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Speaker 1: right into Joseph our guests writer for soft Rep, I
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Speaker 1: With that back on the podcast is Joe will Fave.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember what episode you were last on.
Speaker 1: You're previously on about what has it been like two months? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think it was October October last year, as as
Speaker 1: we're speaking, was long ago, I think, so you were
Speaker 1: last on one and these are just flying by after
Speaker 1: So for those who haven't listened to that episode. Um,
Speaker 1: Joe is a writer for News Rep. Uh does a
Speaker 1: lot of pieces on finance and all different things. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean the latest piece of yours is the walls
Speaker 1: around Venezuela's socialist Maduro regime are crumbling. I think this
Speaker 1: is a subject that's of great importance and that that
Speaker 1: people like reading about, because I mean, I think in
Speaker 1: a lot of people's minds, at least certain people in
Speaker 1: America have um romanticized the whole socialist utopia thing, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing how it's working out in Venezuela, which has
Speaker 1: not been very good. Yeah, it's a it's a horrible
Speaker 1: humanitarian crisis that's been going on for several years down there.
Speaker 1: And we're starting to see the other countries around Venezuela,
Speaker 1: like Colombia and Brazil, really starting to step up and
Speaker 1: say enough is enough, because what's happening is there's been
Speaker 1: a massive, uh migration of Venezuelan refugees fleeing the country
Speaker 1: into the neighboring countries to try to seek healthcare and
Speaker 1: you know, find food and jobs because the conditions of
Speaker 1: Venezuela are so poor because there's no money left. That's
Speaker 1: really creating humanitarian crisis in those other countries, like Columbia,
Speaker 1: for example, was really hard pressed to take care of
Speaker 1: all of these new refugees. And last year, the Navy
Speaker 1: deployed the U. S. And S. Comfort, which is one
Speaker 1: of our two hospital ships, down to South America at
Speaker 1: the request of the Columbian government to provide medical support
Speaker 1: humanitarian aid. They also made a few other stops in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. Um it's not the first time that they've
Speaker 1: deployed to the Caribbean for these kind of missions, but
Speaker 1: this time it was more or less explicitly at the
Speaker 1: request of Columbia. I was having a conversation just yesterday
Speaker 1: with somebody about what's going on in Venezuela, and he
Speaker 1: was saying, the situation at the Columbia Venezuela border is
Speaker 1: destabilizing to the point where Colombians are actually crossing the
Speaker 1: border into you know what's become kind of a no
Speaker 1: man's land and alleged um illegally mining taking control of
Speaker 1: various you know, mineral mining resources that exist in that
Speaker 1: border area and illegally mining the resources um so. And
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, it's a full blown humanitarian
Speaker 1: crisis down there at this point. What I thought was
Speaker 1: interesting or maybe not interesting is the right word, but
Speaker 1: but terrifying is a couple of months ago, there were
Speaker 1: some reports that there's been a new rash of piracy
Speaker 1: incidents that have occurred off the coast of Venezuela. And
Speaker 1: compared to the piracy we saw about ten years ago
Speaker 1: out by the Horn of Africa, these Venezuelan pirates are
Speaker 1: a lot uh more blood thirsty. So they're just boarding ships,
Speaker 1: killing everyone on board, uh, taking all the food and
Speaker 1: the money and thinking the ship. They're not after a ransom,
Speaker 1: they're not after political power. They're there too. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that actually, that absolutely makes sense because there's an industry
Speaker 1: in Somalia and the real as they could get more
Speaker 1: money by ransoming um these people out who were insured
Speaker 1: by Lloyd's of London. But then in uh it was
Speaker 1: also true in West Africa a bit um when that
Speaker 1: was going on around the Niger River Delta and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But if piracy explodes in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: um because of Venezuela, it would make sense that they
Speaker 1: don't have that sort of Um, I guess you could
Speaker 1: say business savvy that the Somalians have, and that they
Speaker 1: would just root the ship for and sell the ship
Speaker 1: itself or or whatever cargo is on it and make
Speaker 1: money that way, um, until they become more sophisticated. Makes
Speaker 1: it a lot of sense. Actually, it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: pretty scary when you think about it, because there are
Speaker 1: some islands off the coast of Venezuela that are pretty
Speaker 1: big tourist destinations, especially for people in South America, and um,
Speaker 1: you know when you have gangs of I mean I
Speaker 1: don't want to you know, stoke fear or that I
Speaker 1: haven't looked at in a while, but just the reports
Speaker 1: that I was reading, just it sounded pretty terrifying to
Speaker 1: go down there. Um. And then like when you were
Speaker 1: talking about on the border. You know, I know that that,
Speaker 1: like you said, that no man's kind of has developed
Speaker 1: over the last few years, and there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of cross border activities from both both countries. I think
Speaker 1: recently Colombia took issue with some Venezuela and or some
Speaker 1: Venezuela and National Guard soldiers crossing over into the border
Speaker 1: kind of at will. Um. So, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: really kind of broken down into a no man's land
Speaker 1: between those two countries. Is there any indication from what
Speaker 1: you've been working on where the situation is going to
Speaker 1: go down there? I mean, is it gonna head into
Speaker 1: like I mean, it feels like we're almost there, but
Speaker 1: you know, a full collapse of the of the state.
Speaker 1: So what I wrote about this week was kind of
Speaker 1: a twofold issued one. Uh the U. S. Treasury issued
Speaker 1: more sanctions against some high ranking Venezuelan government officials and
Speaker 1: some high ranking Venezuela business people who were caught in
Speaker 1: this currency extre age scheme. And it's kind of it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of a technical like the way they were
Speaker 1: doing it's kind of technical, so I'll spare the details,
Speaker 1: but they were essentially bribing the Venezuelan Treasury Department to
Speaker 1: operate this illegal scheme, and you know, they siphoned like
Speaker 1: two point six billion dollars as like these seven people
Speaker 1: through these twenty three different business entities, over the course
Speaker 1: of their of their activities, scant stole about two point
Speaker 1: six billion dollars from the Venezuelan people. So the U. S.
Speaker 1: Treasury just sanctioned them and those businesses, one of the
Speaker 1: big ones is a Venezuelan cable company named Global Vision,
Speaker 1: So we sanctioned the business mogul who runs that and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we're given US investors about a year to
Speaker 1: pull out of those sanctioned businesses. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: a new report just came out from Human Rights Watch
Speaker 1: and uh internal Venezuelan Penal Oversight Board that detailed the
Speaker 1: human rights abuses that security forces have been perfect training
Speaker 1: against the Venezuela military. And you've seen um Venezuela military
Speaker 1: personnel being arbitrarily detained, murdered, torture, their families threatened, all
Speaker 1: because they either attempted to overthrow the government or they
Speaker 1: were believed to have been attempted there within the government.
Speaker 1: And about eight months ago, the UN Human Rights Commission
Speaker 1: issued a similar report talking about how these same security
Speaker 1: forces in the Venezuela military, we're committing these atrocities against
Speaker 1: their own people, you know, specifically arbitrary detention, uh, extrajudicial killings,
Speaker 1: and the fact that there's really no internal Affairs service
Speaker 1: to investigate these, so they're really down there killing with
Speaker 1: with impunity, I think was the report that I read.
Speaker 1: Um So, I'd like to think that we're kind of
Speaker 1: at the point where there's nothing, there's really nothing left
Speaker 1: to give. I mean, inflations over over one million percent.
Speaker 1: There there's been a mass influx or mass outflux of people.
Speaker 1: So does appear that the regime game's collapsing. Hopefully these
Speaker 1: new reports that came out are gonna aid other countries
Speaker 1: in the region to apply more pressure on Venezuela. You know,
Speaker 1: it would be nice to see Brazil or Colombia, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, unify to either change the regime there or
Speaker 1: figure out a solution. And you know, hopefully these sanctions
Speaker 1: have the desired effects, which is just to put more
Speaker 1: pressure on the Majuro regime and all the cronies that
Speaker 1: are in that regime to to back out. It's really
Speaker 1: tragic when you consider, you know, we're Venezuela exists on
Speaker 1: the map, and the tremendous access to natural resources they have,
Speaker 1: and they've been a prosperous country in the past, and
Speaker 1: it's just one of these things that didn't have to
Speaker 1: happen if you were to compare it to you know,
Speaker 1: like we mentioned Somalia earlier, there's a country that has deep, deep,
Speaker 1: deep problems. I mean, the institutions of government literally don't exist. Um.
Speaker 1: They don't have natural resources, or they have some but
Speaker 1: not much. Um, They're they're just positioned poorly. Um, they're
Speaker 1: not set up success. And to see this happen in
Speaker 1: a country like Venezuela where there's really no reason why
Speaker 1: it should be happening, and it's just rampant corruption and
Speaker 1: abuse by government, um, you know. Not that not to
Speaker 1: get all political about it, you know, um, but you know,
Speaker 1: the proponents of socialism will say, you know, well, this
Speaker 1: isn't the failure of socialism, it's the failure of government.
Speaker 1: It's it's government corruption. Well, that's true. The issue, from
Speaker 1: my point of view is whether it's a socialist system
Speaker 1: or a capitalist system. When you have power centralized in
Speaker 1: a small group of people, a small group of elite
Speaker 1: um who start subverting the democratic process, and then that
Speaker 1: that's what leads to the abuse, the corruption, the theft
Speaker 1: of government assets. You know that the government nationalized all
Speaker 1: these assets, and really what they did is they just
Speaker 1: privatized them for a small elite group in the government,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just tragic to see it happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not a political scholar by any means,
Speaker 1: and that you know, I think people make arguments about
Speaker 1: socialism from the academic point of view, but when you
Speaker 1: see it in practice, like in Venezuela, is socialism to
Speaker 1: blame for the conditions. Probably not, but it sure as
Speaker 1: hell made it a lot easier for just a few
Speaker 1: bad dudes to just wreck millions of lives under the
Speaker 1: guise of nationalism and centralization and so on. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it might not be. I mean, I'm not, I'm not
Speaker 1: pro social any means, but I think it definitely set
Speaker 1: the stage. You know, it definitely made it easier for
Speaker 1: for those bad dudes to get in there and get
Speaker 1: into power and then hold onto power like they have
Speaker 1: just run it into the ground. Now, I think you're
Speaker 1: just being objective. I do remember early on, um, probably
Speaker 1: what what would you say, like uh, six plus years
Speaker 1: ago when people in America were raving about like the
Speaker 1: lowering price of oil thanks to Venezuela, And it looks
Speaker 1: like that is just kind of a blip on the
Speaker 1: radar when you look at the bigger picture. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like right when Hugo Chavis started started getting kind
Speaker 1: of nerve variety here in the US. You know, he
Speaker 1: had like Oliver Stone went over there and Danny Glover,
Speaker 1: which is just bizarre to me, but you know that
Speaker 1: we kind of started looking at Venezuela and I think
Speaker 1: a few academics and people journalists kind said, oh, this
Speaker 1: is you know, this is an example of working right.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden it just turned into
Speaker 1: a nightmare around is when the collapse really started. And um,
Speaker 1: you know I have I dated a girl in colleges
Speaker 1: from Venezuela, and you know she reads a lot of
Speaker 1: what I went right, and she just says, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's true because I have family downe there
Speaker 1: and it's it's really what's going on. It's just horribly
Speaker 1: sad for us. So it's funny that you mentioned those celebrities.
Speaker 1: I just don't know what it is with um a
Speaker 1: lot of these celebrities who are very into like sucking
Speaker 1: up to dictators, whether it's Putin or Kim John. Oliver
Speaker 1: Stone went and hung out with Hugo Chavez and after
Speaker 1: that then he went and hung out with and he
Speaker 1: made these like fluff pieces on these on these dictators
Speaker 1: about like how great they are. And it's like one
Speaker 1: of those times where like you're so far left, you're
Speaker 1: just a fucking idiot, you know. I mean, I'm not,
Speaker 1: I'm not. You know, I understand there are you know,
Speaker 1: lefties out there who are good people, and you know
Speaker 1: they mean well, and I would probably even agree with
Speaker 1: them on some issues. But I mean, Oliver Stone is
Speaker 1: just one of those moments where it's like, you know, listen, guy,
Speaker 1: you lost your mind. It really is like he's lost
Speaker 1: his mind, lost his marbles. It kind of reminds me,
Speaker 1: you know, like that Dennis rob like you were talking
Speaker 1: about with Kim Jong and that Dennis Rodman thing. I
Speaker 1: was just like, does this guy have nothing better to do?
Speaker 1: The boy? Yeah, no, It's it's true, which is why
Speaker 1: I want to get him on the podcast. And uh,
Speaker 1: discussed it at some point. But no, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you were you were UM mentioning the pirates stuff, because
Speaker 1: it kind of brings me to another subject that you
Speaker 1: wanted to get into, UM, cruise ship crime, victims and
Speaker 1: maritime law. I've been seeking out hard on maritime law
Speaker 1: like the last year. I don't know why, you know,
Speaker 1: I I read a lot of books about it, and like,
Speaker 1: I wanna talk about it. My poor wife, you know,
Speaker 1: she's in medical school in her fourth year, so her
Speaker 1: brain is all uh, medications and diagnoses and this stuff,
Speaker 1: and all I want to talk about is the you know,
Speaker 1: the importance of the shipping container on world trade and
Speaker 1: how different maritime laws affect the price of milk in Hawaii.
Speaker 1: So it's been nice at News rep to be given
Speaker 1: the freedom to really explore those topics. And so one
Speaker 1: of them I wanted to do was cruise ship. You know,
Speaker 1: we have a travel section which I try to throw
Speaker 1: articles in every now and then. I just did two
Speaker 1: interviews over the weekend with UM some women who lived
Speaker 1: in Dubai and Russia kind of about their experience living abroad.
Speaker 1: So that'll be going up soon. But but the cruise
Speaker 1: ship thing Um. I read a book about two years
Speaker 1: ago called like the Truth about Cruise Ships or something
Speaker 1: like that, by a guy named Jay Herring who was
Speaker 1: a cruise ship officer. I just was like really interested.
Speaker 1: So I kind of dug deep into the laws that
Speaker 1: govern you know, what would happen to you if you
Speaker 1: are the victim of a crime on a cruise ship.
Speaker 1: And the answer is a lot more gray than I
Speaker 1: thought it would be. Um. So, for example, the biggest
Speaker 1: misconception people have with cruise ships, especially cruise ships that
Speaker 1: leave for American ports, is that the vessels are American
Speaker 1: and they're really not. Almost. Yeah, so they what they
Speaker 1: do is these cruise ship companies they use what's called
Speaker 1: the flag of convenience, which is they register the vessel
Speaker 1: in countries like Jamaica, Panama. What do you say, sir,
Speaker 1: I think Liberia is one, Gibraltar is another one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Liberia is a big one. You'll see like a lot
Speaker 1: of merchant ships are based out of Liberia. So it's
Speaker 1: these front kind of I guess third world countries. You
Speaker 1: could say that they allow the flag convenience to their
Speaker 1: government says, hey, you can register any vessel you want
Speaker 1: in our country. And I think some of the countries
Speaker 1: are landlocked, so they don't even have like a reason
Speaker 1: to have vessels, but they can register them. But essentially
Speaker 1: if a vessels registered, if a cruise ship is registered,
Speaker 1: and say Panama, and you leave on a cruise ship
Speaker 1: registered in Panama out of the port of New Orleans,
Speaker 1: and once you get twelve miles from the continental shell
Speaker 1: for the US, you're essentially being governed by Panamanian laws.
Speaker 1: So that means if you're the victim of a crime,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter where your passports from. It matters
Speaker 1: who has jurisdiction at the time the crime was committed,
Speaker 1: so open ocean, the jurisdiction is going to go first
Speaker 1: to these countries that do the flag convenience. The issue
Speaker 1: with that gets into a lot of these countries are
Speaker 1: not equa to investigate international crimes like this. So the
Speaker 1: master of the vessel, the captain, you know, he can
Speaker 1: report it too, you know, the Liberian version of the FBI,
Speaker 1: the l BI, I guess, and you know they're probably
Speaker 1: not going to be interested in the case. So then
Speaker 1: he's kind of left with two other options. And the
Speaker 1: other option, the first other option is wait until he
Speaker 1: gets to his next port of call and report the
Speaker 1: person there. But depending on where the crime was committed
Speaker 1: and what country they're going to that port of call,
Speaker 1: there's a very good possibility local authorities aren't going to
Speaker 1: want to take that case because they're gonna say, this
Speaker 1: is this case is a loser. Number one didn't we
Speaker 1: didn't occur in our jurisdiction. And number two, there's no
Speaker 1: way we can prosecute it. You know, we have to
Speaker 1: have permission to go on board the vessel and interview witnesses,
Speaker 1: and that's not gonna happen when the vessel has a
Speaker 1: twelve hour turnaround time from the time they dock to
Speaker 1: the time they they pull up anchor. So then you're
Speaker 1: kind of only left with one other option, which is
Speaker 1: your report the crime when you get back to the
Speaker 1: States were you were you ever to pull up any
Speaker 1: like case studies of where there have been like a
Speaker 1: rape or a murder on a cruise ship. I have
Speaker 1: to believe both of those things have happened numerous times
Speaker 1: over the years, and were you able to like see
Speaker 1: how those were handled? So yeah, so, um, I don't
Speaker 1: remember the specific case, but I talked to, uh, this
Speaker 1: guy named Martin Davis, who's the head of the Two
Speaker 1: Lane University in New Orleans, their Marittime Law Center, And
Speaker 1: I asked him, I said, you know what what normally
Speaker 1: happens with these cases? And I said, for example, you
Speaker 1: know what happens if you're a rape victim on a
Speaker 1: cruise ship. And he said that normally what happens is
Speaker 1: it's reported to the local authorities back in the States. Um,
Speaker 1: there is a piece of legislation that I think requires
Speaker 1: local authorities to turn it over to the FBI. By
Speaker 1: the time that happens, there's usually little evidence left the
Speaker 1: perpetrators sloan or escaped, absconded. So normally these cases are
Speaker 1: tried in civil court, so the victim will take the
Speaker 1: cruise line to court um and try to get restitution.
Speaker 1: But depending on which cruise line is, it depends what
Speaker 1: court you have to file it in. So, for example,
Speaker 1: like Royal Caribbeans based out on Miami, So if you
Speaker 1: are a rape victim on a cruise ship, on a
Speaker 1: Royal Caribbean ship and you live in Nebraska, we have
Speaker 1: to fly to Miami to file it in that court,
Speaker 1: the civil complaint, and then you have to go back um,
Speaker 1: depending on the severity of the case. If it's a
Speaker 1: smaller case, the cruise lines likely to just pay out
Speaker 1: to just say hey, we'll give you a settlement. But
Speaker 1: these big cases, like these murders and rapes, they're gonna
Speaker 1: go to trial because they know that they have a
Speaker 1: pretty good probability of winning because there's so little evidence,
Speaker 1: and they're they're not required to turn over a ton
Speaker 1: of evidence either. For instance, I mean, there's no one
Speaker 1: on the cruise ship to say, administer a rape kit
Speaker 1: to a victim and collect forensic evidence and all this
Speaker 1: sort of stuf off, right, and the cruise ship isn't
Speaker 1: gonna stay in port, so if if a ray pass.
Speaker 1: So there was a case a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: where it was two men. They were a couple, and
Speaker 1: they were got into a drunken argument and one of
Speaker 1: the men climbed out on the life raft on the
Speaker 1: lifeboat crane and eventually fell overboard and died, and and
Speaker 1: his his boyfriend or husband at the time, said the
Speaker 1: reason he was so upset was because we got into
Speaker 1: an argument. I called cruise ship security. They came to
Speaker 1: the room and started harassing him because he was homosexual um.
Speaker 1: So that was the argument that the that the partner
Speaker 1: made and he filed a a you know, a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against the Cruise Line. Then there was video evidence of it.
Speaker 1: You could watch it on on on the internet, which
Speaker 1: is like the most horrific like thing to watch, you know. Like,
Speaker 1: I consider myself a pretty tough individual, you know, from
Speaker 1: working in the emerg instadroom and the ambulance, like, I've
Speaker 1: seen some pretty messed up stuff, but there's something about
Speaker 1: watching that guy get on that that life raft crane
Speaker 1: in this fall into like the darkness where it's just
Speaker 1: like eat at your soul, just like, oh, that's that's
Speaker 1: like the worst, the worst death imaginable. But anyway, they
Speaker 1: ended up filing it in a you know, in civil court,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure where the outcome is, but I
Speaker 1: know the cruise I know for a fact the Cruise
Speaker 1: Line fought that pretty hard. And the reason they have
Speaker 1: a lot of room to stand on is because you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you buy your ticket, you're essentially signing
Speaker 1: over um, you know, a code of conduct and and
Speaker 1: the release of liability. So no matter what the Cruise
Speaker 1: Line did or did not to push that guy out,
Speaker 1: to the to the crane of the life raft. I mean,
Speaker 1: he violated the rules which stay you will not you know,
Speaker 1: go over the ranting. Um. It's just so interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've done some writing for for our website in the
Speaker 1: past about UM, a little bit about maritime security, UM,
Speaker 1: the maritime security in history people are doing, like counter
Speaker 1: piracy contracting and UH, and also some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that was going on up in the Arctic Circle. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I just find this subject that just as
Speaker 1: fascinating as you, because it's not that what's going on
Speaker 1: out there is necessarily nefarious or even secret. It's just
Speaker 1: what's happening in the maritime world is often it's out
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. It's out in the middle
Speaker 1: of the ocean, and there's no real visibility on it
Speaker 1: um for you know, the average person. UM. And as
Speaker 1: you point out, it often falls into these somewhat nebulous
Speaker 1: legal gray zones UM, where it's not totally clear what
Speaker 1: what the law says, especially when the case like and
Speaker 1: I agree with you, especially when the case is like
Speaker 1: a loser, you know, when you're just like, there's no
Speaker 1: way we're gonna win this case, and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to prosecute why even bother taking it on? Right? Um,
Speaker 1: So the good news is for since you're interested in that,
Speaker 1: Tomorrow or actually tonight, I'm leaving where I live now.
Speaker 1: I'm going down to New Orleans. Tomorrow. I'll be in
Speaker 1: review and UM Professor Davis again, this time about international
Speaker 1: maritime terrorism. And we're going to talk about how global
Speaker 1: finance and and different financial markets are influenced by shipping
Speaker 1: and global trade, specifically maritime shipping. That's awesome. And then
Speaker 1: after that I'm going over to the Coast Guard headquarters
Speaker 1: down there in New Orleans, which is their district, and
Speaker 1: they are responsible for not only the Mississippi River, They're
Speaker 1: not They do stuff in the Mississippi River, the Port
Speaker 1: of New Orleans and then the Gulf of Mexico, and
Speaker 1: they have a lot of the Port of New Orleans
Speaker 1: and the big um you know, shipping center, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of oil pipelines. So they do a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. They have. They have a giant mission down there,
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard does you know, they do search and
Speaker 1: rescue obviously, but they do a lot of pipeline security,
Speaker 1: They do a lot of drug interdictions stuff, so they
Speaker 1: have a really important mission down on the Gulf, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking with the Coast Guard O six tomorrow to
Speaker 1: kind of get a feel for what their mission is
Speaker 1: us and then hopefully in the future, you know, go
Speaker 1: be be able to go down there and spend some
Speaker 1: more time with them and really get a sense of, um,
Speaker 1: you know what, what exactly they do? That's a no, sorry,
Speaker 1: can you just finish what you're saying? And so I
Speaker 1: was like, that's how I kind of got started with
Speaker 1: the National Guard. It was just like I know nothing.
Speaker 1: I want to know everything, let me come. So I'm
Speaker 1: hoping to use that approach with the Coast Guard and
Speaker 1: just be like, hey, I think you know, from the
Speaker 1: little I know, I think this is a vital mission
Speaker 1: to national security and I want to do everything about it.
Speaker 1: I think there's the potential for some really cool stories
Speaker 1: to come out of here. Well, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: we'll get an update on that National Guards story and
Speaker 1: a little bit. That's what we spoke about last time
Speaker 1: you were on UM. But I was just wondering, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a fascinating subject, but to be honest, that
Speaker 1: I have never really thought about before. Was there anything
Speaker 1: that just sparked your curiosity. Uh, to dive deeper into this.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in Florida on a Bear Island,
Speaker 1: So I've grown up around like maritime stuff. I should
Speaker 1: I should probably articulate the better, but Maritimes and you
Speaker 1: know how it is here. We're super casual people, know
Speaker 1: the man. I gotta say, I was listening to that
Speaker 1: episode four twenty with Alex yesterday, which was as casual
Speaker 1: as a god. I feel like every time I talked
Speaker 1: with Alex, like I do, try to bring it back
Speaker 1: to an actual subject, but it ends up being like
Speaker 1: he says something side tangent from me, side tangent from Alex.
Speaker 1: Then we get onto a completely different topic and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what we're talking about again? Oh yeah, but um no,
Speaker 1: thank you man, I appreciate it. But but yeah, so
Speaker 1: so just growing up in Florida is what sparkes your interests? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I you know, one of the first books I've
Speaker 1: ever read was The Perfect Storm by said Fashion Younger,
Speaker 1: And um, you know, he's one of my favorite authors
Speaker 1: and in the Perfect Storm is one of the an
Speaker 1: amazing book. So, like two years ago, I was looking
Speaker 1: for a non fiction book to read and I picked
Speaker 1: up another one called Into the Raging Sea by Rachel
Speaker 1: Slade about the sinking of the s s L far
Speaker 1: oh Um. It was a U S flag vessel cargo
Speaker 1: ship steaming from Jacksonville to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 1: they went down in Hurricane Joaquin. And this was two
Speaker 1: thousands fifteen that they went down, so it's pretty recent.
Speaker 1: And she really dug deep into why the ship sank
Speaker 1: and about the maritime industry, and I just got super interested,
Speaker 1: just became a super maritime nerd. And the more I learned,
Speaker 1: the more I realized how important it was. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was hoping that some of the readers
Speaker 1: would find it as fascinating as I do. And I think, um,
Speaker 1: from where you know, from my foxhole, looking at the
Speaker 1: numbers that the pieces about maritime stuff are getting, I
Speaker 1: think that it's definitely something that people are interested in,
Speaker 1: you know, and are as a journalist and news rep
Speaker 1: you know, because we're fortunate to have that, uh you
Speaker 1: know that we have the subscribers, you know, I definitely
Speaker 1: want to deliver stories and content to them that they're
Speaker 1: going to enjoy, you know. And I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I feel like I have the freedom to do that.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's nice that the the readers are
Speaker 1: able to give so much like immediate feedback. And you
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just internet trolls either, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's people. There's opinion you really value and you
Speaker 1: want to deliver, you know, what they want. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I like to see you guys pursue what you're passionate about. Two. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I'm really interested to see what you come up
Speaker 1: with as far as like maritime terrorism and counter terrorism,
Speaker 1: because we haven't really seen um terrorism strike this industry
Speaker 1: cruise liners since what nine seven was it? The Achille
Speaker 1: Lauro and the Mediterranean Ocean. Yeah, so it's been it's
Speaker 1: been a I mean, I actually uh wrote a novel,
Speaker 1: um where the climax of the novel takes place on
Speaker 1: a super cruise liner and it's just a massive battle
Speaker 1: that takes place on this thing. Because these ships, as
Speaker 1: you know, Joe, they're I mean, they're like little cities now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like an urban built up environment, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: So you can just imagine what a nightmare scenario that
Speaker 1: would be if um, you know, say something like the
Speaker 1: Mumbai attack were to happen, but the attackers were to
Speaker 1: hit it cruise liner, I mean, it would be a nightmare.
Speaker 1: It's like everyone would die. I mean, there's nowhere to go.
Speaker 1: There's nowhere to go. And as far as I know
Speaker 1: that cruise ships scared, the cruise ships aren't armed. They're
Speaker 1: not vessels of war. They don't have as far as
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm not an expert on it, but
Speaker 1: as far as I know, they might have a few
Speaker 1: side arms, but that's gonna be it. So I don't
Speaker 1: think they can be Yeah, I don't think. I think
Speaker 1: you're right, Jack, I don't think they can be armed. Given, um,
Speaker 1: you know, their status is as as passenger vessels. So
Speaker 1: if you've got you know, a fire team on board
Speaker 1: with with automatic weapons, I mean, it would be it
Speaker 1: would be horrific. So I'm curious to find out what's
Speaker 1: being done in that industry to combat that, you know,
Speaker 1: And I hope that something is being done. I hope
Speaker 1: it's not just everyone's sitting back and going, No, nothing's
Speaker 1: going to happen. You know, those ships are too big
Speaker 1: to attack. This is kind of interesting. I was talking
Speaker 1: to someone who works are rail infrastructure in Europe. UM.
Speaker 1: This was about a year ago, so it's heavily involved
Speaker 1: in UH in rail and UM. He told me that
Speaker 1: they're not putting a lot of UM counter terrorism security
Speaker 1: measures around rail infrastructure in Europe. The reason being is
Speaker 1: that they feel that it would draw more attention to
Speaker 1: it as a target. So right now they're just kind
Speaker 1: of like go along to get along in the sense
Speaker 1: of like, we're not being targeted now. I mean, there
Speaker 1: haven't been like rail line bombings UM so often. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, since like the nineteen eighties. I guess we
Speaker 1: haven't really seen too much of that. So they're just
Speaker 1: kind of like we're just gonna hope we continue to
Speaker 1: slide under the radar. Yeah, fingers crossed. Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and four, there's in Spain. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: thinking of the one where they took hostages and like
Speaker 1: the G S G nine how they get them? Oh
Speaker 1: was that G S G nine or was it the
Speaker 1: Dutch that was also in the eighties they had the
Speaker 1: fighter jets break the sonic barrier right above the train
Speaker 1: car just as the Dutch raded it. Yeah, that's pretty
Speaker 1: that's like, that's pretty ingenious, you know. Oh, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's like mission impossible type of stuff right there. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But that's interesting, you know. I hope hopefully
Speaker 1: the cruise line is is taking a more proactive approach. Um.
Speaker 1: What I wrote about the other day, what they're not
Speaker 1: being really proactive about is the man overboard system. So
Speaker 1: a man overboard system is essentially a uh heat camera
Speaker 1: net system that can automatically detect when something as warm
Speaker 1: as a body goes overboard and it alerts to cre automatically. Um.
Speaker 1: And most cruise lines don't have that. What they have
Speaker 1: is clos circuit television, which under the current legislation is
Speaker 1: all they're required to have. What do they do if
Speaker 1: somebody goes overboard? Do they I mean, these are a
Speaker 1: smaller vessel they can launch. Will they turn the whole
Speaker 1: ship around? I From what I understand, they their procedure
Speaker 1: is to they cut their engines, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: I know from maritime rescued the the standard practices to
Speaker 1: go up wind or up draft of the of the
Speaker 1: victim and then float back to them. So I think
Speaker 1: they might try that, but depending on the schedule, they
Speaker 1: might not. You know, they might just alert local authorities.
Speaker 1: Some cruise ships will have a launch, you know, they'll
Speaker 1: have like a small boat they can launch, and they
Speaker 1: have people that are um you know, trained and search
Speaker 1: and rescue. A lot like a lot of the cruise
Speaker 1: ships that are leaving from US boards have that ability.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of cruise lines out of
Speaker 1: you know, the Mediterranean or Asia that don't are not
Speaker 1: under the same strict maritime law or that the search
Speaker 1: and rescues type stuff like that. UM So normally they'll
Speaker 1: try to look for the victim, but if they can't,
Speaker 1: they just alert local authorities and get on with the
Speaker 1: trip because they're on such a time crunch to hit
Speaker 1: these ports, and um I can't really afford to hang
Speaker 1: out and search for a victim. And they're not gonna
Speaker 1: they're not gonna cancel a trip just to just try
Speaker 1: to find one person. I couldn't get wrong here, but
Speaker 1: I mean it's because it's been so long, probably about
Speaker 1: what eight years since the killing of Osama bin Wadden
Speaker 1: somewhere around that. Um what wasn't maritime law discussed with
Speaker 1: how you know, just burying Ben Wadden over on the sea.
Speaker 1: Not that I don't recall that, I I mean I
Speaker 1: recall there are conversations about Islamic tradition. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: that too, you know whether or not I mean, which
Speaker 1: it's not an Islamic tradition, but that's what we said
Speaker 1: it was. Um, but I know which by the way,
Speaker 1: you uncovered why that was done. But I mean my
Speaker 1: information was that the body is here in the United States. No,
Speaker 1: but I remember you talking about that. I and we
Speaker 1: should get in things that I didn't know. But but
Speaker 1: you talking about that his body was just riddled with
Speaker 1: bullet holes and that I wouldn't release pictures. But but
Speaker 1: so wait his You do not believe that his body
Speaker 1: it was dumped in the other I don't buy that ship. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've never gotten into this with you. Totally different subject here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is why I was told this years
Speaker 1: ago that um, you know, no, he was not buried
Speaker 1: at sea. And I have actually talked to people who
Speaker 1: are on that aircraft carrier because somebody would have known.
Speaker 1: I mean, you think of the amount of people who
Speaker 1: worked the deck of an aircraft carrier. They know when
Speaker 1: the helicopters are coming in, when planes are landing. I
Speaker 1: mean that that kind of stuff can't be kept secret
Speaker 1: um from the crew on the ship anyway, UM and
Speaker 1: I talked to people are on that carrier and they're like,
Speaker 1: we all found out from Fox News. They were like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they were like, that's how we learned that
Speaker 1: Ben Laden was buried at sea from our ship. Was
Speaker 1: from Fox News. And we're all looking at each other
Speaker 1: like what. And I have never been able to UM
Speaker 1: find a single person witness anybody. And you think of
Speaker 1: all the leaks that have happened about the Ben Ladden
Speaker 1: raid and that whole mission, we haven't had a single
Speaker 1: person come forward to say I saw the body go
Speaker 1: in the water, or I saw the body taken off
Speaker 1: the helicopter, or even I saw the helicopters come in
Speaker 1: that night. We haven't heard a single thing about that.
Speaker 1: There are some emails that have come out through I
Speaker 1: don't know if it came out through I guess it
Speaker 1: came out through FOIA Route leases where the the UM
Speaker 1: captain of the ship, the admiral is making some two
Speaker 1: comments to a package and was the package delivered? But again,
Speaker 1: who the hell knows what that is or is not? UM?
Speaker 1: And then there's and again this is just something else
Speaker 1: you and go and look at publicly UM. When the
Speaker 1: stratfour emails leaked, UM, one of the guys at who
Speaker 1: runs Straight four was having an emails change with somebody
Speaker 1: else and he was saying the same thing that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they brought the body back to the United States and
Speaker 1: it's on ice at this like Army medical facility in Maryland,
Speaker 1: and that facility was also closed down that same here.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, man, I've never heard this. I have never
Speaker 1: heard this. That's that's interesting, man. There's no fucking way
Speaker 1: that they dumped the body at sea. Like that's just
Speaker 1: acinine that they would even claim that it's one of
Speaker 1: those things on the surface. It's just like, come on, like,
Speaker 1: you gotta do better. You gotta do better than that,
Speaker 1: Like you're gonna pull the wool over our eyes here.
Speaker 1: The only thing I would think is kind of crazy
Speaker 1: is how many people have the information of where the
Speaker 1: body is if it's in the US, And how do
Speaker 1: you stop one of those people from taking a picture
Speaker 1: and leaking in on the internet. Well, he would be
Speaker 1: on ice, you know, in a and um, you know,
Speaker 1: refrigerator somewhere. UM, and the people who maintain their facility
Speaker 1: probably don't even know what they have in there, um,
Speaker 1: just chilling, like a six pack of beer. It's probably
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's probably like twenty people
Speaker 1: in the world to know where that body is because
Speaker 1: it's all it's compartmentalized information. But it's like, how do
Speaker 1: you stop one of those twenty people from taking a
Speaker 1: picture anonymously and putting it out on the internet. You know,
Speaker 1: It's almost like when we had Dell comp stock on right,
Speaker 1: there were only what four or five people in that mission.
Speaker 1: One of them leaks it to a journalist. How do
Speaker 1: you stop one of these people from anonymously leaking the
Speaker 1: photo and no one would ever know, no one would
Speaker 1: know who did it? You know, Well, I mean we
Speaker 1: do we we do keep secrets in this country, and
Speaker 1: I mean I think the secrecy comes from compartmentalization and
Speaker 1: just not very many people are read into it to
Speaker 1: begin with. Um, there are programs, and it's really weird
Speaker 1: to think about that, there are classified programs where you know,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty to forty people in the entire world know
Speaker 1: of that program. That's it. It's funny you mentioned that
Speaker 1: jet because when I worked at Lockeed, I worked on
Speaker 1: this program called CLEO and I don't know, and I
Speaker 1: know it was a deal. I know it was a
Speaker 1: government customer. I don't know who it was, but I
Speaker 1: don't know what satellite does. I don't know where it went. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of palo was on it.
Speaker 1: And we're the ones who built it, and it was
Speaker 1: very secret, and the guys in the program were like
Speaker 1: handing out Cleo swag, like I have a Polo shirt
Speaker 1: that says Cleo And someone asked me, like, what is that.
Speaker 1: I'm I don't even idea. Man, it's it's up there.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it does. But it was so
Speaker 1: compartmentalized that the engineers who are building the propulsionism for
Speaker 1: it and putting it together, we're just like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, they don't know what the platform does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I hope it's something good. Yeah, it's interesting
Speaker 1: talking to people in aerospace, um, you know who work
Speaker 1: on you know, rocket projects and satellites and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because just like you said, I mean, the platforms themselves
Speaker 1: are highly classified and uh, and just that no one's
Speaker 1: talking about them outside of a skiff. So yeah, that's crazy, man.
Speaker 1: I didn't know we're gonna get into this. But that's
Speaker 1: why I love doing the podcast. We get into all
Speaker 1: different things we're kind of doing, um like a news
Speaker 1: show here of different top picks that that you've been
Speaker 1: reading into. So the second topic you were shooting at
Speaker 1: me that we'd like to get into is I was
Speaker 1: unaware of of how crazy this situation is right now
Speaker 1: that it is now the second largest outbreak of ebola
Speaker 1: in history, with over six hundred patients and that's going
Speaker 1: on right now as we speak. Yeah, the I'm very
Speaker 1: highly caffeinated today. It's my only vice. Same here. I
Speaker 1: have this venty uh venti Starbucks ice coffee in front
Speaker 1: of me, which, as you saw, Jack, they wrote my
Speaker 1: name is the number eight. Nuh eight. Nuh yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw on Facebook nuts that's my new name. But no,
Speaker 1: I'm also highly caffidated. Right to rock. No, this and
Speaker 1: all serious though this a well out of break is
Speaker 1: uh it's it's the second largest history and it's really
Speaker 1: the first time that we've seen kind of the perfect
Speaker 1: storm of a shooty situation. Um. So, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you have the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is a
Speaker 1: really large country in such a Africa or North Central Africa,
Speaker 1: UM and they've had EBOWLA outbreaks before, but they've never
Speaker 1: had it on the eastern side where it's occurring right now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, eastern side where's curring right now in those provinces.
Speaker 1: We have people that live there that are already unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with the virus and are suspicious and they don't understand
Speaker 1: how it's transmitted. And there's a lot of teams from
Speaker 1: the US. The CDC sent teams over there, U s
Speaker 1: AID sent teams over there, The World Health Organization has
Speaker 1: teams over there, the International Rescue Committee has teams over
Speaker 1: There's a lot of NGOs and UM, different governments over
Speaker 1: there trying to educate the population, treat the patients, prevent
Speaker 1: the spread track the virus UM. So that's going on
Speaker 1: right there. So the first issue was that we talked
Speaker 1: about last time, was that these local studos, a lot
Speaker 1: of militia groups were coming over from Uganda and attacking
Speaker 1: these aid workers and that is still happening. So that's
Speaker 1: not that's number one that's making a bad situation. That
Speaker 1: just the level of regional violence from from these militia
Speaker 1: groups or is making it very dangerous for these healthcare
Speaker 1: professionals to get in there and do their jobs. But
Speaker 1: then we've seen kind of an explosion of civil unrest
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Republic of Congo around their presidential elections.
Speaker 1: So you had two groups. You had the group that
Speaker 1: was and I'm not an expert on this and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get into who's who, but essentially you had
Speaker 1: the group that was in charge. Then you had the
Speaker 1: opposition group. And the group that was in charge said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to suspend voting in these areas that are
Speaker 1: affected by a bola because we don't want people to
Speaker 1: catch the virus. Well, those same areas that are affected
Speaker 1: by a bola happened to be very highly populated with
Speaker 1: the opposition to that guy. So they all said, well,
Speaker 1: this is bullshit, dude. You're you're doing this so that
Speaker 1: we don't go and vote, and you're trying to suppress
Speaker 1: our vote. So then the local populace kind of turned
Speaker 1: against the abola workers and there was a case of
Speaker 1: they stormed a bullet treatment center where they were holding
Speaker 1: patients who are suspected of being um contaminants or being
Speaker 1: exposed to the virus. They storm that and like twenty
Speaker 1: patients absconded. I love. Luckily they were able to track
Speaker 1: most of them down. But after that incident, different NGO
Speaker 1: said all right, we're done, So we're not it's too dangerous,
Speaker 1: too dangerous for us to work here. Um. So it's
Speaker 1: really the perfect storm of bad situations, making a complicated
Speaker 1: response effort in an area with limited infrastructure even harder. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's really been and where I find the most
Speaker 1: interesting about it is it's really been a test of
Speaker 1: humanity's ability to respond to disease outbreaks during an armed conflict.
Speaker 1: And we've had different diseases outbreak in different wars, like
Speaker 1: I think in World War One and two more soldiers
Speaker 1: died from medical conditions and than bullets or you know,
Speaker 1: the same number, a good majority of them or a minority.
Speaker 1: You can check my numbers there. But this is the
Speaker 1: first time that we've seen you know, but those outbreaks
Speaker 1: were directly related to the conditions that the troops wearing
Speaker 1: in their close proximity. But this is really the first
Speaker 1: time that we've seen a standalone outbreak. Um. Be the
Speaker 1: response be influenced by outside conflict, and to be frank,
Speaker 1: the the international community is kind of failing. You know,
Speaker 1: this outbreak when you and I last talked, I think
Speaker 1: it was two hundred something patients and now it's up
Speaker 1: to six, give or take. You know, there's been um,
Speaker 1: I think more than there's been three three deaths related
Speaker 1: to a bowla. So the the outbreak is is spreading
Speaker 1: and there's you know, there's new cases every day. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, I mean one of these situations
Speaker 1: where they're a bola can be treated and contained proper healthcare.
Speaker 1: So after the two thousand fourteen outbreaking West Africa, you know,
Speaker 1: the international community kind of galled around said, Okay, how
Speaker 1: can we treat this and how can we prevent the
Speaker 1: spread of this? And they developed really good systems to
Speaker 1: treat patients in a manage symptoms and attract potential patients
Speaker 1: and to quarantine patients. That was all developed four or
Speaker 1: five years ago. But the problem is because of the
Speaker 1: violence in the DRC, they can't implement. And I just
Speaker 1: remember at that outbreak in I mean, the news coverage
Speaker 1: about it was so hyperbolic, but I think it was
Speaker 1: because of the fact that we only saw this in
Speaker 1: Africa and when it came to the US, people are
Speaker 1: freaking out of look at all these deaths in Africa,
Speaker 1: but it's obviously going to be treated very differently in
Speaker 1: the US. I think we only had one death, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think African American guy and that was it. I
Speaker 1: don't do you remember, Joe. I think that was the
Speaker 1: only death in America. And people were acting like this
Speaker 1: was gonna be a pandemic in the US, and it was.
Speaker 1: It turned out to be a lot of um you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of outrage. I think for headlines. Yeah, Bulla's
Speaker 1: go ahead, Jack. I was just gonna say, yeah that
Speaker 1: we know how to handle it here in the United
Speaker 1: States better. So, I mean, we're not living in third
Speaker 1: world conditions, thankfully, but go ahead, Joe. So a bowl,
Speaker 1: I guess the silver line to a bowl is it
Speaker 1: kills so fast. The outbreaks normally burn themselves out after
Speaker 1: you know, a few hundred patients or you know, a
Speaker 1: relatively small amount of patients. Because of the fact that
Speaker 1: um it kills people so fast, the virus has it's
Speaker 1: hard for the virus to transport hosts. You know that
Speaker 1: a virus is main goal is not to kill, it's
Speaker 1: to replicate, So the virus is always searching for a
Speaker 1: host that it can live in without killing the host
Speaker 1: and multiply and multiply and humans. A bowl is very
Speaker 1: deadly and it tends to kill humans pretty fast, So
Speaker 1: the outbreaks tend to burn themselves out pretty quick. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the silver lining of it. But but I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting about this outbreak is, you know, consider
Speaker 1: what if this wasn't in a bowl outbreak? What if
Speaker 1: this was an outbreak of a new strain of smallpox
Speaker 1: that's not vaccinatable, or what if it's a strain of
Speaker 1: the flu, and what if it occurs in a similar situation.
Speaker 1: You know, then you're going to see how, you know,
Speaker 1: political conflict within a one country and you know, different
Speaker 1: militias can create the stage for a pandemic to occur.
Speaker 1: So in that case, it's you know, hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the policy course correction needs to
Speaker 1: be to to fight this outbreak, but I think this
Speaker 1: is really gonna be an asset test of how NGOs
Speaker 1: and the governments of the countries are gonna come together
Speaker 1: and decide, you know, how how do we fight an
Speaker 1: outbreak when the citizen re is up in arms and
Speaker 1: there's militia groups, Because that's a that's a thing we
Speaker 1: need to figure out now, and we're lucky that it
Speaker 1: is a bolo that's not um you know, super contagious
Speaker 1: and can infect twenty million people in a few months.
Speaker 1: So hopefully the different policymakers are watching this situation and
Speaker 1: learning from it so that when a different outbreak occurs
Speaker 1: under similar circumstances, they can be better prepared than they
Speaker 1: were this time. You really have to applaud these groups
Speaker 1: like Doctors without Borders, because I mean, they're truly putting
Speaker 1: their life on the line to help things like this
Speaker 1: and and to you know, halt these outbreaks. But as
Speaker 1: you said, SI patients in Africa, that's going to spread
Speaker 1: and it's pretty shocking. I mean probably do you know
Speaker 1: how many people were infected in the largest outbreak it
Speaker 1: was like, so, I mean, it wouldn't be shocking if
Speaker 1: we got to that considering as you said, the number
Speaker 1: is tripled. We're we're teetering on the edge of a
Speaker 1: cliff here because where the outbreak is centralized in the
Speaker 1: Democratic Republic of Congo, it's very likely that it could
Speaker 1: spread to South Sudan and Uganda. So although the US
Speaker 1: has stopped operators, though these ng as have stopped operations
Speaker 1: for the time being in the areas of the DRC
Speaker 1: that are hit. They are over in South Sudan, and
Speaker 1: they are over in Uganda where it's relatively safer, and
Speaker 1: they are starting to vaccinate the people that are likely
Speaker 1: to come in contact with refugees from the d r C.
Speaker 1: So that is that's the kind of our our line
Speaker 1: of defense here to prevent that spread, because once it
Speaker 1: enters the population of a different country than you know,
Speaker 1: then that's what really did in the two thousand fourteen outbreak,
Speaker 1: it was spread over several countries. You know, obviously somewhere
Speaker 1: harder hit than others. But you know, luckily the bowl
Speaker 1: outbreak is still contained to the d r C. But
Speaker 1: we did have one American physician flown back to the
Speaker 1: United States after a possible bull exposure like a week
Speaker 1: and a half or two weeks ago, and the physician
Speaker 1: is currently at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and
Speaker 1: he's being monitored, or he or she is being monitored.
Speaker 1: There's been no information of who the physician is, what
Speaker 1: they were doing in the d r C, how they
Speaker 1: were exposed, or what their condition is. The last I heard,
Speaker 1: the hospital staff is not treating the doctor as a patient,
Speaker 1: there is more or he or she's more of like
Speaker 1: on an observation status. Yeah, just making sure he or
Speaker 1: she doesn't develop the virus. But there is someone back
Speaker 1: in the United States that it was confirmed a possible exposure.
Speaker 1: It's confirmed possible who was confirmed to be exposed to it?
Speaker 1: So the next topic we wanted to hit here. As
Speaker 1: I said, we have like an array of topics that
Speaker 1: we wanted to hit with. Hu jo Um. Two Americans
Speaker 1: caught fighting for isis. Yeah, these dudes. Sorry, I gotta
Speaker 1: remain objective. It's funny about these guys. Is like when
Speaker 1: you read about them, they're not They're not young guys.
Speaker 1: I mean they're like thirty four, but they're not super healthy.
Speaker 1: You know. One of them had a glass eye and
Speaker 1: uh like before he went over to Syria, like he
Speaker 1: had he lost his eye somehow in America and he
Speaker 1: was like a substitute teacher in Houston and he was like,
Speaker 1: I want to go. So he's self radicalized in about
Speaker 1: two thousand four watching YouTube he is um and he
Speaker 1: was he was like, I'm gonna go over to Syria
Speaker 1: and a rock and I'm going to teach English to
Speaker 1: the terrorists in missoul So that was his plan, and
Speaker 1: then come yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was for a good cause. I mean, I'm sure, you know,
Speaker 1: the terrorists want to learn English to make it easier.
Speaker 1: But so anyway, the guy finds himself in the middle
Speaker 1: of Syria with a bunch of other ex pats from
Speaker 1: uh Pakistan and one guy from Ireland. And next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, the SDF pops and says you're under arrest.
Speaker 1: Now you're fucked. What's interesting is though these guys, I
Speaker 1: think the guy's name was like Warren Clark and the
Speaker 1: other one had an Islamic name, but they go by
Speaker 1: these monikersamic names. Yeah, and they're both al m Riki.
Speaker 1: That's like the tell tale American. Yeah, Alambriky just means
Speaker 1: the American. So yeah, so they're both known as you know,
Speaker 1: the Americans. So they got picked up the SDF with
Speaker 1: with these other guys, and their their status is it's
Speaker 1: it's unknown what's going to happen to him. It's it's
Speaker 1: highly you know, because the the SDF is not a
Speaker 1: you know, they're the Syrian Democratic Forces, you know, aligned
Speaker 1: with the curds, but they don't have like a government.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't have a consulate in the US. Well,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're kind of establishing a government of sorts.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right there, not internationally recognized, you know that. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: And I don't know if so, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm right or wrong onund the Jack You might be
Speaker 1: able to shed some more light on than I can.
Speaker 1: But I think it's gonna be harder for the US
Speaker 1: to negotiate for these guys releases because there's no real
Speaker 1: point person to negotiate with. No, I don't think that
Speaker 1: would be a problem at all. I think the Kurds
Speaker 1: will hand these two idiots right over to US. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think that's going to be an issue.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's American troops over there working hand in
Speaker 1: glove with the Kurds and the SDF. So UM. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe the Kurds probably wanted to interrogate these guys for
Speaker 1: you know, tactical intelligence value, um the day they were captured.
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to that, But afterwards, UM,
Speaker 1: I can't really see why the Kurds would want to
Speaker 1: hold onto these guys UM or what value they might
Speaker 1: have to them, so I think they'll probably hand them
Speaker 1: right over to the FBI. Um. But then of course
Speaker 1: the question becomes, what are we going to do with them? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What what? What district court? What federal court do you
Speaker 1: try them in? And what do you try them for?
Speaker 1: Or are they are they criminal? International terrorism? Um? I
Speaker 1: would put them on on trial for terrorism, aiding and
Speaker 1: a betting, providing material support to a terrorist group, And frankly,
Speaker 1: I would put them um on trial for um what's
Speaker 1: the word, um? Basically for war crimes because of what
Speaker 1: that organization did too did to civilians over there. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these guys were originally one at least one of
Speaker 1: them was originally wanted to teach English. When he got arrested.
Speaker 1: They were planning on attacking civilians that were fleeing from
Speaker 1: this from this city. So yeah, these aren't good dudes.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, it's interesting that the self radicalization
Speaker 1: thing and that you know, I know Alex Holland there's
Speaker 1: a ton about that, and so do you guys about
Speaker 1: the power of sitting by yourself watching YouTube videos. The
Speaker 1: next thing you know, you're in Syria and it's like,
Speaker 1: what kind of what's the individual personal psychology that plays
Speaker 1: into that, because I do believe that someone who is
Speaker 1: self radicalizes like that, like you're an American, like you
Speaker 1: hit the you hit the lotto, like you were born
Speaker 1: in this country, you have you haven't made basically like
Speaker 1: for we've had um people give all of that up
Speaker 1: to go and fight and die with ge Hottists and
Speaker 1: Somalia and Syria and elsewhere. It's like there is something
Speaker 1: broken inside of you on a personal level. It's not
Speaker 1: about politics or even religion. I think it's something about
Speaker 1: your personal psychology that leads you to leads you down
Speaker 1: that dark road. Um. One of the most interesting stories
Speaker 1: I ever heard about the self radicalization was, um, there
Speaker 1: was a guy who he attacked a couple of NYPD
Speaker 1: officers with an axe. Um, and yeah, I hit him
Speaker 1: in the head right and and the cops turned around
Speaker 1: and shot and killed him. And so when they when
Speaker 1: the police checked out his apartment, they found all the
Speaker 1: normal like isis bullshit you would expect, Um, isis propaganda
Speaker 1: on the computer. The interesting thing that I was told
Speaker 1: was packed up into a box off in the corner
Speaker 1: of the room was all the black liberation ideology stuff.
Speaker 1: The black Panther type stuff. So he was all into that,
Speaker 1: and then when Isis came around, he packed it up,
Speaker 1: discarded that, and started going with this other. So there's
Speaker 1: something personal about it. There's something about you know, your
Speaker 1: your individuals ecological makeup that leads you to that. I
Speaker 1: think I kind of wish I had like a touch
Speaker 1: of that so that I can self radicalize watching like
Speaker 1: healthy cooking videos on YouTube, you know, or like workout stuff.
Speaker 1: I just have such a piece of trash I just can't.
Speaker 1: I can watch it on YouTube and then I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'll go get fast food. So like it's like people
Speaker 1: are trying to fill a void inside of themselves. And UM,
Speaker 1: you know, we see it with UM. You see it
Speaker 1: with how polarized our politics are nowadays and people get
Speaker 1: into or how people get into conspiracy theories, and in
Speaker 1: that sense, they self radicalize the same way watching YouTube videos,
Speaker 1: reading Reddit threads, you know, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I also think that that is why, UM, as much
Speaker 1: as you'll hear people say that we need to shut
Speaker 1: down Guantanamo, even though there's not many guys even there
Speaker 1: right now, but the people always say we have to
Speaker 1: shut down get mo whenever that's been proposed. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's been any Congressman who was like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: welcome in them into our district's prison system, because they
Speaker 1: know that there's guys who are going to get out
Speaker 1: any day now. They're they're you know, ex criminals who
Speaker 1: can't get a job, they have nothing to live for,
Speaker 1: they feel hopeless. And if they end up being radicalized
Speaker 1: by one of these X terrorists at GETMO and then
Speaker 1: tell someone, you can put them in a super max
Speaker 1: prison where they're not gonna have the opportunity to radicalize anybody. Um.
Speaker 1: There's one I think in Colorado. There's like six or
Speaker 1: seven that are considered like high security super max prisons
Speaker 1: in the United States. UM. And I believe that they
Speaker 1: were prepared to try those guys at GETMO UM right
Speaker 1: here in New York City for nine eleven UM a
Speaker 1: lot of them. And Obama tried to do that, and
Speaker 1: as I recall, he received pressure from Congress, not from
Speaker 1: the State of New York, um or the city of
Speaker 1: New York not to do that. Wasn't there a big
Speaker 1: riff in the FBI about which field office would handle
Speaker 1: that the terrorism case? Uh? Not? Not that I recall.
Speaker 1: But um, you could be right. It is a serious question.
Speaker 1: And I am one of those, perhaps I have a
Speaker 1: minority opinion. I mean, I believe that we should have
Speaker 1: put our faith in the American legal system from the
Speaker 1: get go, um, brought these terrorists to dirt bags back
Speaker 1: here to the good old US of A and put
Speaker 1: them on trial, um, and make them face American justice
Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, languishing in this weird um
Speaker 1: state of limbo down in Guantanamo. Um, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't think that. I I think that was the wrong
Speaker 1: plan from the get go, um, And now we found
Speaker 1: ourselves in this situation where we rounded dudes up without
Speaker 1: you know, without due process, without adequately collecting evidence, and
Speaker 1: now it's like one of these situations where we can't
Speaker 1: prosecute them adequately and it's used as propaganda overseas. This
Speaker 1: is what the US does. They don't have rights, and
Speaker 1: it undermines our own faith in our our judicial process. Um.
Speaker 1: You know that that we can't as if we're our
Speaker 1: laws in our way of life is inadequate now because
Speaker 1: we can't handle this, I think I put soldiers in
Speaker 1: kind of a weird position, especially the Special operations guys,
Speaker 1: because is there a mission now to act as a
Speaker 1: as a police force and arrest or? Is there a
Speaker 1: mission now to go out and eliminate the enemy? When
Speaker 1: you put these guys in that gray area? I mean
Speaker 1: when when I was in Iraq, I mean yeah, from
Speaker 1: the beginning, really Iraq and Afghanistan, I mean we were
Speaker 1: you know, hard charge in special opstitudes. Um. But we
Speaker 1: now found ourselves in this situation where um, we were
Speaker 1: like a combination of like special ops and FBI UM,
Speaker 1: because we we did have FBI agents coming with us
Speaker 1: out on target. And this is when what was called
Speaker 1: sensitive site exploitation was brought brought into play. And what
Speaker 1: that was was essentially um into collection in a tactical environment.
Speaker 1: So you're establishing the chain of custody, uh, for you know,
Speaker 1: the guy's belongings, his pocket, litter, any electronics he has.
Speaker 1: You know, where did you find this guy? What room
Speaker 1: was he in? Um, it would stop short of like
Speaker 1: dusting the window sill for fingerprints, because we're we're in
Speaker 1: a war zone and we don't feel like getting I
Speaker 1: e d. D. On the way out. So we're not
Speaker 1: going to spend twenty four hours on the target. Um,
Speaker 1: but we were now involved in the business of collecting
Speaker 1: evidence so that these guys could be prosecuted in court,
Speaker 1: in in our Iraqi court, though not in American courts.
Speaker 1: You know it kind of it kind of reminds me
Speaker 1: of this is not an original thought. I I can't
Speaker 1: remember where I heard this, but but someone said, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of people want to send the military
Speaker 1: to solve problems that are outside their purview. You know,
Speaker 1: that seems to be like, though I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with in the military, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: following the National Guard here, you know, that's been a
Speaker 1: big thing is oh, you know we can always call
Speaker 1: them the National Guard. Well what does that mean? You know,
Speaker 1: does that is that really their job? You know when
Speaker 1: it comes to do the law enforcement and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the military has a specific mission and
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we asked to like not maybe no,
Speaker 1: we're not too much, but things that aren't really in
Speaker 1: their purview to go handle. Well, I think it's how
Speaker 1: nuts is it? If you look at the incredibly complicated
Speaker 1: histories and social dynamics of a country like Iraq or Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: We train you know, kids from from North Dakota, in Florida,
Speaker 1: in New York and California. We put them through basic
Speaker 1: training and then we PLoP them down and in the
Speaker 1: middle of one of these countries and expect them to
Speaker 1: carry out nation building and counterinsurgencies. Uh, it's kind of insane. Um.
Speaker 1: You can't possibly expect that to be a success. That
Speaker 1: makes me think of Abu grab and the soldiers you
Speaker 1: get caught abusing the prisoners and when you look at
Speaker 1: them there for the majority eighteen nineteen year old kids,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're from like somewhere on the East coast,
Speaker 1: the reserve reserve unit, I think it was a reserve unit.
Speaker 1: The eighteen nineteen you know, they just graduated high school
Speaker 1: a year before. Now they're in a rock where it's
Speaker 1: totally different climate. It's scary. They're getting ordered there with
Speaker 1: some of the most dangerous foreign human beings in the world.
Speaker 1: They're working night shift by themselves. They're scared, and you've
Speaker 1: got people telling them, hey, you know, you're you're right here.
Speaker 1: You're the last line of defense, but you know, to
Speaker 1: stop the next Harris attack. And you're a nineteen year
Speaker 1: old kid, you know, and you have no bearing on
Speaker 1: and you give, you give a nineteen year old kid
Speaker 1: that kind of power over powerless civilians or I mean
Speaker 1: some of them were probably terrorists, I'm sure, but also
Speaker 1: just regular people who got swept up into prison. Um.
Speaker 1: Nothing good is really going to come out of that. Um.
Speaker 1: And I mean I've been told that we we may
Speaker 1: very not have heard the end of a boogarah, but
Speaker 1: there was other stuff happening there that has not been reported. Um.
Speaker 1: Should I've been told about by people who were there.
Speaker 1: It's just like Jesus Christ. Yeah. They The only thing
Speaker 1: that got pressed was that one specific unit, you know,
Speaker 1: and they and I think the only reason that got
Speaker 1: press is because the guys took pictures. I talked to
Speaker 1: somebody who was who was stationed there at the time,
Speaker 1: and he said he personally heard the screaming because they
Speaker 1: would have the male inmates take turns gang raping another
Speaker 1: male inmate. Damn. Yeah, it's pretty dark. Yeah yeah. And
Speaker 1: I mean some of this stuff has not come out
Speaker 1: so that that whole scandal could blow up all over again.
Speaker 1: It'd be I'd be curious to see where the people
Speaker 1: who were in charge, you know, the mid the mid
Speaker 1: grade officers that were over that where they are today.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I think there was one general did
Speaker 1: end up having her career ended. Um. Yeah, though the
Speaker 1: woman in that picture right well though that specialists went
Speaker 1: to fucking prison, rightly so. But there was one general
Speaker 1: who was, you know, a female general. I believe somewhere
Speaker 1: up she was a she was like a one star, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I believe she was retired after that, if I
Speaker 1: recall correctly. Well, you mentioned, um, the National Guard unit
Speaker 1: that you've been talking to, and we spoke about this
Speaker 1: at length on the last episode. Um, for people who
Speaker 1: haven't heard the last episode, if you want to give
Speaker 1: like a brief background on who they are and what
Speaker 1: you've been working on, and then I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: an update on the story. Yeah. So I'm doing a
Speaker 1: multi piece series about this this two five six in
Speaker 1: Trooper Gate Combat Team, specifically the second of the one
Speaker 1: away Calvary s Audron, which is the reconnaissance element of
Speaker 1: that of that IBT, and I'm following them from the
Speaker 1: time they came out of annual training last summer and
Speaker 1: how they're ramping up to go down to Fort Polk
Speaker 1: to the Joint Readiness Training Center, which is essentially a
Speaker 1: mock deployment, UM, to certify that unit for a real
Speaker 1: wartime deployment. So the story is, how does the guard
Speaker 1: commander take his unit and get it prepared to prepared
Speaker 1: to go to war? And what's it like for um,
Speaker 1: you know, the platoon leaders, and what was it like
Speaker 1: for the individual soldiers. So trying to approach it from
Speaker 1: three different aspects, UM, you know, what's it like you know,
Speaker 1: getting ready to go to that that's stimulated deployment. And
Speaker 1: then you know the year following is what they call
Speaker 1: the ready the ready year, which means that that the
Speaker 1: two five six will be available to be deployed. What
Speaker 1: they're likely to do is go over and do some
Speaker 1: training with the foreign force. Uh, they're looking at the Pacific,
Speaker 1: but with the threat environment today, you never know. Um.
Speaker 1: So the last article I published about them was about
Speaker 1: their individual weapons qualifications and that kind of got into
Speaker 1: how uh this unit, in particular, being a cavalry squadront
Speaker 1: you know, their mission objective is not to go out
Speaker 1: and close with destroy the enemy with small arms. It's
Speaker 1: to observe report. Um, you know, let the rest of
Speaker 1: the force no the enemy is doing, destroy the enemy
Speaker 1: reconnaissance effort and um. You know the way they do
Speaker 1: that is you know, they kind of stay hidden and
Speaker 1: they kind of um, you know, they don't want to
Speaker 1: get in gunfights. If they're going to gauge the enemy,
Speaker 1: they want to do it with close airs. They want
Speaker 1: to do with with air support or with our tillery. Um.
Speaker 1: But so you're with soldiers who know now with this
Speaker 1: individual weapons qualification, they know that hey, if I'm using
Speaker 1: this weapon, ship has gone bad. Um. And that's been
Speaker 1: a really interesting perspective. And I got to learn all
Speaker 1: about how they go and qualify with their weapons and
Speaker 1: and kind of what it means the different soldiers, and
Speaker 1: just spend more time with them and you know, kind
Speaker 1: to get a feel for what they're working on as
Speaker 1: a unit. You know, what they discovered, uh during summer
Speaker 1: camp or not supper camp, but but annual training last
Speaker 1: year was that they need to work on their based defense.
Speaker 1: You know, if they set up a talk in the
Speaker 1: middle of the forest, they want to make sure that
Speaker 1: it's they're able to secure perimeter and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But recently I just went down to Jackson Barracks, which
Speaker 1: is the Louisiana National Guard headquarters in New Orleans in
Speaker 1: the ninth Board, and I spoke at length with the
Speaker 1: officer who's in charge of the State Side mission. So they're, um,
Speaker 1: you know, they're what they call All Hazards Mission, which
Speaker 1: is responding natural disasters, responding to chemical spills, responding to
Speaker 1: civil unrest. So I got to learn a lot about
Speaker 1: that aspect of the mission. Um, I'm still writing that
Speaker 1: piece up. I'm gonna have it published soon. But what's
Speaker 1: unique about the Louisiana National Guards. They've had so much
Speaker 1: real world experience responding to the All Hazard Mission, and
Speaker 1: then given the kind of threat environment in Louisiana, with
Speaker 1: not only the weather but all the patro chemical infrastructure
Speaker 1: we have here, Louisiana Guard takes a really active part
Speaker 1: in preparing for those things. But what I learned probably
Speaker 1: was the most interesting, was kind of you know, if
Speaker 1: there's a if there's an emergency and you hear the
Speaker 1: governors say we've called out the National Guard, what does
Speaker 1: that mean exactly? You know, does the Guard roll in
Speaker 1: and take charge or did they just kind of hang back.
Speaker 1: So I really got insight into how the Guard plays
Speaker 1: into the rest of the response effort. So in Louisiana
Speaker 1: you know, we don't. We don't have counties like the
Speaker 1: rest of the country has like different counties, Does that
Speaker 1: make sense. In Louisiana, we have parishes. So you know
Speaker 1: New Orleans is Orleans Parish. I lived in St. Tammany
Speaker 1: Parish and there's a person who's over the county called
Speaker 1: the parish President, And on any kind of emergency, the
Speaker 1: parish president is the person who is going to head
Speaker 1: the response effort. Um. So there if if the parish
Speaker 1: president wants to utilize the National Guard, he has a
Speaker 1: liaison that works with him full time that is gonna
Speaker 1: facilitate getting the Guard deployed and to go out on
Speaker 1: either certain rescue missions are a setup uh you know,
Speaker 1: field hospitals or to uh you know, aid the police
Speaker 1: if there's a you know, a riot or something like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, the Guard, you know, in the in
Speaker 1: the sixth and seventies had really bad optics with being
Speaker 1: called out for crowd control and we've really seen a
Speaker 1: guard you know, in modern times they really put that
Speaker 1: that mission on the back burner and um, whether it
Speaker 1: be a uh just not something that they want to
Speaker 1: do anymore, or it's because the police have become more militarized.
Speaker 1: There's really a very small part of their mission now
Speaker 1: and that's something they kind of want to stay away from,
Speaker 1: is doing you know, law enforcement because from there, you know,
Speaker 1: from their perspective is that's not their job and they
Speaker 1: don't you know, that's up to the parish, the share
Speaker 1: for the parish and um so, I thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting on how they've kind of taken a back seat
Speaker 1: to that that law enforcement model because you know, you've
Speaker 1: always heard that the government's gonna send in the National Guard.
Speaker 1: Well that's the case. The National Guard is gonna take
Speaker 1: orders from the sheriff. They're not going to show up
Speaker 1: and tell the sheriff how to control the situation. They're
Speaker 1: gonna do, you know, what the sheriff asked them to do,
Speaker 1: which is most likely going to be um you know,
Speaker 1: support or crowd control. But it's not going to be
Speaker 1: you know, going and arresting people and and you know,
Speaker 1: trying to hurt people. Because you know, the guardsmen, you know,
Speaker 1: they are from these communities and that's what makes it
Speaker 1: such a unique organization. You know, the soldiers don't that's
Speaker 1: not that's not a mission that they are eager to do.
Speaker 1: At all, you know, they I've talked to hundreds of
Speaker 1: Guards soldiers, not one of them has ever been like
Speaker 1: I really want to do that. That mission is something
Speaker 1: that they dread and I don't want to go testing hippies. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like some of the optics that they did, and
Speaker 1: like I just haven't found it to be true, which
Speaker 1: is good, you know. And like the guys that I
Speaker 1: talked to down at Fort Jackson Barracks, like you know,
Speaker 1: all of them had a copy of the Constitution sitting
Speaker 1: on their desks and they're like, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the document that we work on, and we're here to support.
Speaker 1: We're not here to um to go on and be
Speaker 1: an instrument of district. They did a pretty good job
Speaker 1: during Hurricane Katrina, didn't that. Yeah. What was interesting about
Speaker 1: Katrina is um A lot of that was the Army
Speaker 1: reserve because the Louisiana Guards main force was deployed to
Speaker 1: a rock So you had some elements at home station
Speaker 1: that we're able to immediately deploy. But it was a
Speaker 1: lot of different reserve components because the two five six
Speaker 1: was out you know as a as A as an
Speaker 1: arbor unit fighting and I think it was Ramadi And
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking about this just last night for
Speaker 1: some reason about the SF the sal Forces National Guard
Speaker 1: teams get called in for disaster relief and also I
Speaker 1: know guys who have been called in for UM, what's
Speaker 1: you know, critical infrastructure security. So like when the Baltimore
Speaker 1: protests were happening, those guys got called in and they
Speaker 1: were like, UM, patrolling around the ports and things like that. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned that because you know, with
Speaker 1: the way FEMA delineates UM, you know those different critical
Speaker 1: critical infrastructure points, you know, they consider emergency support functions,
Speaker 1: and one of that utility is one of the hospitals,
Speaker 1: and that could definitely be a Guard mission is to
Speaker 1: secure those It's like you said, this critical uh you know,
Speaker 1: whether it be a supply area or patient care center,
Speaker 1: that is definitely something that is in the purview of
Speaker 1: their of their mission, and that would be a more
Speaker 1: realistic deployment of the Guard during like eating kind of
Speaker 1: civil unrest then seeing them you know, go total to
Speaker 1: the protesters. Yeah. Yeah, but you know in Louisiana it's
Speaker 1: you know, because we have pipelines and petrochemical plants and UM.
Speaker 1: I've heard some horror stories come out of the factory
Speaker 1: south of New Orleans that makes the dust that covers cheetahs.
Speaker 1: So we had a lot of dangerous chemicals down here.
Speaker 1: So the Louisa National Guard has a as a full
Speaker 1: time team that works you know, they kind of operate
Speaker 1: like a fire department and their only job is to
Speaker 1: you know, respond to these kind of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: has matt situations. So I'm gonna I'm working right now
Speaker 1: with the Guard to to go visit with those guys
Speaker 1: to see what their mission is and you know, get
Speaker 1: kind of a feel for their training, which actually got
Speaker 1: me thinking about, um, you know, some other different stories,
Speaker 1: and I think it'd be interesting to go and learn
Speaker 1: about different organizations that have uh, you know, rescue missions
Speaker 1: in the US and unique environments. So for example, where
Speaker 1: I went to MT School in Florida, my teacher was
Speaker 1: a firefighter paramedic at Kennedy Space Center and he was
Speaker 1: on the Astronaut rescue team and those those guys you know,
Speaker 1: zip line out of the helicopters onto the path and
Speaker 1: they have a really unique mission. So I was like,
Speaker 1: that would be a cool story. And I was just
Speaker 1: up in Aspen for a wedding which I was talking to.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Edrac because he lives out in Colorado.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I don't know how you do it.
Speaker 1: There's like no auction up there. I'm sucking like people
Speaker 1: who live up in the mountains. I'm impressed with them.
Speaker 1: But you know they have a big I guess snow
Speaker 1: snow patrol throns like you know that's that'd be a
Speaker 1: really interesting story, is how those guys operate at that
Speaker 1: outit sude or you know, there's there's big wave lifeguards
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. They you know, take helicopters out to swimmers
Speaker 1: and they have kind of like a rescue swimmer proyagram.
Speaker 1: So there's like a lot of different rescue organizations in
Speaker 1: the US that they're kind of unknown. They have very
Speaker 1: niche jobs. I think there'd be something that I would
Speaker 1: be interested in learning about. Yes, you here in New
Speaker 1: York City has UM in addition to having you know,
Speaker 1: their whole counter terrorism um you know swat mission, they
Speaker 1: also do high risk rescues. So I guess, yeah, UM
Speaker 1: be interesting. I always wanted to sit down and talk
Speaker 1: to those guys because I'm sure if you reached out
Speaker 1: to them, UM or reached out to n y p D.
Speaker 1: If I mean, if you were able to sit down
Speaker 1: with those guys, I bet they have some pretty really unique, um,
Speaker 1: real life rescues and probably training that they do as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a there's a lot of like you said, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different groups out there that you just
Speaker 1: don't like. I never knew that. I always thought u
Speaker 1: SU was the NYPD S SWAT Team. I didn't know
Speaker 1: they did that kind of Yeah. They yeah, they are.
Speaker 1: They just have the additional mission of high risk rescue.
Speaker 1: Which how they define high risk? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know if is it like somebody dangling off the side
Speaker 1: of a skyscraper, Like how do they define high risk?
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure. I I don't know how people
Speaker 1: do the heights. Man, I'm gonna be I wanna be
Speaker 1: straight up and honest about that. I I get week
Speaker 1: in the knees, like after the third floor, like I
Speaker 1: I gotta go meet the Coast Guard guy tomorrow on
Speaker 1: the thirteenth floor of the Federal Building, and I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's really high up there. Well. Yeah, so be on
Speaker 1: the lookout for more of those from Joseph Lafay of
Speaker 1: the National Guard story. The last thing that we wanted
Speaker 1: to get into here before we wrap things up. Where
Speaker 1: was that? The past couple of weeks on the show,
Speaker 1: I've been teasing out this news Rep financial report for
Speaker 1: people who want to secure a brighter future by investing
Speaker 1: in the defense sector and learning a little bit more
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the stock market. Um, but
Speaker 1: you're someone who knows a lot more than me about
Speaker 1: what we've been doing, so I kind of want to
Speaker 1: hear that from you and maybe give some of our
Speaker 1: audience an incentive to go to the finn Rep tab
Speaker 1: on the news rep dot com and sign up for
Speaker 1: that today. Yeah, it's a it's a monthly newsletter, and um,
Speaker 1: you know myself for one of the other other writers,
Speaker 1: Like I think stab Ross has done a lot of
Speaker 1: work with it is going to be in studio um
Speaker 1: later this month, and from what I've seen, he's like
Speaker 1: he took our top writer. At the moment, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's killing it. Man. What's nice about before I talk
Speaker 1: about Finder Rep, was nice about, you know, the news
Speaker 1: rapping and the different writers is how it's like such
Speaker 1: a team environment. I don't know if that comes from
Speaker 1: the fact that that everyone butt me is ex military.
Speaker 1: But it's like we have like friendly competition between us,
Speaker 1: like to to get the top spot, but there's like
Speaker 1: a lot of collaboration and um, you know, like I
Speaker 1: I read what the other guys right, and I think
Speaker 1: it's really good, and you know, and I'll tell him that,
Speaker 1: and you know, guys will reach out to me and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I really enjoyed your piece, Like like George
Speaker 1: Hann reached out to me the other day and told
Speaker 1: me that he liked one of my pieces. And for
Speaker 1: George to say that he likes something, I mean that
Speaker 1: guy is like a fusion of Sun Zoo and uh
Speaker 1: Captain America, g I Joe, and James Bond, you know.
Speaker 1: For so for him to be like, hey, I like
Speaker 1: that is you know, to me, means a lot, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what's really nice about about this organization, I
Speaker 1: think from an insider perspective, is how everyone collaborates and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we kind of feed off each other. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so Finn rep Uh, Yeah, we're kind of you know,
Speaker 1: we're not we're not giving like stock tips, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not really our purview, but we're kind of given
Speaker 1: inside into two different technologies or different trends that are
Speaker 1: going on inside different sectors and different industries that you
Speaker 1: might not think to look at. So I know, the
Speaker 1: one I'm writing about is is kind of focused on
Speaker 1: some different technology surrounding AI and some different things that
Speaker 1: are being done done with that. But it's it's a
Speaker 1: really nice it's kind of a deep dive and a
Speaker 1: really niche technologies and trends and stuff like that that
Speaker 1: you're not really going to find anywhere else because it's
Speaker 1: not you know, it's not headline grabbing it. It's really
Speaker 1: more intelligence than it is, um, you know, a news story,
Speaker 1: So that's kind on the benefit of it, you get
Speaker 1: like a it's it's like financial intelligence would be the
Speaker 1: best way I can describe it. Yeah, and and it
Speaker 1: could make people money in the future reading this. So
Speaker 1: we hope you all sign up. Um, I guess with that,
Speaker 1: unless there's anything else, go follow Joe on Twitter at
Speaker 1: lafay Joseph, which is l A F A V Joseph
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Keep checking out his articles on the news
Speaker 1: rep dot Com, which Alex said last episode will soon
Speaker 1: be shortened to news rep dot com, but in the meantime,
Speaker 1: go to the news rep dot com anything else you
Speaker 1: didn't cover. I mean, I think I think we covered
Speaker 1: a lot of ground here. Yeah, I feel good about it. Um.
Speaker 1: I tried out some jokes and I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stick to writing for now. So but I dig it, man,
Speaker 1: And I remember were you know, to take you guys
Speaker 1: behind the scenes who were saying that last episode people
Speaker 1: were breaking balls because they were like, why does he
Speaker 1: keep clicking his pend There's no pen clicking this episode.
Speaker 1: For the people who U made a big deal over that,
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was that big a deal. I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't notice it as I was editing the show,
Speaker 1: but I did get a couple of emails like this
Speaker 1: is unlistenable. I didn't think it was that bad, A
Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit hyperbole. There there was the
Speaker 1: pen and then there was the guy with the lawnmower
Speaker 1: who rent or at St. Patrick Grass like twenty times.
Speaker 1: So I've sanitized myself. I can't I can't go to
Speaker 1: my house because I have nine dogs there right now. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm had a friend's apartment on the third floor
Speaker 1: and an undisclosed location with no electronics running, so we
Speaker 1: should be good for that. I can think of is UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I just like if if you're a listener
Speaker 1: and you haven't subscribed to news Rap, and I encourage
Speaker 1: you to do so, not not just because I worked there,
Speaker 1: but just from a from a from an outsider looking in.
Speaker 1: It's really a cool community, and I think it's really
Speaker 1: unique UM in the news industry because you know, the
Speaker 1: different subscribe iver's talk to each other. There's chat rooms
Speaker 1: and everyone talks on the message board. You kind of
Speaker 1: get to know each other, and you know, us as
Speaker 1: the writers, we get to engage directly with our audience,
Speaker 1: which I think for me has been has been super
Speaker 1: beneficial because you know, I get to talk to my
Speaker 1: audience and they can say, hey, you know this is
Speaker 1: not something that we really enjoy, just fire or hey,
Speaker 1: this is something we really do enjoy. So it helps
Speaker 1: me deliver content that that's kind of geared towards their interests.
Speaker 1: And it's just been a really fun and it's a
Speaker 1: really low key and collaborative environment, both with writers and
Speaker 1: with subscribers. And I think it's a really unique company,
Speaker 1: has a really unique some really unique things to offer.
Speaker 1: It's subscribers. So I encourage everyone listening, if if you
Speaker 1: haven't subscribed it to do it, because it's a you
Speaker 1: get to become part of a really welcoming community, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I was you know, I'm not prior military,
Speaker 1: so I didn't really know anybody, um company, but I've
Speaker 1: been I've been welcome, open arms, you know, and I
Speaker 1: feel like, like Alex Hollings, that's you know, that's my
Speaker 1: best friend ever met, you know. So I encourage everyone
Speaker 1: to subscribe. That's my bitch. Yeah, thank you, Joe cool Man,
Speaker 1: Well thanks for coming on. Always appreciate you coming on
Speaker 1: with us, and we'll do it again soon. I think
Speaker 1: I think this is um different for people to hear,
Speaker 1: like a roundup of different world news stories, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that's the beauty of the show. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we have like spotlight interviews from guys who have books out,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes we cover news that you know, you're
Speaker 1: not necessarily hearing about on CNN or Fox News. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: You're having ed Derek back on our soon, aren't you?
Speaker 1: Next episode? Ask him I read this sound, asked him
Speaker 1: the story to tell you the story about how he
Speaker 1: first met Marines while mountain climbing. Because I interviewed Ed
Speaker 1: like last week about his new book coming out, War Movements,
Speaker 1: which is a fusion of images and stories that kind
Speaker 1: of tell the narrative of the warrantere. I don't want
Speaker 1: to pitch it, that's his job. But I'm gonna release
Speaker 1: a book review on news Rep in the next couple
Speaker 1: of days about it. But but Ed has this amazing
Speaker 1: story of how he first met Marines while mountain climbing
Speaker 1: in Alaska, and it's my job was on the floor,
Speaker 1: So please ask him to tell you that story. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: all right, take note of it. Yeah, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to having him back. I mean, it's uh, it's always
Speaker 1: interesting which episodes UM people respond to, and last year
Speaker 1: that was our second most listen to episode UM. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it's necessarily because Ed Derek is, you know,
Speaker 1: like a very known guy. I mean, we have more
Speaker 1: well known guys on the show, like Brad Thor. But
Speaker 1: when I think when they saw that he was talking
Speaker 1: about Extortion seventeen and Operation Red Wings in a really
Speaker 1: frank and um in a manner that that went to
Speaker 1: like the heart of the story and these are the
Speaker 1: fact this is the footage that we've seen. And I
Speaker 1: read his book, UM, and he just put an incredible
Speaker 1: amount of research into the crash. Um and also just
Speaker 1: uh military rotary wing aviation in general. Um. I mean
Speaker 1: he really did a public service I think with that
Speaker 1: book and explaining what happened and and explaining to the
Speaker 1: public what rotary wing military aviation is, about military helicopters
Speaker 1: and pilots and the technical aspects of it and how
Speaker 1: it all works. I mean, it's just a tremendous job.
Speaker 1: And um, and you're not talking about his latest book there,
Speaker 1: you're talking about his past one. Yeah, his latest one.
Speaker 1: I just I mean we got a copy cent of
Speaker 1: it and I just looked at it, and I mean
Speaker 1: he took some beautiful shots. Uh. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: photography book. UM. So I'm looking forward to flipping through that,
Speaker 1: um this afternoon and looking at it. Um. The biggest,
Speaker 1: I think, the biggest compliment that I think I've seen
Speaker 1: Edgart is you know, not from guys like us, but
Speaker 1: you know, first of the add on Facebook and UM,
Speaker 1: you know, he's friends a lot of the soldiers that
Speaker 1: he are, soldiers and marines that he followed, and a
Speaker 1: lot of their families and they're always giving him positive
Speaker 1: feedback and you can read that on his on his Facebook,
Speaker 1: on his personal facebookball And it's like, you know, if
Speaker 1: the guys that he's writing about and their families are
Speaker 1: are looking forward to reading about what he's writing about
Speaker 1: and they're thanking and for writing it, I think that
Speaker 1: speaks volumes to um, you know, do his work. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to that interview. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of other stuff on the horizon. Peter
Speaker 1: Gidrey is going to come on as as I've been
Speaker 1: UM looking forward to going to talk about creat Him
Speaker 1: being used to treat PTSD. UM, as I kind of
Speaker 1: set to Alex, I'd like to be ahead of the
Speaker 1: curve on that one because, Um, I've heard a lot
Speaker 1: about creat Him and in Florida it's extremely popular, but
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people across the US haven't
Speaker 1: even heard of it, and people are touting it as
Speaker 1: like this cement, this uh miracle drug for PTSD and
Speaker 1: people like Peter, So I'd like to hear that perspective. Um,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have stob Roast and Studio has mentioned Michael Broderick,
Speaker 1: who's going to be on the next season of three Detective. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was also a four Marine Uh, and Fred Galvin
Speaker 1: will be back on because of the Navy's involvement in
Speaker 1: the mar Socks seven story to give us an update
Speaker 1: on that. So UM, yeah, man, thanks for coming on. Joe. Yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it. Appreciate it. Yep.
Speaker 1: And Uh. I also I mentioned to you before we
Speaker 1: started recording. Um, I finished reading that book Ranger Games
Speaker 1: by Ben Blum, which is about um, the second Range
Speaker 1: of Battalion soldiers who are robbed a bank in Tacoma
Speaker 1: in Washington State. It was two thousand seven, I believe,
Speaker 1: So this is one of the bank robbers. Cousins wrote
Speaker 1: this book as a four hundred page like deep dive
Speaker 1: on UM. Not it's not so much uh who done it.
Speaker 1: It's more about because the facts of the bank robbery
Speaker 1: it's self are pretty clear cut. But it's about the
Speaker 1: y and the mentality and the mentality, and it's about
Speaker 1: Ranger culture. Um. It's about his own family and their
Speaker 1: families culture. It's about the other participants in the in
Speaker 1: the bank robbery. Um. There's another Ranger and then two civilians. Um,
Speaker 1: so he really really went in depth on it, and
Speaker 1: I mean it was a fascinating book to read. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna see if I twist the author's arm
Speaker 1: a little bit because he's out here in New York City,
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping we can get him in for an interview.
Speaker 1: I'd love to talk to him about the book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. I mean we're basically booked up until
Speaker 1: February right now, and it's a good problem to have
Speaker 1: that so many people are reaching out who are great guests,
Speaker 1: and I get so many suggestions and it's like I
Speaker 1: can't even keep up with all of it. And we
Speaker 1: have some good people lined up. Um, we have some
Speaker 1: of um, you know, Army wives coming on that will
Speaker 1: discuss some some important subjects actually, and then Air Force PJ. Douglas. Yeah, Doug,
Speaker 1: my buddy Doug from Columbia who is an Air Force
Speaker 1: para rescue guy. And I believe, oh geez, I'll have
Speaker 1: to ask him what his degree and I believe it's
Speaker 1: something like sports physiology or something like that, which we've
Speaker 1: only had about I think maybe two Air Force tjs
Speaker 1: and we've had to b K. Of course, this dude
Speaker 1: is him and b K know each other. Uh small community. Um.
Speaker 1: Doug is a you know, pt stud, very smart guy. UM,
Speaker 1: and he runs a company maybe it's a consultancy, but
Speaker 1: they are doing fitness instruction and stuff called Resilient. Um.
Speaker 1: It's all around good guy. And I appeared on his
Speaker 1: podcast one day and I had always wanted to have
Speaker 1: him come on ours because he's just an interesting cat. UM.
Speaker 1: So we got him lined up. Yeah, I'm excited because
Speaker 1: our audience often says, you guys have plenty of Marines
Speaker 1: on seals on a Rangers green berets, whereas the love
Speaker 1: for the Air Force community. So that's true. It's true
Speaker 1: we don't have enough of them on we had on
Speaker 1: the most previous not uh Air Force PJ. But like
Speaker 1: Lampy oh yeah, yeah, that's right. He and he's the
Speaker 1: one who was um who was introduced to us by
Speaker 1: Mike Vining, right or no? Uh So Lampy reached out
Speaker 1: to us because he heard the Mike Vining interview and
Speaker 1: it was like it was like he enjoyed it. He
Speaker 1: was like, you guys did a good job, and he
Speaker 1: was he was the Cobar Towers. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he was an air Force guy. Remember, we got through
Speaker 1: half of it and we need to reschedule him to
Speaker 1: come on and talk about the other half. He was
Speaker 1: so many interviews. Yeah, he was like the father of
Speaker 1: the of the CCT fired guys in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: But his career is so extensive. But David Arden was
Speaker 1: air Force too. Write That's who I'm thinking of. That's
Speaker 1: why I towers, I believe. So he was an E
Speaker 1: O D guy. He was um. But we need to
Speaker 1: get uh Lampy back on because we got we we
Speaker 1: just kind of scratched the surface that the first half
Speaker 1: of his career and we need to talk about the
Speaker 1: rest of it because he went all the way up on.
Speaker 1: I mean he he was in so calm and I
Speaker 1: mean guy did so much. Yeah, I'm gonna make note
Speaker 1: of that. I should make note of that right now
Speaker 1: that we need to get Mike lamp back on. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's keep that in mind. Maybe for February, because we
Speaker 1: were after the show. We had him scheduled, but then
Speaker 1: he had to cancel the second interview because he had
Speaker 1: he had some personal things he had to attend to.
Speaker 1: But we'll get him back on. I'll do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do it right after the show. We'll get him
Speaker 1: back on. That was a good one, and Mike Vining
Speaker 1: was actually trying to help me, um get interview some
Speaker 1: other old school guys. Um and um and there's another
Speaker 1: one who's receptive. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna spoil
Speaker 1: it now and uh and get ahead of myself, but
Speaker 1: a guy that would be for me personally, be one
Speaker 1: of the biggest interviews we've ever done. Um And I
Speaker 1: think he's game to come on, but we have to
Speaker 1: um or it just he had some personal stuff he
Speaker 1: had to sort out also. Um And if we can
Speaker 1: get that individual on, it would be amazing because this
Speaker 1: guy is the real deal. Um And by the way,
Speaker 1: just to fact check myself here, I am right David
Speaker 1: Reardan from episode three three Air Force e O D.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've had probably six or so Air
Speaker 1: Force guys, but I mean it just palace in comparison
Speaker 1: to the amount of Marines Army maybe who have been
Speaker 1: on the show. Marines are everywhere. You can't you can't
Speaker 1: get rid of them. They're just all over the freaking place.
Speaker 1: We used to joke about it when I went to
Speaker 1: Columbia because there's just like marines and like there's there's
Speaker 1: a good number of veterans, like three hundred or three
Speaker 1: hundred fifty of us up there, tons and tons of marines.
Speaker 1: And I mean so all those jokes about marines eating
Speaker 1: crans and stuff and and eating Elmer's glue. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: presumably they're pretty smart because they can go to college
Speaker 1: and get degrees and there's a lot of them. This
Speaker 1: ight like James Powell going on to work in the CIA,
Speaker 1: super super good guy. Uh, you know, I'm making fun
Speaker 1: of them, but a lot of good marines out there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they like infesting. They're just everywhere everywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, well, wrapping things up here, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, this is funny. I was editing
Speaker 1: the last show and I noticed that, like forty minutes
Speaker 1: before the end of the show, I'm like wrapping things
Speaker 1: up here. And then somehow we bullshitted for another hour.
Speaker 1: It was with me and Alex, and then I we
Speaker 1: somehow get into a whole another topic. I'm like, really
Speaker 1: not wrapping things up here forty minutes left in the show. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, truly wrapping things up here. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check out Great Club. We have different tiers of membership
Speaker 1: depending on how prepared you want to be, and gift
Speaker 1: options are available as well. Scott Whittner from the load
Speaker 1: out room, Drew Wallace, all of those guys, they're currently
Speaker 1: working on bringing you custom products this year, everything from
Speaker 1: sunglass cases to eat ec bags and other manly products.
Speaker 1: I am not gonna lie for a while there. I
Speaker 1: wasn't receiving the premium Create I was uh in previous
Speaker 1: years earlier on, So I want to get acquainted again
Speaker 1: with like what's the new stuff that we have in there.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna keep you guys up to date with
Speaker 1: as I received new stuff and tease out what some
Speaker 1: of the cool stuff is. So all the stuff and
Speaker 1: from previous crates is like scattered around my apartment and
Speaker 1: I put to use those binoculars and all that stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a club fore men by men. You can check
Speaker 1: that all out at Create Club dot Us. Once again,
Speaker 1: that's Create Club dot Us. Also as a reminder for
Speaker 1: all those listening, for a limited time, you can receive
Speaker 1: a fifty percent discounted membership to the speck Ops channel,
Speaker 1: our channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries and
Speaker 1: interviews covering the most exciting military content today. The spec
Speaker 1: Ops channel Premier show Training Cell follows former Special Operations
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Speaker 1: the country, everything from shooting schools, defensive driving, jungle and
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Speaker 1: spec ops channel dot com and take advantage of a
Speaker 1: limited time offer a fifty percent off your membership only
Speaker 1: for a month. That's spec ops channel dot com. Sign
Speaker 1: up today. Uh And at the end of that interview
Speaker 1: with Joe, we talked about the News Rep Financial Report
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Speaker 1: Just go to the finn Rep tab at the top
Speaker 1: of the news rep dot com to sign up. That's
Speaker 1: finn Rep at the news rep dot com. Check it out,
Speaker 1: And once again I should let you guys know to
Speaker 1: check out Pelican cores dot com. If you go there,
Speaker 1: you'll get a free twenty two ounce tumble or you
Speaker 1: just gotta add that to your cart. And I was
Speaker 1: looking for you guys where you could find that. Go
Speaker 1: to the drinkware section at the top, add that with
Speaker 1: your order that tumbler, and you'll get that for free
Speaker 1: when you use the promo code soft rep. So get
Speaker 1: on that. And you know what, one last plug, go
Speaker 1: pre order Jack Murphy's book, Murphy's Law. It's it's coming
Speaker 1: in well, we're about three or four months away. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: April um. Yeah, you can pre order it on Amazon
Speaker 1: or Barnes and Noble. That's a big deal. Pre orders
Speaker 1: are a big deal. Uh So, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And um, yeah, I'm going over the book. We're going
Speaker 1: over the second past of the book now, um getting
Speaker 1: together you know, like uh cover blurbs for it. Um,
Speaker 1: what else is going on with it? A bunch of
Speaker 1: like little details you know that that we're just hashing
Speaker 1: out because we're kind of in the home stretch right now.
Speaker 1: But it's looking pretty good. Oh. Another thing I can
Speaker 1: say I can announce is, uh, I will be narrating
Speaker 1: the audio book. That's that's great. Yep. So, um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do that. I asked, uh if I'm allowed to
Speaker 1: go off script? And agent my agent asked. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: You're gonna go on like some drunken rants. And it's like, yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: but people probably dig that. Uh No, but um, I
Speaker 1: think that will be cool. Um. That's also incentive to
Speaker 1: buy both. Then to buy the read the book and
Speaker 1: then the audio book for your additional comments. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean if you listen to the audio book, you know
Speaker 1: you're kind of hearing it straight from the author, and
Speaker 1: you know you get to hear all my smartass comments
Speaker 1: and uh and colorful four letter words um and uh,
Speaker 1: my pronunciation of military acronyms. Will be correct. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to that, and I know this audience is too,
Speaker 1: So go pre order Murphy's Law. Um, we're just a
Speaker 1: few months away. And uh yeah, getting those pre orders
Speaker 1: in is a really big deal. Yeah, absolutely for it.
Speaker 1: Um Yeah, So I guess with that, have a great weekend, guys.
Speaker 1: Next episode, we're gonna be back with Ed Derek. You
Speaker 1: guys loved the last episode with him, so we're excited
Speaker 1: to have him back on and as we said, a
Speaker 1: ton of stuff um in the future that we have
Speaker 1: up until February, So be on the lookout. Tell people
Speaker 1: about the podcast, keep spreading the word um. Follow the Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: Instagram at softwap radio. And that's it. Guys. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to self Rep Radio. New episodes of every Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday. Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at
Speaker 1: self Rep Radio.