Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Shutdown, Skies, And The Filibuster
A 37-day shutdown shouldn’t be a theory test—it’s a stress test on real lives. We open the hood on what’s actually breaking: paychecks interrupted, SNAP benefits muddled, and a fragile FAA pushed to reduce flights right before the holidays. As veterans rooted in the Pikes Peak Region, we connect the local to the national, showing how a 15% veteran population feels every policy shock first and hardest—and how organized volunteers can still move legislation where it counts.
We don’t stop at the headlines. The filibuster gets a plain-English audit: not a constitutional safeguard, but a Senate rule that too often enables cost-free obstruction. We make the case for forcing real, on-the-floor filibusters so voters can see who’s blocking what and why. Then we track the aviation crunch—controller shortages, safety oversight gaps, and cascading cancellations that turn family plans into price spikes and missed seats. When the system relies on people who aren’t being paid, the margins vanish, and risk fills the gap.
Healthcare has been the banner, but it can’t be the only banner. Premium hikes matter, especially for lower-income families who spend every extra dollar twice over in their neighborhoods. Still, voters deserve a scale that fits the moment: missed wages, food security, safety regulation, and the uneasy drift toward deploying troops in American cities. If leaders ask the public to shoulder a shutdown, they must widen the case to match the harm.
We wrap with practical help and a push: local restaurants and nonprofits are feeding furloughed workers, veteran groups are organizing, and resources exist if you know where to look. Listen for clear takeaways, tangible support, and a roadmap for better messaging that puts people first. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review—then tell us what priority you want on the scale next.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face. This is the Pikes Peak Region podcast where we talk about veterans issues and politics. We try to keep things here locally, but today we're going to be talking about a lot of uh national issues. I'm your co-host Dick Wilkinson, and I am joined today with Adam Gillard, as always. How's it going, Adam? Good. How are you doing, Dick? I'm doing good. Um, we have several hot topics to talk about, and I also am gonna get to talk about uh Jason Crow, one of our representatives, is on CNN this morning. It was just perfect timing that I get to hear. You know, I was glad to see him on there. He's actually pretty he's he's popular on the on Wolf Blitzer gets him on quite a bit. There's a couple different posts that he's on their Rolodex.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I met him last year at a thing. He seemed like a nice guy, you know, really personable. And he's a veteran, right? Yep, yeah. Yep. Um yeah, during the uh insurrection on January 6th, he was the one that uh took off his morale and said, just give me a gun, I'll defend it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I remember he had just been uh sworn in, right? It was he was freshman, right? When that was happening, yeah. Like he had just been there for a few days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, Yep, give me a gun. Well, here it is. I didn't think this is what it was gonna be about, but here it is. Yeah, yeah, he just stepped up. That's good for him, yeah. Um yeah, and he's just uh I don't know, maybe he that what for whatever reason he's pretty popular on CNN, so I get to see him on TV a lot. Um I get to see some of my New Mexico folks on there every now and then, too. The lady that's from the the representative from Albuquerque, she's on there quite a bit too. So she was part of the um, she was one of the democratic people on some of the one of the bipartisan pan like investigative investigation things not that long ago, and so that that rose her prominence up quite a bit. So cool. Anyways, all right. So we're today we're gonna cover what we only wrote the shutdown on the board. I feel like there's um a couple of other topics. Oh, we've got we need to talk about, let's do our housekeeping notes. Uh the veterans uh committee for at the state level. Oh, yeah. We're gonna have a date set for a meeting, and if there's any of our listeners that want to volunteer for a couple of positions, they have a chance to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we uh well and we're always taking new members. So this is a open, open thing to join anytime. Colorado Democratic Veterans Committees. I can't. I've never remembered committees. Let's do that. Uh there's a C word on the end there. Um but uh it it it's a group, you have to be a registered Democrat to be in the group. Uh and it's just a a caucus type of uh organization. It's an organization of veterans within the party.
SPEAKER_00:I just heard myself saying group too many times. It's an organization of veterans within the party to promote lobby. It's a lobbying group.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. And just kind of focus on areas of legislation that that we can have an impact at the state or federal level or local, municipal levels. Um there's already uh legislators in it, like at the state level. So there's already some, you know, a lot of good folks in it. So if you're interested in that, uh you can always reach out uh either through um you know the the podcast here through through the the info on the bottom. Yeah, just reach out through there and we can send you information. That'd probably be the easiest way. Yeah. Uh but yeah, you know, we're gonna get a new chair and a new secretary here this weekend. Okay. And then uh yeah, always taking more people and we're gonna see where we can put our weight and get people to think about veterans. And uh you know, we want as many people from El Paso County as possible because our veteran population is it impacts us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So statewide, the veteran population is seven percent. Okay. Here in El Paso County, it's fifteen percent. So we're carrying we're carrying that seven percent. Yeah, you know, so the rest of the state you know has veterans you know sparsely scattered, like we're everywhere here. Right. So uh we really need to get as much participation for that as possible. And it's you know, it's gonna make an impact.
SPEAKER_00:You know, we're gonna we're gonna see how great potential. Uh it's not a huge lift. I'll encourage people as far as volunteering. Um it it's it's not a fully time-consuming kind of thing, like if you've ever worked on a campaign where it just becomes your life for a few weeks or months. Like that this level of intensity on this it rarely approaches anything like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, because we're modeling off kind of what you helped establish down in New Mexico. Yeah. Um, so so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If yeah, once it gets to a level of maturity, the the legislative teams will will have a month or two out of every year where they kind of get really hot and have a lot to do. Um, but then you know, you sort of kick back into idle mode for a few months or you know, until it's time to roll up for the next one. So it's it's a good, it's just a great way you get to put your hands on directly, you get to talk to people that are impacted by the policies, especially if it's not you directly or your family, but you get to find out if we did change this, who's gonna benefit from it. So I encourage everybody to volunteer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And I mean best traction, I think you can I think one thing we'll learn about this podcast is that I'm a big advocate for pushing things that don't affect me, but but I still want people to have yeah, sure, sure. So yeah, this is a group that helps that. Yeah, yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_00:But I yeah, I I find that in the execution of political energy, I can I can do that easier. Um, but I uh I don't know. I see the I see the world sometimes as a lot of as most people do through just like, well, how does that impact me? Right. And that's how most voters, especially people that just casually vote, it's totally just like, well, is that gonna make me broke? Is that gonna take away? Am I gonna have to pay more taxes? Whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what sucks is there's so much information out there and they trust sources that aren't giving them quality information. Oh, that's true.
SPEAKER_00:Well, confessing that too. Most people are looking for confirmation of their biases, not you know, real genuine analysis or thought-provoking things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. They're just saying, I don't want to pay for healthcare for illegals. Yeah, and every else is like, well, I don't want either. Okay, cool. Let's go. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Without let's not investigate where that came from or if it's true. Or yeah, let's just pick up the talking point and run, run, run. Yeah, for sure. So let's get there. Yeah, yeah. So all right, so government shutdown. Um, day 37, we're in today, historical for the longest shutdown ever. Uh and it only beats the longest one that also happened in Trump's first term. So, you know, this is a function of their political um strategy, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yeah, well, because they think that if nobody else is there to do their job, they can just do whatever they want. Well, we talked about that last episode, right? That there is a proven to be true.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, there's there's a usurping of power towards, you know, towards the executive when things like this happen. So and that's just how the system is built. Even, you know, it's it's gross that anyone would want to exploit that to like monopolize power, right? That kind of defeats the purpose. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but you know, you look at the SNAP benefits that were supposed to be released, were told by Chuck to be released, and then they still delayed it and only gave out like half. And they're like, well, we need to keep these for emergency funds. It's like, stop causing emergencies. Stop causing emergencies.
SPEAKER_00:This is a rainy day fund.
SPEAKER_01:Well, uh, guess what?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's raining, it's bad. Today's the day. Yeah. Yeah. If you need to break the piggy bank, like get the hammer, it's time, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you know, going into you know, day 37 here, like at what point? Because I've seen it in other countries where they just say, like, hey, the government's not working, we're gonna have some new elections. Yeah. Why can't we trigger new elections and make every representative go stand in front of their constituents and say, I'm not doing my job? Re-elect. Oh, yeah, yeah. We don't have a function that does that, but why recalling things like that? At this point, you guys haven't shown up for work in 30 plus days every week.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that would be the thing, is trigger it at a certain so that it's not um politically weighted where it's like, oh, the president gets to determine how long is too long, right? Yeah, no, at 30 days, like that's it. You know, you've all it doesn't matter if you come back on day 31 and put the eviction notice on the door, man. Yeah, if you come back at day 31 and vote to open everything up, it doesn't matter. You better get back into your uh district and start campaigning because 90 days from now we're having an election. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:Because it's ridiculous that people are suffering for political gamesmanship.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I can, man, I'm 100% on that. Uh these radical ideas of, you know, let's make the government, let's let's make the government accountable in other ways because checks and balances aren't working anymore, right? So yeah, we need to have some other so beholden to the people, not just to other branches of government. That's what the legislative body is meant to be is representatives that represent the people. But the dysfunction that we see right now is I don't think the average voter or citizen would would want the things that are happening in government, right? Like to be broken the way they are. Nobody thinks that's a good idea. Yeah. You're not representative of your average voter. Yeah, right. Like if you're gonna full on break it, like now's the time to do it. Yeah. So well, talk about breaking things in the shutdown filibuster. Let's talk about that, and then we're gonna get over to air traffic and how that may be a magic key that starts breaking things apart. But let's talk about the filibuster. Okay. What's your take on man? The Senate, it only applies in the Senate. And just for anybody that's not 100%, it's basically the rule in the Senate that says there's no such thing as a pure simple majority. You can't just have 51 votes on most things. You need 60 votes or more, depending on the type of legislation that it is to get most things passed in the Senate, yeah. Which forces bipartisanship uh is what a lot of people say. It's basically the last vestige of of enforced bipartisanship in the government, really. I think that's probably a true statement. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, when it's been used effectively, it it it it uh it stops some cooler heads prevail. That's the intention of it. Yeah, right. Is that cooler heads prevail? So I I think that's a good thing. And and there's other ways around it too than just dismantling it. Um they they push votes through other ways, and they have in the past, too.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and the thing to remember too is it's purely an internal rule of the Senate. It is not um guaranteed by the Constitution, it's not um a law, it's the rules and of commons or whatever you're like I can't remember. Yeah, they're by laws, whatever they call it, you know, qu uh decorum. They rules of decorum, that's what it is. And so they can vote. The the reason why it's it's constantly being talked about is because the senators themselves can vote to just get change the rule, right? At any time. And and then it diverts to simple majority because that would be the constitutional reading.
SPEAKER_01:So my thing with it is I think it needs to stop being a flex and start doing it. Like if you're gonna if you're gonna filibuster, like bring the vote, bring it to the floor and like actually do it. Don't just say, Oh, we don't got it, we're not gonna do it. Like make people do a legit filibuster. Yeah, schedule votes, and if they can't stand up there and speak for 24 hours or whatever, you know, like call out the other side of that too. Because like there's ways of there's rules there for a purpose to get around that too, you know.
SPEAKER_00:So um that's true to limit the grandstanding episodes, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you can't just say, Oh, I'm gonna filibuster everything.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's like bluffing in poker. You can't bluff every hand, yes, current current, you know. And that's kind of, I guess, I don't know, it this the pendulum swings both ways, and in the filibuster argument, it has been beneficial and maybe harmful, if you want to call it that, as far as like over the last few years, it's it's gotten uh it's become a big touch point of controversy, right? Yeah, so Donald Trump, President Trump, said just can it, right? Uh, the way you're gonna open the government back up is don't negotiate with the Democrats, which has already been what's going on. And now we're at the point where he's like, well, we're not gonna talk to them, so just get rid of the filibuster, and then we'll go, you know, we'll go and we'll move on.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And this is like, let's think back just a couple years ago when uh cinema was always like the deciding factor of not getting rid of the filibuster. And it was Democrats pushing for it. Right. But like they're like, let's get rid of this, let's get rid of this.
SPEAKER_00:And now they're like, hey, we have to abolish the filiburg.
SPEAKER_01:No, remember this thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we want to be. That's it. If you're losing, those are the two things you want to do. Right. Yeah. Always. And it just flip-flops back and forth. And so that is the reason why it's still intact, is because it is it's a people know that if you really, really did get rid of it, then basically any part every time there's a majority party, especially if it's all three, you know, pieces of government, yeah, then there's no stopping. I mean, they can rewrite every book and just change every law, and there's no balancing act. And then the fear, not just that that would be like uh extreme and heart hurt people in in some direction or another, but then you just four years later, two to four years later, the other party comes into power and just does every just strikes everything and rewrites it with you know, do not to do, and like they just flip back and forth every time. Well, so that's the the fear that gets expressed when people say if you got rid of the filibuster, that's what would happen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but the the real fear is that we lose that ebb and flow. Because once we've always had that ebb and flow where we're you know we kind of swing one way, we swing back.
SPEAKER_00:And that's the Senate is meant to be that longer term continuity of government.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um, same thing with the Supreme Court, that long-term continuity. So we've always had that. The fear is that we're gonna lose that. Yeah, and that once we turn the Senate into a knee-jerk type of body, yeah. Yeah, well, and you know, right now, while everybody's re gerrymandering their voting districts, uh and the right already has you know all three branches of government, it's likely that they're gonna, if they were able to just change laws, willy-neal to get rid of this filibuster. Yeah, consolidation of power. Yeah, they will never let go of that power. So you'll never get you'll never get that sweet. Yeah, you may not get back to it. So we just keep going more and further, further right towards fascism and authoritarianism. That's like human nature.
SPEAKER_00:So let's let's clap where clapping is due. That the that neither side of the filibuster or neither side of the Senate has has taken that argument seriously. Even with Donald Trump telling Republican senators, like, do this, get rid of the filibuster. They they just are not taking that seriously.
SPEAKER_01:Because uh, I think at least those folks that have a little more continuity of government there, they see the long-term writing on the walls and they see you know elections like this last week, right? Where you know the blue wave like it happens. It can happen. It's a real thing if we don't dismantle our democracy. Right. Um, and the Trump administration is actively working towards that.
SPEAKER_00:So uh yeah. So to them, the value of that filibuster and the uh you know the balancing act is not there's no value there, right?
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, get rid of it, so we can just we can skip to the screen. Yeah, we can just skip to the last chapter. You know, we can yeah, he's not a big reader, he doesn't want to have something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's that's it. I'll tell you what to do, then you go and vote on it, and then everybody does it, and then we're good, right? Yeah, yeah. We'll just rule by edicts and then we'll be good to go. So well, speaking of edicts, and the White House has made this call based through Sean Duffy that the he's the secretary of transportation. Um former real world star. Yes, road rules. That's what it was. I was made some funny jokes, right? Because he's the secretary of transportation, so he knows a lot about traveling around America. Yeah, he's been trading. He did it professionally here. So tomorrow, air traffic control is so um in such bad shape all over the United States that the volume of flights in the air today is basically been determined as unsafe. And that starting tomorrow, a 10% reduction in volume of flights, which of course will have some different impacts, East Coast versus West Coast and regional, you know, some of that's gonna happen more in some places than others. But across the board, 40 airports are gonna reduce, cancel, just cancel flights that today you have a ticket, tomorrow you're gonna get to the airport, and they're gonna say that flight was canceled, and we got 20 people onto the next flight, but we don't have anything for you. Sorry, there's 150 people that just aren't gonna fly. And that, you know, repeat that over again by a few thousand flights tomorrow. So there's gonna be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people tomorrow that are gonna go to the airport and just be told, hey, you can you can go home because you're not flying anywhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's happening. Going into the holidays.
SPEAKER_01:Going into the holidays. Thanksgiving is you know, right around the corner of people trying to make plans right now. Because you know, you want that like two to three week window where you where you buy plane tickets. So there's gonna be a lot of people disappointed on it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean anybody that was waiting to buy a ticket is now gonna buy one now, right? And like they'll just be like, I'm not taking my chances with that, right? Oh, yeah, there's that too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and the few tickets, the fewer tickets that are that are gonna be available, the prices are gonna be.
SPEAKER_00:I know that's what I was thinking. The the supply and demand, we're making an artificial, you know, hey, there's only so many flights on the day, you know, two days before Thanksgiving. Ching, ching, chickity, ching, chingy. You know, if you want to get there, you'll pay for it. Right. And we'll just, you know, the other people that normally would have been able to fly are not gonna have a chance because it's gonna cost you$800 to per seat to fly one way across the you know country.
SPEAKER_01:Wasn't it like four years ago that we got the infrastructure act signed and we had like four trillion dollars getting you know poured into things? Poured into updating and upgrading computer systems. And that was just horrible for voters. So they voted for this.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're this this day 37 of the shutdown means that um air traffic controllers have lost, you know, have missed out on more than one paycheck in a row. Um for the highest stress vote. High stress job anyway. Yeah. Uh there's also a current shortage. Um the National Air Traffic Control labor union guy was on uh TV and he said there the the nation needs 14,000 air traffic controllers, and there's all or no, was it 1,400? Yeah, it's 1,400. And there's only like I can't remember. There's there's several thousand, uh several thousand short. They're three thousand short right now. Uh if everyone was at work, and now I'm not talking about like the shutdowns, just if everything was happy and healthy and good to go, the whole overall profession is three thousand people short. Now it's 75% mandate or something. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty close. Yeah, and and so they're like, we're already hurting on just numbers anyway. Now we got people that are not coming to work, and we have people that are not coming to work because they're not getting paid, but it's not a um I don't I'm mad at you, so I'm just gonna like thumb my nose at you. It's like I'm going to have to, I'm working somewhere else so that I can make money so that my you know I can pay my bills. Yeah, yeah. And so that that impact is real, it's happening right now. It's gonna start having a much more tangible impact tomorrow. So I think that flows into my crystal ball um, you know, look that the week before Thanksgiving would be the breaking point, right? Where just different things are gonna make enough noise and become visible enough, I guess. Right now, a lot of those missed paychecks are pretty invisible. If you're not in the household that missed that paycheck, most everybody else like knows that it happened, but they're not really feeling that effect. Right. Now people that aren't missing paychecks are gonna start feeling effects, right? That yeah, this is one of the first things that I can see that is becomes a more tangible thing. So what's your take on that?
SPEAKER_01:The the uh the air traffic controllers are like the uh the crown jewel type of they're like the tip of the spear when it comes to like the FFA, FAA, and all their stuff and things like that. There's thousands of people. So so you know that they're sure, you know, 75%, 443,000 air traffic controllers. Yeah, but you look at you know their mechanics, the all their other people, the support personnel things like that. I can guarantee you nobody and no aspect of them is operating at 100%. So like it has such trickle-down effects when it comes to you know how things are maintained, how things are inspected. Safety regulators, yeah. All the safety regulations are kind of being you know, skirted around, and we see a lot of planes falling out of the sky and even coming out of factories that haven't been you know properly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, probably there were problems before there was a shortage of qualified people to do inspections, right? Yeah, like that was happening when they're when we were told that the billets were full, that the people were at work, yeah, and that everything was going well. The system was right. And and and they were people crashing into each other, planes falling apart, things blowing up all over the place, right? And now we're being told that the people who keep it safe are not coming back to work. They're like, Yeah, I need to drive Uber. Yeah, right, to be able to get paid. Exactly. Yep, that's it. I'm DoorDashing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this is a one plane engine. Yeah, this is just one pie slice, right? Yeah, this is just one slice of the pie. Yeah that that uh there's so much that the government does for us that people don't recognize and appreciate really. Um, you know, we talk about you know the Argentina beef coming in. That stuff's not gonna get you know tracked by the FDA or inspected by the FDA or things like that. It's just going on the shelf.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, the government beef's not gonna rot, you know. We'll put it on the shelf. And if the dude who's supposed to check it didn't show up today, we're just gonna stamp it and move it on out the door, right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We'll we'll put a you know 50% off today, 60% off tomorrow, and it'll go. Yeah, you know, because people are hungry. Yeah, so it'll go. Uh and it people are gonna get sick and die from multiple avenues of with you know these things. Um, yeah. But with that said, I think the shutdown still needs to go on until the Democrats actually get something.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that they can't keep KV and be in the party that bails on working class people. Like this is the the like when you're in a union, like the whole mindset is like, yeah, sometimes it's gonna suck for all of us, yeah, but we're in this shit together. And I I think that's the mindset that people need to have now is you know, even if it is a smaller percentage of people that get affected by healthcare specifically, we're all in this together and we need to we need to fight for each other.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, because so we have uh we talked about this, we touched on this a little bit of the Democrat messaging in the media right now around the shutdown has been pretty consistent that um healthcare, um Affordable Care Act premiums would increase. Uh, and that that was the basically the red line of why they drew why they said we're we're comfortable shutting down the government because this um allocation of funds or or a vote that needs to change the way this is going to work policy-wise going forward has to happen. And if that doesn't happen, then we'll we'll let the government shut down. Uh, and that that was that's kind of been the talking point, right? From both leadership and rank and file representative and senators up until the last week or two. They've all been pretty solid on that's the that's the play, right? And I mentioned I think it was two weeks ago, I said, is that singular issue enough of uh political uh football or thing, you know, to carry to say, all right, this is it. Like we're all gonna huddle around this issue, and the shutdown and all the other impacts of the shutdown, we're how do how do we consider the value of all the other things that are impacted by the shutdown versus this singular issue? Yeah. I mentioned that first a couple weeks ago, and now we're starting to see where I think two weeks ago it was really hard to understand what was gonna end up on the political scale of justice versus the medical costs, right? How many other things were gonna start to cause impact, pain, um, whatever, uh to the rest of everybody, and how would those things weigh out, right? And of course, some people are getting double dipped on that because they're impacted by the health care and all the other stuff that's happening. So the most of those people actually that would be impacted by the health care are probably also being negatively impacted by other parts of the shutdown. So that there's like a double problem for a lot of families right there. But now we're starting to see, I think, things like air traffic, which isn't a super it's is commercial for the most part. It's not like the core fabric of America doesn't hinge on you know, healthy people is important. Being able to fly is not as important, right?
SPEAKER_01:You know, we still have rails to move cars around.
SPEAKER_00:Cars and rails lay, you know. I mean, I'm not saying that we're, you know, the air, we're just gonna stop flying airplanes, but it's not it's not the same as healthcare. I get that. Yeah, but that's one issue. Um, you've got just lots of people missing out on regular just earned paychecks that they've already earned. You got food instability um weighing in on that side of the scale. So those those are three, um, and we still only have, I say only, we still have what is being described by most democratic folks, leaders in in office as healthcare being the singular thing on the other side of the scale. Yeah. So I my argument was if I'm a moderate democratic voter and I start to see a lot of things stacking up on one side of this scale, and there's only whatever the value of that problem is, there's only one problem on the other side of the scale. How long can I be convinced by the democratic leadership that that one issue is equal to or outweighs all these other issues? That's a hard argument for me to be sold on.
SPEAKER_01:So I I never like the whole singular issue thing. Like everything's kind of tied together and everything levers against each other. So I if I was in a democratic leadership position, I would get off a singular issue and I would use the healthcare as a springboard to point out how they're manipulating and how they're lying to people. Because the first thing that they say about healthcare is well, we have this many illegal immigrants getting health care. No, wrong. You lied about this. You lied about it was the first thing. You lied about SNAP benefits being available. That money is already available for people and allocated. You lied about that. Like uh, you know, with uh when it comes to funding the military, we've funded the military. There's other ways to do smaller CRs and things like that and get get folks paid. Yes, there's ways around this. You're building these big ballrooms, you're bombing people indiscriminately, you're spreading all these lies about you know, we whether they're drug boats or whatever they are now that we don't know because we're we're vigilantes at this point. Yeah, you guys are doing this willfully while while just not paying for health care for folks. Like we're like we're not even asking you to stop fucking killing people. We're just saying we're just saying, like, let me do both things. And like, you're not gonna let me get vaccinated, anyways.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so like just give me the healthcare. Like, so what I hear is exposure of, you know, if we're we'll leave the F-word fascism out of it, right? Just exposure of priorities, right? The priorities of the administration, right? While the administration, and I I guess what I'm hearing, and I think I can get on board with this message as a moderate voter. Since the administration has uh used has consolidated most of the power of the legislative branch to the executive during the shutdown, because that is legally what happened. It's not hyperbole or political talking point. That's what it is, right? So while that has happened, we've had 37 days to observe what are the top priorities of this White House. Right. I haven't seen American citizens being on that list yet, right? So do that, please, elected leaders. Please get off the bullhorn about 30 million people and paying more for insurance and shift the narrative to what we just talked about. Yeah. That that one issue is I for me as a moderate voter, it has lost all of its steam, and it's it's not outweighing the things on the other side, the impacts on the other side of the scale. Blaming whoever who's in charge or not in charge for causing the shutdown, also not super valuable. So what I see would would be much better way to try and dig out of this hole is take the last 37 days and make a case for how there's proof that the American citizens are not the top priority and and use that, put that on the scale. Yeah, and then I'm gonna get back, I'm gonna perk my ears back up a little bit as a moderate voter and say, okay, now we're getting, yeah, we're getting into some issues that I see as weighing uh equal to these impacts that are happening right now. Because this is a really costly thing that's happening right now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, and you know, obviously one of their big priorities is you know putting the National Guard in American cities. And yeah, you know let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:Put that on the scale. Yeah, exactly. I'd much rather see that on the scale, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, it's uh so what do you think of have you been seeing what's going on in Illinois and things like that? I know we talked about it kind of pretty frequently, but yeah, I saw another lady get a big thing. I haven't seen much in the Chicago situation in the last week or so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I saw another lady. I've seen way to the headlines about what's allowed or not allowed, right?
SPEAKER_01:And that there's been this squabbling back and forth with different judges. Well, it it's funny because like the ice folks that they'll get followed by citizens and they'll get out and try to punk the citizens and like you know, stop trying to follow us and stuff like that. It's like they're you're on a public space, they're on public roads, like they're not impeding your investigation. Like you're your illegal investigation. Like, yeah, yeah, it's uh if the insurrection act and I wish more people were more educated on what they should say to them, you know, when they get because like the the IC agents come say, like, well, what do you know uh what why shouldn't we be here and things like that? Because the insurrection act hasn't been put into play. Yeah, military should not be in our city. Go home. It's that simple. Yeah, go home.
SPEAKER_00:And here's the here was what my argument was before the show was I I am willing to offer that I'm kind of a technocrat, that I'm very much interested in the mechanical functions of government, and I'm not super interested in the emotions that drive government. Right. I know that's how politics works, and voters vote on emotions, but man, I want to get past that and talk about the functions. And so if we say, okay, 30 million people are impacted by this cost increase on medical, uh um costs that that would be about 10% of the US population. And so my argument from a technical perspective was if you put 10 uh 10% of people are affected by this issue, even if it's in a singular issue, now we reduce that singular issue down to there's a very limited piece of the population that's affected by it. So now you've you've isolated the value of that even more for me as a moderate voter, right? Man, troops on the streets in cities, even if they're not in your city, I see that as much more of a this affects everybody kind of issue. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So um I just wish that the thing that the linchpin that the party was living on right now wasn't that healthcare argument. Because I feel like there are other more drastic things that are in play right now that make more sense to have this fight over.
SPEAKER_01:Well I I think we always need to hold on to this fight too though. Like don't let go of that like fight for that but have the conversations and make sure you're fighting for everything else too. Don't don't focus in on one. But like if you got them right now by the So I think that's a political misstep.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly that's what I'm trying to say is that I think that the leadership of the party has has fumbled the hell out of this from a messaging perspective to say this one thing is what we are going to die on this hill. I just feel like that was a really bad move. If like that got adopted across the board yeah and there was that would have been an opportunity for the party is definitely as they say struggling for someone to really be the standard bearer or leadership and shummer ain't it right shummer ain't it and so this would have been an opportunity for somebody else to say let's put this other issue on the the talking points and let's let's champion this I wish I you know this would have been an opportunity for that but at day 37 that ship is kind of sale yeah yeah and I I'm still uh on the side of you need to get something out of this like if you have any hope of like continuing to like win elections and show that you're fighting for people um because I think it'd also be interesting to you know we talk about it only affecting 10% but like on the healthcare numbers just purely on the just on healthcare but those those 10% like they have less money to put other places.
SPEAKER_01:The impact is amplified within that household and then so their money goes to you know their micro m microeconomy or whatever you know in their neighborhoods and things like that. And so it just has a snowball effect that will eventually get to you know the upper middle class folks too so um and even the upper middle class folks are dealing with premium doubles right now. Oh yeah like you said Marjorie Gahrer teen she cares or teens Marjorie Graylor Green uh whatever her name is yeah she she cares now because her kids fell off her insurance yeah so now they're gonna have to pay for they're like wow yeah I have to pay four thousand dollars a year for insurance and then I still have to pay when I go to the doctor yes yeah is this insurance it's up to the doctor yeah yeah so you know she has you know uh Congress people have socialized health care you know they get government funded healthcare just like military folks so like yeah as soon as her kids were off and now she's like what yeah yeah and that's what I'm saying is I think there's a lot of more issues that impact so many more people that would have an aha moment yeah if that was what the argument was about.
SPEAKER_00:And so I just feel like there was there was man a really strange and sloppy handling of the messaging around why this shutdown was worth it and what it was the value that was intended to be gained out of it. What's the end state? Yeah I don't know yeah the more you I you hear you know Schumer or uh Jeff Reese speak it's just like these aren't folks for people like the working class people you know even when they talk about you know Mamdani winning that uh you know that let's talk about that for a few minutes let's talk about it yeah because you know you know he made a lot of promises that are gonna be impossible yes you know but when you're still driving people to do better you're still driving people to have hope and when and when your option is a guy that you know is driving hope into people or a convicted rapist that like why can't the party get behind simplify it boil it down like that you know like why can't the party get behind somebody that is just encouraging people to get up and vote and get excited about politics and the party's like no he's not the future shut the f sit down well here's where I go from that is um I hear I heard the his campaign sounded and I've made this reference before um he he's he is the worst example maybe I've ever seen especially of someone who won where he said hey I want to be the high school class president we're gonna put more candy in the vending machines class is going to start 20 minutes later the teachers are all going to say thank you when you turn your homework in that none of those things are ever going to happen right but they rah rah rah in the gymnasium and then they go vote for him. And then that's it it's over the event is over and nothing ever happens. Nobody even knew he was the high school president and none of the things he promised ever happened. What I'm saying is it's childish. His campaign was childish in my mind and that's why the party is not willing to get behind him as a poster child because he's a child in his statements right I've never I never followed his I saw a little bit of a speech yesterday but I turned it off because I didn't see so he ran a childish campaign where he promised people free candy and people believed him. I don't know also the right split the vote hard and so you know there there could have been a that Silwa dude just you know like Cuomo was a barely I can't believe he ran for this he's he's disgraced in almost every way. Right he got fired from being governor for like 23 sexual yeah yeah there's so many things that are just he shouldn't be involved in politics at all. But Mamdani definitely capitalized on the splitting of the vote of those two which I don't know whatever that's politics right yeah but all and I believe that there are people that want free stuff that's not hard to find people that want free stuff. And there are people that believe that basically if you if the mayor tells you you're gonna have it that you're gonna have it right and there's no more thought logic or scrutiny given to the concept right just the statement is accepted full face value. So he won based on that and that's why the party is like none of that stuff's gonna happen so we don't want to be associated with what's going to almost certainly be a just a litany of failed promises over the next four years. Why do we want to be like say this dude who can't do any of the stuff that he promised you is is now our our beacon of hope right you got to be realistic with your statements right you get you can't say everybody free childcare free buses and government run grocery stores to keep other corporate interests from competing like those things just can't just can't happen. And so your statements have to be rooted in reality and I don't think anything in his campaign was rooted in reality.
SPEAKER_01:I think some of those things can be stepped towards like the uh the transportation and things like that. You know there's always uh you know different taxes or whatever that that can pay for those things and whatnot.
SPEAKER_00:Well that would tax the rich was a big part of it too. I didn't see if he was associated with the working families party I I would put it I would have to think he's a WFP guy but they are man when they when they when they turn against somebody they turn all the way against somebody so and though they're singular issue type people too where if the if you like aren't if they got eight things on there like we'll endorse you checklist and you don't hit all eight you got one that you're not like lockstep they won't mention your name or support you at all. They're I mean good for them whatever right but like they're hardcore on their checklist right so I'm not sure if he was in cahoots with them or not but you know that's that's the hmm yeah I I understand why the party is doesn't say that he's the he's the future of the party because maybe the party doesn't have a future well like who the party is listless for sure. I will say that you know the party is listless right now um Newsom like is gonna almost certainly yeah rise up and do something right I'm not sure that he can that he is the uh everybody's gonna draft off to him and really reset the the way the party operates based on his vision or something. I don't know if that's what's gonna happen. Yeah but I think Bob Prisker like he he's yeah he's some people I would actually listen to yeah but I don't know I'm not sure who's the who's the next uh leader that brings us out of the desert but it's not momdani is what I'm saying. Yeah yeah you better follow the checklist yeah make sure you say well that's the thing he doesn't check he doesn't follow the regular Democratic Party checklist enough either right like that's why the main core corporate D's are like mm-mm yeah right like that's why Citizens United needs to go like those corporations should not be directing like for a party that says corporations are evil like you're letting the corporations dictate the corporate the corporates have their fingers in the pocket so like no man like the whole yeah and again that that's why the big big party couldn't get behind a an actual democratic socialist right like that's why Bernie Sanders is independent now because he got burned down by the party right like ridiculous all right what do we want to wrap on uh well if you fly tomorrow and your flights get canceled reach out and let us know and if you want to come on the show and complain about it maybe we'll let we'll have that next week right um yeah so stay safe everybody uh if you're if you're hurting from the shutdown oh here's a little tip uh here locally there are a lot of resources um and poor richards um they told us that we should let people know if you're a government employee and you're having um food instability please visit poor rich in downtown Colorado Springs talk to them about you know that you're a government employee and they're offering free free meals to government employees yeah you give one one a week and just show your ID yeah so so it it's real easy not invasive or anything like that so go take advantage of that uh mojo is downtown does something similar where they have a board that folks need it uh Mount Carmel is a great resource uh food to power um so yeah yeah there's a lot of good resources out there if if anybody needs help just reach out yeah and uh is there a veterans lunch in a minute or we're going as a lunch next week gotcha so port Richards is where we're holding the veterans lunches now so if you'll hear this episode between now and then hopefully we see you next week at Port Richards. Yeah sounds good thanks all right take care
