April 4, 2025 • 43 mins
Cory Booker just made history by speaking for 25 consecutive hours on the Senate floor, breaking segregationist Strom Thurmond's record—a powerful symbolic moment as a Black senator surpassed the man who once fought against Civil Rights legislation. While Thurmond had used bathroom breaks and read from phone books during his filibuster against equality, Booker fasted beforehand to avoid breaks and delivered substantive content about veterans' issues, Medicare, and other critical topics.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has unleashed a storm of tariffs affecting imports from virtually every nation except Russia and North Korea, triggering an immediate stock market plunge that's hitting military veterans particularly hard. The hosts explore how the newer military retirement system, which replaced traditional pensions with stock market investments, makes service members especially vulnerable to these economic disruptions. For veterans who served 20+ years under the old system, they receive a 50% pension, but newer veterans must rely partly on market performance for their retirement security.
Locally, Colorado Springs is finally preparing to issue recreational cannabis licenses after years of prohibition while the rest of Colorado enjoyed the tax benefits. The hosts discuss how the decade of lost revenue could have funded city improvements, while simultaneously the city council has raised downtown parking rates despite citizen objections. This disconnect between policy decisions and everyday economic reality threads throughout the episode—from Trump's apparent confusion about grocery shopping to cabinet members dismissing Social Security recipients as "grifters."
The conversation examines how these tariffs might reshape global supply chains, potentially pushing countries toward stronger relationships with China while weakening America's economic leverage. With each economic disruption, the hosts highlight who bears the real costs: working people and veterans who find their futures increasingly uncertain while policymakers remain insulated from the consequences of their decisions.
Want to join the conversation about veterans' issues and politics in the Pikes Peak region? Subscribe now and follow us for updates on our upcoming protest on April 5th—we'll be there rain, snow, or shine!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everybody and welcome back for another episode
of Left Face.
This is the Pikes Peak Regionpodcast, where we discuss
political topics through theveteran's lens.
I am your co-host, dickWilkinson, and I'm joined this
morning with Adam Gillard.
Good morning, adam.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Morning Dick.
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
bud, I'm doing well.
Stayed home today and thoughtit might snow, but hasn't yet,
so we're, I think we're in forsome, but yeah, I can hear the
wind howling out there.
Yeah, just I'm just kind ofgetting ready.
I guess I've lived in places,you know this.
I've lived, as we are, withveterans who live all over the
world and, uh, you get to seehow people react to snow or
(00:40):
weather.
You know, and I lived in placeswhere you know, if it's going
to snow half an inch, peoplemake a run on walmart and buy
all the toilet paper andbatteries and you know, like
bottled water and it's like dude, you're not going to get snowed
in and right have to fend foryour life you know, yeah, that's
when survivor was big, you know, everybody was really, you know
(01:01):
, just itching for survival.
You know situation um excuse tostock the garage full of stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, yeah, in uh, north carolina we had a nice ice
storm one time and it shuteverything down for like three
days.
And then the first day I showedup to work and they're like we,
we canceled work.
I'm like you can't cancel work,like well but.
But so they probably justturned me around and sent me
back home.
I'm like, so it's, it's notsafe for me to drive here, but
you want me to drive home allright, man gotcha.
(01:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy how theycould just shut things down just
for, uh, just for the weather.
But I mean, tomorrow we shouldhave a few few inches, but uh,
we're still gonna have ourprotest on saturday, the uh, the
5th of April protest.
Rain or snow shine, whatever,we'll be out there.
I'll be driving back and forthfrom Denver for that too.
I'll get the white knuckleheadthrough the snowstorm there.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Good luck.
Well, white knucklehead, let'sstart with that.
This week we had an interestingevent take place, historical
not just interesting, buthistorical event take place.
Senator Cory Booker broke arecord for an event taking place
in the floor of the Senate.
(02:15):
The conditions that he wasgiving a speech it was not a
filibuster against any kind oflegislation.
That's what we usually think ofwhen we see a senator get up
and give a speech for a longtime.
But Cory Booker was simply onthe floor, had been recognized,
and then he got up and gave arecord-setting length of how
(02:38):
long he spoke at the podium inthe Senate.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It ended up being like 25 hours, 25 hours, yeah
hours, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just insane, like to standthere for 25 hours, like I.
I've worked like some 20 hourshifts where you're on your feet
and just walking all day andlike, yeah, you're just so burnt
out and like just spent afterthat.
It's a pretty, a pretty crazything to do it is and to do.
(03:10):
It is and um, he's in his 50s,you know, and uh, he's like
about six, three.
So he, you know there's weighton those feet right like yeah,
it's a physical.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Uh, just just that, you know, stand up and just talk
for 25 hours that most peoplewould would not attempt to do
that well.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So here's something that I I learned too.
Um, so he started fasting, uh,a few days before, yeah, yeah,
so that he didn't have to likego to the bathroom and things
like that.
So he was super dehydrated forthis too, which is kind of crazy
, yeah, um, which kind of makesme want to go back and listen to
the whole thing and just see ifhe like starts like kind of
like talking crazy.
You know, um, like some likeprophecies in there somewhere
(03:44):
around hour like 17 or 18.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, he just let's start speaking terms.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah but so so said he didn't go to the
bathroom the entire time.
Um, the thing, yeah, the thingthat I've uh find like the best
about this is that he you know ablack man beat strom thurman
for the longest filibusters,holding the floor for the
longest period of time, andStrom Thurmond did that during
(04:10):
the Civil Rights, when he wasarguing against Civil Rights.
He was trying to keepsegregation.
And so now we have a black mangoing up there and doing it for
25 hours, doing it longer andnot going to the bathroom.
But when Strom Thurmond did didit, he had his staffers put up
a little tent on the side, yeah,so he would keep keep one like
(04:31):
right outside the door, so hewould keep one foot inside the
senate and use the bath, use thebathroom, and they would like
kind of shield him, yeah, andthen, and then he would go back
on the floor and keep talkingand things like that.
So like they had ways for himto like use the bathroom and
just, and he wasn't doinganything like intelligent or
anything, it was like readingfrom the phone book, it wasn't,
(04:52):
you know, a whole like Booker'sthing was.
He said a lot of good things.
I mean talk, you know betsissues, medicare cuts.
He went through like that hadbeen going on and he can answer
a question to be able to take abreath.
(05:13):
But it was an impressive25-hour display of not just
willpower to stand up there butknowledge on the situation and
actually fighting for the cause.
So I think he gave a lot ofgood information.
Does it do shit for us?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I don't know yeah, that's, that's my.
Uh, you know it's I.
I will call that a stunt, um,in that, you know, attempting to
break a record, um, regardlessof the context of the record, uh
, I saw it as the last, the toneof the last two weeks in
(05:45):
Democrats, at town halls, wherepeople are showing up and
talking to the representatives,either Democrat or Republican
representatives A lot of theDemocrats in the audience
basically are saying what areyou going to do, what can you do
, how are you going to stop thedismantling of programs that
affect me and my family?
And there's just been sort of ashrug, a turn your pockets
(06:07):
inside out.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
We don't have the votes.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They can break the law.
It's up to them.
We just have to stand back andwatch.
This was an answer to that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It was something that could actually be done and give
them a win.
It was awesome, symbolical, butit's a win.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Politics is about attention to the issue that you
care about, right.
Once you're a senator orrepresentative, all your job is
just talking at that point,right, Right yeah.
Talking about the things thatare important to your
constituents right and makinginfluential and persuasive
statements about those.
So you know, yeah, that's thevalue of what he did, but, like
you say, you know is, did aRepublican hear him talking and
(06:56):
feel like they needed to shifttheir position on anything?
I can't imagine that, that thathappened, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
No, honestly, it'd be interesting to see what the
floor looked like.
Like were Republicans even inthere at all?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Right, you know what I mean.
Like, if you know what's goingon, like would you sit there?
Because I mean at that point,like you say, if they're, if
you're just talking against thewind, it doesn't really matter.
Like, why waste your time?
I don't know if you sawrecently, but one of our local
reps got caught coloring at, uh,at, the state legislator.
Did you see that?
No, no, so so, uh, yeah, amypaschal, she's up in manitou,
(07:35):
she's a state representativethere.
Yeah, um, she was on her ipad,like doing like one of those
coloring things where you tapthe color, like you get those
really cool pictures, yeah, andis that?
it was at a period where, likethey were reading stuff into the
record.
It was kind of like anon-consequential point.
It was one of those points over.
Like it just shit needs to besaid into the record, yeah, yeah
(07:56):
, and so like like, yeah, she'sjust kind of like killing time
and so like, yeah, it was onlike the national reddit pages
where they're like, oh, look atthis, this is lack of
representation.
And like Amy is one of thesmartest people that I know
she's a software engineer.
Like having her sit there andnot do six things, like that's
just not going to happen.
You know, but it just got.
It was funny that, yeah, shegot caught with a coloring book
(08:19):
there.
That's funny In the legislator.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, that's funny.
Oh, man that.
Yeah, I don't see that as aproblem.
You know, people are clickingaround on stupid stuff on their
computers and ipads the wholetime you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, that's a funny story, butit's a non-story like who cares
, exactly like to see that getlike national level attention,
though it's just like that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's so ridiculous.
Like you have somebody that'shighly qualified sitting there
yeah it is.
You know can do more than justlike listen to somebody read uh,
you know their testimony, youknow that he was reading into it
.
Yeah, so you know that wasridiculous.
Um, but the city council doesthat a lot too.
Where, like they're, you seethem looking down on their
phones and things like that, andthey're always like we're
(09:07):
responding to text messages orwe're looking up information and
things like that or trying tolisten to you, yeah it is what
it is movie tickets for tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I don't care about this and I can't wait to leave.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah having all this access to instant technology.
It's definitely warped ourbrains and made us so apathetic
to the process.
And you know, back to citycouncil.
It kind of leads right into theelection results from the first
.
You know Dave Donaldson wonre-election.
So the guy that you knowblatantly goes out there to you
(09:44):
know subvert the will.
So the guy that you knowblatantly goes out there to you
know subvert the will of thevoters, sure you know gets uh
re-elected.
Um, but it is a fairly lowturnout again.
I think he only had 10 000 somevotes.
Um, when I last looked ummariah, who was on our show here
a month or so ago, uh, she lost.
She came, came in second in apretty deep race, but yeah, she
(10:08):
had like 38% of the vote orsomething like that, I can't
remember, but just came up short.
So hopefully we see her again,I'm sure she's going to stay
active.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Congratulations for taking that step and putting
your hat in the ring and havinga second place.
Finish on five.
Well, there's five people onone, you know.
Slot for the ticket, then thatyou know, that sounds like a
pretty good turnout for her, socongrats.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, and you know we had a or the party had a really
good push at, you know, makinga phone bank efforts for her and
things like that.
So they really came through bigfor her and closed that gap.
Um, yeah so a lot of goodpromise there, uh, but yeah, so
overall city council kind ofshook out the way it was all
expected to.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Um now did we lose um as far as, like there was what?
Basically two.
I know the city council isunaffiliated, but yeah, there's.
There was two people that aremore left-leaning, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Nancy Hengem.
Nancy Hengem was reelected, soshe's one of the like, more
sensible people on the citycouncil.
And then Yolanda Avila was theprevious for two, for two, and
she termed out I think you onlyget to do two, two terms there,
okay.
So she turned out so kimberlygold won that election, so okay,
(11:30):
uh, yeah, we'll see how she uh,how she shakes out, how okay,
don't know what her affiliationis right now.
No, um, I know the uh, thedemocratic party didn't uh
endorse her, so I don't know ifthey talked to her at all or if
she even looked for theirendorsement.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So yeah, I don't know , but the votes will tell, right
, yeah.
It'll be pretty quick to tell.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I mean because they just had one.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah yeah, they just had one on city parking.
That that's going to piss off alot of people, because you know
people.
They did a survey like what doyou guys want for city parking
and things like that and this.
You know all the folksresponded and they just upped
the prices for parking.
Pretty much that's what theydid.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I was gonna say are they expanding the parking zones
or are they upped the price?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
okay, gotcha yeah, so they upped the price and I
think they might be putting inmore parking.
You know different whatever.
But yeah, the whole parkingplan came out and it didn't
really listen to the survey thatthe city council put out to
listen to, you know, and again,it's just all about how much
revenue you can drive in.
They even took away the freeSunday parking, so you know, in
(12:39):
a tight economy, people can'teven go down on a Sunday and
just enjoy downtown withoutextra cost.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
That's unfortunate yeah Well, we're going to have
some tax money from cannabissometime soon, right?
So maybe we'll see what happenswith that right?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Too bad, we can't get them to be like hey stop
charging so much for parking.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
We're going to, you know we get this other money.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Funny story about that.
I mean we're gonna.
You know we get this othermoney.
You know, funny story aboutthat.
I mean we're two weeks away.
They I don't think they'veissued any licenses yet.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
No, and that you know , I saw some signs in shops
where they said you know, comeback in april because every for
the last few years and for ourlisteners that they don't know
this, you know a lot of peopleshow up in town in colorado
springs they think I'm incolorado, I'm to go to a
dispensary and be able to buy.
You know, over 21, I'll just beable to buy something and I
can't tell you.
I mean it happened to me backwhen I used to visit and I
(13:32):
didn't live here.
And now I see people sitting inthe lobby of the dispensary and
they're sad or mad because theycan't go back and buy something
, right they're like open it upweed maps.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Like where's weed maps?
Take me, how do I get tomanitou?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
yeah, that's where's how far away is pueblo you know
is it worth the drive right umyeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So you see that right , and so now I'm starting to see
shops.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
They put up signs that basically are trying to
tell that person hey, come back,you know, in april.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, we'll be, we'll be ready for you and I just
can't imagine what we could havedone for the last 10, 11 years
with that tax revenue.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, you know what I mean you turned down so much.
I think the industry or theeconomy of cannabis in the city
would be different too.
I don't know that there'd bemore shops, right, but just the
footprint of everything would bedifferent if it had been going
on for years and years.
But now it's locked into whatit is, so I don't know.
(14:30):
It's not really an open marketas it stands.
I mean we're going to havethere are plenty of shops here,
don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I don't think more shops would be good for the
industry, necessarily, but thislimiting to only existing
locations and stuff, I'll just.
I'm just curious to see howmany actually convert, if it's
any difficulty for them to dothat, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, last I heard like there was like 40
applications.
Yeah, so not, and I can'tremember how many total, so
maybe like half.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Gotcha.
Well, I mean that's it versusthere's four places basically in
the whole county right now thatsell rec.
So you know to go from four to40, nobody will be sad in the
lobby anymore.
I guess the people that show upwon't be sitting there, like
what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
you can't sell it to me you know, you know it's kind
of uh crazy because, you know,with cannabis it's always one of
those uh inflation proof ormarkets where it doesn't like
like the price hasn't reallybeen going up at all but like
it's been pretty stagnant.
You know, you know you stay insteady with us.
So there's not much, you knowfear from the, the tariffs.
(15:42):
But the tariffs have a lot ofother folks on edge right now
and last I saw for the stockmarket today I think we dropped
like 1,400 points.
The last I saw.
Who knows A few more hours leftin the day, it might still go
lower.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Would there be?
Do you think?
Well, yeah, I guess we're goingto transition.
Let's do that.
Yeah, we're going to tariffsnow.
I guess we're going totransition.
Let's do that.
Yeah, we're going to tariffsnow.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, we're going to tariffs.
Yeah, and so the Senate justvoted against the Canada tariffs
.
Okay, did you see that vote atall?
It was like 51 to 48, I think.
Okay, maybe 49.
But yeah, so four Republicansvoted against the canada tariffs
(16:26):
.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Okay, so I don't know what that like I mean, I'll bet
yeah, but it was an executiveorder, so they, you know they'd
have to pass legislation thatsays that that executive order
is not legal yeah, I don't knowif, yeah, maybe this was the
first step in it.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
um, but so he pulled up his chart of pretty much
every piece of land in the worldand put a tariff on it,
including Antarctica, like okay.
Oh no, he left out Russia andNorth Korea.
So they're safe, okay, whatever.
That's safe, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
That's ridiculous, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So all these things are taking the stock market
right now.
A lot of folks listening whenyou're in the military back in
my day I did 20 years I get 50%pension.
That's what I get from serving20 years.
I get 50% pension, right,that's what I get from, you know
, for serving 20 years.
Now they don't get that option.
(17:31):
They have to take a stockoption that ties their
retirement directly into the,like, the stock market.
So they'll still get some.
I think it's like a 40% of their, you know, whatever their top
three pay is, so they'll get 40%, and then that other 10% that
was going somewhere goes intothe stock market now and, like
(17:52):
the military, folks are reallygoing to be affected by, you
know, the stock market tankingon them like this, especially if
they're looking at theirretirement, because I mean this
has been going on for a good 10years now too, this program,
their retirement, because I meanthis has been going on for a
good 10 years now too, thisprogram, yeah, um, so what are
going to be some of theselong-term ramifications of you
know, the tariffs, the stockmarket tanking and what it's
(18:13):
going to do to our veterans?
But what are your thoughts onthat?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
well, let's, I'm going to share you know a funny
anecdote, and this is, uh, fortcarson.
If you, if you're listening,you'll appreciate this.
Soldiers like going out andbuying vehicles.
They can't afford, oh God, yes,it's like their favorite thing,
right?
And so now what's going tohappen?
We're talking about?
Let's bring our active dutyfolks back into the conversation
(18:38):
for a minute.
Those cars that you alreadycouldn't afford are now going to
be much more expensive.
Cars that you could alreadycouldn't afford are now much
more expensive.
So if there's anyone listeningthat's thinking about going and
buying a brand new corvette youcannot afford it?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
yeah, you can't, but but do it now, before it gets
even more better by today, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
better buy it today.
Um, yeah, but don't rightlisten here all you know the
impact on vehicles.
I'm concerned about that.
And you know I don't buy newcars, but I do buy generally
foreign cars that are foreignmade.
So that market of used cars isgoing to be pushed up just
alongside the other tariffs andeverything else, like all the
(19:21):
other costs of just when thevehicle industry cost goes up,
all the used cars are going togo up in price too, right?
So, uh, you know, I'm notlooking forward to my next
vehicle purchase.
I know that.
Uh, you know.
And even if you know, if it's acouple years from now, it's all
still, you know even if ittakes the tariffs away in like a
month.
(19:41):
That's gonna take.
We talked about this a coupleepisodes ago.
This stuff is not short.
Uh, you can, you know, you canpop the flare, but it burns for
a long time.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, yeah it's not a yo-yo, yeah.
You can't just like dip it inand pull it out.
Dip it in, pull it out, yeah.
Yeah.
He's trying to use thesetariffs as like, like, uh, bully
negotiating tactics and likeone antarctica doesn't give a
shit.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So good job on that, good job on winning that war
yeah, maybe this is a way he'llconvince greenland to come to
america.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
He'll say, listen, if you become a part of america,
no tariffs, you know and so youknow, a funny thing about the
you know these tariffs now isthat you know it happens
immediately after the signalgate thing, where you know we
leak classified information orhave classified conversations.
Yeah, um, I I read this morningthat, uh, ilan omar from the
(20:37):
rep, uh, I think minnesota, okay, she's drafting impeachment
paperwork for it.
Um, but like, even then, withit coming from her, it's not
gonna go anywhere.
You know what I mean.
Like it just sucks.
That that's the situation thatwe're in now.
We're like even she's 100 rightlike or I don't know if it's
(20:58):
maybe impeachment on him becausehe wasn't directly involved in
it.
Yeah, but but you know,anything that they do like this,
like this, is just a stunt andyou know it's not going to go
anywhere.
It's not going to really doanything because there's no real
substance to it for impeachment.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, you know of the president, you know they need
to get rid of the.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Hegseth.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
But yeah, it's just kind of sad that everything is
being kind of done within theconfines of the laws that they
are writing on the fly yeah with, and you know the tariffs are
within, you know his executiveorder rights to do that, and so
this is one of the rare thingsthat he's done so far in the
administration.
(21:38):
That is kind of clearly inbounds, but it's also one one of
the things that seems like it'sgoing to have the worst impact
on the most people, you know themost legal thing he's doing is
the worst thing for the most.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I feel like he was having like a constitutional law
class discussion and somebodywas like, well, you can't do
that.
Well, tell me what can I do?
And they read it to him and heheard the word terror.
So it was like, well, what'sthat?
I'm going to do that.
Then I'll just do the hell outof that.
And he just latched onto it andthat's all he knows now.
Because I mean, even if you golook back at Ronald Reagan's
(22:15):
viewpoints on terrorists andthings like that, you know, like
the foundation of modernconservatism, uh, he talks about
how you know, if they lookattractive in the beginning, but
long term they do a lot ofdamage.
Yeah, that they start stiflinginnovation, things like that,
you know, because you startcreating companies internally
that rely on the governmentstate yeah, to keep other folks
(22:37):
out.
Yeah, uh, so you know, youstart relying on that and then
you, you stop innovating and so,like that's ronald reagan's
viewpoint on that right.
And yet here we are sucking itup and using ronald reagan's
make america great again slogan,and yeah, you know it's just
ridiculous what they pick andchoose to listen to here I think
(22:58):
that you know I like that sideright there I.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I see this one.
You're right that donald trumpsomewhere along the way and I
think this happened in his firstterm where he hit that event
that you're talking about, wheresomebody said oh, the word
tariffs.
And he was like, ooh, ooh, ooh,taxes on other countries.
We could do that.
And they were like well, it'snot really a tax on the other
country.
And he's like that's not what Iheard.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, they kept trying to shine something over
in the corner.
Like hey look at this over here.
Look at this over here.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Let's get back to that tariff thing and so I see
this as a reflection of a littlebit of unfinished business from
the first term, where he hopedthat tariff policies and trade
wars would, and changing NAFTA.
He hoped that that wouldimmediately like start turning
things around, and whatever histhoughts were for america, he
was.
He thought that would just bean immediate shift.
(23:48):
And when that didn't happen, Ithink that he's coming back for
the second term and he's likewell, the reason it didn't work
the first time is because wedidn't do it hard enough, and so
let's be less selective, let'sbe more aggressive, let's be
more um cantankerous towards ourallies, so that even
everybody's on their toes.
We've got to put everybody ontheir toes and that's why it
(24:09):
didn't work the first time isbecause we weren't aggressive
enough.
That fits the Trump playbookand mindset like perfectly.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It's definitely.
It's that corporate mindset ofjust eat or be eaten Wolf of
Wall Street type of thing yeah,instead of just eat or be eaten
Wolf of Wall Street type ofthing, yeah.
And again back to the Reagan.
It worked when they overwhelmedwith spending during the Cold
War.
It's just kind of a differentversion of that policy.
Like you said, we justoverwhelm them with what you can
(24:39):
yeah, they don't know whatthey're dealing with.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
You also get this is the other part, I think, from
the geopolitical perspective andwhat our military people are
you're always looking out,especially now that we're in a
relatively low period ofdeployment no major named
conflict going on right now.
You're looking at where's thenext battle, where's the next
front, where's the next theater,whatever right, and everybody
(25:06):
talks about Pacific and China.
I don't know the likelihood ofa shooting war with China
anytime in the near future.
I don't know.
But the political and theeconomic shifts that are
happening, china is the thing onthe other side of our scale,
right Like for sure.
You know, if there's two thingsbalancing each other out, it's
us and china these tariffs areterrible in that power balance
(25:31):
situation.
Yes, right now, in the near term, they are pushing people
towards china and taking peoplewho have a foot on both sides of
the scale and they're going.
You know what?
I might take my foot off ofyour side of the scale
completely because you're.
I don't know what you're goingto do.
At least I understand the typeof like rigging and corruption
and abuse that's going to happenover on this side of the scale.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I know how that works Right.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, but over here you're shifting things around
faster than I can change my mind, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah.
And a big thing, you know,keeping the Chinese at bay is
how entwined they are with oureconomy themselves.
Yeah, you know, like oureconomies are so symbiotic with
each other.
But if we're severing that, ifwe're putting tariffs and
everything in that, those bondsget weakened yeah, there's no
(26:20):
reason for them to not beaggressive anymore.
Right, and with those bondsweakened, if we try to sanction
them for taking Taiwan, they'regoing to say well, we've already
proven, we don't need you.
Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, the concept like biting the hand that feeds
you right, like right now, ifsomeone was like let's escalate
and get into a really ugly waror some conflict that leads to
severe tariffs or a breakdown intrade, that would be biting the
hand that feeds you.
We've got to sell this stuff tosomebody.
Well, guess what?
They're figuring out whosomebody is right now, so that
(26:53):
when we stop buying, theyalready know who is going to be
buying.
They don't have to turn downproduction.
They're just establishing newrelationships and so, yeah,
we're removing our hand as thehand that feeds you and we're
we're letting them redraw whatthat looks like and that, you
know, from a militaryperspective is bad you know,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
(27:14):
You don't want to see power inthat situation, and that's what
we're doing is.
But from economic perspective,we're seeding power and, like
you say, allies andrelationships get built over.
Keep that steel coming.
Keep that you know cadmium andmolybdenum that you dig out of
your mountains in china.
Keep that stuff coming, becauseI want to make computer chips
in brazil now.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah I'm not going to mess with america.
I'm going to work with japan andchina and just get to work, you
know yeah, that was, you know,the global economy, you know
everybody kind of workingtowards whatever nonsense that
we were trying to build.
This is a whole new dynamicwhere, after World War II, we
decided that land isn't going tobe bought for anymore or
(27:57):
aggressively taken type of thing.
Yeah, and this is kind of goingto change all that because I
think, as we pull back fromthose other locations and we
need our resources, we'reobviously looking at Canada
already.
We're going to start looking indown south, you know, looking
at Mexico.
There's no stopping to like ourneeds for growth here.
So we're just going to belooking for that contiguous
(28:21):
growth now, you know, lookingfor that contiguous growth.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Now, you know, yeah, you know, I guess the idea that
we're moving towards a recessionis that is the contraction,
that is the reversal of growth,right?
So if you create anisolationist I mean here's the
truth of the fact right?
If your concept is that youwant America to be quite
isolationist, right, you wantmanufacturing, you want the
(28:46):
whole end-to-end supply chain tohappen within US territory.
That is part of the goal here,right?
I mean, it's not possible to dothat really.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It's what they say is the goal.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, I don't think they give a shit about that.
I think they're just trying toconsolidate their own wealth.
Yeah, it's not really possibleto do that?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, because you know, for I mean, we are, we
know.
But the cost of labor, the costof goods, the cost of
everything, you know it's, it'sjust what.
It is Right, there'll becounterfeits, there'll be people
skating the system, there'll be, you know, there'll be ways
around it.
So you know the it won't reallyachieve completely what they're
trying to achieve.
But I see that isolation.
(29:23):
You know it requires or itwould drive a smaller economy.
You know even internally itwould, overall GDP, gross
domestic product.
But if you're not moving almostany of that product, if it's so
much of it is meant to becontained inside your own bubble
, that doesn't mean that you getto keep recycling that money
(29:43):
and it adds value.
It means that the whole economycontracts to whatever size of
that cash flow actually is.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So a recession is required to achieve that type of
outcome?
I don't know where and whenthere's never a good time to
have a recession but if you'retrying to achieve an
isolationist dream you areguaranteed to have a recession
in that process.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
so, yeah, yeah, and I mean, what can you uh really
say towards like why they aredoing it like this?
Because I mean they had to haveknown that these tariffs are
going to make, you know, thestock markets crash, but still
it was like Newsmax and RudyGiuliani ringing the bell this
morning.
So so, like they knew like thisis going to be a nightmare and
they're still putting up.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
You know it's out there.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah.
It's just insane to me thatthey don't.
Either they just don't know orunderstand, or they just don't
care.
I think it's more they don'tcare and they're just trying to
sell off what they can.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, there's the.
Also the aspect of the media onthe right has embraced the idea
that, oh, there's going to besome trouble, there's going to
be some problems, there's goingto be some hard times, the
austerity is.
Clinton is close to God, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Who is that one?
There's that one billionairethat's in the cabinet.
That was like if you'recomplaining about not getting
your social security check,you're probably a grifter.
Or like trying to call peopleout, so like, like you're
already setting that intopeople's mind.
Like you better not bitch aboutthis, because I run into vets
every day that feel guilty forgetting a VA disability check,
(31:25):
yes, and like, and they will gothrough some horrific things
like IED explosions.
Oh, but I'm not missing a limb.
Yeah, you kidding me Like youhave a plate in your face.
You deserve something for that.
It obviously has some mentalthings.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I'm really upset when I hear people, too, that are
clearly disabled in some way,but they have just like you said
.
They go even further andthey're like I'm never going to
apply for that, I'm never evengoing to talk to anybody about
that, because I've got myretirement and I willingly
(32:02):
volunteered to do X, y and Z.
Right, okay, I can accept the.
I willingly put myself in thissituation Like, yeah, for sure,
I, you did, and that's fine tothink that way, but you, you did
not.
You were not guaranteed to beunable to work or have
significant impact to your lifeafter.
That wasn't part of the deal.
Really, yeah.
(32:23):
It is possible that we want youto get through this alive well
and healthy and okay.
On the other side whether it'sfive years or 25 years, we've
got programs in place to makesure that our people stay
healthy, right, right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
So if you're a union guy, if you're a union guy and
you blew out your knee climbinga ladder with bundles of
shingles on your shoulders, youwould get that looked at and you
would get long-term disabilityfor that.
You would get taken care of.
You shouldn't feel bad becausein the military something
similar happens.
And what I signed up for it?
No, you didn't man.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I do.
I get frustrated because thatit's just like the stigma around
.
You know, mental health care orusing cannabis or anything else
.
It's part of the, it's part ofa this like uh, I don't know
corralling other people'sbehavior and saying like well, I
think this way, so you shouldtoo, like this is the honorable
way to live this problem.
You know, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And so that's what this guy did, like he set it up
for that Like, if you'recomplaining about not getting
your social security check,you're probably just a grifter,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Come on, man, that's so shitty.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Because, like these, are so many people that have to
live with less than $2,000 intheir bank account to get some
of the benefits that they get,and these are the programs that
were cut, yeah, so, and they'renot going to get their money,
and they have less than $2,000in their bank account and if
they bitch they're, they're justa whiner, they're just grifters
, yeah, and that shows again thedisconnect, you know, even if
(33:59):
that person wasn't mentalitythat there's a total disconnect
between the policies and theoutcomes of the policies.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
uh, they, they will not affect donald trump, right,
and that's the it.
That's it, you know.
Did you see?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
oh my god, did you see him talk about groceries the
other day?
I did, yes I yeah, it's a bag.
It's.
You just put stuff in it.
Like what are you?
No, man, like it's food we eatfood.
Every day we have to go get itand bring it home to us to eat
food like that's why we workthat's the only reason why we
work is the groceries, the food,yeah, yeah, yeah.
(34:29):
So the disconnect never, yeah,he's just never lived a day in
his life, really, but like no no, no, I yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Well, you know the fact that he was inside that
mcdonald's near the thing lastyear.
You know I was like I'm sure hewas like man.
I haven't been inside one ofthese since 1980 you know yeah
when we, when we opened the oneat the bottom of trump tower
like that's the last you know,and again that's that's just
(34:57):
that massive disconnect whereyou know, if you lose your job,
oh well, you know, it's good foreverybody.
If you, you know, lose yourSocial Security, oh well, you're
just a bum anyway, right.
You know if you're a veteran andyou lose your services.
Oh well, you signed up for it.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Right, well, and all these you know globalists that
are selling their stocks rightnow and causing the market to
crash.
They're to blame for yourpension getting taken right now
and you have to work a couplemore years.
It's the globalists' fault forall this too, so there's zero
accountability or anyresponsibility for their
decisions.
Man, we're in a mess.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, for sure, and I am curious to see how quickly
some of these get repealed,because we know he's been doing
that waffling back and forth onthe tariff stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, for such a tough guy, he does waffle a lot.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah Well, I mean, and these are, they're all meant
to be political tools more thaneconomic.
Really, drivers, right, likethe dollars don't matter as much
as the bully tactic, right?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
right and so you know , trying to get back from.
But that's what he doesn'tunderstand.
Is that, like, once you do it,it's like the train is rolling,
like yeah, yeah, like theeconomic downfall, or you know,
consequences are gonna happenand it's gonna be long term yes
and yes.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
No, he does not understand that he thinks that
if he just rips the band-aid offnext week with half of those
countries, then everything justgoes back to normal.
It's like eh it's too late forthat.
It'll take a long time for itto get back to normal.
And even if things operatenormally what we'll call normal
again the confidence behind howthose relationships will work,
(36:37):
the deals, the actual movement,shipment of goods you know that
confidence gets withered away.
Even if you do repeal most ofthe stuff tomorrow, people are
still going to go.
Can I sell this somewhere else?
You know they're looking forthat market now.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So, yeah, I just hope everybody here just learns to
not buy stuff Like if we justcut down our own, buying our
junk and, like you know,disposable economies, disposable
fashions, like everything isjust garbage.
Now Just buy quality products,have it for a long time and stop
having a sense of you know thisneed to constantly purchase the
(37:13):
Teemu trash pile that you knowyeah have Amazon at your house
every day Like, yeah, he shouldnot be on my Christmas card,
this man yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I'll tell you.
It's talking about that alittle jaunt here.
Uh, ordering groceries fromWalmart they, when they don't
have certain items, sometimesthey'll mail them to you, and so
for a while there my kids wereordering this one type of like
ramen noodles in a cup.
So the the ramen noodles areworth like a dollar, right and
then walmart because theycouldn't um, they didn't have it
(37:44):
in the store.
They mailed it to me and theygot smashed all to pieces and it
was just trash, right.
That happened like three timesand I just thought to myself it
cost them a dollar, it cost themas much as the product that's
inside of here to mail it to me.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
At least why you know like a first class envelope is
like 79 cents now, so like a box.
Yeah, that was easily over adollar to mail that yeah, so
just tell me it's not thereright, yeah, right, yes this
can't be the consumer'sexpectation over a product
that's this cheap.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
If it was, I don't know, they have some kind of
cutoff built in there to whereyou're like, hey, if it's over
$10, then we'll give you thealternative to mail it to you,
but other than that we're justgoing to say, hey, we don't have
it.
Try again next time.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, but we can't have that now Like no, I want my
gum, I want my gum, I want mygum, yeah, bring it here now.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Right, the tariffs people are.
The Amazon, walmart and Targetwent to their Chinese suppliers
and said hey, we need you toshare some of the cost of this
rise in prices.
We need you to eat it.
Basically, we're going to bepaying you less for this or
you're going to not be chargingus the hit on these tariffs.
(39:01):
We're not going to eat thewhole tariffs and we're not
going to pass it all on to theconsumer.
And if you don't do that, we'renot going to buy Q-tips from
you.
If you don't play with us onthis, we'll find somebody else
to sell us batteries and Q-tips.
And it's actually happening.
Sell us batteries and q-tips,right, yeah, and it's actually
happening.
Right like they're.
They're shutting down contractswith chinese suppliers already
(39:22):
over like high volume productsif they're not willing to take
the hit with them.
So that's the part where, again,donald trump had nothing to do
with that, but it was somethingthat was unforeseen or
unpredictable.
How will vendors deal with this?
Will they just pass the costdirectly on, or do they have
some other tool in their toolbelt?
Well, they surprised us.
They.
(39:42):
They went out there and bulliedtheir you know, super high
quant, quantity and like lowquality suppliers and said you
gotta eat some of this, you knowright, but but what's gonna be
the the result with the product?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
you know that.
Where are they going next?
They're just going to go toanother lower bidder that was
that will meet that and probablyhave a lower quality yeah,
we'll just get lower pieces ofgarbage or, you know, faster
fill up the landfill yeah, the,uh, all the q-tips will have
cotton in our ears right thebatteries will last half as long
.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
They'll say energizer on them, but they're all
counterfeit.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's like Emergizer.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, you can pull the label off and it's just all
Chinese under there.
You're like wait a minute, sonof a bitch.
Yeah, so that kind of stuffwill happen, right?
Also, counterfeit products areon the way, don't doubt it,
right, because that's a way tonot pass the price on to the
(40:42):
consumer.
Just sell them some crap.
That wasn't wasn't worth themoney they paid for it.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
The first like I was talking about earlier.
We know people just buy shit,like they're just buying stuff
for the look and the imageanyways.
So like yeah, from a distanceyou know a coach looks like a
fake coach, just the same youknow, so that's true yeah, yeah,
there's not gonna be.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Uh, a whole lot of product control no, and you're
right, it'll just push people tobuy the much, much cheaper
version on the consumer side.
Even if you're just looking atthings, you go oh man, the last
year, when I bought all thesesupplies for my garden, they,
they did not cost me $600 to puteverything out there.
I'm going to shop around forthis Now, same thing.
(41:25):
They're going to buy stuffthat's just way disposable.
Basically, instead of durablegoods, they're going to buy
disposable goods in place ofthat because the right now cost
is more affordable.
Who knows, man, so manyunforeseen.
How does this bubble getsquished in different directions
?
Right, like it's a waterballoon, right?
You know?
Yeah, we use one side and it allgoes somewhere else, right,
(41:49):
that's what we're about to talkabout.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, it's like we always talk about it.
That's their tactic, just tokeep people guessing and you
never know where it's going toget squished to next.
Yeah yeah, signalgate will goaway, and now we're on to
tariffs, and next week it'll besome other catastrophe.
Next week we're invading Canada, you know.
So, who knows?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, well, if you make I guess you know this is
historically true If you have alot of basically very poor
people or young men that aredestituteitute well, there's a
great way to do something withthat let's go to war, right?
Yeah, you know, if you, if youcreate some, some kind of
(42:27):
problems within your own country, you go.
Hey, I got an idea.
You know, war is good forbusiness.
Let's, let's round up all theseyoung people that don't have
jobs and don't have anything todo and let's go invade Canada.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Got a lot of natural resources up there.
It can do a lot of good for usyeah.
They're like okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, hey, you don't have a job.
Get on the bus, we're going togo, you know going north so who
knows, who knows, that'll be thethird term.
That'll be the whole plan forthe third term, project 2028.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Jesus Christ, we're not that far away man, let's
wrap it up on that, let's yeah.
Yeah, sleep on that one.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, project 2028.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
All right, well, yeah , thanks for joining us everyone
.
Again, this is Left Face.
I'm Adam Gillard, with DickWilkinson Tune in next week.
Hello everybody and welcome back for another episode
of Left Face.
This is the Pikes Peak Regionpodcast, where we discuss
political topics through theveteran's lens.
I am your co-host, dickWilkinson, and I'm joined this
morning with Adam Gillard.
Good morning, adam.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Morning Dick.
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:17):
bud, I'm doing well.
Stayed home today and thoughtit might snow, but hasn't yet,
so we're, I think we're in forsome, but yeah, I can hear the
wind howling out there.
Yeah, just I'm just kind ofgetting ready.
I guess I've lived in places,you know this.
I've lived, as we are, withveterans who live all over the
world and, uh, you get to seehow people react to snow or
(00:40):
weather.
You know, and I lived in placeswhere you know, if it's going
to snow half an inch, peoplemake a run on walmart and buy
all the toilet paper andbatteries and you know, like
bottled water and it's like dude, you're not going to get snowed
in and right have to fend foryour life you know, yeah, that's
when survivor was big, you know, everybody was really, you know
(01:01):
, just itching for survival.
You know situation um excuse tostock the garage full of stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, yeah, in uh, north carolina we had a nice ice
storm one time and it shuteverything down for like three
days.
And then the first day I showedup to work and they're like we,
we canceled work.
I'm like you can't cancel work,like well but.
But so they probably justturned me around and sent me
back home.
I'm like, so it's, it's notsafe for me to drive here, but
you want me to drive home allright, man gotcha.
(01:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy how theycould just shut things down just
for, uh, just for the weather.
But I mean, tomorrow we shouldhave a few few inches, but uh,
we're still gonna have ourprotest on saturday, the uh, the
5th of April protest.
Rain or snow shine, whatever,we'll be out there.
I'll be driving back and forthfrom Denver for that too.
I'll get the white knuckleheadthrough the snowstorm there.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Good luck.
Well, white knucklehead, let'sstart with that.
This week we had an interestingevent take place, historical
not just interesting, buthistorical event take place.
Senator Cory Booker broke arecord for an event taking place
in the floor of the Senate.
(02:15):
The conditions that he wasgiving a speech it was not a
filibuster against any kind oflegislation.
That's what we usually think ofwhen we see a senator get up
and give a speech for a longtime.
But Cory Booker was simply onthe floor, had been recognized,
and then he got up and gave arecord-setting length of how
(02:38):
long he spoke at the podium inthe Senate.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It ended up being like 25 hours, 25 hours, yeah
hours, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just insane, like to standthere for 25 hours, like I.
I've worked like some 20 hourshifts where you're on your feet
and just walking all day andlike, yeah, you're just so burnt
out and like just spent afterthat.
It's a pretty, a pretty crazything to do it is and to do.
(03:10):
It is and um, he's in his 50s,you know, and uh, he's like
about six, three.
So he, you know there's weighton those feet right like yeah,
it's a physical.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Uh, just just that, you know, stand up and just talk
for 25 hours that most peoplewould would not attempt to do
that well.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So here's something that I I learned too.
Um, so he started fasting, uh,a few days before, yeah, yeah,
so that he didn't have to likego to the bathroom and things
like that.
So he was super dehydrated forthis too, which is kind of crazy
, yeah, um, which kind of makesme want to go back and listen to
the whole thing and just see ifhe like starts like kind of
like talking crazy.
You know, um, like some likeprophecies in there somewhere
(03:44):
around hour like 17 or 18.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, he just let's start speaking terms.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah but so so said he didn't go to the
bathroom the entire time.
Um, the thing, yeah, the thingthat I've uh find like the best
about this is that he you know ablack man beat strom thurman
for the longest filibusters,holding the floor for the
longest period of time, andStrom Thurmond did that during
(04:10):
the Civil Rights, when he wasarguing against Civil Rights.
He was trying to keepsegregation.
And so now we have a black mangoing up there and doing it for
25 hours, doing it longer andnot going to the bathroom.
But when Strom Thurmond did didit, he had his staffers put up
a little tent on the side, yeah,so he would keep keep one like
(04:31):
right outside the door, so hewould keep one foot inside the
senate and use the bath, use thebathroom, and they would like
kind of shield him, yeah, andthen, and then he would go back
on the floor and keep talkingand things like that.
So like they had ways for himto like use the bathroom and
just, and he wasn't doinganything like intelligent or
anything, it was like readingfrom the phone book, it wasn't,
(04:52):
you know, a whole like Booker'sthing was.
He said a lot of good things.
I mean talk, you know betsissues, medicare cuts.
He went through like that hadbeen going on and he can answer
a question to be able to take abreath.
(05:13):
But it was an impressive25-hour display of not just
willpower to stand up there butknowledge on the situation and
actually fighting for the cause.
So I think he gave a lot ofgood information.
Does it do shit for us?
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I don't know yeah, that's, that's my.
Uh, you know it's I.
I will call that a stunt, um,in that, you know, attempting to
break a record, um, regardlessof the context of the record, uh
, I saw it as the last, the toneof the last two weeks in
(05:45):
Democrats, at town halls, wherepeople are showing up and
talking to the representatives,either Democrat or Republican
representatives A lot of theDemocrats in the audience
basically are saying what areyou going to do, what can you do
, how are you going to stop thedismantling of programs that
affect me and my family?
And there's just been sort of ashrug, a turn your pockets
(06:07):
inside out.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
We don't have the votes.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
They can break the law.
It's up to them.
We just have to stand back andwatch.
This was an answer to that.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It was something that could actually be done and give
them a win.
It was awesome, symbolical, butit's a win.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Politics is about attention to the issue that you
care about, right.
Once you're a senator orrepresentative, all your job is
just talking at that point,right, Right yeah.
Talking about the things thatare important to your
constituents right and makinginfluential and persuasive
statements about those.
So you know, yeah, that's thevalue of what he did, but, like
you say, you know is, did aRepublican hear him talking and
(06:56):
feel like they needed to shifttheir position on anything?
I can't imagine that, that thathappened, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
No, honestly, it'd be interesting to see what the
floor looked like.
Like were Republicans even inthere at all?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Right, you know what I mean.
Like, if you know what's goingon, like would you sit there?
Because I mean at that point,like you say, if they're, if
you're just talking against thewind, it doesn't really matter.
Like, why waste your time?
I don't know if you sawrecently, but one of our local
reps got caught coloring at, uh,at, the state legislator.
Did you see that?
No, no, so so, uh, yeah, amypaschal, she's up in manitou,
(07:35):
she's a state representativethere.
Yeah, um, she was on her ipad,like doing like one of those
coloring things where you tapthe color, like you get those
really cool pictures, yeah, andis that?
it was at a period where, likethey were reading stuff into the
record.
It was kind of like anon-consequential point.
It was one of those points over.
Like it just shit needs to besaid into the record, yeah, yeah
(07:56):
, and so like like, yeah, she'sjust kind of like killing time
and so like, yeah, it was onlike the national reddit pages
where they're like, oh, look atthis, this is lack of
representation.
And like Amy is one of thesmartest people that I know
she's a software engineer.
Like having her sit there andnot do six things, like that's
just not going to happen.
You know, but it just got.
It was funny that, yeah, shegot caught with a coloring book
(08:19):
there.
That's funny In the legislator.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yeah, that's funny.
Oh, man that.
Yeah, I don't see that as aproblem.
You know, people are clickingaround on stupid stuff on their
computers and ipads the wholetime you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, that's a funny story, butit's a non-story like who cares
, exactly like to see that getlike national level attention,
though it's just like that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That's so ridiculous.
Like you have somebody that'shighly qualified sitting there
yeah it is.
You know can do more than justlike listen to somebody read uh,
you know their testimony, youknow that he was reading into it
.
Yeah, so you know that wasridiculous.
Um, but the city council doesthat a lot too.
Where, like they're, you seethem looking down on their
phones and things like that, andthey're always like we're
(09:07):
responding to text messages orwe're looking up information and
things like that or trying tolisten to you, yeah it is what
it is movie tickets for tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I don't care about this and I can't wait to leave.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah having all this access to instant technology.
It's definitely warped ourbrains and made us so apathetic
to the process.
And you know, back to citycouncil.
It kind of leads right into theelection results from the first
.
You know Dave Donaldson wonre-election.
So the guy that you knowblatantly goes out there to you
(09:44):
know subvert the will.
So the guy that you knowblatantly goes out there to you
know subvert the will of thevoters, sure you know gets uh
re-elected.
Um, but it is a fairly lowturnout again.
I think he only had 10 000 somevotes.
Um, when I last looked ummariah, who was on our show here
a month or so ago, uh, she lost.
She came, came in second in apretty deep race, but yeah, she
(10:08):
had like 38% of the vote orsomething like that, I can't
remember, but just came up short.
So hopefully we see her again,I'm sure she's going to stay
active.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Congratulations for taking that step and putting
your hat in the ring and havinga second place.
Finish on five.
Well, there's five people onone, you know.
Slot for the ticket, then thatyou know, that sounds like a
pretty good turnout for her, socongrats.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, and you know we had a or the party had a really
good push at, you know, makinga phone bank efforts for her and
things like that.
So they really came through bigfor her and closed that gap.
Um, yeah so a lot of goodpromise there, uh, but yeah, so
overall city council kind ofshook out the way it was all
expected to.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Um now did we lose um as far as, like there was what?
Basically two.
I know the city council isunaffiliated, but yeah, there's.
There was two people that aremore left-leaning, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Nancy Hengem.
Nancy Hengem was reelected, soshe's one of the like, more
sensible people on the citycouncil.
And then Yolanda Avila was theprevious for two, for two, and
she termed out I think you onlyget to do two, two terms there,
okay.
So she turned out so kimberlygold won that election, so okay,
(11:30):
uh, yeah, we'll see how she uh,how she shakes out, how okay,
don't know what her affiliationis right now.
No, um, I know the uh, thedemocratic party didn't uh
endorse her, so I don't know ifthey talked to her at all or if
she even looked for theirendorsement.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
So yeah, I don't know , but the votes will tell, right
, yeah.
It'll be pretty quick to tell.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I mean because they just had one.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah yeah, they just had one on city parking.
That that's going to piss off alot of people, because you know
people.
They did a survey like what doyou guys want for city parking
and things like that and this.
You know all the folksresponded and they just upped
the prices for parking.
Pretty much that's what theydid.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I was gonna say are they expanding the parking zones
or are they upped the price?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
okay, gotcha yeah, so they upped the price and I
think they might be putting inmore parking.
You know different whatever.
But yeah, the whole parkingplan came out and it didn't
really listen to the survey thatthe city council put out to
listen to, you know, and again,it's just all about how much
revenue you can drive in.
They even took away the freeSunday parking, so you know, in
(12:39):
a tight economy, people can'teven go down on a Sunday and
just enjoy downtown withoutextra cost.
Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
That's unfortunate yeah Well, we're going to have
some tax money from cannabissometime soon, right?
So maybe we'll see what happenswith that right?
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Too bad, we can't get them to be like hey stop
charging so much for parking.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
We're going to, you know we get this other money.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Funny story about that.
I mean we're gonna.
You know we get this othermoney.
You know, funny story aboutthat.
I mean we're two weeks away.
They I don't think they'veissued any licenses yet.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
No, and that you know , I saw some signs in shops
where they said you know, comeback in april because every for
the last few years and for ourlisteners that they don't know
this, you know a lot of peopleshow up in town in colorado
springs they think I'm incolorado, I'm to go to a
dispensary and be able to buy.
You know, over 21, I'll just beable to buy something and I
can't tell you.
I mean it happened to me backwhen I used to visit and I
(13:32):
didn't live here.
And now I see people sitting inthe lobby of the dispensary and
they're sad or mad because theycan't go back and buy something
, right they're like open it upweed maps.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Like where's weed maps?
Take me, how do I get tomanitou?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
yeah, that's where's how far away is pueblo you know
is it worth the drive right umyeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So you see that right , and so now I'm starting to see
shops.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
They put up signs that basically are trying to
tell that person hey, come back,you know, in april.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, we'll be, we'll be ready for you and I just
can't imagine what we could havedone for the last 10, 11 years
with that tax revenue.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, you know what I mean you turned down so much.
I think the industry or theeconomy of cannabis in the city
would be different too.
I don't know that there'd bemore shops, right, but just the
footprint of everything would bedifferent if it had been going
on for years and years.
But now it's locked into whatit is, so I don't know.
(14:30):
It's not really an open marketas it stands.
I mean we're going to havethere are plenty of shops here,
don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I don't think more shops would be good for the
industry, necessarily, but thislimiting to only existing
locations and stuff, I'll just.
I'm just curious to see howmany actually convert, if it's
any difficulty for them to dothat, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, last I heard like there was like 40
applications.
Yeah, so not, and I can'tremember how many total, so
maybe like half.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Gotcha.
Well, I mean that's it versusthere's four places basically in
the whole county right now thatsell rec.
So you know to go from four to40, nobody will be sad in the
lobby anymore.
I guess the people that show upwon't be sitting there, like
what do you mean?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
you can't sell it to me you know, you know it's kind
of uh crazy because, you know,with cannabis it's always one of
those uh inflation proof ormarkets where it doesn't like
like the price hasn't reallybeen going up at all but like
it's been pretty stagnant.
You know, you know you stay insteady with us.
So there's not much, you knowfear from the, the tariffs.
(15:42):
But the tariffs have a lot ofother folks on edge right now
and last I saw for the stockmarket today I think we dropped
like 1,400 points.
The last I saw.
Who knows A few more hours leftin the day, it might still go
lower.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Would there be?
Do you think?
Well, yeah, I guess we're goingto transition.
Let's do that.
Yeah, we're going to tariffsnow.
I guess we're going totransition.
Let's do that.
Yeah, we're going to tariffsnow.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, we're going to tariffs.
Yeah, and so the Senate justvoted against the Canada tariffs
.
Okay, did you see that vote atall?
It was like 51 to 48, I think.
Okay, maybe 49.
But yeah, so four Republicansvoted against the canada tariffs
(16:26):
.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Okay, so I don't know what that like I mean, I'll bet
yeah, but it was an executiveorder, so they, you know they'd
have to pass legislation thatsays that that executive order
is not legal yeah, I don't knowif, yeah, maybe this was the
first step in it.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
um, but so he pulled up his chart of pretty much
every piece of land in the worldand put a tariff on it,
including Antarctica, like okay.
Oh no, he left out Russia andNorth Korea.
So they're safe, okay, whatever.
That's safe, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
That's ridiculous, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So all these things are taking the stock market
right now.
A lot of folks listening whenyou're in the military back in
my day I did 20 years I get 50%pension.
That's what I get from serving20 years.
I get 50% pension, right,that's what I get from, you know
, for serving 20 years.
Now they don't get that option.
(17:31):
They have to take a stockoption that ties their
retirement directly into the,like, the stock market.
So they'll still get some.
I think it's like a 40% of their, you know, whatever their top
three pay is, so they'll get 40%, and then that other 10% that
was going somewhere goes intothe stock market now and, like
(17:52):
the military, folks are reallygoing to be affected by, you
know, the stock market tankingon them like this, especially if
they're looking at theirretirement, because I mean this
has been going on for a good 10years now too, this program,
their retirement, because I meanthis has been going on for a
good 10 years now too, thisprogram, yeah, um, so what are
going to be some of theselong-term ramifications of you
know, the tariffs, the stockmarket tanking and what it's
(18:13):
going to do to our veterans?
But what are your thoughts onthat?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
well, let's, I'm going to share you know a funny
anecdote, and this is, uh, fortcarson.
If you, if you're listening,you'll appreciate this.
Soldiers like going out andbuying vehicles.
They can't afford, oh God, yes,it's like their favorite thing,
right?
And so now what's going tohappen?
We're talking about?
Let's bring our active dutyfolks back into the conversation
(18:38):
for a minute.
Those cars that you alreadycouldn't afford are now going to
be much more expensive.
Cars that you could alreadycouldn't afford are now much
more expensive.
So if there's anyone listeningthat's thinking about going and
buying a brand new corvette youcannot afford it?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
yeah, you can't, but but do it now, before it gets
even more better by today, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:57):
better buy it today.
Um, yeah, but don't rightlisten here all you know the
impact on vehicles.
I'm concerned about that.
And you know I don't buy newcars, but I do buy generally
foreign cars that are foreignmade.
So that market of used cars isgoing to be pushed up just
alongside the other tariffs andeverything else, like all the
(19:21):
other costs of just when thevehicle industry cost goes up,
all the used cars are going togo up in price too, right?
So, uh, you know, I'm notlooking forward to my next
vehicle purchase.
I know that.
Uh, you know.
And even if you know, if it's acouple years from now, it's all
still, you know even if ittakes the tariffs away in like a
month.
(19:41):
That's gonna take.
We talked about this a coupleepisodes ago.
This stuff is not short.
Uh, you can, you know, you canpop the flare, but it burns for
a long time.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, yeah it's not a yo-yo, yeah.
You can't just like dip it inand pull it out.
Dip it in, pull it out, yeah.
Yeah.
He's trying to use thesetariffs as like, like, uh, bully
negotiating tactics and likeone antarctica doesn't give a
shit.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So good job on that, good job on winning that war
yeah, maybe this is a way he'llconvince greenland to come to
america.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
He'll say, listen, if you become a part of america,
no tariffs, you know and so youknow, a funny thing about the
you know these tariffs now isthat you know it happens
immediately after the signalgate thing, where you know we
leak classified information orhave classified conversations.
Yeah, um, I I read this morningthat, uh, ilan omar from the
(20:37):
rep, uh, I think minnesota, okay, she's drafting impeachment
paperwork for it.
Um, but like, even then, withit coming from her, it's not
gonna go anywhere.
You know what I mean.
Like it just sucks.
That that's the situation thatwe're in now.
We're like even she's 100 rightlike or I don't know if it's
(20:58):
maybe impeachment on him becausehe wasn't directly involved in
it.
Yeah, but but you know,anything that they do like this,
like this, is just a stunt andyou know it's not going to go
anywhere.
It's not going to really doanything because there's no real
substance to it for impeachment.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, you know of the president, you know they need
to get rid of the.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Hegseth.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
But yeah, it's just kind of sad that everything is
being kind of done within theconfines of the laws that they
are writing on the fly yeah with, and you know the tariffs are
within, you know his executiveorder rights to do that, and so
this is one of the rare thingsthat he's done so far in the
administration.
(21:38):
That is kind of clearly inbounds, but it's also one one of
the things that seems like it'sgoing to have the worst impact
on the most people, you know themost legal thing he's doing is
the worst thing for the most.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I feel like he was having like a constitutional law
class discussion and somebodywas like, well, you can't do
that.
Well, tell me what can I do?
And they read it to him and heheard the word terror.
So it was like, well, what'sthat?
I'm going to do that.
Then I'll just do the hell outof that.
And he just latched onto it andthat's all he knows now.
Because I mean, even if you golook back at Ronald Reagan's
(22:15):
viewpoints on terrorists andthings like that, you know, like
the foundation of modernconservatism, uh, he talks about
how you know, if they lookattractive in the beginning, but
long term they do a lot ofdamage.
Yeah, that they start stiflinginnovation, things like that,
you know, because you startcreating companies internally
that rely on the governmentstate yeah, to keep other folks
(22:37):
out.
Yeah, uh, so you know, youstart relying on that and then
you, you stop innovating and so,like that's ronald reagan's
viewpoint on that right.
And yet here we are sucking itup and using ronald reagan's
make america great again slogan,and yeah, you know it's just
ridiculous what they pick andchoose to listen to here I think
(22:58):
that you know I like that sideright there I.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I see this one.
You're right that donald trumpsomewhere along the way and I
think this happened in his firstterm where he hit that event
that you're talking about, wheresomebody said oh, the word
tariffs.
And he was like, ooh, ooh, ooh,taxes on other countries.
We could do that.
And they were like well, it'snot really a tax on the other
country.
And he's like that's not what Iheard.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, they kept trying to shine something over
in the corner.
Like hey look at this over here.
Look at this over here.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Let's get back to that tariff thing and so I see
this as a reflection of a littlebit of unfinished business from
the first term, where he hopedthat tariff policies and trade
wars would, and changing NAFTA.
He hoped that that wouldimmediately like start turning
things around, and whatever histhoughts were for america, he
was.
He thought that would just bean immediate shift.
(23:48):
And when that didn't happen, Ithink that he's coming back for
the second term and he's likewell, the reason it didn't work
the first time is because wedidn't do it hard enough, and so
let's be less selective, let'sbe more aggressive, let's be
more um cantankerous towards ourallies, so that even
everybody's on their toes.
We've got to put everybody ontheir toes and that's why it
(24:09):
didn't work the first time isbecause we weren't aggressive
enough.
That fits the Trump playbookand mindset like perfectly.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
It's definitely.
It's that corporate mindset ofjust eat or be eaten Wolf of
Wall Street type of thing yeah,instead of just eat or be eaten
Wolf of Wall Street type ofthing, yeah.
And again back to the Reagan.
It worked when they overwhelmedwith spending during the Cold
War.
It's just kind of a differentversion of that policy.
Like you said, we justoverwhelm them with what you can
(24:39):
yeah, they don't know whatthey're dealing with.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
You also get this is the other part, I think, from
the geopolitical perspective andwhat our military people are
you're always looking out,especially now that we're in a
relatively low period ofdeployment no major named
conflict going on right now.
You're looking at where's thenext battle, where's the next
front, where's the next theater,whatever right, and everybody
(25:06):
talks about Pacific and China.
I don't know the likelihood ofa shooting war with China
anytime in the near future.
I don't know.
But the political and theeconomic shifts that are
happening, china is the thing onthe other side of our scale,
right Like for sure.
You know, if there's two thingsbalancing each other out, it's
us and china these tariffs areterrible in that power balance
(25:31):
situation.
Yes, right now, in the near term, they are pushing people
towards china and taking peoplewho have a foot on both sides of
the scale and they're going.
You know what?
I might take my foot off ofyour side of the scale
completely because you're.
I don't know what you're goingto do.
At least I understand the typeof like rigging and corruption
and abuse that's going to happenover on this side of the scale.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I know how that works Right.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, but over here you're shifting things around
faster than I can change my mind, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah.
And a big thing, you know,keeping the Chinese at bay is
how entwined they are with oureconomy themselves.
Yeah, you know, like oureconomies are so symbiotic with
each other.
But if we're severing that, ifwe're putting tariffs and
everything in that, those bondsget weakened yeah, there's no
(26:20):
reason for them to not beaggressive anymore.
Right, and with those bondsweakened, if we try to sanction
them for taking Taiwan, they'regoing to say well, we've already
proven, we don't need you.
Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, the concept like biting the hand that feeds
you right, like right now, ifsomeone was like let's escalate
and get into a really ugly waror some conflict that leads to
severe tariffs or a breakdown intrade, that would be biting the
hand that feeds you.
We've got to sell this stuff tosomebody.
Well, guess what?
They're figuring out whosomebody is right now, so that
(26:53):
when we stop buying, theyalready know who is going to be
buying.
They don't have to turn downproduction.
They're just establishing newrelationships and so, yeah,
we're removing our hand as thehand that feeds you and we're
we're letting them redraw whatthat looks like and that, you
know, from a militaryperspective is bad you know,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
(27:14):
You don't want to see power inthat situation, and that's what
we're doing is.
But from economic perspective,we're seeding power and, like
you say, allies andrelationships get built over.
Keep that steel coming.
Keep that you know cadmium andmolybdenum that you dig out of
your mountains in china.
Keep that stuff coming, becauseI want to make computer chips
in brazil now.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah I'm not going to mess with america.
I'm going to work with japan andchina and just get to work, you
know yeah, that was, you know,the global economy, you know
everybody kind of workingtowards whatever nonsense that
we were trying to build.
This is a whole new dynamicwhere, after World War II, we
decided that land isn't going tobe bought for anymore or
(27:57):
aggressively taken type of thing.
Yeah, and this is kind of goingto change all that because I
think, as we pull back fromthose other locations and we
need our resources, we'reobviously looking at Canada
already.
We're going to start looking indown south, you know, looking
at Mexico.
There's no stopping to like ourneeds for growth here.
So we're just going to belooking for that contiguous
(28:21):
growth now, you know, lookingfor that contiguous growth.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Now, you know, yeah, you know, I guess the idea that
we're moving towards a recessionis that is the contraction,
that is the reversal of growth,right?
So if you create anisolationist I mean here's the
truth of the fact right?
If your concept is that youwant America to be quite
isolationist, right, you wantmanufacturing, you want the
(28:46):
whole end-to-end supply chain tohappen within US territory.
That is part of the goal here,right?
I mean, it's not possible to dothat really.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It's what they say is the goal.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, I don't think they give a shit about that.
I think they're just trying toconsolidate their own wealth.
Yeah, it's not really possibleto do that?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, because you know, for I mean, we are, we
know.
But the cost of labor, the costof goods, the cost of
everything, you know it's, it'sjust what.
It is Right, there'll becounterfeits, there'll be people
skating the system, there'll be, you know, there'll be ways
around it.
So you know the it won't reallyachieve completely what they're
trying to achieve.
But I see that isolation.
(29:23):
You know it requires or itwould drive a smaller economy.
You know even internally itwould, overall GDP, gross
domestic product.
But if you're not moving almostany of that product, if it's so
much of it is meant to becontained inside your own bubble
, that doesn't mean that you getto keep recycling that money
(29:43):
and it adds value.
It means that the whole economycontracts to whatever size of
that cash flow actually is.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
So a recession is required to achieve that type of
outcome?
I don't know where and whenthere's never a good time to
have a recession but if you'retrying to achieve an
isolationist dream you areguaranteed to have a recession
in that process.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
so, yeah, yeah, and I mean, what can you uh really
say towards like why they aredoing it like this?
Because I mean they had to haveknown that these tariffs are
going to make, you know, thestock markets crash, but still
it was like Newsmax and RudyGiuliani ringing the bell this
morning.
So so, like they knew like thisis going to be a nightmare and
they're still putting up.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
You know it's out there.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah.
It's just insane to me thatthey don't.
Either they just don't know orunderstand, or they just don't
care.
I think it's more they don'tcare and they're just trying to
sell off what they can.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Well, there's the.
Also the aspect of the media onthe right has embraced the idea
that, oh, there's going to besome trouble, there's going to
be some problems, there's goingto be some hard times, the
austerity is.
Clinton is close to God, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Who is that one?
There's that one billionairethat's in the cabinet.
That was like if you'recomplaining about not getting
your social security check,you're probably a grifter.
Or like trying to call peopleout, so like, like you're
already setting that intopeople's mind.
Like you better not bitch aboutthis, because I run into vets
every day that feel guilty forgetting a VA disability check,
(31:25):
yes, and like, and they will gothrough some horrific things
like IED explosions.
Oh, but I'm not missing a limb.
Yeah, you kidding me Like youhave a plate in your face.
You deserve something for that.
It obviously has some mentalthings.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I'm really upset when I hear people, too, that are
clearly disabled in some way,but they have just like you said
.
They go even further andthey're like I'm never going to
apply for that, I'm never evengoing to talk to anybody about
that, because I've got myretirement and I willingly
(32:02):
volunteered to do X, y and Z.
Right, okay, I can accept the.
I willingly put myself in thissituation Like, yeah, for sure,
I, you did, and that's fine tothink that way, but you, you did
not.
You were not guaranteed to beunable to work or have
significant impact to your lifeafter.
That wasn't part of the deal.
Really, yeah.
(32:23):
It is possible that we want youto get through this alive well
and healthy and okay.
On the other side whether it'sfive years or 25 years, we've
got programs in place to makesure that our people stay
healthy, right, right.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
So if you're a union guy, if you're a union guy and
you blew out your knee climbinga ladder with bundles of
shingles on your shoulders, youwould get that looked at and you
would get long-term disabilityfor that.
You would get taken care of.
You shouldn't feel bad becausein the military something
similar happens.
And what I signed up for it?
No, you didn't man.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I do.
I get frustrated because thatit's just like the stigma around
.
You know, mental health care orusing cannabis or anything else
.
It's part of the, it's part ofa this like uh, I don't know
corralling other people'sbehavior and saying like well, I
think this way, so you shouldtoo, like this is the honorable
way to live this problem.
You know, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And so that's what this guy did, like he set it up
for that Like, if you'recomplaining about not getting
your social security check,you're probably just a grifter,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Come on, man, that's so shitty.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Because, like these, are so many people that have to
live with less than $2,000 intheir bank account to get some
of the benefits that they get,and these are the programs that
were cut, yeah, so, and they'renot going to get their money,
and they have less than $2,000in their bank account and if
they bitch they're, they're justa whiner, they're just grifters
, yeah, and that shows again thedisconnect, you know, even if
(33:59):
that person wasn't mentalitythat there's a total disconnect
between the policies and theoutcomes of the policies.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
uh, they, they will not affect donald trump, right,
and that's the it.
That's it, you know.
Did you see?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
oh my god, did you see him talk about groceries the
other day?
I did, yes I yeah, it's a bag.
It's.
You just put stuff in it.
Like what are you?
No, man, like it's food we eatfood.
Every day we have to go get itand bring it home to us to eat
food like that's why we workthat's the only reason why we
work is the groceries, the food,yeah, yeah, yeah.
(34:29):
So the disconnect never, yeah,he's just never lived a day in
his life, really, but like no no, no, I yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Well, you know the fact that he was inside that
mcdonald's near the thing lastyear.
You know I was like I'm sure hewas like man.
I haven't been inside one ofthese since 1980 you know yeah
when we, when we opened the oneat the bottom of trump tower
like that's the last you know,and again that's that's just
(34:57):
that massive disconnect whereyou know, if you lose your job,
oh well, you know, it's good foreverybody.
If you, you know, lose yourSocial Security, oh well, you're
just a bum anyway, right.
You know if you're a veteran andyou lose your services.
Oh well, you signed up for it.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
Right, well, and all these you know globalists that
are selling their stocks rightnow and causing the market to
crash.
They're to blame for yourpension getting taken right now
and you have to work a couplemore years.
It's the globalists' fault forall this too, so there's zero
accountability or anyresponsibility for their
decisions.
Man, we're in a mess.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, for sure, and I am curious to see how quickly
some of these get repealed,because we know he's been doing
that waffling back and forth onthe tariff stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, for such a tough guy, he does waffle a lot.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah Well, I mean, and these are, they're all meant
to be political tools more thaneconomic.
Really, drivers, right, likethe dollars don't matter as much
as the bully tactic, right?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
right and so you know , trying to get back from.
But that's what he doesn'tunderstand.
Is that, like, once you do it,it's like the train is rolling,
like yeah, yeah, like theeconomic downfall, or you know,
consequences are gonna happenand it's gonna be long term yes
and yes.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
No, he does not understand that he thinks that
if he just rips the band-aid offnext week with half of those
countries, then everything justgoes back to normal.
It's like eh it's too late forthat.
It'll take a long time for itto get back to normal.
And even if things operatenormally what we'll call normal
again the confidence behind howthose relationships will work,
(36:37):
the deals, the actual movement,shipment of goods you know that
confidence gets withered away.
Even if you do repeal most ofthe stuff tomorrow, people are
still going to go.
Can I sell this somewhere else?
You know they're looking forthat market now.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
So, yeah, I just hope everybody here just learns to
not buy stuff Like if we justcut down our own, buying our
junk and, like you know,disposable economies, disposable
fashions, like everything isjust garbage.
Now Just buy quality products,have it for a long time and stop
having a sense of you know thisneed to constantly purchase the
(37:13):
Teemu trash pile that you knowyeah have Amazon at your house
every day Like, yeah, he shouldnot be on my Christmas card,
this man yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I'll tell you.
It's talking about that alittle jaunt here.
Uh, ordering groceries fromWalmart they, when they don't
have certain items, sometimesthey'll mail them to you, and so
for a while there my kids wereordering this one type of like
ramen noodles in a cup.
So the the ramen noodles areworth like a dollar, right and
then walmart because theycouldn't um, they didn't have it
(37:44):
in the store.
They mailed it to me and theygot smashed all to pieces and it
was just trash, right.
That happened like three timesand I just thought to myself it
cost them a dollar, it cost themas much as the product that's
inside of here to mail it to me.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
At least why you know like a first class envelope is
like 79 cents now, so like a box.
Yeah, that was easily over adollar to mail that yeah, so
just tell me it's not thereright, yeah, right, yes this
can't be the consumer'sexpectation over a product
that's this cheap.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
If it was, I don't know, they have some kind of
cutoff built in there to whereyou're like, hey, if it's over
$10, then we'll give you thealternative to mail it to you,
but other than that we're justgoing to say, hey, we don't have
it.
Try again next time.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, but we can't have that now Like no, I want my
gum, I want my gum, I want mygum, yeah, bring it here now.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Right, the tariffs people are.
The Amazon, walmart and Targetwent to their Chinese suppliers
and said hey, we need you toshare some of the cost of this
rise in prices.
We need you to eat it.
Basically, we're going to bepaying you less for this or
you're going to not be chargingus the hit on these tariffs.
(39:01):
We're not going to eat thewhole tariffs and we're not
going to pass it all on to theconsumer.
And if you don't do that, we'renot going to buy Q-tips from
you.
If you don't play with us onthis, we'll find somebody else
to sell us batteries and Q-tips.
And it's actually happening.
Sell us batteries and q-tips,right, yeah, and it's actually
happening.
Right like they're.
They're shutting down contractswith chinese suppliers already
(39:22):
over like high volume productsif they're not willing to take
the hit with them.
So that's the part where, again,donald trump had nothing to do
with that, but it was somethingthat was unforeseen or
unpredictable.
How will vendors deal with this?
Will they just pass the costdirectly on, or do they have
some other tool in their toolbelt?
Well, they surprised us.
They.
(39:42):
They went out there and bulliedtheir you know, super high
quant, quantity and like lowquality suppliers and said you
gotta eat some of this, you knowright, but but what's gonna be
the the result with the product?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
you know that.
Where are they going next?
They're just going to go toanother lower bidder that was
that will meet that and probablyhave a lower quality yeah,
we'll just get lower pieces ofgarbage or, you know, faster
fill up the landfill yeah, the,uh, all the q-tips will have
cotton in our ears right thebatteries will last half as long
.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
They'll say energizer on them, but they're all
counterfeit.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's like Emergizer.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, you can pull the label off and it's just all
Chinese under there.
You're like wait a minute, sonof a bitch.
Yeah, so that kind of stuffwill happen, right?
Also, counterfeit products areon the way, don't doubt it,
right, because that's a way tonot pass the price on to the
(40:42):
consumer.
Just sell them some crap.
That wasn't wasn't worth themoney they paid for it.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
The first like I was talking about earlier.
We know people just buy shit,like they're just buying stuff
for the look and the imageanyways.
So like yeah, from a distanceyou know a coach looks like a
fake coach, just the same youknow, so that's true yeah, yeah,
there's not gonna be.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Uh, a whole lot of product control no, and you're
right, it'll just push people tobuy the much, much cheaper
version on the consumer side.
Even if you're just looking atthings, you go oh man, the last
year, when I bought all thesesupplies for my garden, they,
they did not cost me $600 to puteverything out there.
I'm going to shop around forthis Now, same thing.
(41:25):
They're going to buy stuffthat's just way disposable.
Basically, instead of durablegoods, they're going to buy
disposable goods in place ofthat because the right now cost
is more affordable.
Who knows, man, so manyunforeseen.
How does this bubble getsquished in different directions
?
Right, like it's a waterballoon, right?
You know?
Yeah, we use one side and it allgoes somewhere else, right,
(41:49):
that's what we're about to talkabout.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, it's like we always talk about it.
That's their tactic, just tokeep people guessing and you
never know where it's going toget squished to next.
Yeah yeah, signalgate will goaway, and now we're on to
tariffs, and next week it'll besome other catastrophe.
Next week we're invading Canada, you know.
So, who knows?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, well, if you make I guess you know this is
historically true If you have alot of basically very poor
people or young men that aredestituteitute well, there's a
great way to do something withthat let's go to war, right?
Yeah, you know, if you, if youcreate some, some kind of
(42:27):
problems within your own country, you go.
Hey, I got an idea.
You know, war is good forbusiness.
Let's, let's round up all theseyoung people that don't have
jobs and don't have anything todo and let's go invade Canada.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Got a lot of natural resources up there.
It can do a lot of good for usyeah.
They're like okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, hey, you don't have a job.
Get on the bus, we're going togo, you know going north so who
knows, who knows, that'll be thethird term.
That'll be the whole plan forthe third term, project 2028.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Jesus Christ, we're not that far away man, let's
wrap it up on that, let's yeah.
Yeah, sleep on that one.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, project 2028.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
All right, well, yeah , thanks for joining us everyone
.
Again, this is Left Face.
I'm Adam Gillard, with DickWilkinson Tune in next week.
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