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B
Welcome everyone to Truth in the Barrel, the Happy New Year edition. I'm here Amy McGrath with my co host, Denver Riggleman. So awesome to see you, Denver. Happy New Year.
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A
Happy New Year. I hope you had a good one. I know you've been a busy beaver. I know you got all kinds of stuff going on.
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B
Well, I took a little reprieve, I think like most Americans around the holidays and honestly I felt like the holidays there was a bit of reprieve from the madness that's going on. I mean, what do you think?
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A
Yeah, I mean I, no, I do like, I like the New Year's present of the Venezuela bombing. I mean that was nice, you know, right after, you know, the holidays. But yeah, so we tried really hard to really enjoy family.
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B
Good. Yeah, we did too. And yesterday, Denver, I officially filed to run for this open seat for U.S. senate here in Kentucky. So that was, you know, from my perspective, a really good day. But, but from our country's perspective, yesterday was a terrible day tragedy in Minnesota. A woman was idling in a car near the scene of an ongoing ICE operation in Minneapolis and she was approached by ICE agents. There's a lot of confusion as to what happened. Of course we have many videos of what happened, but apparently the ICE agents ordered her to get out of her car or move on. Nobody really knows. And after driving somewhat near one of the ICE agents, she was shot in the head by an ICE agent. And that is horrific enough. Okay, just that part of it. Her name was Renee Nicole good. She was 37. She's a mother of three kids. She has a 15 year old, another two children ages 12 and 6. She was a U.S. citizen. She was not the target of the raid. She was a college graduate, award winning poet. If all, all of that is so horrific. But then on top of it, Denver, our Department of Homeland Security makes a statement almost immediately after this happened and posts on social media a bunch of.
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A
Lies.
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B
Calling her a domestic terrorist, saying that the, the dhs, the ICE officer, you know, shot her to save his own Life. Our president posted a lie. I mean, imagine if there was no video here. I mean, it's just horrific.
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A
So I, I was watching Kristi Gnome, right? Who for some reason dresses up like Woody from Toy Story when she gives press conferences. I'm not quite sure what that is. Right? Just cosplaying ridiculousness. And you have our authorities, our leaders talking about waiting for facts before you state anything. And you have her and Nancy Mace out there saying they were paid agitators. What proof? And by the way, page agitator conspiracy theories are based on globalist deep state. And this bizarre. Right. Downflow from the Tea Party movement where they were talking about paid agitators, right. During the Obama presidency, as you remember, when these conspiracy theories really bloomed, almost like a mushroom cloud of idiocy, right. That just sort of rolled over America. So this downstream effect, when you see Nancy Mace or you see people talking about paid agitators in the administration, that's simply conspiratorial thinking based on fantasy incredulity or specific grift or specific cynicism, right? To actually radicalize, I would say ignorance. When she came out and said these things, I got very, very angry because there are facts established in the case. The facts are this. A mother of three was shot and killed by a white male ICE agent. The mother was sitting in a vehicle and emergency care was denied her. Those are the facts, right? Everything else after that, regardless of how you view that video specifically, right. Needs to be a subject of investigation, however, for individuals in the administration to come out and say, don't believe your lying eyes. Believe the fact that we already know she was a page, a paid agitator and domestic terrorist. And then they're saying, wait for the facts before you jump to the conclusions. Why they're jumping to conclusions. It's actually the whiplash of stochastic terrorism. And let me explain. When you radicalize people by othering, right, another group, and when I say othering, it's actually identifying them and dehumanizing them and saying they're already paid agitators. They're part of the deep state, they're part of the left. We're going to own the libs by shooting somebody. You're saying that they aren't even worth rule of law or any type of grace for an investigation to happen. Because it's obvious, based on our credulity and our idiocy, that we know what's best and what's right. She was the widow of a veteran. She is everything, right, that we have been talking about when you're talking about violence as policy. And I'll say this violence as policy has become normalized since J6. Sadly, she was a victim of the long line of J6 radicalization and violence as policy. And now we have individuals who believe that that shooting should be celebrated and the people like Kyle Rittenhouse saying they need to go to Minnesota. These low life scavengers, these medulla oblongata driven idiots, right, that roll around this country as grifters and as people that believe that fantasy is really the baseline for their own personal adventure. And I think that's why I'm angry today is because I'm tired. I'm tired of stochastic terrorism being dressed in conspiracy theories, and I'm tired of radicalization being pushed by people wearing cowboy hats. Well, that's where I'm at right now.
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B
The leadership of the DHS and like so many other agencies of our federal government right now is a joke. Imagine if there was no video here, and if we had a functioning Congress, there would be immediate calls for hearings, I think even impeachment of the DHS secretary, because clearly this was just horrendous. I mean, look, in. In. In a functioning agency, in a functioning military unit that has operational responsibility, okay, when something really bad happens, when you know it's really bad, like not just, you know, that that was a mistake. No, no, no, this is really bad. Like shooting a woman in the head for no apparent reason, okay, that's really bad. In the aviation community, we stop all operations. We do this thing called a safety stand down, because we try to figure out like, what just happened. We need to fix that. Was it that personal? Was it somebody who went rogue? I don't know. Was it a training issue? Okay, Was it something else? Either way, you have to stop and you have to look at this. And instead that organization led by the woman in the cowboy hat starts lying and ramping things up to the point where we have the governor of Minnesota saying he's going to bring on his National Guard to protect the citizens of Minnesota against the federal masked men force. I mean, this is where we're at.
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A
Amy, me and you have been through this scenario, haven't we? Yeah, we war gamed this. Me and you people have no idea. We weren't we war game this back in 2024 with a group about what would happen if federal and state troops engaged in contact and how would that actually affect the constit constitution? When you're talking about the rogue actions of a federal government and, or the rogue actions of a state government, regardless of how they're reacting to one another. What does that do for the American constitutional system? The problem that we have is we didn't think even then, Amy. We went, remember, we were, everybody was like, is there any way this could happen? We're like, yeah, there's a lot of us, all of us were like, yeah, absolutely, he's insane. We didn't know it would happen so fast. I think that was one thing. Right. It's now. I think the second thing too is we did not with everything we were trying to imagine. I don't think, Amy, and you can tell me which I don't think we imagine the incompetence and the insanity of the people in positions of power in the United States today. I mean, she came out, I, I need to foot stomp this. She came out in a press conference where a mother was killed in a fricking cowboy hat looking some like western themed PEZ dispenser. Right. And I'm, and I'm, and I'm thinking this is the professionalism we have and, and then automatically starts to radicalize the base for Trump against this mother. Yeah, I, I, I'm just, I, I, I'm watching this in shock. This is our country run by these almost said something awful, but run by awful human beings.
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B
Yeah.
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A
People with no sense of dignity or morals or any sense of truth.
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B
And then you have the vice President coming out and saying, you know, this happened because people, you know, don't like ice. It's happened because of the far left. I mean, that's, that's their, that's their narrative every single time. I mean, come on, this is ridiculous. And again, if we had a functioning Congress that actually cared, they would at the very least say, you know, let's bring the leader of this force to Capitol Hill and start asking some questions because Americans are getting hurt.
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A
Two things have happened. You're right. There is no functioning Congress. It's some Duma like entity until the midterms. And what people are thinking, are we going to have a 35 to 45 seat change in the midterms? Amy. But two things happened today. Number one, this increased the propensity of violence against civilians if there's no accountability for this type of action, number one. Number two, it's increased the possibility of violence against ICE agents if there's no accountability here. So my prediction, that's a really good point. Just like before January 6th, there's always reciprocal actions and the data proves it out what you're going to see is you're going to see a reciprocal action of some type of violence directed towards authorities soon. And that's why I get angry, because they don't understand what's happening or they want it to happen. And it was our war. War Gaming Amy, me and you, where we talked about this scenario to what Tim Waltz is doing. And he needs to calm down, too. And I, and if I were to call him and say, brother, hold on a second look at the downstream effects first and how you present this case, that was the first thing I would say. Hold on. Because reciprocal violence is so real, it's been proven out in data that right now what you're saying, right, is that there could be or some kind of consideration or rationalization for violence the other way towards ICE or other types of people representing the Trump administration. So that this is going. And you know what? That might exactly what Trump wants to happen because he loves the Insurrection act, as we know, he loves the Aliens Enemies act and he loves martial law. And it's this type of provocation that we were worried about back in 2024.
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B
Yeah, this is exactly, I mean, it was almost. And you and I talked last night when this happened. This is almost exactly the scenario that we went through where we looked at what will happen to the National Guard. I mean, and it all stems from leaders who are, as you sort of said, either inept or they want it to happen. Super really scary right now, that second.
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A
One, it's the only two options. And. Or, yeah, it's either, either or both.
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B
And that. And this just happened, you know, yesterday. And it's horrific. And, and we should all take a step back and, and demand accountability for, for, you know, these, these federal agents and this agency and what they are doing in America. But a lot did happen just over New Year's and beyond. I mean, it's only been a few days since the new year. And I remember going for a walk, walking with my dogs on Saturday morning, and I put my phone away. Denver, because, you know, I need a break sometimes.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
Put my phone away and that I keep it with me during the walks, but I wasn't on it or anything. And I get a call from my husband who said, you know, I know you put your phone away and you don't want to news right now, but we just attacked Venezuela and we have kidnapped the, you know, dictator leader of Venezuela and we're, we're now at war. Oh, my God.
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A
Yeah.
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B
What?
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A
You know, when I saw it, I. There's Almost like, you know, when you smile in the face of horror, you know, we're military, we have fatalistic humor. And, you know, we do all that, right? Dark humor and all the stuff that we do. But when I saw it, you know, it's just incredible to me that the first messaging AV that came out was we were going after a drug dealer and automatically anybody with even half a brain, if their IQ is even a skosh above moron, they're like, well, why is he actually pardoning the president? Honduras, who are running tons and tons of cocaine into the U.S. oh, and Ross and Ross Ulbricht from Silk Road and all the other drug dealers that he's pardoned. And so you have Rubio and all these people going up there falling on their swords, saying, you know, this is no different from Noriega. And then literally the next morning, Trump's like, well, we're just stealing oil.
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B
Oh, we're all over it.
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A
We're all. Because it's incompetence in that. But also, this is an end game thing, Amy. It's him trying to make sure he enriches himself as much as he can before he's done. It's just that simple.
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B
Yeah. And you know that Susie Wiles interview, the White House Chief of staff in Vanity Fair, where, you know, she said he, he, Donald Trump wants regime change. He. He wants Maduro out. Turns out she was right.
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A
You know, she was dead on.
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B
You know, back in September, as you said about stopping drug traffickers was just complete. You know, it wasn't about that. It was all about getting Maduro out. And now we're learning it's about oil. That's what this is about.
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A
Listen, they can only do oil business with American companies or we're going to bomb them again. I mean, who are we? Are we Putin? I mean, are we now the baddies? Because, by God, it does seem that way. Listen, nobody thinks Maduro is a good guy. I mean, come on, Right? But the thing is, it's the nuance of actually splitting things, of why, of why something happened or what happened. We can say we were operationally excellent in fulfilling that specific mission. Maduro is a bad guy.
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B
Sure.
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A
We can also say the why of why America does things is so important toward not only our moral standing in our word, but the cascading effects of what happens in foreign policy in South America and around the world. And if we're doing exactly what the Project 202025 playbook said, which was rehemisphering, and we're saying this is our hemisphere. And you can do whatever you want over there. Ukraine is screwed and so is Tai. Yeah. People don't understand because either they're not smart, they're being deliberately obtuse. Right. Or they're credulous, or you just have the most incompetent administration in the history of the United States. And I think all of that could be that whole mix, that morass of crap could probably be true at once.
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B
Well, and I've said this many times and I think it needs to be repeated over and over again. Congress has not declared war. Congress has not authorized the use of force. We have thousands of troops down there poised, you know, for, for striking, have already done kinetic strikes. Now we, we invaded a foreign country and, and pulled out as leader. And none of this has been authorized or even briefed to Congress prior. And, and here's the thing, and it does boil down to this. Denver, who. Who do you think who should decide who runs Venezuela? I mean, I think the Venezuelans.
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A
Are you talking self determination, Amy? Oh my God.
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Should decide Trump?
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
This is ridiculous.
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This isn't America.
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B
And now he's talking as you, you alluded to this, this, he calls it the Donro doctrine. Okay. And this is his vision for a new world order where the United States can, you know, freely overthrow a national government in our own hemisphere, I guess, or take foreign territory. Take the, take foreign resources. So long as we say it's in our interest or the interest, I guess, of oil companies and grifters and you know, Donald Trump has said American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again. Well, really, that, that's what this is all about. This is our hemisphere is what he said. I mean, come on, this is, this is crazy talk. I mean, and it's throwing away 80 years of what the greatest generation fought for and died for to build for our planet that has been defended by cold warriors, you know, by people who, who gave their lives to, to have this world in which might doesn't equal. Right. You know, all the time. It's just crazy.
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A
You almost feel like Marcus Aurelius talking to Maximus in the movie. I know, it was the movie Gladiator. He goes, you know, it's just. But an idea, the idea of Rome, you know. Right. And I think that's part of it, Amy, is that we've lost the idea that the democracy, self determination, people picking their own future should be our primary goal as Americans. Now people go, Denver, you're so naive. It's all. We've always been imperialistic powers and you know the same. I get it, okay? But there is an idea that me and you fought for is that people should be able to self determine, they should be able to say this is what we want because this is our land, our country, which is exactly what we did in the Revolutionary War. As we come up on our 250 year anniversary, it's pretty odd that we're saying no, we're a hegemonic power and we're going to destroy anybody who doesn't give us what we want. That's exactly what Trump said. That is in a nutshell what he said. Democracy was never mentioned as a reason we were going down there. We're not even pretending anymore. It's we want the oil. And by the way, people don't know this and Amy, I'm sure you do, but if you look next door to Guyana and Suriname or if you look to the other side of Colombia, right, there's going to be some real issues there. Regionally, however, does people know that 70 to 75% of the oil reserves in Guyana are owned by Chevron and ExxonMobil? Boom. You know what they were worried about? They're worried about Venezuela hitting those oil fields over there in Guyana because Venezuela was saber rattling, that they were going to go over into a Guyana. There's so many other roll down, cascading effects here if people just know how much we own in that area as far as oil.
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B
And it's not just about Venezuela. I mean, the President is now talking about warning Colombia that they could be next. He's saying Mexico, Cuban regime, regime might fall. You know, he's going after, wants to go after Greenland again and you know, going back to Venezuela. And I did not know this, but you know, this, this guy Maduro, he is now in New York City and he is under arrest for these drug charges. Okay, but did you know that all of Maduro's allies in Venezuela are still in power? You know, so, so it's like, and now they're all kind of just, I guess what, what Donald Trump wants them to be is us puppets. Because now they have to do the bidding of, of Trump. You know, and you know, Trump said the other day when talking about the leader there, well, they really don't have a choice, do they? They have to do whatever I tell them to do. I mean, what, wtf, what are we doing here? You know, meanwhile we've got people who, who are losing their health care left and right here in America. We've got people who, rising prices on everything. We've got these tariffs hurting all of our industries and he wants to run another country. Donald Trump wants to run another country.
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A
We're breaking records for business bankruptcies right now. Here we are.
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B
I know like the most in 15 or 20 years apparently.
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A
I'm like, what is happening? And then, you know, we're talking about, you know, it's really, it's really fun when you're talking about regime change, when the regime hasn't changed at all. And, and now you're just chang changing dictator for dictator. And when you're looking at. So Marco Rubio had a really rough time when they said, well, if it's regime change, why didn't you take out the other four that were surrounding Maduro? Well, people were so mad about one. How dare us take out five. Are you an idiot? The administration is so short sighted in myopic because all they're doing is they're knee jerking to whatever President Trump wants that they're not thinking about actual common sense. They don't have any. Rubio looks like he's aging in real time because he's, I don't know how he sleeps at night. I mean he's, he's just such a lick spittle. And it's almost like we have this lick spittle cabinet right where Dunning Kruger is being spread like an std, you know. And I think that's, that's what I look at when I see these individuals. It's like they go to Mar? A Lago, they lose 10 IQ points, they go to Mar? A Lago, they lose IQ points, they get more freaking Mar? A Lago face. Who knows what's going on in the bedrooms over there, right? And then they come out, they look frazzled, stupid and inept.
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B
Well, a guy like Marco Rubio knows better. He knows better. I mean the ones that are, you know, the, the 20 somethings or whatever who grew up in Mar? A Lago. Okay, but, but Mar. Marco Rubio knows better. I mean this is so un American. Donald Trump just came out and said about the, the current leaders in Venezuela. Well, if they don't do what I want, they're going to pay a very big price. Probably bigger than Maduro. What, what, what's, what's. So, so now, so now we're assassinating, right? We kidnap the leader, we have the other leaders and we basically say we want your oil, we're going to control your oil, and if you don't go along with us, something's going to happen to you. Worse than what happened to him. And this business of Hegseth saying, oh, well, the Department of War was just in a supportive role going into this law enforcement grabbing this guy. I'm sorry, Denver, 150 aircraft, 20 different U.S. navy vessels. You know, massive military operation is not a law enforcement to get some, quote, drug dealer. It's just. That's crazy.
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A
Well, I tell you what, Exxon and Chevron is happy today because they have a full military behind them to make sure that they can actually use those oil resources in Venezuela. Well done, Exxon and Chevron.
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B
Yeah, well, the, our president now has declared that he will personally control the proceeds from the oil produced in Venezuela. I don't, I don't even know what to say at this point.
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A
How is he not.
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B
We have this thing called the Constitution, right?
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A
It's gone. It's gone.
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B
And in the Constitution lays out how federal dollars are to be spent. And oh, by the way, this isn't even our money. This isn't even our, our stuff. This, this belongs to Venezuela.
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A
Listen, Mike Johnson is too busy updating his subscription to him and his son's anti porn app to really be looking at any type of impeachment proceedings or congressional investigations into everything we see happening. So I think that's where we're at right now.
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B
I'll tell you one thing that has got me a little bit steamed. And this is just, again, it's just a more of a personal thing, but it has implications, I think, for our country. I think you have known and have seen on TV the attacks against US Senator Mark Kelly and why it pertains to you and I, because we both fall in this category of being retired military. And I think that's important for people to understand the difference between the word veteran and a retiree. Okay? A veteran is somebody who served honorably, served their country. They could have served four years, they could have served 20 years. They could have served 30 years. They served their country honorably. Okay? That's a veteran. And veterans get some benefits. They get to go to the va, they get the GI Bill, they get a modest home loan. You know, they get some veteran veterans benefits. If you are a retiree of the military, you have to have served for the most part, unless you are retiring for medical reasons or you've been, you know, injured in combat or something like that. You, you have to serve 20 years and at that point you get, you know, you get your health care, but you also get a modest pension for serving. And so what's happening right now is the Secretary of Defense didn't like what these members of Congress said, which was just. They put out a video which basically said to the military, follow the law, please. So it wasn't, you know, wasn't really much there. He didn't like that. And so he's going after the one retiree in that group and trying to take away his retirement benefits, trying to demote him from his retirement rank, which was captain in the US Navy. And oh, by the way, this guy Mark Kelly, who I know and respect, is a not only a veteran, but also fighter pilot, carrier pilot, combat pilot, and astronaut. I mean, he's goddamn American hero. What are we doing?
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A
Well, I mean, Pete Hegseth did with the keg stand Olympics of 1998. I mean, I mean, let's, let's look at these resumes. No, I think, you know, it does, you know, Mark Kelly, by the way, I think. Did I just hear that he might be running for president? I don't know if I saw that this morning, Amy, that it looks like that. Yeah, yeah. So I just saw that before we got on. And I think that is breaking news of Mark Kelly's thinking about running for president, which I think would be really fantastic. But to have somebody like Pete Hegseth making arbitrary decisions based again, on fantasy, immorality, stupidity, credulity, however you want to, you know, couch it as what's happening. And yeah, I am absolutely incensed that a hero like Mark Kelly has to be at the beck and call of a secretary of defense, a secretary of beer like Pete Hegseth. Right. Who's making these decisions? I mean, this guy literally is one piece of wood shy of a cord. And I think we're to a point that in America, it's so unserious that every veteran in America should be marching on Washington, D.C. for Mark Kelly right now. And I would be there.
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B
I mean, you just don't go after people for free speech. First of all, what they said was not even was. There was nothing there there. And then it's, it's purely political retribution. And you're using, you know, one service to the country. Now you're going after one service to the country in, in ways that you do, you know, we just haven't seen before. There are lots of veterans who have run for Congress and, and are in Congress right now who I, I, I don't like who I look at, and I can't stand what they say or what they stand for. But you know what? I would never dream of going after their service in this way. I mean, it's just appalling. And the other thing is, I don't want to get too down in the weeds on this, but this is also a personal thing with me recently. And again, there's so much going on in the news that it gets last page, nobody cares. But there's a memo that was obtained by NPR that, you know, our secretary of defense put out that says that he's going to begin another review of the effectiveness of women in combat positions in the military. And I laugh because I'm like, seriously, it's just like, what are we doing here? And it's, it's, it's just, I laugh because it's almost like these guys like Hegseth come out and they're like, hey, you didn't do or can't do, Amy, what you already did. That's what they're saying to women in the military right now. Like, hey, you women, you women rangers, you guys, you didn't really pass that course and you haven't really done what. But by the way, what you already.
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A
Did, it's, it's hard to even get your arms around it. Like Amy, literally it would be like saying, amy, I don't think you're capable of being anywhere near an FA18. Well, I already did it, but you're not capable. But no, no, no, let's study the.
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B
Effectiveness of the bombs on target that you already put on target. Let's study those effectiveness because, you know, you're a woman. Denver, are we going to go back to let's study the effectiveness of segregation in the military? Because really we've been doing it a certain way for I don't know how many years now, 70.
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A
Would we be surprised?
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B
AMY but really we should study because maybe we're not effective being integrated. We, we should study that.
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A
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised.
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B
Anyway, meanwhile, Donald Trump has said, you know, we need a 1.5 trillion dollar budget for the military. Where are we going with that?
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A
Does he understand math or numbers? First of all, by the way, in my rant about everything happening, we didn't talk about the deficit and debt. Right, right. Which is getting close to 40 trillion. So let's get that 1.5 trillion. Everything he's doing is anti Republican of 15 years ago. You know that, right? I mean, oh yeah, it's against everything that anybody would self determination.
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B
But the Republicans in Congress keep just, oh yeah, Mr. President, you're great.
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A
This is great. We love Chinese based capitalism or what we would call communism and state owned enterprises. And we Love the Russians, you know, and how much they're doing. And that's the new conservative way, you know, and you're like, you got to be. You know, your head explodes if you actually are lucid and have even a slight IQ above average. But I think. I guess where I'm getting to all this is. And I. And I. And I have to state this. I wouldn't be surprised if they did talk about the efficacy of integration into the services, because there's this toxic mix of white supremacy, misogyny, and this bizarre cultural belief that things were better in the 1870s or 1950s. And it's almost as if it is sort of this. It's like white dude summer every day in the White House. And I'm a white dude, and I'm proud of what I've done, and I've been a badass in my life, and I can say all that, and I can be this. Yeah. But the people that he's chosen, the fact is, is that without everybody in this country, without the incredible accomplishments, without the insane heroism and courage of people like you and people and everybody across the spectrum, we would not. America. We are today. And I just. I just find it astounding that we seem to have normalized misogyny, racism, and white nationalism in a way that I never thought. Because they simply state it outright. It's not like they're hiding it. This isn't something that we have to guess about. And I think that's why when you said that, I'm immediately like, Yeah, I mean, QAnon Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, January 6th down the line.
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B
Oh, it's just, again, I don't want to get started on it, because it's so wrong. I mean, just what's happening. And then the. The. The zero credibility of a guy like Hegseth who could not get promoted, you know, to. To go and turn around and say, oh, well, we're gonna. We're gonna study the effectiveness of. Of this. Of women, you know, who, by the way, have qualified and done more in the military than he did. It's just unbelievable. But I want to get through some quick takes because we're getting to the end of this, and there's a lot of things I want to get your very quick opinion on.
- [35:47]
A
I'll be quick. I'll be quick.
- [35:48]
B
All right. The U.S. post Office is changing its rules about when postmarks go on mail, and you might think, well, this is not a big deal. And, you know, maybe it's not, but it has a major impact on voting Right. Because normally if you're in a state that has, you know, mail in voting, you get it postmarked right when you get to the, you know, right when you mail it. But now it's not going to be postmarked until the postal system processes it. So if you have, you know, somebody like, I don't know, Donald Trump who, you know, tells a state or, or has some influence on the postal system of a state, you know, you can, you can, there could be problems there.
- [36:35]
A
It's simply suppressing votes to manipulate elections. And anybody that usually talks about conspiracy theories or the stolen election of 2020 are simply the ones who want to steal the election. There's my quick take.
- [36:49]
B
All right. I mean, I, it's just, I think we need to, we need to be aware of it. That's all. That's all I say. We need to be aware of it. If you vote by mail, please make sure that you don't do it at the last minute. All right? Do it like three or four days out. Okay. Trump super PAC. $100 million. There, there is this money in politics. Investigative reporter who has a story out this week about the $100 million hall that the Trump Super PAC has, has been brought in. It's, it's a PAC devoted to Donald Trump. He's raking in money here at the clip of 500, over $500,000 a day. And why does this matter? People need to know that usually second term presidents do not fundraise for themselves. They, they wind down their fundraising in their second terms because they're prohibited from running again. So what's this all about?
- [37:52]
A
There's, there's a few things here that could be courses of action here. Number one, he actually is running again in 2028.
- [37:58]
B
Right.
- [37:59]
A
The things that he's been saying where people like, oh, he's just joking, aren't joking, which we're finding out. When he says he's just joking, he's usually not joking, no matter how insane it is that he said it. Number two, the super PAC is going to control whatever candidate comes after him to continue the business and that are happening for the Trump family. A lot of that 100 million can be used in any way. If you're looking at super PACs, it's easy to hide the money and how it's actually outlaid for bribes to other types of companies or to bribe people to do business with them. Number three, that pales in comparison to the billions of dollars in wealth that he's created by leveraging the United States. If you're talking about Trump rx, Trump Coin and crypto, it's very easy to launder money through actual, I would say organizations or business entities that are connected to the Trump family. I would humbly submit that the 5,000 a day is small compared to the other money sources that are being funneled to buy influence in this specific administration. If you go back to NFTs, if you talk, talk about the Trump cards, I think people have forgotten how much money he has grifted off the United States. So those are the courses of action you're looking at. This money will not just be used for candidates to control the Trump empire after he's gone. This is also payoff monies to specific Republican organizations to stay in line with him, but also other companies to do business and payoffs to other global governments. And it only is a side income to the amount of money he's using for the United States to create business empires around the world from Trump real estate. As I said to summarize, Trump Coin, crypto, Trump Rx, Trump wine, go down the line. That's, that's my quick take.
- [39:38]
B
A lot of these contributions we know are connected to industries that want favorite with the President and you know, selling these things for selling pardons, that type of stuff. And a lot of the biggest donors have ties to artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, as you said. I mean, it's really, really corrupt and we have put the corruption on steroids. I mean, there was always some corruption in Washington, right. But this is, this is over the top corruption. Okay, that's my take. The US is underestimating drone warfare. So Wired magazine is out with a pretty shocking story about how the US is underestimating drone warfare right now. Meaning that we're not investing in the new technology enough and we're still dependent on very expensive sort of legacy battlefield weapons. And meanwhile, Ukraine, as you know, is, you know, pumping these sort of smaller drones out at a few hundred dollars a piece and they're doing it in the, you know, 200,000 drones a month, whereas the United States is, you know, we're actually fielding only about 4,000 drones, you know, a month or, or even a year. I mean, this is, this is crazy.
- [41:03]
A
Yeah, there are some valid drone warfare technologies that are really good, like Thor that's coming out and things like that. Thor. People want to look up Thor laser based technologies for drones, very expensive. But we're sort of there, right? We're trying, however, that's it. There's not a whole lot. And the Thing is that I've been to Ukraine multiple times, as you know, and seen their drone production capacity and what they're doing in technology right now. There is no way that a Ranger regiment going against just a few drone operators in Ukraine with a few people with rifles. They would be absolutely obliterated. We are so far behind. Also the drone industrial complex, the dic, what I call the Dick, the drone industrial complex. They, A lot of that's just actually kickbacks to companies that are actually loyal to the Trump regime. So if you look at some of the failures like Androl, when you're looking at stuff that's connected to Palantir, some of the bigger DoD entities, a lot of that is overpaid for things that are just look a shell of the technology coming out of Ukraine. If you look at Dragonfly, stuff like that, the drones are just way too expensive. But the thing, these, these, these contracts reward inefficiencies on a level we've never seen and a lot of overhead and things like that. So we do have a broken procurement system also. Yeah, so that's all the stuff that you have going on right now. But right now we actually should be side saddling with the Ukrainians against the Russians, because here's the issue, and I'll end the issue is Russians are learning from the Ukrainians at a clip that is absolutely frightening. And once they went to fiber optic drones, which are unjammable, you're talking about long, small strings of fiber optics driving drones. The Ukrainians perfected jamming and counter attack. You can't drive, you cannot jam fiber optics. So Russia is learning at such a fast clip. They are way ahead of us in drone warfare. Way ahead of us. It's almost like, and I can say it this way, when you're looking at hypersonics, right? Yeah, we might have the best, but for every one we have, the Chinese might have 200.
- [43:00]
B
Right.
- [43:01]
A
They can overwhelm us with volume. So again, we are so bad in our procurement system, we might need 1.5 trillion just to keep up with the drones that Ukraine's making for $3,000 a day.
- [43:12]
B
Right. And because it's, it's just, we're we're spending too much, it's overpriced. And, and here's the thing. You remember the, when Ukraine did the drone attack in June on Russia, I was there, right? Yes, that's right. That was incredible. That was an incredible attack. What, what we have found, what, what you know, our, this story talks about in Wired magazine is that currently The United States, our military installations cannot repel, cannot reliably repel a complex drone attack like that, like the one that Ukraine did on the Russian nuclear bombers there. And our civilian infrastructure is even less protected. I mean, that's why this matters, folks.
- [44:02]
A
Right now, I could build a swarm. Say I wanted to build 30 to 40, right, based on inner drone communications, right? What Ukraine's doing. Russia, what we're trying to do is to. You use AI for swarm specific targeting, right? So not only are you plugging in, but I don't know if people know this. With swarm technologies, the drones are talking to each other in real time and identifying those targets based on a preload, as me. And you know very well about preloads. If we're looking at, you know, our target list or a prioritized integrated target list or whatever, or pedals. Anyhow, if it was me, and I'm going after, say, a power grid or a substation, give me 10 drones, you're done. Yeah, I got you. There's no way around it because if you look at what kind of what you can put on there, I mean, okay, just put thermite, right? You can go get thermite for real, right? Just go put thermite or build your own whatever, strap it to a drone and kamikaze that sucker right in there. And by the way, with electro optics, if nobody's actually ready for it, how are they going to jam your eo, right? How they're going to jam your camera? You're not even using, you're not even using radar signals. The only thing you could probably jam is the actual signal itself between the actual drone and the controller, but that would be impossible because nobody would even know what's happening. There's. It's. And I try to tell people that it would happen so fast. There's no way. I mean, what are you going to do? You got a substation right up here up the road. Do you know what that takes out now? Now, let's take it another step, ma'. Am. What if they start hitting PSTNs, public switch telephone nodes, or they start hitting cell towers? Whoa, whoa. Who's gonna stop a drone hitting cell towers in dc? No one. Yeah, you don't even know the drone's there. You don't even have time to react to it. You don't. Is there a warning system, a drone warning System in Washington, D.C. so I guess you know those kind of things. Sorry, I get off.
- [45:53]
B
No, no, no. I go back to. If you think about it, what are the Threats to our country right now. Who should be looking at this? I look at the Department of Homeland Security. That was a department that was created after 911 and it hasn't always known what it is supposed to do or going to do and all of that. And now that, that, that department is just the, the laughable. You know, it's a bunch of, of masked agents going and, and harassing Americans right now with, with a leader running around with you know, a cowboy hat. It's, it's in meanwhile the, the real protection of our homeland is being ignored in my belief. And so I, I just, that's my take on this whole thing.
- [46:55]
A
Well, I mean we're America. Who would dare attack us? I mean like there's no way another 911 could happen right now. I'm being, I'm being very glib by the way, very sarcastic.
- [47:06]
B
Well, it's been a great show. I want, I want to finish up here Denver with a shout out because I always like to end, we always like to end on a positive note. And what was really cool, I thought I read about this thing that is happening at the Denver airport. So it's a sort of a feel good story from a travel writer this week. I didn't know about this. I've been to the Denver airport, but I guess this, this is just new. If you have a long layover there, you can go and be around one of these. They call them Cats Canine Airport Therapy Squad. So it's, it's named Cats but they're actually dogs. It's a group of 90 dogs. They're really cool. They wear like purple vests and they're all trained and they're an airport therapy program. And you know, if you're there, you got your kids there, you can go hang out with these dogs. They're registered with the alliance of Therapy Dogs. And that's just really cool. You can hug them, you can take pictures with them.
- [48:19]
A
I love my dogs. That is so sweet. You know, when you said Denver Airport, I thought you'd talk about the conspiracy theories, the satanic rituals that happened in the basement of the Denver Airport underneath. I didn't know if you know, there were catacombs and tunnels there that are part of satanic rituals and multiple cult activities.
- [48:36]
B
No, I just care about the cats and dogs at this point.
- [48:39]
A
Well, I'm glad that, I'm glad the dogs are there to help people actually get through and not be affected by the weird things happening in the bowels of the Denver Airport. If anybody wants to look up those Conspiracy theories.
- [48:49]
B
Glad the dog, I think it's awesome. You know, after my, I think my second combat tour, I had a, a Labrador retriever, a chocolate lab. His name was Monk. And I was not married at the time and I just had this dog and I trained him to be a therapy dog. It was one of the coolest things. It took a lot of training and we got certified. He had his own like, baseball card, you know, that had his picture on it. So when we go to hospitals and nursing homes and, you know, we go to schools and that sort of thing, you give out the cards and, and it was great. It was, it was.
- [49:30]
A
Did he have a little vest, like a therapy?
- [49:32]
B
He did, he did, yeah. He was certified. We almost failed the, the certification test, but he eventually passed. And, and, and it was great. It was, it was a good time. As a service project that I think probably Denver helped me more than it helped the patients.
- [49:55]
A
That's amazing. I did not know that this was a cool story. I wish I knew Monk.
- [50:01]
B
He was a good dude.
- [50:02]
A
He was a good dude.
- [50:04]
B
All right, well, this is a great show. Stick with us, folks. We have a lot going on around our country and don't stick your head in the sand. We have to, we have to pay attention and we can't check out. So stick with us here at Truth in the Barrel.
- [50:22]
A
Absolutely. If you want more Tib, make sure that you sign up for all the socials. Right, Amy x. Blue Sky, YouTube, Substack, Instagram. Make sure everybody hits the socials because you're not going to get great content like, like this anywhere else in the world. I've heard, by the way.
- [50:44]
B
That's right. I mean, we're just talking the truth and that's, that's what this is all about. Great to see you, Denver. I'll see you next time.
- [50:50]
A
Great to be here. Always see you, Amy.
- [50:58]
C
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