May 30, 2025 • 46 mins
What happens when military service values collide with partisan politics? Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson bring their veteran perspectives to bear on today's most pressing political issues, proving that thoughtful analysis can transcend rigid partisan lines.
The hosts kick off discussing their self-identification as "partially progressive," noting how political labels often fail to capture the nuanced views many veterans hold. This frames their ongoing coverage of Kilmar's disappearance—now at 77 days—after being detained during an immigration enforcement action. When Fox News dismissively covered the story, treating a missing veteran as disposable, it highlighted the dehumanization occurring in immigration enforcement nationwide.
Financial hypocrisy takes center stage as they dissect the Congressional Budget Office's projection that Trump's budget would increase government spending by $3.6 trillion over ten years—a stark contradiction to conservative fiscal principles. The discussion reveals how this spending prioritizes military contractors over community services, with potentially devastating consequences when disaster strikes communities lacking FEMA support.
The hosts don't shy away from examining controversial presidential pardons that appear directly tied to campaign donations, raising serious questions about the ethics of presidential pardon powers. Throughout, they maintain the perspective that principles should transcend party, particularly for those who've sworn an oath to defend the Constitution.
Their announcement of an upcoming D-Day memorial event serves as a poignant reminder of what service truly means—not blind loyalty to party or personality, but commitment to values greater than oneself. For veterans and civilians alike seeking thoughtful political analysis beyond partisan talking points, this episode delivers clarity through complexity.
Listen now to join the conversation about what democracy requires of us all—especially in times of extreme partisanship.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
This is the Pikes Peak Region'spolitical podcast that's
partially progressive.
Adam Gellert here with myco-host, dick Wilkerson.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm doing great man.
Partially progressive, I likeit, I like it, yeah, yeah,
that's actually.
We should change the name ofthe group to Partially
Progressive Veterans.
I mean, everybody else aroundhere is real progressive.
So I guess I find more and morethat I talk about that term.
A few years ago I was a littlebit like I definitely wanted to
(00:33):
be separate from the termprogressive, I think like when I
first got out of the militaryand got into the real politics,
and I think that's because whereI was it really did represent
the fringe of more of thepolitics in New Mexico at the
time, and so I was a littlehesitant about the word
progressive because it seemedlike it was associated with the
(00:53):
fringe.
But as I've gone on through thelast few years, I've found some
comfort in my own definition ofit.
I guess, yeah, and so I'm like,yeah, yeah, yeah, I am, I am
fairly progressive, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And if you look at historically, you've got
progressives like Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Teddy Roosevelt, right Way back then yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You can have good financial decision-making and
all these things and beprogressive still.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of toxicity
around the word, which is alwaysa planned thing.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
he, you know, sure you got, you know, media
involved, they're gonna try andget there.
It's a, it becomes a label thatyou can mudsling at, you know,
and so that's what I saw and Iwas like I want to be kind of
hesitant with that.
Plus, I knew I was going to be,um, probably trying to
fundraise from a lot of moderatepeople, and so if I had
progressive on my literaturecard that I'm handing out to
people that would have kept somemoney out of the campaign, they
would have said, nah, I likeyou, but what are you trying to
(01:56):
do?
But I've grown into the word, Iguess, so I like it.
I joined a group, right, if Ireally wasn't progressive, I
would have been like, no, Idon't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It's funny because I was just having a conversation
about kind of picking sides whenit comes to being a registered
voter, because everybody's kindof registered as independent
unless you pick Democrat orRepublican, but I'm reading a
really good book, or listeningto a good book right now, called
Finish what we Started, andit's about MAGA's rise and their
(02:28):
movement and how you know, thiselection cycle, or this
administration, is supposed tofinish what they started.
They started, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Project 2025, that kind of stuff right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Like the grand scheme Right.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, and it talks about you know some of these,
some of their you know leaders.
Uh, they really focused onfilling precinct organizers
around the city, because if youhave a good like network around
your city, then you can knock onmore doors, you can, you can
talk to more people and it justworks.
So instead of having peopleregister as independents, you
(03:01):
have them register asRepublicans.
People register as independents, you have them register as
Republicans.
Get them into the precinctorganizers and start building
from literally the lowestpossible unit.
Yeah, and now you know, talkingwith people and they have
troubles kind of slipping overto the Democrat side, because
there's always problems on everypolitical party.
But we're at that point nowwhere, if we want to be serious
(03:23):
about winning the elections, youhave to fill out all of your,
all of your roles, all yourspots.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's a team, oh , yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to
fill the org chart for sure,yeah, yeah, because you got to
know who's responsible for whatand you don't want to get lost
in the details and say, well,grassroots things just happen
organically, right?
No, no, they require a lot oforganization.
They actually require moreorganization because there's not
momentum like an inherentmomentum, where people are just
(03:49):
drawn into it.
That's what grassroots is, isthat you're pushing the roots
through the community and so you, things like that.
We do a ton of communication.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
A ton of outreach, like you said, just to get more
marshals, more volunteers.
Yeah, A lot goes into it.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
But yeah, where are we at on this podcast now.
So let's get started with ourKilmar count.
Unfortunately, we've probablyslipped into the phase of
shouting into the wind, which isfine, that's fine.
We're going to keep the candlelit and when we're saying, hey,
it's 377 days, we'll keep sayingit.
(04:34):
Right, we're going to keeptalking about it, because when
we stop talking about it,everybody stops talking about it
and we allow basically, we'vegiven permission to do stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
If there's one transferable skill that comes
from the military, it's shoutinginto the wind.
We can do this, we can do it.
We'll talk about it every week.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So we're at 77 days and here's why I gave that
comment just now.
I was flying on an airplaneyesterday and that's when I get
my biggest dose of Fox News,because on Southwest you can
watch live TV, tv and there'slike five news channels and five
broadcast channels and that'sit Right.
So I'll just switch back andforth between Fox and CNN and
MSNBC and just kind of clickaround.
(05:12):
So I watched quite a bit of Foxyesterday on the airplane and I
told Adam I said man, theymentioned Kilmar on Fox
yesterday and he was like areyou serious?
I said yeah, but here's whathappened.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Those Fox guys, there's always a yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So it was a panel of people in the afternoon show and
they had their token Democraton and she mentioned Kilmar.
And then Jesse Waters jumped inand he was like, yeah, where is
he?
And she's like he's in ElSalvador.
And he's like, exactly, he'slike never going to hear from
him again.
Who cares?
They?
He's like never going to hearfrom him again.
Who cares?
They said bring him back.
And we didn't.
So what?
Wow, that was it.
I mean, it was the he, you know, obviously.
(05:49):
I mean Trump would say the samething, but Jesse Waters can say
that for free, right, becausehe's not.
He's a TV talking head, right?
So he can be a little morebombastic with his language.
But it wasn't a joke, right?
You know what I'm saying?
It was a genuine sentiment oflike who cares?
He's already thrown in thetrash, stop talking about him.
And that was it.
Right, that was the.
(06:09):
There you go, adam, that's the.
Well, they talked about him.
But the most unfriendly,dehumanizing terms short of a
racial slur is how they talkedabout him.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And they're just okay with that solution.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
They all chuckled it off and blew on to the next
topic and just did not care.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That is sad.
That's such a sad state yeah weall know what's happened
they're raiding job sites now.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I just saw a video I started to see other stories of
other cities that are havingsimilar level.
Hundred people just disappearin places kind of like colorado
springs, you know, same size, orit's a big enough population
where there is a concentrationof immigrants, right.
I've seen that happen in otherstates where, you know, we don't
hear about it because it's notlocal to us and it's not a big
enough story to make a nationalstory.
(06:55):
But, dude, there's probablyeight to 10 different stories,
just like the Colorado Springsone around the United States
right now where some other lawenforcement activity was going
on and 50 to 150 people justdisappeared.
It's happening all over theplace, dude.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, I saw a video of them showing up to a
construction work site, yeah,and just pulling people off the
roof and, like one, the folksthat are hiring them, like if
you wanted to solve the problem,you would start actually
holding those people accountable.
Those people accountable?
Yeah, but that's never going tobe the case.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
They should pay a fine for every illegal
contractor that they have onsite and make it real steep and
see what happens.
You know what I'm saying?
How?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
are they going to just stay in business now?
You took off half theirworkforce.
Well, sure.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean there's a bunch of different issues
layers to that.
Just that one example of theproblem.
But I mean, if you like, yousay if you want to go couple
states and they're going todisappear, yeah, and it's scary
(08:07):
that on, like you know, the popmedia is this like yeah, it's oh
well, we did it.
This is this normal businessnow yeah, yeah, on to more.
You know, you know, pushingchristian values on yes, yes, uh
, that's something you know,I'll, I'll, I'll get in my in my
put my Christian hat on for asecond.
I see the news.
(08:28):
The press agent for DonaldTrump right, the lady that's his
press secretary, she sheprominently wears a cross every
time she's up on stage, right,good for her.
But then she opens her mouthand she doesn't sound like a
Christian at all.
It's just hate and anger andall these people are stupid and
we're going to do what we'regoing to do and you're just
(08:49):
going to have to shut up andsuck it, basically, and I'm like
, wow, I really like the shineon that cross.
You got there, you know, like,tell me more about how you're
following Jesus.
You know, it's really upsettingto me because I'm like do either
talk, smack or wear the cross.
Let's not do both, right?
I'm really kind of upset thatyou're getting up there and
telling me that you want todehumanize people and that you,
(09:12):
you feel totally fine with that.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So her and I think this is a strategy in general
with the Republicans right nowis, whenever anybody asks a
question, if you were to callout like a hypocrisy, like that,
they would just say, oh, that'sa stupid question.
Yeah, that's all that's.
I've heard that so many timesrecently where any reporter
asked them a question and oh,that's a stupid question.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Hard facts based question too, not a squishy
question, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Cause there's a representative down in Texas,
cause Texas just banned all andthings like that.
And you know, a guy was askingwhy can't adults we have alcohol
, we have others, and why can'tadults just do that?
Yeah, and you know he kind ofbroke it down, over-exaggerated
some things, yeah.
And then it was like and that'sjust a stupid question, and so
you talk down to them and thentry to squash their opinions.
And it's man, these people needto go.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, they need to get voted out and you know,
honestly, I'm going to do alittle bit of you know, there's
good people on both sides.
I'm going to invoke.
Trump a little bit here.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
That's where the partially progressive comes from
.
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
That's the partially.
No, that's the partially.
That is the flip side of whatwe were talking about earlier,
with progressivism and thelittle bit of dirty word it gets
sometimes.
That's the bad part of theconservatism.
Right, like they've got theirown version of that.
You know that's not justfascism.
They've got their own kind ofsensor free thought concept over
there as well.
Right, just kind of the same as, like, people that really shut
(10:35):
down somebody that's not superleft.
They have the same kind ofmentality.
They'll shut you down if you'renot just lock, stock and barrel
with whatever conservative ideathat they had that day, right,
and so the idea that anybody,anybody might want to use
cannabis well, that's juststupid.
Why would anybody want to dothat?
Right, because the Bible, youknow.
And it's like all right, we'rejust running out of options, we
(10:57):
can't talk anymore, right, likethere's no discussion to be had,
got it, we just need to voteyou out of office right, you
know, I mean, that's ithopefully.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Hopefully they organize down there.
You can hear that.
But another good question gotbrought up to uh president trump
the other day.
Yeah, um, talking about uh, howdid they word the question she?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
said uh, wall street analysts have coined a new term
and it's called taco trade.
How do you feel about that term?
Right, and he's like what'sthat?
And so she feel about that termRight and he's like what's?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And so she told him right.
So you know what it is right.
Tell us the acronym here.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Trump always chickens out.
That's what TACO stands for,right.
And so then he said what do youmean?
Trump kicks what now?
And she said chickens out.
And he said chickens out, yeah,hmm, yeah.
And then you saw his demeanorchange, as he was like his
feelings were hurt right and youcould see it it wasn't like he
made a sad face, but like he washurt it was one of those body
(11:53):
blows.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like.
And then he went on to list alike a couple instances of why
oh, that's because I I flexed onchina and then backed off right
.
Yeah, china and ukraine, europethat's because I I flexed on
china and then backed off right.
Yeah, china.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And ukraine, europe.
That's because I I was mean toeurope and then they said, let's
make a deal.
That's why you know yeah yeah,so, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So now the chicken taco is out there yeah oh god,
what a, what a way to uh make aname for yourself.
Whoever asked that question isgot it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
She will not be asked .
She won't be called on again.
That's for sure, that's howthey're running things in the
pit over there.
Nobody's coming back after youask a question like that.
You know she was on cnn thatnight though well, yeah, I'm
sure, and yeah, the um, the, thereplay and what you know, adam,
what you're talking about thereis the fact that it it points
out trump's delusion a lot oftimes of around how his policies
(12:42):
are and aren't affecting things.
He'll tell you that his, youknow, only because he created a
tariff is the reason why somecountry came to the table, or
something like that.
He won't tell you that that hadbeen already been happening or
that that you know industry hadalready negotiated all these
things.
He won't, he won't ever mentionthat, right.
And so the delusion there isthat he believes even just the
(13:03):
puffing of the chest towardsdoing a tariff and then never
actually implementing it andbacking it off it's all
bloviating, right, but he seesthat as foreign policy.
Like that is foreign policy.
And so when she asked him thatbasically all you do is talk a
lot of noise and then nothinghappens, and then you know
everybody, just bad thingshappen, but you don't actually
follow through.
(13:24):
And then you know everybody,just bad things happen, but you
don't actually follow through,yeah, you could see that he took
it as a.
It was like everything I do isis well thought out, it's
perfect, we will absolutely getto the end and you're just not
on board.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
so that's a nasty question here, right, and that
was his response to her well,it's so obvious that it's just a
gross like money grabbed by thebillionaires to like shake up
the stock because all the thedeals end up being what was
already in place.
Yeah, right, so he, he runs hismouth stock markets, tank
billionaire buddies, buy it allup and then he says, goes back
(13:57):
and they make money it's, yeah,it's clear as day pumping down
yeah it's clear as day whatthey're doing with it and to get
called out on it like I don'tknow, I love it, that that's
what hurt him, that finally,like that, they went for it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, and she invoked Wall Street, and I think that
may have been.
You know, true, that's trulywhere it came from as financial
analysts.
But also she knew that thatwould like have a bigger punch
to him, right, like he knowswhat the word Wall Street means.
And if the people there aresmart and capable and geniuses
and everything else and they'reall making up words about how
(14:33):
you're bad at your job, yeah,that really scuffed his shoes.
He's like wait a minute, wallStreet, those guys, I don't know
.
It just looked like a middleschool kid and somebody told him
like eighth graders, thinkyou're dumb, you know and he was
like huh you know why, you knowhow can anybody say that?
(14:55):
yeah, that's not right.
So the uh.
The takeaway from that, ofcourse, is that uh, trump's
gonna do what he wants to do.
He's gonna tell the story thathe wants to tell, and it's the
emperor has no clothes, kind ofthing, right?
Everybody knows what's actuallyhappening and you have to be
complicit and like willfullyignorant to say, oh, it's all
(15:15):
part of the master plan.
Can you explain what thatmaster plan is?
Well, trump's doing the weave,don't worry about it.
He's doing the weave with oureconomy and with all of our
foreign trade partners.
I'm not comfortable with that.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, trade partners like wartime allies just playing
with people's lives at thispoint.
And it's interesting that hehas said bad things about Putin
in the last week also, wherehe's like, oh, putin's kind of
gone crazy kind of gone crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I mean, again he thought that his bloviations,
even before he got elected, weregonna, I don't know, scare
putin into right like doingsomething.
Did you hear putin's response?
He said he, what that?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
he was having like an emotional response or something
yeah yeah, he pretty muchcalled him like a cry baby.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, yeah, like he's having an emotional response
yeah, yeah, and I just I thinkyou know at the in the, we
really don't know how how Putinand Trump speak to each other
when they do meet with eachother.
We don't know, they could besuper thick as thieves, we just
don't know.
Right, but why did?
Why did Trump ever believe thathe had other than blowing stuff
(16:21):
up?
Right?
Military leverage, yes, butjust friendly leverage against,
like the other most powerfuldude in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And the same thing with China.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
They threatened China and China was like okay, we can
do this.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
They just bought or they just dumped a ton of their
stocks or their bonds and thingslike that that we usually pay
them back with they're devaluingstuff on purpose.
They cashed out a lot of thoselike billions and billions of
dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, so they're okay playing this game, trying to
sever ties, yeah, yeah, and sothe idea that you were just
going to call your buddy and belike, hey, stop invading other
countries.
If that would have worked, thena war would have never happened
in the first place.
Right, happened in the firstplace, right, you know.
So, yeah, so I don't thinkputin's on board with anything
that trump thinks is going onright, and he's always had his
own agenda and he's never caredat all about what trump thought
(17:10):
about it.
Like not for one second did hecare about it.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
You know that was in in that tweet too was another
one.
You know, this is putin's war,this is zielinski, this is
biden's war oh, that was theother thing.
Yeah, he did say that this isno dude.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
this is not how it works, man.
June 21st or January 21st, itbecame your war brother.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
You said like I'd have this fixed in a day.
Yeah, yeah, that was 110 daysago.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah Well, the other crazy thing that's going on.
We got a few Donald Trumptopics this week.
He's really been pushing theenvelope, flooding the zone,
yeah, throwing a lot of noiseout there we're going to move on
to.
I guess we'll keep it on thefinancial topic for now.
Let's talk about tariffs, thebudget.
Um, the congressional budgetoffice came out and said that
(17:57):
there would be um donald trump'sbig, beautiful bill, which is
the budget bill, would have what?
3.6 or 3.8?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It's too much.
Yeah, more than $3 trillion,with a T of increased government
spending over a 10-year plan.
If Donald Trump's bill waspassed, as is after it left the
House, right, yeah, now I willgive some credence to the idea
that that organization ispotentially, um, a little bit
(18:31):
more partisan, biased in onedirection or another.
It's possible.
Uh, as far as running numbersor explaining outcomes, it is
possible.
Um, it should probably bestaffed with people that don't
necessarily have those, um, kindof intentions, but it's
possible.
Now, even if they were off by atrillion dollars 30% of their
estimate we're still talking$2.5 trillion of increased
(18:55):
spending.
Doge and Trump and all theconservatives, even in Congress,
have been all about we're goingto decrease spending, we're
going to decrease taxes, we'regoing to decrease the size of
government, and then the firstthing that he tries to do that's
not an executive order is thebiggest spending package ever in
(19:16):
the history of America.
Yeah, for the military.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And it's all going to a few big contractors out there
.
Yeah, I go to CongressmanCrank's office and talk with
some of his folks, his staffers,and that's one thing that they
always come back to Well, whatdo you want us to do about this
debt, this 34 trillion?
You know, because we'll talkabout cutting Medicaid, medicaid
, medicare Medicaid and you know, va benefits, and they're like
(19:43):
well, we have 34 point, whatevertrillion dollars in debt.
What do you want us to do aboutthat?
And that's always the thingthat they lean back on.
And now, after all of thesecuts, they're just gonna tack on
more.
And it's not.
And there's these services.
So, like, when the VA or anyother like government service
like gets money that comes backinto the community somehow yeah,
(20:07):
you know, back into, you know.
But when these big corporationsget all these billions of
dollars in contracts, like thatfilters straight up only to the
shareholders and the owners,exactly and then that net wealth
just sits in a bank and doesn'tdo anything for us.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, it doesn't become the grease that runs the
economy.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, so while trickle-down economics has been
around for 40 years, peoplestill think that it's going to
work Like the dam's going toburst, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And I still think that it's going to work Like the
dam's going to burst.
Yeah, right, right, it's not.
And the fact that— no, they'rereinforcing it right now it's
not going to burst.
They're building another layer.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Like they just don't care, they're just doing
whatever they want.
Yeah, and you know this goesback to what we kind of started
off with is how are so many goodChristian people that we know
are just okay with this?
You know, because when it comesdown to it, they're just
hateful policies and the purposeis to hurt.
Yeah, like the purpose is tohurt these communities.
(21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, and it's done under dog whistle type language,
you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And it's going to hurt their own communities too,
especially with, like you, thoseWest Virginia-type states where
they're going into hurricanetornado season right now.
They're going to get, oh,natural disaster problems.
Yeah they're going to getpummeled.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
And there's going to be no money for FEMA.
I cannot imagine how no moneyfor FEMA.
We talked about this in anepisode last year, about how
FEMA becomes the focal pointthat, like media and even people
that don't know anything aboutpolitics don't pay attention to
the government at all.
As soon as there's a naturaldisaster, FEMA becomes the
whipping boy.
There's conspiracies abound,there's you know, the
(21:46):
government's out to get us andit doesn't kind of doesn't
matter which side of thepartisan line you fall on, it
just kind of depends on wherethe disaster was Right.
And um, oh my gosh, I cannotimagine the dysfunction that is
going to happen later this yearwhen a big old hurricane smacks
Mississippi or something and thefederal government just kind of
puts their hands in theirpockets and goes hey, governor,
what do you need?
(22:06):
Yeah, Cause that's their planright now is just give the state
money and not like flowresources in, right, Just cut
them a check and say you guyscan call Cisco and they'll
deliver the food.
And you know, call Aqua Finaand they'll bring the water.
And here's your check, right,Like we're not doing it.
You got it what you know, andlike most state emergency
(22:27):
response agencies, they're oneof the smallest departments in
the state.
They'll have less than ahundred employees for the entire
state to coordinate a response.
Now, of course, you get all thevolunteers and fire departments
and you get a lot of labor thatshows up when the emergency
happens.
That's different because thosepeople get turned over into
jurisdictional, likehumanitarian support.
But the actual office thatadministrates all that stuff up
(22:51):
at the like the governor levelof each state, usually less than
a 100 people, but even thevolunteer corps.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
The volunteers are the victims at that point.
So you have to get volunteersthere too.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, and that's where From neighboring states or
other regions and stuff.
Yeah, so that's what I'm saying.
You're going to put this alldown to a group of 100 to less
than 500 people to coordinateeverything in a 300-mile swath
of damage you know what I'msaying.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Like they're very likely affected.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, yeah so it's just crazy, right, and that's
the plan.
So we get to.
You know I feel bad for thefolks that are going to suffer
from it, but we're going to seea little bit of firsthand.
Um man, you thought you wantedto complain about fema back when
they actually showed up.
Imagine when they don't show up.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, because it's been a few weeks since the last
round of hurricanes where adozen or so people died.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Or tornadoes.
You're saying, yeah, tornadoes.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And they're still waiting on resources.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's already happening and that's
small scale.
That's what I'm saying.
Wait until there's 25 countieswhere they haven't had food or
water in a week.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
It'll be interesting to see how the media covers that
yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Will they even mention FEMA, or will the focus
shift to something else?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah well, fox News.
All of a sudden we're on toforeign wars.
We're talking Ukraine.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
We're all about Yemen all of a sudden.
Right, Never mind what happenedin North Carolina If they get
smacked again, because that wasthe whole thing last year All
the conservatives just wentcrazy over what's going on in
North Carolina.
Let North Carolina get awildfire this year or something
and see what happens, right?
Yeah, the news fox will be allabout Yemen and China and
everything else.
They'll be like there's a shipout in the Chinese Sea, let's
watch it for the next week Justbecause there's no, you know,
(24:30):
it's insane.
Well, I appreciate that ElonMusk has parted ways with the
government on his own timeline,Like what was always agreed to.
There are some liberal punditsthat are saying he's been chased
out of Washington and he pissedoff too many people and he
stepped on toes and he's, youknow, getting in Trump's way and
blah, blah, blah.
Right, he did all that stuff,but he was also just leaving on
(24:50):
time.
Both of those things are true,Right, but he said man, he
brought me in here to slashspending and slash people and
slash departments.
And then he said that's cute,but we're actually going to
spend way more money than youknow.
We're going to increase tenfoldwhich you save.
We're going to increase thebudget 10 times more than
(25:11):
whatever you think you can save.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And he's like well, the budget 10 times more than
whatever you think you can saveand he's like, well, thanks for
nothing.
He's definitely going to be oneof the uh like dividers that
can actually like splinter thatwhole mega cult.
Yeah he has some persona swayright yeah, yeah, yeah, um,
because him and steve bannon,you know they've kind of
bickered back and forth before,so it'd be interesting to see if
they get into it again overthis, because he, I mean, for as
(25:36):
much as I hate the guy, he'sright on this one, yeah he's
like, yeah you were.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
You were told to go cut to save money and 3.6
trillion dollars later, 10 timesmore money than you saved is
getting laid out on the table,you know, yeah and that's just
this year yeah next year we mayincrease it again, where your
savings wouldn't even be afreaking rounding error compared
to what we're going to spendnext year, you know and just as
an alibi.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The money that Elon thinks he saved, probably like
everything he did, probably costus more money to try to fix you
know, yeah, yeah, yeah, to likebridge things together and
things like that, like like hecost us a lot of money in and of
himself, like, but he can atleast point to the thing saying,
well, I saved this much.
No, we're gonna have to fix allthat later.
Right now, we got to fix this.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah yeah, it's an illusion.
The savings are all projectedand they're all an illusion, and
the only thing that could evenbe really accounted for as far
as savings right now is thesalaries of the government
employees that are not at worktoday.
That's really it.
There's no other savings that'sactually codified or planned in
for the future, other thanthose people aren't coming back
to work.
That's it, and honestly, thatis.
(26:38):
We're talking hundreds ofmillions, not billions.
It's not that much money forthe government.
So it was an abysmal failure asfar as I'm concerned.
I want libertarian in me, wantsDoge to work, but it would
never work under Donald Trumpbecause it's not no, there was
no plan.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, there was no plan, there was just reckless
cutting.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It was a cartoon chainsaw and a dude on drugs.
That was it.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Like that was the plan.
I've had that dream yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
And he was in charge of everything for a couple weeks
, basically weeks, you knowbasically.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
So, um, so you know, we know that he he gave 200 and
some plus million dollars totrump's campaign and he said he
said that he's gonna pull backon his spending.
So hopefully that means he'snot gonna challenge everybody
that challenges oh right, getout there.
Yeah, protect the yeah like anysenator that doesn't vote for
us, we're gonna party.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
yeah, we're gonna do a primary against you, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
So hopefully people will start growing a sack and
actually start, like you know,voting against pushing back.
Yeah, but we have a whole newline of people buying their way
into the to the white house.
You know Trump's meme cointhere that was I can't remember
(27:55):
how the dollar amount on howmany billions of dollars it was.
Oh yeah, it went up and dropped, but they all got a
personalized White Houseinvitation dinner.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah Well, they went to Mar-a-Lago, but yeah.
White House of the South yeahFlorida White.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
House.
Yeah, yeah, and got you know alittle KFC chicken dinner.
Yeah, I don't know what theygot.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It didn't look good, but it was a million dollars.
And it's not that they bought amillion dollars of coin, right,
they had to just donate amillion dollars to something on
top of buying coin.
Right, you had to be a coinholder and you had to donate a
million dollars to get thisinvitation right.
But the lead-in here is it wentdown in Mar-a-Lago.
Man Backs got scratched.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, and that money just goes straight into Trump's
pocket.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Like, his net worth is up to like $2.4 billion like
higher since he's getting officehere yeah.
He's just funneling money intohis pockets in the open,
everybody's okay with it.
Yeah, like, how can you stopthat process when somebody is
literally, literally like giveme money and you can sit down
and be close to me and talk?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
to me yeah, and so you know you can't really.
I mean, well, in the currentyou should be able to, but not
in the current climate.
You can't, because the SupremeCourt already said that you can
do whatever you want, reallyright, and even though this is
by no means in line with hisofficial duties like there ain't
nothing official about thisRight, but you know he's still
the president, even when he'soff work.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Right and I'm sure it's all on White House dish
mats oh sure, yeah, for sure,it's all presidential labeled
stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It's not like it says Trump Enterprises, it says
President Trump on it.
But the story there that'sreally upsetting is that this
week there was a little flurryof pardons, right, and one of
the people that attended thatdinner was the mother of a
person who had criminal chargesand she bought in and then the
(29:45):
next day that her son waspardoned yeah, and he had
clemency from like tax evasionfraud something like that White
collar stuff yeah from like taxevasion, fraud, something like
that white collar stuff.
Yeah, um, but that was really.
You know, it was obvious thatit was just basically do me a
favor, right?
I mean, there was no other,nobody really questioned it,
right?
It was just like this lady washere and then 20 and even 24
(30:06):
hours later, her son, her son,is, you know, out, free to go
man, free man.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
And you brought this up to me because I hadn't even
heard about that, because I wasfocused on the Gretchen Whitmer
story where, you know, trump wassaying that he was going to
pardon the folks that weretrying to kidnap her.
And this is after she, you know, kind of stepped on Democrats'
toes by going to the White Houseand trying to have a
conversation trying to build arelationship and talk to them.
And she looked at the snake andthe snake's trying to bite her
(30:35):
now.
Yeah, yeah and you know.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So he's talking about releasing these folks that you
know, and he's downplaying it.
He said oh, they were drinkingand they were just sitting
around shooting the breeze.
Why would anybody go to prisonfor that?
Yeah, no, they bought equipment.
They bought night visiongoggles so they could sneak
around the governor's mansion atnight.
That's not a drinking buddiesplan, right?
You don't hop on Amazon.
Me and Adam don't sit around onAmazon and buy kidnapping gear.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
With plans of people's layout of their house.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, and which property should we go to to pick
her up?
If you can do that while you'redrunk, I'd like to.
I got a job for you, all right,I need to know how you do that.
You could be an air trafficcontroller.
We need those too.
We need those folks and if youcould manage to try to kidnap a
(31:29):
governor while you're hammered.
You could probably land a plane.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
So I was focused on that kind of a red herring story
and you, you kind of threw thisone at me.
So this is just another one ofthe tactics that you always see
is, whatever he's saying, it's aprojection of something bad
that they're doing behind thescenes.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, like he.
Just he has that way of liketrying to like say, oh, don't
look at me, pardoning peopleyeah, I'm gonna talk about
(31:55):
pardons over here yeah you knowit's like catching your kid
lying all the time you know umhe has a bad habit of trying to
deflect too closely yeah, yeah,um, he does, he needs a.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
He needs a little brother that he can blame
everything on right, like youknow.
That's what he needs, like hey,walk in and the lamp is broken.
He needs, needs me, he's likeJohnny did it.
But he doesn't have one ofthose and I guess JD Vance is
his little brother maybe.
Nobody would believe it ifTrump was like JD told me to do
(32:27):
it, They'd be like.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
that's not how that works Nor should it.
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well, again, we've been on trump all day today.
But the the pardons, um, everypresident can do it.
This is not the first timethere's been questionable or
shady pardons, not even thefirst time this year,
technically, that there's beenquestionable or shady pardons,
right, like this calendar year,right.
So you know I'm not going tofully throw him under the bus as
(32:53):
far as like, okay, I guess Iwant to throw our forefathers
under the bus of giving thepresident the ability to pardon
people like that.
I don't know, it seems likethat was a weird that's a good
point.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
You know what I'm saying?
I've never actually thoughtabout that.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Of all the things.
You didn't want your presidentto act like a king, giving them
a superpower over the judiciaryto say, yeah, judge, it's all on
the books and I believe you andall the truth is the truth, but
we're not going to keep them injail.
That's very kingly.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
to me it absolutely is.
But it's at the state level too.
The governors have that.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Governors have clemency and pardon powers as
well, especially when people areon death row.
Yeah, they're the ones thatsave them from that.
But it's just down to yourjurisdiction, right?
But I guarantee you stateswouldn't have had that if the
federal government didn't havethat, because the constitution
enshrined it first, right?
So I'm sure that stateconstitutions most likely didn't
have that, right?
Um, so I'm just guessing.
(33:46):
You know, who knows what thecolonies had, but I, it feels
like it was one of those weird,like they weren't quite sure
what to do, right.
And so they were like well,let's, let's leave a little gap
in there, you know, and that onethat one hasn't served us too
well over the years.
I can't imagine anybody who waslike most of the people that
ever do get pardoned had alreadybeen in prison for a long time.
(34:06):
The damage has already beendone to their life, like, maybe
they get a few years of freedomback or something like that.
I don't know historically, butthere's not a lot of political
benefit to it like it's.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I can't think of a situation where america was
better because somebody gotpardoned right like in the last
hundred years, like nelsonmandela right cruising down the
street, like yeah, like goodthing we set the record straight
with that guy or that gal, likeI don't know of any story where
we're like man.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It's really good we had that because america's
better.
Now, nah, it's only ever likeman.
That was shady, that wascorrupt.
Uh, why did he do that?
Who's that guy?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
you know start digging into and you're like,
yeah, this doesn't make senseyeah, it's definitely another
way we've uh monetized ourdemocracy.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah and, and I, so you know we'll, we'll, obviously
we're going to keep an eye onthat, but he'll keep doing it
and then whoever's after himwill do it again.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That's the frustrating thing, too is a lot
of times when the frustrationsare on both sides.
You know there are two sides ofa coin.
Yeah, it comes to like theinstitutional power that these
folks have and are clinging toand instead of having our
peaceful transfer of powers,like we're supposed to be,
(35:19):
having people coming and going,everybody's clinging to power
and making sure that they stayreelected.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
And I've got one last example of that.
It's related to all this Trumpstuff, but it's a little bit off
shade by like five degrees.
Here the FBI is opening upthose investigations again.
Have you heard about that?
There's three old.
Why are you bringing up oldstuff, fbi?
Well, because they're bones topick for trump and the
conservatives and the conspiracytheory people out there.
(35:46):
So here's the, here's the littlenarrative that I heard.
After bongino and kash patelhad to come out.
You know the director anddeputy director of f.
They went on TV and they saidEpstein killed himself.
There was no conspiracy.
I mean, we made up a conspiracybut in reality dude just killed
himself.
And those were the dudes thatliterally made money off of
(36:07):
saying that he didn't killhimself, right, like they
enriched themselves off theconspiracy.
And then they had to go on TVand under.
You know basically, hey, I'm anofficial now and I have to tell
the truth, like I believe thatI have to tell the truth.
Well, once that story came andwent and the red meat, the base
didn't get to eat the red meat.
So they said we got to go findsome more steaks.
And so cocaine in the WhiteHouse back during the Biden
(36:31):
administration.
In one of the little personnellockers right when you drop your
phone and, like your littlenotebook, somebody dropped their
bag of Coke on, you know, outof their notebook and it was a,
you know, an eight ball.
It wasn't like it was a kilostuck in there, it was obviously
personal use.
Now it's a crime.
Nobody in the white houseshould be doing blow.
I don't agree with any of that,you know.
(36:55):
Yes, that's a bad idea, butdoes it require multiple fbi
investigations over an eightball?
No, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Like you that whole industry, like the government
industry.
I'm sure there's a lot of folkson code oh oh, sure those
staffers are working incrediblehours.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, it's constantly I'm not excusing the product,
the behavior, the person thatdid it, but I am annoyed with a
news story or an administrativeinvestigation that's three, four
years old now and they're likewe need to dig this back up
because this is criminalenterprise.
And Hunter Biden and cocaineand crack he must have been
hiding guns and crack all overthe White House.
(37:30):
That's really what they want tosay.
Right?
Is that Hunter was in there,like pushing keys out of the
back loading dock of the whitehouse?
Right, that's not what happened, all right.
And then so there's that one.
There's the pipe bombs atjanuary 6th, the pipe bombs that
were left at the rnc and thednc, and there's like video
around a person moving aroundthe area.
Um, the initial investigationfrom way back then was basically
(37:54):
, we got too much other ProudBoys stuff to figure out this
thing.
Nothing blew up.
It was not related to theJanuary 6th rioters, it was some
other thing that wascoincidental, I guess, as far as
how it happened.
That was the old, oldinvestigation.
Basically, the dude with theeyepatch didn't order it, so
we're not going to investigateit.
Well, now the FBI wants to digback into that.
(38:18):
Right, because there'sconspiracy theories attached to
it because there was pipe bombsfound at both party headquarters
, right.
So it was sort of it couldn'thave been genuine and that it
was.
One or the other is going toblow up, depending on how the
day goes tomorrow.
So that must be proof that youknow Oswald didn't kill you know
whoever, right Like it's.
(38:39):
It's the proof that Cuba'sinvolved, right Like this guy's
some you know secret Chineseoperative or something like that
.
And there's obviously there'sgotta be some Bongino deep track
website out there that talksabout the pipe bombers and
that's why they're getting intoit.
So there's three differentstories like that where they're
bringing up old stuff becausethey're trying to feed the base,
and it's just.
I think this is the thing that Iwish would happen, but I know
(39:00):
will not happen.
The dudes who made up theconspiracies themselves are now
going to officially debunk allthe conspiracies and you know
what?
All the rest of the people wholisten to them still won't
believe them.
They'll believe in theconspiracy theory.
They'll say you got turned Onceyou took the oath.
The deep state got you rightand even though you sat out here
(39:21):
for the last 10 years railingon the deep state, the day you
raised your hand and swore anoath, you got a brain chip
implanted and you're a lizardperson now, right you?
know, yeah, yeah, drives mecrazy.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
And you can't argue with those folks Drives me crazy
.
And you can't argue with thosefolks?
No, there's no talking to them.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Because, to them, everything that's proof is proof
of the opposite of whateverright.
Oh well, you see, that happenedbecause of this right, yeah.
And there's always one morelayer to explore.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, they get to that point where, like the lack
of evidence shows that there's aconspiracy.
Yeah right, exactly oh man,there's Noah Hillary Clinton.
I am glad they're looking intothe pipe bomb thing, because I
think that is something thatdeserves some answers.
Further investigation Becausethere was some questionable
tours given by some members ofCongress.
(40:03):
But my concern is that if theydo ever find something, they're
not going to turn it over Ifit's somebody big.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh, if it was damning towards.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
If it's somebody big, oh, if it was damning towards,
if it's damning towards like asenator or a sitting
congressperson, they would justhold it over that person.
They would start doing like aKGB thing, blackmail them.
Yeah, just blackmail andcompromise and kind of have
their own little puppets on astring.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, I don't think getting to the bottom of it is
the point at all.
I agree with you there.
I don't think anybody reallycares about justice being served
.
I think there's just a bunch ofother reasons why they're doing
it, and that's really the pointof why I brought it all up.
Is that these dudes just are.
They're manufacturing news, notnews, they're manufacturing
investigations.
I guess you could say Right Totry something that they said
(40:50):
they happened against them.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
You know, yeah, yeah, just projection, and then yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Projection and then just make up something and be
like, look, we're going to go dothis now, right?
Um, I'll tell you for the firsttime.
I mean, I didn't care Cause I'ma, you know, I got nothing to
hide, so I don't hide anything,right, I don't believe that.
But up, I was at dulles airportyesterday and they weren't like
tactical geared up but likeoverly jacketed and hatted, like
(41:17):
they wanted to be physicallyvisible and present, you know,
and they were at some gate andso I'm assuming maybe somebody
was about to arrive and theyneeded to arrest them, something
like that.
But it was going down hot andin public and they wanted you to
know that the fbi was there.
Yeah, and that was the firsttime I'd ever seen the FBI have
a show of force presence likethat.
That wasn't.
(41:38):
You know, if you're already onscene on an investigation, sure,
the place is crawling withagents, right, but when there's
obviously nothing, like ain'tnothing going on right here in
this moment, it's an emptyhallway in an airport, but you
guys are just stacked up readyto do something, it was just
weird to me, and I guess I justnoticed it.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I was like that's that Kash Patel FBI right there,
I bet, because I mean I knowyou've probably had it a few
times in your career where youget told like don't wear your
uniform off base, yeah, don'tmake yourself a target, yeah,
and they're just over here likering girls, I mean yeah they
were way over the top with thatbranding.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
You know, and I think it's exactly they want.
Kash Patel wants the FBI to beseen as a certain type of force,
police force, organization,whatever you want to call it
right.
And he wants I think theybelieve again the red meat bang
for the buck.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
The base loves the idea of seeing law enforcement
geared up and out crackingskulls, basically, basically
right, that's what they want tosee.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah, and I don't want to say, you know, who knows
what they were there for.
But if, if, it was a brownperson getting off the airplane
from a random shithole country,as they call them, that they
were about to arrest, well, manthat, let's get our cell phones
out and put that on fox news youknow what I'm saying, so fbi
arrests scary terrorists youknow, and they got a visa I.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
You ever go back and look and see I didn't I didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I couldn't figure out what was going on.
No, but it was just a reallyweird appearance of the fbi at
the airport in the terminals,where I don't normally see that
type of stuff.
So yeah, so new world we'reliving in absolutely, yeah, yeah
, uh.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Last thing we wanted to talk about was uh, next
friday we're having a uh I don'twant to say celebration a
memorial event for uh the d-dayuh anniversary.
Uh, that's june 6th.
I'm down in memorial parkpavilions it's kind of on the
south side of memorial park.
Uh, show up, we'll have, youknow, some tents and booths for
uh making signs, things likethat, but we're gonna have seven
(43:31):
, I believe, speakers, um, justkind of talk about what it's
like to serve under oath andwhat it means to be a military
member and kind of reflect onwhat those men were going
through on D-Day.
There's no greater example ofwhat it means to serve under
oath than D-Day, when you'rejust piled into one of those
(43:53):
landing craft.
You can't see anything andyou're just piling towards your
death yeah, yeah, exactly yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
We talk about the fatal funnel now in close
quarters, combat right whenyou're kicking doors.
But man, yeah, yeah, I don't.
It wasn't even a funnel, it wasa.
It was a 180 degree barrage ofeverything you know just a flat
wall of death.
You know, yeah, and like theplan was just like army ants you
know just overwhelming numbers,just keep crawling, keep going,
yeah, crawl, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
The best story about D-Day that I like to tell is
about Teddy Roosevelt Jr.
He was a general, he was thehighest ranking person to make
landfall that day.
Yeah, and he did like, offcourse, their ship landed like
south and so he stepped off theboat and he's like, and they're
like, general, we're in thewrong spot.
He's like, well, we'll startthe war right here.
Then, yeah, and they startedfighting back up to get back up
(44:42):
to omaha and uh, ended up, youknow, doing like a flanking
maneuver and drawing some fireaway and like was pretty
critical, yeah.
But but yeah, what a what asack on that one yeah, no, I,
yeah, I um got you, sir.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So I'll give a little , a little preview.
I'm going to be one of thespeakers that adam mentioned and
, uh, so I figured you knowlet's just start.
Let me look at the medal ofhonor winners from d-day right,
I'm sure there's got to be some,right?
Yeah, well, there was 10 ummedal of honor winners from that
day, and so I went through andread all the citations and that
my speech is going to be about,you know, courage, courage under
fire, and and how we cancontinue to take that forward in
(45:16):
our lives now.
And it's based on the storiesof those medal of honor winners.
He was one of them.
He won a medal of honor forwhat you're talking about.
Yeah, so, yep.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Cool yeah.
So we're looking forward to uhyeah, next Friday, june 6th, uh
6 30 down at Memorial parkpavilions.
Uh, bring lawn chairs.
Uh, relaxes.
This isn't a protest again.
This is a memorial event tohonor the veterans that you know
just served on that day.
So, yeah, hope to see you outthere.
Other than that, I think that'sall we got for this week.
(45:46):
So thanks for joining us again.
This was Left Face.
I'm Adam Gillard with DickWilkinson.
Tune in next week.
Take care everybody.
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
This is the Pikes Peak Region'spolitical podcast that's
partially progressive.
Adam Gellert here with myco-host, dick Wilkerson.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm doing great man.
Partially progressive, I likeit, I like it, yeah, yeah,
that's actually.
We should change the name ofthe group to Partially
Progressive Veterans.
I mean, everybody else aroundhere is real progressive.
So I guess I find more and morethat I talk about that term.
A few years ago I was a littlebit like I definitely wanted to
(00:33):
be separate from the termprogressive, I think like when I
first got out of the militaryand got into the real politics,
and I think that's because whereI was it really did represent
the fringe of more of thepolitics in New Mexico at the
time, and so I was a littlehesitant about the word
progressive because it seemedlike it was associated with the
(00:53):
fringe.
But as I've gone on through thelast few years, I've found some
comfort in my own definition ofit.
I guess, yeah, and so I'm like,yeah, yeah, yeah, I am, I am
fairly progressive, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
And if you look at historically, you've got
progressives like Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Teddy Roosevelt, right Way back then yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You can have good financial decision-making and
all these things and beprogressive still.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of toxicity
around the word, which is alwaysa planned thing.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
he, you know, sure you got, you know, media
involved, they're gonna try andget there.
It's a, it becomes a label thatyou can mudsling at, you know,
and so that's what I saw and Iwas like I want to be kind of
hesitant with that.
Plus, I knew I was going to be,um, probably trying to
fundraise from a lot of moderatepeople, and so if I had
progressive on my literaturecard that I'm handing out to
people that would have kept somemoney out of the campaign, they
would have said, nah, I likeyou, but what are you trying to
(01:56):
do?
But I've grown into the word, Iguess, so I like it.
I joined a group, right, if Ireally wasn't progressive, I
would have been like, no, Idon't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It's funny because I was just having a conversation
about kind of picking sides whenit comes to being a registered
voter, because everybody's kindof registered as independent
unless you pick Democrat orRepublican, but I'm reading a
really good book, or listeningto a good book right now, called
Finish what we Started, andit's about MAGA's rise and their
(02:28):
movement and how you know, thiselection cycle, or this
administration, is supposed tofinish what they started.
They started, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Project 2025, that kind of stuff right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Like the grand scheme Right.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, and it talks about you know some of these,
some of their you know leaders.
Uh, they really focused onfilling precinct organizers
around the city, because if youhave a good like network around
your city, then you can knock onmore doors, you can, you can
talk to more people and it justworks.
So instead of having peopleregister as independents, you
(03:01):
have them register asRepublicans.
People register as independents, you have them register as
Republicans.
Get them into the precinctorganizers and start building
from literally the lowestpossible unit.
Yeah, and now you know, talkingwith people and they have
troubles kind of slipping overto the Democrat side, because
there's always problems on everypolitical party.
But we're at that point nowwhere, if we want to be serious
(03:23):
about winning the elections, youhave to fill out all of your,
all of your roles, all yourspots.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's a team, oh , yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to
fill the org chart for sure,yeah, yeah, because you got to
know who's responsible for whatand you don't want to get lost
in the details and say, well,grassroots things just happen
organically, right?
No, no, they require a lot oforganization.
They actually require moreorganization because there's not
momentum like an inherentmomentum, where people are just
(03:49):
drawn into it.
That's what grassroots is, isthat you're pushing the roots
through the community and so you, things like that.
We do a ton of communication.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
A ton of outreach, like you said, just to get more
marshals, more volunteers.
Yeah, A lot goes into it.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
But yeah, where are we at on this podcast now.
So let's get started with ourKilmar count.
Unfortunately, we've probablyslipped into the phase of
shouting into the wind, which isfine, that's fine.
We're going to keep the candlelit and when we're saying, hey,
it's 377 days, we'll keep sayingit.
(04:34):
Right, we're going to keeptalking about it, because when
we stop talking about it,everybody stops talking about it
and we allow basically, we'vegiven permission to do stuff
like that.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
If there's one transferable skill that comes
from the military, it's shoutinginto the wind.
We can do this, we can do it.
We'll talk about it every week.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So we're at 77 days and here's why I gave that
comment just now.
I was flying on an airplaneyesterday and that's when I get
my biggest dose of Fox News,because on Southwest you can
watch live TV, tv and there'slike five news channels and five
broadcast channels and that'sit Right.
So I'll just switch back andforth between Fox and CNN and
MSNBC and just kind of clickaround.
(05:12):
So I watched quite a bit of Foxyesterday on the airplane and I
told Adam I said man, theymentioned Kilmar on Fox
yesterday and he was like areyou serious?
I said yeah, but here's whathappened.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Those Fox guys, there's always a yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So it was a panel of people in the afternoon show and
they had their token Democraton and she mentioned Kilmar.
And then Jesse Waters jumped inand he was like, yeah, where is
he?
And she's like he's in ElSalvador.
And he's like, exactly, he'slike never going to hear from
him again.
Who cares?
They?
He's like never going to hearfrom him again.
Who cares?
They said bring him back.
And we didn't.
So what?
Wow, that was it.
I mean, it was the he, you know, obviously.
(05:49):
I mean Trump would say the samething, but Jesse Waters can say
that for free, right, becausehe's not.
He's a TV talking head, right?
So he can be a little morebombastic with his language.
But it wasn't a joke, right?
You know what I'm saying?
It was a genuine sentiment oflike who cares?
He's already thrown in thetrash, stop talking about him.
And that was it.
Right, that was the.
(06:09):
There you go, adam, that's the.
Well, they talked about him.
But the most unfriendly,dehumanizing terms short of a
racial slur is how they talkedabout him.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And they're just okay with that solution.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
They all chuckled it off and blew on to the next
topic and just did not care.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That is sad.
That's such a sad state yeah weall know what's happened
they're raiding job sites now.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
I just saw a video I started to see other stories of
other cities that are havingsimilar level.
Hundred people just disappearin places kind of like colorado
springs, you know, same size, orit's a big enough population
where there is a concentrationof immigrants, right.
I've seen that happen in otherstates where, you know, we don't
hear about it because it's notlocal to us and it's not a big
enough story to make a nationalstory.
(06:55):
But, dude, there's probablyeight to 10 different stories,
just like the Colorado Springsone around the United States
right now where some other lawenforcement activity was going
on and 50 to 150 people justdisappeared.
It's happening all over theplace, dude.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, I saw a video of them showing up to a
construction work site, yeah,and just pulling people off the
roof and, like one, the folksthat are hiring them, like if
you wanted to solve the problem,you would start actually
holding those people accountable.
Those people accountable?
Yeah, but that's never going tobe the case.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
They should pay a fine for every illegal
contractor that they have onsite and make it real steep and
see what happens.
You know what I'm saying?
How?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
are they going to just stay in business now?
You took off half theirworkforce.
Well, sure.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, I mean there's a bunch of different issues
layers to that.
Just that one example of theproblem.
But I mean, if you like, yousay if you want to go couple
states and they're going todisappear, yeah, and it's scary
(08:07):
that on, like you know, the popmedia is this like yeah, it's oh
well, we did it.
This is this normal businessnow yeah, yeah, on to more.
You know, you know, pushingchristian values on yes, yes, uh
, that's something you know,I'll, I'll, I'll get in my in my
put my Christian hat on for asecond.
I see the news.
(08:28):
The press agent for DonaldTrump right, the lady that's his
press secretary, she sheprominently wears a cross every
time she's up on stage, right,good for her.
But then she opens her mouthand she doesn't sound like a
Christian at all.
It's just hate and anger andall these people are stupid and
we're going to do what we'regoing to do and you're just
(08:49):
going to have to shut up andsuck it, basically, and I'm like
, wow, I really like the shineon that cross.
You got there, you know, like,tell me more about how you're
following Jesus.
You know, it's really upsettingto me because I'm like do either
talk, smack or wear the cross.
Let's not do both, right?
I'm really kind of upset thatyou're getting up there and
telling me that you want todehumanize people and that you,
(09:12):
you feel totally fine with that.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So her and I think this is a strategy in general
with the Republicans right nowis, whenever anybody asks a
question, if you were to callout like a hypocrisy, like that,
they would just say, oh, that'sa stupid question.
Yeah, that's all that's.
I've heard that so many timesrecently where any reporter
asked them a question and oh,that's a stupid question.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Hard facts based question too, not a squishy
question, right yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Cause there's a representative down in Texas,
cause Texas just banned all andthings like that.
And you know, a guy was askingwhy can't adults we have alcohol
, we have others, and why can'tadults just do that?
Yeah, and you know he kind ofbroke it down, over-exaggerated
some things, yeah.
And then it was like and that'sjust a stupid question, and so
you talk down to them and thentry to squash their opinions.
And it's man, these people needto go.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, they need to get voted out and you know,
honestly, I'm going to do alittle bit of you know, there's
good people on both sides.
I'm going to invoke.
Trump a little bit here.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
That's where the partially progressive comes from
.
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
That's the partially.
No, that's the partially.
That is the flip side of whatwe were talking about earlier,
with progressivism and thelittle bit of dirty word it gets
sometimes.
That's the bad part of theconservatism.
Right, like they've got theirown version of that.
You know that's not justfascism.
They've got their own kind ofsensor free thought concept over
there as well.
Right, just kind of the same as, like, people that really shut
(10:35):
down somebody that's not superleft.
They have the same kind ofmentality.
They'll shut you down if you'renot just lock, stock and barrel
with whatever conservative ideathat they had that day, right,
and so the idea that anybody,anybody might want to use
cannabis well, that's juststupid.
Why would anybody want to dothat?
Right, because the Bible, youknow.
And it's like all right, we'rejust running out of options, we
(10:57):
can't talk anymore, right, likethere's no discussion to be had,
got it, we just need to voteyou out of office right, you
know, I mean, that's ithopefully.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Hopefully they organize down there.
You can hear that.
But another good question gotbrought up to uh president trump
the other day.
Yeah, um, talking about uh, howdid they word the question she?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
said uh, wall street analysts have coined a new term
and it's called taco trade.
How do you feel about that term?
Right, and he's like what'sthat?
And so she feel about that termRight and he's like what's?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And so she told him right.
So you know what it is right.
Tell us the acronym here.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Trump always chickens out.
That's what TACO stands for,right.
And so then he said what do youmean?
Trump kicks what now?
And she said chickens out.
And he said chickens out, yeah,hmm, yeah.
And then you saw his demeanorchange, as he was like his
feelings were hurt right and youcould see it it wasn't like he
made a sad face, but like he washurt it was one of those body
(11:53):
blows.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like.
And then he went on to list alike a couple instances of why
oh, that's because I I flexed onchina and then backed off right
.
Yeah, china and ukraine, europethat's because I I flexed on
china and then backed off right.
Yeah, china.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And ukraine, europe.
That's because I I was mean toeurope and then they said, let's
make a deal.
That's why you know yeah yeah,so, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So now the chicken taco is out there yeah oh god,
what a, what a way to uh make aname for yourself.
Whoever asked that question isgot it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
She will not be asked .
She won't be called on again.
That's for sure, that's howthey're running things in the
pit over there.
Nobody's coming back after youask a question like that.
You know she was on cnn thatnight though well, yeah, I'm
sure, and yeah, the um, the, thereplay and what you know, adam,
what you're talking about thereis the fact that it it points
out trump's delusion a lot oftimes of around how his policies
(12:42):
are and aren't affecting things.
He'll tell you that his, youknow, only because he created a
tariff is the reason why somecountry came to the table, or
something like that.
He won't tell you that that hadbeen already been happening or
that that you know industry hadalready negotiated all these
things.
He won't, he won't ever mentionthat, right.
And so the delusion there isthat he believes even just the
(13:03):
puffing of the chest towardsdoing a tariff and then never
actually implementing it andbacking it off it's all
bloviating, right, but he seesthat as foreign policy.
Like that is foreign policy.
And so when she asked him thatbasically all you do is talk a
lot of noise and then nothinghappens, and then you know
everybody, just bad thingshappen, but you don't actually
follow through.
(13:24):
And then you know everybody,just bad things happen, but you
don't actually follow through,yeah, you could see that he took
it as a.
It was like everything I do isis well thought out, it's
perfect, we will absolutely getto the end and you're just not
on board.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
so that's a nasty question here, right, and that
was his response to her well,it's so obvious that it's just a
gross like money grabbed by thebillionaires to like shake up
the stock because all the thedeals end up being what was
already in place.
Yeah, right, so he, he runs hismouth stock markets, tank
billionaire buddies, buy it allup and then he says, goes back
(13:57):
and they make money it's, yeah,it's clear as day pumping down
yeah it's clear as day whatthey're doing with it and to get
called out on it like I don'tknow, I love it, that that's
what hurt him, that finally,like that, they went for it.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, and she invoked Wall Street, and I think that
may have been.
You know, true, that's trulywhere it came from as financial
analysts.
But also she knew that thatwould like have a bigger punch
to him, right, like he knowswhat the word Wall Street means.
And if the people there aresmart and capable and geniuses
and everything else and they'reall making up words about how
(14:33):
you're bad at your job, yeah,that really scuffed his shoes.
He's like wait a minute, wallStreet, those guys, I don't know
.
It just looked like a middleschool kid and somebody told him
like eighth graders, thinkyou're dumb, you know and he was
like huh you know why, you knowhow can anybody say that?
(14:55):
yeah, that's not right.
So the uh.
The takeaway from that, ofcourse, is that uh, trump's
gonna do what he wants to do.
He's gonna tell the story thathe wants to tell, and it's the
emperor has no clothes, kind ofthing, right?
Everybody knows what's actuallyhappening and you have to be
complicit and like willfullyignorant to say, oh, it's all
(15:15):
part of the master plan.
Can you explain what thatmaster plan is?
Well, trump's doing the weave,don't worry about it.
He's doing the weave with oureconomy and with all of our
foreign trade partners.
I'm not comfortable with that.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, trade partners like wartime allies just playing
with people's lives at thispoint.
And it's interesting that hehas said bad things about Putin
in the last week also, wherehe's like, oh, putin's kind of
gone crazy kind of gone crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I mean, again he thought that his bloviations,
even before he got elected, weregonna, I don't know, scare
putin into right like doingsomething.
Did you hear putin's response?
He said he, what that?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
he was having like an emotional response or something
yeah yeah, he pretty muchcalled him like a cry baby.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, yeah, like he's having an emotional response
yeah, yeah, and I just I thinkyou know at the in the, we
really don't know how how Putinand Trump speak to each other
when they do meet with eachother.
We don't know, they could besuper thick as thieves, we just
don't know.
Right, but why did?
Why did Trump ever believe thathe had other than blowing stuff
(16:21):
up?
Right?
Military leverage, yes, butjust friendly leverage against,
like the other most powerfuldude in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And the same thing with China.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
They threatened China and China was like okay, we can
do this.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah right.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
They just bought or they just dumped a ton of their
stocks or their bonds and thingslike that that we usually pay
them back with they're devaluingstuff on purpose.
They cashed out a lot of thoselike billions and billions of
dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, so they're okay playing this game, trying to
sever ties, yeah, yeah, and sothe idea that you were just
going to call your buddy and belike, hey, stop invading other
countries.
If that would have worked, thena war would have never happened
in the first place.
Right, happened in the firstplace, right, you know.
So, yeah, so I don't thinkputin's on board with anything
that trump thinks is going onright, and he's always had his
own agenda and he's never caredat all about what trump thought
(17:10):
about it.
Like not for one second did hecare about it.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
You know that was in in that tweet too was another
one.
You know, this is putin's war,this is zielinski, this is
biden's war oh, that was theother thing.
Yeah, he did say that this isno dude.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
this is not how it works, man.
June 21st or January 21st, itbecame your war brother.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
You said like I'd have this fixed in a day.
Yeah, yeah, that was 110 daysago.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah Well, the other crazy thing that's going on.
We got a few Donald Trumptopics this week.
He's really been pushing theenvelope, flooding the zone,
yeah, throwing a lot of noiseout there we're going to move on
to.
I guess we'll keep it on thefinancial topic for now.
Let's talk about tariffs, thebudget.
Um, the congressional budgetoffice came out and said that
(17:57):
there would be um donald trump'sbig, beautiful bill, which is
the budget bill, would have what?
3.6 or 3.8?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It's too much.
Yeah, more than $3 trillion,with a T of increased government
spending over a 10-year plan.
If Donald Trump's bill waspassed, as is after it left the
House, right, yeah, now I willgive some credence to the idea
that that organization ispotentially, um, a little bit
(18:31):
more partisan, biased in onedirection or another.
It's possible.
Uh, as far as running numbersor explaining outcomes, it is
possible.
Um, it should probably bestaffed with people that don't
necessarily have those, um, kindof intentions, but it's
possible.
Now, even if they were off by atrillion dollars 30% of their
estimate we're still talking$2.5 trillion of increased
(18:55):
spending.
Doge and Trump and all theconservatives, even in Congress,
have been all about we're goingto decrease spending, we're
going to decrease taxes, we'regoing to decrease the size of
government, and then the firstthing that he tries to do that's
not an executive order is thebiggest spending package ever in
(19:16):
the history of America.
Yeah, for the military.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
And it's all going to a few big contractors out there
.
Yeah, I go to CongressmanCrank's office and talk with
some of his folks, his staffers,and that's one thing that they
always come back to Well, whatdo you want us to do about this
debt, this 34 trillion?
You know, because we'll talkabout cutting Medicaid, medicaid
, medicare Medicaid and you know, va benefits, and they're like
(19:43):
well, we have 34 point, whatevertrillion dollars in debt.
What do you want us to do aboutthat?
And that's always the thingthat they lean back on.
And now, after all of thesecuts, they're just gonna tack on
more.
And it's not.
And there's these services.
So, like, when the VA or anyother like government service
like gets money that comes backinto the community somehow yeah,
(20:07):
you know, back into, you know.
But when these big corporationsget all these billions of
dollars in contracts, like thatfilters straight up only to the
shareholders and the owners,exactly and then that net wealth
just sits in a bank and doesn'tdo anything for us.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, it doesn't become the grease that runs the
economy.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, so while trickle-down economics has been
around for 40 years, peoplestill think that it's going to
work Like the dam's going toburst, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
And I still think that it's going to work Like the
dam's going to burst.
Yeah, right, right, it's not.
And the fact that— no, they'rereinforcing it right now it's
not going to burst.
They're building another layer.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Like they just don't care, they're just doing
whatever they want.
Yeah, and you know this goesback to what we kind of started
off with is how are so many goodChristian people that we know
are just okay with this?
You know, because when it comesdown to it, they're just
hateful policies and the purposeis to hurt.
Yeah, like the purpose is tohurt these communities.
(21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, and it's done under dog whistle type language,
you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And it's going to hurt their own communities too,
especially with, like you, thoseWest Virginia-type states where
they're going into hurricanetornado season right now.
They're going to get, oh,natural disaster problems.
Yeah they're going to getpummeled.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
And there's going to be no money for FEMA.
I cannot imagine how no moneyfor FEMA.
We talked about this in anepisode last year, about how
FEMA becomes the focal pointthat, like media and even people
that don't know anything aboutpolitics don't pay attention to
the government at all.
As soon as there's a naturaldisaster, FEMA becomes the
whipping boy.
There's conspiracies abound,there's you know, the
(21:46):
government's out to get us andit doesn't kind of doesn't
matter which side of thepartisan line you fall on, it
just kind of depends on wherethe disaster was Right.
And um, oh my gosh, I cannotimagine the dysfunction that is
going to happen later this yearwhen a big old hurricane smacks
Mississippi or something and thefederal government just kind of
puts their hands in theirpockets and goes hey, governor,
what do you need?
(22:06):
Yeah, Cause that's their planright now is just give the state
money and not like flowresources in, right, Just cut
them a check and say you guyscan call Cisco and they'll
deliver the food.
And you know, call Aqua Finaand they'll bring the water.
And here's your check, right,Like we're not doing it.
You got it what you know, andlike most state emergency
(22:27):
response agencies, they're oneof the smallest departments in
the state.
They'll have less than ahundred employees for the entire
state to coordinate a response.
Now, of course, you get all thevolunteers and fire departments
and you get a lot of labor thatshows up when the emergency
happens.
That's different because thosepeople get turned over into
jurisdictional, likehumanitarian support.
But the actual office thatadministrates all that stuff up
(22:51):
at the like the governor levelof each state, usually less than
a 100 people, but even thevolunteer corps.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
The volunteers are the victims at that point.
So you have to get volunteersthere too.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, and that's where From neighboring states or
other regions and stuff.
Yeah, so that's what I'm saying.
You're going to put this alldown to a group of 100 to less
than 500 people to coordinateeverything in a 300-mile swath
of damage you know what I'msaying.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Like they're very likely affected.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, yeah so it's just crazy, right, and that's
the plan.
So we get to.
You know I feel bad for thefolks that are going to suffer
from it, but we're going to seea little bit of firsthand.
Um man, you thought you wantedto complain about fema back when
they actually showed up.
Imagine when they don't show up.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Well, because it's been a few weeks since the last
round of hurricanes where adozen or so people died.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Or tornadoes.
You're saying, yeah, tornadoes.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And they're still waiting on resources.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's already happening and that's
small scale.
That's what I'm saying.
Wait until there's 25 countieswhere they haven't had food or
water in a week.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
It'll be interesting to see how the media covers that
yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Will they even mention FEMA, or will the focus
shift to something else?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah well, fox News.
All of a sudden we're on toforeign wars.
We're talking Ukraine.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
We're all about Yemen all of a sudden.
Right, Never mind what happenedin North Carolina If they get
smacked again, because that wasthe whole thing last year All
the conservatives just wentcrazy over what's going on in
North Carolina.
Let North Carolina get awildfire this year or something
and see what happens, right?
Yeah, the news fox will be allabout Yemen and China and
everything else.
They'll be like there's a shipout in the Chinese Sea, let's
watch it for the next week Justbecause there's no, you know,
(24:30):
it's insane.
Well, I appreciate that ElonMusk has parted ways with the
government on his own timeline,Like what was always agreed to.
There are some liberal punditsthat are saying he's been chased
out of Washington and he pissedoff too many people and he
stepped on toes and he's, youknow, getting in Trump's way and
blah, blah, blah.
Right, he did all that stuff,but he was also just leaving on
(24:50):
time.
Both of those things are true,Right, but he said man, he
brought me in here to slashspending and slash people and
slash departments.
And then he said that's cute,but we're actually going to
spend way more money than youknow.
We're going to increase tenfoldwhich you save.
We're going to increase thebudget 10 times more than
(25:11):
whatever you think you can save.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And he's like well, the budget 10 times more than
whatever you think you can saveand he's like, well, thanks for
nothing.
He's definitely going to be oneof the uh like dividers that
can actually like splinter thatwhole mega cult.
Yeah he has some persona swayright yeah, yeah, yeah, um,
because him and steve bannon,you know they've kind of
bickered back and forth before,so it'd be interesting to see if
they get into it again overthis, because he, I mean, for as
(25:36):
much as I hate the guy, he'sright on this one, yeah he's
like, yeah you were.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
You were told to go cut to save money and 3.6
trillion dollars later, 10 timesmore money than you saved is
getting laid out on the table,you know, yeah and that's just
this year yeah next year we mayincrease it again, where your
savings wouldn't even be afreaking rounding error compared
to what we're going to spendnext year, you know and just as
an alibi.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The money that Elon thinks he saved, probably like
everything he did, probably costus more money to try to fix you
know, yeah, yeah, yeah, to likebridge things together and
things like that, like like hecost us a lot of money in and of
himself, like, but he can atleast point to the thing saying,
well, I saved this much.
No, we're gonna have to fix allthat later.
Right now, we got to fix this.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah yeah, it's an illusion.
The savings are all projectedand they're all an illusion, and
the only thing that could evenbe really accounted for as far
as savings right now is thesalaries of the government
employees that are not at worktoday.
That's really it.
There's no other savings that'sactually codified or planned in
for the future, other thanthose people aren't coming back
to work.
That's it, and honestly, thatis.
(26:38):
We're talking hundreds ofmillions, not billions.
It's not that much money forthe government.
So it was an abysmal failure asfar as I'm concerned.
I want libertarian in me, wantsDoge to work, but it would
never work under Donald Trumpbecause it's not no, there was
no plan.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, there was no plan, there was just reckless
cutting.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It was a cartoon chainsaw and a dude on drugs.
That was it.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Like that was the plan.
I've had that dream yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
And he was in charge of everything for a couple weeks
, basically weeks, you knowbasically.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
So, um, so you know, we know that he he gave 200 and
some plus million dollars totrump's campaign and he said he
said that he's gonna pull backon his spending.
So hopefully that means he'snot gonna challenge everybody
that challenges oh right, getout there.
Yeah, protect the yeah like anysenator that doesn't vote for
us, we're gonna party.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
yeah, we're gonna do a primary against you, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
So hopefully people will start growing a sack and
actually start, like you know,voting against pushing back.
Yeah, but we have a whole newline of people buying their way
into the to the white house.
You know Trump's meme cointhere that was I can't remember
(27:55):
how the dollar amount on howmany billions of dollars it was.
Oh yeah, it went up and dropped, but they all got a
personalized White Houseinvitation dinner.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah Well, they went to Mar-a-Lago, but yeah.
White House of the South yeahFlorida White.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
House.
Yeah, yeah, and got you know alittle KFC chicken dinner.
Yeah, I don't know what theygot.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It didn't look good, but it was a million dollars.
And it's not that they bought amillion dollars of coin, right,
they had to just donate amillion dollars to something on
top of buying coin.
Right, you had to be a coinholder and you had to donate a
million dollars to get thisinvitation right.
But the lead-in here is it wentdown in Mar-a-Lago.
Man Backs got scratched.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, and that money just goes straight into Trump's
pocket.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Like, his net worth is up to like $2.4 billion like
higher since he's getting officehere yeah.
He's just funneling money intohis pockets in the open,
everybody's okay with it.
Yeah, like, how can you stopthat process when somebody is
literally, literally like giveme money and you can sit down
and be close to me and talk?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
to me yeah, and so you know you can't really.
I mean, well, in the currentyou should be able to, but not
in the current climate.
You can't, because the SupremeCourt already said that you can
do whatever you want, reallyright, and even though this is
by no means in line with hisofficial duties like there ain't
nothing official about thisRight, but you know he's still
the president, even when he'soff work.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Right and I'm sure it's all on White House dish
mats oh sure, yeah, for sure,it's all presidential labeled
stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It's not like it says Trump Enterprises, it says
President Trump on it.
But the story there that'sreally upsetting is that this
week there was a little flurryof pardons, right, and one of
the people that attended thatdinner was the mother of a
person who had criminal chargesand she bought in and then the
(29:45):
next day that her son waspardoned yeah, and he had
clemency from like tax evasionfraud something like that White
collar stuff yeah from like taxevasion, fraud, something like
that white collar stuff.
Yeah, um, but that was really.
You know, it was obvious thatit was just basically do me a
favor, right?
I mean, there was no other,nobody really questioned it,
right?
It was just like this lady washere and then 20 and even 24
(30:06):
hours later, her son, her son,is, you know, out, free to go
man, free man.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
And you brought this up to me because I hadn't even
heard about that, because I wasfocused on the Gretchen Whitmer
story where, you know, trump wassaying that he was going to
pardon the folks that weretrying to kidnap her.
And this is after she, you know, kind of stepped on Democrats'
toes by going to the White Houseand trying to have a
conversation trying to build arelationship and talk to them.
And she looked at the snake andthe snake's trying to bite her
(30:35):
now.
Yeah, yeah and you know.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
So he's talking about releasing these folks that you
know, and he's downplaying it.
He said oh, they were drinkingand they were just sitting
around shooting the breeze.
Why would anybody go to prisonfor that?
Yeah, no, they bought equipment.
They bought night visiongoggles so they could sneak
around the governor's mansion atnight.
That's not a drinking buddiesplan, right?
You don't hop on Amazon.
Me and Adam don't sit around onAmazon and buy kidnapping gear.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
With plans of people's layout of their house.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, and which property should we go to to pick
her up?
If you can do that while you'redrunk, I'd like to.
I got a job for you, all right,I need to know how you do that.
You could be an air trafficcontroller.
We need those too.
We need those folks and if youcould manage to try to kidnap a
(31:29):
governor while you're hammered.
You could probably land a plane.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
So I was focused on that kind of a red herring story
and you, you kind of threw thisone at me.
So this is just another one ofthe tactics that you always see
is, whatever he's saying, it's aprojection of something bad
that they're doing behind thescenes.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, like he.
Just he has that way of liketrying to like say, oh, don't
look at me, pardoning peopleyeah, I'm gonna talk about
(31:55):
pardons over here yeah you knowit's like catching your kid
lying all the time you know umhe has a bad habit of trying to
deflect too closely yeah, yeah,um, he does, he needs a.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
He needs a little brother that he can blame
everything on right, like youknow.
That's what he needs, like hey,walk in and the lamp is broken.
He needs, needs me, he's likeJohnny did it.
But he doesn't have one ofthose and I guess JD Vance is
his little brother maybe.
Nobody would believe it ifTrump was like JD told me to do
(32:27):
it, They'd be like.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
that's not how that works Nor should it.
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Well, again, we've been on trump all day today.
But the the pardons, um, everypresident can do it.
This is not the first timethere's been questionable or
shady pardons, not even thefirst time this year,
technically, that there's beenquestionable or shady pardons,
right, like this calendar year,right.
So you know I'm not going tofully throw him under the bus as
(32:53):
far as like, okay, I guess Iwant to throw our forefathers
under the bus of giving thepresident the ability to pardon
people like that.
I don't know, it seems likethat was a weird that's a good
point.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
You know what I'm saying?
I've never actually thoughtabout that.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Of all the things.
You didn't want your presidentto act like a king, giving them
a superpower over the judiciaryto say, yeah, judge, it's all on
the books and I believe you andall the truth is the truth, but
we're not going to keep them injail.
That's very kingly.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
to me it absolutely is.
But it's at the state level too.
The governors have that.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Governors have clemency and pardon powers as
well, especially when people areon death row.
Yeah, they're the ones thatsave them from that.
But it's just down to yourjurisdiction, right?
But I guarantee you stateswouldn't have had that if the
federal government didn't havethat, because the constitution
enshrined it first, right?
So I'm sure that stateconstitutions most likely didn't
have that, right?
Um, so I'm just guessing.
(33:46):
You know, who knows what thecolonies had, but I, it feels
like it was one of those weird,like they weren't quite sure
what to do, right.
And so they were like well,let's, let's leave a little gap
in there, you know, and that onethat one hasn't served us too
well over the years.
I can't imagine anybody who waslike most of the people that
ever do get pardoned had alreadybeen in prison for a long time.
(34:06):
The damage has already beendone to their life, like, maybe
they get a few years of freedomback or something like that.
I don't know historically, butthere's not a lot of political
benefit to it like it's.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I can't think of a situation where america was
better because somebody gotpardoned right like in the last
hundred years, like nelsonmandela right cruising down the
street, like yeah, like goodthing we set the record straight
with that guy or that gal, likeI don't know of any story where
we're like man.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It's really good we had that because america's
better.
Now, nah, it's only ever likeman.
That was shady, that wascorrupt.
Uh, why did he do that?
Who's that guy?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
you know start digging into and you're like,
yeah, this doesn't make senseyeah, it's definitely another
way we've uh monetized ourdemocracy.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah and, and I, so you know we'll, we'll, obviously
we're going to keep an eye onthat, but he'll keep doing it
and then whoever's after himwill do it again.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That's the frustrating thing, too is a lot
of times when the frustrationsare on both sides.
You know there are two sides ofa coin.
Yeah, it comes to like theinstitutional power that these
folks have and are clinging toand instead of having our
peaceful transfer of powers,like we're supposed to be,
(35:19):
having people coming and going,everybody's clinging to power
and making sure that they stayreelected.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
And I've got one last example of that.
It's related to all this Trumpstuff, but it's a little bit off
shade by like five degrees.
Here the FBI is opening upthose investigations again.
Have you heard about that?
There's three old.
Why are you bringing up oldstuff, fbi?
Well, because they're bones topick for trump and the
conservatives and the conspiracytheory people out there.
(35:46):
So here's the, here's the littlenarrative that I heard.
After bongino and kash patelhad to come out.
You know the director anddeputy director of f.
They went on TV and they saidEpstein killed himself.
There was no conspiracy.
I mean, we made up a conspiracybut in reality dude just killed
himself.
And those were the dudes thatliterally made money off of
(36:07):
saying that he didn't killhimself, right, like they
enriched themselves off theconspiracy.
And then they had to go on TVand under.
You know basically, hey, I'm anofficial now and I have to tell
the truth, like I believe thatI have to tell the truth.
Well, once that story came andwent and the red meat, the base
didn't get to eat the red meat.
So they said we got to go findsome more steaks.
And so cocaine in the WhiteHouse back during the Biden
(36:31):
administration.
In one of the little personnellockers right when you drop your
phone and, like your littlenotebook, somebody dropped their
bag of Coke on, you know, outof their notebook and it was a,
you know, an eight ball.
It wasn't like it was a kilostuck in there, it was obviously
personal use.
Now it's a crime.
Nobody in the white houseshould be doing blow.
I don't agree with any of that,you know.
(36:55):
Yes, that's a bad idea, butdoes it require multiple fbi
investigations over an eightball?
No, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Like you that whole industry, like the government
industry.
I'm sure there's a lot of folkson code oh oh, sure those
staffers are working incrediblehours.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, it's constantly I'm not excusing the product,
the behavior, the person thatdid it, but I am annoyed with a
news story or an administrativeinvestigation that's three, four
years old now and they're likewe need to dig this back up
because this is criminalenterprise.
And Hunter Biden and cocaineand crack he must have been
hiding guns and crack all overthe White House.
(37:30):
That's really what they want tosay.
Right?
Is that Hunter was in there,like pushing keys out of the
back loading dock of the whitehouse?
Right, that's not what happened, all right.
And then so there's that one.
There's the pipe bombs atjanuary 6th, the pipe bombs that
were left at the rnc and thednc, and there's like video
around a person moving aroundthe area.
Um, the initial investigationfrom way back then was basically
(37:54):
, we got too much other ProudBoys stuff to figure out this
thing.
Nothing blew up.
It was not related to theJanuary 6th rioters, it was some
other thing that wascoincidental, I guess, as far as
how it happened.
That was the old, oldinvestigation.
Basically, the dude with theeyepatch didn't order it, so
we're not going to investigateit.
Well, now the FBI wants to digback into that.
(38:18):
Right, because there'sconspiracy theories attached to
it because there was pipe bombsfound at both party headquarters
, right.
So it was sort of it couldn'thave been genuine and that it
was.
One or the other is going toblow up, depending on how the
day goes tomorrow.
So that must be proof that youknow Oswald didn't kill you know
whoever, right Like it's.
(38:39):
It's the proof that Cuba'sinvolved, right Like this guy's
some you know secret Chineseoperative or something like that
.
And there's obviously there'sgotta be some Bongino deep track
website out there that talksabout the pipe bombers and
that's why they're getting intoit.
So there's three differentstories like that where they're
bringing up old stuff becausethey're trying to feed the base,
and it's just.
I think this is the thing that Iwish would happen, but I know
(39:00):
will not happen.
The dudes who made up theconspiracies themselves are now
going to officially debunk allthe conspiracies and you know
what?
All the rest of the people wholisten to them still won't
believe them.
They'll believe in theconspiracy theory.
They'll say you got turned Onceyou took the oath.
The deep state got you rightand even though you sat out here
(39:21):
for the last 10 years railingon the deep state, the day you
raised your hand and swore anoath, you got a brain chip
implanted and you're a lizardperson now, right you?
know, yeah, yeah, drives mecrazy.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
And you can't argue with those folks Drives me crazy
.
And you can't argue with thosefolks?
No, there's no talking to them.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Because, to them, everything that's proof is proof
of the opposite of whateverright.
Oh well, you see, that happenedbecause of this right, yeah.
And there's always one morelayer to explore.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, they get to that point where, like the lack
of evidence shows that there's aconspiracy.
Yeah right, exactly oh man,there's Noah Hillary Clinton.
I am glad they're looking intothe pipe bomb thing, because I
think that is something thatdeserves some answers.
Further investigation Becausethere was some questionable
tours given by some members ofCongress.
(40:03):
But my concern is that if theydo ever find something, they're
not going to turn it over Ifit's somebody big.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Oh, if it was damning towards.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
If it's somebody big, oh, if it was damning towards,
if it's damning towards like asenator or a sitting
congressperson, they would justhold it over that person.
They would start doing like aKGB thing, blackmail them.
Yeah, just blackmail andcompromise and kind of have
their own little puppets on astring.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, I don't think getting to the bottom of it is
the point at all.
I agree with you there.
I don't think anybody reallycares about justice being served
.
I think there's just a bunch ofother reasons why they're doing
it, and that's really the pointof why I brought it all up.
Is that these dudes just are.
They're manufacturing news, notnews, they're manufacturing
investigations.
I guess you could say Right Totry something that they said
(40:50):
they happened against them.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
You know, yeah, yeah, just projection, and then yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Projection and then just make up something and be
like, look, we're going to go dothis now, right?
Um, I'll tell you for the firsttime.
I mean, I didn't care Cause I'ma, you know, I got nothing to
hide, so I don't hide anything,right, I don't believe that.
But up, I was at dulles airportyesterday and they weren't like
tactical geared up but likeoverly jacketed and hatted, like
(41:17):
they wanted to be physicallyvisible and present, you know,
and they were at some gate andso I'm assuming maybe somebody
was about to arrive and theyneeded to arrest them, something
like that.
But it was going down hot andin public and they wanted you to
know that the fbi was there.
Yeah, and that was the firsttime I'd ever seen the FBI have
a show of force presence likethat.
That wasn't.
(41:38):
You know, if you're already onscene on an investigation, sure,
the place is crawling withagents, right, but when there's
obviously nothing, like ain'tnothing going on right here in
this moment, it's an emptyhallway in an airport, but you
guys are just stacked up readyto do something, it was just
weird to me, and I guess I justnoticed it.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I was like that's that Kash Patel FBI right there,
I bet, because I mean I knowyou've probably had it a few
times in your career where youget told like don't wear your
uniform off base, yeah, don'tmake yourself a target, yeah,
and they're just over here likering girls, I mean yeah they
were way over the top with thatbranding.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
You know, and I think it's exactly they want.
Kash Patel wants the FBI to beseen as a certain type of force,
police force, organization,whatever you want to call it
right.
And he wants I think theybelieve again the red meat bang
for the buck.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
The base loves the idea of seeing law enforcement
geared up and out crackingskulls, basically, basically
right, that's what they want tosee.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah, and I don't want to say, you know, who knows
what they were there for.
But if, if, it was a brownperson getting off the airplane
from a random shithole country,as they call them, that they
were about to arrest, well, manthat, let's get our cell phones
out and put that on fox news youknow what I'm saying, so fbi
arrests scary terrorists youknow, and they got a visa I.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
You ever go back and look and see I didn't I didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I couldn't figure out what was going on.
No, but it was just a reallyweird appearance of the fbi at
the airport in the terminals,where I don't normally see that
type of stuff.
So yeah, so new world we'reliving in absolutely, yeah, yeah
, uh.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Last thing we wanted to talk about was uh, next
friday we're having a uh I don'twant to say celebration a
memorial event for uh the d-dayuh anniversary.
Uh, that's june 6th.
I'm down in memorial parkpavilions it's kind of on the
south side of memorial park.
Uh, show up, we'll have, youknow, some tents and booths for
uh making signs, things likethat, but we're gonna have seven
(43:31):
, I believe, speakers, um, justkind of talk about what it's
like to serve under oath andwhat it means to be a military
member and kind of reflect onwhat those men were going
through on D-Day.
There's no greater example ofwhat it means to serve under
oath than D-Day, when you'rejust piled into one of those
(43:53):
landing craft.
You can't see anything andyou're just piling towards your
death yeah, yeah, exactly yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
We talk about the fatal funnel now in close
quarters, combat right whenyou're kicking doors.
But man, yeah, yeah, I don't.
It wasn't even a funnel, it wasa.
It was a 180 degree barrage ofeverything you know just a flat
wall of death.
You know, yeah, and like theplan was just like army ants you
know just overwhelming numbers,just keep crawling, keep going,
yeah, crawl, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
The best story about D-Day that I like to tell is
about Teddy Roosevelt Jr.
He was a general, he was thehighest ranking person to make
landfall that day.
Yeah, and he did like, offcourse, their ship landed like
south and so he stepped off theboat and he's like, and they're
like, general, we're in thewrong spot.
He's like, well, we'll startthe war right here.
Then, yeah, and they startedfighting back up to get back up
(44:42):
to omaha and uh, ended up, youknow, doing like a flanking
maneuver and drawing some fireaway and like was pretty
critical, yeah.
But but yeah, what a what asack on that one yeah, no, I,
yeah, I um got you, sir.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
So I'll give a little , a little preview.
I'm going to be one of thespeakers that adam mentioned and
, uh, so I figured you knowlet's just start.
Let me look at the medal ofhonor winners from d-day right,
I'm sure there's got to be some,right?
Yeah, well, there was 10 ummedal of honor winners from that
day, and so I went through andread all the citations and that
my speech is going to be about,you know, courage, courage under
fire, and and how we cancontinue to take that forward in
(45:16):
our lives now.
And it's based on the storiesof those medal of honor winners.
He was one of them.
He won a medal of honor forwhat you're talking about.
Yeah, so, yep.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Cool yeah.
So we're looking forward to uhyeah, next Friday, june 6th, uh
6 30 down at Memorial parkpavilions.
Uh, bring lawn chairs.
Uh, relaxes.
This isn't a protest again.
This is a memorial event tohonor the veterans that you know
just served on that day.
So, yeah, hope to see you outthere.
Other than that, I think that'sall we got for this week.
(45:46):
So thanks for joining us again.
This was Left Face.
I'm Adam Gillard with DickWilkinson.
Tune in next week.
Take care everybody.
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