Benghazi Truths, Sanctuary Policy, and Colorado’s New Vaccine Mandate Law

Monday’s broadcast opens on Colorado’s Capitol, where a freshman legislator warns that House Bill 26-1276 could cost the state roughly four million dollars in federal reimbursements, and an activist breaks down the new vaccine mandate law signed March 27. Between them sits an hour with a man who defied a stand-down order on September 11, 2012 and ran toward a burning U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Sponsor guests Roger Mangan and Jody Hinsey round out the broadcast.

Fourteen Years of Benghazi Rumor, Corrected on Air

Start listening at 32:02 – Hour 1

Tig Tiegen, part of the CIA Global Response Staff team assigned to a separate compound roughly two miles from the U.S. consulate, describes the night he and three teammates defied a stand-down order, deployed a grenade launcher that dispersed the initial attackers, and repelled a second assault on the consulate. They never located Ambassador Chris Stevens during that window; his security team had lost contact with him in the smoke.

Tiegen corrects one image many Americans carry: the widely circulated photograph purporting to show Ambassador Stevens dragged through the streets of Benghazi. That photo, Tiegen says, is a 2003 Egyptian image of an unrelated person. Stevens was recovered from the safe room by a Libyan man who did not recognize him, driven straight to the hospital, and died of smoke inhalation, not of torture or mutilation. Sean Smith, the communications officer, died the same way. Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed later at the CIA annex in a mortar attack that also wounded Mark Geist and Dave Ubben.

Asked who issued the stand-down, Tiegen places it with “Bob,” the CIA chief of base, not with Secretary Clinton or the State Department, and notes that the annex had been attacked twice before that night. The 25-minute delay, he argues, is the reason Stevens and Smith did not survive. Tiegen is now running for mayor of Colorado Springs in the April 2027 election. His campaign site is tigformayor.com.

“None of our so-called political leaders were telling the truth about what happened. They would just let rumors go, which is bullcrap, especially for the families and loved ones that knew these people.”

Tig Tiegen, Benghazi Survivor and Colorado Springs Mayoral Candidate

Human Life Value and the Math of Transfer of Risk

Start listening at 09:18 – Hour 1

Roger Mangan of the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team frames life insurance as transfer of risk on the one asset most people never insure: themselves. Mangan walks through the math for a 40-year-old parent, including income replacement, mortgage, two children’s education, and unexpected medical costs, reaching roughly $1.15 million in needed coverage for about $52 a month on a term policy.

Reach the team at 303-795-8855 for a complimentary appointment.

“If you paid $1,000 a year to insure and protect a $35,000 asset, a depreciating asset as well, wouldn’t it make sense to spend $600 a year to insure your human life value for $25 million?”

Roger Mangan, State Farm Agent

Parks and Wildlife Rules, Empire Bins, and the Hyperscale Data-Center Fight

Start listening at 17:33 – Hour 1

Between guest segments, Kim urges listeners to weigh in against the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission’s proposed ban on the sale, barter, or trade of wildlife fur in Colorado, which would also upend the state’s beaver management plan. Information and comment channels are at SaveTheHuntColorado.com; the next commission meeting is May 6 and 7 in Grand Junction.

Kim then walks through New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s expansion of the “Empire Bin” program, which will convert 6,500 parking spaces to large street trash containers by 2027. She connects it to a pattern: control water, power, food, and trash, and you control the people. She flags a Festus, Missouri city council where voters ousted four incumbents for approving a $6 billion AI data center, and references her recent trip with Virginia Macha, who is expanding Stand for the Land Kansas into a national Stand for the Land effort. Kim argues hyperscale data centers are land grabs and surveillance infrastructure rather than job creators.

Behavioral Finance, Market Volatility, and an AI Literacy Event

Start listening at 63:00 – Hour 2

Jody Hinsey of Mint Financial Strategies explains her firm’s bucket approach to investing and the role of time-segmentation in keeping clients disciplined through a market that dropped 12 percent and fully recovered between her last Monday appearance and this one.

Mint is also hosting its third annual “AI 3.0” virtual event on Tuesday, May 12 at 5:00 p.m., a one-hour Zoom tutorial on practical, everyday AI use and the risks listeners should guard against. Contact: 303-285-3080 or MintFS.com.

“That’s the biggest mistake that people make is they let their emotions and their personal feelings drive their financial decisions. We call that behavioral finance, and there’s all kinds of studies done around that.”

Jody Hinsey, Accredited Investment Fiduciary

HB26-1276, the Red Flag Expansion, and Colorado’s Firearms Business Climate

Start listening at 71:31 – Hour 2

Scott Slaugh, the Colorado Representative for House District 64 (West Greeley, Johnstown, Milliken, Berthoud, and Mead), discusses House Bill 26-1276, Protect Safety of Individuals Who Are Immigrants, prime-sponsored by Reps. Elizabeth Velasco and Lorena Garcia. Slaugh, appointed this session after Rep. Ryan Armagost moved out of state, says the bill would further cement sanctuary-state policies in Colorado and put at risk the roughly $4 million in annual federal reimbursement the state and its counties receive for incarcerating criminal aliens.

Slaugh also covers Senate Bill 26-004 (which he references on air as “Senate Bill 4004”), the red flag law expansion that now permits entities, including hospitals and schools, to file extreme risk protection order petitions. Gov. Polis signed SB26-004 in early April 2026. Slaugh’s own House Bill 26-1072 had earlier attempted to repeal the underlying ERPO statute and was heard by a committee chaired by one of SB26-004’s House sponsors. He flags House Bill 26-1126, which he argues will push home-based Federal Firearms License holders and a large Berthoud manufacturer out of Colorado, and Senate Bill 121, the farm-worker overtime bill allowing up to 56 hours per week before overtime during agricultural seasons. Kim connects the red flag expansion to the due-process problem at the heart of the original statute, which she opposed. HB26-1276 carries a $131,643 fiscal note affecting TABOR refunds.

“Taxation without consent was not acceptable to us as Americans. It’s not acceptable to us as Coloradans. Government needs to do its job, but not do all of the jobs that are not its job.”

Scott Slaugh, Colorado State Representative, House District 64

SB26-032 Breakdown: What Colorado’s New Vaccine Mandate Law Actually Does

Start listening at 104:12 – Hour 2

Erin Meschke, who publishes The Reluctant Activist on Substack, returns for a third conversation on Senate Bill 26-032, Promoting Immunization Access, signed into law March 27. The final bill requires insurers, including Medicaid, to cover vaccines with no cost sharing. Coverage of the HPV vaccine is specifically mandated for everyone over 10, and will remain in place even if the federal ACIP committee later removes the HPV shot from its recommended schedule.

Meschke also walks through the structural shifts: ACIP replaced by the CDPHE Board of Health for all Colorado vaccine recommendations; naturopaths required to offer the full vaccine schedule to parents of newborns through eight-year-olds as a condition of seeing patients; pharmacists now able to prescribe any non-controlled substance, including vaccines, to anyone 12 or older without parental consent and without access to full health records. A new Adult Immunization Act creates a state-level adult schedule, a framework Meschke warns employers and agencies could later turn into requirements.

“There’s still really broad liability protections for everyone else who’s involved, the wholesalers, the pharmacists who now can give shots, the doctors, and really everyone except for the manufacturer.”

Erin Meschke, Writer, The Reluctant Activist

Bill of the Day: The School Finance Act

The bill of the day is Senate Bill 26-023, the School Finance Act, prime-sponsored by Sens. Chris Kolker and Barbara Kirkmeyer and Rep. Eliza Hamrick. The Colorado Union of Taxpayers unanimously opposes the bill, citing declining student performance, shrinking enrollment, growing administrations, and a state budget already in deficit.

Community, Classes, and Calls to Action

The first Kim Monson Community virtual town hall, an interview with constitutional scholar John Eastman, is Tuesday, April 21 at 7:45 p.m. The conversation covers birthright citizenship and the events of January 4, 2021. Allen Thomas’s Federalist Papers class begins Thursday, April 23 at 7:45 p.m. Membership is $50, $100, or $200 a year at the Montpelier, Monticello, and Mount Vernon levels, with the first 250 Mount Vernon members named as founding patrons.