Podcasts about DOD

From our ‘cancelled after one season' file come The Code, a CBS legal procedural set in the JAG corps of...

PART 1 -- In MARCH 2020 Paine Foretold The Scamdemic & Big Pharma Injections, Exposing Fauci A Year and a Half Before the so-called Pack -- PAINE SPILLS THE BEANS on CDC Director and White House Doc Birx Probed by DOD for Fabricating HIV/AIDS Vaccine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PART 2 -- In MARCH 2020 Paine Foretold The Scamdemic & Big Pharma Injections, Exposing Fauci A Year and a Half Before the so-called Pack -- PAINE SPILLS THE BEANS on CDC Director and White House Doc Birx Probed by DOD for Fabricating HIV/AIDS Vaccine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PART 3 -- In MARCH 2020 Paine Foretold The Scamdemic & Big Pharma Injections, Exposing Fauci A Year and a Half Before the so-called Pack -- PAINE SPILLS THE BEANS on CDC Director and White House Doc Birx Probed by DOD for Fabricating HIV/AIDS Vaccine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PART 4 -- In MARCH 2020 Paine Foretold The Scamdemic & Big Pharma Injections, Exposing Fauci A Year and a Half Before the so-called Pack -- PAINE SPILLS THE BEANS on CDC Director and White House Doc Birx Probed by DOD for Fabricating HIV/AIDS Vaccine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's all eyes on energy, and all eyes on China this week. Co-hosts Elisa and Yvette unpack the latest issues, from depleting energy reserves, to DOD resignations, to Chinese/Russian joint military exercises. Joining them to discuss the looming energy crisis and its global impact is Elaine Levin, President at Powerhouse. And later, we are joined by Captain Mary Ann Schaffer, Managing Director and System Chief Pilot at United Airlines, who unpacks United's mission to cut carbon emissions. Elaine Levin is the President at Powerhouse: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:abd5c0cc-d3aa-4163-b3a0-7e9a33a339eb#pageNum=1 Captain Mary Ann Schaffer is the Managing Director, System Chief Pilot at United Airlines: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:cfde71d1-b30e-42bd-8f39-a2d1dce8bf7c#pageNum=1 References: NSLT Ep. 184, “The Centaur's Dilemma with Judge James Baker (Part 1)”: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_national_security/nslt/centaur-dilemma-judge-baker-part-one/ NSLT Ep. 194, “A Conversation with the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines”: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_national_security/nslt/a-conversation-with-the-director-of-national-intelligence-avril-haines/ NSLT, Ep. 85, “Climate Security and the Changing Landscape of Threat Part II with Mark Nevitt”: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_national_security/nslt/20190718-climate-security-and-the-changing-landscape-of-threat-part2/ ABA Afghanistan Response Project: www.americanbar.org/advocacy/rule_o…istan-response/

On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia who is now the president of Farkas Global Strategies and Chris Servello, a founder of Provision Advisors public relations firm (and Defense and Aerospace team member). Topics: — Congressional budget update as House and Senate appropriators hone in on 2022 Pentagon plus up — Sifting the fact and fiction from China's hypersonic missile tests earlier this summer — North Korea's test firing of its first submarine-launched ballistic missile — Ensuring Washington retains focus on Russia as it turns greater attention to China — Importance of the first ever meeting between Josep Burrell, the EU's foreign affairs and security policy high representative, and Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks — President Biden's statement that US has a commitment to support Taiwan in the event of an attack by China — Analysis of the US Navy's investigation into the fire that devastated the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard

Rant and Rave's rapid fire analysis on this week's Far left nut job stories, including, the manufactured supply chain crisis; just like COVID, being intentionally done to create an "emergency" (and getting Gavin Newsom's help in CA in doing so, since Gav wants to be Pres one day) so government has another reason to declare one and keep you scared and under control via Executive Orders: RESIST!; AG Garland's wife turns out was a former consultant to a highly classified DOD contractor that, get this, worked on security issues for the 2020 election!; in addition, Amazon owned IMDB, that does all the ratings for TV shows and movies, goosed the slumping Fauci Nat Geo documentary numbers to make them look better than they are (kind of like the WH.gov You Tube channel that gives Sleepy Joe phony up votes to balance the 10:1 down votes, and that's a Lib Tard platform!) ; and finally, a NYC judge restricted an unvaccinated father from visiting his 3 year old son. 

I have two thoughts that I'd like to share and have a discussion on. The first is that Developmental Teams are really powerful and important for not only influencing the professional development of individual officers, but shaping the entire career field. I don't know that I fully grasped that until now. Yes, I've known about how they vector officers to certain positions, including command, but they can change policy for everyone. This is more a statement of my realization than a comment on whether that's a good or bad thing, but I am curious what you think about the concept of Developmental Teams.My second thought is why did it take me so long to understand these things? I recognize that it's largely my own fault because for the majority of my time in the Air Force I have eschewed the idea of being a commander. But I have to wonder if this is really the norm? When did you first understand command selection? How did you learn about it? What can we do better to help others learn this important information? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.Email your questions and comments to airforceofficerpodcast@gmail.com. Join the discussion about the podcast, the Air Force, officership, and the Profession of Arms at https://www.airforceofficerpodcast.com/.Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AirForceOfficerPodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/airforceofficerpodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/afofficerpodReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/afofficerpodShare your officer stories of all flavors using #shootthewatch.The views expressed are those of the hosts and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the US Government. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

In this episode, Senior Fellow in Defense Studies Peter Garretson interviews Dr. Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and former Deputy Assistant to the President and Executive Secretary of the National Space Council from 2017-2020. They discuss the criticality of broad and bipartisan consensus to sustainable space exploration and development. Next, follows a discussion on exploration policy, space as a warfighting domain, China, spacepower theory (Dolman's Astropolitics vs Bowen's Continental Seapower), arms control, the record of the National Space Council's space policy directives, their rational and significance. The speakers cover the possible futures in space depending on whether we can live off the land and pay our own way leading to different analogies: settlements, ‘Everest', ‘McMurdo', and deep sea drilling platforms. They provide details about space property rights, development and industrialization, asteroid defense and how it is getting worked into the missions of the agencies such as NASA and DoD. Finally, they discuss opportunities available to the new administration and space council and define a space agenda worthy of our nation and its values. Dr. Pace: https://elliott.gwu.edu/scott-pace GWU Space Policy Institute https://spi.elliott.gwu.edu/ Report on National Space Council Activities https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Final-Report-on-the-Activities-of-the-National-Space-Council-01.15.21.pdf National Space Policy https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-national-space-policy/ A New Vision for Deep Space Exploration and Development https://aerospace.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/NSpC%20New%20Era%20for%20Space%2023Jul20.pdf National Near Earth Object Strategy and Action Plan https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/OSTP-NEO-Strategy-Action-Plan-Jun18.pdf Spacepower Doctrine https://www.spaceforce.mil/Portals/1/Space%20Capstone%20Publication_10%20Aug%202020.pdf Artemis Accords https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/index.html Collected Space Space Policy Directives https://www.spacefoundation.org/space_brief/space-policy-directives/

During this episode, Dr. Daniel Ragsdale of Two Six Technologies discusses Department of Defense (DoD) modernization priorities, research & engineering, science & technology, and acquisition and sustainment efforts. After describing the major components of DoD's Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering officer, Rags makes the case that DoD's “appetite for risk must be increased--flat out.” He also provides his thoughts on measuring IO effectiveness attribution. Show Notes: https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-66 Guest Bio: Dr. Daniel Ragsdale is the Vice President and Architect at Two Six Technologies. Before this role, he was  principal director for cyber in the Department of Defense's research and engineering office (USD R&E). He was also a Program Manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and he spent 30 years in uniform as an officer in the US Army. He also holds a PhD and Masters degree in Computer Science. He prefers to go by “Rags.” Before joining DARPA, Colonel Ragsdale served 30 years in the U.S. Army in a variety of operational, R&D, and educational roles. His combat deployments included Operations Urgent Fury (Grenada), Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), and Iraqi Freedom (Iraq). Ragsdale served nearly 15 years at the United States Military Academy, West Point, in an array of teaching and research roles, which culminated in his service as Vice Dean for Education. His military career included combat deployments in support of Operations Urgent Fury, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn. Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Good Morning Guys! The two J's are back at it with another episode! Todays Topics Are as Follows Baseball Playoffs Zot the Avenger Squid Games! Dc Fandome News including The Suicide Squad Game, Gotham Knights The Flash Movie! The Batman Trailer Lt Col Found Guilty!!!!! DD214 Gaming cannot warranty the expressions and suggestions of the contents, as well as its accuracy. In addition, to the extent permitted by the law, DD214 Gaming shall not be responsible for any losses and/or damages due to the usage of the information on our website. By using our website, you hereby consent to our disclaimer and agree to its terms. The links contained on our website may lead to external sites, which are provided for convenience only. Any information or statements that appeared in these sites are not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise approved by DD214 Gaming. For these external sites, DD214 Gaming cannot be held liable for the availability of, or the content located on or through it. Plus, any losses or damages occurred from using these contents or the internet generally. opinions expressed are our own and we do not represent any DoD or U.S. government entities as a whole. Each individual opinion is their own and does not express the expressions of DD214 Gaming. This channel is produced for mature audiences.This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dd214gaming/message

Iron Man launched the world's biggest film franchise, as well as one of the most effective vehicles for military propaganda....

On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute and Steve Grundman of the Atlantic Council and the Grundman Advisory consultancy. Topics: — Congressional update as US borrowing limit is raised and Democrats work to forge a compromise spending package — Implications of budget deliberations and new Biden administration climate strategy on Pentagon spending — Whether allegations by former USAF software chief Nick Chaillan will drive DoD to address known cyber software and hardware vulnerabilities — Inflation impact on the Pentagon's spending power — How China's economic stumble could ripple across the global economy — Beijing's continuing provocations across the Pacific and America's allies increase their cooperation in the region and beyond — Europe's continuing shift on its view of China as Beijing's muscular stance alienates potential partners — UK investment in Africa ports to contest growing Chinese regional role — Takeaways from the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting this week and Cold War lessons from the US Army in Europe that are applicable today  — Israel's about face on the Iran nuclear deal, Israel's air strike in Syria and what's next in Afghanistan

Amy Franck and Amber Fitzwater were hired by the pentagon to help the military combat sexual assault. Instead they've become whistleblowers who have been retaliated against and sexually assaulted. Amy (https://twitter.com/Neveraloneadvo1), Amber and investigative journalist Rich McHugh (https://twitter.com/RichMcHugh) join the show to share their stories and talk about the way the US Military deals, or doesn't deal, with the its endemic sexual assault problem. Amy Braley Franck began her career as a Department of the Army Civilian in July of 2013 as a Victim Advocate and has held the position of Sexual Assault Response Coordinator and Sexual Assault Program Manager for a 2- and 3-star Army Service Component Commands. Ms. Braley Franck has been identified on two separate occasions as a whistleblower for her actions to protect her clients. Ms. Braley Franck holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology and Business from the University of Maryland. Ms. Braley Franck is credentialed through NOVA D-SCAAP as Level IV Military Advocate. She is a certified Child Abuse Investigator and Nationally certified Forensic Interviewer, conducting interviews for local law enforcement, Army CID, FBI and Homeland Security and has been tendered an expert witness in Child Molestation and Abuse hearings. She has been recognized for her contributions and service to President Biden's Independent Review Commission to implement the change needed to shift to a proactive prevention model throughout the DoD. She is the founder of non-profit Never Alone Advocacy (http://www.neveraloneadvocacy.org/). Amber Fitzwater is a sexual assault response coordinator with the Army and has worked in the SHARP program since 2013. She is a level IV advocate, a certified clinical trauma intervention specialist, and is currently enrolled at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology working on her PhD in international psychology. She has over 16,000 hours of advocacy and has provided training to law enforcement and prosecutors about the neurobiological effects of trauma and the impacts on victim's memory to assist them in working with victims of sexual assault when it comes to interviewing and questioning them at trial. Ms. Fitzwater is also a survivor of sexual assault while working with the Army, and is a member of Ms. Braley Franck's non profit "Never Alone advocacy." Rich McHugh is an investigative reporter and serves as a correspondent for NewsNation. Over the past year, McHugh has reported extensively on the issue of sexual assault in our military. Prior to NewsNation, McHugh spent over twenty years as a producer in network television news. He served as a Supervising Producer in the NBC News Investigative Unit, where he and correspondent Ronan Farrow spent a year investigating sexual misconduct allegations against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. After their investigation was shut down at NBC, it was was published in The New Yorker magazine and won the Pulitzer prize, and has been widely credited as a catalyst for the #MeToo movement. As a contributor to Vanity Fair, McHugh published "You are to Stand Down," his personal account of how NBC killed it's Weinstein story, and "An Oral History Of A Predator" -- interviews with 30 Weinstein accusers. Prior to NBC, McHugh spent nearly a decade at ABC News, producing for Good Morning America. He has won an Edward R. Murrow award and five Emmy awards for his work. Born and raised in the Chicago area, he graduated from Columbia University in New York City. He lives in the New York City area with his wife, Danie, and their four young daughters.

Today's Guest is Harold Smith, CEO of Monkton, Inc. "Too focused on the WHAT IF and not focused on WHAT WE CAN DO." In this episode, Harold discusses how Monkton brings mobility to the military and DoD, some use case examples, the certification process, his background and current work in mobile applications, how enterprise mobile security has changed over the years, and as always, his toughest lesson learned. 

On this episode of Fault Lines, hosts Jamarl Thomas and Shane Stranahan talk about the rising inflation hitting America hard right now, the growing China-Taiwan-US conflict, the un-blacklisting of Victoria Nuland, and the push in Congress to get the Department of Defense to declassify UFO information.Guests:Mark Frost - Economist, professor, consultant, drummer, eagle scout, marine and capitalist | Inflation & UnemploymentMark Sleboda - International relations and security analyst | Victoria Nuland on Russia's BlacklistBob Plissken - Former intelligence analyst in the Marine Corps | NDAA & the New UAP Office In the DoD and How It'll Affect Space ForceIn the first hour Mark Frost joined the show to talk about the striking rate of inflation in this country. Mark also talked about the multitude of job postings there are, but companies not actually hiring.In the second hour Fault Lines was joined by Mark Sleboda for a discussion on The United States interference in the conflict between China and Taiwan, Mark also talked about the un-blacklisting of Victoria Nuland for her trip to Russia.In the third hour Bob Plissken joined the show to talk about the conversation in Congress to force the Department of Defense to declassify information they have on UFOs. This is creating mechanisms to declassify information, a notoriously hard thing.

Suicide in the Military: Potential Causes and Prevention. Suicide in the Military is a tough subject, but one that will not go away because we ignore it or throw a bunch of money at it. If you are ready to listen to some real talk with truths most likely never before heard that may upset some in the DOD and government, keep listening.   I am Jayson Miller MSG Retired and the host of Miller's Military Moments. I have experienced suicidal ideations while on active duty, recovered, lost 4 teammates to suicide while several others were close. I am intimately familiar with this topic but am not any type of medical doctor. What I say is not to be intended to be medical advice or to override the directions of a doctor, therapist or anyone else licensed that is responsible for your care.  Suicide in the Military is on the rise. Again. We have been discussing this issue for years so it being on the rise is even more concerning to me. When I say discussing it, I don't mean mainstream discussions. I am referring to ancillary whimsical discussions that generate a little bit of money to research the problem and we move on. These American heroes are taking their own lives for many different reasons. I want to point out that every case should be investigated independently of another unless there are some clear and obvious related issues.   Questions people ask. Why? Why don't they seek help? Why didn't we see the signs? How can we know? How can we help them? Don't they know how important they are, how loved they are and how valued they are? Are they weak? Are they Scared?  I am going to answer those questions and more today.  Interested in supporting me and this show? Subscribe to my Patreon to earn rewards while supporting me! My Patreon page allows you to subscribe at 1 of 5 different levels. They range from 1 dollar a month to 100 dollars a month. Each tier is named after an Army rank such as private Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, First Sergeant, and General! Each level provides you with rewards for your subscription https://www.patreon.com/millersmilitarymoments Wanna start your own podcast? Buzzsprout is the best Podcast Hosting site! I use Buzzsprout, love their services and their value. They make it really easy to start, learn and grow your show! Sign up with Buzzsprout today!https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1539260Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! Start for FREESupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/millersmilitarymoments)

Photo: Rear Admiral William T. Sampson's son and Mascot on USS New York. CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow Future Navy in a time of "divest and invest" at the DoD.  Jerry Hendrix, Telemus Group https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/10/us-navy-sea-power-china-decline-military-strategy/

Lisa Porter joins me with Eric Lofgren from AcquisitionTalk as cohost to reflect on how R&D works and doesn't work `in the Pentagon.Lisa served as was deputy director of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in the DoD, founding director of IARPA, and executive vice president of In-Q-Tel. We touch on:How the error correction of free markets is absent in DoDA round of overrated/underrated on critical S&T areasHow successful government organizations empower their staffWhy the US lost its dominance in space launchPlease consider supporting ChinaTalk on Patreon here! https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/1959352Outtro Music: 甜甜圈

Lisa Porter joins me with Eric Lofgren from AcquisitionTalk as cohost to reflect on how R&D works and doesn't work `in the Pentagon.Lisa served as was deputy director of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in the DoD, founding director of IARPA, and executive vice president of In-Q-Tel. We touch on:How the error correction of free markets is absent in DoDA round of overrated/underrated on critical S&T areasHow successful government organizations empower their staffWhy the US lost its dominance in space launchPlease consider supporting ChinaTalk on Patreon here! https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/1959352Outtro Music: 甜甜圈

For 25 years as the sole Superpower, the U.S. neglected strategic threats from China and a rearmed Russia. The country, our elected officials, and our military committed to a decades-long battle to ensure that terrorists like those that executed the 9/11 attacks are not able to attack us on that scale again. Meanwhile, our country's legacy weapons systems have too many entrenched and interlocking interests (Congress, lobbyists, DOD/contractor revolving door, service promotion of executors versus innovators) that inhibit radical change. Our economic and foreign policy officials didn't notice the four-alarm fire as we first gutted our manufacturing infrastructure and sent it to China (profits are better when you outsource); then passively stood by as our intellectual property was being siphoned off; and had no answer to China's web of trade deals (China's Belt and Road). The 2018 National Defense Strategy became a wakeup call for our nation.

A HALL OF HONOR HONOR AND EDUCATE The Michigan Military and Veterans Hall of Honor seeks to not only honor Michigan military veterans, but to also educate our citizens about military service as a basic and honorable duty of citizenship–to stir patriotic spirit, a sense of civic duty, and a sense of honor that calls people to arms. WHY A HALL OF HONOR? Honor is a core military virtue that, unlike fame, implies true worth, genuine virtue, and real achievement – valorous and meritorious. As a Hall of Honor, we seek to recognize and honor military veterans, with due attention to their true military and civic virtue and achievement. HISPANIC VETERANS LEADERSHIP ALLIANCE MISSION: OUR MILITARY LEADERS SHOULD MIRROR THE FACE OF AMERICA, REFLECTING THE ENLISTED TROOPS THEY LEAD AND THE PUBLIC THEY PROTECT. The Hispanic Veterans Leadership Alliance (HVLA) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization of senior leaders, military and civilian, committed to overcoming the profound lack of Hispanic diversity and inclusion throughout the senior ranks of the DoD. Our mission is to advance the inclusion of Latinos across all leadership levels in the US Armed Forces, military and civilian.

In Episode 60, Julie Stabile interviews Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment and Energy Resilience, Richard Kidd. They discuss how to develop climate literacy, the role of junior leaders in the response to climate change, and how to manage a diverse portfolio. The DOD's Climate Adaptation Plan discussed was released on October 7, 2021 and is linked below. Recommendations The Stranger by Albert Camus Operation Barbarbossa and Germany's Defeat in the East by David Stahel Dream Catchers by Philip Jenkins The Overstory by Richard Powers DOD Climate Adaptation Plan Summary for Policy Makers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change All Hell Breaking Loose by Michael Klare Under the Sky We Make by Kimberly Nicholas Drawdown by Paul Hawken Scatter, Adapt, and Remember by Annalee Newitz This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Paul Kennedy Interested in an interview with a particular leader? Have a question you'd like to hear answered? Contact us @DODReads or podcast@dodreads.com. Finally, head to DODReads for more resources, free books, and interviews with military authors. The views presented in this episode are those of the participants and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or its components.

Hey guys how was your week? Hear about ours! Baseball and Football talk Deep Conversation about how to suppress what bothers us Last of Us Photos! Nintendo Switch OLED Protective Plastic Postal Brain Damaged Demo Review Play now at https://store.steampowered.com/app/1359980/POSTAL_Brain_Damaged/ DD214 Gaming cannot warranty the expressions and suggestions of the contents, as well as its accuracy. In addition, to the extent permitted by the law, DD214 Gaming shall not be responsible for any losses and/or damages due to the usage of the information on our website. By using our website, you hereby consent to our disclaimer and agree to its terms. The links contained on our website may lead to external sites, which are provided for convenience only. Any information or statements that appeared in these sites are not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise approved by DD214 Gaming. For these external sites, DD214 Gaming cannot be held liable for the availability of, or the content located on or through it. Plus, any losses or damages occurred from using these contents or the internet generally. opinions expressed are our own and we do not represent any DoD or U.S. government entities as a whole. Each individual opinion is their own and does not express the expressions of DD214 Gaming. This channel is produced for mature audiences.This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dd214gaming/message

The Stew Peters Show (October 8, 2021) ara McNeally is the mother of two special needs children. Tara attended a school board meeting, where she didn't even speak, but made a note on Facebook about the condescending attitude of the tyrants on the board. As a result, she has LOST HER JOB after the district superintendent went to the bank where she works and leveraged district accounts to have Tara removed from employment! William Castro works for the Board of Education, and he's part of a lawsuit to STOP tyrannical communist "vaccine" mandates in New York, where the new RELIGION is "shots in arms". Parents of preschool kids that don't want them forced into oxygen-inhibiting muzzles all day have enjoyed the freedom of preschools that offer a choice. Now, those preschools have been DEFUNDED by Communists in California! Merck, the original manufacturer of Ivermectin, is rolling out a pill "vaccine" to combat resistance. Turns out, that's not so great. The pills cause CANCER! Karen Kingston has done it, AGAIN. Kingston is a biotech analyst who joined Stew Peters with RECEIPTS, proving that the theory of Cyrus Parsa is NOT a "crazy conspiracy theory", but the DoD is actually using their Joint AI Intel Center to monitor "vaccine" deaths! Why? Dr. Zelenko Protocol: www.zStackProtocol.com Go Ad-Free, Get Exclusive Content, Become a Premium user: https://redvoicemedia.com/premium  Follow Stew on social media: http://evrl.ink/StewPeters  See all of Stew's content at https://StewPeters.TV  Watch full episodes here: https://redvoicemedia.net/stew-full-shows  Check out Stew's store: http://StewPeters.shop  Support our efforts to keep truth alive: https://www.redvoicemedia.com/support-red-voice-media/ Advertise with Red Voice Media: https://redvoicemedia.net/ads   

On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Michael Herson, President and CEO, American Defense International, Dr Gordon Adams, the senior White House budget official for national security during the Clinton administration who is now a distinguished fellow at the Quincy Institute and the Stimson Center as well as an American University professor emeritus, and Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute. Topics: — Update on NDAA and appropriations, increased borrowing limit that will forestall debt default until after Dec. 3, and slimmed down Democratic spending — Beijing's increasingly larger formations of aircraft that are testing Taiwanese air defenses — Risks of the new strategy as scores of Chinese fighter, bombers and patrol aircraft operate near Taiwan — Outlook for Chinese economy as Evergrande and other institutions suffer setbacks — Prospects that Beijing, sensing decline, will move against Taiwan sooner than later — Whether a shift in US policy toward Taiwan would improve deterrence or undermine it — Bombing of Shiite mosque in Afghanistan that killed 48 — USS Connecticut's mystery collision in the South China Sea that injured 11 aboard the Seawolf-class attack sub

“There is no peacetime in the information environment,” according to Greg Radabaugh, who is the former Director of the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center (JIOWC). “Information rounds are being fired at us continually 24/7.” While our forces do well at operations in the information environment (OIE) at the tactical and operational levels, Greg discusses the imperative for US leaders to focus on the strategic aspects of informational power (IP). After recapping the history and purpose of the JIOWC, Greg gives his perspective on the concept of informational power--a term coined by the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford. A key factor in successfully applying IP is characterizing the IE in a manner that enables commanders to understand adversary actions in the IE and resulting decisions. Greg also discusses the new version of Joint Pub 3-13 (Information Operations) as well as the importance of Joint Doctrine, in general, as a definitional framework especially important for synchronizing activities across the DoD enterprise and among friends and allies. Link to full show notes and resources https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-64 Guest Bio: Greg Radabaugh was the Director of the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center (JIOWC) from 2012-2018. Currently, he leads Gray Bear Consulting providing a variety of consulting services related to informational power, information operations, and cognitive security policy. About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn.

Anyone paying attention to the last two decades of conflict has to acknowledge that understanding culture is important. Even if you think that culture is just that "squishy sh*t", you've got to be honest that it's difficult to understand enemy intent, analyze how best to train an allied force or comprehend the will of the people if can't even grasp the basics of the cultural foundations of those populations. And yet the DoD and the individual service components have a strange on-again, off-again relationship with the understanding and instruction of culture. A BETTER PEACE welcomes Kerry Fosher, Lauren Mackenzie and Allison Abbe to the virtual studio to discuss the role of cultural programs in military training and their new book The Rise and Decline Of U.S. Military Culture Programs 2004 To 2020. The three join podcast editor Ron Granieri to look at how the services have created and re-created cultural training programs over and over again seemingly forgetting lessons learned time and again. TRANSCRIPT: https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/21-113-MESSAGE-IN-A-BOTTLE-REBUILDING-CULTURAL-CAPABILITIES-AGAIN-Transcript.pdf

Attorney Thomas Renz joined Stew Peters to reveal the highly censored DoD documents proving that the "vaccine" is more dangerous than it is helpful, as the vast majority of patients over 65 hospitalized with "COVID" are more-than-likely experiencing injury from the shots! EXCLUSIVE! Dr. Zandre Botha was shocked after studying the blood of "vaccinated" patients that were coming to her with serious illness after being injected with the shots being called "Covid vaccines". After being presented with vials of the substance, she examined the contents and was horrified. Dr. Jane Ruby joins "The Stew Peters Show" to dissect the most recent warnings about your cats, dogs and birds. It's best to just inject them ALL! U.S. Congressman, Dr. Paul Gosar, joined "The Stew Peters Show" in an unfiltered segment of truth surrounding the overreaching tyrannical state of America. Go Ad-Free, Get Exclusive Content, Become a Premium user: https://redvoicemedia.com/premium    Follow Stew on social media: http://evrl.ink/StewPeters    See all of Stew's content at https://StewPeters.TV    Watch full episodes here: https://redvoicemedia.net/stew-full-shows    Check out Stew's store: http://StewPeters.shop    Support our efforts to keep truth alive: https://www.redvoicemedia.com/support-red-voice-media/   Advertise with Red Voice Media: https://redvoicemedia.net/ads 

While Taiwan endures Chinese taunting, mounting concerns over the Chinese economy is signaling FEAR is the prevalent spirit in the earth. COVID numbers show 65 and older are hospitalized according to the DOD.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jay is now a civilian! Tim The TatMan Plays at AT&T Bandai Namco Starfield Console Shortage M16 Manual was a comic booK! Lt. Col Scheller The New base name changes have begun processing! DD214 Gaming cannot warranty the expressions and suggestions of the contents, as well as its accuracy. In addition, to the extent permitted by the law, DD214 Gaming shall not be responsible for any losses and/or damages due to the usage of the information on our website. By using our website, you hereby consent to our disclaimer and agree to its terms. The links contained on our website may lead to external sites, which are provided for convenience only. Any information or statements that appeared in these sites are not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise approved by DD214 Gaming. For these external sites, DD214 Gaming cannot be held liable for the availability of, or the content located on or through it. Plus, any losses or damages occurred from using these contents or the internet generally. opinions expressed are our own and we do not represent any DoD or U.S. government entities as a whole. Each individual opinion is their own and does not express the expressions of DD214 Gaming. This channel is produced for mature audiences.This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dd214gaming/message

Could Using the Right Multi-Factor Authentication Save You? I had a good friend who, this week, had his life's work stolen from him. Yeah. And you know what caused it? It was his password. Now, you know what you're supposed to be doing? I'm going to tell you exactly what to do right now. Let's get right down to the whole problem with passwords. I'm going to tell you a little bit about my friend this week. He has been building a business for. Maybe going on 10 years now, and this business relies on advertising. Most companies do so in some way; we need to have new customers. There's always some attrition. Some customers go away. So how do we keep them? We do what we can. How do we get new customers? For him, it was. Advertising, primarily on Facebook. He did some Google ads as well, but Facebook is really where he was focused. So how did he do all of that? Here's the bottom line you have to, if you are going to be advertising on Facebook, you have to have an advertising account. The same thing's true. Google. And then, on that account, you tie in either your bank account or your credit card. I recommend a credit card so that those transactions can be backed up. And on top of all of that now, of course, you have to use a pixel. So the way the tracking works is there are pixels on websites, about those already. And the bottom line with the pixels. Those are also. Cookies are about the pixels are used to set a cookie so that Facebook knows what sites you've gone to. So he uses those. I use those. In fact, if you go to my website, I have a Facebook pixel that gets set. And the reason for all of that is so that we know with. I'd be interested in something on the site. So I know that there are many people interested in this page or that page. And so I could, I have not ever, but I could now do some advertising. I could send ads to you so that if you were looking at something particular, you'd see ads related to that, which I've always said. It is the right way to go. If I'm looking to buy a pickup truck, I love to see ads for different pickup trucks, but if I don't want a car or truck, I don't want to see the ads. It isn't like TV where it sometimes seems every other ad is about. Car or a pickup truck. It drives me crazy because it's a waste of their money in advertising to me. After all, I don't want those things. And it's also not only just annoying in money-wasting. There are better ways to do targeting. And that's what the whole online thing is. Anyways, I told you about that because he had set up this pixel years ago. Basically, the Facebook pixel gets to know you. All of the people who like you that might've bought from you. Cause you can have that pixel track people through your site, your purchase site, they know what you purchase on the shopping cart, et cetera. And you can identify these people over on Facebook and their ads because they abandoned the cart or whatever it is you want to do there. So there's just a whole ton of stuff that you can do for these people. And it's so bad. It is so valuable. It takes years to build up that account. Years to put that pixel in place. And our friend here, he had done precisely that. Then he found that his account had been compromised. And that is a terrible thing in this case because the bad guy used his account to place ads. So now there are really two or three problems here. We'll talk about one of them. Why was the bad guy going after him? He has been running ads on Facebook for a long time. So as far as Facebook is concerned, his account is credible. All of the ads he runs don't have to be reviewed by a human being. They can go up almost immediately. He doesn't have to wait days for some of these things to go up. So our bad guy can get an account like his that has years' worth of advertising credibility and now start advertising things that are not correct. So there again is part of the value of having one of these older accounts for advertising. And so the bad guy did that use his credibility. And then secondly, he used 25 grand worth of my friend's money to run ads. Also, of course, very bad, very bad. So I sat down with him. In fact, it was this last week, and I was out on a trip with just a vacation trip. It was absolutely fantastic. I never just do vacation. It's always business plus work whenever I do anything like this, but I was on a trip last week. And so my eldest son who works closely with me, and he's also part of the FBI InfraGard program. So I had him reach out to my friend, and he helped them out, and they talked back and forth. So here's the problem that he has. And I'm trying to figure out a perfect way to solve this. And I haven't figured that out yet. And if you guys have an idea because you are the best and brightest, you really are. So go ahead and drop me an email at me@craigpeterson.com if a good way around this particular problem, which is he has. This Facebook could count and many other accounts, including his website, hosting account, email account, et cetera. And. He has people who manage his ads for him. Who operates his website for him, who put up some promotions, advertising, and everything else. So these are third-party. This is what we generically call a supply chain, risk people who are not him have access to his stuff, his private property. And how does he do it, or how did he do it? Is he went ahead and gave them. Access by giving them accounts or passwords. How well were they guarding their passwords and their accounts? So the first thing I had my friend do was going to haveIbeenpwned.com. I had him put in his email address, the one he uses the most, and it showed up in five different. Hacks data dumps. So these are five various sites where he had used that same email address in this case. And he found out that in those five cases, the bad guy's got his passwords and personal information. All bad. And he went ahead and cleaned it up. So I said put in the password because have I been, pwned also let you check your password, just see if it has been used by someone else and then stolen. So there are billions of passwords in this database. It's incredible of all of these known passwords. So he put in his password, and no, it had not been stolen, but the problem is how about the people that were managing his ads on Facebook and managing his Facebook ad. We're the usernames, which are typically the email addresses and the passwords kept securely. That's a supply chain thing I'm talking about, and that's where I'd love to get him. But from you guys, me@craigpeterson.com. If you think you have a good answer, What we've been doing. And our advice to him was use one password. That's the only one to use. I don't trust last pass anymore. After their last big hack where they got hacked one password, the digit one password. And go ahead. And set it up. And in a business scenario, you can have multiple vaults. So have a vault. That's just for people that are dealing with your Facebook ad account, maybe have another vault for people who are posting for you on Facebook. Or better yet when it comes to Facebook, go ahead and have an intermediary that is trusted the, if this, then that, or there's a few of them out there that can see that you put the post up on the website and automatically posted on Facebook. So you don't have to get. All of these people, your passwords, but again, it's up to you. You got to figure out if that makes sense to you that those are the types of things that I think you can do. And that is what we do as well. Now, one of the beauties of using one password like that, where you're not sharing all of your passwords to everything you're sharing, the minimum amount of login information that you possibly can share is that if they leave your employees, All you have to do is remove their access to the appropriate vault or vaults, or maybe all of your vaults. And this is what I've done with people that worked for me in the US and people would work for me overseas, and there have been a lot of them and it has worked quite well for me. So with one pass, We can enforce password integrity. We can make sure the passwords on stolen. One password ties automatically into have I been postponed. If a password has been exposed, if it's been stolen online, it's a great way to go. Now I've got an offer for you guys who are listening. I have a special report that I've sold before on passwords, and it goes through talks about one password. He talks about the last pass, which I'm no longer really recommending, but give some comparisons and how you can use these things. Make sure you go and email me right now. Me, Me@craigpeterson.com. That's ME at Craig Peterson dot com and just ask me for the password special report, and I'll be glad to get that on-off to you. There is a lot of good detail in there and helps you, whether you're a home user or a business. So the next step in your security is multi-factor authentication. Interesting study out saying that about 75% of people say that they've used it for work or for business, but the hard numbers, I don't think they agree One of the things that you have to do is use good passwords. And the best way to do that is to use a password manager. I was talking about a friend of mine who had been hacked this last week and his account was hacked. His Facebook ad account was hacked. We asked him if we could reach out to. BI and he said, sure. So we checked with the FBI and they're looking to turn this into a case, a real case, because they've never seen this type of thing, the hijacking of an advertising account who hijacked it. And why did they hide jacket? Was this in preparation maybe for. Playing around with manipulating our next election cycle coming up. There could be a lot of things that they're planning on doing and taking over my friend's account would be a great way to have done it. So maybe they're going to do other things here. And our friends at the FBI are looking into it. How now do you also keep your data safe? Easily simply. When we're talking about these types of accounts, the thing to look at is known as two factor authentication or multifactor authentication. You see my friend, if he had been using multi-factor authentication. I would not have been vulnerable. Even if the bad guys had his username, email address and his password, they still would not be able to log in without having that little six-digit code. That's the best way to do multi-factor authentication. When we're talking about this code, whether it's four or 5, 6, 8 digits long, we should not be using our cell phones to receive those. At least not as text messages, those have a problem because our phone numbers can be stolen from us and they are stolen from us. So if we're a real target, in other words, they're going after you. Joe Smith and they know you have some, $2 million in your account. So they're going after you while they can, in most cases, take control of your phone. Now you might not know it and it doesn't have to be hacked. All they have to do is have the phone company move your phone number to a new phone. Once. So that means one of the things you need to do is contact your telephone vendor, whoever it is, who's providing new that service. That's a company like Verizon sprint T-Mobile a T and Tone of those companies that are giving you cell service, you have to contact them and set up a pass. So that if they have a phone call coming in and that phone call can be faked. So it looks like it's coming from your phone, even if there was a phone call coming in, whether it's coming from your phone or not, they have to get that password or passcode that you gave them. And once they have that passcode now, and that's great, but if you don't have that in there targeting you specifically, then you're in trouble. So for many of us really it may not make a huge difference. But I would do it anyways. I have done it with every one of my cell phone carriers now. A couple of decades set up a password. So the next step is this multifactor authentication. If I'm not supposed to get it via text message to my phone, how do I get it? There are a couple of apps out there. There's a free one called Google authentic. And Google authenticator runs on your phone. And once it's there on your phone and you are setting it up on a website, so Facebook, for instance, your bank, most websites out there, the bigger ones, all you have to do is say, I want to set up multi-factor authentication, and then it'll ask you a case. So how do you want to do it? And you can say, I want an app and they will display. A Q R code. That's one of those square codes with a bunch of little lines inside of it. You're seeing QR codes before they become very common. And you take your phone with the Google authenticator app. Take a picture. Of that little QR code on the screen, and now it will start sinking up so that every 30 seconds Google authenticator on your phone will change that number. So when you need to log back into that website, it's going to ask you for the code. You just pull up Google authenticator and there's the code. So that's the freeway to do it. And not necessarily the easiest way to. Again, going back to one password. I use this thing exclusively. It is phenomenal for keeping my passwords, keeping them all straight and then encrypted vault, actually in multiple encrypted vault it's so that I can share some of them. Some of them are just strictly private, but it also has that same authenticator functionality built right into it. Microsoft has its own authenticator, but you can tell Microsoft that you want to use the standard authenticator. Of course, Microsoft has to do everything differently. But you can tell it. And I do tell it, I want to use a regular authenticator app, not Microsoft authenticator. By the way. That's why I advise you to don't use the Microsoft authenticator, just use one authenticator for all of the sites, and then Microsoft will give you that same QR code. And then you can take that picture and you're off and running. Next time you log in, it asks you for the code and instead of texting it to you to your phone smarter, otherwise it will not. That require you to open up your authenticator. So for me, for instance, when I'm logging into a website, it comes up and asks for the username, asked for the password. Both of those are filled out automatically by one password for me. And then it asks for that code identification code and. One password automatically puts it into my pace to buffer copy-paste, buffer, and I just paste it in and they've got the code. So I don't have to remember the codes. I don't remember passwords. I don't have to remember usernames or email addresses. One password remembers them all for me. Plus it'll remember notes and other things. So you can tell, I really one password. We use it with all of our clients. That's what we have for them. And it does meet even a lot of these DOD requirement on top of. Depending again, how much security you need. We will use duo D U O and it also has this authenticator functionality and we will also use UBI keys. These are those hardware key. They do oh, can provide you with hardware tokens. Those are those little tokens that can go onto your key ring. That show a changing six-digit number every 30 seconds. And that's the same number that would be there in your smartphone app. Your one password or Google authenticator smartphone. Hopefully, I didn't confuse you too much. I think most of the reason we're not using the security we should is because we're not sure how to, and we don't know what we're going to be. And I can see that being a big problem. So if you have questions about any of this, if you would like a copy of my password security, special report, just send an email to me. M e@craigpeterson.com. That's me M e@craigpeterson.com. That's S O N.com. I'll be glad to send it to you. Also, if you sign up for my newsletter there on my website@craigpeterson.com, you are going to get. I was hold little series of the special reports to help you out, get you going. And then every week I send out a little bit of training and all of my articles for the week. It's usually six to 10 articles that I consider to be important so that, what's going on in the cybersecurity world. So you can. With it for yourself, for your family, for your business. Craig peterson.com. According to researchers. 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. And you know what Facebook knew and knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls. There's a great article that came out in the Wall Street Journal. And I'm going to read just a little bit here from some of the quotes first. When I went on Instagram, all I saw were images of chiseled bodies, perfect. Abs and women doing 100 burpees in 10 minutes, said, Ms.  Now 18, who lives in Western Virginia. Amazing. Isn't it. The one that I opened now with 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram, I made them feel worse. So that is studies again, that looks like yeah, these were researchers inside Instagram and they said this in a March, 2020 slide presentation that was posted to Facebook's internal message board that was reviewed by the wall street journal quote comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves. Apparently, for the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how Instagram is affecting its millions of young users. Now, for those of you who don't know what Instagram is, it allows these users to create little stories, to have. Pictures videos of things that they're doing, and it's a lifestyle type thing you might've heard, of course, of how this I don't know what it is. Kidnapping murder plot. These, this young couple and the body I think was found up in Wyoming. I'm trying to remember, but of her and it's yeah, there it is. It wasn't my OMI. And I'm looking up right now, Gabby potato. That's who it is. She was what they called a micro influence. And I know a lot of people who can loom, that's what they want to be. There's a young lady that stayed with us for a few months. She had no other place to live. And so we invited her in here and we got some interesting stories to tell about that experience. And it's, a little sad, but anyhow, she got back up on her feet and then she decided she was going to become an influence. And what an influencer is someone that has a lot of followers. And of course, a lot means different numbers. You get these massive influencers that have tens of millions of people that quote, follow unquote them. And of course, just think of the Kardashians they're famous for. Being famous, nothing else. They have subsequently done some pretty amazing things. At least a few of them have. We've got one of those daughters who now was the first earliest billionaire. I think it was ever youngest. So they have accomplished some amazing things after the fact, but they got started. By just becoming famous by posting on these social media sites. So you get a micro-influencer, like Gabby Petito, who is out there posting things and pictures. And you look at all of these pictures and, oh my gosh, they're up at this national park. Oh, isn't she so cute. I'll look at her boyfriend. They'll look so good together and people. Fall for that image, right? It's just like Photoshopping these pictures of models, changing them. There've been some real complaints about those over the years. So Instagram sets these kids up with these pictures of people that are just totally unrealistic. One of the slides from a 2019 presentation says, quote, we make body. Excuse me. We make body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls teams, blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety. And depression said another slide. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across. Groups among teens is this according to the wall street journal who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users, and 6% of American users trace the desire to kill themselves to Instagram. Again, according to one of these presentations, isn't this just absolutely amazing. And you might've heard it discussed a little bit. I saw some articles about it, obviously in the news wall street journal had it, but this is a $100 billion company, Instagram. That's what their annual revenues. More than 40% of Instagram users are 22 years old and younger. And about 22 million teens log into Instagram in the US each day, compared with 5 million that log into Facebook, the younger users have been declining. Facebook it's getting the population there is getting older and older on Facebook. In average teens in the us spend 50% more time on Instagram than they do on Facebook. And also tick-tock, by the way I took talk has now surpassed YouTube in some of these metrics. Quote, Instagram is well-positioned to resonate and win with young people said a researcher's slide posted internally. Inside Facebook. Another post said there is a path to growth. If Instagram can continue their trajectory. Amazing. So Facebook's public phase has really tried to downplay all of these negative effects that the Instagram app has on teens, particularly girls, and hasn't made its research public or available to academics or lawmakers who have asked for it. Quote, the research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people. Positive mental health benefits said Mark Zuckerberg. He's the CEO of course of Facebook. Now this was 2020. In March one at a congressional hearing, he was asked about children and mental health. So you see how he really lawyered the words that they can have positive mental health benefits, but Facebook's own internal research seems to show that they know it has a profound negative effect on a large percentage of their users. Instagram had Adam Moseri told reporters in may of this year, that research he had seen suggest the app's effect on team's wellbeing is likely quote quite small. So what the wall street journal seems to be pointing out here is that Facebook is not giving us the truth on any of this stuff. It's really sad. We've got to be careful. No, apparently Mr. Moseri also said that he's been pushing very hard for Facebook to really take their responsibilities more broadly. He says they're proud of this research. I'm just summarizing this before we run out of time here, but it shows the document. Internal documents on Facebook show that they are having a major impact on teen, mental health, political discourse, and even human trafficking. These, this internal research offers an unparalleled picture. Courtney told the wall street journal of how Facebook is acutely aware that the products and systems central to its business success routine. Fail great article. I've got it in this week's newsletter. You can just open it up and click through on the link to the wall street journal. They have a paywall and I hate to use payroll articles, but this one's well worth it. And they do give you some free articles every month. So if you're not on that newsletter, you can sign up right now. Craig peterson.com. You'll get the next one. If you miss a link today, if you want some, the special report on passwords, et cetera, just email me directly. Give me a few days to respond. But me M e@craigpeterson.com. That's me M e@craigpeterson.com. We've all worked from home from time to time. At least if we're somehow in the information it industry, I want to talk right now about why you need a personal laptop. Even if the business is providing you with a laptop. Laptops are something that was designed to be personal, but many of us are using them as our main computer. I know I often am using my laptop, a couple of my kids and my wife. It's really their main computer, even though they all have other computers that they could potentially be using, laptops are just handy and you have them with, you can take them with you. We've got workstation set up that are kind of. Workstations, if you will, where there are three screens set up and they're all hooked up into one central screen controller that then has a USBC connection that goes right into the, your laptop. So you can be sitting there with four screens on your Mac laptop on your mac pro if you need four screens, it's really handy. No question. Many of us have a laptop for home and a laptop for business. And many of us also look at it and say, oh wow, this is a great laptop I got from work. It's much better than my home laptop. And you start to use the business laptop for work. At home. Okay. That's what it's for. Right. But then we start to use that business laptop for personal stuff. That's where the problems start. We've seen surveys out there that are shown. Then half of workers are using work issue devices for personal tasks that might be doing it at home. They might be doing it at the office. Things like personal messages, shopping, online, social media, reading the news. So the prospect of using your work laptop as your only laptop, not just for work, but also for maybe watching some movies, group chat and messaging, reading, fan fiction, paying bills, emailing to family or friend. It just seems not. It's so tempting. It's just natural. I'm on it. I'm on it all day long. Why wouldn't I just use it? And this is particularly true for people who are working from home, but we have to be careful with that. It's really something that you shouldn't be doing for a couple of reasons. One that. Top that's a business. Laptop is the property of the business. It's just like walking home with boxes, full of pencils and paperback in the old days, it is not yours to use for personal use. We also have to assume, assume since it is the company's laptop that hopefully it's been secure. Hopefully they haven't set up. So it's going through a special VPN at the office and it's going through special filters, maybe snort filters or something else. That's doing some deeper inspection on what's coming through your laptop. Well, there are also likely on that laptop. Tools that are monitoring your device. Things like key loggers, biometric tracking, Jill location, software that tracks your web browser and social media behavior, screenshot, snapshot software, maybe even your cam. Is being used to keep track of you. I know a number of the websites that I've used in the past to hire temporary workers. Those workers have to agree to have you monitor what they're doing. These hourly workers, subtle take screenshots of their screen, unbeknownst to them. Pictures from the cameras at random intervals. Again, unbeknownst to them, it'll track what they're doing. And so I can now go in and say, okay, well he billed me five hours for doing this. And I look at his screen and guess what? He wasn't doing that for all of those five hours that he just billed me. Well, the same thing could be true for your company, even if you're not paid by the hour. Right now, we're looking at stats that show over half of the businesses that are providing laptops for the employees to use more than half of them are using monitoring software. And through this whole lockdown, the usage of these different types of monitoring systems has grown. Now there's some of the programs you're using. You might be VPN in, you might be using slack or G suite enterprise, all good little pieces of software. They can monitor that obviously, but it goes all the way through to the business. And using your slack access as paid for, by the businesses also idiotic to do things like send messages to your buddies, set up drinks after work, complain to other people about someone else in the business, your boss, or otherwise your it, people at the business can see all of that. They can see what you're doing with slack. Even if you have a separate personal account. It's still more likely that you'll end up mixing them up if you're logged into both on the same computer. So the bottom line is if you are on a work computer, whether it's a laptop or something else, you can reasonably assume that I T can see everything. That's not. They own it. Okay. And they have to do some of this stuff to protect themselves. We put software on laptops for companies not to spy on employees. That's none of our business, but we put software on computers for employees. To make sure they stay safe. Think of what happens when your computer, your laptop, whatever it might be, connects to the company's network. Now that can be through a VPN. It can be because you take your laptop home or on the road when you're traveling and you bring it back into the office. If that computer is infected, somehow now you've brought that infection into the office. And that's how a lot of the malware works. It goes from computer to computer. So once they get in that front door where there's through a website and email that you clicked on or in a computer that you're bringing into the office, they can start to move around. Now it's not just your activity. And this is an interesting article from the verge by Monica chin. It's not just your activity that they can see on your laptop, but in many cases, they're also able to look at anything you're downloading any of your photographs or videos that you might've sinked up from your smart. Laura loading these types of things, your text messages on your work device for safekeeping, or just because it's your primary device might seem harmless, right? Cause you're just going to remove them before you hand it in. But some companies such as Apple won't allow you to wipe your device before handing it in regardless of how personal the contents are. And that makes sense too, because many times an employee leaves. And they don't give the company all of the information that they have, that they're obliged to give back to their employer. Things that they've been working on, customer information, et cetera. So Manalive, there are plenty of other devices out there. Hopefully if you leave your company with plenty of notice, moving a bunch of things off your work device in the last few days, uh, might raise some eyebrows at the. And I'm saying hopefully, because they should notice that sort of thing, because it could be malicious activity. It could be an insider risk that maybe they're not even aware of. There's so much you could go wrong here. So bottom line don't use the work laptop for home. So what should you use? You know, my personal recommendation. Almost always is get a Mac. They are safer to use the patches that they get are usually not destructive. You know, sometimes you can install a patch for windows and now your machine just won't work anymore. Right. You've had that happen. I know every last one of us out there that are tried to install Microsoft patches for a while have had that happen to them. All of a sudden the patch has completely messed up your computer and you are so out of luck, it's ridiculous. Right? So don't, you know, hopefully don't do that, but I like the max because they are basically safer than windows. And also because the patches just work on them, apple tends to get them out in plenty of time to try and protect us the next level. If he can't afford an apple and. Apple laptops really are not expensive when you consider how long they last and the quality that components, they are not expensive at all. But if you can't afford that, the next thing I would look at is getting a Chromebook. There are a lot of companies that make Chromebooks Chrome is an operating system from Google. It's similar to Android. Google keeps the Chromebooks up-to-date. They patch them quite regularly and make sure that there aren't nastiness is going on. You just have some of the same issues and Android has patches might take a while to get to you because it has to go through the vendor that made the Chromebook. You might have a Chromebook for Sam from Samsung, for instance, it's not Google's even though it's called a Google Chromebook. Now Chromebooks rely heavily on the cloud services that Google provides, but they can also run just locally. So with a Chromebook and you can get them for as little as 150 bucks, but remember you get what you pay for. Or as much as I've seen them in the $2,000 price range with fancy GPU's, local storage and other things, but at 150 bucks, it could be well worth it for you. It lets you do the regular word processing. Just think of what you can do with Google docs, spreadsheets against Google docs, spreadsheets, all of those types of things are built into it. You can. Cruz the web, obviously using Google Chrome on your Chromebook. And send and receive email, which is what most people do. That's really kind of all, most people do at home. So consider that as well. I also like iPad. They are quite safe again, but they tend to be more expensive and they can do pretty much everything. And now with Android support built right into Google Chromebooks, you can even run Android apps. So there you go. Keep safe and be safe out there. Right. Have a hack free life. Make sure you get my newsletter. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. The national cyber director, Chris Inglis said that we need cyber bullets, that cyber bullets are part of the war on hacks. And it makes sense on one level. But when you get into the reality, it's a much different story..  I had an interesting email this week from a listener. Actually he sent it about two weeks ago when I finally was able to get to it this week and responded, and he was pointing out how there are some things that I talk about on the show that I put into my newsletter that are really good. And. I'm paraphrasing here but theoretical to so many people, there's some things that you can figure out pretty easily yourself. Some things you can do yourselves and other things that are just different. To do still. And a lot of that has to do with the websites you go to in order to maintain your passwords. And he was complaining specifically about bank of America and how you can, according to what he has found here in the real world, you can come up with a. Password a 20 character long password that is going to keep everything nice and safe at trend to be generated. You're using one password and great. So you set your password up in bank of America's account, and then you try and log in later, and it doesn't work because it lets you put 20 character passwords and when you're creating it, yeah. But the login screen only takes the first 16. So of course they'd home match. You see it's things like that really are pushing us back, holding us back. But I'd say pushing us back from being secure as a country, there, there just aren't enough people paying enough attention to make sure this cyber security, even the basic stuff like passwords and two factor authentication are being done properly. So one of the things I wanted to make sure you guys were aware of is I need to know when you're having these problems, because what I want to do is put together some trainings to show you exactly how to do it. Because on some websites you were saying, it's pretty hard to use one password he's paying for it, but it's kinda difficult for him. And I think in some ways, a lack of understanding. Then, it can be difficult to spend a bunch of time trying to watch some training videos for some of the software. And so I want to hear when you're having problems so I can do what I did for him this week and spend a little time, write some stuff up, and I even am reaching out to some of this website. People like bank of America who are really messing up cyber security for people who are trying to do the right thing and writing them and saying, Hey, listen, I'm part of the FBI InfraGard program. I'm a member of it. I paid a lot of attention to cybersecurity. Heck I ran the training for the FBI InfraGard program for a couple of years, and there are some real things lacking. In the login anyways, and this one particular case of the cybersecurity, but I don't know all of this stuff. I'm not using all of these things and I have a disadvantage over you guys, and that is that I've been doing this for so long. I've forgotten what it's like to not know it. Does that make sense? So if you have something that I've talked about on the show, that's appeared in my newsletter and you're having some confusion over, let me know. Just email me M e@craigpeterson.com. What he did is he just hit reply to my newsletter. And of course, that goes to me and me@gregpeterson.com and it tracks it. So I know I need to reply, so I can sit down and go through and answer people's questions. I sent out a lot of the copies of my password, special report to people you guys had requested specifically some of the. People out there had requested a little bit of help. And I had sent out an email to most of the people that I could identify as being business people. I sent out a little thing saying, Hey, listen, if you could use half-hour my help, let me know myself or my team. And then, again, you can just send me an E Craig. So I answered a lot of those questions this week. And in fact, that's how I come up with much of what I cover here on the show. You guys ask the questions and that's how I know that it's a real problem. If I understand it, that's one thing. But for the people who don't do cybersecurity as their primary job or a strategy, I get it. I can get why you guys are confused. So make sure you get my weekly newsletter. So you can find out about all of the trainings, the free stuff, the paid courses, and. It's easy. Just go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. That's Craig Peterson, P E T E R S O N. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. And I'm more than glad. Add you to that list. And there are now thousands of people on that list to get my email pretty much every week. If you miss it one week, it's probably, cause I just got too busy, but I put out all my show notes. I put it all a little bit of training notes, all. The us government is supposedly getting ready to fire what they're calling cyber bullets in response to these significant hacking attacks. This is what they're calling a comprehensive strategy to dissuade. Adversaries. And this is all from the national cyber security director, Chris Inglis. This is from an article in American military news.com by Chris Strome. That was out this week. And of course I included that in my newsletter this week as well, coming out. Today or tomorrow, depends on how this all goes right with the weekend. I got to help a buddy out today, but president Joe Biden has been really talking about how do we use cyber weapons to retaliate. For instance, he gave a list of industries that Russia should not be. As though Putin himself is running all of these hacks or come out of Russia. Yeah, certainly there are some that are part of their military, but there many of them that are just bad guys that are trying to make some money, we should feel sorry for them. So Biden gives him this list and says, Hey, listen, if you attack any of these various industries or actually portions of our economy, We are going to retaliate. We have seen the us retaliate under President Trump and the retaliation. Of course he did all kinds of economic stuff to stop it. And much of which has been reversed by president Biden's administration, but also he attacked them directly in. Down some power systems there in the Moscow area, which I thought was really kinda cool. So kudos to President Trump for doing that and for president and Biden now to say, Hey, we are going to attack back. Of course. The biggest question is. What would we be attacking? How would we be attacking it? And for what reason, for instance, the red Chinese have gone after our office of personnel management, OPM records and got them all back in 2015. So they now know everything about everybody that had a secret security clearance or the took a paycheck from the federal government. All of those records, they would get their hands on them and get them on all of the records a lot. So Inglis was in front of the let's see here, the, yeah, he was a former director of the national security agency. He's the first to hold his Senate-confirmed position at the white house, this national cyber director position. And he says there is a sense that we can perhaps fire some cyber bullets and shoot our way out of this English set at the conference. It was hosted by the way, by the national security agency and a nonprofit group, he said that will be useful in certain circumstances. If you had a clear shot at a cyber aggressor and I can take them offline, I would advise that we do so as long as the collateral effects are acceptable. Yeah. What we have done here under president Biden administration is we have shut down some people who were operating illegally, we have shut down some cyber actors that were attacking us. So we've been doing that, but it isn't exactly. Wow. We just saw a muzzle flash over there. And so we are returning fire to the area of that muzzle flash, because as I've said many times before, we just don't know. Where in fact that bullet is coming from, it makes it a lot more difficult. English went on to say there's a larger set of initiatives that have to be undertaken. Not one of those elements is going to be sufficient to take this. Out let's see here, the us should make clear to Russia now their adversaries, what kinds of attacks would prompt a response, which is what president Biden did when he was talking with, of course, President Putin over there, red lines of both good and bad red lines are clear and crisp. Although I got to say many of our administrations have. Really done anything about it. It's the red line in the sand and Syria president Obama didn't do anything when they stepped over that red line. So yeah. And then with what we just finished doing in Afghanistan, where we drew a red line and said, we're going to protect all of you who helped us. And then we not only abandoned them, but we abandoned Americans behind there. I don't think a lot of people aren't going to believe us. So here's the last statement here. And again, this is an article in American military news from our cyber chief is the government actions. Aren't always going to be broadcast. In some cases, it's not helpful to broadcast those for all of mankind to see another one. We are doing some things behind the scenes. And I have certainly seen some of the results of those over the last few years. Stick around.  You're listening to Craig Peterson online@craigpeterson.com. You've got a smartphone and there are some new versions out, right? New hardware, new software, Android iOS. How long should you keep that device? How long can you stay safe with that older device? Apple has now done something. Different something they've never done before. One of the reasons that apple equipment tends to be safer than almost anything else out there is that they have, what's known as a closed ecosystem. There's arguments both directions here on whether that's safer or not. But the real advantage when it comes to cybersecurity is there are only. So many versions of the iPhone out there. What are we now in a couple of dozen versions of the hardware platform that makes it easier for apple to be able to support older versions of the software and multiple pieces of hardware, much easier than for, let's say Microsoft windows. It doesn't even have a single. Platform or Android, where there are hundreds of hardware platforms out there and tens of thousands of versions of the hardware, because one model phone can contain many. Changes different types of hardware to talk to the cell towers or the screen you name it. So it's very hard to keep up. Android has for quite a while now supported three versions of their operating system. Of course, we're talking about Google, but Android operating system. So they support the current release. Of Android and the Breviary release is two previous releases in fact of Android. Now that is frankly a pretty good thing to know, but there's over a billion Android devices out there that are no longer supported by security updates. We've got Android 10, nine, and eight that are fairly supported right now. We're actually up to Android 12. So here's how it works. If you've got Android version 10 out, if that's the main one, then you can continue to do. Eight and nine and get updates, security updates. But then here's the problem, everybody, those security updates are coming out of Google, but that does not mean that they are making it all the way to you. So there you go. It's one thing for Google to provide updates, but if you can't get them because your phone manufacturer is not supporting them, you've got trouble Samsung. Is probably the best company other than maybe Google and the Google Pixel phone. Samsung's the best company to go to. If you want some longer-term support. Many of these other companies just don't provide support past the current version. So keep that in mind as well. Android 12 was the 12th major version of Android announced by Google, February, 2021. And it is starting to roll out a Android. The 11th, 11 is the one that was out in February of last year. At least it was announced then. And we're, they're coming out, they're getting pushed out. So basically Google is saying the current version plus two prior versions. And that usually gives you about a four or maybe even a five year window. So if you're. An Android device from a major manufacturer, particularly Samsung on the Android side, your device is going to be good for at least four years, maybe five years now on the, and by the way, you don't necessarily have to upgrade the. You could be continuing to run an older release saw, as I mentioned earlier, if it version 11 is the current one that's out there being supported, which it is right. 12 is early still, but version 11, that means two prior versions still get security updates. You don't get featured. Dates, you don't get the new stuff, but you get security updates. So Android 11, the current one that means 10 and nine get security updates. So you don't, you're not being forced to do an upgrade. Most people don't upgrade their phones from an older major release to a newer major release. In other words, they don't try and go from Android eight to Android 11. Because in fact, most of the time, the hardware manufacturer doesn't support it. That's why there's over a billion Android devices out there right now that cannot get security updates. So have a look at your phone and your vendors. See what you're running. You probably want to do an update because most phones cannot get any support on the, in the apple side. Things are a lot different with Apple iOS, which is the operating system used on the iPhone and the I pad apple has always forced you to move to the next major version. No, they only force you to do that. If they support the hardware. And I've got to say kudos to them, they're still supporting the iPhone six S which came out quite a while. The iPhone success is something that my wife has been using and that I had as well. In fact, she got my old iPhone success, but that's a six-year-old. Phone came out in September of 2015. So it is still getting security updates, and we'll probably continue to get them. Not only is it getting security update this six-year-old iPhone success is getting the latest and our iOS operating system. It's getting iOS 15. Isn't that just amazing? Yeah, exactly. And so not just security updates, like you might get from some of the other vendors out there, Android vendors. So the apple keeps their arms around you for quite a while. Here's, what's changed now with Apple and iOS, the, for the first time ever in the iOS world, Apple is not forcing you to upgrade. So you're not being forced to upgrade to iOS 15. You can continue to run iOS 14. And that's how apples got around the security patches in the past, because what happens is you get the updates and installs them. Basically. There's no reason for you not to upgrade your phone. And so you do so apple never had to worry about releasing some of these fixes for really old versions of iOS. Although they have done that from time to time. In the Mac iOS side, Apple has done a couple of good things. The, where they always have supported basically three releases, what Google's doing with Android. So you now have a new feature. If you will, with iOS, here's a PSA for everyone. Public service announcement. You don't have to take the iOS 15 upgrade. Now I did. I put it on my iPhone and I seem to have some sort of a problem with messages where it's telling people that my phone has notifications turned off, which it does not. So I haven't figured that one out yet. I'll have to look into that a little bit more, but. This is nice because that means you're not going to have to upgrade your iPhone to iOS 15. You'll still get security updates for iOS 14, something Apple's never done before. We'll see if they continue this. We will see if they match Google going back. Three releases in Android. It just never been done before over on the iOS. So good news for them. Also course in the windows world and the Mac world, you really should upgrade the operating system as much as you can. Windows 11 though, man, windows 11. And I said this to my newsletter. I warned you guys is going to be a nightmare. For many people. You are not going to be able to do an automatic upgrade unless you have the newest of hardware, with the highest end of features, Craig peterson.com. One of the very big ransomware operations is back online. And now we have some inside information from one of the contractors working for this ransomware organization and oh yeah, there's an FBI tie, too.. This organization, ransomware gang, almost business, whatever you might want to describe them as is known as revolt. They have a few other names, but that's the really big one. And they are basically the 800 pound gorilla in the ransom. Business, you might be using cloud services right now. Maybe you use Microsoft's email service. Their Microsoft 360, I think, is what they call it now and use it for email and various other things pretty handy. It's mostly in the cloud. Computers you own or operate or have to maintain. I think that makes some sense too, but here's the bottom line it's software as a service right now, salesforce.com software as a service, Oracle has their accounting stuff. QuickBooks online, all software as a service. It isn't just those legitimate businesses that I just mentioned. That are using the cloud that are providing software as a service where you're paying monthly or however frequently. And you're getting this software as a service. That's what that means. Typically it means it's in the cloud and you don't have any real control over it. That's what this ransomware gang has been doing. This gang known as rebill. They all appear to be in. And there's some interesting stuff. That's come out. A transcript was released of an interview with one of their contractors. Now the original interview was in Russian. So I read through a translation of the Russian. I have no idea how good it is, but it is being quoted by a bank. Insider magazine that you might be familiar with bank info, security. That's one of the places that I follow. And there's a few interesting things that he talked about that I want to get into, but these are the people who have been behind things like the colonial pipeline attack and some of the other very large attacks, the way they work, their business model is. You can license their software, their ransomware software, and you go after a business or a government agency, whatever it might be, you get that ransomware software inside. And the reveal gang will take a percentage of the money that you have in rent. Now, how is that for a, an interesting business model, right? Taking something that the rest of the world has been using, and then take that model and put it into the legal side of the world. For three weeks, during this whole reveal ransomware attack, this summer turns out that the FBI secretly withheld the key that could have been used to decrypt. And computers that reveal had infected with ransomware and looks like kids up to maybe 1500 networks. Now those are networks, not just computers. That includes networks run by hospitals, schools, and businesses, including critical infrastructure businesses. The way the FBI got their hands on this decryption game. Is by penetrating reveal gangs servers. So they got into it. They were able to grab the keys and then the FBI waited before. Did anything with it. See, what they were trying to do is catch the people behind reveal. And so they didn't want to release information, get information out there to the press that might tip off those bad guys over there in Russia. And then shut down their operations. But as you might know, because I mentioned it here before the reveal gang went offline on July 13th, before the FBI could really track them down. And then the FBI didn't release the key until July 21st. And then I think it was Malwarebytes released a decryption tool. So if you had been hacked by the gang, you could. Now, remember it isn't reveal itself. That's doing most of them. Ransomware hacking if you will or a placement it's small guys. And that's why some people, including this contractor that apparently worked for the reveal gang itself says, people think that it's the Russian government, that it's Putin, that's doing this. He said, in fact, it's not it's small guys. And people like me are getting four or five hours a night. Because we're working so hard trying to make a whole of this work, come up with the new software approaches. We have to provide code tech support unquote to our affiliates, as well as tech support to the people who have had their computers and their data ransomed. So it a real interesting mix. Absolutely. Interesting mix. Now Christopher Ray here a couple of weeks ago, he's the FBI director told Congress that cool. We make these decisions as a group, not unilaterally. To the FBI and working with other government agencies, these are complex decisions designed to create maximum impact. And that takes time and going against adversaries, where we have to marshal resources, not just around the. But all over the world. So this Russian based gang first appeared in 2019, they've been around, they've been exporting large amounts of money from businesses for a very long time. One of the interest he'd things I think about all of this is that this reveal gang has their software as a service, and they provide it to quote affiliates, quote that, go ahead and then install the software, get you to install it on your computers in order to ransom you a double whammy ransom you, but there's now reports out there that there's a secret back door in the ransomwares code that allow. Rebill to go around their affiliates and steal the proceeds. How's that for hilarious, you've got a bad guy who goes in and gets the software from revolt, pays them a commission, and then reveal apparently has been jumping in on these customer support chats. In other words, you just got nailed and because you got nailed with ransomware, you have to go to. Chat room. And so you go in there and you're getting customer support on how to buy Bitcoin and how to transfer to their wallet. And apparently revival is getting right in the middle and is extorting money from these people directly instead of having the affiliates do it pretty amazing. So here's this part of this interview? It was aired on the Russian news outlet, London. And was trans translated by yeah. Flashpoint. Here are the guys that got the full transcript of the interview. He says in the normal world, I was called a contractor, doing some tasks for many ransomware collectives that journalists considered to be famous. Money is stolen or extorted with my hands, but I'm not ashamed of it. I do. And again, this goes into the thinking of many of these bad guys of Americans are all rich and they don't deserve what they have. He said, let's put it this way. This is a very time consuming job. And if you've earned enough, then you can quit the game. But chronic fatigue, burnout, deadline. All of these words from the life of ordinary office workers are also relevant for malware developers. So there you go. You should feel sorry for these malware developers who are developing software to steal millions from you and. Down our critical infrastructure. Hey, join me online. Craig peterson.com. And if you subscribe to my weekly newsletter right there on the site, I'll send you a few of my special reports. The most popular ones will come to you right there in your email box. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. We all pretty much have some form of insurance. And we're going to talk right now about the types of cyber insurance you may have. Now this might be through your homeowners policy or perhaps a rider on a business policy.  Many of our homeowners policies have started coming with cyber insurance. So we're going to talk about that. What is it? Businesses as well are also using cyber insurance and I'm sure you've heard of insurance basically called LifeLock and what that's all about. So let's kind of start. When we have a breach in a business, usually what happens is information about our customers is stolen. Look at some of the biggest breaches in history where we. Hundreds of millions of our personal records stolen Equifax breach is an example of a huge breach where we had all kinds of personal information that was stolen by the bad guys. Now, some of this information gets stale pretty quickly, but of course, other parts of it like our address, our social security number, they are probably not going to change for years. If for. No, of course our social security number will never change the social security administration. Just doesn't reissue them for very many reasons at all. And they do not reissue a social security number was stolen online because. Just about everybody's has, so what does a company like LifeLock do? They keep an eye on your credit report for you. And they're looking at what's going on new accounts that are open. They look at various other things, just related to that. And they, at that point say, wait a minute, something weird is happening. Now my credit cards, for instance, I have a credit card that if let's say I buy two of the same thing, one after the other and the, both the same price that credit card company pops a message right up on my phone saying, Hey, did you just buy two? Of these $15 things from and I can say yes or no, if I'm out on the road and I am purchasing gas, the credit card can pop up on my phone and it does and say, Hey, will you just trying to buy gas at this gas station? Because what'll happen as you use the credit card at the pump. And the pump says it was denied and then up at pops and yeah. Okay. No, that was me. And they said, okay, we'll try the transaction. Okay. And we'll approve it next time. And that's all automated. And that has nothing to do with LifeLock. LifeLock is there to more or less detect that something happened and if something happened and it was a bad guy and basically your identity was stolen. So they might be trying to buy a Ferrari in your name or maybe a 10 year old, four Ford focus, whatever it might be. And. They will help you try and clean it. That's what they do. So that's why it's cheap. And I don't know that it's terribly useful to you if you're really concerned. Go ahead and do that, but do keep an eye on your credit report. I do as well. My bank has free credit reporting for me, my credit card. Same thing. Free credit reporting that lets me know everything that's going on. So that's an easy way to tell WhatsApp. And there are different types of cyber insurance beyond this sort of thing, beyond the LifeLocks of the world. And many of us just get our cyber insurance through our homeowner's policy. It's a little rider. And businesses can buy cyber insurance as well. We have cyber insurance, that's underwritten by Lloyd's of London and we provide a $500,000 or million-dollar policy to our clients. As well, because that's what we do is cyber security, right? So the idea is if one of our clients gets hit, we have some insurance to back us up, but of course we go a lot further. It's almost like the LifeLock where if you do get hit by ransomware or something else, we will help you get back in business. We'll help restore your data. We'll help you with providing you. The information you need in order to do press releases, which agencies you need to contact, which of your customers you need to contact. And we've got scripts for all of that. So you can send it all out and just take care of it. So the idea is you don't want ransomware. So you hire us. We are extremely likely to keep ransomware out of your systems. And on top of that, if you are hit with ransomware, we restore everything. LifeLock does not do that. Obviously they all, I'll only do stuff after the fact and the cyber insurance you buy from an insurance agency is much the same, and there's a huge caveat with these policies that we're buying for our businesses and for our homes. And that is. They have a checklist at the insurance companies. Did you do this and this? And if you did, then they might payout if you did not, they may not payout. In fact, pay outs on cyber insurance policies are not known because. Bottom line. They really don't payout. Okay. I'm looking at some numbers right now and about paying ransoms and everything else. You may or may not. You got to have a look at it. Many of these policies are never paid out by the cyber insurance covers. They usually just regular insurance companies, but it's a special rider. And what they do is they say, Hey, listen, you did not follow the rules, so we're not going to payout. And there are many cases. If you go online and do a search, just use duck, go and say cyber insurance, payout. Lawsuits I'm doing that right now is. And it'll come up and show. Oh, okay. Does it cover lawsuits? Why are liability claims so costly? Yeah, exactly. A 2% payouts is talking about here. I'm invoicing, the most common cyber insurance claim denial. Yeah, it goes on and on. There are a lot is an act of war clause could nix cyber insurance payouts. That's another big one that they've tried to use. So the cyber insurance company will say, Hey, that was China attacking you. Therefore it was an act of. And you can bet if there is a big hack, they will use that. Think of what happens with the hurricanes coming onshore. How much do they push back on payouts? Especially with the real big one, it would bankrupt them. So we gotta be very careful. There are some different types of  cyber insurance. Policies do which have different types of coverages. You've got the first party lost loss, I should say. So that's you to covering you and your loss, your first-party expenses, third party liability. Each one of those has specific parameters. So sub-limit retention and others. First-party losses are usually including the loss of revenue due to business interruption. First party expenses would include all of the services and resources that you needed to use to recover from attack like forensic or system rebuilding services. These third-party liabilities. May cover expenses and legal fees related to potential damage caused by the incident to third parties like partners, customers, or employees whose sensitive information may have been compromised. So read them carefully. Be very careful. There are next-generation, cyber insurance policies are going even further and make these types of services. Prior to any incident to reduce exposures and prevent incidents in the first place. Now we don't provide insurance. We are not an insurance company, but that's basically what we're trying to do here. Not become an insurance company, but to make sure. The businesses have the right services so that the likelihood of anything happening or is extremely low. And then following up after the fact it's different obviously than insurers in and insurance, the guardians, Jessica Crispin had a great article about a couple of weeks ago that I've been hanging on. And it's talking about this tattle where that's been incorporated into the computers we're using at home. Now we're specifically talking about employers that are putting this. The software on computers, they belong to the companies. A lot of businesses are worried. If workers are at home or where we can't see them, how do we know that they're actually working, not watching Netflix or something else on. They have, of course, come up with software that can reassure your boss. It does things like take snapshots of what you're doing. Record your keystrokes grabs photos from. Picture from your camera. There's a new program called sneak, which makes your webcam take a photo of you about once a minute and makes available to the supervisor to prove you're not away from your desk. There's no warning in advance. It just takes that photograph catches your doom. Pretty much anything can be absolutely anything. Then, it's the type of thing you'd expect the national security agency to do. So there are some good reasons for this lack of trust because sometimes employees have not been doi

UFO documentaries, besides being informative and entertaining, also serve to preserve UFO history for future researchers. However, one documentary, “UFOs: It Has Begun.” has itself become a part of UFO history. One of its producers has claimed that the U.S. Department of Defense offered him and his partner the use of some film footage taken by the Air Force at Holloman Air Force Base. According to him, it showed a UFO landing and a meeting between its occupants and Air Force officials, and it was going to be the finale of the documentary until the DoD withdrew the offer at the last minute.The movie was originally released in 1974 as “UFOs: Past Present and Future.” It was written primarily by Robert Emenegger, who also produced it along with Allan Sandler. It has Rod Serling as its main narrator, and there are appearances by Burgess Meredith, Jose Ferrer, Jaques Vallée. and J. Allen Hynek. In 1976 and 1979 it was re-released under its new title.The story of the film's beginning is as follows: Emenegger and Sandler had originally set out to produce a series of films about advanced military technology but were diverted by an intriguing piece of information offered by their military contact, Paul Shartle, with whom they were working at Norton Air Force Base. Shartle, Security Manager and Chief of Requirements for the Audio-Visual Program at the base, said he had seen a film of an alien craft landing at Holloman AFB three years previous. As discussions about possible projects continued, the idea that one of them be about UFOs came up and was encouraged by military officials who offered the producers the use of the footage. Emenegger and Sandler decided to go ahead with a UFO documentary, and the film was made.Read more →

Technology has come a long way, yet has miles to go. While the 2010s saw the growth of social media and mobile internet, the next phase is that of Deep Tech. Deep Tech, unlike General Tech or High Tech, is not out there pursuing a need to fulfill but is going after a vision to awaken customers to a need that they did not know exists and then, delights them with the solution. Watch out for this space and the use cases of dual-use deep tech. What's dual-use? Tune in to find out!

Discussion topic for 107 - What is a commander? 10 USC § 8583 says:“All commanding officers and others in authority in the Air Force are required:(1) to show in themselves a good example of virtue, honor, patriotism, and subordination;”GEN Milley provided an example that helps to demonstrate the idea of subordination in a commander. When questioned by Senator Cotton about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and why he didn't resign over the President's decision to not leave a small footprint, GEN Milley replied: “It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken. . . . This country doesn't want generals figuring out what orders we're going to accept and do or not. That's not our job.”Does the country want generals, commanders, and others in authority figuring out what orders they're going to accept and do or not? Why or why not?Email your questions and comments to airforceofficerpodcast@gmail.com. Join the discussion about the podcast, the Air Force, officership, and the Profession of Arms at https://www.airforceofficerpodcast.com/.Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AirForceOfficerPodcast/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/airforceofficerpodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/afofficerpodReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/afofficerpodShare your officer stories of all flavors using #shootthewatch.The views expressed are those of the hosts and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the US Government. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Michael Herson, President and CEO, American Defense International, Dr Gordon Adams, the senior White House budget official for national security during the Clinton administration who is now a distinguished fellow at the Quincy Institute and the Stimson Center as well as an American University professor emeritus, and Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute. Topics — Outlook for federal budget and NDAA as lawmakers strike stopgap deal through Dec. 3 to avert government shutdown — Defense spending implications of bipartisan infrastructure deal and Democratic $3.5 trillion spending package — Beijing's sharp rhetoric against Australia, Japan, Philippines and Taiwan as Washington focuses on domestic issues — Whether China becomes more dangerous as Xi Jinping's economic policies and “wolf warrior” diplomacy undermine continued economic growth — Senate and House Afghanistan hearings and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley's defense of his conversations with his Chinese counterpart in the wake of the 2020 election — What to expect from new Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the upcoming German government expected to be led Olaf Schultz — Rising tensions between Azerbaijan and Turkey and Iran over access to Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh — US Army's decision to reject RAFAEL's combat proven Iron Dome system for Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 in favor of AIM-9X Sidewinder based approach by Dynetics and Raytheon

Jennifer McArdle is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a Product Strategist at Improbable LLC, an emerging global leader in distributed simulation technology for military planning, training, and decision support. Her research focuses on military innovation, readiness, and synthetic training. She currently serves as an expert member of a NATO technical working group that is developing cyber effects for the military alliance’s mission and campaign simulations. Her work has been featured in Real Clear World, The Cyber Defense Review, National Defense Magazine, and War on the Rocks, among others. Ms. McArdle previously served as an Assistant Professor of Cyber Defense at Salve Regina University, where she lectured on the relationship between national security and disruptive technologies. In our interview with Ms. McArdle, we discuss the future of the Synthetic Training Environment, flexibility and scalability in training systems, and the critical need for a new agile approach to training that can keep pace with the dynamic character of warfare. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview: Synthetic training will be instrumental in providing the next generation of Soldiers with the tools they need to succeed in a new era of warfare. The adoption of synthetic training and simulation will empower realistic individual and collective multi-echelon and multi-domain training and mission rehearsal, advanced wargaming, and enhanced decision-making. The New American Way of Training Initiative at CNAS examines how the military will be required to train and fight in the future, using the Cold War as a model. During the Cold War, intense tension and sporadic ‘hot’ proxy conflicts spurred a series of innovations that required radical changes to military training and organization. This new CNAS initiative will help ensure that our future individual and collective training programs meet the needs of our warfighters, today and in the future. The DoD should focus on developing modular synthetic training architectures, enabling it to adapt training and simulations more readily as warfare evolves. This method differs from current synthetic simulators, which are monolithic in nature (i.e., large, complicated, and un-editable platforms). Modular training simulations will give future Soldiers ‘degradation dominance,’ or the ability to maintain high levels of performance under duress. The DoD should require modular components of training platforms in future acquisition contracts. Such contracts will also reduce cost for the DoD, as updating platforms will require less overhaul than monolithic platforms. Synthetic training is particularly important for success in

A mesmerizing mix of Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and Philip K. Dick, Chameleo is a true account of what happened in a seedy Southern California town when an enthusiastic and unrepentant heroin addict named Dion Fuller sheltered a U.S. Marine who'd stolen night vision goggles and perhaps a few top secret files from a nearby military base. Dion found himself arrested (under the ostensible auspices of The Patriot Act) for conspiring with international terrorists to smuggle Top Secret military equipment out of Camp Pendleton. The fact that Dion had absolutely nothing to do with international terrorists, smuggling, Top Secret military equipment, or Camp Pendleton didn't seem to bother the military. He was released from jail after a six-day-long Abu-Ghraib-style interrogation. Subsequently, he believed himself under intense government scrutiny — and, he suspected, the subject of bizarre experimentation involving “cloaking”— electro-optical camouflage so extreme it renders observers practically invisible from a distance of some meters — by the Department of Homeland Security. Hallucination? Perhaps — except Robert Guffey, an English teacher and Dion's friend, tracked down and interviewed one of the scientists behind the project codenamed “Chameleo,” experimental technology which appears to have been stolen by the U.S. Department of Defense and deployed on American soil. More shocking still, Guffey discovered that the DoD has been experimenting with its newest technologies on a number of American citizens. A condensed version of this story was the cover feature of Fortean Times Magazine (September 2013).

A mesmerizing mix of Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and Philip K. Dick, Chameleo is a true account of what happened in a seedy Southern California town when an enthusiastic and unrepentant heroin addict named Dion Fuller sheltered a U.S. Marine who'd stolen night vision goggles and perhaps a few top secret files from a nearby military base.Dion found himself arrested (under the ostensible auspices of The Patriot Act) for conspiring with international terrorists to smuggle Top Secret military equipment out of Camp Pendleton. The fact that Dion had absolutely nothing to do with international terrorists, smuggling, Top Secret military equipment, or Camp Pendleton didn't seem to bother the military. He was released from jail after a six-day-long Abu-Ghraib-style interrogation. Subsequently, he believed himself under intense government scrutiny — and, he suspected, the subject of bizarre experimentation involving “cloaking”— electro-optical camouflage so extreme it renders observers practically invisible from a distance of some meters — by the Department of Homeland Security. Hallucination? Perhaps — except Robert Guffey, an English teacher and Dion's friend, tracked down and interviewed one of the scientists behind the project codenamed “Chameleo,” experimental technology which appears to have been stolen by the U.S. Department of Defense and deployed on American soil. More shocking still, Guffey discovered that the DoD has been experimenting with its newest technologies on a number of American citizens.A condensed version of this story was the cover feature of Fortean Times Magazine (September 2013).

How are you leveraging the skill of magnification around your VALUE delivery inside of your business, life, and career? In this episode, we unpackage one mindset hack to creating unlimited fire support in your pursuit of forwarding your goals post-military.  Show Sponsor: Are you ready to be unstoppable in achieving your goals in life post-military? Check out how I did it here: https://www.tenstepstosuccessbook.com/ 

In this episode, podcast host Ken Miller sits with Dr. William Conley, Chief Technology Officer at Mercury Systems. Microelectronics hold significant importance to EMSO as it represents the technology backbone of spectrum operations. Ken and Dr. Conley discuss the dynamic ecosystem of the world we live in and the recent changes in the microelectronics supply chain. There is a significant dependency on microelectronics technology and DOD requirement for state-of-the-art microelectronics for the future fight. Dr. Conley explains that the point for DOD is not to make any significant sweeping changes but instead, bring in specialists and system architects that can go through and implement designs in less time. Part of balancing approaches includes investing in innovation, subsidies, and other direct funding to support the ecosystem. Private sector collaborations and policy implementations have a direct impact on the supply chain as well. Lastly, Ken and Dr. Conley discuss the nuances that can lead to ineffective solutions and security vulnerabilities and the implementation of “zero trust” approach to enable the acquisition of assured electronics from untrusted components.To learn more about today's topics or stay updated on the EMSO community, visit our website.Thank you to our episode sponsor, Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Alas, now an ancient prophesy has been fulfilled… Telemus said all these things would come to pass someday. — Homer's Odyssey During this episode, the Honorable Dr. Mike Vickers provides his thoughts on a wide range of strategic issues--all of which have connections with the information environment. Mike makes the case that America is like the cyclops in Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. Like the cyclops, the United States is being blinded and deceived by clever adversaries. Mike also discusses China, India, Estonian technology implementation, the authoritarian-democracy trade off, and international relations theory. He also gives a nuanced examination regarding "whole-of-nation" sloganeering. On one hand, Mike discourages simple phrases that might promote inadequate solutions; on the other, he does agree that we are at a point where we need to cohere around a national strategy and direct our instruments of power productively--including our citizenry. Resources: Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned #53 Watts on Domestic Extremism Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran and the Rise of Irregular Warfare by Seth Jones Telemus Group In-Q-Tel Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) Link to full show notes and resources https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-63 Guest Bio:  Dr. Michael G. Vickers is career as a special operator, CIA operations officer, national security policy maker and Intelligence Community leader spanned the last two decades of the Cold War through a decade and a half of our war with al-Qa'ida, its allies and its offshoots – service that saw unprecedented senior tenure across Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently, from 2011 to 2015, Dr. Vickers served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, exercising authority, direction and control over the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Security Service, and the intelligence components of the Military Services and Combatant Commands. As the USD(I), he conceived and led a comprehensive transformation of defense intelligence capabilities, encompassing the signals intelligence system and overhead space architecture, penetrating and persistent remotely piloted aircraft, the Department's strategic human intelligence posture, its corps of all-source analysts, and its cyber operations forces. From 2007 to 2011, he served as the first and only Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities. As the ASD SO/LIC&IC, Dr. Vickers was the “Service” Secretary for all Special Operations Forces, and had policy oversight of all of DoD's operational capabilities – strategic forces (nuclear forces, missile defense, space, cyber), conventional force transformation (air, ground and maritime), and Special Operations Forces. He conceived and led the largest expansion of Special Operations Forces in our nation's history, and oversaw several other major capability investments ranging from next generation long-range strike to undersea warfare to deter future great power war. Throughout his nearly decade-long service as a national security policy maker and Intelligence Community leader, Dr. Vickers was heavily involved in operations. He was a key operational strategist for the campaign to dismantle and defeat core al-Qa'ida, and played a major policy and planning role in the operation that killed Usama bin Ladin. He oversaw counterterrorism operations in multiple countries and a wide range of other operations, from the surge of forces in Afghanistan to sensitive intelligence collection operations, paramilitary support to opposition forces battling despotic regimes, operations against rogue state nuclear weapons and missile programs, and operations against drug cartels. During the nearly decade and a half that spanned the operational phase of his career, he served as a Special Forces weapons and engineer sergeant, as the commander of a classified counterterrorism unit, and as CIA operations officer.  As a Special Forces solider and officer, he was trained to parachute behind Soviet lines with a “backpack” nuclear weapon, and led hostage rescue operations and sensitive intelligence collection operations. As a CIA officer, he played key roles in the invasion of Grenada, the US government's operational response to the Beirut bombings, and the covert effort to drive the Red Army out of Afghanistan. As the principal strategist for the multi-billion dollar Afghanistan covert action program – the largest and most successful covert action program in CIA's history – Dr. Vickers developed the winning strategy when very few thought it was possible to win. His contributions to the first war the Red Army had ever lost and US victory in the Cold War were chronicled in the film and New York Times best seller, Charlie Wilson's War. Dr. Vickers has received the nation's highest awards in the fields of intelligence and defense, including the Presidential National Security Medal and the OSS Society's William J. Donovan Award.  He holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from the University of Alabama.  He has written a memoir of his career, to be published by Knopf Penguin Random House in 2022.  He currently serves as an Executive Vice President at In-Q-Tel, a Principal with the Telemus Group, a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and on several corporate, non-profit and government boards. About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn. Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Identity has become perhaps the key political term of our age, but how and why did identity politics rise to...

On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Michael Herson, President and CEO, American Defense International, Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO who is now with the Center for a New American Security, Byron Callan of the independent Washington research firm Capital Alpha partners and Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute. Topics: — Update on reconcilliation, debt ceiling, infrastructure and NDAA — Whether defense spending might become a casualty as debt collides with infrastructure and spending plans — Democrat's self-inflicted wound over move to block funding for Israel's Iron Dome system — Biden's UN address, Quad meeting and bilateral discussions with UK and Australia in the wake of the three-nation strategic partnership — How Beijing is responding to the deal that will furnish Canberra with nuclear attack submarines — Transatlantic links in wake of call between Biden and Macron to discuss AUKUS deal as EU calls for higher spending and more strategic autonomy — Takeaways from the Air Force Association's annual Air Space Cyber conference and tradeshow — What's next in Tokyo as Yoshihide Suga prepares to step down as prime minister

Josh Wolfe is the founder of Lux Capital a venture fund investing in emerging science and technology companies. Josh is one of the most talented multi-disciplinary investors in the market and this conversation covers nuclear energy, space, the intersection of biology and computing, his work with the DoD, and how he started Lux Capital. Enjoy!

Learn more about https://siro.ai/Sign up for www.solciety.co! Speaker 1 (00:03):Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.Speaker 2 (00:42):What's going on. Solarpreneurs Taylor Armstrong here back with another fabulous episode. We've got a great guest here on today. We, um, always love to feature new products. New software we're finding out about here is Solarpreneurs. So I've got one that I'm stoked for you guys to hear about, and he's going to tell us all about it and kind of his background with everything. So we've got Mr. Joe Jordan on the show junkie, Joe. Thanks for coming on with us today.Speaker 3 (01:08):Taylor it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.Speaker 2 (01:11):Yeah, for sure, man. And, um, I was telling you before we kind of made the connection. I usually just pretty much delete people's messages. They send me, um, if, if I, you know, feel like they're trying to pitch me something and I'm like, oh whatever, but when you, when you messages me, it actually caught my attention. I'm like, wow, I've never heard like a product like this. So this actually might be worth hearing out. And so sure enough, I heard them out and pretty frequent awesome where you guys are doing with the product. So, uh, before we get into it, do you want us to kind of give people, uh, Jen, uh, I guess just a general overview of what your company is and what the product is that you guys do. And then obviously we'll get into a lot more detail here in a little bit.Speaker 3 (01:52):Sure. So Siro is a sales coaching platform for field sales and door to door sales teams. So how zero works reps record all their conversations with customers through CRM and they'll surface to you their most coachable moments from their conversations that day. And at the end of the day in between your own doors at lunch, whatever it might be for you as a sales leader, you can jump into each moment and respond to them with a role play or piece of advice as easily as you might respond to a text message. Okay.Speaker 2 (02:25):Yeah, super awesome. And I had never really, I mean, I'm sure most people listen to this podcast. I think most of us have just recorded ourselves on like voice memos or some type of recording app. But, um, once Joe showed me on all the features, which we'll get into in more depth here in a little bit, um, it just made it so much easier to, you know, get transcriptions that are recording, help your team out. And yeah, just so much more streamlined than trying to do this on a voice recording app and, you know, listen back to it. So, uh, cool. Anyways, that's what the is, that's what the Siro software is. And so before we get into that, Joe, do you want to kind of walk us through your background, just like cells in general and the queen here, um, kind of your background in that whole, in the whole industry?Speaker 3 (03:14):Yeah, I'd love to. So my, my story and sales starts my freshmen summer in college. I got a letter in the mail to sell Cutco knives for vector marketing, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it sounded like something that would look better on my resume than camp counselor. So, uh, I tried it, I ended up really liking it and being pretty good at it. Um, my after my first summer, I was the only student asked to come run the division headquarters as a sales manager of the following campaign. And we started with one sales rep at the beginning of the summer and ended up hiring over 180 throughout the course of the summer and being one of the top, top offices in the company that year. And it was an amazing experience. I learned so much from that, which I'm happy to talk more about.Speaker 3 (04:04):Um, and then next up for me as I finished up college, I wanted to get really good at building things, creating products. So I did a stint in software engineering and Amazon over on the Alexa team. So, you know, Michael, my, you know, Alexa wake me up to Michael Jackson. That was us. And, uh, when I, when I graduated college, I teamed up with my partner, Jake Ronan, who also got started in Cutco, spent two years at McKinsey. And, uh, we both quit, our jobs, started working on this thing and we've been doing that for about the past year or so. And then, Hey,Speaker 2 (04:37):Love it. That's cool. Did you guys know each other in Cutco then, or you just kind of made that connection after we met each other?Speaker 3 (04:44):So it's actually a really funny story. Uh, we didn't know each other while we were at Cutco, but we were both building separate competing apps for Cutco sales reps to make phone calls through, uh, without sort of knowing about each other. And Jake saw me on the app store, saw my app reached out to me, asked if I wanted to work together and, uh, working with Jake ended up being the best decision, uh, by far that I've made so far in my, in my young business career has been an awesome partner and we've done some, some really great things together. Yeah.Speaker 2 (05:19):That's awesome. Well, that's cool. And yeah. What makes it even cores? You guys have the Cutco background because, um, I think that makes, for me that makes a lot more powerful that you guys have been in sales. You know, what people kind of struggle with. And, um, all of the sales concepts is pretty similar across, you know, all industries. So it makes it a really powerful as you guys are, um, you know, trying to get your product launched and in, in the hands of more sales teams, which is awesome. But yeah, I wanted to hear a little bit about, more about your cook co background, Joe. Um, you guys got my mad respect just because to me that sounds like a, I don't know, like a tough product to sell. Maybe you tell me, but, um, like Caicos it pretty, pretty rough start, or how has it just like getting started in Cutco?Speaker 3 (06:07):Yeah. Uh, it was an awesome introduction to sales. Um, once you get in the home, uh, doing the demo, the product actually does a pretty decent job of, of selling itself. Um, the toughest part is actually booking the appointments over the phone and that's probably what is the most similar to the door to door experience. And because of that, we've seen a lot of people graduate from Costco into door to door and do really well. Um, and the biggest things that that I learned from from Cutco, um, the first thing was just that personal growth is not just a means to other ends. Um, it's an end in itself and it's one of the most noble ends. There is, um, it was a really growth focused culture. And I think all of direct sales, including DOD is very focused on, on growth as well. And it's one of the most rewarding things that you can focus on for yourself.Speaker 3 (07:04):Um, and at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn here. Um, you know, I, I graduated from Wharton, um, which is the best business school in the world, but I would trade, um, the Wharton experience for the Cutco experience. If someone made me the two things I learned at, at Costco that I would not have been able to learn anywhere else where risk tolerance and rejection tolerance, and those two things are not optional. Those are requirements. If you want to go out and start your own business. And I think the lack of those two attributes are the number one thing, holding Americans back in today's economy.Speaker 2 (07:46):Yeah, no, I agree. A hundred percent. And that's interesting. So your Cutco, was it door to door to, or was it mostly just like phone setting appointments and going to homes?Speaker 3 (07:56):Yeah, it was mostly setting appointments over the phone and then doing the appointments. And, um, once I'd set them up, I don't tell my manager, we're not supposed to do this, but I did go door to door a little bit in one of those pushes because I was running well on weeds and then wanted to try something new. Um, as one might expect my first time out there, I wasn't too hot, but the push ended up going, going well for me. SoSpeaker 2 (08:20):That's cool. So they like to encourage you to not go door to door, then they pretty much told me, you know, don't go door to door, just focus on the phone.Speaker 3 (08:28):Yeah. You start out with, with people, you know, that you practice with, you call them book appointments, and then at each appointment, um, you know, you ask for referrals and then sort of call those guys. Yeah.Speaker 2 (08:40):Okay. Gotcha. Now what's really cool. Cause I've heard a few people that have that background that are now in the solar industry and are crushing it now. And, um, a lot of things they learned from Cutco, they're applying to their solar cells and I know it's helping them a ton. Matter of fact, we had a guest on his name was Matt Crowder. I don't know if you'd know him, but, uh, he sold Cutco for, I think years too. And he just said the biggest thing for him is the like referral principles and Cutco. Cause he was just talking about how in every Cutco presentation, the next thing you had to do was just pretty much go through their whole list of contacts and say, all right, let's see what they could, could they possibly bike at the end, just help the customer get you referrals and really incentivize them for that. So he's getting just mountains of referrals now in solar. And I think it's just cause that Cutco journey, cause he knew that every single Cutco presentation he was walking out with referrals. So yeah. Tell me about, is that, would you agree with that? Was it pretty focused on referrals? And do you want to tell us a little bit about your referral process when you were in Cutco?Speaker 3 (09:41):Yeah, sure thing. Um, it's definitely very heavily focused on referrals because the number one thing you need as a sales rep to keep your business going is referrals. Like I'd rather have an appointment where it's a no sell, but I got 10 referrals then an appointment where I sell a $1,200 set and get zero referrals. Um, and we let people know that that the best way to prep people for referrals upfront is to get them tied into your personal story. So the most important thing that I've role play with reps, um, ad Cutco is their goal sharing at the beginning of the presentation. And so, um, before I have my reps dive into their conversations, I have them say by the way, um, before we dive into this, do you mind if I share my goals with you? And after that we let the rep authentically tell their story and share why they're in this business, why they're excited about the product, why they're sitting down in front of you and what I'm working on and how you can help me towards that.Speaker 3 (10:43):And once you get someone tied into you like that, when you make a friend before you make a sale, um, and they feel like they want to help you, that's the, that's the first step to opening the door to having them give you referrals. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing you want to do is just name drop. Um, as you go, uh, people that referred you on the way to that person and it's like, Hey, by the way, but so-and-so loved about it was this with so-and-so loved about the presentation was that, um, and sort of get them feeling like everyone gives a ton of referrals. And then the last neat trick that I saw, a lot of people do at, at Cutco is when they're asking for referrals, um, they'll take a binder with everyone's referrals that they wrote down on them.Speaker 3 (11:25):They're if you collect them like on a phone or using red card or something like that, just go back in and write them down on a piece of paper afterwards. And when you open the binder to get their referrals, just flip through a bunch of pages, full of names before you get to that one page that's empty. Um, and you can sort of make a show that like, oh, I can't find like a, like an open one, wait a second. Oh, here we go. Um, and, and that, those are the sort of the, the big three tips on referrals there. Yeah.Speaker 2 (11:54):That's awesome. No, I like that. And I like the personal story. That's something my Catherine really chaired before signing. That's cool. And so for like personal story, are you talking more like kind of their business goals? Or can you give us an example for what you mean by like say I'm telling you my personal story. What would your story be? When were you when you were open in these presentations?Speaker 3 (12:14):Sure. So how to put myself in the Headspace of a 19 year old Joe here, um, it was something like, you know, I got a letter in the mail for this job and I thought it seemed kind of weird, like selling knives, but I ended up really loving this thing because as an athlete, my favorite thing about this is the harder I work and the better I get, the more money, the more money I earned, but more importantly, the more things I learned and I want to run my own business someday. And when I love about this is it teaches me how to face rejection. Um, it teaches me how to make sales, which is something that's super important, um, everywhere else and there's opportunities to advance. So my biggest goal with you here today is that you like me, you want to recommend me to your friends and you'd recommend me for the promotion I have coming up. And in order to hit it, my goal was to get to $10,000 in sales by the end of the week, right now I'm at 5,000. Um, you don't have to buy the other 5,000 just to help me out by the way Mrs. Jones, if you do, that would be great. Um, but really I'm just here to, to, to, to work on my goals and make sure we're friends by the end of this presentation,Speaker 2 (13:27):Um, that's fire. I love that. It's cool. Cause you're getting them emotionally bought in and I'm sure they taught you this all the time, but you know, people buy with their emotion, then they're justifying it with the logic. So I think, especially in solar, we get caught up more in the logic piece of it, just because solar is so logical for people. It's like, look, you're paying 200 bucks a month right now. You're only gonna pay one 60 with solar. And then so many times, especially a newer reps, that's all they focus on. Um, but then they get cancels. They get people shopping out and everything. But I think that's the important thing that, especially in solar, we forget about if you can get these people bought in emotionally and then kind of bought into your cause that, oh, you're, um, we're trying to get to more, you know, this week or whatever.Speaker 2 (14:08):I liked that line a lot and people are a lot more willing to help you out and want to see you succeed and then obviously get more referrals from it too. So that's awesome. I'm definitely something I'm going to play with that. So, uh, yeah. Personal story, make the friend and then name drop as you go. And then yeah, I remember my, my buddy Matt Crowder that was on the podcast. He said a similar thing with the name list where he would just, you know, have a sheet all filled in and then he would just pass in the sheet and it wasn't even like an option really. He just said, okay. So yeah, what we do with everyone is we just help you get like, um, at least 10 people that could potentially benefit from our product. And so I'll help you. And then he would basically just have them go through their contacts and get they'll send people not limited to den. So, uh, yeah, that's been actually helping me a ton with referrals and slower as well. Um, but yeah, that's awesome. And then anything else? Um, how long, how long did you do Cutco for, by the way, Joe?Speaker 3 (15:06):Sure. So I was a sales rep for about a year and a half and then a sales manager for a campaign and a half.Speaker 2 (15:14):Okay. What does a campaign, what does that mean?Speaker 3 (15:17):Also a campaign is a third of the year, so there's the spring campaign, the fall campaign in the summer campaign. Um, gotcha.Speaker 2 (15:25):Cool. Okay. And so after Cutco, that's, when you went and did the whole business school thing and gotten the software stuff after thatSpeaker 3 (15:32):That's right. Yeah. I was sort of doing the business school and Cutco in parallel. Uh, I was in both the engineering school and the Wharton school at Penn. So, um, I was sort of getting the business and the technical side and the sales side all at the same time. So it was really a whirlwind of, of learning. Um, and my last summer going towards the end of college was when I did that software engineering stint at an Amazon, got a chance to write some real production code for a company that has some of the best engineering practices out there.Speaker 2 (16:04):Wow. That's incredible. That's awesome. Um, so I'm curious to know at Cutco we're like, role-plays a huge same as your in Cutco is. And would you say that contributed you to you like eventually making Siro and everything? Um, tell me about thatSpeaker 3 (16:20):For sure. Um, so I was driven to start Siro by two feelings that I had while I Cutco the first was just an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the amazing experience that I got while I was there. I would not be where I am without my cocktail experience. There's no way I could have started this thing. And the second feeling was just frustration that I couldn't replicate that experience for the people I was responsible for coaching. I had a ton of people that I was working with who were perfectly capable of creating awesome experiences, having the success I had, but their results weren't meeting their expectations. And I didn't have the time to help them. And even when I could set aside like an hour to sit down with them and figure out what was going wrong, um, it was really difficult to make that time productive because someone can tell me what's going wrong, but usually they're not right about it.Speaker 3 (17:18):And sometimes reps, aren't totally honest with you about what's going wrong and it's not because they're trying to deceive you. Like when you're struggling, the first person you lie to is yourself. And, you know, we might role play, but the way they role play is not going to be the way they role play with the customer. They might say they're having trouble handling this objection, but really the problems earlier in the conversation because it didn't gain the customer's trust. So I just thought, how awesome would it be if I could be a fly on the wall in these conversation and just listened to your last three or four referral approaches and see why you're not getting referrals, you know, listen to how you're sharing your goals. So I know why you're not getting the customer on your side. And, um, that that's sort of where the idea for this thing came from just the ability not to jump in and listen to an end tire hour long breezing and listen to the stuff that I knew reps were struggling with and leave them some feedback on a, on a situation they actually had. Hm.Speaker 2 (18:11):Yeah. That's cool. And when you were at Cutco where you guys kind of doing this whole same old school stuff of district coordinator on your phones and doing that, or did you have any like similar thing at Costco where you guys recorded yourselves?Speaker 3 (18:25):Yeah, so we, we tried it, um, a couple of times, but the problem was, it was difficult to do at scale because of how long these conversations were, you know, waiting through a voice memo, even getting a rep to send you a voice memo. Once they recorded actually turns out to be a pretty big problem. Um, and not knowing when they actually had their appointments and when they missed her record. So it was difficult to do as an office system. And so we only ended up using it sparingly. Um,Speaker 2 (18:58):Yeah, no, it makes sense. And that's pretty much the same that I've seen on solar sales seems to, it's just like, um, I don't know, sales reps just think it's a hassle. They don't want to get their phones out. They forget. And then they, after Korea, like 10 times before they get one, that's like an actual conversation, things like that. So it is a big ask and pretty much the only way we've gotten our teams to do it in the past is just like incentivizing say, Hey, if you guys record this day, we'll give you like 30 bucks just for recording. That's all you need to do. And even that sometimes like pulling teeth to get reps, to actually go out and do this just because if it is, you know, kind of a hassle and it is something they have to remember and, um, put forth effort to do.Speaker 2 (19:40):So I think that's a big key that you guys have. Um, I mean, you still got to put forth that effort with Siro and we'll talk about that more, but I think it just makes a lot easier and a lot more streamlined, so there's way less hassle. And then the rep doesn't have to remember to send you their reporting. It just gets sent to the manager automatically, things like that. Um, but yeah. So tell, um, you wanna tell us a little bit more about like how it first got started then, and then why you guys decided to like focus on the door to door industry and specific for your software, Joe?Speaker 3 (20:12):Sure. So we, we were always excited, uh, about door to door. Uh, from the very beginning we were talking to guys that at Vivint and other companies in the space, and we knew it was time to double down and focus mainly on door to door, especially solar. Um, after talking with Conner Ruggio they had decided at Aptive they were willing to pay just to try this thing based on the designs we had, we hadn't even built anything written, a single line of code. And he was like, yeah, this thing is awesome. We want to try this. And that's when we knew it's time to focus the door to door space. And so we launched a pilot with Aptive this past summer. Um, and since then we've gotten 40,000 sales conversations in the system. We have over 1300 reps who have used this thing and over 4,000 coaching comments have been sent through the system. Um, and that's just in the past couple of months here.Speaker 2 (21:07):Yeah. That's incredible. How did you guys first make the connection with it? You said his name was Conner from AptiveSpeaker 3 (21:13):Conner Ruggio. Uh, one of the presidents of sales over there. We reached out to him over LinkedIn. Um, it turns out Jake and I are pretty good at getting people to read our messages, even though a lot of people get gets fan. Um, so that's how we made the connection.Speaker 2 (21:28):Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. And no, I mean, that's all it takes too is, um, I mean, we're going through a similar thing actually, right now I've told you a little bit, but we've watched her Solciety, um, kind of training platform. So we're going through a similar thing, just trying to get that big domino and get people to start using it because once people see the benefits and you have some case studies and be like, look, look what the results they got helps a ton. Um, so yeah. Do you want, do you have any like stouts on results that, uh, and any like huge improvements that you saw from people Aptive or did they tell you, like, I don't know, some cool stats that you have to report from people that have been using it so far?Speaker 3 (22:05):Sure, sure. Um, so the biggest thing that people are loving about it so far is the time savings for sales leaders. We have guys who are saying, they went from spending 20 hours shadowing to spending two hours in Siro in a week, getting a certain amount of coaching value. Um, my favorite example is Logan Porter. He's a team lead over at Aptive. Um, he said that since they started using Siro faithfully, he saw the progression of this rookies pitches and sales increase exponentially. And when you look at the number of accounts sold per day, uh, for these reps, you can predict, uh, almost exactly what day they sought a recording and Siro because their accounts like double or triple, and he loved that. But his favorite part about it was how much time it gave him back. You know, a lot of us who are, who are coaching in this industry also have our own sales to make. And it's really difficult when you feel like you have to make a choice between [inaudible].Speaker 3 (23:07):And so, as an example, Logan, the week two of last summer, so the 11 accounts personally, and that's because he was doing a bunch of shadowing this summer after a couple of initial shadows, he was mostly coaching through Siro and he was able to sell 26 accounts personally that week. So almost doubling his personal sales, just because of those time savings there. Um, now obviously pest control pitches are much shorter than like a solar closing conversation. They might be anywhere from 10, 15 or 20 minutes, but why a Janet led like a hundred reps underneath them as a regional, got to the point where he could listen to 20 pitches in 12 minutes.Speaker 2 (23:49):Wow. That's so cool. And yeah, I mean, it's funny, cause it sounds like it's almost more beneficial probably to like the managers than it is, you know, like the new reps. Cause obviously it goes both ways, but like all the time-saving aspect of it and like you're mentioning the ability to be able to focus way more on yourselves and having to go out to people's areas, do more shadowing and uh, yeah, I mean, Joe, even, so we started using, it means, um, one of our coaching clients here over at, uh, that Solciety, we started using it. And um, could you not, I had been bugging my coaching client, his name's man I'd been bugging him for probably two and a half weeks and like, Hey man, send me a recording. Let's just do like a, you know, door approach analysis. Let's see if there's anything we can focus on, help you out and does the same old story like, oh Taylor, I forgot.Speaker 2 (24:44):Oh Taylor, I didn't get any good recordings today. Oh, Taylor, um, my phone deleted it, like all this same stuff you hear from reps over and over. And then right when we got Siro hooked up for both of us is like, you know, the next hour we are already lined up and I was already able to give them feedback. And I know he's seen, you know, improvements quickly now just because, you know, it's way better system set up. So yeah. Um, I think that's the main thing is just the time saving aspect and then being able to focus, especially I can imagine if you're leading a huge team, like I was getting overwhelmed, just trying to do this and bug one person to send it to me. So I can't even imagine time-saving with like you leading a team of like 20, 30 reps and then trying to bug them all to send and recording.Speaker 2 (25:27):So I think that's huge. Um, but no, that's cool. And so, yeah. Do you want to tell, like maybe just give us a walkthrough more and we can dig a little bit more into the features and then, um, tell us, I dunno, how, how they've been helped for any, uh, I guess any more takeaways from the features. So I guess first of all, records people on the app. So I don't know, maybe give us like, I guess sell us on serial here. If you're trying to get like a new client, tell us what the features are and how it's beneficial to the teams. You don't mind.Speaker 3 (26:00):Um, so again, sort of the one sentence overview is zero keeps your reps learning by recording all their conversations and servicing to you the most coachable moments. So you can dive into each one and respond to them like you would a text message. And so what that looks like for, for guys on the doors, they'll record right through Sera, either on their iPhone, their Android, or their tablet, any mobile device. And when they're done with the conversation, they can optionally send a moment from it to their coach. So wherever they felt like they were struggling, um, and it'll go to the coaches inbox. And as a coach, I can go through this inbox, choose which ones I want to dive into based on the, of like what the rep needs help with. And once I open it up, it might be a 10 minute recording, a 15 minute recording, a 60 minute recording.Speaker 3 (26:51):Obviously I don't have time to listen to a ton of these. So what I want to do is get to the point where the rep needs the most help, give them that feedback and move on to the next conversation. And that's helpful because it saves time for me, but B because a rep can only get one or two takeaways and actually implement them at one time. Anyway. So when you're spending like an hour diving deep on a reps conversation, a lot of that hour is wasted because they're only going to be able to take away a small portion of those things. So as an example, and this was super common for me, I'm sure it's common for you guys. Um, imagine you have a rep who the customer is asking questions that are demonstrating they're, they're interested and they're asking questions. And the rep is just busy entering the questions, losing control of the conversation and they don't set the appointment.Speaker 3 (27:42):Um, so if a rep flag that for me, uh, they flag setting the appointment. I could jump in and listen to them. Um, as they're struggling to handle this, this customer's questions and the moment I hear him starting to lose the conversation, I can hit audio comment and record how they might've role-played it better. So I say, Hey, next time, just answer this question and then try something like this. But when our technician comes around tomorrow, they'll be able to handle all those questions for you and make sure you're all up to speed to mornings or afternoons work better for you. Then you send that comment will resume the conversation and you can listen for the next moment before you move on to the next one. Um, so that's sort of the, how the coaching flow works. Now. The other value proposition that I think is actually even better for reps is the chance to learn from some of the top people around the company who match my sales style.Speaker 3 (28:41):So if there's a situation that a lot of people are struggling with, maybe it's like the spouse, not home objection or explaining net metering correctly. The moment someone on the team nails it, you can just clip that portion and drop it into group meeting or the WhatsApp, put it in the training library and a recognize them for doing a great job and incentivize everyone else on the team to try and nail those things so they can get their conversations, uh, shared and sort of flex on everyone. Um, but you also educate the other guys. And the moment you give a rep, an example of a sales rep who matches their style, that's better than them crushing something. You give them a target. And I think a lot of people struggle with superficial wise, like money, motivation, things like that. But once a rep gets a vision of who they want to become, what they could be like in two to three months, if they keep learning, then they have intrinsic motivation and that's a Y um, that can actually withstand the adversity that you face every day out on the doors when it's lonely out there.Speaker 2 (29:46):I love that. And now it's cool because especially if it's like, I don't know, a new year rep or a first year rep for a newer rep, um, it's like, it doesn't necessarily have to be an experienced guy. That's getting their clips and out you be like, Hey, this is someone's for their first year two. And then they're seeing that, okay, we got a new rep, that's already crushing it. He's already being featured. And then I think it's cool for people to be able to see, um, you know, reps in similar situations and be able to, um, just have that motivation, you know, copy what they're seeing. That's cool. I didn't even, I didn't even realize that. I don't think so. It's almost doubles as like a training platform to, for the company to be able to see clips. And then so once, so can you save on there? And, um, everyone that has access to the app, they can see kind of the top, uh, I don't know, I guess overcoming objections or whatever that clip might be and they can go on there and access that later too.Speaker 3 (30:40):Yeah, that's right. So we'll silo it to your company. Um, so that only people in your company are able to access it. There'll be a trending section for the top clips at the time across any category. And then we'll create custom categories for you based on what you think reps should be able to dive into and, and focus on. Um, and because Siro, bookmarks all the key places of the conversation and transcribes it, it's really easy to find clips that will match those things. So if you know, if there's a rep that's really great at pricing, you just want to populate the training library, just like you would, when you're giving some poaching feedback, you open up one of their recordings. We'll bookmark where they went over pricing, where they encountered this ice decise breaker and where they got the business card smoke screen. Um, and you can jump right to where, you know, there'll be crushing it, um, highlight the piece of the transcript, which we'll also provide for you automatically where they're crushing it and then share it either to your group. Me WhatsApp, I message. And then right to the training library and zero.Speaker 2 (31:40):Wow. Yeah, that's incredible. So much, so much time saving right there. And then, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you, so you'll add in that you can add in your company's presentation or pitch or whatever, and then it'll like automatically kind of categorize it based on kind of what step they're on and things like that too. Right?Speaker 3 (31:59):Exactly. And that's what makes these moments as easy to respond to as a text message is the ability to jump right to them and what our conversation engine will do over time is learn your pitch. So it knows this is what pricing looks like for this organization. Um, and obviously reps will differ on how they say certain things. Um, but it will be robust enough to detect, um, uh, differences across reps and let you know where they're doing the intro pricing, um, net metering, you know, explaining your company and, and so forth.Speaker 2 (32:37):That's cool. So this thing is like learning. It's like, uh, I guess that's why it's AI, right? It's like learning your pitch and, um, becoming smarter as days, go on stuff like that. It's not going to come alive and destroy the planet or anything. [inaudible],Speaker 2 (32:58):That's awesome though. So yeah, I mean, in all seriousness, so much time saving and I noticed that too, just, um, just the transcripts. That's another big thing. Cause, um, like how many times have we have to listen just like fluff, that's going on? Just like stuff. That's not even part of the presentation where as I was using it with men, our coaching client, I was able to just skip past all the stuff that's okay. I don't need to listen to hear them talk about their dog or how fluffy their cat was or how fat that cat was. So I don't need to listen to all that. I'm just going to go straight to the meat and potatoes and give them the feedback he needs and then get out and get out of there. So yeah, that's something I was really impressed with. So yeah, ton of cool features.Speaker 2 (33:37):And, uh, Joe, I know you guys are focused primarily on companies and that's probably how it's most beneficial if companies can use it and, um, you know, share all this throughout the entire organization. But, um, do you have any right now, do you have just like individual reps or let's say other companies aren't, I don't know, fully bought in on the, on the idea yet. Do you have any examples of just like reps using it for themselves or ways that it just looks like a single rep wanting to use it, that they could, you know, be able to still get benefits with it? DoSpeaker 3 (34:07):Sure. So, um, most of our clients right now, um, started out with a handful of teams or even just one team who started using this thing. Um, we had a meeting, a sales demo the other day with the guys at Google fiber out in Utah. And the reason they set the meeting was because the rep from Aptive came over and said, Hey, like, let's try this zero thing and booked a meeting with me. Um, so if you're a rep who is excited about using Siro to record your pitches, being able to digest them faster, um, and get more access to your coach, um, let them know and send them to our website, book a demo. I'm happy to speak to them and get your team on it. And, uh, if your team likes it, then we can, we can talk about moving it up after that. But, um, we're perfectly happy to work with any sales team, larger, small, um, our mission with this thing. I think direct sales is an amazing opportunity in this country. I think it's one of the most meritocratic industries that exists and is going to equip you with the skills you need to succeed. So you know what, whatever you are larger, small, we'll put together a plan that we can, we can get you on this thing and help you achieve those things.Speaker 2 (35:24):Yeah, for sure. And, and no, I'm, I think Joe and your team, you guys are super giving and, you know, trying to really train to get it out. So, um, I think even if you just want to like check it out and go back to your team, that's how you can experience it and just try it for yourself. And then, um, for sure, go back to your team. Cause that's how it's going to be most beneficial is getting an entire team on it and getting you guys all bought in and helping each other. Um, so yeah, speaking to that before we kind of start wrapping up here, Joe, um, just, um, to be able to connect with you and get the demo and all that, is it just best to go to your website or where's the best place people can kind of reach out to you and, um, be able to book a demo and everything.Speaker 3 (36:04):Sure. Head to www.siro.ai. And you can just book a demo with us there, let us know that you heard of us from Solarpreneurs and we'll get you a discount in there as well. And I'm happy to talk to you and figure out how we can help you.Speaker 2 (36:22):Awesome. So guys, our Solarpreneurs go take Joe up on this. If you're not recording yourself right now, it's probably because of those excuses that you taught that you're telling yourself, like I was just takes too much time. It's too much hassle. You have to go back and find the parts that I'll put that are applicable to you. And what school I was telling you about this, Joe. But we had a guest on, I think it was about a month ago now about Mikey Lucas. He's a consulting, a lot of people in solar, I'm helping out a ton of people. And that was one of his top tips is tops trainings that he did. He actually did a training for our team do. And she gave us like a sheet and he was like, guys, I guarantee you, if you just start recording yourself, you don't even have to send it to managers or other people just record yourself and then go through this checklist and give yourself the feedback.Speaker 2 (37:08):And I think that's 90% of the problem. People just aren't willing to record themselves. Cause you don't even have to give your, you don't have to send it to anyone necessarily, but it's like, you know, I was a musician. Like that's what I studied in school and everything. And I think the times when I improved the most is because I was recording myself like crazy and I was going back and just me listening to it. I didn't even have to get feedback, but it's like, cause we think we say one thing, we think we're doing it one way, but the recording never lies. Right. We can go back and listen and it might be completely different how we thought we were doing it. So that's another thing. Um, just even if you're not using it with your team, start recording yourself and Siro, I think is the best tool that I've seen. I'd never heard anything like this. So appreciate you guys, Joe, for coming up with the, uh, you know, the software and it's gonna, I think it's going to change the industry. And I think you've already seen that too. So, um, yeah, I know we've got to wrap up pretty quick, Joe, but uh, any, um, we always kind of leave with just, uh, any final words of advice or anything that you can leave with that the solar industry specifically, do you feel like could help our Solarpreneurs out, out here trying to change the world?Speaker 3 (38:18):Yeah, absolutely. So my biggest thing in sales guys is you have to have a really strong why, obviously it's not an easy business and if you're wiser, superficial, they're not going to be able to withstand the adversity that you're going to face. Um, and the best exercise that I'm aware of to find a why is to think about if you were able to execute at a hundred percent and fully realize your potential for the next 12 months and truly perform to the maximum of, of your natural abilities, what would you sell? Like what numbers would you put up and then take a look at that number and think about what kind of person you'd have to become to hit those numbers. What it would feel like to wake up as that person in the morning, what it would feel like to, um, to, to interact with other people as that person and to fully embody that in your daily life.Speaker 3 (39:15):And that's a reward that is worth going after. And that's a why that can withstand the university on the doors and any plan to become that that person will include recording yourself on the doors to take ownership over your conversations, to perform at your highest ability. And whether you record those things in, in Siro or not, make sure you do record them. If you're not you're burning money and potentially even losing out on, on faster promotions. The moment I started doing this, I doubled my average order and I could have got promoted way faster had I done it earlier. So whether it's through zero or not record your conversations, if you want to do it through Siro head to www.siro.ai and I'm happy to chat. Good luck on the doors guys.Speaker 2 (40:04):I love it. Fire Joe. Thanks. Thanks again for coming on guys, go check out his software. It's going to change the way you sell, bring it back to your teams. And uh, yeah, like Joe said, whatever you do, just record yourself, even if you don't get on it. So thanks again for coming on Joe. And hopefully we get lots of people reaching out to, if anything, go give him a shout out and let him know you appreciated everything he shared on the episode today. So, Joe, thanks again for coming on my man.Speaker 3 (40:28):My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you, Taylor. All right.Speaker 2 (40:31):We'll talk soon. Hey, Solarpreneurs quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs, and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day. For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community, exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. And it's called the Solciety, this learning community with designed from the ground up to level the playing field to give solar pros access to proven members who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry. Brightest minds four, are you ready for it? Less than $3 and 45 cents a day currently Solciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to Solciety.co To learn more and join the learning experience. Now this is exclusively for Solarpreneur listeners. So be sure to go to solciety.co And join. We'll see you on the inside. 

Interview starts at 31:10   Robert Sullivan IV joins us again to chat about his fascinating book "Cinema Symbolism 3 - The Mysteries of Occult Hollywood Revealed". This one is a little darker and deeper into the esoteric touching on Jung, Golem Making, Gnosticism, Monomyth, melancholy horror, romantic satanism, the dark side of the moon goddess, visionaries, the Kabbalah and Bible, and tales from the black and white lodge.   This is a fun chat and we also get into his favourite all time movies, the new fantasy sci-fi releases, the emotional power of movies like the exorcist, inversion of hero's and villains, the influence to portend technology of the DOD in films, anxiety attacks and dystopian movies. We also get into the more prevalent 911 imagery and how it's hard to imagine this being done by humans…….. or supernatural?   Does the monomyth get portrayed so often on purpose or are we humans automatically telling that story?   https://robertwsullivaniv.com/   In the intro we are joined with Brandon Powell at Contact at the Cabin in Soap Lake Washington. We chat about the Canadian Election, travelling during Covid, essential freedom and rights, and an operation MUTE teaser.    http://onphyr.com/everything-is-connected-observing-our-movement-in-nature/   www.contactatthecabin.com   Please help support the show…. Grimerica's DoBeDoBeDo List: Grimerica is fully and solely listener supported. We adhere to the Value for Value model.  0 ads, 0 sponsorships, 0 breaks, 0 portals and links to corporate websites… just many hours of unlimited content for free. Thanks for listening!!   Get your Magic Mushrooms delivered from: Mushroom Spores, Spore Syringes, Best Spore Syringes,Grow Mushrooms   Spores Lab   Get Psychedelics online   Support the show directly: http://www.grimerica.ca/support https://www.patreon.com/grimerica  http://www.grimericaoutlawed.ca/support   Other shows: https://www.grimericaoutlawed.ca https://www.13questionspodcast.com/  - 13 Questions ran by Adam and Bill.    Darren's Book and Audio Book page: www.adultbrain.ca www.acanadianshame.ca   Join the chat / hangout with a bunch of fellow Grimerican's: www.grimerica.ca/chats and/or  www.grimerica.ca/social   1-403-702-6083 Call and leave a voice mail or send us a text   Grimerica on the radio https://fringe.fm/shows/grimerica/   Check out our next trip/conference/meetup - Contact at the Cabin www.contactatthecabin.com   Leave a review on iTunes and/or Stitcher https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-grimerica-show/id653314424?mt=2# http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-grimerica-show    Sign up for our newsletter http://www.grimerica.ca/news Leave a comment, ideas and guest/topic suggestions under any episode or blog http://www.grimerica.ca/   SPAM Graham = and send him your synchronicities, feedback, strange experiences and psychedelic trip reports!! graham@grimerica.com InstaGRAM  https://www.instagram.com/the_grimerica_show_podcast/    Tweet Darren https://twitter.com/Grimerica   Connect through other platforms: https://www.reddit.com/r/grimerica/  https://gab.ai/Grimerica    Purchase swag, with partial proceeds donated to the show www.grimerica.ca/swag Send us a postcard or letter http://www.grimerica.ca/contact/ Check out https://www.champignonmagique.ca http://www.lostbreadcomic.com/ link to Napolean Duheme's site  Felix's Site sirfelix.bandcamp.com     MUSIC Grimerica Theme - Lock & Key Should I - Sir Felix Ortega II High Hopes - Broke for Free Space Cadet - Sir Felix Ortega II

0:00 Bombshell For more updates, visit: http://www.brighteon.com/channel/hrreport NaturalNews videos would not be possible without you, as always we remain passionately dedicated to our mission of educating people all over the world on the subject of natural healing remedies and personal liberty (food freedom, medical freedom, the freedom of speech, etc.). Together, we're helping create a better world, with more honest food labeling, reduced chemical contamination, the avoidance of toxic heavy metals and vastly increased scientific transparency. ▶️ Every dollar you spend at the Health Ranger Store goes toward helping us achieve important science and content goals for humanity: https://www.healthrangerstore.com/ ▶️ Sign Up For Our Newsletter: https://www.naturalnews.com/Readerregistration.html ▶️ Brighteon: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/hrreport ▶️ Download our app: https://www.naturalnews.com/App ▶️ Join Our Social Network: https://brighteon.social/@HealthRanger ▶️ Check In Stock Products at: https://PrepWithMike.com

The war in Afghanistan is over. In this episode, we document how and why the Biden administration finally admitted defeat in our 20 year attempt to create a new government in Afghanistan and we take a hard look at the lessons we need to learn. Afghanistan is a country in a far away land, but there are disturbing similarities between the Afghanistan government that just collapsed and our own. We'd be wise not to ignore them. Executive Producer: Rachel Passer Executive Producer: Anonymous  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD236: January 6: The Capitol Riot CD218: Minerals are the New Oil CD210: The Afghanistan War CD124: The Costs of For-Profit War How We Got Here Craig Whitlock. The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War. Simon and Schuster, 2021. Patrick Tucker. August 18, 2021. “Trump's Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says.” Defense One. Eugene Kiely and Robert Farley. August 17, 2021. “Timeline of U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan.” FactCheck.org. Eric Schmitt and Jennifer Steinhauer. July 30, 2021. “Afghan Visa Applicants Arrive in U.S. After Years of Waiting.” The New York Times. Craig Whitlock, Leslie Shapiro and Armand Emamdjomeh. December 9, 2019. “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war.” The Washington Post. Mark Landler and James Risen. July 25, 2017. “Trump Finds Reason for the U.S. to Remain in Afghanistan: Minerals.” The New York Times. John F. Harris. October 15, 2001. “Bush Rejects Taliban Offer On Bin Laden ” Washington Post. The Evacuation: Those Left Behind William Mauldin. September 2, 2021. “Afghanistan Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Staff Left Behind.” Wall Street Journal. Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Annie Karni. August 29, 2021. “Series of U.S. Actions Left Afghan Allies Frantic, Stranded and Eager to Get Out.” The York Times. Sami Sadat. August 25, 2021. “I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed.” The New York Times. Marjorie Censer. August 18, 2021. “US contractors rush to get former employees out of Afghanistan.” Defense News. Siobhan Hughes. August 18, 2021. “Afghanistan Veterans in Congress Trying to Prevent ‘a Death Warrant' for Helping America.” Wall Street Journal. Alex Sanz and Tammy Webber. August 18, 2021. “US friends try to rescue brother in arms in Afghanistan.” AP News. Seth Moulton. June 04, 2021. "Moulton, Bipartisan Honoring Our Promises Working Group to White House: Evacuate our Afghan Partners.” Contractors in Afghanistan Matt Taibbi. August 18, 2021. “We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around.” TK News by Matt Taibbi on Substack. Jack Detsch. August 16, 2021. “Departure of Private Contractors Was a Turning Point in Afghan Military's Collapse.” Foreign Policy. Matt Stoller. July 15, 2021. “‘A Real S*** Show': Soldiers Angrily Speak Out about Being Blocked from Repairing Equipment by Contractors.” BIG by Matt Stoller. Lynzy Billing. May 12, 2021. “The U.S. Is Leaving Afghanistan? Tell That to the Contractors.” New York Magazine. Oren Liebermann. March 29, 2021. “Pentagon could open itself to costly litigation from contractors if US pulls out of Afghanistan this year.” CNN. Lucas Kunce and Elle Ekman. September 15, 2019. “Comment Submitted by Major Lucas Kunce and Captain Elle Ekman.” [Regulations.gov(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations.gov). Aaron Mehta. Oct 25, 2016. “30 Years: William Perry — Reshaping the Industry.” Defense News. Jared Serbu. August 22, 2016. “DoD now awarding more than half its contract spending without competitive bids.” Federal News Network. 41 U.S. Code § 3307 - Preference for commercial products and commercial services. Money: Lost and Gained David Moore. August 23, 2021. “Lawmakers Benefit From Booming Defense Stocks.” Sludge. Lee Fang. August 20, 2021. “Congressman Seeking to Relaunch Afghan War Made Millions in Defense Contracting.” The Intercept. Anna Massoglia and Julia Forrest. August 20, 2021. “Defense contractors spent big in Afghanistan before the U.S. left and the Taliban took control.” OpenSecrets.org. Stephen Losey. April 16, 2021. “The Bill for the Afghanistan War Is $2.26 Trillion, and Still Rising.” Military.com. Eli Clifton. February 16, 2021. “Weapons Biz Bankrolls Experts Pushing to Keep U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.” Daily Beast. Open Secrets. 2021. Defense: Lobbying, 2021. Open Secrets. 2021. Defense: Money to Congress. Laws S.1790 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 Sponsor: Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Status: Became Public Law No: 116-92 on December 20, 2019 H.R. 3237: Emergency Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 Sponsor: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) Status: Signed into law, 2021 May 20 House Vote Breakdown Congressional Budget Office Score Law Outline TITLE IV: BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE GENERAL PROVISIONS EXTENSION AND MODIFICATION OF THE AFGHAN SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAM Sec. 401: Amends the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 to expand eligibility to include Afghans who worked not only for the US Government for more than 1 year but also our allies as an off-base interpreter or if they performed "activities for United States military stationed at International Security Assistance Force (or any successor name for such Force). Increases the number of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to Afghan partners by 8,000, for a total of 34,500 allocated since December 19, 2014. Sec. 402: Authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of state to jointly waive for 1 year (maximum 2 years with an extension) the requirement that Afghan partners eligible for SIVs get a medical exam before they can receive their visa. The Secretary of Homeland Security has to create a process to make sure Afghan SIV holders get a medical exam within 30 days of entry into the United States. Sec. 403: Allows the surviving spouse or child or employee of the United States Government abroad to be eligible for immigration into the United States if the employee worked for our government for at least 15 years or was killed in the line of duty. It also expands entry permissions for Afghan SIV applicants in addition to those who have already been approved. This is retroactive to June 30, 2021. Policies for Visa Processing: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual, Chapter 9: Certain Afghan Nationals U.S Department of State -- Bureau of Consular Affairs. “Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans - Who Were Employed by/on Behalf of the U.S. Government.” Audio Sources Gen. Mark Milley: "There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days." August 18, 2021 General Mark Milley: The time frame of rapid collapse that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months, and even years following our departure, there was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days. Central Command submitted a variety of plans that were briefed and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the President. These plans were coordinated, synchronized and rehearsed to deal with these various scenarios. One of those contingencies is what we are executing right now. As I said before, there's plenty of time to do AARs(After Action Reviews) and key lessons learned and to delve into these questions with great detail. But right now is not that time. Right now, we have to focus on this mission, because we have soldiers at risk. And we also have American citizens and Afghans who supported us for 20 years also at risk. This is personal and we're going to get them out. President Biden on Afghanistan Withdrawal Transcript July 8, 2021 Sound Clips 01:30 President Biden: When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we're on track to meet that target. Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31. The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart 3:40 President Biden: Together with our NATO allies and partners, we have trained and equipped nearly 300,000 current serving members of the military, the Afghan national security force, and many beyond that are no longer serving. Add to that hundreds of thousands more Afghan national defense and security forces trained over the last two decades. 04:04 President Biden: We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools, let me emphasize, all the tools -- training, equipment -- of any modern military. We provided advanced weaponry, and we're going to continue to provide funding and equipment and we'll ensure they have the capacity to maintain their Air Force. 5:54 President Biden: We're also going to continue to make sure that we take on Afghan nationals who worked side by side with US forces, including interpreters and translators. Since we're no longer going to have military there after this, we're not going to need them and they'll have no jobs. We're [sic] also going to be vital to our efforts. they've been very vital, and so their families are not exposed to danger as well. We've already dramatically accelerated the procedure time for Special Immigrant Visas to bring them to the United States. Since I was inaugurated on January 20, we've already approved 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas to come to the United States. Up to now, fewer than half have exercised the right to do that. Half have gotten on aircraft and come commercial flights and come and other half believe they want to stay, at least thus far. We're working closely with Congress to change the authorization legislation so that we can streamline the process of approving those visas. And those who have stood up for the operation to physically relocate 1000s of Afghans and their families before the US military mission concludes so that, if they choose, they can wait safely outside of Afghanistan, while their US visas are being processed. 8:13 President Biden: For those who have argued that we should stay just six more months, or just one more year, I asked them to consider the lessons of recent history. In 2011, the NATO allies and partners agreed that we would end our combat mission in 2014. In 2014, some argued one more year. So we kept fighting. We kept taking casualties. In 2015, the same, and on and on. Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us that the current security situation only confirms that just one more year of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution, but a recipe for being there indefinitely. It's up to the Afghans to make the decision about the future of their country. Others are more direct. Their argument is that we should stay with the Afghans and Afghanistan indefinitely. In doing so they point to the fact that we we have not taken losses in this last year. So they claim that the cost of just maintaining the status quo is minimal. 9:19 President Biden: But that ignores the reality, and the facts that already presented on the ground in Afghanistan when I took office. The Taliban is at its strongest militarily since 2001. The number of US forces in Afghanistan had been reduced to a bare minimum. And the United States and the last administration made an agreement that they have to with the Taliban remove all our forces by May 1 of this year. That's what I inherited. That agreement was the reason the Taliban had ceased major attacks against US forces. 9:55 President Biden: If in April, I had instead announced that the United States was going to go back on that agreement, made by the last administration, the United States and allied forces will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, the Taliban would have again begun to target our forces. The status quo was not an option. Staying would have meant US troops taking casualties, American men and women back in the middle of a civil war, and we would run the risk of having to send more troops back in Afghanistan to defend our remaining troops. Once that agreement with the Taliban had been made, staying with a bare minimum force was no longer possible. 10:34 President Biden: So let me ask those who want us to stay: how many more? How many 1000s more Americans' daughters and sons are you willing to risk? How long would you have them stay? Already we have members of our military whose parents fought in Afghanistan 20 years ago. Would you send their children and their grandchildren as well? Would you send your own son or daughter? After 20 years, a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of 1000s of Afghan National Security and Defence Forces. 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold 1000s coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health. I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. 11:51 President Biden: Today the terrorist threat has metastasized beyond Afghanistan. So, we are repositioning our resources and adapting our counterterrorism posture to meet the threats where they are now: significantly higher in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. 12:07 President Biden: But make no mistake, our military and intelligence leaders are confident they have the capabilities to protect the homeland and our interests from any resurgent terrorist challenge emerging or emanating from Afghanistan. We're developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed at any direct threat to the United States in the region and act quickly and decisively if needed. 12:38 President Biden: We also need to focus on shoring up America's core strengths to meet the strategic competition competition with China and other nations that is really going to determine our future. 14:58 Reporter: Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? President Biden: No. It is not. Because you have the Afghan troops, 300,000. Well equipped, as well equipped as any army in the world, and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. 15:45 President Biden: Do I trust the Taliban? No, but I trust the capacity of the Afghan military who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war. 18:07 Reporter: Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse President Biden: That is not true 18:53 President Biden: And I want to make clear what I made clear to Ghani, that we are not going to walk away and not sustain their ability to maintain that force. We are. We're going to also work to make sure we help them in terms of everything from food necessities and other things in the region. But there is not a conclusion that in fact, they cannot defeat the Taliban. I believe the only way there's going to be -- this is now Joe Biden, not the intelligence community -- the only way there's only going to be peace and secure in Afghanistan, is that they work out a modus vivendi with the Taliban, and they make a judgement as to how they can make peace. And the likelihood there's going to be one unified government in Afghanistan, controlling the whole country is highly unlikely. 21:30 Reporter: Mr. President, how serious was the corruption among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing there? President Biden: First of all, the mission hasn't failed yet. 22:00 President Biden: There were going to be negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan national security forces, and the Afghan government that didn't come to fruition. So the question now is where do they go from here? The jury is still out, but the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. 23:20 Reporter: Mr. President, "speed is safety," as you just said in your remarks. Are you satisfied with the timeline of relocating Afghan nationals? Is it happening quickly enough to your satisfaction if it may not happen until next month at the end? President Biden: It has already happened, there have already been people, about 1000 people have gotten on aircraft and come to the United States already on commercial aircraft. So as I said, there's over 2500 people, that as from January to now, have have gotten those visas and only half decided that they wanted to leave. The point is that I think the whole process has to be speeded up -- period -- in terms of being able to get these visas. Reporter: Why can't the US evacuate these Afghan translators to the United States to await their visa processing as some immigrants of the southern border have been allowed to? President Biden: Because the law doesn't allow that to happen. And that's why we're asking the Congress to consider changing the law. President Biden Remarks on Afghanistan Strategy Transcript April 14, 2021 Sound Clips 00:38 President Biden: I'm speaking to you today from the Roosevelt -- the Treaty room in the White House -- the same spot where in October of 2001, President George W. Bush informed our nation that the United States military had begun strikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. It was just weeks, just weeks after the terrorist attack on our nation that killed 2,977 innocent souls, that turned Lower Manhattan into a disaster area, destroyed parts of the Pentagon and made hallowed ground in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and sparked an American promise that we would never forget. We went to Afghanistan in 2001, to root out al Qaeda to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States planned from Afghanistan. Our objective was clear, the cause was just, our NATO allies and partners rallied beside us. And I supported that military action along with the overwhelming majority of the members of Congress. More than seven years later, in 2008 weeks before we swore the oath of office -- President Obama and I were about to swear -- President Obama asked me to travel to Afghanistan and report back on the state of the war in Afghanistan. I flew to Afghanistan to the Kunar Valley, a rugged, mountainous region on the border of Pakistan. What I saw on that trip reinforced my conviction that only the Afghans have the right and responsibility to lead their country. And that more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan Government. I believed that our presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place: to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again. We did that, we accomplished that objective. I said, along with others, we would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell if need be. That's exactly what we did. And we got him. It took us close to 10 years to put President Obama's commitment into form. And that's exactly what happened Osama bin Laden was gone. That was 10 years ago. Think about that. We delivered justice to Bin Laden a decade ago. And we've stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since. Since then, our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear, even as the terrorist threat that we went to fight evolved. Over the past 20 years, the threat has become more dispersed, metastasizing around the globe. Al Shabaab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, on Al Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. With the terror threat now in many places, keeping 1000s of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me and our leaders. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdraw and expecting a different result. I'm now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. After consulting closely with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the Congress and the Vice President, as well as with Mr. Ghani and many others around the world. I concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home. 5:01 President Biden: When I came to office, I inherited a diplomatic agreement, duly negotiated between the government of the United States and the Taliban, that all US forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1 2021, just three months after my inauguration. That's what we inherited. That commitment is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government. And that means something. So in keeping with that agreement, and with our national interest, the United States will begin our final withdrawal beginning on May 1 of this year. 8:11 President Biden: You all know that less than 1% of Americans serve in our Armed Forces. The remaining 99%, we owe them. We owe them. They've never backed down from a single mission that we've asked of them. I've witnessed their bravery firsthand during my visits to Afghanistan. They've never wavered in their resolve. They paid a tremendous price on our behalf and they have the thanks of a grateful nation. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) High-Risk List Center for Strategic and International Studies Transcript March 10, 2021 Speaker: John Sopko - Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Sound Clips 7:40 John Sopko: But right now, that state is under threat. In the wake of the February 2020 withdrawal agreement, all is not well. Compromise appears in short supply on either side. Taliban attacks have actually increased since the agreement was signed. Assassination of prominent officials, activists, journalists, aid workers and others have also increased, including an unsuccessful attack on one of the female members of the peace negotiating team. And the Taliban offensive on Kandahar city last October, as peace negotiations were ongoing, may well have succeeded, were it not for U.S. air support. Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have achieved little for Afghanistan so far, and only time will tell as to whether the new Biden administration initiative will bear fruit. And the Afghan people's fears for its own government survival are exacerbated by the knowledge of how dependent their country is on foreign military and financial support. 12:56 John Sopko: Another equally serious threat to Afghanistan's stability has also largely been ignored as we focus on the boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And that is the provision of last year's U.S.-Taliban agreement that stipulates that in addition to the departure of U.S. and coalition troops, or non-diplomatic civilian personnel: private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting service personnel also must leave the country by May 1. Should this come to passSIGAR and many others believe this may be more devastating to the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces than the withdrawal of our remaining troops. Why is that? Because the Afghan government relies heavily on these foreign contractors and trainers to function. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 there are over 18,000 Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan, including 6000 Americans, and 7,000 3rd country nationals, 40% of whom are responsible for logistics, maintenance, or training tasks. Now, it is well known that the Afghan security forces need these contractors to maintain their equipment, manage supply chains, and train their military and police to operate the advanced equipment that we have purchased for them. For example, as of December, the Afghan National Army was completing just under 20% of its own maintenance work orders, well below the goal of 80% that was set and the 51% that they did in 2018. So that's actually going down. The Afghan National Police were just as bad if not worse, undertaking only 12% of their own maintenance work against a target of 35% and less than the 16% that we reported in our 2019 high risk list. Additionally, and more troubling. The Department of Defense does train, advise and assist command air, or commonly called TAC air recently reported that since late 2019, they have reduced their personnel in Afghanistan by 94%, and that the military drawdown now requires near total use of contract support to maintain the Afghan Air fleet. They assess that quote “further drawdown in the associated closure basis will effectively end all in country aviation training contracts in Afghanistan.” Again, why is this significant? Why do we view this as a high risk? Namely because contractors currently provide 100% of the maintenance for the Afghan Air Force, UAE 60 helicopters and CE 130 cargo aircraft and a significant portion of Afghans Light Combat Support aircraft. TAC air this January gave a bleak assessment, namely, that no Afghan airframe can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months in the absence of contractor support. 17:51 John Sopko: Continued funding for U.S. reconstruction programs aimed at promoting economic development, rule of law, respect for human rights, good governance and security for the Afghan people may be more significant, because it may be the primary lever left for the US and other donors to influence that country. It appears that even the Taliban understand Afghanistan's dire need for foreign assistance. Because, as one of the few commitments that the US had to make last year was, “to seek economic cooperation for reconstruction, with the new post settlement, Afghan Islamic government.” Now how much the donor community wishes to stay involved will of course depend on what that government looks like and how it behaves. Numerous officials, including then Secretary of State Pompeo and Ambassador Halley, have stated that the US will be able to advance its human rights goals, including the rights of women and girls with the Taliban by leveraging or conditioning this much needed financial assistance. But unfortunately, as SIGAR has long reported, even when conditionality involved only dealing with the Afghan government, donors do not have a stellar record of successfully utilizing that conditionality to influence Afghan behavior. 27:19 John Sopko: Today our report suggests the donor community should realize the Afghan government is focused on a single goal, its survival. Afghanistan is more dependent on international support than ever before. It may not be an overstatement that if foreign assistance is withdrawn and peace negotiations fail, Taliban forces could be at the gates of Kabul in short order. Hearing: A PATHWAY FOR PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN: EXAMINING THE FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE AFGHANISTAN STUDY GROUP House Committee on Oversight and Reform: Subcommittee on National Security February 19, 2021 Testimony was heard from the following Afghanistan Study Group officials: Kelly A. Ayotte, Co-Chair; News Corp Board of Directors since April 2017 BAE Systems Board of Directors since June 2017 Blackstone Board of Directors Boston Properties Board of Directors Caterpillar Board of Directors Board of Advisors at Cirtronics General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. (Retired), Co-Chair Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Obama and Trump presidencies. Lockheed Martin Board of Directors since February 2020 Nancy Lindborg, Co-Chair President and CEO of the David Lucile Packard Foundation Former President and CEO of the US Institute for Peace Former Assistant Administrator for the bureau for democracy conflict and humanitarian assistance at USAID During the mid-Obama years. Sound Clips 3:13 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): I'd also like to take a moment to thank the nonpartisan US Institute of Peace for the support and expertise they provided to the study group during the course of its work. 3:23 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): In the fiscal year 2020 omnibus bill Congress led by Senator Graham Senator Patrick Leahy and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee of state foreign ops and related programs. They tasked the independent and bipartisan Afghanistan study group to quote, consider the implications of a peace settlement or the failure to reach a settlement on US policy, resources and commitments in Afghanistan. After nearly nine months of review and consultation with current and former US and Afghan government officials, allies and partners and other key stakeholders, the Afghanistan study group issued its final report earlier this month. 15:12 Kelly Ayotte: We recommend that US troops remain beyond may 1. We believe a precipitous withdrawal of US and international troops in May, would be catastrophic for Afghanistan, leading to civil war, and allow the reconstitution of terror groups which threaten the United States within an 18 to 36 month period. 15:41 Kelly Ayotte: Let me be clear, although we recommend that our troops remain beyond may 1, we propose a new approach toward Afghanistan, which aligns our policies, practices and messaging across the United States government to support the Afghan peace process, rather than prosecute a war. Our troops would remain not to fight a forever war, but to guarantee the conditions for a successful peace process and to protect our national security interests to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a haven again, for terrorists who threaten the United States of America. 37:15 General Joseph F. Dunford: Do we need to increase forces if the Taliban don't accept an extension past the first of May, and if they then would re initiate attacks against US forces? and Chairman, we heard exactly what you heard. In the fall. What we were told by commanders on the ground in the department of fence was that 4500 US forces, in addition to the NATO forces that are there was the minimum level to address both the mission as well as protection of our forces in the context of the conditions that existed in the fall in as you've highlighted, those conditions have only gotten worse since the fall so in in our judgment 2500 would not be adequate. Should the Taliban re initiate attacks against the United States Hearing: Examining the Trump Administration's Afghanistan Strategy House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on National Security January 28, 2020 Witness: John Sopko - Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Sound Clips 48:54 John Sopko: We've almost created a system that forces people in the government to give happy talk success stories because they're over there on very short rotations. They want to show success. The whole system is almost geared to give you, and it goes up the chain of command, all the way to the President sometimes. He gets bad information from people out in the field because somebody on a nine month rotation, he has to show success, and that goes up. 54:24 John Sopko: Maybe incentivize honesty. And one of the proposals I gave at that time,be cause I was asked by the staff to come up with proposals, is put the same requirement on the government that we impose on publicly traded corporations. Publicly traded corporations have to tell the truth. Otherwise the SEC will indict the people involved. They have to report when there's a significant event. So put that onus, call it The Truth in Government Act if you want, that you in the administration are duty bound by statute to alert Congress to significant events that could directly negatively impact a program or process. So incentivize honesty. 1:10:25 John Sopko: Over 70% of the Afghan budget comes from the United States and the donors. If that money ended, I have said before and I will stand by it, then the Afghan government will probably collapse. Wartime Contracting Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs September 21, 2011 Witnesses: Charles Tiefer: Commissioner on the Commission on Wartime Contracting Clark Kent Ervin: Commissioner on the Commission on Wartime Contracting Sound Clips 1:11:30 Charles Tiefer: Our private security in Afghanistan appears to be a major source of payoffs to the Taliban. Our report has the first official statement that it's the second-largest source of money for the Taliban. Sen. Carl Levin: After drugs. Charles Tiefer: After drugs, that's right. 1:25:18 Clark Kent Ervin: It's critical that the government have a choice, and that means that there needs to be at least a small and expandable, organic capacity on the part of these three agencies to perform missions themselves, so the next time there's a contingency, the government has a choice between going with contractors and going in-house and the determination can be made whether it's more effective to do it either way, whether it's cheaper to do it either way. As we said at the inception, right now the government doesn't have an option. Contractors are the default option because they're the only option. President George W. Bush announces U.S. Military Strikes on Afghanistan October 7, 2001 President George W. Bush: Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: close terrorist training camps, hand over leaders of the Al-Qaeda network, and return all foreign nationals including American citizens unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met and now the Taliban will pay a price by destroying camps and disrupting communications. We will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. ** International Campaign Against Terrorism Senate Foreign Relations Committee October 25, 2001 Witness: Colin Powell: Secretary of State Sound Clip 27:00 Colin Powell: Our work in Afghanistan though, is not just of a military nature. We recognize that when the Al Qaeda organization has been destroyed in Afghanistan, and as we continue to try to destroy it in all the nations in which it exists around the world, and when the Taliban regime has gone to its final reward, we need to put in place a new government in Afghanistan, one that represents all the people of Afghanistan and one that is not dominated by any single powerful neighbor, but instead is dominated by the will of the people of Afghanistan. Executive Producer Recommendations Elect Stephanie Gallardo 2022 Krystal Kyle and Friends. August 21, 2021. “Episode 35 Audio with Matthew Hoh.” Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)