April 26, 2025 • 32 mins
The military-civilian divide continues to erode as new policies threaten longstanding American principles. Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson dive deep into Secretary Pete Hegseth's alarming speech to the Army War College, exposing plans to establish "authoritarian zones" at U.S. borders where military personnel would be authorized to detain civilians and check documentation.
Beyond this unprecedented expansion of military authority on American soil, the hosts unpack Hegseth's troubling claim that the Inspector General system has been "weaponized against commanders." This rhetoric signals a dangerous attempt to remove crucial oversight mechanisms that protect service members from toxic leadership and ensure accountability within the chain of command.
The conversation turns to the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, highlighting how the administration's narrative shifted from calling his deportation an "administrative error" to claiming gang connections – despite court documents explicitly prohibiting his return to El Salvador due to safety concerns. This pattern of retroactively creating justifications for actions already taken reveals a disturbing governance approach.
The hosts also examine plans to reinstate approximately 8,000 service members discharged for refusing COVID-19 vaccines, complete with back pay. This decision not only undermines military discipline by rewarding those who disobeyed lawful orders but sends a dangerous message about command authority.
Throughout the episode, Adam and Dick connect these military policy decisions to broader political narratives, noting how rhetoric about "restoring military lethality" falsely presupposes America's military was somehow weakened – a narrative designed to justify dramatic shifts in policy and culture that ultimately threaten longstanding democratic principles.
Join us as we examine these critical developments from a veteran's perspective and consider their implications for both military culture and American democracy. Want to engage with issues affecting veterans and their communities? Follow Left Face for weekly discussions that bridge the military-civilian divide.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
My name is Adam Gillard, herealong with Dick Wilkinson.
How you doing, buddy?
I'm doing great.
Good morning, adam.
Good morning.
We are the Pikes Peak Region'spolitical podcast with a
veteran's point of view Comingto you here from our crowded
office right now in some movingstate here.
(00:21):
So let's get this show kickedoff.
Let's talk to our.
Go straight to our Kilmar statehere.
So let's get this show kickedoff.
Let's go straight to our Kilmarcount here.
Right now we're sitting at 43days since Kilmar Abrego-Garcia
was removed from his family.
A few days later, he wasdeported.
What do you got for updates onthat story?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Dick.
Well, I was watching the newslast night and I saw that
Kilmar's lawyer was giving somestatements to the media and she
stated that there's asurprisingly, there's a one week
stay in the judicial process.
His own lawyers agreed to thatbecause they want the discovery
and evidentiary process to go,you know, without perfectly, if
(01:03):
you will say Right.
They didn't want there to beany confusion or chance for
backtracking by theadministration, and so they're
allowing the judge to kind of, Iguess, do what the what the
judge sees best, so that theycan get him out as fast as
possible, which unfortunatelyrequires a few days delay in the
process right now.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, I thought it was already decided that the
administration had to help theprocess along.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
They did, and here's where the things have shifted
right.
Two things have happened.
The administration basicallyretracted their statement that
his deportation was aadministrative error.
They said that was released inan unauthorized fashion and
however that information got outeven though it was apparently
(01:46):
on judicial branch documentsthat that was just wrong
information and they are nowtrying to present evidence that
he is directly connected toMS-13 and that he had criminal
activity, drug or humantrafficking associated with his
gang membership, and they'vecompletely flipped the story
(02:07):
around.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And so that's what's going on now.
Their defense is literally likedon't believe the evidence that
you saw.
Yes, Believe what we're tellingyou now?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yes, correct, that's it.
We're going to change our storyand give us some time to figure
it out.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It's so brazen how every day it's something like
this.
It's crazy.
Unheard of type stuff the waythat it's just being swallowed
up by folks too.
I still talk with someright-wing folks and they're
still convinced that this isGod's work.
Yes, and it's just disgustinghow they're taking things like
(02:43):
this and wrapping it up.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You know how they're taking things like this and
wrapping it up, and Well,they're committed.
The folks that are OK with theidea that someone could be
deported.
They're going to find 10different ways to justify that,
whether, even if he wasn't agang member, that just the fact
that he ever came to Americawithout permission, that's just
enough, even though we gave himpermission to stay.
And the only place that in thecourt I found this out, there
(03:06):
was a bar to deporting him to ElSalvador, because that's where
he is here from as far as hisasylum request, and so he said
that the danger to his life isfrom being in El Salvador.
And so the only place on courtdocuments in the world where
this dude, if the governmentdecided to deport him, they were
(03:26):
banned, and before all of this,they were banned explicitly
back in 2019.
Never send this guy back to ElSalvador.
If you send him somewhere, justdon't send him to El Salvador.
And that's the only place.
You know one way trip to ElSalvador.
So you know another ripple inthe whole story there that the
government.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, I think that's just by chance, because if they
would have known that they werejust stuck them in Guantanamo,
well, sure I guess, but theplane you know flew to El
Salvador.
Yes, it's kind of one of thoseby chance things.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
The situation right now is that the government is
trying to prove that he's anMS-13 gang member.
There's just, it's the shiftingline of um, what's what's the
truth?
Yeah, the shifting position oflike what, how many times do we
have to say different bad thingsabout this guy until one of
them sticks right?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
and it just the whole change in the narrative.
Um, I was just listening tosecretary hegseth's um speech to
the army College and he alsotalked about how we have given
over control of the Ukraineconflict or armament thing to UK
and Germany.
(04:36):
But the way that he said it itwas like it was a peace accord.
Like oh no, yeah, we're lettingthem take the lead now.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
No, we pulled the rug out from underneath sure, sure
they're trying to figure shitout now, um, but but the
narrative changes, yeah yeah,your vocabulary and the words
that you use to describebasically the same thing.
You can paint very differentpictures with wordplay and the
administration is.
You know they're.
If there's something they aregood at, it's that right.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I mean they hired a fox news personality to be the
sex, yeah, so yeah, that'sexactly what he's doing right
now is just playing to the media, or playing to the people you
know as a media personality, asa talking head, and just
spinning it to get theirapproval that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Um can read a cue card you know yeah yeah and uh.
Well, let's let's dig in on theyou know hegseth story a little
bit more well.
We'll actually skip over alittle bit of signal gate 2.0,
because it's really part of thesame original story.
You know, misuse of of a notvery secure channel talking to
(05:38):
people that shouldn't be talkedto about things that they had
installed onto his work computerhis personal phone work phone,
work computer.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, yeah, it was his primary comps channel.
It sounds like right For awhile there, anyway, yeah, so
we're, we're going to blow pastthat a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
But what, uh, adam mentioned that he, that
secretary Hickseth, gave a uhspeech or he addressed the army,
uh, war college.
So, uh, that's those are folksthat have come back the war
college or people that are atthe oh five pay grade level.
So their majors or oh five, youknow promotable type, right
there in that space.
And it's when you come back,and a lot of times you're going
(06:16):
to the um, uh, you're going tothe war college because you're
probably going to make Coloneland you're on a path for you,
you're getting a master's degreeout of that whole thing.
So that's just, that's theeducation level and the type of
folks that we're talking totheir career officers, mid grade
officers, so yeah, so he had awhole line of what we're going
to call propaganda, you know,straight up.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, there's no other way to look at this, like
when we look back.
You know, years down the road,this is going to be one of those
speeches that it was just kindof gross to listen to, because
you know one, you know he sayshis whole DEI is dead.
You know, you know, done withwokeness, all those things, all
those key fired up words, sureGot to hit the bullet points,
(06:59):
yeah, and you know, we promotemerit and we don't see color and
, like you know, he said all ofthose things.
But but then, you know, as hewas talking about a few
different things, uh, somereally concerning things jumped
out at me.
One, the biggest one that Iheard was they're setting up an
(07:20):
authoritarian zone at theborders to control our borders,
where DOD members will beallowed to detain people and
check for papers and then turnthem over to the proper
authorities.
So again, this is a moment intime where our military will
(07:40):
very likely come in contact withour civilians.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah, it seems unavoidable right.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, I mean because he didn't say where exactly this
zone is.
But once you establish one, youcan establish more and you can
grow those zones and then youcan put them into other
sanctuary cities where you havethese authorized zones.
Um, this is another one ofthose lines that he's just
they're running past them nowand they're they don't look down
(08:06):
to see if they're going to tripon them, they're just running
past all these lines well andthe you know let's.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Let's take a moment to pause and just talk about
where, where's their break withprecedent or legal framework on
doing something like that?
So usually, usually, when we,when the United States, deploys
military service members, wesend them overseas, they have
all kinds of title, authoritiesis what it's called to do, a
variety of different missions,and actually the task force or
(08:31):
the named mission comes alongwith the authority, the
congressional authority, to say,hey, this is what this mission
is for.
It's a humanitarian mission,which means you don't, your
rules of engagement aredifferent and what you're
allowed to do or not do isdifferent.
Law enforcement is a type ofrole that it's not unheard of
for the military to perform, butonly in certain situations,
(08:53):
temporary authorization, andusually, like you say, done in a
way where it's not to police upAmerican citizens.
They're used as law enforcementsupport in either humanitarian
efforts or sometimes in othercountries, right when we're,
when we're occupying thosecountries, right.
But in the United States theidea that a military member
(09:13):
would have any kind of lawenforcement authority is kind of
it's forbidden generally, andso the the issue here is in the
united states we have thedepartment of homeland security.
We have the fbi, we have the uhimmigration control, um, and we
have the regular border patrol,right, and then all the just
standard police force that ispart of the border patrol and
(09:35):
has been for forever, really.
So the idea that we need to mixmilitary members into that line
of duty in US territory is thething that doesn't make sense.
Right, because we already haveI just mentioned five, you know,
law enforcement organizationsthat you could send there that
are already there.
But that's against Doge.
Right, we got to draw down allthese federal employees, right?
(09:58):
We?
We can't, we want to spendmoney on all kinds of things,
but dhs and fbi and all theseother law enforcement agencies,
y'all are going to take thesemassive cuts.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, so now we're going to change the rules and
backfill you with soldiersbecause they're cheaper than fbi
agents that is true, so andthat's another thing that he
talked about, because hementioned that that 8% cut that
we talked about a few episodesago.
He kind of complained about howthe media spun that as being
kind of reckless.
He's like no, all of hisresponses, though, didn't have
(10:29):
any substance to them.
He's like this is how you planfor the future.
No, like how, just by cuttingshit, like you're not actually
saying a plan here, you're justsaying words that don't really
mean anything but people eat itup.
And it's crazy how like this isa straight up propaganda speech
to our Army War College, and inthat speech he talked about how
(10:51):
they're going to review IGcomplaints and how the IG system
has been weaponized againstcommanders so that they're they
can't really lead like theyshould lead, right.
So he's gonna like emboldencommanders to act recklessly and
endanger people or they createtoxic environments and just tell
them to harden up.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yep, you know soldier , of all the things you listed
out that you heard that wereconcerning, that was probably
the one that sticks out the mostto me, that gives me the most,
you know, pause and most likeplace of concern in my mind is
that the.
I mean we go through great careto uh select and promote people
that are going to be in commandpositions, even all the way
(11:31):
down to company command in thearmy, as captain 03 tends to be
the first place where you're incharge of troops from a legal
officer perspective.
Uh, you know the intentionthere is that the ig is the um
way, this the the third rail, ifyou will.
It's the way out of the commandthat if there's a problem with
the command, you can.
(11:51):
You can get off the, thecommand track and get over onto
this ig track and say, hey, Ibelieve that something that's
against army policy, we'll justkeep it.
You know, I'm army guy, sowe'll say this is against army
policy and if I go tell mycommander, well, that's the
person that's breaking armypolicy.
So that's the whole point hereis that anybody in the formation
(12:11):
, in the unit, has a channel togo outside and say, hey,
something, something's wrong.
And what Pete Hegg says he seesthat as, uh, this
accountability and thisoversight is tying the hands of
people to innovate.
Maybe it would be a word thathe might choose to um, be a
forward leading and, like youknow, increase the warrior
(12:34):
mentality, those kinds of things.
So warrior ethos was a bigthing during the speech.
Um, just readiness, you know,increase the warrior mentality.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
So warrior ethos was a big thing during the speech.
Just readiness, you know, makesure you ensure readiness and
things like that.
Yeah, it was just another oneof those things that when you
read between the lines, we usedto have something in the Space
Force, air Force, called thefrozen middle, like a bunch of
people that just like you'resitting in spots, sure Right
(12:57):
From a pay grade structure.
You're sitting in spots, sureRight.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
From a pay grade structure perspective From a pay
grade yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Like there's some E9s just sitting out there, there's
some O6s just sitting out thereyeah, just any idea that comes
up.
No, because it's not goodenough.
Like those folks need to standup and start doing stuff and
start making some noise because,like these things coming down,
if you don't stand up right now,there's alpha personalities out
there that are going to takecontrol, seize on that and yeah,
(13:23):
they will jump and they will.
It's going to get pretty bloodyin the ranks here politically.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
There's a let's talk about culture for a second there
, because the IG thing is partof what keeps, we'll say, bad
culture from running rampant.
Right, we talk about toxicculture or toxic leadership
outside of the military, butthat's also, you know, it's also
a term inside the military tohave the toxic unit culture, to
have a hostile work environmentfrom a sexual assault or, you
(13:52):
know, harassment perspective.
But even hostile workenvironment can just be
aggression and bullying and, uh,quid pro quo, but not around
sexual things.
But you know, just like justgetting screamed at that.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
You're an effing loser.
And effing this Like ifsomebody's screaming at you
constantly like no man, let's bemore professional.
That and that happens a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And, like I've seen complaints for people just it's
just too hostile and when itdoesn't need to be, yeah yeah,
and the concern there is we may,we're willing to hand an excuse
to the commander or the seniorsergeant in the formation and go
.
Well, that person is under alot of pressure.
That person is being told bysomeone that holds their future
(14:32):
in their hands that they mustperform, that the unit must do X
, y, z, and so they're willingto push those boundaries now
because their performance is onthe line.
The statistics on how ready isyour unit is what those
commanders are measured by, andso when they have what they
perceive as readiness issues,that they think that you know
and it's their job to correctthose readiness issues.
(14:53):
But right now, those options I'mnot going to say they're
limited, they're really not youjust need to confer with JAG If
you think you're going to pushon a boundary right, to have
that conversation first, andthen you don't ever have to
worry about the IG.
Go to the IG first, right, andI'm not saying ask permission,
but get advice.
You have a JAG officer that isassigned to advise you when you
(15:14):
are a commander, no matter whatlevel you're at, and you have a
hotline to that person.
When you take command, theygive you that card that day and
say I am your advisor.
That's what they're there for,right?
So these processes to be ableto allow a commander to have
flexibility and keep their unitin line work within the
boundaries of professionalism,but when you take that just one
kind of thin layer ofsupervision away,
(15:38):
professionalism can quickly goout the window.
Right, and so the culture iswhat bothers me there, and
you're right the, the idea of agunslinger mentality is what's
going to get you promoted, andif you break things along the
way, break people along the way,you could probably still come
out looking like a rock star,and that culture is going to
follow you up the ranks.
And that's just terrible,wasn't there?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
there's an old like Stanford prison study where
we're like how people behave inthose environments In authority.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If you give someone a white lab coat, then they can
tell someone else to like hurtsomebody and they'll believe you
because you look like you're incharge.
Right, yeah, the commander isthe lead does look like they're
in charge.
They can wear it right in themiddle of their uniform, right,
there's a picture on the wall.
So, yeah, for sure.
And and that trickles down fast.
(16:25):
You know where the what we callpressure turns into coercion
and you know we understand themilitary culture is meant to be
hard.
Uh, the work is hard and theconsequences are big, but that
we do.
We do well with this checks andbalances system and taking that
away, it's there for a reason.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, and one of the big things I took away from
Heges' speech was he was alwaystalking about how we're
refocusing on readiness orlethality and just being more
effective.
I take pretty big offense tothat.
More effective like like.
I take a pretty big offense tothat, you know, like like to sit
(17:01):
there and think that you knowat any point in the last four
years like we've like droppedoff significantly because of you
know a biden administrationlike the people serving should
be insulted by that especiallythe career people that maybe
joined during trump's first uhadministration right, I joined
because donald trump was thepresident, right like there are
for sure people in the militarythat did that well and I guess
(17:21):
they're bringing back like 8 000some people that kicked out
because of, uh, covid reasonsokay, you know, like you refused
the vaccine and stuff like that, yeah, yeah, and they're
getting full back pay too.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I gotta I gotta a whole big.
We can do an episode on, youknow, disobeying a lawful order
and then eventually beingrewarded for it yeah, it'll make
me throw up.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Man, let's get into that conversation so it was one
of the big reasons why I retired, because I didn't like how it
all came down and how thingswere communicated and stuff like
that.
Um, but like, yeah, once itcame down.
Yeah, because I was deployedwhen I got my first vaccine and
my commander she was, you know,pretty right wing, oh yeah, and
(18:03):
we all went down there and gotthem together.
Yeah, because it was an awfulorder and we were in a deployed
location.
Yeah, like you just go do itman.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I served with a guy up at Buckley back in 2010,.
11 timeframe.
Buckley back in 2010, 11timeframe years.
You know, 10 years after theanthrax vaccine had come back
onto the scene of like peopledeploying certain areas need the
anthrax vaccine and this guywas about to deploy or had got
orders and need to start his youknow, medical prep and anthrax
(18:32):
vaccine.
He decided that was the bone hewas going to pick with the air
force.
He's an air force officer.
No-transcript get out of here.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You're wasting everybody's time.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So he went and found a private lawyer that thought,
oh, I can take on the military.
Sure, I'd have never heard ofUCMJ.
I don't know what any of thatis, but you know, you give me
money and we're going to, we'regoing to do something, right,
okay?
And so he would sit at work andtalk about his legal case and,
you know, his lawyer told himI'm like well then, you know, I
can't believe you're thesmartest guy in the air force
(19:12):
that in the last 10 years arethe only person that read a
regulation and somehow you foundthe secret code that means you
don't have to get an anthraxvaccine.
That didn't happen, right?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
your lawyer just keeps taking your money to
convince you that that happenedabsolutely yeah, because, like
you said, with commanders havinga jag, like when those things
get go through, they go througha huge rough.
Well, they used to, they're notgoing to anymore.
Like now they're just going tofire from the hip.
But some of those old laws, youknow, like they were written
down and they were combed over,you're not going to like find a
whole lot of loopholes in there,you don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, so anyways that , that mentality when it when it
pops up there's, there's only afew things in the military that
I was just like man be inlockstep or dress right dress,
or like you know, just um.
Individual thought is notrequired in certain places.
And when someone decided thatthey wanted, as my drill
sergeant would say, you want tobe a freaking individual.
(20:10):
It didn't matter what pay gradethey were or how long I'd been
in the military.
I could hear my drill sergeantyelling at that person saying
you want to be a freakingindividual?
You know that's the person thatgets shot.
The person that's not information is the person that
gets shot.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You know, and I'm like go for it, yeah, and so now
, as we were talking aboutincreasing our readiness, we're
bringing these people that havealready dissented once back in,
and bringing them back in Yep,absolutely, with a lot of money
too, yeah, yeah and setting thetone and the culture for what?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
the warfighter mentality?
You can't see my face, but Imade a face on that one.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Well, yeah, trump made a comment a couple of days
ago.
I yeah, trump made a comment acouple days ago.
I don't know it's all a blur,but he made America is going to
be bigger than ever.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Well, if we get Greenland, it will be.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Physically that's 20 percent bigger.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
People really need to listen to what he's saying.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
If we get, Canada, we'll double in size.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Right, we're going to be the aggressors.
What does our military do atthat point, like when we just
decide that?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
you know you definitely need some cronies if
you want to invade Canada, right, well, so you need another part
of cronies.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Another part of Hegseth's speech is that they're
starting a war room for mineraldeposits, like natural
resources, like that.
So, instead of being focused onoil now, like they're setting
up like a war room for naturalminerals and things like that.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Well, yeah, because we've figured out that we
actually do have enough oil inalready in the United States
that we can get by, and if wereally had to, we could spin up
some new plants.
Like energy is not really thedependency and crisis that it
ever was advertised to be, butnow that maybe the wool is
getting pulled off of that trick, we've got to switch gears.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I never really thought of that.
They could very easily justspin up our refiners and stuff
like that.
So the threats of Canada's oilgoing away.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's not really a big deal.
Yeah, we've got more naturalgas under Alaska that will run
the United States for the nextthousand years, or whatever.
We just have to go get it, youknow.
So, but the I mean I agree thatthe the idea that we've got to
install this totally differentmentality and culture in the
military being offensive tocertain career people.
(22:22):
It's the same tone as makeAmerica great again requires an
assumption that was currentlynot great and that it was
currently in disrepair or evenheaded towards collapse, and so
the whole mantra of make Americagreat again jives perfectly
with you know.
Make the military lethal again.
Uh well, when was it not lethal, you know?
When were we not?
(22:43):
When were we at risk or atthreat from a more dominant
power?
When were we fighting tomaintain our territory?
Yeah, not not in your lifetime,pete, you know not it hasn't
happened.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So, um, and another thing again on his speech.
There's a lot of stuff in thereso I had to go read the speech
online because the uh, the pbs,like the audio was cutting out
and it was just kind of pain inthe ass to us too.
Yeah, um, but when I read itthere, uh man, I I even lost
track what, what I was going tosay right there, I don't know.
Yeah, there were so many thingsgoing through all these things.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, we've all served long enough.
I saw that you wrote as one ofthe notes up there.
The recruiting numbers arethrough the roof.
That was one thing, which Iguess is I say, through the roof
.
That was one thing I saythrough the roof.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I'm back to it.
What he was going to say wastalking about our weapon system,
the procurement of our weaponsystems and things like that
they're going to go through allof our procurements and look at
the contracts To me.
They're going to be handing outsome big contracts to their
friends.
Yeah, it's just a clear anotherone of those power grabs to me
(23:52):
is going to be they're going tobe handing out some big
contracts to their friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, it's just a clearanother one of those power grabs
.
And with the whole stock marketfluctuations lately, how like
they're like I swear Trump isjust saying shit to make it tank
so that his folks can buy thatdip Like it is so like blatant
yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
This disregard?
Yeah, riggingging racketeeringat the biggest level possible,
right, right.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
And you know when their base sits there and
screams that.
You know nancy pelosi tradestocks.
Yeah, their base screams that.
Yes, they do.
And we see trump havingbillionaires in the office.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
They know you made one billion today you made 900
million today, oh you got tocatch up to him, yeah, like it's
disgusting man, and yet that isliterally applauded.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
People are like yeah, rich people.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, it's just ongoing.
I'm not mad at billionaires,but I'll never clap for somebody
because they're rich.
You know what I'm saying.
Good for you, but I'm not goingto cheer your name because of
your bank account.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I just can't do it, you know it's just a disgusting
culture that we have, and I dohear that Elon is kind of on the
outskirts with some thingsright now.
He's getting into screamingmatches with cause.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, and I you know, I don't know that it's the
most american car there is,that's made as far as
manufacturing, you know,components and final, final, uh,
assembly, and the whole idea isthat we want to restore
(25:23):
american manufacturing.
That's the whole.
That's the financial plan thatdonald trump says.
Trump says he's trying toexecute with all the tariffs and
everything.
And if, by executing thetariffs, you destroy or severely
hamper the progress of the mostAmerican manufacturing car
company there is, man, talkabout you shooting yourself in
both feet right.
(25:45):
You're really just screwing thepooch all the way, because the
guy who's supposed to be helpingyou flip the tables around is
losing his business because ofit.
That's the opposite of what wassupposed to happen.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, Like, how has a cyber truck become like a
symbol of you know?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
MAGA yeah.
Like electric vehicle is nowthat is true, because I've I've
thought that the whole time.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, all is now that is true, because I've thought
that the whole time, yeah, allthese the process that happened.
Downtown there's a black magatruck that drives around okay,
on my cyber truck, yeah, youknow, with all their flags on
and stuff like that but yeah,it's just comical to me that,
like they were so terrible untilyou realize that the guy
selling it was a nazi and you'relike okay, I'll take one well,
it's also, I mean, as thesymbolism goes it, it's a symbol
(26:28):
of excess or or largest if youwill, it's, it's very expensive,
you know.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So yeah, it's big, it's gaudy, it's expensive, and
so nevermind that it's anelectric car, right you know?
Like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's.
It's a.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Hummer from the future.
Right Like this dude brought usa Hummer from the future.
It's still a waste of naturalresources.
Yeah, I mean whatever, whateveryou know, but that that's,
that's how that that carspecifically gets a pass, you
know.
So I've also thought that theidea that donald trump was out
there pushing electric cars atthe white house just totally is
a whiff to the base.
(27:01):
You know that, we're we're.
You know where's my five litercummins.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
You know turbo diesel , right like that's what I need
to get down the road thisbattery pack ain't gonna do it
right and well, and I guess whathas pulled uh trump off his
tariffs right now is that allthe ceos from the big you know
retail stores like came to himand said like hey, man like we
are gonna be shrewd, yeah, andlike so that was.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
You want to talk about cause and effect, because
that meeting the media coveredit, but like it was still pretty
quiet, right, you would havethought that would have been
caught a lot more attention,especially on the liberal side
of the media.
You would have thought theywould have really been like here
it is, here it is.
They didn't, but we noticed,and the very next day, or maybe
(27:48):
even that day, trump was like oh, we're going to be nice to
President Xi.
What do you mean?
You know?
Trade war, like, let's call itsomething else.
You know, the tune changed, theyflipped the sheet music over
and said play this song instead.
Guy, you know I mean, that'swhat happened, right?
They went in there and saidjust we're gonna lose a trillion
(28:10):
dollars in retail next year ifyou keep this up, right, like
the just 20 30 percent shrink inthe retail sector, if you keep
doing this, yeah and so now, howis he gonna spin this into the
art of the deal?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
what we're we're gonna?
We're gonna come out on theother side of this with maybe
the same deal as we had walkinginto it, probably worse.
I don't think China's going tocare about his art of the deal.
Trying to scare tactics They'vealready called this bluff.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Donald Trump is the epitome of a guy who would break
a lamp and then glue it backtogether and try to sell it to
you saying that it was found art.
Then glue it back together and,like, try to sell it to you
saying that it was found art.
You know, and like you know,there's he, he, he will break it
and then tell you that he madeit better.
Yeah, I built this by hand.
(29:01):
Yeah, exactly Everything.
That he will ruin something andthen, when it bounces back and
has this, like giant, you knowhe'll lose 300% of something and
then it'll get a hundredpercent of its value back.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
you know, so you're still down two-thirds yeah, and
he'll say I had, I had a hundredpercent gain in one day,
biggest gain ever.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, come on.
That was after you had a monthof you know solid losses and
then in one day you got a bounceback and the headline is
biggest you know gain in value,and that's it.
That's his story.
That's the only thing he'llever mention about that series
of events, that business failingor that political gain.
(29:37):
It's just we had the biggestday in Wall Street ever right
and it's because we had theworst day ever, the day before
that.
Yeah, the last four days havebeen pretty bad, but the story
is biggest stocks day ever.
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy Period.
The last four days have beenpretty bad, but the story is
biggest stocks day ever.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Period, right, but you broke it, dude.
And he's like no, no, no, Imade it.
I made the biggest day everhappen.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I guess technically that's true, but you made it
happen because you ruined it inthe first place.
You don't get credit for thatright, but to first place, you
know, don't?
You don't get credit for thatright, but it to him you do.
Yeah, anybody else would beashamed of that right.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, yeah, shame does not exist in that that
family there um, one thing thatI've been noticing uh, with the
protests downtown, um, I've beenseeing more republican and
republican signs, likerepublicans against trump and
things like that okay, likethere are more folks like seeing
it and coming out and actuallysupporting it, which was they
kind of stood up, they had theirown little circle off to the
(30:34):
side there.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Well, they don't want to get cooties?
Yeah, there's a lot of thatgoing around.
Yeah, democrats have cooties.
I'm telling you, man, ifthey're standing outside with a
sign, they have cooties, allright.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
If you stand too close to them, you might come
back.
You might come back nextweekend.
Catch the gay or something.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, you might come back and protest again.
You might say oh, this is whatthey've been doing all along,
right.
Next thing you know, you're ona podcast.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, it's just fun to see people having a space to
come out and actually voicetheir opinions in some place
that traditionally has not been,you know, friendly to.
You know democrats,progressives, you know this has
been such a staunchly republicanarea for so long.
Just talking about el pasocounty.
El paso county colorado, uh,colorado springs, yeah, um, it's
such a red area and it will befor probably a few more cycles,
but, you know, getting thousandsof people to show up and to see
like republicans out there it's, and not as many guns pointed
(31:34):
at us, which is cool.
That's like during the floydprotest there was guys up on the
, on the parking garage, yeah,with like just walking, pacing
with rifles, with rifles like onlike on the roof, like yeah, at
the crowds that was defensivein the uh ags uh yeah, yeah,
yeah, so, but that's nothappening.
So I mean, yeah, that's progress, that's what we're all about.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
It's in the name.
It's in the name of the podcast, right?
Well, you know what?
I think that might be a goodplace to you know, let's, let's
leave it on a high note.
You're not getting guns pointedat you at the protest anymore.
That guns pointed at you at theprotest anymore, that's America
at its finest.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing.
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Thanks everybody.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah, join us again next week.
Thanks,
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
My name is Adam Gillard, herealong with Dick Wilkinson.
How you doing, buddy?
I'm doing great.
Good morning, adam.
Good morning.
We are the Pikes Peak Region'spolitical podcast with a
veteran's point of view Comingto you here from our crowded
office right now in some movingstate here.
(00:21):
So let's get this show kickedoff.
Let's talk to our.
Go straight to our Kilmar statehere.
So let's get this show kickedoff.
Let's go straight to our Kilmarcount here.
Right now we're sitting at 43days since Kilmar Abrego-Garcia
was removed from his family.
A few days later, he wasdeported.
What do you got for updates onthat story?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Dick.
Well, I was watching the newslast night and I saw that
Kilmar's lawyer was giving somestatements to the media and she
stated that there's asurprisingly, there's a one week
stay in the judicial process.
His own lawyers agreed to thatbecause they want the discovery
and evidentiary process to go,you know, without perfectly, if
(01:03):
you will say Right.
They didn't want there to beany confusion or chance for
backtracking by theadministration, and so they're
allowing the judge to kind of, Iguess, do what the what the
judge sees best, so that theycan get him out as fast as
possible, which unfortunatelyrequires a few days delay in the
process right now.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, I thought it was already decided that the
administration had to help theprocess along.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
They did, and here's where the things have shifted
right.
Two things have happened.
The administration basicallyretracted their statement that
his deportation was aadministrative error.
They said that was released inan unauthorized fashion and
however that information got outeven though it was apparently
(01:46):
on judicial branch documentsthat that was just wrong
information and they are nowtrying to present evidence that
he is directly connected toMS-13 and that he had criminal
activity, drug or humantrafficking associated with his
gang membership, and they'vecompletely flipped the story
(02:07):
around.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And so that's what's going on now.
Their defense is literally likedon't believe the evidence that
you saw.
Yes, Believe what we're tellingyou now?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yes, correct, that's it.
We're going to change our storyand give us some time to figure
it out.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It's so brazen how every day it's something like
this.
It's crazy.
Unheard of type stuff the waythat it's just being swallowed
up by folks too.
I still talk with someright-wing folks and they're
still convinced that this isGod's work.
Yes, and it's just disgustinghow they're taking things like
(02:43):
this and wrapping it up.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You know how they're taking things like this and
wrapping it up, and Well,they're committed.
The folks that are OK with theidea that someone could be
deported.
They're going to find 10different ways to justify that,
whether, even if he wasn't agang member, that just the fact
that he ever came to Americawithout permission, that's just
enough, even though we gave himpermission to stay.
And the only place that in thecourt I found this out, there
(03:06):
was a bar to deporting him to ElSalvador, because that's where
he is here from as far as hisasylum request, and so he said
that the danger to his life isfrom being in El Salvador.
And so the only place on courtdocuments in the world where
this dude, if the governmentdecided to deport him, they were
(03:26):
banned, and before all of this,they were banned explicitly
back in 2019.
Never send this guy back to ElSalvador.
If you send him somewhere, justdon't send him to El Salvador.
And that's the only place.
You know one way trip to ElSalvador.
So you know another ripple inthe whole story there that the
government.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Well, I think that's just by chance, because if they
would have known that they werejust stuck them in Guantanamo,
well, sure I guess, but theplane you know flew to El
Salvador.
Yes, it's kind of one of thoseby chance things.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
The situation right now is that the government is
trying to prove that he's anMS-13 gang member.
There's just, it's the shiftingline of um, what's what's the
truth?
Yeah, the shifting position oflike what, how many times do we
have to say different bad thingsabout this guy until one of
them sticks right?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
and it just the whole change in the narrative.
Um, I was just listening tosecretary hegseth's um speech to
the army College and he alsotalked about how we have given
over control of the Ukraineconflict or armament thing to UK
and Germany.
(04:36):
But the way that he said it itwas like it was a peace accord.
Like oh no, yeah, we're lettingthem take the lead now.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
No, we pulled the rug out from underneath sure, sure
they're trying to figure shitout now, um, but but the
narrative changes, yeah yeah,your vocabulary and the words
that you use to describebasically the same thing.
You can paint very differentpictures with wordplay and the
administration is.
You know they're.
If there's something they aregood at, it's that right.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I mean they hired a fox news personality to be the
sex, yeah, so yeah, that'sexactly what he's doing right
now is just playing to the media, or playing to the people you
know as a media personality, asa talking head, and just
spinning it to get theirapproval that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Um can read a cue card you know yeah yeah and uh.
Well, let's let's dig in on theyou know hegseth story a little
bit more well.
We'll actually skip over alittle bit of signal gate 2.0,
because it's really part of thesame original story.
You know, misuse of of a notvery secure channel talking to
(05:38):
people that shouldn't be talkedto about things that they had
installed onto his work computerhis personal phone work phone,
work computer.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, yeah, it was his primary comps channel.
It sounds like right For awhile there, anyway, yeah, so
we're, we're going to blow pastthat a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
But what, uh, adam mentioned that he, that
secretary Hickseth, gave a uhspeech or he addressed the army,
uh, war college.
So, uh, that's those are folksthat have come back the war
college or people that are atthe oh five pay grade level.
So their majors or oh five, youknow promotable type, right
there in that space.
And it's when you come back,and a lot of times you're going
(06:16):
to the um, uh, you're going tothe war college because you're
probably going to make Coloneland you're on a path for you,
you're getting a master's degreeout of that whole thing.
So that's just, that's theeducation level and the type of
folks that we're talking totheir career officers, mid grade
officers, so yeah, so he had awhole line of what we're going
to call propaganda, you know,straight up.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, there's no other way to look at this, like
when we look back.
You know, years down the road,this is going to be one of those
speeches that it was just kindof gross to listen to, because
you know one, you know he sayshis whole DEI is dead.
You know, you know, done withwokeness, all those things, all
those key fired up words, sureGot to hit the bullet points,
(06:59):
yeah, and you know, we promotemerit and we don't see color and
, like you know, he said all ofthose things.
But but then, you know, as hewas talking about a few
different things, uh, somereally concerning things jumped
out at me.
One, the biggest one that Iheard was they're setting up an
(07:20):
authoritarian zone at theborders to control our borders,
where DOD members will beallowed to detain people and
check for papers and then turnthem over to the proper
authorities.
So again, this is a moment intime where our military will
(07:40):
very likely come in contact withour civilians.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah, it seems unavoidable right.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, I mean because he didn't say where exactly this
zone is.
But once you establish one, youcan establish more and you can
grow those zones and then youcan put them into other
sanctuary cities where you havethese authorized zones.
Um, this is another one ofthose lines that he's just
they're running past them nowand they're they don't look down
(08:06):
to see if they're going to tripon them, they're just running
past all these lines well andthe you know let's.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Let's take a moment to pause and just talk about
where, where's their break withprecedent or legal framework on
doing something like that?
So usually, usually, when we,when the United States, deploys
military service members, wesend them overseas, they have
all kinds of title, authoritiesis what it's called to do, a
variety of different missions,and actually the task force or
(08:31):
the named mission comes alongwith the authority, the
congressional authority, to say,hey, this is what this mission
is for.
It's a humanitarian mission,which means you don't, your
rules of engagement aredifferent and what you're
allowed to do or not do isdifferent.
Law enforcement is a type ofrole that it's not unheard of
for the military to perform, butonly in certain situations,
(08:53):
temporary authorization, andusually, like you say, done in a
way where it's not to police upAmerican citizens.
They're used as law enforcementsupport in either humanitarian
efforts or sometimes in othercountries, right when we're,
when we're occupying thosecountries, right.
But in the United States theidea that a military member
(09:13):
would have any kind of lawenforcement authority is kind of
it's forbidden generally, andso the the issue here is in the
united states we have thedepartment of homeland security.
We have the fbi, we have the uhimmigration control, um, and we
have the regular border patrol,right, and then all the just
standard police force that ispart of the border patrol and
(09:35):
has been for forever, really.
So the idea that we need to mixmilitary members into that line
of duty in US territory is thething that doesn't make sense.
Right, because we already haveI just mentioned five, you know,
law enforcement organizationsthat you could send there that
are already there.
But that's against Doge.
Right, we got to draw down allthese federal employees, right?
(09:58):
We?
We can't, we want to spendmoney on all kinds of things,
but dhs and fbi and all theseother law enforcement agencies,
y'all are going to take thesemassive cuts.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, so now we're going to change the rules and
backfill you with soldiersbecause they're cheaper than fbi
agents that is true, so andthat's another thing that he
talked about, because hementioned that that 8% cut that
we talked about a few episodesago.
He kind of complained about howthe media spun that as being
kind of reckless.
He's like no, all of hisresponses, though, didn't have
(10:29):
any substance to them.
He's like this is how you planfor the future.
No, like how, just by cuttingshit, like you're not actually
saying a plan here, you're justsaying words that don't really
mean anything but people eat itup.
And it's crazy how like this isa straight up propaganda speech
to our Army War College, and inthat speech he talked about how
(10:51):
they're going to review IGcomplaints and how the IG system
has been weaponized againstcommanders so that they're they
can't really lead like theyshould lead, right.
So he's gonna like emboldencommanders to act recklessly and
endanger people or they createtoxic environments and just tell
them to harden up.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yep, you know soldier , of all the things you listed
out that you heard that wereconcerning, that was probably
the one that sticks out the mostto me, that gives me the most,
you know, pause and most likeplace of concern in my mind is
that the.
I mean we go through great careto uh select and promote people
that are going to be in commandpositions, even all the way
(11:31):
down to company command in thearmy, as captain 03 tends to be
the first place where you're incharge of troops from a legal
officer perspective.
Uh, you know the intentionthere is that the ig is the um
way, this the the third rail, ifyou will.
It's the way out of the commandthat if there's a problem with
the command, you can.
(11:51):
You can get off the, thecommand track and get over onto
this ig track and say, hey, Ibelieve that something that's
against army policy, we'll justkeep it.
You know, I'm army guy, sowe'll say this is against army
policy and if I go tell mycommander, well, that's the
person that's breaking armypolicy.
So that's the whole point hereis that anybody in the formation
(12:11):
, in the unit, has a channel togo outside and say, hey,
something, something's wrong.
And what Pete Hegg says he seesthat as, uh, this
accountability and thisoversight is tying the hands of
people to innovate.
Maybe it would be a word thathe might choose to um, be a
forward leading and, like youknow, increase the warrior
(12:34):
mentality, those kinds of things.
So warrior ethos was a bigthing during the speech.
Um, just readiness, you know,increase the warrior mentality.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
So warrior ethos was a big thing during the speech.
Just readiness, you know, makesure you ensure readiness and
things like that.
Yeah, it was just another oneof those things that when you
read between the lines, we usedto have something in the Space
Force, air Force, called thefrozen middle, like a bunch of
people that just like you'resitting in spots, sure Right
(12:57):
From a pay grade structure.
You're sitting in spots, sureRight.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
From a pay grade structure perspective From a pay
grade yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Like there's some E9s just sitting out there, there's
some O6s just sitting out thereyeah, just any idea that comes
up.
No, because it's not goodenough.
Like those folks need to standup and start doing stuff and
start making some noise because,like these things coming down,
if you don't stand up right now,there's alpha personalities out
there that are going to takecontrol, seize on that and yeah,
(13:23):
they will jump and they will.
It's going to get pretty bloodyin the ranks here politically.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
There's a let's talk about culture for a second there
, because the IG thing is partof what keeps, we'll say, bad
culture from running rampant.
Right, we talk about toxicculture or toxic leadership
outside of the military, butthat's also, you know, it's also
a term inside the military tohave the toxic unit culture, to
have a hostile work environmentfrom a sexual assault or, you
(13:52):
know, harassment perspective.
But even hostile workenvironment can just be
aggression and bullying and, uh,quid pro quo, but not around
sexual things.
But you know, just like justgetting screamed at that.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
You're an effing loser.
And effing this Like ifsomebody's screaming at you
constantly like no man, let's bemore professional.
That and that happens a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And, like I've seen complaints for people just it's
just too hostile and when itdoesn't need to be, yeah yeah,
and the concern there is we may,we're willing to hand an excuse
to the commander or the seniorsergeant in the formation and go
.
Well, that person is under alot of pressure.
That person is being told bysomeone that holds their future
(14:32):
in their hands that they mustperform, that the unit must do X
, y, z, and so they're willingto push those boundaries now
because their performance is onthe line.
The statistics on how ready isyour unit is what those
commanders are measured by, andso when they have what they
perceive as readiness issues,that they think that you know
and it's their job to correctthose readiness issues.
(14:53):
But right now, those options I'mnot going to say they're
limited, they're really not youjust need to confer with JAG If
you think you're going to pushon a boundary right, to have
that conversation first, andthen you don't ever have to
worry about the IG.
Go to the IG first, right, andI'm not saying ask permission,
but get advice.
You have a JAG officer that isassigned to advise you when you
(15:14):
are a commander, no matter whatlevel you're at, and you have a
hotline to that person.
When you take command, theygive you that card that day and
say I am your advisor.
That's what they're there for,right?
So these processes to be ableto allow a commander to have
flexibility and keep their unitin line work within the
boundaries of professionalism,but when you take that just one
kind of thin layer ofsupervision away,
(15:38):
professionalism can quickly goout the window.
Right, and so the culture iswhat bothers me there, and
you're right the, the idea of agunslinger mentality is what's
going to get you promoted, andif you break things along the
way, break people along the way,you could probably still come
out looking like a rock star,and that culture is going to
follow you up the ranks.
And that's just terrible,wasn't there?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
there's an old like Stanford prison study where
we're like how people behave inthose environments In authority.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
If you give someone a white lab coat, then they can
tell someone else to like hurtsomebody and they'll believe you
because you look like you're incharge.
Right, yeah, the commander isthe lead does look like they're
in charge.
They can wear it right in themiddle of their uniform, right,
there's a picture on the wall.
So, yeah, for sure.
And and that trickles down fast.
(16:25):
You know where the what we callpressure turns into coercion
and you know we understand themilitary culture is meant to be
hard.
Uh, the work is hard and theconsequences are big, but that
we do.
We do well with this checks andbalances system and taking that
away, it's there for a reason.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, and one of the big things I took away from
Heges' speech was he was alwaystalking about how we're
refocusing on readiness orlethality and just being more
effective.
I take pretty big offense tothat.
More effective like like.
I take a pretty big offense tothat, you know, like like to sit
(17:01):
there and think that you knowat any point in the last four
years like we've like droppedoff significantly because of you
know a biden administrationlike the people serving should
be insulted by that especiallythe career people that maybe
joined during trump's first uhadministration right, I joined
because donald trump was thepresident, right like there are
for sure people in the militarythat did that well and I guess
(17:21):
they're bringing back like 8 000some people that kicked out
because of, uh, covid reasonsokay, you know, like you refused
the vaccine and stuff like that, yeah, yeah, and they're
getting full back pay too.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I gotta I gotta a whole big.
We can do an episode on, youknow, disobeying a lawful order
and then eventually beingrewarded for it yeah, it'll make
me throw up.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Man, let's get into that conversation so it was one
of the big reasons why I retired, because I didn't like how it
all came down and how thingswere communicated and stuff like
that.
Um, but like, yeah, once itcame down.
Yeah, because I was deployedwhen I got my first vaccine and
my commander she was, you know,pretty right wing, oh yeah, and
(18:03):
we all went down there and gotthem together.
Yeah, because it was an awfulorder and we were in a deployed
location.
Yeah, like you just go do itman.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I served with a guy up at Buckley back in 2010,.
11 timeframe.
Buckley back in 2010, 11timeframe years.
You know, 10 years after theanthrax vaccine had come back
onto the scene of like peopledeploying certain areas need the
anthrax vaccine and this guywas about to deploy or had got
orders and need to start his youknow, medical prep and anthrax
(18:32):
vaccine.
He decided that was the bone hewas going to pick with the air
force.
He's an air force officer.
No-transcript get out of here.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You're wasting everybody's time.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
So he went and found a private lawyer that thought,
oh, I can take on the military.
Sure, I'd have never heard ofUCMJ.
I don't know what any of thatis, but you know, you give me
money and we're going to, we'regoing to do something, right,
okay?
And so he would sit at work andtalk about his legal case and,
you know, his lawyer told himI'm like well then, you know, I
can't believe you're thesmartest guy in the air force
(19:12):
that in the last 10 years arethe only person that read a
regulation and somehow you foundthe secret code that means you
don't have to get an anthraxvaccine.
That didn't happen, right?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
your lawyer just keeps taking your money to
convince you that that happenedabsolutely yeah, because, like
you said, with commanders havinga jag, like when those things
get go through, they go througha huge rough.
Well, they used to, they're notgoing to anymore.
Like now they're just going tofire from the hip.
But some of those old laws, youknow, like they were written
down and they were combed over,you're not going to like find a
whole lot of loopholes in there,you don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, so anyways that , that mentality when it when it
pops up there's, there's only afew things in the military that
I was just like man be inlockstep or dress right dress,
or like you know, just um.
Individual thought is notrequired in certain places.
And when someone decided thatthey wanted, as my drill
sergeant would say, you want tobe a freaking individual.
(20:10):
It didn't matter what pay gradethey were or how long I'd been
in the military.
I could hear my drill sergeantyelling at that person saying
you want to be a freakingindividual?
You know that's the person thatgets shot.
The person that's not information is the person that
gets shot.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You know, and I'm like go for it, yeah, and so now
, as we were talking aboutincreasing our readiness, we're
bringing these people that havealready dissented once back in,
and bringing them back in Yep,absolutely, with a lot of money
too, yeah, yeah and setting thetone and the culture for what?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
the warfighter mentality?
You can't see my face, but Imade a face on that one.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Well, yeah, trump made a comment a couple of days
ago.
I yeah, trump made a comment acouple days ago.
I don't know it's all a blur,but he made America is going to
be bigger than ever.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Well, if we get Greenland, it will be.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Physically that's 20 percent bigger.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
People really need to listen to what he's saying.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
If we get, Canada, we'll double in size.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Right, we're going to be the aggressors.
What does our military do atthat point, like when we just
decide that?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
you know you definitely need some cronies if
you want to invade Canada, right, well, so you need another part
of cronies.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Another part of Hegseth's speech is that they're
starting a war room for mineraldeposits, like natural
resources, like that.
So, instead of being focused onoil now, like they're setting
up like a war room for naturalminerals and things like that.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Well, yeah, because we've figured out that we
actually do have enough oil inalready in the United States
that we can get by, and if wereally had to, we could spin up
some new plants.
Like energy is not really thedependency and crisis that it
ever was advertised to be, butnow that maybe the wool is
getting pulled off of that trick, we've got to switch gears.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I never really thought of that.
They could very easily justspin up our refiners and stuff
like that.
So the threats of Canada's oilgoing away.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's not really a big deal.
Yeah, we've got more naturalgas under Alaska that will run
the United States for the nextthousand years, or whatever.
We just have to go get it, youknow.
So, but the I mean I agree thatthe the idea that we've got to
install this totally differentmentality and culture in the
military being offensive tocertain career people.
(22:22):
It's the same tone as makeAmerica great again requires an
assumption that was currentlynot great and that it was
currently in disrepair or evenheaded towards collapse, and so
the whole mantra of make Americagreat again jives perfectly
with you know.
Make the military lethal again.
Uh well, when was it not lethal, you know?
When were we not?
(22:43):
When were we at risk or atthreat from a more dominant
power?
When were we fighting tomaintain our territory?
Yeah, not not in your lifetime,pete, you know not it hasn't
happened.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So, um, and another thing again on his speech.
There's a lot of stuff in thereso I had to go read the speech
online because the uh, the pbs,like the audio was cutting out
and it was just kind of pain inthe ass to us too.
Yeah, um, but when I read itthere, uh man, I I even lost
track what, what I was going tosay right there, I don't know.
Yeah, there were so many thingsgoing through all these things.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, we've all served long enough.
I saw that you wrote as one ofthe notes up there.
The recruiting numbers arethrough the roof.
That was one thing, which Iguess is I say, through the roof
.
That was one thing I saythrough the roof.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I'm back to it.
What he was going to say wastalking about our weapon system,
the procurement of our weaponsystems and things like that
they're going to go through allof our procurements and look at
the contracts To me.
They're going to be handing outsome big contracts to their
friends.
Yeah, it's just a clear anotherone of those power grabs to me
(23:52):
is going to be they're going tobe handing out some big
contracts to their friends.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, it's just a clearanother one of those power grabs
.
And with the whole stock marketfluctuations lately, how like
they're like I swear Trump isjust saying shit to make it tank
so that his folks can buy thatdip Like it is so like blatant
yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
This disregard?
Yeah, riggingging racketeeringat the biggest level possible,
right, right.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
And you know when their base sits there and
screams that.
You know nancy pelosi tradestocks.
Yeah, their base screams that.
Yes, they do.
And we see trump havingbillionaires in the office.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
They know you made one billion today you made 900
million today, oh you got tocatch up to him, yeah, like it's
disgusting man, and yet that isliterally applauded.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
People are like yeah, rich people.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, it's just ongoing.
I'm not mad at billionaires,but I'll never clap for somebody
because they're rich.
You know what I'm saying.
Good for you, but I'm not goingto cheer your name because of
your bank account.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I just can't do it, you know it's just a disgusting
culture that we have, and I dohear that Elon is kind of on the
outskirts with some thingsright now.
He's getting into screamingmatches with cause.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, and I you know, I don't know that it's the
most american car there is,that's made as far as
manufacturing, you know,components and final, final, uh,
assembly, and the whole idea isthat we want to restore
(25:23):
american manufacturing.
That's the whole.
That's the financial plan thatdonald trump says.
Trump says he's trying toexecute with all the tariffs and
everything.
And if, by executing thetariffs, you destroy or severely
hamper the progress of the mostAmerican manufacturing car
company there is, man, talkabout you shooting yourself in
both feet right.
(25:45):
You're really just screwing thepooch all the way, because the
guy who's supposed to be helpingyou flip the tables around is
losing his business because ofit.
That's the opposite of what wassupposed to happen.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, Like, how has a cyber truck become like a
symbol of you know?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
MAGA yeah.
Like electric vehicle is nowthat is true, because I've I've
thought that the whole time.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, all is now that is true, because I've thought
that the whole time, yeah, allthese the process that happened.
Downtown there's a black magatruck that drives around okay,
on my cyber truck, yeah, youknow, with all their flags on
and stuff like that but yeah,it's just comical to me that,
like they were so terrible untilyou realize that the guy
selling it was a nazi and you'relike okay, I'll take one well,
it's also, I mean, as thesymbolism goes it, it's a symbol
(26:28):
of excess or or largest if youwill, it's, it's very expensive,
you know.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
So yeah, it's big, it's gaudy, it's expensive, and
so nevermind that it's anelectric car, right you know?
Like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
It's.
It's a.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Hummer from the future.
Right Like this dude brought usa Hummer from the future.
It's still a waste of naturalresources.
Yeah, I mean whatever, whateveryou know, but that that's,
that's how that that carspecifically gets a pass, you
know.
So I've also thought that theidea that donald trump was out
there pushing electric cars atthe white house just totally is
a whiff to the base.
(27:01):
You know that, we're we're.
You know where's my five litercummins.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
You know turbo diesel , right like that's what I need
to get down the road thisbattery pack ain't gonna do it
right and well, and I guess whathas pulled uh trump off his
tariffs right now is that allthe ceos from the big you know
retail stores like came to himand said like hey, man like we
are gonna be shrewd, yeah, andlike so that was.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
You want to talk about cause and effect, because
that meeting the media coveredit, but like it was still pretty
quiet, right, you would havethought that would have been
caught a lot more attention,especially on the liberal side
of the media.
You would have thought theywould have really been like here
it is, here it is.
They didn't, but we noticed,and the very next day, or maybe
(27:48):
even that day, trump was like oh, we're going to be nice to
President Xi.
What do you mean?
You know?
Trade war, like, let's call itsomething else.
You know, the tune changed, theyflipped the sheet music over
and said play this song instead.
Guy, you know I mean, that'swhat happened, right?
They went in there and saidjust we're gonna lose a trillion
(28:10):
dollars in retail next year ifyou keep this up, right, like
the just 20 30 percent shrink inthe retail sector, if you keep
doing this, yeah and so now, howis he gonna spin this into the
art of the deal?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
what we're we're gonna?
We're gonna come out on theother side of this with maybe
the same deal as we had walkinginto it, probably worse.
I don't think China's going tocare about his art of the deal.
Trying to scare tactics They'vealready called this bluff.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Donald Trump is the epitome of a guy who would break
a lamp and then glue it backtogether and try to sell it to
you saying that it was found art.
Then glue it back together and,like, try to sell it to you
saying that it was found art.
You know, and like you know,there's he, he, he will break it
and then tell you that he madeit better.
Yeah, I built this by hand.
(29:01):
Yeah, exactly Everything.
That he will ruin something andthen, when it bounces back and
has this, like giant, you knowhe'll lose 300% of something and
then it'll get a hundredpercent of its value back.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
you know, so you're still down two-thirds yeah, and
he'll say I had, I had a hundredpercent gain in one day,
biggest gain ever.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, come on.
That was after you had a monthof you know solid losses and
then in one day you got a bounceback and the headline is
biggest you know gain in value,and that's it.
That's his story.
That's the only thing he'llever mention about that series
of events, that business failingor that political gain.
(29:37):
It's just we had the biggestday in Wall Street ever right
and it's because we had theworst day ever, the day before
that.
Yeah, the last four days havebeen pretty bad, but the story
is biggest stocks day ever.
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy Period.
The last four days have beenpretty bad, but the story is
biggest stocks day ever.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Period, right, but you broke it, dude.
And he's like no, no, no, Imade it.
I made the biggest day everhappen.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I guess technically that's true, but you made it
happen because you ruined it inthe first place.
You don't get credit for thatright, but to first place, you
know, don't?
You don't get credit for thatright, but it to him you do.
Yeah, anybody else would beashamed of that right.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah, yeah, shame does not exist in that that
family there um, one thing thatI've been noticing uh, with the
protests downtown, um, I've beenseeing more republican and
republican signs, likerepublicans against trump and
things like that okay, likethere are more folks like seeing
it and coming out and actuallysupporting it, which was they
kind of stood up, they had theirown little circle off to the
(30:34):
side there.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Well, they don't want to get cooties?
Yeah, there's a lot of thatgoing around.
Yeah, democrats have cooties.
I'm telling you, man, ifthey're standing outside with a
sign, they have cooties, allright.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
If you stand too close to them, you might come
back.
You might come back nextweekend.
Catch the gay or something.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, you might come back and protest again.
You might say oh, this is whatthey've been doing all along,
right.
Next thing you know, you're ona podcast.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, it's just fun to see people having a space to
come out and actually voicetheir opinions in some place
that traditionally has not been,you know, friendly to.
You know democrats,progressives, you know this has
been such a staunchly republicanarea for so long.
Just talking about el pasocounty.
El paso county colorado, uh,colorado springs, yeah, um, it's
such a red area and it will befor probably a few more cycles,
but, you know, getting thousandsof people to show up and to see
like republicans out there it's, and not as many guns pointed
(31:34):
at us, which is cool.
That's like during the floydprotest there was guys up on the
, on the parking garage, yeah,with like just walking, pacing
with rifles, with rifles like onlike on the roof, like yeah, at
the crowds that was defensivein the uh ags uh yeah, yeah,
yeah, so, but that's nothappening.
So I mean, yeah, that's progress, that's what we're all about.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
It's in the name.
It's in the name of the podcast, right?
Well, you know what?
I think that might be a goodplace to you know, let's, let's
leave it on a high note.
You're not getting guns pointedat you at the protest anymore.
That guns pointed at you at theprotest anymore, that's America
at its finest.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing.
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Thanks everybody.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah, join us again next week.
Thanks,
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