added plus for Pam is that I hear Henry McMaster Junior will be running with her as the next lieutenant governor." "People don't like that sort of thing. It starts marking the old smoke-filled backroom politics." "Governor is a CEO. We need to focus on the record." "Are we tired of politicians? Are we tired of all the name-calling?" SEO KEYWORDS Trump endorsement, Pam Evette, South Carolina governor race, Henry McMaster Jr, South Carolina politics, gubernatorial primary, Rom Reddy, Alan Wilson, Ralph Norman, Nancy Mace, redistricting controversy, Republican primary, South Carolina election, Tara Show, political analysis SHORT PROMO Trump endorses Pam Evette—but one line in that endorsement may have created a bigger controversy than the endorsement itself. Tara breaks dow ...
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was released from prison today after Governor Jared Polis commuted her sentence. We ask Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, about the release and the Trump administration's pushback against voting by mail. Then, Purplish breaks down the candidates for governor: today, the two Democrats; tomorrow, the three Republicans. And we share another commencement speech during graduation season; this time, Vice President JD Vance who spoke at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
In this episode of the OutThere Colorado Podcast, Spencer and Seth chat about a historic amphitheater you've never heard of, the data behind transplants and what surprised us both the most when moving to Colorado, a trail that leads to dinosaur tracks, a footrace series you've gotta check out, and more.
Today, Sun outdoors reporter Jason Blevins looks at how a state decision to change the Colorado search and rescue response structure has ruffled feathers in the Colorado Search and Rescue Association. Read more: https://coloradosun.com/2026/04/10/cpw-search-and-rescue/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this week's public lands news briefing, we cover three stories:1. Republican-controlled Congress includes mining leases for Twin Metals in Northern MN in the Fiscal Year 2027 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill2. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Department of Agriculture signed a new agreement that could allow the use of M-44 devices on BLM-managed lands once again ft. Brooks Fayh, executive director of Predator Defense3. Representatives Joe Neguse of Colorado and Jared Huffman of California introduced the Public Lands Workforce Stability Act ft. Representative Jared Huffman, California's Second Congressional DistrictSubscribe to the Outdoor Minimalist newsletter: https://www.theoutdoorminimalist.com/Sources & ResourcesM-44 Predator Defense: https://predatordefense.org/m44s.htmLethal Control Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Md98jAS2QExposed Documentary: https://youtu.be/qSV8pRLkdKI?si=JgHpJalyPYRMInE-Public Lands Workforce Stability Act: https://neguse.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-neguse-and-huffman-introduce-public-lands-workforce-stability-actFY27 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill: https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-releases-fy27-interior-environment-and-related-agencies
The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
Shoot us a Text.Episode #1359: Mitsubishi is jumping back into the pickup market with help from Nissan, a supplier strike threatens GM's truck production at a critical moment, and the internet-famous F-250 robins have finally left the nest, clearing the way for one very patient delivery.Show Notes with links:Mitsubishi is heading back into the U.S. pickup truck market for the first time in nearly two decades, teaming up with Nissan on a midsize truck while also reviving the iconic Pajero/Montero SUV.Mitsubishi will launch a U.S.-built midsize pickup sourced from Nissan, likely tied to the next-generation Frontier platform expected later this decade.The truck marks Mitsubishi's return to the segment after discontinuing the Raider pickup following the 2010 model year.The strategy is part of a three-step U.S. revival plan: expand off-road offerings, enter new segments through Nissan partnerships, and grow the dealer network with urban satellite stores.Mitsubishi is also reviving the Pajero (Montero) SUV this fall, building it on the Triton pickup platform and creating an entire family of Pajero-branded vehicles.“We will prioritize restoring profitability and work to turn the business around through brand strengthening and product strategies.” — Mitsubishi President Keisuke SugiuraA labor dispute at American Axle is putting pressure on one of GM's most important profit centers. Nearly 1,000 UAW workers have walked off the job, threatening the supply of axles used in Silverado, Sierra, Colorado, and Canyon pickups just as GM ramps up truck production.UAW members at American Axle's Three Rivers, Michigan plant began striking after contract talks broke down over wages and mandatory overtime.Workers say they are still living with wage cuts accepted during the 2008 financial crisis, with many production employees topping out around $22 per hour despite years of strong supplier profits.The plant produces critical axles for GM's full-size and midsize pickups, giving the strike potential to impact some of the automaker's most profitable vehicles.Timing is especially challenging for GM as it looks to capitalize on Ford's pickup production constraints and growing competition from Ram, whose truck sales are up 23% this year.“For 18 years, these members have built you an empire of profit, while getting treated like dirt.” — UAW President Shawn Fain.Remember the F-250 that became a federally protected bird sanctuary? The robins have officially left the nest, the truck can finally head to its new owner, and the dealership's unexpected wildlife story turned into an international feel-good headline.Lugnut, Axle, Diesel and Turbo officially flew away last week, ending a month-long delivery delay for the customer's F-250.What started as a quirky dealership story ended up earning coverage from The New York Times, People, The Guardian, Automotive News and even Ford's corporate media channels.Olathe Ford-Lincoln leaned into the moment, giving the birds names, posting updates, and turning a routine vehicle delivery into a viral community story.The customer, a construction company, never pressured the dealership and agreed to let nature take its course before taking delivery.“The new owners said they were in no hurry to get the truck and the robins could finish raising their family.” — Diane Johnson, Executive Director, Operation WildLife.Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/
CannCon and Zak Paine open June with a Monday show full of big moments. Tina Peters walks out of a Colorado prison live on Steve Bannon's War Room, and CannCon and Zak play her full statement about lead in the water, a sugar-and-salt prison diet that destroyed her blood sugar, and violent offenders with 2050 exit dates sharing her facility. New Jersey's Delaney Hall ICE protests produce five out-of-state arrests from a single night, a truck driver's viral counter-speech that breaks Antifa's brain, an undercover infiltration of the protest camp revealing USAID-branded gas masks and tactical supplies, and Zak's framing that the entire occupation is a deliberate intelligence-gathering sting. A man who threatened to kill ICE officers and their families on camera is promptly arrested by the FBI, Todd Blanche confirming the DOJ is done tolerating it. The America 250 concert at the National Mall starts losing performers who claim they were misled about Trump's involvement, and Trump responds on Truth Social by offering to replace them all with himself and giving a rally instead. Muckrakers drops a seventeen-minute investigation tracking SNAP benefits purchased in Massachusetts onto boats to Santo Domingo and into Dominican Republic bodegas. Seattle's mayor refuses to investigate, citing community fear.
Colorado's Parks and Wildlife Commission now has zero experienced big game hunters on it. The chair is a former Humane Society attorney who spent his career suing game agencies. Six of ten commissioners voted to impose a commercial fur ban that their own agency and director recommended against — in writing — with five expert witnesses and a hundred years of combined expertise. Dan Gates was in every one of those meetings.Dan Gates runs Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management and has been on the front lines of every major Colorado hunting fight for eight years — Proposition 127, Ordinance 308, wolf reintroduction, and now Initiative 302: a constitutional amendment to enshrine the right to hunt and fish in the Colorado State Constitution. We dig into what that right actually does, why 24 other states already have it, and how the Polis administration has strategically stacked the commission. We also cover two upcoming raffles — a Hill Ranch elk hunt and an Alaska salmon/halibut trip — that benefit CRWM's ground game on this fight.In this episode:What Initiative 302 actually says — and what it doesn't doWhy Colorado hunters don't currently have a constitutional right to huntHow Governor Polis stacks anti-hunting commissionersThe March commission meeting — agency scientists overruled by commissioners who said "our values differ from your science"Two commissioners forced to resign during Senate confirmation — what that meansWhy 24 other states already have this rightThe Hill Ranch elk raffle — 34 preference points required to draw, better odds in this raffle than the state drawAlaska salmon/halibut fishing raffle — Sitka, two people, Reel ChartersGuest: Dan Gates — Executive Director, Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management. savethehuntcolorado.comRaffle tickets: scicolorado.org — deadline June 12th, drawing June 15th. $50/ticket, 3 for $100.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/c.r.w.m/ ---FOLLOW CLIFFYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/CliffGrayInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/Cliffgry/Facebook - https://facebook.com/PursuitWithCliffPursuit With Cliff Podcasthttps://pursuitwithcliff.com/interviews-and-podcasts/Cliff's Hunt Planning and Strategy Membership https://pursuitwithcliff.com/membership/Hunt. Fish. Spear. (Experiences, Courses and Seminars) https://pursuitwithcliff.com/ExperiencesMerchhttps://pursuitwithcliff.com/shop/SUBSCRIBE TO CLIFF'S NEWSLETTER:https://PursuitWithCliff.com/#Newsletter
From May 11 - On this week's Regional Roundup, we look at how communities across the region are grappling with immigration enforcement. In Durango, Colorado, the District Attorney has filed charges against a federal immigration officer over an alleged assault on a protester outside an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in October 2025. In Glenwood Springs, city officials have revoked the permit for a local ICE facility. And we hear about a theater project that brings immigrants to the stage, creating space for them to tell their own stories in their own words. A two way with reporter Jamie Wanzek on the charges filed against a federal immigration officer after an assault on a protester at an ICE facility in Durango last October. (KDUR/RMCR) A report on Glenwood Springs revoking the permit for a local ICE facility. (KDNK) An interview with MOTUS theater about their work centering the voices of immigrants, and a first-person monologue from one of the participants. (KGNU)