The Smoke Pit

Veterans and military families are joining forces for a mass march in Philadelphia on July 4th, and on this episode of The Smoke Pit, the organizers tell you exactly why. Katie Chorbak (50501 Veterans), Hanna Lafko (Common Defense), Billie Winner-Davis (Military Family Speak Out), Steph Money (50501 Veterans Policy Director), and Carl Able (50501 Veterans Media Director) break down what is driving veterans and their families into t...

Ceretta Smith has been planning this run since 2015. That was the year she walked into her congressman's office in Washington, D.C., leading a union delegation on veterans' and federal worker issues, and got a polite thanks-for-coming and was shown the door. She looked at her delegation and said, "One day I'm coming for that seat." Eleven years later, she's on the ballot in Georgia's 12th Congressional District, and she brought eve...

IN THIS EPISODE

The Saturday crew dives into a week that felt ripped straight from a dystopian screenplay. Katie, Carl, and Bryan cover the $250 Trump bill, the collapsing White House fair, the UFC fight on the people's lawn, Peter Thiel's move to Argentina, the billionaire class and its relationship to democracy, end-stage capitalism, worker co-ops as a structural alternative, and what it means when the people who were supposed to ...

What happens to veterans who get deported from the United States? On this episode of The Smoke Pit, host Katie Chorbak sits down with Dee James, an Army veteran and deported veterans advocate who served six and a half years as a legal permanent resident and nearly became a deported veteran herself, to answer that question directly.

The U.S. government does not track how many veterans it deports. No system exists at ICE, DHS, or USCI...

On Memorial Day 2026, the Smoke Pit paused the news cycle to do something simpler: remember.

Our members shared the names of those they served with who never came home. Army veteran Katie Chorbak traced the history of Black Americans who fought in every American war while being denied the rights those wars were supposedly defending. Army veteran Max Stubbs asked what it actually means to honor a sacrifice, not just for a day, but in...

In this episode, we're not talking about maps. We're talking about power: who has it, who's being engineered out of it, and what veterans are doing about it.

From Bloody Sunday and the Voting Rights Act to the Supreme Court's gutting of Section 2 in Louisiana v. Calais, the playbook for silencing Black and Brown voters has never gone away. It just got redrawn. We break down the full history with our guest Jamil Davis of Black Vo...

The White House just released a new counterterrorism strategy that labels left-wing extremism, including anti-fascist ideology, anarchism, and transgender ideology, alongside narco-terrorists and Islamist movements as major domestic terrorism threats. This week's panel breaks down what it means, why veterans should be paying attention, and who's really being targeted.

On the panel:

• Tom Sidle — Co-founder, Veterans Against F...

Veterans are trained to follow lawful orders — but they're also taught that just following orders is never a complete moral defense. So where does obedience end and complicity begin?

This week on The Smoke Pit, Katie brings together a panel of veterans and military family members to dig into one of the most uncomfortable tensions in American civic life: when is breaking the law not only justified, but necessary?

In this episode...

Military sexual trauma (MST) affects hundreds of thousands of service members—yet it remains one of the most underreported, under-prosecuted, and systemically buried issues in the U.S. armed forces. In this episode, host Katie Chorbak, president of 5051 Vets and MST survivor, brings together a panel of advocates, attorneys, and veterans to pull back the curtain on decades of silence, institutional cover-up, and survivor retal...

When does presidential behavior cross the line into incapacity?

In this episode of The Smoke Pit, we break down one of the most uncomfortable questions in American politics: how do you determine if a president is no longer fit to lead?

Using real-world examples, military leadership perspectives, and constitutional analysis, we examine:

• The difference between personality, poor judgment, and true incapacity
• How leadership failures ar...

Money drives modern politics. But at what cost?

In this episode of The Smoke Pit, veterans from across the political spectrum sit down with Mayhem, co-founder of Money Out of Politics, to break down how campaign financing has reshaped American democracy.

From the historical roots of political funding to the post–Citizens United explosion of dark money and Super PACs, the panel explores a core question:

Is money in politics the d...

Veterans from across the political spectrum break down what’s really happening in the escalating Iran conflict—and why the lack of information should concern every American.

In this episode of The Smoke Pit, the panel reacts to reports of a U.S. F-15 being shot down, additional aircraft losses including an F-35 and AWACS, and growing questions about whether the United States still maintains air superiority in the region....

Veterans from across the political spectrum come together in The Smoke Pit to break down the latest U.S. troop movements, rising tensions with Iran, and the real risk of another forever war. This unfiltered conversation dives into what “boots on the ground” actually means from those who have lived it, not just debated it.

The panel explores strategic realities like the deployment of the 82nd Airborne, potential operation...

Do constitutional rights apply to everyone in the United States, or only to citizens?

In this episode of The Smoke Pit, veterans debate due process, ICE enforcement, and what their oath to the Constitution actually demands in today’s political climate.

This episode brings together veterans with different perspectives for a direct, unscripted conversation about immigration policy, civil liberties, and government accountability.

T...