July 17, 2025 • 35 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
This is the Pikes BeaksRegion's political podcast from
a veteran's point of view.
Joining me this morning is DickWilkinson.
How are you doing, Martin?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Doing great, adam, good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And my name is Adam Gillard.
I am your co-host here Tonight.
We actually got a pretty funepisode to start off with here.
We're going to talk about somepretty cool things that are
happening at the state level.
We're going to talk about somepretty cool things that are
happening at the state levelthat Dick's got some experience
other places but some folks upthere in Denver have been
working on and kind of broughtus in on.
So we are establishing aDemocratic Veterans Committee or
(00:36):
caucus.
I'm not sure what the verbiageis that the state wants, because
it's a bylaws thing.
Yeah, yeah.
But what it's going to do isit's going to take veterans'
issues and put brainpower likevets' brainpower behind it and
start to really sort through andfocus on where we want to put
our weight as veterans and asdifferent, you know,
(00:56):
organizations with the statelevel, federal level, really
everywhere that you know vetscan be affected, whatever reach
we can have.
Right, uh, really, everywherethat that you know that's going
to be affected, right, and inthis area where you know 15% are
vets and then a higherpercentage of you know spouses
and dependents and things likethat, in this area it could have
a huge impact on us.
Um, you set something up, thislike like this, down in New
(01:17):
Mexico.
Uh, tell us a little bit about,like that process and some of
your, the successes and the winsthat New Mexico got out of this
.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Sure, well, I was part of a team of people that
were reinvigorating the caucus,had been on the books and had
been part of the bylaws and theparty down in New Mexico for a
few years, but the leaderchanged out and there was a
little bit of a dead periodthere.
Um.
Afterwards a new person came onum.
(01:46):
She was a retired uh Navy umcaptain and so she took you know
, had great gusto and recruiteda great team and put together a
lot of uh structure.
I think uh ran the meetingswith you know at.
They were official meetings ofthe party, so we had, you know,
robert's rules in place andeverything to like make motions,
(02:07):
to take action and things likethat, and so that kind of
structure right up front with agood group of people.
It included active sittingstate legislators and then folks
from the community like myself,and we all work together to
have two or three areas of focus.
But where I got involved was thelegislative focus, and what we
(02:31):
did was New Mexico has just ashort session and they only have
a session once a year and it'susually either 30 days or 60
days.
That's it.
That's all the legislative timethat happens down there.
So it gives the volunteers timeto get prepared.
So whenever the legislatorswould drop their potential bills
like late in the calendar year,we would comb through all of
that and decide which onesaffected veterans or their
families, active duty or, youknow, retiree, whatever and then
(02:53):
we would select some, elevatethem and get to work.
And it's basically an internallobbying campaign.
Right, you're going around andcommunicating with not only the
veteran legislators, but theybecome those internal champions
to talk to their counterparts sothat they can recruit the
support that they need to get abill passed.
And then we would stick with itand watch it throughout the
(03:13):
process through the committeesand into the final floor vote,
and we would send in volunteersto communicate on behalf of the
veteran community and say, hey,this is why this change would
affect me, my family, this iswhat I would have experienced on
active duty if this had beenbetter.
And and that was it, you know,we would sell it with those
kinds of personal stories andthat's where I that's what I did
(03:33):
is I would get volunteered intocertain bills that I said, hey,
I have a relevant talking pointfor that and I would
communicate at the roundhouse,you know, give that testimony
while committees were open andum that you know it got things
done, so absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, it's crazy how much power just being a vet,
like you walk into a place.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
They took it seriously.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, yeah, they, they listen.
Um, you know I have meetingsdown here, even at uh in Jeff
Crank's office.
When I go down and talk to hisrepresentatives we have pretty
good conversations, but they,you know, it's usually around
veteran issues and things likethat, because they care and they
want to help veterans too.
So just having that tag and thereal life experience to go
(04:13):
along with it.
You know you talk about thelobbyist industry.
They're getting paid to dothings.
Sure, you know these volunteers.
They're lobbying with their owntheir own blood, sweat and
tears.
You know they've already paidthe price for a lot of these
things.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yep, that's it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, it's powerful to get those firsthand
experiences in there.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, and so every year we'd manage to get three,
two, three, four differentveterans-focused bills passed.
That I honestly believe.
If we weren't doing that typeof effort, it would have been
much harder.
It might have taken severalyears to get things over the
line, squeak and wheel getsthrough grease.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, you know like, these are one of the things.
If you're not making noise,there's other things that they
can focus on just as easily andjust as like qualified too.
You know, there's always thingsthat they can be putting money
towards and looking at.
Yeah, if you're not saying like, hey, no, give us some
attention over here, they're notgoing to just give it to you,
it's not going to happen.
Yeah, they're not going to giveit to you.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Exactly, and so you know we covered down on the like
.
Every state has a retiree homethat's run by the federal
government for folks that areveterans, that don't have family
members who care for them atthe end of life, right, and the
one in New Mexico is stationedout in Truth or Consequences.
It's far out in the middle ofnowhere, really.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I love that city just because it named itself after a
game show, just so the gameshow would go there, or
something like that.
Yeah, they won a contest bynaming themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So that's where the old folks home for veterans is
at.
It's a pretty cool area too.
It's a population that'svulnerable, obviously, and they
don't have family members totake care of them.
So, they're even extravulnerable.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It's very isolated down there.
It's very isolated.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's very isolated and so we would go down for
visits and just kind of lookaround.
And then I know that thatturned into basically a campaign
to improve the services andconsider, you know better, you
know, potentially relocating toa larger place, but that one I'm
sure still underway and I don'tknow if it'll ever happen, you
(06:07):
know.
But uh, it was something thatwe, we realized hey, these folks
are probably need a little bitof support.
Uh, and especially during thepandemic, there was serious
concerns about the safetysituation there.
So we went down and did someunannounced visits to see how
the facility would know facilitywould respond, things like that
.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Not in a just a little audit, not in a probing
way.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I mean not in like an offensive way.
I should say we were probing,but not in an aggressive way,
you know.
But you don't get the truthwhen it's a scheduled visit and
you know and they.
They dust everything and putthe flowers out, and everybody's
sitting in their chairs and theTV's on.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You know, with the generals, I know, like they
haven't seen a piece of trash inyears because their trash can
is immediately emptied.
Everybody empties trash cansfor them, one or two in New
Mexico.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I think there was two in New Mexico when we first got
started.
There's like 13 judicialdistricts down there and there
was two districts that had aveterans court and we said, hey,
(07:12):
this is a resource that if thelocal judge we can find one in
the different districts cansupport it, then you know, let's
not focus too much onpopulation density.
And you know, let's not focustoo much on population density,
let's focus on is there anycases in this district any given
year where a veteran could havequalified for this type of
court?
And if there's any at all, like, let's try and open up that
(07:35):
pipeline.
And that worked likegangbusters, that within weeks
we had judges that were like,yeah, we'll take it on.
And I think you know, basicallysimultaneously we had three
different districts stand upveterans courts all within, you
know, a few months of each other.
That's amazing.
Yeah, so those are the kind ofimpacts that a group like this
can have.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, a lot of times, when you know, I think about
veterans and like how we gettaken care of, I always focus on
the federal level, like whatcan really be done at the state
level that can make a big impactfor, or like what does the
state level have an impact onfor us?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So we named our group the Veterans and Military
Families Caucus, because wewanted to make it clear that we
were also supporting legislationthat was in focus on the family
members for children, spouses,and not just the conditions for
the service member.
One of the things that I wasattached to was the purple star
(08:28):
schools.
Um, there, uh, it's a way thatthe DOD promotes a culture that
supports children that arecoming into the school, that are
military population and a lotof the staff are going to be
veterans and stuff.
You are in a more maybe a ruralplace out in like Eastern New
Mexico and, uh, it's a way forthat school to basically gain
(08:50):
resources for the school,counselors and teachers to
integrate those kids, uh, helpsupport them with counseling or
whatever they need, and be readyfor them, you know, knowing
that they're going to roll out,so supporting them in that
process as well, and so gettingthose schools to register as
Purple Star schools.
We made a legislation where itwas like the state supported it
and made it easier for them todo that, so that schools could
(09:13):
quickly register and get thatDOD support, and the state had
to put a policy in place for theschools to do that, and so we
got that done.
One thing that happens in a lotof different states and I know
other veterans groups work onthis license reciprocation.
If you're a medicalprofessional in one state and
you're, let's say, an x-raytechnician, and you've got
(09:34):
certifications in Ohio, right,and you want to move to New
Mexico, those certifications andthose licenses may not transfer
Right.
So we put in you know, graceperiod where different
professions and it it was up tokind of there's different groups
that can weigh in on that butdifferent professions and the
licensing bodies thatcoordinated them We'd say, hey,
either you have like a one ortwo year grace period when you
(09:55):
arrive and within that time weexpect you to get locally
licensed, or, depending on theprofession, we'll just
reciprocate from wherever you'reat and you don't have to get
licensed here because they usethe same test or something like
that.
So those kind of things wheresomebody doesn't have to suspend
their career, they can startlooking for work before they
arrive.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, teaching certificates are a big into that
.
Yeah, because a lot of spousesyou know they are teachers so
they bounce around with themilitary member and yeah, that's
something that you think wouldtravel with you easily.
But once you cross lines, thoseimaginary lines, you know all
of a sudden you're not a teacheranymore.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, exactly, and there's a ton of professions
that have that concern.
So you know that's one thing.
That was an incremental processover years that had started
before we picked up the torchright.
But those are some examples oflegislation.
And then taxes.
Of course.
You know there's always a wayto restructure the tax system
for veterans if they're disabledor you know, property tax
(10:46):
changes, things like that, andso that's a perpetual process of
like, what can we do to supportveterans?
One of the things there peoplesay oh, you're giving up tax
money for what reason?
The turnaround effect of thatis, if you make your state more
desirable for veterans andretirees to live there and bring
their families there and bringgenerations of people there,
then you get an economic impactthat outweighs the property tax
(11:10):
impact right by orders ofmagnitude, usually right Because
they're bringing their retireemoney and probably another
paycheck plus their spouse andthen their kids go to college
there, stuff like that.
So it's very beneficial to thestate to be incentivized to
bring retirees and veterans intothe community.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, that's one thing I always talk to our
elected officials about isgetting rid of the state tax for
military members here, likeactive duty military members.
Because the sooner that we getthem involved in our communities
, because when your ballotdoesn't have local elections on
it, you don't care.
Yeah, you know.
So the sooner that we can getthem involved in our communities
and our elections, the betteroff everybody's going to be.
(11:49):
But there's no incentive forthem to change to here, so I
always bring that up so and.
I hope that's something thatthis veterans caucus that we're
talking about up in Denver canfocus on and put some weight
behind, because I think thatwould have a huge benefit for us
.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, how many people did you know in the military
that would switch their home ofrecord to Florida or Texas or
whatever Arizona there's?
like five six, seven states thatdon't tax active duty pay,
don't tax retirement pay and allsorts of stuff, or no state tax
at all, and so people, as soonas they land there, they're like
bam changing that home ofrecord and then they never
(12:23):
change it, and you know whatthat does.
We want to talk about the longrope here, and this will
transition us into our nexttopic.
I think that's headcount inyour district, and so if you
have, you know there's a highpopulation of people who have a
home of record somewhere in someCounty in Florida, don't
necessarily live there, butthey're a voter in the head
(12:44):
count for that congressionaldistrict, for that County seat,
whatever, right.
And so the you're attractingit's a.
You can attract a specificpopulation of people to become
head count within your district,and there are certain states
that have a stranglehold on thatand I don't know how that
couldn't be strategicallybeneficial, especially from you
(13:04):
know.
I hate to say it, but it's apartisan angle, right, and every
now and then we would put onour, you know, blue britches
down in New Mexico.
And remember there is a biggertheme to all of this right and
it's getting elected people intooffice that are supporting
these blue initiatives.
So the long rope there is youget headcount and you can
recruit a specific type ofpeople.
(13:25):
Where else in politics do youget the opportunity to do that?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, having such a targeted genre of people to talk
to and to place places To talkto, that's the most important
part.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You're talking points are sound, the issues they face
you can understand, and sothat's what I see is the like.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You know why I say attract a certain population is
because you can speak to thoseissues and do something about it
and that's kind of one of mypushes always with our elected
officials is that I think wewould net more blue voters if we
did it here, because the folksthat are already like sitting
there with Texas, they're withFlorida, they're not going to
change it to be here, no, butbut like the, the space force
(14:06):
and air force, you know the moreprogressive folks that are out
there, like they will change itto be here and we can push them,
make things happen, you know.
So, yeah, hopefully thisveterans caucus, you know well I
was gonna say, is effective.
I know it's going to beeffective.
Yeah, we got some great peoplein it and I think we're going to
have a lot of good pressure,you know, from the vets, you
(14:27):
know, to get some changes aroundhere.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And so there's a meeting for that tomorrow on
zoom and I'm not sure you knowhow all the invites went out,
but it's just the first.
It's a kickoff type thingintroductions and maybe a little
bit of an intro to whatever thecharter is for him.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, he's had a couple points of business.
It just came in he said youcould have a few minutes to
there too, so get your ideas outthere.
Yeah, I think it's big news forus here locally to get that
kind of infrastructure set up atthe state.
Bigger news here locally to getsome of that kind of
infrastructure set up at thestate.
Yeah, Bigger news here locallyis that we had a new candidate
throw their hat into the ringfor CD5.
(15:03):
Jessica Killen, former captain.
I think she did like six yearswhat service.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I care very much, I think the Air Force, yeah, okay,
yeah, captain in the Air Force,I'm going to groan at that.
I'll meet you eventually,jessica, but just know, I
groaned at your air forceaffiliation.
If that's true, if it's not,please let us know.
I mean, we'll have to correctthe record.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Maybe she's a warrant officer or something some low
level like that.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You know, yeah, yeah, you know what that would change
the game significantly.
I would be her campaign manager.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
But uh, she uh first day, you know?
Uh, so she's the chief of staffof doug emoff, the uh former
second first gentleman yeah,yeah um, and he also.
She also worked in the bidenadministration, so she's got she
checks all the boxes right alot of deep chops, you know
political chops.
That's great.
First day $750,000 she raised.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And, like we had said , that's the Imhoff connection,
that's the war chest that Kamalahad pulled together at the end
of the last cycle.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There's a lot of money in those bank accounts
right now that is a great point,yeah, and one way to do that is
to transfer it to othercandidates.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, you can transfer it to other candidates.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, and one way to do that is to transfer it to
other candidates.
Yeah, but that's more moneythan Crank has in the bank.
I think he did a million lastyear.
Yeah, but what he's got rightnow, he's going to have to plus
up.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, he's going to really have to Right.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I mean, for so long Lamborn never had to campaign
here because they had the moneyto just flood the zone with
their propaganda.
Yeah, with that type of money,that makes it a real, real
possibility.
But we have to get through theprimary still.
Yes, and there's like four orfive candidates, I think, right
(16:49):
now.
And Joe Reagan, he raised about$50,000 last quarter.
Jamie Smith was like $18,000.
Zuri Horowitz was around $5,000or $6,000 last quarter.
Jamie Smith was like 18.
Zuri Horowitz was around fiveor six, and then there was one
other lady that didn't reportany money.
But so all pretty small numbers.
When you talk about acongressional campaign at this
(17:09):
level and the fact that thenational level is looking at us
here like that's Well, it'scontested for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
That's exciting.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, I mean, we lost it by it's not a safe 14 points
last time yeah so, likeeverybody's saying it's safe,
like in air quotes, yeah, safered, but that's because we've
never had any resources here topush it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
You know what I mean.
Yeah, well, and midterm yearsare totally different than
presidential years, right, likethat's a you know campaign 101.
Like presidential years are thebig, the big show, right, you
know, and if you're in the offyears, that you got to change
your math, you got to changeyour strategy, you know, because
not as many people are going toshow up and vote.
So, yeah, so that benefits theunderdog in those situations
(17:49):
usually.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So yeah, yeah, it should be interesting to see you
know once the campaign reallystarts.
You know, I think this is theher trying to push everybody
else out and just kind of likeset the tone, like no, that's a
strong showing to do that.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That is a way to do it, and I mean the only way that
you know.
Well, my first take was wow, an18 month campaign, right.
But if you're saying there'sthose other folks, I mean if
they've just rolled through acycle and just kept their bank
accounts open like that, Iunderstand that.
But yeah, to jump out with abig lead like that, and then,
you know, the only way thatcould fall flat is, if there's a
(18:24):
the next quarter or twoquarters from now, just things
simmer down.
You know, I mean who?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
knows, I mean, you could ride that in this area.
Just that alone.
Well, sure, sure.
But.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I'm saying as far as like uh strategy or looking weak
, uh, if you have a couple offlat quarters, right, that's all
.
That's what I'm saying your,second, your other person in the
primary who's nipping at yourheels?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
yeah, we'll see a flat quarter and be like, oh,
this is my chance, you know yeah, I might try to recruit more
people or recruit more money inthat quarter I've heard that
theory before too, that like howearly you join is kind of like
how strong you are, you know, asa candidate.
So if you jump in early, youknow to try to like get people
on your side, it makes you lookkind of weaker or less of a
(19:06):
candidate.
Sure, have you heard that?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I've seen it.
I've seen it where there arepeople that jump in early and
then there are people that arelike I know when I'm going to
pull the trigger and there's notgoing to be any condition
that's going to change mytimeline, Right Like I've got a
plan and I'm going to execute myplan and what you do is not
going to change my plan.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I've seen that and a lot of these plans.
They go around fiscal reporting.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yes, so what quarter do you enter, so you know you
can make your big push.
Yeah, so she didn't enter, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, she didn't enter until the end of the last
one, so she doesn't have toreport until November.
Okay, but she started off with750.
So like November's report isgoing to be pretty solid.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yes, the quarter you start in is
definitely a critical firststep, right, and you play it
either two ways you Don't expectmuch, right, or you do what she
did.
It's my first quarter and I canjust keep doing this if you
want, yeah that's a I hate bigmoney.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I don't like people coming from out of the area, but
she was raised here in ColoradoSprings so I do feel more
comfortable about that and Ihate Citizens United and big
money like this.
But you have to play the game.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I don't.
I like big money and I'm fromeverywhere cause I'm a soldier,
so you know I'm.
I can't make us take a stanceon from here, not from here.
That's what.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I have to keep swinging back to too.
It's like like me personally,like like, why do I think like
that when I'm one of thetransients, you know?
So, yeah, that's a good pointtoo is that you know you can't
hold it against her, but she wasraised here in Colorado Springs
, so it is a plus one.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
And for me money like if I ever run another, another
campaign like man.
You know a lot of my money isnot going to come from because I
like I say I'm from everywhere,so I'm going to pick up the
phone and call people all overthe country.
Right, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, that was.
If you have donors coming fromall over the place, it doesn't.
What does it look like?
Right, because you know theprimary.
You're only trying to talk to acouple of hundred people.
You know to get through thecaucus and things like that, or
to get through the caucus to theprimary.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, to get through the convention.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, you only talk to a couple of hundred people,
yeah, and if those couple ofhundred people think that your
outside money is going toinfluence you, could be screwed.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Yeah, you can get uh pushed outby the uh, what it is.
The state central committee iswhat it is.
Yeah, that's the people thatvote on who's going to end up on
the ballot, and they downselect within the party so that
you get the right people on theprimary ballot Right and so yeah
, but um, yeah, so excitingtimes.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
You know new candidate.
I think it's going to beinteresting to see how she comes
into the community and, uh,yeah, looking forward to meeting
her.
Um, next thing we wanted totalk about was the uh ongoing
Middle East turmoil.
Uh, israel is trying to sparksome more matches over there.
Um, they did some strikes inSyria.
Uh, you want to tell us aboutthat a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I um heard about that this morning and I guess it
happened yesterday or I'm notreally sure what time, but in
the last 24 hours.
There's a population of folksthat live on either side of the
border in the Golan Heightsregion, so some are in Israel
and some are in Syria.
They're a group of Arabs calledthe Druze D-R-U-Z-E and Israel
(22:13):
defends them.
In general, whenever there'sbeen any kind of skirmish or
conflicts in those areas, israelwill strike over the border,
and so they did that.
I guess there was a couplehundred people flee from north
to south into Golan Heights areaand Israel closed the border
(22:33):
and then started shooting, andthey shot into the conflict area
where Syria's new governmentwas attacking.
You know what they claimed as arebel group with just the Druze
people.
I don't know what they'rereally doing or not, but the
thing that kind of madeeverybody's eyes pop wasn't that
they bombed Damascus.
Yeah, and they bombed yeah, theybombed Damascus in the daytime
(22:55):
and, uh, it was not a lightlittle tap, it was more than one
shot and they were big missiles.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and daytime strikes?
Nighttime strikes arepsychologically terrifying,
because you don't really knowwhat's going on.
Sure, but daytime strikes meansyou can't do a dang thing about
this.
Your air defenses mean nothing.
We are coming in and we aredoing this, yeah, and that's
even more psychologicallydamaging.
That's what I'm saying, man.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I'm like blow stuff up in the daytime and just scare
the hell out of people.
Right, and that's what I saw,was a video of these are
becoming more common News anchorwoman sitting on a chair and
downtown Damascus is behind herand probably from the look of it
, that was a real glass wallbehind her.
And the bomb landed quartermile away.
(23:39):
I mean, it was just on theother side of the courtyard,
basically, and it was open spacefrom there to where the impact
happened.
There was no building, therewas nothing in between.
It was a line of sight shot aquarter mile away and it was
ugly dude and it rocked her outof her chair.
She like jumped out of thechair and was screaming, you
know.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, it was massive.
Yeah, I can't imagine livingunder that kind of fear, like,
say, daytime.
But yeah, daytimes aren't safe.
Now, yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
So yeah that.
So that's going on in the.
I guess uh trump was had madesome kind of statement about.
You know, he didn't, basicallydidn't support that, because
there's a delicate uhrelationship with the syrian,
the new Syrian government, thatAmerica is trying to sort of
feel it out and Israel pushingthe issue doesn't help.
(24:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, we've been trying to get them under a
little control for a while now.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
So a little more of the same in that regard, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I mean, if you let them indiscriminately bomb
people in their own country,they're not going to care about
indiscriminately bombingcapitals in other countries.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Because like what was the, whatwas the reason for bombing
damascus?
They did, they haven't, theyhaven't said just said anything.
Yeah, somebody, somebody got anitchy finger and they're like,
yeah, we see an opportunity yeah, and it's, uh, people, there's
(25:00):
too many people with that itchyfinger on buttons right now.
Sure, sure, it's scary, youknow, ours included, you know,
with Trump being kind ofcornered.
Now, you know, and we're goingto kind of transition into the
the files that don't exist.
Yeah, that shall not be named.
Yeah, epstein the Epstein filesthat don't exist, never existed
(25:23):
or were made up.
The Epstein files that don'texist, never existed or were
made up.
Yeah, people went to jail forum, but, yeah, it still never
existed.
Uh, his name.
There's some good documents outthere that have been leaked
with, like the, the evidencethat was submitted and, like you
know, his name circled on somethings and things like that that
that look pretty.
You know damning Um.
(25:46):
You know damning um, but withhim, you know, kind of being
backed in the corner pissing offhis own, you know maga.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Uh, conspiracy, right , yeah, yeah.
Or the q anon folks, right,yeah, the deep state, yeah, the
deep state.
Q anon side of the house, likeepstein, was a, because q anon
was all about the cabal of worldleaders that, secretly, you
know drink child, drink childblood.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah, pizzagate and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, and that was there.
That was the foundation ofQAnon.
Was sexual immorality inpolitical power right?
And Epstein was the?
You know the whole story wasbirthed out of that kind of
conspiracy, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And now you know with him.
I think he's worried a littlebit.
I think he's worried a littlebit.
What do you think his optionsare when it comes to either
regaining control of his MAGAfollowers or just kind of going
full tyrannical and trying toscare people back into line?
What do you think is going onin the administration right now.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I think it's a much bigger problem than they want to
admit.
I think that's why his publicstatements so far are explicit
downplay of who's still talkingabout that.
Isn't that story boring?
Who cares about that?
That's what he just says overand over for like the last three
days, right.
And then you've got Fox news.
You know I like to talk aboutJesse waters.
(27:04):
I didn't watch it this episode,but I saw the little clip and,
uh, he was like something'sfishy.
You know, like I can't, I can'tbelieve it.
Right.
And even all of Fox news and the, you know as they call it, the
manosphere, right, the the theonline you know podcast folks um
, almost all of them have saidum, said that they can't believe
(27:26):
what's going on right now andthat there's more to the story.
They're still committed totheir original beliefs and the
government coming out and saying, oh, there's no list, they just
they're like yeah, of course,the government said that and it
just.
It's just unfortunate that thegovernment is their hero's
government, right, and so theschism there is just terrible
(27:47):
for some of these folks.
There was one dude and I don'tremember his name, I can
recognize his face.
He was like the only one thathad been, he's been on the
conspiracy bandwagonconsistently until like Monday,
and then he was like I'm justgoing to believe the government
on this one.
Those are our guys in thegovernment and they're telling
us the truth.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I think you're talking about Tim Pool, maybe.
Yeah, where he's like myfriends in the administration.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, yeah and he just said I'm over it, I'm going
to move on and I believe themand he's like the only one, but
I'm pretty sure it's alreadybeen proven that he's taken some
some.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
He was one of those folks got hired as a consultant
or something, but then it justturned out that it was like he
was literally.
It was like Russian RT, youknow, like propaganda yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Um, but but yeah, so he's obviously somebody that can
be bought and paid for.
And then he had a meeting withthe administration his friends
in the administration tell himit's cool, yeah, but nobody else
is buying that you know.
But I mean, at the end of theday, is it going to matter?
Because you still see a lot ofthings online where it's like,
if he did things in the past,god saved his life after that
(28:51):
assassination attempt and he ishere to save our life.
Oh, sure, sure, you know.
There's still that like cultish.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Would there be a revolt if the list came out?
If there is a list, if the listcomes out and donald trump's in
in, implicated in some way, inwhatever, even just conspiracy
to stuff, do stuff right, um,would his base revolt?
I don't, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
No, I mean the the things are going on in like the
fema responses in his areasright now and they're not
revolting Right and they'reaccepting it Down in Texas and
even North Carolina is stilldigging themselves out of things
, and there's flooding going oneverywhere right now and people
aren't waking up to it.
They think that this is allkind of part of the plan.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Sexual morality is not this man's call claim to
fame right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Right From the beginning.
This was known.
All of this stuff was knownbefore.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah so I don't.
The base has already forgivenhis.
You know lifestyle there.
How horrific is that.
You know, that's it, that's allthere is to it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Really.
I've read the reports from,like, katie Johnson and even his
first wife, ivanka Ivana Ican't remember what her name was
, but like the police reportthat she filed against him like
horrific, horrific things yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And people are just kind of like yeah, okay, yeah,
and it just like that's.
When you start reading thingslike that and you start seeing
people who, for who they are.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Like you can't just say, oh, that was in the past.
No, that's foundational.
That's who he is, yeah, yeah,but I mean, the boys will be
boys.
Locker room talk excuse cameout in the 2016 campaign and
that was that.
That was the moment where itwas either this is going to be
forgiven forever yeah, and norevelation will ever change
anybody's mind yeah, or this iswhere we draw the line Right.
Yeah, change any anybody's mind.
(30:45):
Yeah, or this is where we drawthe line right yeah, and the
line was not drawn there.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Boys will be boys, that was it.
Um?
Have you seen?
There's a video of those uhclasses teaching men to be alpha
males, where you pay like tentwelve thousand dollars and get
screamed at and, yes, they justget tortured and brutalized.
Yes, uh, I saw a clip that theyhad to add something in after
graduation about talking to themen like, okay, don't go home
and be a-holes to your wife.
(31:07):
Like they call us up and theysay he comes in and barking
orders at us and blah, blah,blah, blah, you can't go home
and be an asshole.
Yeah, like, yeah, man, like Ihave such a problem with that.
You know, like you guys wantedindoctrinate yourselves like oh,
you can't really use this.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
They would want their money back.
I would think right.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Be like wait a minute .
Speaker 2 (31:27):
What did I pay you for?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I have such a huge problem with pushing military
culture onto the civilianpopulation.
You know the Jocko guy thatwrites like self-help books.
This sounds familiar Navy SEAL,extreme Leadership, I think
think his name was one of hisbooks.
Uh, yeah, he, he'll tell astory about.
Yeah, when I was, you know, inAfghanistan doing this and this
(31:50):
guy was screwing up, I told himto stop screwing up and blah
blah, blah.
It's like yeah, cool man, you'rein a battle zone, you're in a
war zone.
That doesn't need to, thatdoesn't belong in the boardroom,
like that type of mentality,cause they never go into the
like, the, the, the burden ofleadership.
Sure, when you're an extremeleader like that, there's a
burden that comes with it, thatweighs on you and like you carry
it with you 24, seven like, allthe time, and it it hurts
(32:11):
people, like that's why suicidesare so high.
Oh, sure, because we have aburden on us that we feel all
the time that we cannot fail.
Yeah, and that does not need tobe pushed onto the civilian
population.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Sure, yeah, I, yeah, I agree.
Uh, you know, I I don't see itis being pushed from the
monetary position of like peoplewill buy this, right, yeah, um,
but the there's probably justas much pull from uh group.
You know some, some populationof the american men, right,
they're like I want that type ofyou know whatever lifestyle
mentality uh, it's gonna make mebetter at some thing that I do
(32:41):
because we've all, because we'veall, sat in front of tvs of you
know whatever lifestylementality.
It's going to make me better atsomething that I do Because
we've all sat in front of TVsand played.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
You know, cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians,
and so from an early, early age.
Now, with the modernization of,you know, television, social
media, people are inundated withthis thought that it's okay to
kill people, sure, and it's notpeople, sure, and it's not like.
People need to get out of thatmindset that, uh, you know, yes,
they are heroes, but they'renot our heroes because of
(33:11):
killing people, body counts,right, there are heroes because
they raised their hand and saidyeah, I'm going to go, I'm going
to go put myself in some badsituations and I'm going to help
protect you.
Yeah, Um, and I think peoplehave lost that.
They want the killing andthat's disgusting to me.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but I definitely
I try, and I'm getting a littlebit too old to have this lens
anymore.
But for a long time I tried tolook out at the rest of the
American population, of my peers, basically, and kind of compare
, maybe in a I don't know, kindof compare, maybe in a I don't
know, I think in a healthy wayof like what do I, what am I
doing that's different than whatthey do, or what?
(33:47):
How would my lifestyle bedifferent if I had this same job
but wasn't in the Army?
Those kind of things, just sothat I could I don't know why I
just wanted to be able tounderstand that better, because
maybe I knew that the existenceI was living was so bizarre.
But now that I'm getting older,like I say, I don't I don't do
that as much and I guess causeI'm not in the military anymore
(34:09):
but, um, I could see theadmiration and and I mean that
in a good way of like man, Iwish I was doing the cool stuff
you're doing and so I can seehow those people would get a
little bit older, get a littlebit of money in their pocket and
be like man I want to level upin life, and then they're like
well, I always thought thoseguys were pretty cool.
And that's about it.
(34:30):
It doesn't take much more thanthat a flashy cover and a bald
dude and you're like you're inman.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So you know, yeah Well, all right, we'll end it on
that.
Thanks, we'll end it on that.
Thanks for joining us againthis week.
On left face Uh, join us.
Tune in next week with DickWilkinson, adam Gillard Uh,
we'll talk to you then.
Bye.
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
This is the Pikes BeaksRegion's political podcast from
a veteran's point of view.
Joining me this morning is DickWilkinson.
How are you doing, Martin?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Doing great, adam, good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
And my name is Adam Gillard.
I am your co-host here Tonight.
We actually got a pretty funepisode to start off with here.
We're going to talk about somepretty cool things that are
happening at the state level.
We're going to talk about somepretty cool things that are
happening at the state levelthat Dick's got some experience
other places but some folks upthere in Denver have been
working on and kind of broughtus in on.
So we are establishing aDemocratic Veterans Committee or
(00:36):
caucus.
I'm not sure what the verbiageis that the state wants, because
it's a bylaws thing.
Yeah, yeah.
But what it's going to do isit's going to take veterans'
issues and put brainpower likevets' brainpower behind it and
start to really sort through andfocus on where we want to put
our weight as veterans and asdifferent, you know,
(00:56):
organizations with the statelevel, federal level, really
everywhere that you know vetscan be affected, whatever reach
we can have.
Right, uh, really, everywherethat that you know that's going
to be affected, right, and inthis area where you know 15% are
vets and then a higherpercentage of you know spouses
and dependents and things likethat, in this area it could have
a huge impact on us.
Um, you set something up, thislike like this, down in New
(01:17):
Mexico.
Uh, tell us a little bit about,like that process and some of
your, the successes and the winsthat New Mexico got out of this
.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Sure, well, I was part of a team of people that
were reinvigorating the caucus,had been on the books and had
been part of the bylaws and theparty down in New Mexico for a
few years, but the leaderchanged out and there was a
little bit of a dead periodthere.
Um.
Afterwards a new person came onum.
(01:46):
She was a retired uh Navy umcaptain and so she took you know
, had great gusto and recruiteda great team and put together a
lot of uh structure.
I think uh ran the meetingswith you know at.
They were official meetings ofthe party, so we had, you know,
robert's rules in place andeverything to like make motions,
(02:07):
to take action and things likethat, and so that kind of
structure right up front with agood group of people.
It included active sittingstate legislators and then folks
from the community like myself,and we all work together to
have two or three areas of focus.
But where I got involved was thelegislative focus, and what we
(02:31):
did was New Mexico has just ashort session and they only have
a session once a year and it'susually either 30 days or 60
days.
That's it.
That's all the legislative timethat happens down there.
So it gives the volunteers timeto get prepared.
So whenever the legislatorswould drop their potential bills
like late in the calendar year,we would comb through all of
that and decide which onesaffected veterans or their
families, active duty or, youknow, retiree, whatever and then
(02:53):
we would select some, elevatethem and get to work.
And it's basically an internallobbying campaign.
Right, you're going around andcommunicating with not only the
veteran legislators, but theybecome those internal champions
to talk to their counterparts sothat they can recruit the
support that they need to get abill passed.
And then we would stick with itand watch it throughout the
(03:13):
process through the committeesand into the final floor vote,
and we would send in volunteersto communicate on behalf of the
veteran community and say, hey,this is why this change would
affect me, my family, this iswhat I would have experienced on
active duty if this had beenbetter.
And and that was it, you know,we would sell it with those
kinds of personal stories andthat's where I that's what I did
(03:33):
is I would get volunteered intocertain bills that I said, hey,
I have a relevant talking pointfor that and I would
communicate at the roundhouse,you know, give that testimony
while committees were open andum that you know it got things
done, so absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, it's crazy how much power just being a vet,
like you walk into a place.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
They took it seriously.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, yeah, they, they listen.
Um, you know I have meetingsdown here, even at uh in Jeff
Crank's office.
When I go down and talk to hisrepresentatives we have pretty
good conversations, but they,you know, it's usually around
veteran issues and things likethat, because they care and they
want to help veterans too.
So just having that tag and thereal life experience to go
(04:13):
along with it.
You know you talk about thelobbyist industry.
They're getting paid to dothings.
Sure, you know these volunteers.
They're lobbying with their owntheir own blood, sweat and
tears.
You know they've already paidthe price for a lot of these
things.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yep, that's it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, it's powerful to get those firsthand
experiences in there.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, and so every year we'd manage to get three,
two, three, four differentveterans-focused bills passed.
That I honestly believe.
If we weren't doing that typeof effort, it would have been
much harder.
It might have taken severalyears to get things over the
line, squeak and wheel getsthrough grease.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, you know like, these are one of the things.
If you're not making noise,there's other things that they
can focus on just as easily andjust as like qualified too.
You know, there's always thingsthat they can be putting money
towards and looking at.
Yeah, if you're not saying like, hey, no, give us some
attention over here, they're notgoing to just give it to you,
it's not going to happen.
Yeah, they're not going to giveit to you.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Exactly, and so you know we covered down on the like
.
Every state has a retiree homethat's run by the federal
government for folks that areveterans, that don't have family
members who care for them atthe end of life, right, and the
one in New Mexico is stationedout in Truth or Consequences.
It's far out in the middle ofnowhere, really.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I love that city just because it named itself after a
game show, just so the gameshow would go there, or
something like that.
Yeah, they won a contest bynaming themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So that's where the old folks home for veterans is
at.
It's a pretty cool area too.
It's a population that'svulnerable, obviously, and they
don't have family members totake care of them.
So, they're even extravulnerable.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It's very isolated down there.
It's very isolated.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It's very isolated and so we would go down for
visits and just kind of lookaround.
And then I know that thatturned into basically a campaign
to improve the services andconsider, you know better, you
know, potentially relocating toa larger place, but that one I'm
sure still underway and I don'tknow if it'll ever happen, you
(06:07):
know.
But uh, it was something thatwe, we realized hey, these folks
are probably need a little bitof support.
Uh, and especially during thepandemic, there was serious
concerns about the safetysituation there.
So we went down and did someunannounced visits to see how
the facility would know facilitywould respond, things like that
.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Not in a just a little audit, not in a probing
way.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I mean not in like an offensive way.
I should say we were probing,but not in an aggressive way,
you know.
But you don't get the truthwhen it's a scheduled visit and
you know and they.
They dust everything and putthe flowers out, and everybody's
sitting in their chairs and theTV's on.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
You know, with the generals, I know, like they
haven't seen a piece of trash inyears because their trash can
is immediately emptied.
Everybody empties trash cansfor them, one or two in New
Mexico.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I think there was two in New Mexico when we first got
started.
There's like 13 judicialdistricts down there and there
was two districts that had aveterans court and we said, hey,
(07:12):
this is a resource that if thelocal judge we can find one in
the different districts cansupport it, then you know, let's
not focus too much onpopulation density.
And you know, let's not focustoo much on population density,
let's focus on is there anycases in this district any given
year where a veteran could havequalified for this type of
court?
And if there's any at all, like, let's try and open up that
(07:35):
pipeline.
And that worked likegangbusters, that within weeks
we had judges that were like,yeah, we'll take it on.
And I think you know, basicallysimultaneously we had three
different districts stand upveterans courts all within, you
know, a few months of each other.
That's amazing.
Yeah, so those are the kind ofimpacts that a group like this
can have.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, a lot of times, when you know, I think about
veterans and like how we gettaken care of, I always focus on
the federal level, like whatcan really be done at the state
level that can make a big impactfor, or like what does the
state level have an impact onfor us?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So we named our group the Veterans and Military
Families Caucus, because wewanted to make it clear that we
were also supporting legislationthat was in focus on the family
members for children, spouses,and not just the conditions for
the service member.
One of the things that I wasattached to was the purple star
(08:28):
schools.
Um, there, uh, it's a way thatthe DOD promotes a culture that
supports children that arecoming into the school, that are
military population and a lotof the staff are going to be
veterans and stuff.
You are in a more maybe a ruralplace out in like Eastern New
Mexico and, uh, it's a way forthat school to basically gain
(08:50):
resources for the school,counselors and teachers to
integrate those kids, uh, helpsupport them with counseling or
whatever they need, and be readyfor them, you know, knowing
that they're going to roll out,so supporting them in that
process as well, and so gettingthose schools to register as
Purple Star schools.
We made a legislation where itwas like the state supported it
and made it easier for them todo that, so that schools could
(09:13):
quickly register and get thatDOD support, and the state had
to put a policy in place for theschools to do that, and so we
got that done.
One thing that happens in a lotof different states and I know
other veterans groups work onthis license reciprocation.
If you're a medicalprofessional in one state and
you're, let's say, an x-raytechnician, and you've got
(09:34):
certifications in Ohio, right,and you want to move to New
Mexico, those certifications andthose licenses may not transfer
Right.
So we put in you know, graceperiod where different
professions and it it was up tokind of there's different groups
that can weigh in on that butdifferent professions and the
licensing bodies thatcoordinated them We'd say, hey,
either you have like a one ortwo year grace period when you
(09:55):
arrive and within that time weexpect you to get locally
licensed, or, depending on theprofession, we'll just
reciprocate from wherever you'reat and you don't have to get
licensed here because they usethe same test or something like
that.
So those kind of things wheresomebody doesn't have to suspend
their career, they can startlooking for work before they
arrive.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, teaching certificates are a big into that
.
Yeah, because a lot of spousesyou know they are teachers so
they bounce around with themilitary member and yeah, that's
something that you think wouldtravel with you easily.
But once you cross lines, thoseimaginary lines, you know all
of a sudden you're not a teacheranymore.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, exactly, and there's a ton of professions
that have that concern.
So you know that's one thing.
That was an incremental processover years that had started
before we picked up the torchright.
But those are some examples oflegislation.
And then taxes.
Of course.
You know there's always a wayto restructure the tax system
for veterans if they're disabledor you know, property tax
(10:46):
changes, things like that, andso that's a perpetual process of
like, what can we do to supportveterans?
One of the things there peoplesay oh, you're giving up tax
money for what reason?
The turnaround effect of thatis, if you make your state more
desirable for veterans andretirees to live there and bring
their families there and bringgenerations of people there,
then you get an economic impactthat outweighs the property tax
(11:10):
impact right by orders ofmagnitude, usually right Because
they're bringing their retireemoney and probably another
paycheck plus their spouse andthen their kids go to college
there, stuff like that.
So it's very beneficial to thestate to be incentivized to
bring retirees and veterans intothe community.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, that's one thing I always talk to our
elected officials about isgetting rid of the state tax for
military members here, likeactive duty military members.
Because the sooner that we getthem involved in our communities
, because when your ballotdoesn't have local elections on
it, you don't care.
Yeah, you know.
So the sooner that we can getthem involved in our communities
and our elections, the betteroff everybody's going to be.
(11:49):
But there's no incentive forthem to change to here, so I
always bring that up so and.
I hope that's something thatthis veterans caucus that we're
talking about up in Denver canfocus on and put some weight
behind, because I think thatwould have a huge benefit for us
.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, how many people did you know in the military
that would switch their home ofrecord to Florida or Texas or
whatever Arizona there's?
like five six, seven states thatdon't tax active duty pay,
don't tax retirement pay and allsorts of stuff, or no state tax
at all, and so people, as soonas they land there, they're like
bam changing that home ofrecord and then they never
(12:23):
change it, and you know whatthat does.
We want to talk about the longrope here, and this will
transition us into our nexttopic.
I think that's headcount inyour district, and so if you
have, you know there's a highpopulation of people who have a
home of record somewhere in someCounty in Florida, don't
necessarily live there, butthey're a voter in the head
(12:44):
count for that congressionaldistrict, for that County seat,
whatever, right.
And so the you're attractingit's a.
You can attract a specificpopulation of people to become
head count within your district,and there are certain states
that have a stranglehold on thatand I don't know how that
couldn't be strategicallybeneficial, especially from you
(13:04):
know.
I hate to say it, but it's apartisan angle, right, and every
now and then we would put onour, you know, blue britches
down in New Mexico.
And remember there is a biggertheme to all of this right and
it's getting elected people intooffice that are supporting
these blue initiatives.
So the long rope there is youget headcount and you can
recruit a specific type ofpeople.
(13:25):
Where else in politics do youget the opportunity to do that?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, having such a targeted genre of people to talk
to and to place places To talkto, that's the most important
part.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You're talking points are sound, the issues they face
you can understand, and sothat's what I see is the like.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You know why I say attract a certain population is
because you can speak to thoseissues and do something about it
and that's kind of one of mypushes always with our elected
officials is that I think wewould net more blue voters if we
did it here, because the folksthat are already like sitting
there with Texas, they're withFlorida, they're not going to
change it to be here, no, butbut like the, the space force
(14:06):
and air force, you know the moreprogressive folks that are out
there, like they will change itto be here and we can push them,
make things happen, you know.
So, yeah, hopefully thisveterans caucus, you know well I
was gonna say, is effective.
I know it's going to beeffective.
Yeah, we got some great peoplein it and I think we're going to
have a lot of good pressure,you know, from the vets, you
(14:27):
know, to get some changes aroundhere.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And so there's a meeting for that tomorrow on
zoom and I'm not sure you knowhow all the invites went out,
but it's just the first.
It's a kickoff type thingintroductions and maybe a little
bit of an intro to whatever thecharter is for him.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, he's had a couple points of business.
It just came in he said youcould have a few minutes to
there too, so get your ideas outthere.
Yeah, I think it's big news forus here locally to get that
kind of infrastructure set up atthe state.
Bigger news here locally to getsome of that kind of
infrastructure set up at thestate.
Yeah, Bigger news here locallyis that we had a new candidate
throw their hat into the ringfor CD5.
(15:03):
Jessica Killen, former captain.
I think she did like six yearswhat service.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
I care very much, I think the Air Force, yeah, okay,
yeah, captain in the Air Force,I'm going to groan at that.
I'll meet you eventually,jessica, but just know, I
groaned at your air forceaffiliation.
If that's true, if it's not,please let us know.
I mean, we'll have to correctthe record.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Maybe she's a warrant officer or something some low
level like that.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You know, yeah, yeah, you know what that would change
the game significantly.
I would be her campaign manager.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
But uh, she uh first day, you know?
Uh, so she's the chief of staffof doug emoff, the uh former
second first gentleman yeah,yeah um, and he also.
She also worked in the bidenadministration, so she's got she
checks all the boxes right alot of deep chops, you know
political chops.
That's great.
First day $750,000 she raised.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And, like we had said , that's the Imhoff connection,
that's the war chest that Kamalahad pulled together at the end
of the last cycle.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
There's a lot of money in those bank accounts
right now that is a great point,yeah, and one way to do that is
to transfer it to othercandidates.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, you can transfer it to other candidates.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, and one way to do that is to transfer it to
other candidates.
Yeah, but that's more moneythan Crank has in the bank.
I think he did a million lastyear.
Yeah, but what he's got rightnow, he's going to have to plus
up.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, he's going to really have to Right.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I mean, for so long Lamborn never had to campaign
here because they had the moneyto just flood the zone with
their propaganda.
Yeah, with that type of money,that makes it a real, real
possibility.
But we have to get through theprimary still.
Yes, and there's like four orfive candidates, I think, right
(16:49):
now.
And Joe Reagan, he raised about$50,000 last quarter.
Jamie Smith was like $18,000.
Zuri Horowitz was around $5,000or $6,000 last quarter.
Jamie Smith was like 18.
Zuri Horowitz was around fiveor six, and then there was one
other lady that didn't reportany money.
But so all pretty small numbers.
When you talk about acongressional campaign at this
(17:09):
level and the fact that thenational level is looking at us
here like that's Well, it'scontested for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
That's exciting.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Well, I mean, we lost it by it's not a safe 14 points
last time yeah so, likeeverybody's saying it's safe,
like in air quotes, yeah, safered, but that's because we've
never had any resources here topush it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
You know what I mean.
Yeah, well, and midterm yearsare totally different than
presidential years, right, likethat's a you know campaign 101.
Like presidential years are thebig, the big show, right, you
know, and if you're in the offyears, that you got to change
your math, you got to changeyour strategy, you know, because
not as many people are going toshow up and vote.
So, yeah, so that benefits theunderdog in those situations
(17:49):
usually.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So yeah, yeah, it should be interesting to see you
know once the campaign reallystarts.
You know, I think this is theher trying to push everybody
else out and just kind of likeset the tone, like no, that's a
strong showing to do that.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That is a way to do it, and I mean the only way that
you know.
Well, my first take was wow, an18 month campaign, right.
But if you're saying there'sthose other folks, I mean if
they've just rolled through acycle and just kept their bank
accounts open like that, Iunderstand that.
But yeah, to jump out with abig lead like that, and then,
you know, the only way thatcould fall flat is, if there's a
(18:24):
the next quarter or twoquarters from now, just things
simmer down.
You know, I mean who?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
knows, I mean, you could ride that in this area.
Just that alone.
Well, sure, sure.
But.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I'm saying as far as like uh strategy or looking weak
, uh, if you have a couple offlat quarters, right, that's all
.
That's what I'm saying your,second, your other person in the
primary who's nipping at yourheels?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
yeah, we'll see a flat quarter and be like, oh,
this is my chance, you know yeah, I might try to recruit more
people or recruit more money inthat quarter I've heard that
theory before too, that like howearly you join is kind of like
how strong you are, you know, asa candidate.
So if you jump in early, youknow to try to like get people
on your side, it makes you lookkind of weaker or less of a
(19:06):
candidate.
Sure, have you heard that?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I've seen it.
I've seen it where there arepeople that jump in early and
then there are people that arelike I know when I'm going to
pull the trigger and there's notgoing to be any condition
that's going to change mytimeline, Right Like I've got a
plan and I'm going to execute myplan and what you do is not
going to change my plan.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I've seen that and a lot of these plans.
They go around fiscal reporting.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yes, so what quarter do you enter, so you know you
can make your big push.
Yeah, so she didn't enter, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, she didn't enter until the end of the last
one, so she doesn't have toreport until November.
Okay, but she started off with750.
So like November's report isgoing to be pretty solid.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yes, the quarter you start in is
definitely a critical firststep, right, and you play it
either two ways you Don't expectmuch, right, or you do what she
did.
It's my first quarter and I canjust keep doing this if you
want, yeah that's a I hate bigmoney.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I don't like people coming from out of the area, but
she was raised here in ColoradoSprings so I do feel more
comfortable about that and Ihate Citizens United and big
money like this.
But you have to play the game.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I don't.
I like big money and I'm fromeverywhere cause I'm a soldier,
so you know I'm.
I can't make us take a stanceon from here, not from here.
That's what.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I have to keep swinging back to too.
It's like like me personally,like like, why do I think like
that when I'm one of thetransients, you know?
So, yeah, that's a good pointtoo is that you know you can't
hold it against her, but she wasraised here in Colorado Springs
, so it is a plus one.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
And for me money like if I ever run another, another
campaign like man.
You know a lot of my money isnot going to come from because I
like I say I'm from everywhere,so I'm going to pick up the
phone and call people all overthe country.
Right, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, that was.
If you have donors coming fromall over the place, it doesn't.
What does it look like?
Right, because you know theprimary.
You're only trying to talk to acouple of hundred people.
You know to get through thecaucus and things like that, or
to get through the caucus to theprimary.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, to get through the convention.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, you only talk to a couple of hundred people,
yeah, and if those couple ofhundred people think that your
outside money is going toinfluence you, could be screwed.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Yeah, you can get uh pushed outby the uh, what it is.
The state central committee iswhat it is.
Yeah, that's the people thatvote on who's going to end up on
the ballot, and they downselect within the party so that
you get the right people on theprimary ballot Right and so yeah
, but um, yeah, so excitingtimes.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
You know new candidate.
I think it's going to beinteresting to see how she comes
into the community and, uh,yeah, looking forward to meeting
her.
Um, next thing we wanted totalk about was the uh ongoing
Middle East turmoil.
Uh, israel is trying to sparksome more matches over there.
Um, they did some strikes inSyria.
Uh, you want to tell us aboutthat a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I um heard about that this morning and I guess it
happened yesterday or I'm notreally sure what time, but in
the last 24 hours.
There's a population of folksthat live on either side of the
border in the Golan Heightsregion, so some are in Israel
and some are in Syria.
They're a group of Arabs calledthe Druze D-R-U-Z-E and Israel
(22:13):
defends them.
In general, whenever there'sbeen any kind of skirmish or
conflicts in those areas, israelwill strike over the border,
and so they did that.
I guess there was a couplehundred people flee from north
to south into Golan Heights areaand Israel closed the border
(22:33):
and then started shooting, andthey shot into the conflict area
where Syria's new governmentwas attacking.
You know what they claimed as arebel group with just the Druze
people.
I don't know what they'rereally doing or not, but the
thing that kind of madeeverybody's eyes pop wasn't that
they bombed Damascus.
Yeah, and they bombed yeah, theybombed Damascus in the daytime
(22:55):
and, uh, it was not a lightlittle tap, it was more than one
shot and they were big missiles.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, and daytime strikes?
Nighttime strikes arepsychologically terrifying,
because you don't really knowwhat's going on.
Sure, but daytime strikes meansyou can't do a dang thing about
this.
Your air defenses mean nothing.
We are coming in and we aredoing this, yeah, and that's
even more psychologicallydamaging.
That's what I'm saying, man.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I'm like blow stuff up in the daytime and just scare
the hell out of people.
Right, and that's what I saw,was a video of these are
becoming more common News anchorwoman sitting on a chair and
downtown Damascus is behind herand probably from the look of it
, that was a real glass wallbehind her.
And the bomb landed quartermile away.
(23:39):
I mean, it was just on theother side of the courtyard,
basically, and it was open spacefrom there to where the impact
happened.
There was no building, therewas nothing in between.
It was a line of sight shot aquarter mile away and it was
ugly dude and it rocked her outof her chair.
She like jumped out of thechair and was screaming, you
know.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, it was massive.
Yeah, I can't imagine livingunder that kind of fear, like,
say, daytime.
But yeah, daytimes aren't safe.
Now, yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
So yeah that.
So that's going on in the.
I guess uh trump was had madesome kind of statement about.
You know, he didn't, basicallydidn't support that, because
there's a delicate uhrelationship with the syrian,
the new Syrian government, thatAmerica is trying to sort of
feel it out and Israel pushingthe issue doesn't help.
(24:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, we've been trying to get them under a
little control for a while now.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
So a little more of the same in that regard, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I mean, if you let them indiscriminately bomb
people in their own country,they're not going to care about
indiscriminately bombingcapitals in other countries.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Because like what was the, whatwas the reason for bombing
damascus?
They did, they haven't, theyhaven't said just said anything.
Yeah, somebody, somebody got anitchy finger and they're like,
yeah, we see an opportunity yeah, and it's, uh, people, there's
(25:00):
too many people with that itchyfinger on buttons right now.
Sure, sure, it's scary, youknow, ours included, you know,
with Trump being kind ofcornered.
Now, you know, and we're goingto kind of transition into the
the files that don't exist.
Yeah, that shall not be named.
Yeah, epstein the Epstein filesthat don't exist, never existed
(25:23):
or were made up.
The Epstein files that don'texist, never existed or were
made up.
Yeah, people went to jail forum, but, yeah, it still never
existed.
Uh, his name.
There's some good documents outthere that have been leaked
with, like the, the evidencethat was submitted and, like you
know, his name circled on somethings and things like that that
that look pretty.
You know damning Um.
(25:46):
You know damning um, but withhim, you know, kind of being
backed in the corner pissing offhis own, you know maga.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Uh, conspiracy, right , yeah, yeah.
Or the q anon folks, right,yeah, the deep state, yeah, the
deep state.
Q anon side of the house, likeepstein, was a, because q anon
was all about the cabal of worldleaders that, secretly, you
know drink child, drink childblood.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah, pizzagate and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, and that was there.
That was the foundation ofQAnon.
Was sexual immorality inpolitical power right?
And Epstein was the?
You know the whole story wasbirthed out of that kind of
conspiracy, yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And now you know with him.
I think he's worried a littlebit.
I think he's worried a littlebit.
What do you think his optionsare when it comes to either
regaining control of his MAGAfollowers or just kind of going
full tyrannical and trying toscare people back into line?
What do you think is going onin the administration right now.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I think it's a much bigger problem than they want to
admit.
I think that's why his publicstatements so far are explicit
downplay of who's still talkingabout that.
Isn't that story boring?
Who cares about that?
That's what he just says overand over for like the last three
days, right.
And then you've got Fox news.
You know I like to talk aboutJesse waters.
(27:04):
I didn't watch it this episode,but I saw the little clip and,
uh, he was like something'sfishy.
You know, like I can't, I can'tbelieve it.
Right.
And even all of Fox news and the, you know as they call it, the
manosphere, right, the the theonline you know podcast folks um
, almost all of them have saidum, said that they can't believe
(27:26):
what's going on right now andthat there's more to the story.
They're still committed totheir original beliefs and the
government coming out and saying, oh, there's no list, they just
they're like yeah, of course,the government said that and it
just.
It's just unfortunate that thegovernment is their hero's
government, right, and so theschism there is just terrible
(27:47):
for some of these folks.
There was one dude and I don'tremember his name, I can
recognize his face.
He was like the only one thathad been, he's been on the
conspiracy bandwagonconsistently until like Monday,
and then he was like I'm justgoing to believe the government
on this one.
Those are our guys in thegovernment and they're telling
us the truth.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I think you're talking about Tim Pool, maybe.
Yeah, where he's like myfriends in the administration.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, yeah and he just said I'm over it, I'm going
to move on and I believe themand he's like the only one, but
I'm pretty sure it's alreadybeen proven that he's taken some
some.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
He was one of those folks got hired as a consultant
or something, but then it justturned out that it was like he
was literally.
It was like Russian RT, youknow, like propaganda yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Um, but but yeah, so he's obviously somebody that can
be bought and paid for.
And then he had a meeting withthe administration his friends
in the administration tell himit's cool, yeah, but nobody else
is buying that you know.
But I mean, at the end of theday, is it going to matter?
Because you still see a lot ofthings online where it's like,
if he did things in the past,god saved his life after that
(28:51):
assassination attempt and he ishere to save our life.
Oh, sure, sure, you know.
There's still that like cultish.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Would there be a revolt if the list came out?
If there is a list, if the listcomes out and donald trump's in
in, implicated in some way, inwhatever, even just conspiracy
to stuff, do stuff right, um,would his base revolt?
I don't, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
No, I mean the the things are going on in like the
fema responses in his areasright now and they're not
revolting Right and they'reaccepting it Down in Texas and
even North Carolina is stilldigging themselves out of things
, and there's flooding going oneverywhere right now and people
aren't waking up to it.
They think that this is allkind of part of the plan.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Sexual morality is not this man's call claim to
fame right.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Right From the beginning.
This was known.
All of this stuff was knownbefore.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah so I don't.
The base has already forgivenhis.
You know lifestyle there.
How horrific is that.
You know, that's it, that's allthere is to it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Really.
I've read the reports from,like, katie Johnson and even his
first wife, ivanka Ivana Ican't remember what her name was
, but like the police reportthat she filed against him like
horrific, horrific things yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And people are just kind of like yeah, okay, yeah,
and it just like that's.
When you start reading thingslike that and you start seeing
people who, for who they are.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Like you can't just say, oh, that was in the past.
No, that's foundational.
That's who he is, yeah, yeah,but I mean, the boys will be
boys.
Locker room talk excuse cameout in the 2016 campaign and
that was that.
That was the moment where itwas either this is going to be
forgiven forever yeah, and norevelation will ever change
anybody's mind yeah, or this iswhere we draw the line Right.
Yeah, change any anybody's mind.
(30:45):
Yeah, or this is where we drawthe line right yeah, and the
line was not drawn there.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Boys will be boys, that was it.
Um?
Have you seen?
There's a video of those uhclasses teaching men to be alpha
males, where you pay like tentwelve thousand dollars and get
screamed at and, yes, they justget tortured and brutalized.
Yes, uh, I saw a clip that theyhad to add something in after
graduation about talking to themen like, okay, don't go home
and be a-holes to your wife.
(31:07):
Like they call us up and theysay he comes in and barking
orders at us and blah, blah,blah, blah, you can't go home
and be an asshole.
Yeah, like, yeah, man, like Ihave such a problem with that.
You know, like you guys wantedindoctrinate yourselves like oh,
you can't really use this.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
They would want their money back.
I would think right.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Be like wait a minute .
Speaker 2 (31:27):
What did I pay you for?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I have such a huge problem with pushing military
culture onto the civilianpopulation.
You know the Jocko guy thatwrites like self-help books.
This sounds familiar Navy SEAL,extreme Leadership, I think
think his name was one of hisbooks.
Uh, yeah, he, he'll tell astory about.
Yeah, when I was, you know, inAfghanistan doing this and this
(31:50):
guy was screwing up, I told himto stop screwing up and blah
blah, blah.
It's like yeah, cool man, you'rein a battle zone, you're in a
war zone.
That doesn't need to, thatdoesn't belong in the boardroom,
like that type of mentality,cause they never go into the
like, the, the, the burden ofleadership.
Sure, when you're an extremeleader like that, there's a
burden that comes with it, thatweighs on you and like you carry
it with you 24, seven like, allthe time, and it it hurts
(32:11):
people, like that's why suicidesare so high.
Oh, sure, because we have aburden on us that we feel all
the time that we cannot fail.
Yeah, and that does not need tobe pushed onto the civilian
population.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Sure, yeah, I, yeah, I agree.
Uh, you know, I I don't see itis being pushed from the
monetary position of like peoplewill buy this, right, yeah, um,
but the there's probably justas much pull from uh group.
You know some, some populationof the american men, right,
they're like I want that type ofyou know whatever lifestyle
mentality uh, it's gonna make mebetter at some thing that I do
(32:41):
because we've all, because we'veall, sat in front of tvs of you
know whatever lifestylementality.
It's going to make me better atsomething that I do Because
we've all sat in front of TVsand played.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
You know, cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians,
and so from an early, early age.
Now, with the modernization of,you know, television, social
media, people are inundated withthis thought that it's okay to
kill people, sure, and it's notpeople, sure, and it's not like.
People need to get out of thatmindset that, uh, you know, yes,
they are heroes, but they'renot our heroes because of
(33:11):
killing people, body counts,right, there are heroes because
they raised their hand and saidyeah, I'm going to go, I'm going
to go put myself in some badsituations and I'm going to help
protect you.
Yeah, Um, and I think peoplehave lost that.
They want the killing andthat's disgusting to me.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but I definitely
I try, and I'm getting a littlebit too old to have this lens
anymore.
But for a long time I tried tolook out at the rest of the
American population, of my peers, basically, and kind of compare
, maybe in a I don't know, kindof compare, maybe in a I don't
know, I think in a healthy wayof like what do I, what am I
doing that's different than whatthey do, or what?
(33:47):
How would my lifestyle bedifferent if I had this same job
but wasn't in the Army?
Those kind of things, just sothat I could I don't know why I
just wanted to be able tounderstand that better, because
maybe I knew that the existenceI was living was so bizarre.
But now that I'm getting older,like I say, I don't I don't do
that as much and I guess causeI'm not in the military anymore
(34:09):
but, um, I could see theadmiration and and I mean that
in a good way of like man, Iwish I was doing the cool stuff
you're doing and so I can seehow those people would get a
little bit older, get a littlebit of money in their pocket and
be like man I want to level upin life, and then they're like
well, I always thought thoseguys were pretty cool.
And that's about it.
(34:30):
It doesn't take much more thanthat a flashy cover and a bald
dude and you're like you're inman.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So you know, yeah Well, all right, we'll end it on
that.
Thanks, we'll end it on that.
Thanks for joining us againthis week.
On left face Uh, join us.
Tune in next week with DickWilkinson, adam Gillard Uh,
we'll talk to you then.
Bye.
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