Podcasts about One America

Scott welcomed Roger Cantu, Regional Sales Director at One America, in studio for a discussion on the importance of long-term care planning for the aging population, highlighting the financial and familial impacts of unaddressed chronic health care expenses and advocating for advisors to proactively include long-term care solutions in their client discussions.Roger works with insurance professionals sharing his decades-long experience with One America's Care Solutions plans. He provides case design strategies, proven sales presentation as well as marketing resources to grow and enhance an individual insurance business or a financial planning practice. For over 34 years, Roger has worked exclusively with the Care Solutions. 15 years under the original company Golden Rule Insurance, and the last 16 under OneAmerica. A resident of Plano, Texas, Roger is married with four adult children and six grandchildren.In this episode you will learn the following: The "Silver Tsunami," referring to the wave of aging baby boomers and the significant long-term care needs they will soon face as they approach ages where such care becomes more common.The inadequacy of Medicare in covering long-term care expenses, which are significant and not commonly planned for by individuals. The importance of advisors actively discussing long-term care planning with clients is stressed, as many advisors currently avoid or inadequately address the issue.The challenges and opportunities presented by state-level initiatives, such as the Washington state law mandating long-term care coverage, which could influence broader adoption of long-term care insurance and planning. Connect with Scott on LinkedInConnect with Roger on LinkedInFor more on The Optimized Advisor Podcast click here  For more on One America click hereFollow us on LinkedIn  **This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@optimizedins.com Optimized Insurance Planning

In May 2016, I surprised my daughter for her 18th birthday with a getaway to New York City to see her favorite play, Hamilton, in the Richard Rogers Theater with the original cast. We would fly out for a day and then fly back. It would cost way too much money, I'd get my wallet stolen, but I only had one daughter, and you only turned 18 once.We were both obsessed with Hamilton. We knew every word of every song. It lived inside of us. It wasn't just that it was brilliant, funny, moving, inventive and original. It also reminded all of us what this country's founding principles were about. Best of all, it made learning history fun and cool. It was Schoolhouse Rock for a new generation.When taking long road trips, we would blast the soundtrack, screaming every word. We'd start at the beginning and run through the entire play. Our inside jokes were witty asides from the play that we'd quote to each other so often that we had to force ourselves to stop because, after years of this, it was getting old.By casting so many diverse people to play historical figures and making it a hip-hop musical, Hamilton was a bridge to the Black communities that were so often excluded from the Broadway experience and elite culture in general. Hamilton was for everybody, I thought. That was eight years ago.As a devoted Obama supporter and, in 2016, a Hillary Clinton loyalist, I was overjoyed at the prospect of the first woman president to follow the first Black president. Heading into the election, I wrote this piece:I wrote:The election of Hillary Clinton is one of the most important battles in the war between two Americas. One America was built and maintained exclusively by and for white men. That demographic has awakened extremists on the left and right. The other America redeems the promise of possibility for everyone, no matter their status or skin color or class. That America has produced the nation's first black president who not only lasted one term, but two, and who now promises to make history by helping elect another Democrat to follow his two terms. Electing Hillary Clinton doesn't just say, “We're electing a woman for the first time in our country's history.” It also dares to say the first black American president was so successful he did the impossible by electing his chosen successor.I didn't notice back then that the Clinton campaign rented the entire Richard Rogers theater as a fundraiser. Tickets start at $2,700 a pop. I would never have thought twice about it. We were on the right side. It was an “all-of-society” effort to stop Trump. We were the good guys fighting the good fight, so why wouldn't Hamilton be used that way?Lin-Manuel Miranda's entire career exists only because of Barack Obama. 15 years ago, in 2009, in Obama's first year in office, Miranda performed this at the White House:Over the years, Obama would co-opt the reputations and careers of major artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks, and, yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda. They would become ride-or-die for the president, which wasn't something I would have noticed back then.As Miranda's play exploded and became instantly profitable and popular, we all took that to mean that everyone wanted to be included in our America. It was the better, cooler America. But that changed when Trump won. Now, all we could see was a hostile country that just rejected us.Even when the cast called out Mike Pence during the performance to protest the Trump administration, I never thought about whether it was bipartisan or not. I knew it wasn't and I agreed with it. I couldn't see the line between art and propaganda.But now I can. All it took was this statement by the producer of Hamilton, Jeffrey Seller, wherein the play cancels itself, hiding behind the usual gaslighting and rationalizations so common on the left:Notice right off the language here. He is doing what all establishment Democrats and Republicans have done for eight years: ignore the voices of the people. Trump defeated them not once but twice. If you believe in the founding principles of this country, you must respect their voices. But they don't. The message they give is not for all Americans. It is only those Americans who agree with their ongoing delusions about Trump.What they can't stand is that Trump is now saying this culture does not belong only to them anymore. It belongs to all of us, even the unwashed masses all of them abandoned years ago and continue to demonize in films, in plays, in comedy, in journalism, in all of their award shows. We're to accept that this only goes one way. That they have a right to decide what our culture will be and Trump and his supporters do not.You did this. YOU did this. You forced Trump and his supporters to beat down the walls of the castle to be included in America's culture. This is YOUR fault. You politicized it. You pushed propaganda on all of us for years. And now, you can't stand it that you no longer control it, can you?Trump's second win was a complete and total humiliation and repudiation. They still refuse to learn that lesson. They refuse to move aside and allow this country to evolve into whatever it will be now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

In part one of Red Eye Radio with Gary McNamara and Eric Harley, we start with the foul mouthed narrative of James Carville as well as Rachel Maddow's remarks toward MSNBC. Polls on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the performance of DOGE so far. The narrative of the leftist media, the re-structured FBI as well as the racist structure of MSNBC. Also the security of the nation under the new Trump administration and more. For more talk on the issues that matter to you, listen on radio stations across America Monday-Friday 12am-5am CT (1am-6am ET and 10pm-3am PT), download the RED EYE RADIO SHOW app, asking your smart speaker, or listening at RedEyeRadioShow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Glenn and Stu are amazed at the number of good things to report, but the media is doing everything possible to ruin it. Glenn reads a hit piece published by the New York Times that claims Pete Hegseth's ex-wife was abused, despite his ex-wife outright denying the accusations. Glenn looks at the good things Trump is doing, including the ending of DEI all throughout the government, the American flag being the only flag allowed to be flown at our foreign embassies, and the FACE Act possibly being repealed through Congress. Glenn explains why Trump's historic political comeback cannot be dismissed as a "fluke." Is it time to end some of the presidential traditions, like attending service at the National Cathedral? Glenn and Stu further discuss the fundamental changes happening, including repealing more government policies like Biden's horrific energy policies and the border having an outflow of immigrants. Mexico isn't on board with Trump's plan to call it the Gulf of America. One of Trump's pardons was for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was facing multiple life sentences. Should the U.S. government begin quietly buying Bitcoin?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Garrison Davis is joined by Robert Evans to discuss Eugene Talmadge, the racist southern country lawyer who became a dictator. (4 Part Series) Sources: The Wild Man From Sugar Creek by William AndersonRace and Racism in the United States by Charles A. Gallagher, Cameron D. Lippard Labor in the South by F. Ray Marshall https://www.ajc.com/news/special-reports/when-georgia-had-three-governors-the-story-that-won-george-goodwin-journalism-prize/PNNohvV4spaPsd5lFSzbkK/ https://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/blog/the-three-governors-controversy/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Looking To Get Started With Your Infinite Banking Journey? Watch The 90 Minute Presentation Here: https://themoneymultiplier.com/presen...   Join us for a LIVE, in-person event - The Money Multiplier Mastermind on October 10-12. Register by visiting https://www.themoneymultiplier.com/ma...   Hey Money Multipliers! In this episode, I'm taking a deep dive into Modified Endowment Contracts (MECs) and how they can affect your whole life insurance policy. I know this is a topic a lot of you have questions about, so I brought in Clay Summers from One America, who's been in the business for over 40 years, to help break it all down! We'll be covering how MECs work, what the seven-pay premium test is, and the tax implications that come with them. If you want to make sure your policy is structured right and avoid any costly mistakes, this episode is for you! Let's dive in and make sure your dollars make sense!   Have a topic you want me to discuss? Feel free to send any questions or comments to podcast@themoneymultiplier.com.    To view a recorded version of our presentation on the Infinite Banking Concept, please visit: https://themoneymultiplier.com/presentation   For other resources: https://linktr.ee/themoneymultiplier    Hannah: https://www.instagram.com/hannah_kesler #TheMoneyMultiplier #FinanceTips #InfiniteBanking

Our world seems to become more divided by the day. We are ending relationships over differences in opinion on political matters. How can we restore unity to our families and communities? In this episode, Angela talks with Andrew Hanauer, the President and CEO of the One America Movement, an organization founded by faith leaders to fight toxic polarization, about how faith communities and leaders can work to model unity during increasingly divisive times. In Andrew's words: “politics will not fill the Spiritual holes in our lives,” but he believes that Scripture holds the answers we seek. Many of us feel that we can have little or no impact on culture or politics, but we have a lot of impact within our communities. Can we work together in the places where we can make an impact and effect meaningful change? How can our faith communities meet our needs so that we do not need to turn to political groups to find our identity?Guest BioAndrew Hanauer is the President and CEO of the One America Movement, an organization founded by faith leaders to fight toxic polarization. One America supports faith leaders and faith communities to reject toxic forms of division and offer a moral vision that transcends our divisive and disconnected culture. Under Andrew's leadership, the One America Movement has become one of the largest and fastest-growing organizations combating division in American society, quintupling in size in the past three years.Andrew is a frequent public speaker at houses of worship of all kinds and has represented One America before gatherings of the National Governors' Association, Americorps, Points of Light, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and many more, and podcasts as wide-ranging as Fuller Seminary and Islamic Relief USA. His work has been published or featured by USA Today, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Salon, the Christian Citizen, and media outlets across the US.When he is not fighting toxic polarization, Andrew is spending time with his family, coaching little league, rooting for the Golden State Warriors and Arkansas Razorbacks, and participating in small groups at his church.LinksDownload the ProGrace Conversation Guide: https://www.prograce.org/about One America Movement website: https://oneamericamovement.org/One America Movement Substack: https://oneamericamovement.substack.com/

Today's episode brings a little bit of sadness as Wade shares a deeply personal story about the unexpected loss faced by a client, highlighting the importance of life insurance in times of crisis. He discusses how life insurance can provide financial certainty and peace of mind during the most vulnerable moments in life. Wade reflects on the value of planning ahead and how life insurance serves as a critical resource, not just for the living, but for those left behind. Tune in as he explores the real impact of being prepared for the unexpected and why it's a vital conversation for everyone. Episode Highlights 00:28 - Abandoning initial podcast topic due to client experience. 00:52 - Client's unexpected loss: husband did not return from hospital. 01:35 - True value of life insurance during clients' most difficult times. 02:01 - Insurance agent's role in supporting clients. 02:18 - Insight from One America president Dennis Martin. 02:43 - Contrasting insurance companies vs. money managers during crises. 03:52 - Life insurance alleviates financial burden amid grief. 04:45 - Appreciation for the life insurance industry. 05:04 - Importance of planning and its impact on financial certainty. 06:04 - Real-life example of unforeseen scenarios. 06:27 - Emotional and financial support provided by life insurance. 08:14 - Encouragement to have enough life insurance coverage.   Episode Resources Connect with Wade Borth https://www.sagewealthstrategy.com/ wade@sagewealthstrategy.com 

Scott was joined by Brad Shepard for a virtual episode about Long-Term Care. Fall and the Holidays will be here before you know it and November is LTC Awareness Month.For the past 24 years, Brad has enjoyed an area of focus in selling, training and marketing Long-Term Care and Linked Benefit solutions. His current role, Regional Sales Director, with OneAmerica is to help distribution partners, advisors and agents develop and grow their Long-Term Care Planning business through extensive business planning, marketing, training and support. He has also been a speaker, on the topic of Long-Term Care Planning, at hundreds of educational seminars, workshops and webinars across the country.Brad is a Pennsylvania native and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. He resides in New Bloomfield, PA with his wife, Denise, son Logan, and daughter Linsay.In this episode you will learn the following:LTC Awareness: November is LTC Awareness Month, not to be confused with Long-Term Care Insurance Awareness Month. The focus is on planning and awareness of long-term care needs, especially relevant during family gatherings in the holiday season.Pension Protection Act (PPA): The PPA, effective since January 1, 2010, allows for the tax-free distribution of gains from non-qualified annuities if used for long-term care expenses. Despite its benefits, it remains relatively unknown among financial professionals.Tax Benefits and Plan Design: The PPA allows for tax-deferred gains within non-qualified annuities to be used tax-free for LTC. This involves a 1035 exchange to a PPA compliant annuity, potentially doubling or tripling the annuity value for LTC benefits, providing significant financial leverage.Client Examples and Practical Applications: The discussion includes real-life examples and practical advice for advisors on how to leverage non-qualified annuities for LTC planning, emphasizing the importance of educating clients about these tax advantages.Connect with Scott on LinkedInConnect with Brad on LinkedInFor more on The Optimized Advisor Podcast click here  To learn more about One America products click hereFollow us on LinkedInFollow us on InstagramFollow us on Facebook **This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@optimizedins.com Optimized Insurance Planning

In this interview, Dr.SHIVA Ayyadurai, MIT PhD, Inventor of Email, Scientist, Engineer and Candidate for President, Talks about One America. One Citizen. Why any Citizen can be President of the United States

Want a Life Insurance Policy? Go Here: https://www.betterwealth.com/clickhere-life-insuranceWant FREE Whole Life Insurance Education? Go Here: https://bttr.ly/vault In this video, Caleb and Alden, our life insurance product specialists, provide an expert review of One America. They thoroughly examine the company's front-loaded designs, long-term care (LTC) options, and overall value. Are they a company worth working with? Uncover the strengths and weaknesses of One America as Caleb and Alden share their insights and professional opinions. Whether you're an agent or a policyholder, this comprehensive review will help you make an informed decision.__________________________________________✉️ Email BetterWealth: https://bttr.ly/infoWEBSITE: https://betterwealth.com====================DISCLAIMER: https://bttr.ly/aapolicy*This video is for entertainment purposes only and is not financial or legal advice.Financial Advice Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education, discussion, and illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice or recommendation. Should you need such advice, consult a licensed financial or tax advisor. No guarantee is given regarding the accuracy of the information on this channel. Neither host nor guests can be held responsible for any direct or incidental loss incurred by applying any of the information offered.

In this week's episode of the For Everyday Leaders Podcast, Brandon and Alex sit down with Sherri & Shane Christopher. Sherri was the Senior Director at One America and author of her new book Choosing Joy.  Shane is the Development Officer at One Mission Society and involved in overseas missions work. Shane is partnered in with a real estate initiative called MyHome4 Good and author of his new book God in HD. Show Notes:  God in HD by Shane Christopher: https://a.co/d/bVVt842 Choosing Joy by Sherri Christopher: https://a.co/d/bVVt842 The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon: https://a.co/d/3LEYtBN Crucial Conversations: https://a.co/d/3LEYtBN

In this episode, Dinesh reveals how Trump is unifying the GOP and will soon offer himself as the best prospect to unify the country around a MAGA agenda.  Dinesh talks about the evolution of Silicon Valley, and the remarkable fact that many tech moguls are now backing Trump.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you know that for some enslaved Africans, small plots of land became ways to maintain culture and heritage- and even pathways to freedom? Soul Food Scholar, Adrian Miller joins us to share stories that tie land to belonging and survival. Amanda Henderson and Adrian Miller dive deep into the stories about navigating the ways of the land to cultivate food sovereignty within African American communities, despite forced migration and slavery in the United States. As they discuss the truths about the ongoing struggle of food injustice for marginalized communities and the rise of consciousness towards food sovereignty, we learn the importance of connecting and adapting to the land as a means of survival.  GUEST: Adrian Miller is a food writer, James Beard Award winner, attorney, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado. Adrian received an A.B in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995. From 1999 to 2001, Miller served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Miller went on to serve as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. From 2004 to 2010, he served on the board for the Southern Foodways Alliance. In June 2019, Adrian lectured in the Masters of Gastronomy program at the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche (nicknamed the “Slow Food University”) in Pollenzo, Italy. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position. Miller's first book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. His second book, The President's Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas was published on President's Day 2017. It was a finalist for a 2018 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction,” and the 2018 Colorado Book Award for History. Adrian's third book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, will be published Spring 2021. Sharecropping, Black Land Acquistion, and White Supremacy (1868-1900) Food Sovereignty  Growing Your Own Food: Resources and Tools Talking Trash: Five Easy Steps to Reduce Food Waste

Ijeoma Oluo's #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want To Talk About Race (book tour event at Town Hall in 2019), offered a vital guide for how to talk about important issues of race and racism in society. In Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, she discussed how white male supremacy has had an impact on our systems, our culture, and our lives throughout American history. But now that we better understand these systems of oppression, the question is this: What can we do about them? In her new book, Be A Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World — and How You Can, Too, Ijeoma Oluo aims to show how people across America are working to create real positive change in our structures. Looking at many of our most powerful systems — like education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more — she highlights what people are doing to create change for intersectional racial equity. She also illustrates how readers can find their own entry points for change in these same areas or can bring some of this important work being done elsewhere to where they live. Oluo aims to not only educate but to inspire action and change. Join us at Town Hall for a discussion on how to take conversations on race and racism out of a place of pure pain and trauma, and into a place of loving action. Ijeoma Oluo is a writer, speaker, and internet yeller. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race and, most recently, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. Her work has been featured in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among many other publications. She was named to the 2021 Time 100 Next list and has twice been named to the Root 100. She received the 2018 Feminist Humanist Award and the 2020 Harvard Humanist of the Year Award from the American Humanist Association. She lives in Seattle, Washington.   Michele E. Storms is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington (ACLU of Washington), former Deputy Director of the ACLU of Washington, and previous Assistant Dean for Public Service and executive director of the William H. Gates Public Service Law program at the University of Washington School of Law. Preceding those roles she served as a statewide advocacy coordinator first at Columbia Legal Services and later at the Northwest Justice Project where over a combined five-year period she coordinated civil legal aid advocacy in the areas of family law, youth and education, housing, elder law, Native American and right to counsel issues. She was also previously on faculty at the University of Washington School of Law where she founded what is now the Child and Youth Advocacy Clinic and taught several other courses. In addition to her service on numerous boards and guilds both locally and nationally, Michele served on the Washington State Access to Justice Board for six years and the board of One America. Michele is concerned with equity and justice for all and has dedicated her professional and personal attention to access to justice, preservation of freedom and democracy for all and ensuring that all humxns safely reside in the “circle of human concern.”   https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780063140189    

In a recent interview on the "Hacks & Wonks" podcast, Tacoma City Councilmember Olgy Diaz provided an insider's guide on how to prepare and run for elected office. Drawing from over a decade of experience in political campaigns and advocacy, Diaz offered detailed advice for prospective candidates. Diaz stressed knowing your "why" for running as a motivating force. "Think about what problems you're trying to solve or what communities you're trying to represent," she said. Align your passion with the appropriate position, whether school board, city council, or state legislature. Assembling the right team is critical, according to Diaz. This includes identifying trusted people to handle key roles like communications, field operations, fundraising, and campaign compliance. Diaz advised being intentional about building a team that reflects the diversity you want to see.  Once committed, assemble a "kitchen cabinet" of trusted family, friends, and community leaders to comprise your core team, Diaz advised. "You need to figure out who's going to help with what, and be really comfortable asking for help." Budgeting is crucial, and Diaz recommended using unionized vendors and allocating at least two-thirds of funds for direct voter communication like mailings and advertising. "Yard signs don't actually vote," she quipped. On fundraising, Diaz's top tip was simple: "You don't get any money that you don't ask for, so ask everybody unabashedly." This includes calling personal contacts like friends, current and former colleagues, as well as adversaries of your opponent. Authenticity in messaging is paramount. "Be authentically who you are all of the time and be willing to own where you might disagree with people because I think that matters as much in governing as it does always agreeing with people. People respect you more.” But running for office is just the first step – Diaz also offered advice for translating campaign advocacy into tangible policy actions through ordinances and legislation. She recommended focusing first on achievable goals to start delivering wins while getting accustomed to the new role. Throughout, Diaz emphasized building bridges and bringing more people from underrepresented communities into the process as future leaders. Diaz also emphasized building a diverse campaign team that creates opportunities for mentorship. "The more of us there are … the better our policies can become."   Resources Public Disclosure Commission | Training and Resources   National Political Women's Caucus of Washington   Emerge Washington   Washington Institute for a Democratic Future   Build the Bench WA   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. The Washington legislative session for this year just ended and we've received news about several legislators who are not running for re-election. This opens up opportunities for new candidates to run this year to represent their communities in the legislature, in addition to hundreds of local elected positions across every community in our state. So we thought this was a great time to talk with Tacoma City Councilmember Olgy Diaz about how to run for office. Olgy was born and raised in Pierce County to parents who immigrated from Guatemala. Throughout her career, she has worked to foster a more reflective democracy and expand access to power through work with local nonprofits like One America and Planned Parenthood, in the Washington State Legislature, and in candidate campaigns across Pierce County. Over the last 13 years, she has talked to voters in English and Spanish all over Washington. Olgy is passionate about conservation, tribal sovereignty, and wildlife, and serves as the vice chair of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition. She served on the City of Tacoma's Human Rights Commission, worked in the Washington State House of Representatives and Senate for five years, and is the Immediate Past President of the National Women's Political Caucus of Washington. She spends most of her spare time building up future civic leaders through key leadership roles and has trained hundreds of political candidates across our state. We both serve on the board of the Washington Institute for a Democratic Future, an organization that does just that. Olgy has been effective in advocacy, productive in governing, and successful at winning elections, which is why I'm so thrilled to welcome her to this show about how to prepare for a successful run for office. Welcome back to the show, Councilmember Olgy Diaz. [00:02:38] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Hi, Crystal. How's it going? [00:02:40] Crystal Fincher: It is going well because I'm talking with you this morning - thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about how to prepare to run for office, what the most important things are to consider - because a lot of people don't have any exposure to this - the things that are visible about campaigns aren't necessarily the most important things. Lot of times when people think about running, they think about yard signs and parades and delivering speeches, or they have this picture of the West Wing in their head, or Parks and Recs, or Veep or whatever it may be. But a lot of times it's just not reflective of what running a campaign, particularly a state or local campaign, a local government or legislative campaign looks like. So just starting out, Olgy, what do people need to do to prepare to run for office? [00:03:33] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: I think the biggest things that folks can do to prepare are really sort of reflect - think inward - and think about what problems you're trying to solve, or what communities you're trying to represent, and where that is needed. So the thing that's going to get you through the hard days - the days where you feel betrayed or left behind or just generally out of energy on a campaign - your why is what's going to get you through. And so you've got to really think about - if I am deeply passionate about making sure that kids have access to classrooms that don't have moldy walls or leaky ceilings, and that they've got a curriculum that makes sense, and that they've got maybe some access to after-school services, that's probably someone who's deeply passionate about running for school board, not Congress. So making sure that your interests align with what you're wanting to govern over - I think is the deepest and hardest part of getting ready to run for office - because a lot of people will gravitate towards some of those offices that look shiny or feel like they are name in lights, really sexy. But really, if you're deeply passionate about climate change, you might be the best fire commissioner and not the best state legislator. And that's not to push people out of some of the bigger races, but it's also helpful to start at the ground level and work your way up - makes it much easier to have been elected to something else before you go and run for governor. It really is a nine, ten month, however month long you're running for office job interview. And actually in any good job interview you're doing, you're going to want to see what this job actually does - read the job description, read the budget, read the minutes, read the notes of what the people who are doing this job already do - so you can prepare yourself for that work. A lot of offices, I would say more offices than not, in Washington state don't have staff. So you're going to be the expert in your thing - so be prepared to be savvy, be researching. And get ready - so think about, if I've never served on a board, even my little PTA board or my nonprofit board - go sign up. I don't know of a single government who doesn't have a board or commission that they're looking for volunteers who are passionate about work. And that's where you can meet people in the community, it's where you can build a network, it's where you can learn about different topics. Sure, a lot of these positions are unpaid, so you've got to find the volunteer time to do it. But running for office is also unpaid, unfortunately. So at some point, you do have to be wanting to serve the public - so I think it's really helpful to try to start serving on boards or commissions at any level of government to try to just get that - How do we work together? Understanding - How does this governing body work? How do you organize? It can be one of those early tools of learning how you put your teams together and how you build coalitions. [00:06:30] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think you raise a number of important points. I really do want to underscore you talking about - just know why you want to run, what is motivating you. It's always a bit dismaying to have someone come and be like, Yeah, I really want to run. I really want to be on the city council. Then you asked, Okay, so what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to do to help the community? And they haven't thought that far yet. All they have thought about is that they want to be elected. That is a red flag for me. It's a red flag for a lot of people. Know how you want to help. And like you said, it should be something you're passionate about. And then you have to align that with different positions. There are so many jurisdictions and positions up for election - city councils, school boards, parks districts, port commission, state legislature, county council, all of these different things - and they're very different positions at different levels of government. So are you interested in public and community safety and want to do that? That's probably going to happen more at the local level. Are you interested in intervening with climate change? That may be something you can impact a lot at the port. Or like you said, it doesn't have to be statewide lands commissioner - could also be fire commissioners, different things like that. Know if the role is a legislative position or an executive position - those are two very different types of roles. Are you going to be making decisions together with a team? Are you the one who the buck stops with and you're doing that yourself? Those are all things to consider and you have to think about - do your interests and skills align with that particular position? So for someone who has thought about - Okay, I am really fired up about this specific set of issues, I have identified what positions seem like they match best for me. I think I do want to run. I think I do want to do this. What's the next step that they should take? [00:08:32] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: They should absolutely get sign-off from family and friends - whoever that chosen family is, whoever that internal family is - because it's going to take everyone. And sometimes, especially in smaller races, you don't have the ability to get a high-paid consultant. And so your mom might also end up being your speechwriter. I think oftentimes folks do the best when they have someone who is closer to a normal voter as opposed to a political junkie actually listen to their speeches, listen to their answers, really listen to whether or not you're giving jargon or whether or not you're giving something that really resonates with the average person. And so your kitchen cabinet of folks that you assemble is going to be some mix of family and friends, plus people in the community - prominent folks and leaders and activists - I think those are some of the best assets that you can have, especially in these smaller races where you're not going to have a bunch of paid staff. Because somebody might have a friend of a friend who knows how to do graphic design and they can do all your Canva stuff for you. You're starting something very grassroots, very deep and passionate, and you need to figure out who your people are so that you have them with you in the trenches. And sometimes if you're busy, like a lot of us are working and running for office, you need to figure out who's just going to do the laundry - just the little things that make sure that you're able to keep going through the campaign cycle really, really matters. And so start assembling that list of who's going to help with what, and be really comfortable and ready to ask for help. I think that's one of the things that I have seen really knock down candidates - is an unwillingness to either ask for help, ask for what they need, or say no. And any mix of those things can really tank your campaign, so you got to be really secure in what you need, where you're trying to go, and how you're going to get there. [00:10:18] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - think you're 100% correct - you do need to sign off and negotiate how all of the people in your life are going to function during the time that you're running. And also with work - really important - for most of the people who are probably going to be listening to this who would be considering running - probably are working. And running for office is a significant time commitment - much more of a time commitment as things get closer to the election. But it's something that you do want to talk with your job about, talk with who you're reporting to about - make sure that they understand that you may need some flexibility, or figure that out as time goes on. It is really tough for someone to run while working an inflexible job. Unfortunately, there are things that both happen during the day, that happen during the evening - lots of demands on your time and resources at different times. And so understand what the road looks like - certainly something you're going to have to negotiate with and contend with and plan for. I want to talk about putting together the actual campaign team, which is one of the first things that someone, once they do make a decision to run, is going to do. What should their considerations be as they look to put together a team? [00:11:40] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Yeah, so as I mentioned, there are a lot of races - say you're running for city council in a small city or you're running for port commissioner - there might not be enough resources either in terms of your own fundraising capacity to bring in a high paid consultant. Or there might not be, frankly, consultants - there's not enough consultants for how many candidates we have in this state. One of the places where we're running really low actually is fundraisers. And so you got to think about what the major roles are in a campaign. And those are - traditionally - someone to help you, organize you, or keep you on task with fundraising. Someone to help you make sure that you can reach voters in a way that will actually reach them - and so that is either a communications professional or a general consultant who will do different kinds of mailings, or text messaging, or help you figure out which folks you want to talk to at the doors or on the phones. That can bleed into a little bit with what's called a field director, so that's someone who can look at the lay of the land, look at who traditionally votes, and figure out who you need to talk to and how many times you need to talk to them to make sure they hear your message. And I would say a lot of times folks often want some sort of a social media director or some sort of a comms professional who's not just deciding how they meet voters where they're at with the message and how they develop that message, but also who is actually just trying to help drum up support and excitement about your campaign with your followers and with potential new voters. And those are two different lanes from a similar - it all works very closely together - better communications can help you get more fundraising, more money, more volunteers. But it's really pivotal that you identify who can take those roles, whether or not it's people who you actually pay and hire to do that. All of those roles are jobs that exist in the political ecosystem, but they're all also jobs that someone who maybe just does social media work on their own can help you with if they're a volunteer. So making sure that you have a time when you're coordinating all these folks if you're doing it all with volunteers, or maybe you have money to pay a fundraiser, but not a general consultant, or vice versa - those are the two major roles that people will often pay people for. And then the big one that is, I think, the most worth money - because if you're doing illegal things, it's hard to win a race - is compliance. We have a state that has one of the best transparency in campaigns and elections. So you've got to make sure you have someone who's willing to go to the trainings or who just knows that work because they're a professional in that work, who's willing to file your stuff in a timely fashion, make sure that all your disclosures are done, make sure that everything that you're raising and spending is reported above board because that's something that can really ding you in a campaign by either your opposition or just by the public. You're not trustworthy if you can't be bothered to do the homework of telling people what you're up to in a state where that's really required of you. So I think those are the four major roles is comms, field, treasury, consulting, and fundraising. [00:14:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And that treasury piece is so important - just fundamentally - and would be one of the first people I locked down and put together. This is something that I often advocate, regardless of the size of the campaign - even if it's a small town or a big legislative or congressional campaign - have a professional paid treasury and compliance person. A lot of people don't realize that the campaign calls for a treasurer - you have to declare that when you file for office. And so a lot of times they think it is purely a financial thing. And so I have a friend who's a bookkeeper, I have a friend who's CPA who can totally do that - but that's actually the easier and simpler part. Alongside with treasury and built-in when we talk about treasury in a campaign context is that compliance - is the having to file all the required disclosures and reports, to follow the many campaign and spending regulations - everything from how you can accept money, maximum amounts that you can accept, how you track that, how you keep track of and collect cash and deal with that, the information you have to collect from all of the donors to report, how long before an election you can accept gifts of a certain size. All of that is a ton of rules and regulations. The PDC does a very good job in providing classes for people who are not professionals. So if you did want to have someone in that role who wasn't already doing it - start early, have them prepare by going to those trainings and doing that. But the compliance part is the most important part of that - I just cannot underscore that enough. Also, it's probably good to talk about the difference between people here, these positions - okay, so campaign manager and consultant - What is the difference? What do they do? In the campaign context, usually a general consultant is handling strategy and communications usually. The details of that can vary based on what your needs are, who's on your team, what is contracted - but make it a point to be clear on what those roles and responsibilities are, have a contract so that there's no confusion about who is responsible for what. Sometimes a consultant is just going to do paid communications like mail, or digital video, or ads, or things like that. Sometimes they're very involved in strategy and day-to-day preparation for interviews, or helping with endorsements, or all of that - those are pretty normal things that come with professional political consultants, at least. What I would say most of all is that whether or not you officially hire someone in that role or not - usually if you can, I advocate hiring that - of course, I am a political consultant, but I don't work with candidates, so it's not self-interest - it's important to have someone who has navigated campaigns and races like yours. There's lots of stuff that is specific to the campaign world. It is not just like marketing. There's a whole different cadence. There's lots of intricacies and relationships that are useful and valuable - and they know how to negotiate through that. They know how to put together a campaign plan, how to target voters. You want someone who has experience doing that - if it's not a paid consultant, someone who has shepherded, successfully, candidates through that whole thing before. And usually consultants are more on the strategy end of things - so helping to construct what the messaging is, helping to construct what the plan is. Campaign managers are usually more on the operational side of things - so implementing the campaign plan, putting the field plan into work, working with other volunteers, working with the rest of the team, and leading the crew there - from everything administrative to all of that. Sometimes in small local races, all you can afford is - and a very valuable thing in addition to a treasurer - is a campaign manager. And then you're working with your team of people to handle the rest and to do the strategy. It's helpful to look at what people who have run in that jurisdiction before and who have been successful have done - how they've constructed their campaign - you can see what people have spent and kind of reconstruct what their teams look like through public disclosure reports through the PDC - make use of that information. This doesn't mean you have to mimic that, but it is useful to know so that if you are deviating from it for a reason, you understand what the pros and cons of that are and what the implications of that are. What other considerations would you suggest? [00:19:16] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Yeah, I would say the Public Disclosure Commission website has some of the best free information that you can get for your campaign just by looking through it - because you can find both what past campaigns have done, what they've paid for, what kind of budgets that they've had in the past based on how much they've raised. You can also see lists of lobbyists. So if you're really interested in doing health care reform, you might call through all the health care lobbyists and they might be a good pot of money for you, once you start thinking through what your lens is on that - are you going to call the folks who are interested in it in the way that you are interested in it? Probably. I think sometimes lobbyist is a bad word, but more often than not - there are good ones and bad ones. So making sure that you call the ones who are lobbying for the things that you care about - I think those are great ways to build your network and build more allies in the work that you're trying to achieve by running for these offices. [00:20:06] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely. And that's a good point that you raise - just the alignment with the team, which sometimes is underrated. And unfortunately, there's a shortage of political professionals in the state in many areas - we're working on that. It can be hard when there's a limited pool of people available, but it is critical to have people who are generally aligned with who you are, what your priorities are - and who back that, and who are consistent. Otherwise, we get to a situation - and unfortunately, we've seen quite a bit of this lately - where one, someone may not know how to really communicate with voters about who you are, what you care for, and what you believe. If someone is used to messaging the opposite - if someone has advocated against renter protections, has advocated against more housing, has worked for interests that you traditionally have opposed or competed with - they're going to be more used to and skilled to working with and messaging things in that characterization. They oftentimes struggle to communicate outside of their own alignment and their own experience. And there's also the problem of consultants working with multiple candidates who have one candidate positioned in one way - hey, there's a progressive here, but there's a more moderate or conservative over there. And unfortunately, the messaging that they're pumping into the environment, into the community is directly refuting what you're doing. We've seen that a few times- [00:21:38] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Too many times. [00:21:38] Crystal Fincher: -in the very recent past. It's a problem. Or someone just doesn't have the types of networks or connections in the community that are useful to you, that are relevant to who you are, and are not able to put together and really understand and communicate with the coalition that you need to build in order to be successful - that may look different than coalitions that they've successfully built before. Do they generally work with candidates like you? Are they generally communicating and really making the vision clear, and being successful reaching voters with candidates like you? Those are very important considerations. And I think people ignore that and - Oh, well, they're the only person available, or just they were cheaper. - that backfires all of the time. [00:22:26] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Way too many times to count. [00:22:28] Crystal Fincher: Yes, yes. So the alignment is really important, and I think it's getting more important as we go on in years here. So, okay - they're putting together the campaign team - a couple of tips and things to look out for when it comes to some of the general areas of the campaign. When it comes to a budget, how should they approach a budget? [00:22:51] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: I like to say - you should approach your budget of your campaign the way, if you've ever run a small business, you might think about it like that. Because you are mostly seeking donations - unless for some reason someone here is wealthy enough to self-fund their campaign - you want to be a good steward of money that's coming into you, either from friends and family or from organizations that value your values and want to see you in. Because all those resources are finite, you want to make sure your budget reflects your values. So if you're running as a progressive person who values workers, you're going to want to make sure that you use union printed materials, union workplaces. Or if you're doing an event in a hotel for some reason, use a union hotel - don't use a non-union hotel. Those kinds of things that really make sure that what you're doing and what you're paying for aligns with the kind of values of your campaign really, really matters - both because it sets the tone for your values and for how you might govern, and it helps put money back into that same ecosystem that's helping support you. You also want to make sure that you've got enough money for the essentials. So we all tend to know that using labor materials - because we're paying people what they're worth - is a little bit more expensive than non-union materials. It's worth it, but you just got to make sure your budget reflects that if you're going to spend a bunch of money on printed mail pieces that you've got the money to do so. And that might mean less yard signs. Yard signs are one of the most visible things that people love to spend money on, but they're really expensive and they don't actually really equate to votes. Most people who see yard signs driving by - they're for visibility, they're for sort of creating the buzz - and they're for donors, I like to say. But they're not really for getting out any votes - yard signs don't actually vote. But mail pieces are much more likely to land in a mailbox with someone's ballot - they're more likely to see it as they're filling out their ballot. Digital is huge and important, and it helps get your name out there. General advertising rules say that you should probably see someone's name or see someone's face seven or eight times before it sort of sticks, especially in a big campaign year when everybody else is also doing the same thing. So the more touches you can get on a voter, the more likely they are to remember your name. So your budget should reflect how you're going to try to reach the voters - it should be very heavy on direct voter contact opportunities and possibilities. And some of that will be if you're able to fund a campaign staffer - because they'll help you get to more voters, or help you get through more endorsement questionnaires, or maybe help you schedule if your schedule is really busy. And your budget should make sure that it reflects, like we mentioned earlier, that priority of having someone who can do the compliance. Even if you're giving your friend 50 bucks to make sure they're up on whatever rules are coming out of the PDC, I think it's really important to make sure you fund that. And like governing, budgets are our values documents. You want to make sure that it just reflects what you're trying to accomplish and how you're trying to accomplish it. And make sure that it is scaled for roughly how much of a budget people have spent on your race in the past. It helps, as you're shopping for a consultant, to know that - Hey, I'm running for school board. I've seen people in the past spent between $40k and $80k on this kind of race and this kind of school board size so that when the consultant says, Oh, your budget should be $200k, you kind of have a sniff test of whether or not that's real or not, so you know whether or not you want to hire that person. So you have done a little bit of your own research to know what kind of ballpark - because when something costs you $40k versus $120k, that's literally money that you're going to have to help find. So you got to be sure that you're willing to bite off what you can actually chew in terms of the kind of race you want to run. [00:26:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely - that all makes sense. I also want to caution people against spending too much, especially on people, too early. This is about being a good steward of resources. And unfortunately, what I have seen happen too many times from afar is running out of money basically mid-campaign or spending way too much money on staff and overhead. And then when it comes time to communicate with voters - which is basically the most important thing that you're going to be doing - not having enough money to do that, which is basically just sabotaging your own campaign. A good rule of thumb is that at least two-thirds of what you raise should be going towards direct voter contact. So that's not going towards just paying the salary of your campaign manager or the retainer of your consultant, your fundraiser retainer - those can all add up really quick. Or as you go to assemble a team, you're like - Okay, I've got the best team of people. Yes, it's going to cost me $8,000 a month, but I'm sure we'll get it. You've got to go beyond just the hope and vibes to - is that really a level of expense that you can sustain and build on top of to have the war chest needed to communicate with voters? I see that wind up really backwards - people spend 75% on staff sometimes - and that's when we're talking behind the scenes, months before the end of the election, going, This actually is not possible for them to do. They don't have any money to do that communication that's so necessary because voters - most voters just don't pay attention, which is also just a really good thing for people to generally know. People generally don't read news articles - most people don't read them at all. The 20% who do mostly just read headlines. People don't pay attention to politics. Most people learn that there's an election coming because they get their ballot in the mail. People like us are in the middle of campaigns for months and months and months, and it seems like everyone in our circle knows, so this must be things that most of the community is paying attention to and aware of. That is so not the case - you have to communicate with people. And unfortunately, so much of that is paid. Like you said, the mail, the advertisements that you see in newspapers, the digital ads, the videos, social media pushes - which are somewhat limited politically in Washington state - but just doing all of that is critical to winning a race. And you're doing that the heaviest late in your campaign, which is why we see all of the ads and the stuff generally happen around the time you get your ballot until Election Day. So have enough money for that. Fund that stuff first - that's always been my rule. Fund communication, direct voter communication first - and then as you can afford other things, when you get money in the door, it's looking pretty consistent, then you can add on to there. But be very realistic about that. And be realistic about your fundraising and take those early cues seriously. If you start fundraising and you're pulling in $3,000 a month and you're spending $5,000 a month, you need to quickly reorient things, reorganize things in your campaign, redo your budget so that it fits with what you're doing. And you either need to trim expenses or see how maybe you can fundraise more. But that's also going to rely on you, and your discipline with fundraising is another thing that's going to be really important. When it comes to raising those funds, what are the biggest tips that you have? [00:30:05] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Ask. Ask everyone you know - your pastor, your second grade teacher, your former intern colleague three jobs ago. I like to joke that your phone is your best weapon in a campaign - it's where your list is going to come from, it's who you're going to be calling and texting and asking for help and money and all of the things. Anybody who you don't ask and knows you're running - quite frankly, might be a little bit offended that you didn't ask if they're a political person. I have run years and years and years of candidate trainings. And every year I tell the people in our cohorts, call me for money - if you're running and you didn't call me for money, I don't know that you actually listened to the training I gave you. And I think in the time that I've been doing it - of the hundreds of women and people of color I've trained to run for office - I think 10 tops have actually asked me for money. And I give them my cell phone and my email. Make sure that you actually ask everyone in your life. Anybody who sends you a birthday text - those are people to ask for money, they're thinking of you. Anybody who puts on your Facebook wall - Happy Birthday - those are people who are thinking of you. Anybody who you've had a meaningful relationship with, who knows your values, knows your heart, knows your drive, is someone you should ask. And those are the first people you should ask. And then you start building out from there to some of the other folks you should ask. There might be folks who are diametrically opposed on values or otherwise to whoever you're running against, and those are also people who you should ask for money - much later in the campaign. There's also oftentimes people who are really interested in seeing folks who look or have your values run for the seat that you're running for, and there's oftentimes people who are interested in just changing the way democracy looks - and so those are also sometimes people who you might ask for money from. But really, really, really make sure that you're talking to your folks that are closest to you first - that includes your parents, if you have them, that includes your grandparents, your kids, your cousins. Everybody who's closest to you and loves you probably is going to give you at least 50 bucks or something - because they love you. Even if you have a parent who is deeply opposed to your politics, they care about you, they love you - if you still have that relationship, you should ask. Let them say no. And I think that's the number one rule for fundraising is - You don't get any money that you don't ask for, so ask everybody unabashedly. I found this last campaign cycle that texts were actually a really great way of getting people to give, as opposed to - we used to call it call time. We still call it call time, but you don't have to make as many phone calls as we did in the past. You definitely have to make phone calls, but it can also be text time, it can also be Facebook Messenger time. And be really detail-orientated - keep a list or keep track of who you're asking so you're not asking the same person five times that are ghosting you. Let them ghost you, but make sure you do ask once. And then I would say also make sure that you're asking for an amount - it's really helpful if you're calling your uncle who's very wealthy, ask him for a max. And if you're calling your cousin who delivers pizza, maybe ask him for 20 bucks. Make your ask appropriate for who the person is, but don't try to undersell anybody - it's kind of a difficult science to finding the right amount to ask people. [00:33:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and the better you do with the people who you do have an existing relationship, the people who do love and care about you, the easier it's going to be later on down the line when you're talking to people who you don't yet know - people who you may just know that you're politically aligned with or they're passionate about an issue that you plan to take action on. It's going to make you look more credible if you start out with a solid fundraising performance, and that's going to build momentum down the line. I think those are great tips. One I would add would be - Don't make excuses for people. Let them say no to you. A lot of times, and I think even more with women and people of color - as the trainings we've done have really illuminated this - there's different relationships with money among many communities, People from communities who traditionally haven't grown up with as much wealth as we see in most of the political class. And that obviously impacts the approach to things, and the way we think about things, and even the way we prioritize - Oh, they have so much more important things going on, I don't want to bother them with that. And that feeling is coming from a place of caring, but it is also an act of caring - and people are happy to support someone who they are confident is the right person for the job and who's going to help people in their community and people like them. And so sometimes - I've sat in call time with a number of people, and they'll be like, Oh, this person's never, never going to give, or they don't have anything, or they're in this tough position. And a lot of times, those are the people who are happiest to give. Now, you don't ever want to break anyone - like you said, asking for an amount that is doable and appropriate - you don't want someone to wind up in a bad financial position. But also, they're the ones who know their financial position best. And it's real easy to get presumptive about that - you may not know. And people have money set aside to give to various causes - they might have that money already available to do that. So don't ever assume someone can't give. It's okay if they say no, but you should absolutely ask. And you should make a strong case and ask with confidence. Sometimes people are much more confident in raising money for a different cause, but it's much more complicated and there's a lot of self-consciousness around asking for it for yourself. But that's a very important thing, and we have to get better people into these elected positions, people who are more aligned with their communities. And the only way that happens is by going through this. I wish we were in a political system where money did not matter. Unfortunately, we are - and so we do have to deal with this and contend with it. And it would be a shame to put all of the time and energy into running a campaign without doing all you can to fundraise and give yourself the resources necessary to win. I also want to talk about just tips for messaging and how people can be authentic. I think sometimes people feel conflicted - they're used to seeing politicians give non-answers, avoid taking stances and positions on a wide variety of things - that being authentic is risky. What advice do you give to someone who is passionate about issues, who really wants to help, but is questioning - How do I communicate with people in an authentic way? [00:36:49] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: I think really being yourself matters. I have seen, especially I think with candidates of color or first gen candidates, this want to sort of cosplay white, or do a thing that isn't really authentic, or be a Leslie Knope when you're really not Leslie Knope - you're probably more like somebody else who is more uncouth. Be that person. People really appreciate the authenticity of how you show up, what you look like, in addition to what you're saying. If you're not comfortable in a suit jacket all the time - unless it says that you're required to wear that, don't wear that. Wear what makes you comfortable. Be confident in who you are. And that's all going to come out in your answers and in your voice. And really be willing to own and accept that you don't know everything. You're not an expert in everything yet. Most elected officials aren't an expert in anything, quite frankly, before they get there. And then they get there and they learn a lot and they grow and they do more. But even if you are an expert in something, accept that there's going to be things that you're not an expert in and be willing to own that as well. If somebody can ask you a really tough political question that makes you uncomfortable, just be honest with people about - Hey, I might step in this a little bit, but here's my answer. Or, be willing to say - You know what? I don't know the answer to that right now. Let me do some research and get back to you. And just make sure that you do actually follow up with people - follow up matters - no one expects you to have every answer. I can't tell you the amount of times I would knock on a door and talk to someone who's deeply concerned about some minutia of city government that I was like - I have been in government for decades and I don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to have to go research that, come back with an opinion on it - because I don't know what my opinion is on it yet because I just learned what this issue is. And so just be willing to do the follow-up when people ask you things - I think that really matters, it really helps. And be ready to be brazen and be standing who you are and what your values are - it's going to make you a better candidate, it's going to make you more authentic, and it's going to make you more relatable. Because even if you are not what you think a candidate or politician should be or look like, you are because you're doing it. So just be that person. And especially if you have an opinion that is different from what you think the room wants - I've also seen candidates fall into the trap of showing up at an endorsement meeting for an organization where they're only loosely aligned with the issues - be authentic to that. Because you don't want to lie to people and tell them what they want to hear, and then go and tell a different room of people the opposite - that also messes with your authenticity. Be authentically who you are all of the time and be willing to own where you might disagree with people because I think that matters as much in governing as it does always agreeing with people. People respect you more. [00:39:24] Crystal Fincher: Yes. My approach in advising candidates has followed that path. And really, it's because you're running in order to govern. And if you don't run as who you are and authentic to who you are - just trying to give the right answers and not give the wrong answers - when you do get elected, people don't know what you stand for, people have different impressions of what you would do, and you basically paint yourself into a box when you govern. You didn't run on anything, so you don't have a mandate for what you're going to do, which makes you afraid to do something because then people might get mad at you - because what you spent your campaign doing was trying to prevent people from getting mad at you. No one has a good time with that. No one is served with that. You don't govern effectively like that. And there are many examples we can look around at right now and look at how people who avoided taking stances on issues are now struggling to deal with those issues when they're elected. And so you have to be authentic to yourself in order to give yourself a shot when you are elected at accomplishing the things that are so important to you for the community. Another thing on the point of governing, one thing that I see electeds struggle with - specifically sometimes those who come from more of an advocacy or an activism background - is how to translate that advocacy, the energy into policy. What tips would you have on navigating through that? [00:41:01] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: I would say - as much as being authentic on the campaign trails, you've got to be authentic as an elected official. So if you have made a lot of promises on the campaign trail, you got to make sure you follow through. I think when you're just starting out, there's a big learning curve. You got to figure out sort of where the bathrooms are, how this thing works - but take some of the low hanging fruit that is a little bit easier and start working on that. Start trying to figure out how you can deliver some wins that are doable so that you can start learning how to pass bills, and how to legislate, and how to govern on the easy things before you start biting off the hard stuff later. And really be ready to deliver for the folks who you made promises to if you did - otherwise, you're not really doing a service to the people who helped get you there, the people who are depending on you. And it might be something that you'll got to go back and say - Hey, this is going to take some time. Especially if you're from an advocacy position and you've got the ear of the folks who are asking for stuff - talk to them about what it looks like on the inside and how they can be helpful. Something that I learned working both at Planned Parenthood and One America organizing advocacy is that sometimes the push from the outside is as helpful for the elected official on the inside. It's not always adversarial. Sometimes it's just they need that extra nudge, and see how you can make your friends who helped get you there as helpful to help you pass things and be more effective for the exact communities we're all trying to help. [00:42:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that's great advice. And then also just the nuts and bolts of - governing is action-based. People make a lot of promises on the campaign trail - really campaigning is talking, it's making a lot of promises, making a speech and saying that you care about something. Where really, once you're elected, it's the action that is the proof of the caring. So you're going to have to learn how to write that ordinance about the issue that you said you wanted to address. You're going to have to learn how to turn that into policy, how to speak to different impacted parties in your community, how to talk to people who you disagree with and who you may not placate as you develop your policy and write your ordinances or write your bills. But it's important to hear from them just to make sure that you understand what their perspective is, that you understand what the challenges they're having with it. You may not disagree with them, or you may learn something that - Hey, they're saying this is a concern. I can make this tweak without fundamentally altering the thing that I'm doing, and maybe I avoid some unintended consequences. That's all a really important process. But really it is now action-based - it's about what are you doing, whether it's allocating funding, writing an ordinance - but those are also things that are not intuitive and not easy to do. So people better work on getting familiar with what that process is, talk to people who are doing it, and learn how to get that done. Because you really should hit the ground running as much as possible and work on crafting that policy. [00:44:02] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Yep, there's a reason the president comes in with a first 100-day plan. You don't have to have 100 things you do in your first 100 days, but you should definitely have one thing - seems doable. When I first got appointed, no one asked me to do it, but because of my background in choice and reproductive justice, the first thing I did was make sure that folks who were trying to get gender-affirming care and abortions were protected in our city. No one asked for that, but that was my value set - I came in, I did it, and we keep it pushing. We do the next thing that matters to us. So have a thing that you're ready to do if you get there, because then you can be talking about that on the campaign trail. [00:44:36] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Great advice. So that is number one with authenticity. And number two, over the past 15 years - have heard so many times from consultants or political people - Oh, this person is the ideal candidate. And so many times people who look like me, people who look like several people I've helped to elect, people who look like you, or have a background like people like us are not at all what people envision when they're saying - They're the ideal candidate. There is no ideal candidate. The ideal candidate is just someone who really cares about and is willing to serve their community. And that comes in so many different packages. And also what we see, which a lot of people are not aware of, is that when someone doesn't look like what they think of oftentimes as the standard politician - if they do have a different background, that's more exciting to voters, that turns out more people, and they are more successful on average than someone who is like the traditional candidates. So don't let people's expectations, don't let the current composition of whatever body you're looking to get elected to intimidate you from doing that. Like you said before, you are qualified. People are qualified in many different ways. For some people, that looks like a bunch of degrees or owning a business. For other people, that looks like having personal lived experience with the issues that you're trying to make a difference with and having a perspective that is missing but desperately needed in the body. I do think it's important to have been working in the community, to be able to demonstrate that you care about and are credible in the issues that you're talking about, that there is a connection with people in your community. If you run and people are like, Who the heck is that? And no one from anywhere knows where you are, I would suggest there should be more groundwork put into what you're doing. You should have a lot of people who do know who you are and can attest to what you have done, how you've helped in your community and all that. But don't let you feeling like you don't fit be what stops you. On the flip side of that, I will also say - be aware of when a body has excluded people like you. And that has to be a consideration that sometimes people are hesitant to talk about or it's - Oh, it's great. We need someone like that in that body. - and everyone's excited to get them there, without understanding that that there might be a hostile place currently, that that there may come with a lot of challenges for that candidate that other people may not have had to face. Also being realistic about what the history of the body that you're joining is, what the current composition is, why different people may not be there - and be prepared to contend with that, knowing that that may be a challenge when you get there. I think that's something we don't talk about enough that we need to talk about more. [00:47:40] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Absolutely. It's funny you say that - that was actually my lived experience. So I ran for Tacoma City Council in 2013 - I didn't win. I did try to take out a very popular incumbent - we have a lot of political dynasties in Pierce County, so he was a son of somebody, like a lot of them are. But at the time, I would have been the first Latina elected to Tacoma City Council. I didn't win, and then 10 years went by and we got an open seat. And I was calling around to folks - because my favorite thing to do is help people run for office - and I was like, Who are we going to get to run for this appointment? And multiple people were like, You, man, what are you talking about? So I applied and then got the appointment and then ran for the seat. And now I'm actually the first Latina elected to the Tacoma City Council 10 years later because now was actually the moment that the city was ready for that, that people were pushing for that. And 10 years ago, that was less the case, even though it shouldn't have been - our Latino population hasn't skyrocketed in that time - but it's just what's for you hits you, what doesn't misses you. But it's also a matter of - I was willing to answer that call because it was still a need. And I think that that's part of it - is knowing what these environments are. And I am so grateful that I'm on the council I'm on now, as opposed to the one that was there 10 years ago - that would have been miserable. And now we have a majority women council, we have a majority BIPOC council - it's just such a better place to be a part of now. Not to say anything disparaging about prior council, because we had a great mayor who's now a congresswoman, but it's just a different time and it's a more fun time for me to be in office. Also, it's just a different place in my career, so I think making sure that you've got that conviction to keep following through because you may not make it the first time is also a big part about thinking how you run for office. [00:49:21] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that's a really good point. There are so many people who run, unsuccessfully, their first time. And it's important to define what success looks like for you, even if you aren't elected. You were smart about that, there are a number of people I see being smart about that - and others not being so smart. There are so many people who are successful on their second run, and that's because of how they set themselves up in their first run. Are they building relationships? Are they growing their network and their coalition? Are they working together with people in positive ways? Are they finding ways to build with different people in different ways? I see things backfire and people set themselves back if they're bitter and negative. Politics is all coalition based - you may disagree with someone on something here and agree with them on something else. You work together on the something else, and then you just build a coalition with different people on the other thing that you're working for that you care about. You can do that while being true to yourself, while not doing things that are philosophically disagreeable to you. But it is about building bridges, maintaining lines of communication, building relationships, people being able to trust that they can count on you, that you are true to your word, that you are who you say you are, you'll do what you say you'll do. Or if that changes, that you clearly communicate that and why. Building those relationships throughout the campaign is important - it will help you if you are elected to govern. And if you aren't elected, it helps you to run again if you so choose. And even if you don't run again, they help you to make the type of change - even in an unelected capacity - that you were trying to make in an elected capacity. So really look at how you're setting yourself up, regardless of what the outcome is. Run the kind of race that you will not have regrets if you don't win - that has been a piece of advice that I've given, that I strongly believe. Do things that you can live with throughout the whole thing. If you sell yourself out - whatever that looks like to you - and do things you're uncomfortable with in the name of winning, and you don't, there's so much regret tied to that. And then you're looking to the community like someone who you aren't and nothing good comes from that. So again, being authentic, running a race that's true to you is very important. Any closing piece of advice that we haven't gotten to, or that you would want to leave people with? [00:51:54] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Regardless of whether or not you're paying a campaign team, or you're getting volunteers, or truly anybody with a pulse who exists and is willing to help - make sure you're setting yourself up with a team of people you trust, you can depend on, and that you quite frankly want to spend a lot of time with because you're going to spend a lot of time with them - either checking in on them or actually literally with them. And really, I like to take it the step further and say, Try to build the team that reflects the kind of workplace that you want to have. So sometimes that means having unionized campaign workers. Sometimes that means having an all-BIPOC or an all-woman staff or team. Make sure that you're intentionally seeking out the folks who are going to round out your opinion. So you might not have everyone be of the same demographic - it might be helpful depending on what you're up to, what you're doing - you don't want any gaps in who's in the room helping you make decisions so that you're not making decisions that don't make sense for a big part of the community. And then mentoring and leadership building is a big part of what I've done before getting to office and to get to office. So I like to be mindful of bringing people in who can learn this stuff so that maybe they then want to go be a consultant, because we need more BIPOC consultants. Or maybe they want to go later on and be a policy writer. They want to run for office themselves. I like to try to make sure that we spread the wealth and keep giving back and pulling forward with people. I like to say - I'm the first one, but I'm not going to be the last one in Tacoma. And so making sure that we're building those bridges and opportunities for mentorship is really helpful and important. And keeping your eyes open for who the next leaders are and bringing them in and lifting them up - I don't think having more of us in the world, in the politics, in the progressive movement is detrimental. This is not a crabs in a pot mentality - the more of us there are, the better it is and the better our policies can become. I'm going to want somebody to the left of me as much as I deal with those on the right of me. And it really all helps push and pull and help us all be better and get us to better policy solutions, ultimately, in the end, which is what we want. So I think that those are the big things is - how you build stuff that's going to build and outlive and outlast you. [00:53:56] Crystal Fincher: Wise words from someone who has walked that path and helped many other people walk it. Thank you so much for spending the time with us today, Councilmember Olgy Diaz. [00:54:07] Councilmember Olgy Diaz: Thank you. [00:54:09] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

US of AS*HOLES ARE YOU ONE? America's #1 Problem? Hero or Ill? Karel Cast 24-26 by Progressive Voices

US of AS*HOLES ARE YOU ONE? America's #1 Problem? Hero or Ill? Karel Cast 24-26 Have we become the United States of As*holes? The proof is all around us, from social media to Congress. We truly are turning in to a nation of self-serving, rude, entitled, well, as*holes. Even me sometimes. I mean, it's bound to rub off. So what's to be done? Or is there any redemption for us? America's #1 problem according to Congress this week is THIS and in order to solve it they are willing to shut down the government, again. Every three months we get the threat of the government shutting down. And now it's over a problem they say is #1. But is it? Do you think it is? A man set himself on fire screaming Free Palestine. I maintain he's mentally ill. Many think he was a noble martyr. But is there nobility in public suicide for a cause where nothing will change from your sacrifice? And is this a form of mental illness? Watch on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe at YouTube.com/reallykarel @ReallyKarel is all social media and website reallykarel.com The Karel Cast is heard three times a week on all your favorite streaming services and the video can be seen on Youtube. Karel is a history-making #LGBTQ talk show host currently living in Las Vegas with his pup Ember. https://youtu.be/OVMi8aJb1AA

This week on Ring of Fire! Lauren Boebert has a little over one month before the primary in Colorado for her new district, and things are off to a horrible start for her. A new straw poll taken after the first primary debate last week puts her squarely in fifth place, meaning she's actually doing worse in her new district than she was in her old district. The window of opportunity is closing on Boebert, but it should have closed years ago. Republicans are up in arms - almost quite literally - over illegal immigration, but they are still refusing to work out a border deal with Democrats in Congress. The biggest reason why a deal isn't happening is because Donald Trump is telling Republicans to shoot down any deal because it will help President Biden politically. If they solve the problem then they'll have nothing to campaign on, and that's a bigger threat than anything. The conservative outlet One America News may have given Trump lawyer Sidney Powell a spreadsheet that contained the login data for Smartmatic's voting systems. According to the defamation lawsuit that Smartmatic filed against One America, the network somehow obtained a spreadsheet containing the login data for certain employees, and they proceeded to hand it over to Sidney Powell (and possibly even to Mike Lindell, according to the suit.) And Republicans in the House had yet another witness testify that President Joe Biden was NOT involved in any way in any of his son's business deals, a statement that blows yet another hole in their efforts to impeach him. The Republican Party has consistently come up short with their impeachment effort to the point that even Republicans in the Senate are telling their House counterparts that this whole thing is a waste of time because they have no evidence of anything. All that, and much more, on this week's Ring of Fire Podcast!

Scott welcomed Brad Shepard back to the Optimized Advisor studio for a third time to discuss the emphasis on creating an emotional connection, engaging in meaningful conversations, utilizing probing questions to explore clients' thoughts, and initiating discussions on long-term care planning to address clients' concerns effectively.For the past 24 years, Brad has enjoyed an area of focus in selling, training and marketing Long-Term Care and Linked Benefit solutions. His current role, Regional Sales Director, with OneAmerica is to help distribution partners, advisors and agents develop and grow their Long Term Care Planning business through extensive business planning, marketing, training and support. He has also been a speaker, on the topic of Long-Term Care Planning, at hundreds of educational seminars, workshops and webinars across the country.Brad is a Pennsylvania native and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. He resides in New Bloomfield, PA with his wife, Denise, son Logan, and daughter Linsay.In this episode you will learn the following: How to effectively ask open-ended questions as an Advisor discussing long-term care planning solutions with clientsAvoid discussing numbers and financial aspects of long-term careHow to optimize client relations and personal experience to create an open dialogue for long-term care planningListen to our previous episode with Brad:Ep. 2 - The Single Largest Unfunded Risk Facing RetireesEp. 75 - Home for the Holidays, LTC Awareness with Brad Shepard and Brian OttConnect with Scott on LinkedInConnect with Brad on LinkedInFor more on The Optimized Advisor Podcast click here  Follow us on LinkedInFollow us on InstagramFollow us on Facebook**This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@mailpcwest.com

In honor of Thanksgiving and Season 2 of High on the Hog, we thought it might be fun to bring back another older episode of the Historians At The Movies Podcast during our two week break. Leftovers, if you will. This episode features two of my food history scholars in Adrian E. Miller and Mark Johnson, talking about African American culinary traditions, gender roles in the kitchen, and some of their favorite recipes. I hope you're coming back for seconds on this.About our guests:Adrian Miller is a food writer, James Beard Award winner, attorney, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado. Adrian received an A.B in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995.  From 1999 to 2001, Miller served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Miller went on to serve as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. From 2004 to 2010, he served on the board for the Southern Foodways Alliance. In June 2019, Adrian lectured in the Masters of Gastronomy program at the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche (nicknamed the “Slow Food University”) in Pollenzo, Italy. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position. Mark Johnson is an assistant professor in history at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. He specializes in the history of the United States and, specifically, the U.S. South and African American History. In 2017, he published An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue: From Wood Pit to White Sauce. In 2021, he published Rough Tactics: Black Performance in Political Spectacles, 1877-1932 came out with University Press of Mississippi. He previously published articles in Southern Cultures and Louisiana History. Currently, he's working on a cultural history of bacon in the United States tentatively titled American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon with University of Georgia Press.

There's polarization, and then there's toxic polarization. We all know what that feels like, especially at this moment around Israel and Palestine. For many of us, the temperature of the rhetoric is so incendiary that even though we might have deep and nuanced feelings, let alone education, experience, or personal ties to the issue, the thought of wading into what seems like a totally polarized conversation feels frightening and pointless. But, we still want to be able to engage in our world, and maybe even dip our toe into conversation with people we believe to be well-intentioned, even if their views might seem extreme or uninformed to us. But how can we do that without turning up the temperature and the volume by adding our voice? Thankfully, Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin is here to help. Rabbi Schmelkin specializes in navigating toxic polarization and crossing divides. In this episode, she helps us understand what's happening to people–including ourselves–when we encounter or engage in polarized or potentially polarizing topics, and reminds us that we have choices in how–and if–we engage.TERMS: Havdalah: Hebrew for “separation”, the Havdalah service marks the end of Shabbat and the return to the "normal" week.Rabbinate: The office or function of being a rabbiMotive misattribution: Assuming that the motivations of others are negative in a situation where we would accept our own motives as perfectly reasonable. This is related to motive asymmetry, where people assume the motives of those on the other side of a conflict are diametrically opposed to ours, creating an intractable conflict.Musar (or Mussar): A movement to use Jewish ethics, as opposed to rules, to guide behavior and character. Mussar facilitators use these principles to guide challenging conversations. Sacred Value: A value that is impervious to material incentives to change.Backfire effect: Digging in on an existing belief in response to information that disproves it.4-7-8 breathing: a breathing technique to reduce anxiety where one inhales for a count of four, holds the breath for a count of seven, and exhales for a count of eight.Beginner's Mind: A mindset that releases any previously existing knowledge or conceptions to allow for maximum curiosity and openness, approaching like a total beginner on the topic.b'tzelem Elohim: Hebrew for “in the image of God”, it refers to all humans being created in the image of God and therefore being of equal value.ken y'hi ratzon: Translated as “let it be so”, it literally means “let it be God's will”MORE: One America Movement: https://oneamericamovement.org/ *Quick disclosure: The One America movement is a catalyst partner of Stand Together, which is my employer in my day job. They have no involvement in this podcast, which does not represent them or their interests in any way. Over Zero: https://www.projectoverzero.org/  Beyond Conflict: https://beyondconflictint.org/ Support the showLike the show? Support it! Or don't, that's cool too. Just glad you're here! https://www.buzzsprout.com/2196108/supporters/new

The Rolling Stones' 1972 US tour wasn't merely the biggest musical event of the year; it redefined the modern rock tour as we know it, both in spectacle and debauchery… and risk. This was the band's first trip to the States since the deadly disaster at Altamont in '69. The bruise left by that show put a target on the bands' back—particularly Mick Jagger—who became the pariah not only for conservative America, but the Hell's Angels as well. As the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band swept across the country in limos and private jets, the question loomed large on everyone's mind: Would someone try to assassinate Mick Jagger?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adrian Miller is a food writer, James Beard Award winner, attorney, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado. Adrian received an A.B in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995. From 1999 to 2001, Miller served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Miller went on to serve as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. From 2004 to 2010, he served on the board for the Southern Foodways Alliance. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position. In 2018, Adrian was awarded the Ruth Fertel “Keeper of the Flame Award” by the Southern Foodways Alliance, in recognition of his work on African American foodways. Miller's first book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. His second book, The President's Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas was published on President's Day 2017. It was a finalist for a 2018 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction,” and the 2018 Colorado Book Award for History. Adrian's third book is Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, and is the subject of our conversation today.

Darren discussed these topics: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action and for religious accommodations.The Wagner Group almost invaded Moscow. We'll examine what happened, what didn't happen, and how a civil war in Russia was avoided.Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was censured by House Republicans for investigating Donald Trump. Democrats called it revenge on behalf of Trump.The chief meteorologist at a Des Moines, Iowa television station resigned after he received viewer threats about his coverage of climate change.And Ottawa County commissioner Jacob Bonnema (R) was censured by the county board of commissioners for filing a Human Resources complaint against county administrator John Gibbs and for voting with the lone Democrat on the board.Hammer Time: WOOD TV news director Stanton Tang was the architect behind a memo issued to newsroom personnel to cover "both sides" of Pride events. He also wanted reporters to cover "news" items from Newsmax and One America.Hammer Time: Nexstar Media Group senior vice president of content development Susan Tully scolded WOOD TV newsroom personnel after the memo was leaked to the media.

Kim Thomas is the Chief DEI Officer & Head of Community Affairs at One America. In this episode, Kim shares how the goals and expectations for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and programs have changed over the last two decades in multiple fields, particularly from the Human Resources perspective. Kim also discussed how she and her team remain inspired and motivated to further impact change for the future of DEI in the financial industry.

According to Dan Ball, host of Real America on One America's News Network, “Legacy Media is Dead”. In this week's episode of Better for America, Ball joins Rebecca Weber for an in-depth discussion on the decline of legacy mainstream media networks, highlighting the extent of corruption within these organizations. Ball sheds light on the collusion between the government and legacy outlets, exposing the false narratives the CNN's and MSNBC's have been peddling in the name of power. With over 30 years of experience in journalism, Ball offers a candid outlook on the current state of the media landscape. This is a must-watch episode for those seeking an answer to censorship in America!

The question of whether Indian Country and the United States should be viewed as separate entities or as one unified country has been a topic of debate for decades. Given the history of colonization, genocide, and ongoing oppression faced by Indigenous peoples in the United States, tribes have argued that they should be recognized as true sovereign nations, separate and distinct from the U.S.On the other hand, some argue that the idea of a "united" America is paramount and that recognizing that separate individual "Nations within a Nation" would be a threat to national unity and security. In this podcast, we will offer perspective on how the complex history and ongoing struggles faced by Indigenous peoples in the United States are largely ignored by elected politicians who (in some cases) come from within our tribal communities.Also...Recently, the Keep America Beautiful organization announced the release of all rights to its "Crying Indian" ad campaign made famous in the 1970s. We ask... why now?And...The first Native American to command a space mission has returned from a six month trip to the International Space Station. We welcome her, and the space X Dragon crew back to earth.The Native Opinion Podcast is Hosted by Michael Kickingbear (Mashantucket Pequot) and David Grey Owl (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.) Learn more about the hosts here.Research and Website resources from this episode:One America? (1st Segment)Markwayne Mullin Goes Nuclear On Labor Leader In Fiery Hearing On Unions (VIDEO)Can UPS drivers make 100k?Ups Feeder Driver Salary (According to Zip Recruiter)What Does a UPS Feeder Driver Do?'Class War' Erupts at Hearing as Union Leader and GOP Senator Exchange Verbal BlowsTEAMSTER OFFICER SALARY REPORT (2019)Interview With Mark-Wayne Mullin (VIDEO: The Oklahoma News Report)Carol Tome, CEO, United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) Total Compensation for Fiscal Year Ending in 2021: $27,620,893. (Source: AFLCIO)UPS CEO addresses dangerous heat inside trucks and contentious weekend deliveries as a driver strike threatens to upend millions of deliveriesMarkwayne Mullin to replace Jim Inhofe in U.S. Senate (VIDEO)Mullin's and Hern's net worth jump with sale of businessesNative News Today's Jason Salsman visits with US Congressman and Cherokee citizen Markwayne Mullin VIDEO (Produced by Mvskoke Media)Report: Markwayne Mullin earned $600,000-plus in outside income against House rulesKeep America Beautiful organization announced the release of all rights to its "Crying Indian"National Congress of American Indians Aquires Rights Retires “Crying Indian”National Congress of American Indians Press ReleaseExample of one of the "Crying Indian" ad spots. VIDEOWelcome home Commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, First Native American Woman in Space First Native American Woman in Space VIDEOFirst Native American woman to fly in space returns to Earth‘That was one heck of a ride,' said NASA astronaut Nicole Mann after landing into the Gulf of Mexico

Author and Historian James W. Lee comes on the show to explore Tartaria and discuss his up coming book on Pangaea, that it was a more recent even than we are told. James W. Lee worked 22 yrs as a successful analyst on Wall Street until the "Grand Design" was revealed to him, after which he quit and started speaking out. The multitude of books he has written are his efforts to educate, alert and inform. Find more of James W. Lee at: Official website: https://aplanetruth.info/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/James-W.-Lee/author/B08KBH5MPW?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true https://tabublog.com/ https://aplanetruth.info/ https://biomaghealer.org/ https://rumble.com/c/c-616423 https://www.youtube.com/@aplanetruth1148/ Please send any correspondence to jwlpeace@gmail.com. https://jwlpeace.wordpress.com/ Some of the book sources mentioned on the show: Ancient And Modern Britons: Vol. 1 by David Mac Ritchie https://amzn.to/3Ii1WAf Ancient And Modern Britons: Vol. 2 by David Mac Ritchie https://amzn.to/3XpSe35 Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids by Peter Tompkins https://amzn.to/3YERMQd Queen M'Oo and the Egyptian Sphinx by Augustus LePlongeon https://amzn.to/3jPey8y Atlantis, The Antediluvian World Hardcover by Ignatius Donnelly https://amzn.to/3K2YWJo Links: Podcast: https://www.MoorsinAmerica.com https://www.youtube.com/MoorsinAmerica7 Fezzes for Sale: https://www.MoorishFez.com Temple Website: https://www.MoorishAmericans.com Marketing Services: https://www.realtrafficmarketing.com Our Temple Website: https://www.MoorishAmericans.com Marketing Services: https://www.realtrafficmarketing.com If you appreciate this well-researched discourse from a Moorish American view make sure to use the links below to support our channel so that we can produce more great works documenting the Moorish American paradigm! Donations/Support: https://patreon.com/moorsinamerica https://paypal.me/lloydmd Get the Universal Meditation mp3 HERE: https://payhip.com/b/703y Subscribe & Check Out Our Website http://www.MoorsInAmerica.com Join & Contribute to our FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/moorsinamerica/ Follow Us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moorsinamerica/ Like Us on FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoorsInAmerica/ Follow Us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoorsInAmerica/ Tell Everyone about the channel & Subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/c/MoorsInAmerica7 Song: Moors in America by Shawn Bandz http://dreamlyferecords.net/ #moorsinamerica #moorishamerican #moorishscience #moorishamericans #moors #moorish --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/moorish-americans/support

You cannot have 2 nations within a country, that goes for national anthems as well. The death of everything. Striving to fill quotas can have dire consequences. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You cannot have 2 nations within a country, that goes for national anthems as well. The death of everything. Striving to fill quotas can have dire consequences. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was the shot heard round the world.  Martin Luther King, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, by James Earl Ray, a crazed racist. Dr. King had become to emerge as the face, and more importantly the voice for America, and even the world over for racial equality. King was an eloquent spokesman, learned academically, Christian in belief and determined to make a difference. He would never know the difference he would make.  The assassin's bullet, deadly and accurate, was the beginning in many ways of a new awareness of racial inequalities, primarily black and white. Perhaps that dastardly assassination awakened right – thinking men and women of good faith, and color blind and constitutional to the beginning of a new respect for each other regardless of color or skin and a commitment to build different and better human relationships. WE THE PEOPLE, real Americans, millions of us people of faith both black and white were challenged by the King assassination to really live up to the requirements of our faith, to understand and love one another and to be champions of the constitutional rights of all people, all citizens, all Americans as guaranteed by our beloved constitution. We were challenged by the first amendment and its five incredible rights and freedoms, and the fourth amendment, and the fifth amendment and in fact all amendments which defined, protected and guaranteed the rights and freedoms of ALL. That was so, no matter the color of ones skin, whether red, yellow, black, white or brown or any mixture thereof.  All men and women were created equal, none were inferior, even though all were different in terms of talents, skills, capabilities, intellect and even work ethic. It was in fact those differences that made America great when at work and when each of us, WE THE PEOPLE were the best we could be, as God created us to be. We counted upon HIS inalienable rights as defined by our constitution which were permanent, eternal and guaranteed to all. If only America and WE THE PEOPLE could be that way, live that way, respect others that way. What a wonderful world that would be.  It is simply possible for us in the 21st century to comprehend servitude, to think in terms of any man or woman as SLAVE. Most regrettably, slavery did actually exist in America up until the year 1865. Thereafter, any who were slaves were freemen and women and we embarked on the difficult task of freedom for all. Slavery was gone but racism continued. It existed overtly and subtly. I find racism so difficult to understand, much less justified. In my family, as we were raised, there was no such thing. Our family, my parents respected all men and women no matter the color and as Christians, we offered and expected love, understanding and mutuality from all.  And the very same in my company, the Crawford Broadcasting Company. We have more than 200 employees and partners. They are diverse, men and women, elderly and young, many of different skin color, all equal and treated fairly. Skin color never matters but only, as Dr. Martin Luther King so eloquently stated, the content of ones character and the quality of ones work. We ask that these special men and women have a serious commitment to Christianity, to the God of Abraham, and to the real America, the real constitutional America. We ask more for a strong work ethic and that each do the very best possible in the job for which they were hired. If there is any sign, any hint, any possibility of racism, or prejudice, or discrimination, any overt conduct in that regard which affects the workplace, that individual would be immediately dismissed. Racism of any kind will never be tolerated in the Crawford Broadcasting Company. That is so whether white for black, black for white or discrimination shown or displayed for any other race or ethnicity. IT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! Racism begins if and only if parents do not:             TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE WAY THAT CHILD SHOULD GO If parents are prejudice, children will be likewise. If parents respect, show love, give unto others and construct a true CHRIST – LIKE HOME environment, children will live and believe accordingly. Without that, the love of Christ at work at home, there can be no end to racism, none at all. That is so no matter a 1619 project, no matter the efforts of BLACK LIVES MATTER, no matter how much cancel culture is at work, no matter how much of American history is destroyed. None of that in any way will affect racism in a positive way. The violence our society now experiences is fostered so much so by racism. Killing is commonplace. Lawlessness abounds. There is so little respect for police, for law and order, for borders as illegal immigrants pour into America by the tens of thousands. Racism, disrespect for others fosters all such and sooner or later, will be the end of the greatest nation in the history of mankind, our beloved America.  Right thinking voices, the voices of reason, tolerance, even love are silent or unheard. They are drowned out by the shrill, hateful voices of intolerance, those voices, posing as WOKE, progressive, enlightened not only help NOT to solve the problem, but actually foster division, lack of understanding and distrust among races. College and University campuses stamp out free speech, order things politically correct and do not allow right thinking men and women to exchange ideas, speak freely on issues and otherwise pursue mutual understanding. Churches move away from the real gospel, from the love of Jesus Christ, from salvation, from dealing with sin and make it so difficult for men and women to approach each other equally, trusting, and concerned with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Diversity is emphasized far more than oneness, each of us first and for most human beings, God – created, entitled to inalienable rights and constitutional guarantees and protections. WE ARE AMERICANS. All of us. There are diversities, differences but there is only ONE AMERICA. It is up to us as Dr. Martin Luther King advised and warned to live up to our constitution, to what makes America great and only then can racism be dealt with. But the truth of the matter is that there is only ONE SOLUTION.  There is only one way to do away with racism once and for all and that is in the person of, the love, the sacrifice, the salvation, the cleansing, the life changing capabilities of the one and only:             JESUS CHRIST Without that transforming power, salvation and guidance, there will never be a real end to racism, never. That solution is available today, NOW. A heart transformed by the love of Jesus Christ will produce a mind which would find anything racist ANATHEMA. Then, what a wonderful world this would be, Christ – centered and love – filled. The Christ of glory loves all men and women, ALL! All regardless of skin were created by Him, loved by Him and so should we. The solution to racism is so simple, but so difficult so it seems. If not before, CHRIST ON EARTH once again will see to the end of this insidious, satanic problem. Only HE an do that. 

Scott Heinila was joined virtually by Brad Shepard, Regional Sales Director at One America and Brian Ott, Founder and CEO 525 Advisors to discuss Long-Term Care planning during LTC Awareness Month. In the episode they discussed the following:  LTC Planning and factsHow to prepare families when their loved ones need LTCBrad and Brian shared their personal stories dealing with LTCListen to their previous episodes here:  Episode 002: The Single Largest Unfunded Risk Facing RetireesEpisode  026: Learn FromAn Optimized Advisor: Brian Ott, 525 AdvisorsConnect with Scott on LinkedInConnect with  Brad on LinkedInConnect with Brian on LinkedInFor more on The Optimized Advisor Podcast click here  For more on Producers Choice Network click hereFor more on One America click hereFor more on 525 Advisors click hereFor more on the iLTCI Conference click hereFollow us on LinkedInFollow us on InstagramFollow us on Facebook**This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@mailpcwest.comEPISODE NOTES

Highlights:     “Maddow's defense argued that she's just a commentator, which means, what she says isn't necessarily true, because she's not dealing with facts, but with her own opinions, which is a blatant admission that what Maddow peddles is not actual news, she just spews narrative.” “US district court judge P. Kevin Castel, ruled that when Maddow asserted Nunes did not hand over the package to the FBI, she made the claim as a matter of fact, not as an opinion.” Timestamps:         [01:12] The defamation lawsuit against Maddow and her pathetic defense [03:25] On the court's ruling and the other defamation lawsuit against Maddow [06:23] Maddow's defense when One America sued her and how conservatives are sticking it to the legacy media once and for all Resources:  Download my Most Incredible FREE Gift Ever for Patriots including my personal research resources at https://insidersclub.turleytalks.com/ SAVE OVER 25% OFF your 1-Month Emergency Food Supply Kit here! SAVE OVER 25% OFF your 1-Month Emergency Food Supply Kit here! Http://GetReadyWithSteve.com 1285 Trump Just Made HUGE ADMISSION About Kari Lake!!! Learn how to protect your life savings from inflation and an irresponsible government, with Gold and Silver. Go to http://www.turleytalkslikesgold.com/ Download Dr. Steve's personal research sources and his list of woke alternatives for FREE at https://www.drsteveblueprints.com Get Over 66% OFF All of Mike Lindell's Products using code TURLEY: https://www.mypillow.com/turley Get 25% off Patriotic Coffee and ALL ITEMS with Code TURLEY at https://mystore.com/turley Get Your Brand-New PATRIOT T-Shirts and Merch Here: https://store.turleytalks.com/ It's time to CHANGE AMERICA and Here's YOUR OPPORTUNITY To Do Just That! https://change.turleytalks.com/ Fight Back Against Big Tech Censorship! Sign-up here to discover Dr. Steve's different social media options …. but without censorship! https://www.turleytalks.com/en/alternative-media.com Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review. Do you want to be a part of the podcast and be our sponsor? Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture! If you would like to get lots of articles on conservative trends make sure to sign-up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts.

He calls himself a recovering lawyer and politico turned culinary historian, food writer and professional speaker.Sprinkle in a healthy dose of faith and social justice activism and voilà — a Soul Food Scholar “dropping knowledge like hot biscuits!”Somehow, Adrian Miller has managed to fashion a successful career intersecting his multitude of talents to the benefit of us all.From the White House to NetflixSome of you might recognize him from his star turn on the acclaimed Netflix docuseries, “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America”.Or perhaps you've encountered him on his cross-country travels.He visited 150 restaurants in 35 cities as he researched his James Beard Award-winning book, “Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time.”He received a second James Beard Award just this year for his most recent book, “Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.”Oh — and he worked in Bill Clinton's White House as Deputy Director of the President's Initiative for One America addressing racism, ethics and religious issues of reconciliation.So there's that…Not to mention his skills as a gifted storyteller and speaker with a wicked sense of humor.Finding his CallingEarly in his career, Adrian aspired to represent his home state of Colorado in the U.S. Senate.Instead, he has found a unique and compelling way to contribute to our national discourse using scholarship, food and faith to help bridge our divides.As Executive Director of the Colorado Council of Churches, Adrian works to build interfaith relationships and advocate on social justice issues.Clearly we have a lot to talk about, including some fun, food facts from my childhood during the Switch it Up segment at the end. So don't miss it!Be Featured on Our Voices MatterSpeaking of fun, food facts, we'd love to hear yours! You might even win a prize.Send us a quick phone video sharing one of your favorite food memories. Bonus if your memory is about bringing people together.We'll use your videos to create a special episode of OVM just in time for the holidays.The OVM team will vote on the best video and the winner of a $100 Visa gift card will be announced when the episode drops on December 1st..The deadline to upload your video is Friday, November 18, 2022.I can't wait to see it. So get to it!Support the show

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Axios reporter Melissa Santos. They start off looking at the larger trends from this last week's primary, including why the predicted ‘red wave' didn't materialize. Next, they talk about Olgy Diaz's appointment to the Tacoma City council, discussing her impressive credentials and watershed status as the first Latina to serve on the Council. In Seattle City Council news, Crystal and Melissa look at the two recent abortion- and trans-related protections the council passed this week. For updates on public health, our hosts look at how Washington state is lifting most of its COVID emergency orders, where the state is at with its COVID response, and what our outlook is for MPV and its vaccine. After that, the two discuss the redistricting plans for the Seattle City Council, and different neighborhoods' responses to the proposed new district lines and close the show by looking at the state of behavioral health crisis response in our neighborhoods, discussing the county's plans for an emergency walk-in centers, the county's plans to improve its behavioral health response, and our lack of crisis response staff.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Melissa Santos, at @MelissaSantos1. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Our blue legislature bucks GOP trend” by Melissa Santos from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/08/12/washington-state-blue-legislature-gop-trend    “Tacoma City Council selects its newest member. She's the first Latina to serve” by Liz Moomey from The News Tribune: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article264330356.html?taid=62f470bf1a1c2c0001b63754&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter    “Seattle passes protections for abortion and gender affirming care” by KUOW Staff from KUOW: https://kuow.org/stories/seattle-passes-protections-for-abortion-and-gender-affirming-care   “MPV cases doubling nearly every week in WA, as U.S. declares public health emergency” by Elise Takahama from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/monkeypox-cases-doubling-nearly-every-week-in-wa-as-us-set-to-declare-public-health-emergency/   "US will stretch monkeypox vaccine supply with smaller doses" by Matthew Perrone from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/us-will-stretch-monkeypox-vaccine-supply-with-smaller-doses/   Washington state says goodbye to most COVID emergency orders” by Melissa Santos from Axios: https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2022/08/09/washington-end-most-covid-emergency-orders   "New map would redraw Seattle's City Council districts, with changes for Georgetown, Magnolia" by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/new-map-would-redraw-seattles-city-council-districts-with-changes-for-georgetown-magnolia/   “Racial Equity Advocates Like Seattle's Newly Proposed Political Boundaries. Magnolia Residents Do Not.” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/08/04/77339585/racial-equity-advocates-like-seattles-newly-proposed-political-boundaries-magnolia-residents-do-not   “County Plans Emergency Walk-In Centers for Behavioral Health Crises” by Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/08/11/county-plans-emergency-walk-in-centers-for-behavioral-health-crises/    "Local Leaders Announce New Coalition to Address Behavioral Health Crisis" by Will Casey from The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/08/11/77680008/local-leaders-announce-new-coalition-to-address-behavioral-health-crisis   “Designated crisis responders, a ‘last resort' in mental health care, face overwhelming demand” by Esmy Jimenez from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/designated-crisis-responders-a-last-resort-in-mental-health-care-face-overwhelming-demand/   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review because it helps a lot. Today, we are continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program today's cohost: Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos. [00:01:00] Melissa Santos: Hello, thanks for having me. [00:01:01] Crystal Fincher: Hey, thanks for being back. We always enjoy having you. So there were a number of things that happened this week. I think we'll start off just talking about the elections real quick. We got more results this week. Things are looking more conclusive - a couple of late-straggling races have been decided, including one of the congressional - two, really of the congressional district races. It looks like in the 47th Legislative District race that Republican Bill Boyce will be facing Democratic candidate Senator - former Senator - Claudia Kauffman. And that in the 47th House seat, that Democrat Shukri Olow and Democrat Chris Stearns will both be getting through and Republicans will actually not be making it in that seat, despite that race including three different Republicans - one the pick of the GOP that raised over $200,000, Carmen Goers, who actually finished in last place. So a number of things got settled, but overall, as you look at these elections, what are your takeaways, Melissa? [00:02:16] Melissa Santos: On the legislative side, really things look mostly similar to what they looked like on primary night, in the sense that a lot of the races that Republicans had hoped to pick up, I think Democrats still look really strong in. And that's in a lot of those swing districts in the suburbs - in Island County, the Democrats have pretty strong performances in some House races that I think Republicans have been eyeing for a pickup in the 10th District. The 28th Legislative District looks pretty much like the incumbent Democrats are in really good shape there - that's around Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Lakewood, University Place. And I think that the Republicans not having someone in that 47th District open seat is maybe not what people would've predicted when talking about a red wave coming this year, and that Democrats have been saying - we're just trying to defend what we have, we're not really planning to add seats here. But they look like they're in a pretty good position to defend the seats. The only place where things look like it'll be rough for Democrats are seats up in the 47th - sorry, the 42nd Legislative District in Whatcom County, I think, have some disappointing results for Democrats when it comes to trying to get the former - the State Senate seat formerly held by Republican Doug Ericksen. That's gonna be a tough race where it looks like the State House Democratic Rep who's running for it might have a really tough race to fight in November. She wants to pick up that seat for the Democrats. But again, Democrats were trying to just defend mostly this year. So I think they look like they're in a pretty good position to do that. One thing that's a little bit interesting is a lot of the fringier types in the Republican legislative caucus in the House are actually not going to be returning to the legislature next year. And some of that's just because they ran for Congress in some cases, like Brad Klippert. [00:04:15] Crystal Fincher: And Vicki Kraft. [00:04:16] Melissa Santos: Yes, and Vicki Kraft. So I'm interested to see how that plays out. There are some races where legislative candidates who are being accused of being RINOs [Republicans In Name Only] actually have advanced through the primary. And I am wondering if some Republicans - are they more moderate or just hoping that they beat the more Trumpy Republicans essentially. So that's something I'm watching actually going forward is - while we certainly have situations across the nation where Trump-endorsed Republicans are getting through - we see this in the 3rd Congressional District race, here in our state, where Jaime Herrera Beutler who voted to impeach Trump will not be getting through to the general - that was finalized this week. But locally in legislative races, I'm not sure that the more far-right candidates will win out in all these races in November. So I'm watching that - how does our state picture, when it comes to the Republican party, compare to what we're seeing nationally. And it's always interesting to see how Washington does 'cause we're a little bit different sometimes as a state in how we vote versus the rest of the country. [00:05:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And that sets up an interesting dynamic for Republicans, I think, in that it is really helpful when - just from a campaign perspective - when everyone is consistent with the message that's being delivered for the party, what priorities are in terms of values. And so there have been - legislatively - some more moderate Republicans making it through. There are certainly some real extremists. And again, "moderate" is an interesting word for Republicans 'cause - when it is gonna come to some of these caucus votes, I think moderation is gonna effectively fly out of the window. Or being afraid to speak out on certain things that challenge some of the more extreme elements in the party, which essentially in my opinion, enables that element of the party. But with Joe Kent higher on the ticket and being so visible, being a frequent guest on Hannity, Trump-endorsed, and really vocal about a number of things like opposing aid to Ukraine, about wanting Jim Jordan - who is extremely problematic and has been accused of ignoring sexual assault allegations on his watch under his responsibility - wanting him to replace Kevin McCarthy as the leader of the party, certainly moving in a much more extreme direction. A number of those things are gonna be inconsistent, I think, with what some of the other Republicans, I think legislatively under JT Wilcox certainly, Republicans are gonna wanna be talking about. So there may be just a bit of a mismatched message there and it will be interesting to see how the party navigates that, but especially coming from a place where the extremism - you look at the primaries - certainly did not land. And some of, even the criticisms just legislatively, of Republicans who were on the message that they wanted to be on, did not turn out to be very effective at all - that presents a challenge for them in the general. [00:07:40] Melissa Santos: I think that was interesting in the Federal Way area. I think everyone, including Democrats, were saying - yeah, there's a lot of voters concerned about public safety there. I think everyone thought maybe the Democrats might be a little bit more vulnerable from attacks from Republicans in that area in South King County around Federal Way, with Republicans say - Hey, Democrats passed all these bills that hamstring police, so they can't keep you safe. I think everyone thought that line of argument might work better in some of those areas in South King County than it did. And so I'm wondering if Republicans will change their approach or not, or if they're just gonna stick with hammering Democrats on public safety. I think that maybe we'll see just more talk about economy and inflation and maybe a little less of the public safety attacks - possibly - based on those results. [00:08:29] Crystal Fincher: And they certainly hit hard on both of those. It is interesting to see - particularly - so you have Jamila Taylor, who is the incumbent representative there, there's another open House seat, and then Claire Wilson in the Senate seat. Jamila Taylor, who's the head of the Legislative Black Caucus, did play a leading role in passing a lot of, number of the police accountability reforms that police, a number of police unions, and people who are saying "Back the Blue" and these were problematic. She actually has a police officer running against her in that district. And also, the mayor of Federal Way, Jim Ferrell, is running for King County Prosecutor on a hard line, lock 'em up kind of message. They've been working overtime to blame legislators, primarily Jamila Taylor, for some of the crime that they've seen. And holding community meetings - really trying to ratchet up sentiment against Jamila Taylor - helping out both her challenger and Jim Ferrell was the plan. And again, that seemed to fall flat. Jamila Taylor finished with 54% in that race and the most votes out of any Democrat. You saw Democrats across the board, both Claire Wilson and Jamila Taylor, get 54% and 55% of the vote. In a primary, that is certainly where you would want to be and that's really a hard number to beat in the general. And then in the other open seat, you had two Democratic candidates combine for, I think, 55% of the vote. So it is - where they attempted to make that argument the hardest, it seemed to fall almost the flattest. And it goes to - we talked about this on the Post-Primary Recap a little bit - I think it goes to show that the conversation publicly - certainly the political conversation about public safety - I think is too flat and does not account for where the public actually is. I think people are absolutely concerned about crime and rightfully so - we have to attack gun violence, we have to attack property crime and violent crime. We have to do better than we're doing now. But I think people are recognizing that the things that we have been doing have not been successful. And we have been trying to lock people up and people see that there's a need for behavioral health interventions, for housing, for substance use treatment and that those things are absent. And that you can send a policeman to do that, but they don't have the tools to address that even if they were the appropriate responder. And there's a lot of people saying they aren't even the appropriate response for a number of these things. So I just think regular voters - regular people - just have a more nuanced and realistic view of what needs to happen. [00:11:42] Melissa Santos: I also think that message - we could talk about those races forever, probably - but I think that message might land especially flat in communities like South King County that are predominantly people of color in many of these communities. They want to address - well, okay, I should not group everyone together, let me back up here - but I think a lot of people see the effects of crime on their communities and their family members and want support, not just a crackdown. And I don't know if that - I don't know - I'm generalizing here and I shouldn't, but I think that maybe that - [00:12:09] Crystal Fincher: I think it's across the board. I feel like - we saw polling in Seattle where, even if you break it down by Seattle City Council district, whether it's North Seattle or West Seattle which are predominantly white areas, in addition to other areas with higher percentage of people of color - they're saying near universally - when given, asked the question - where would you allocate more of your tax dollars in the realm of public safety to make a difference? They start off by saying behavioral health treatment, substance use disorder treatment, treating root causes. And then "more officers" trails those things. So it's - and even before more officers, they're saying better training for officers so they do a better job of responding when they are called. So I just think that across the board, there's - Republicans have gotten far and have done a lot by talking about the problem. And I think what the primary showed is that you're gonna have to do a better job of articulating a logical and reasonable solution to the problem. 'Cause people have heard talk about the problem for a long time, this isn't new. They're ready for someone to do something about it and they want to hear something that sounds credible, with some evidence behind it, that'll make a difference. And I don't think Republicans articulated that at all. And I think Democrats are talking about things more in line with where voters are at. But certainly, we could talk about those election results forever, but we will move on to other news. Speaking of newly elected people, we have a new appointment of a person on the Tacoma City Council - Olgy Diaz was just unanimously appointed as the first Latina member of the Tacoma City Council last Tuesday night. She was one of 43 applicants to apply, ended up making the shortlist, and then was officially appointed on Tuesday night. What did you take away from this? You previously covered - based in Tacoma, covered Tacoma previously, worked at The News Tribune. What does Olgy bring to the Council? [00:14:41] Melissa Santos: Olgy is really experienced in politics, I want to say. For way back when - I think I started talking to Olgy years and years ago - she was, definitely in her role with leading One America, she's done a lot of policy work at the state level for a long time. She worked in the Legislature, so I talked to her in that capacity. And she brings a lot of experience to the table - I think more than a lot of people who apply for vacancies on city councils, for sure. But I honestly was also just - I was blown away to read - I didn't realize the Tacoma City Council has never had a Latina member before and that really blew my mind, given the diversity of Tacoma and given that that's a community where you have people who just weren't represented for such a long time. I worked in Tacoma for eight years at the paper and I didn't - I guess I didn't realize that was the case. So Olgy - separately - brings just a ton of experience. She leads the National Women's Political Caucus of Washington now as president and I talked to her for stories in that capacity, and she's always very knowledgeable and really thoughtful. But yeah, that's just - in terms of representation, she brings a lot to the Council that apparently it hasn't had - in terms of experience and lived experience as well. I didn't watch the whole appointment process every step of the way, but it seems like that is a very solid choice, given that you have someone coming in possibly that has way more, broader political knowledge than a lot of the sitting councilmembers in some cases. And that's not a knock on the sitting councilmembers, but you just have someone really, really versed in politics and policy in Washington State coming onto that city council. [00:16:26] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and an unusual amount of experience. I think, to your point, not a knock on anyone else. Olgy just has an unusual amount of experience on both the policy and political side. She's the Government Affairs Director for Forterra, she's president of the National Women's Political Caucus as you said, on the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition and Institute for a Democratic Future board. She's previously been on the city's Human Rights Commission. She just has so many, so much experience from within, working within the legislature and elsewhere. And if - full disclosure - Olgy Diaz is not just a friend, but also worked for Olgy as her consultant and love the woman. But just completely dynamic and if you know Olgy, you know she reps South Tacoma harder than anyone else just about that you've ever met. She deeply, deeply loves the city, particularly South Tacoma, and has been an advocate for the city in every role that she's had. So just really excited to see her appointed. In other local news - this week, Seattle, the Seattle City Council stood up and passed protections for abortion and gender affirming care. What did they do? [00:17:52] Melissa Santos: They passed something that makes it a misdemeanor for someone to interfere, intimidate, or try and threaten someone who is seeking an abortion and they also have some civil rights protections that they passed. Those are especially - you might not think that's necessarily an issue in Seattle all the time, but I think that - certainly the misdemeanors for trying to interfere for someone getting treatment or getting abortion care, I think that is something that could actually be used and called upon sometime in Seattle with certain individual cases. And I do think it's - not necessarily in a bad way - but a messaging bill on both of them - in a way saying - care is protected here. Even though in Washington State we do have some state law protections for abortion - better than in most states - I think it's partly about sending a message to people that your care will not be interfered with here. And maybe even a message to people in other states - that they can come - actually that is part of it - is that you can come to Seattle and get care and you will not, we will support you. And so that's part of why they're doing it - both on a practical level, but also sending a message that we will not tolerate people trying to dissuade, to discourage people who decided to get an abortion from getting the care that they are seeking. [00:19:18] Crystal Fincher: And I know Councilmember Tammy Morales has also said that she plans to introduce further legislation to prevent crisis pregnancy centers from misrepresenting the facts, misleading people - which has happened in other situations with pregnancy crisis centers, which sometimes bill themselves as abortion care providers. A person seeking an abortion finds them, goes, and unexpectedly is - in some situations - heavily pressured not to have an abortion. And there's been situations where they have been found to have been coerced into not having an abortion. And so that would just seek to make sure that everybody correctly represents themselves, and who they are, and what they are attempting to do. Lots of people do, to your point, look at Seattle and say - okay, but this - things were safe here anyway. I do think the first one - we see a lot of counter-protestors - of people making points in Seattle, going to Seattle to protest different things, because it has a reputation for being progressive, where progressive policy is. So it attacks people who really dislike those policies and moving in that direction. I think this is helpful for that. And it serves as model legislation. There are some very red areas here in the state. There are other localities - we may have neighboring states that - the right to abortion is coming to an end. And so having legislation like this that has passed in the region, that has passed nearby, that is in place, that survives legal challenges against them makes it easier for other localities to pass the same. And so I think that it is a very positive thing for Seattle to take the lead passing model legislation. Certainly aren't the first to pass, but having it in the region is very, very helpful. So glad to see that. Also this week - some challenging news. One - monkeypox, now referred to as MPV, cases have been doubling nearly every week in Washington and has been declared a public health emergency. Where do we stand here? [00:21:37] Melissa Santos: I think that right now, we have about 220 cases - and that's what I think I saw on the CDC website just earlier today. And last week, it was 70 fewer than that, at least - we have been seeing, especially early on, every week or so the cases were doubling in our state. And we remember how COVID started in a way - it was small at first and things just can really expand quickly. This isn't spread the same way COVID is - and I'm not saying it is - but we do definitely have a vaccine shortage here for this and that's a huge concern. I asked the State Department of Health - actually, I have not put this in the story yet, but I was like - how many people do you feel like you need to treat that are at high risk? And they said it's almost 80,000. And took me a long time to get that number, but I think we only have - we only are gonna have something like 20-something thousand vaccines doses coming in, maybe 25,000, through at least early September. So there's a lot of potential for this to spread before we get vaccines to treat the people who are most at risk. That's a big concern. And so I haven't checked in our state yet - this sort of decision that we can stretch these doses further by divvying them up and doing, making each dose into maybe five doses - that could really help here. So I need to check whether in our state we're going forward with that and if that meets the need or not. But we still need a second dose for everybody, even beyond that. So it looks like the math just doesn't work and we're still gonna be short. And in that time, how far will it spread? Because it's not just - it's not a sexually transmitted disease that only is going to spread among LGBT individuals - other people are getting it and will get it. So that is - and also that community needs as much support as they can get anyway, regardless. But this is not something that just affects someone else, for instance, if you're not a member of that community. It's something that can affect everybody, and it's - everyone's afraid of another situation like we had with COVID - could it spread before we get a handle on it? And I think it's still an unknown question right now. [00:23:57] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, big unknown question. And to your point, it was - the CDC just announced that the vaccine supply can be stretched by giving one-fifth of the normal dose, so stretched five times what we thought we previously had. But that was just announced, so our local plans for that are probably in progress and process and hopefully we'll hear more about that soon. But haven't yet as that information was just announced - I want to say yesterday, if not day before. With that, to your point, it is - some people are under the mistaken impression that this is a sexually transmitted infection. It is not. It can spread by just skin-to-skin contact. If two people are wearing shorts and at a concert, or have short-sleeve shirts and are rubbing against each other, it can be spread just by touching especially infected lesions, by surfaces if there's a high enough amount on a surface. It is pretty hardy - lasts a long time on a number of surfaces or clothes or different things like that. Certainly a lot of concern with kids going back into school, kids in daycare that we may see an increase particularly among children - just because they are around each other and touching each other and playing as they do and that is how this virus can spread. So certainly getting as many people, starting with the highest risk people, vaccinated is important. We are short - there are just no two ways about that and running behind. Testing capacity has also been a challenge. So hopefully with these emergency declarations that we've seen locally and nationally that we fast forward the response to that and get prepared pretty quickly, but we will say that. Also this week, most COVID emergency orders have been ended. What happened here? [00:26:08] Melissa Santos: Some of them are still getting phased out, but the governor just very recently announced in our state that he's going to be - he's ending 12 COVID emergency orders. And so I went - wait, how many are left then, 'cause I don't think we have that many. And the governor's office - there's only 10 - once these mostly healthcare, procedure-related orders are phased out, will only be 10 COVID emergency orders left. And honestly, some of those have even been scaled back from what they were. They're - one of the orders relates to practicing some safe distancing measures or certain precautions in schools - that's really a step back from having schools be completely closed, like we had at one point. So even those 10 aren't necessarily as stringent as the orders we were seeing earlier in the pandemic. What does that really signify? I think that the governor has said - because we have good treatment options available, it doesn't mean that COVID is no longer a threat, but we have better ways of dealing with it essentially. It's not like early in the pandemic when nobody was vaccinated. We have a fairly high vaccination rate in our state compared to some others. And we have some treatment options that are better. And at least right now - well, I say this - our hospitals aren't pushed completely beyond capacity. Although, however - this week Harborview actually is over capacity, so that's still a potential problem going forward. But we just have better ways of dealing with the virus than we did. It doesn't mean it's not a threat, it doesn't mean that people aren't still getting hospitalized and even dying - because they are. But we're moving to a different stage of this pandemic where we're just not going to have as many restrictions and we're going to approach the virus in a different way. [00:27:51] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Yeah, that pretty much covers it there. [00:27:56] Melissa Santos: The thing - I do think for public - I've asked the governor a couple times - what is your standard for lifting the underlying emergency order? 'Cause we still are in a state of emergency over COVID and that does give the governor, if something comes up, quick power to ban some activity or something. And if there's a public health risk, he could order, for instance, indoor mask wearing again if he wanted. He has not indicated he plans to, but it gives him a little more power. Republicans are still mad about that, but in effect, there aren't that many orders actually in place anymore. We're just not living under as many restrictions as we once were. [00:28:34] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So the protections are going away - there are lots of people who are very concerned about this. This does not seem tethered to - earlier in the pandemic - in some situations when cases were spreading at a lower amount than they were in some areas then than they are today - they tied it to certain metrics and to hospital capacity and different things. So there seemed like there was an underlying data-based justification that would dictate what the appropriate health response was. This seems untethered from all of that. And I think a lot of people's criticisms of this are - the actions that are taken, or realistically the actions that are no longer being taken, the justification behind that seems to be driven by convenience or by a desire just to get back to normal or fatigue. And instead of what health precautions dictate would be wise. I think at the very minimum we would be a lot better off if - we were very late in, from the CDCs perspective, in acknowledging that this is an airborne virus. And so air quality, air purification, air turnover in indoor spaces is extremely important, especially given how helpful that is for wildfire air mitigation. We're having a higher, more low-quality air days than we have before. Focusing on indoor air purification - I wish there were more of a push for that, more awareness for that, more assistance for that. Because it just seems like - given this and monkeypox, which has evidence that it is spread also via airborne - [00:30:37] Melissa Santos: Or at least droplets in close - yeah, at least like close breathy, breathing-ey stuff. [00:30:44] Crystal Fincher: Yes - that air purification is important. And so I wish we would make a greater push because still - that's not really aggressively talked about by most of our public health entities. And there's just not an awareness because of that, by a lot of people who are not necessarily being, saying - no, I don't want to do that - but just don't understand the importance of that. And many businesses that could take steps, but just don't know that that's what they should be doing. Sometimes it's still here - well, we're sanitizing all of these surfaces, which is going to come in handy for monkeypox certainly, but is not really an effective mitigation for COVID when - hey, let's talk about air purification instead of you wiping down surfaces. Just interesting and this may ramp up again, depending on what happens with MPV infections and spread. So we'll see how that continues. [00:31:47] Melissa Santos: But this time we have a vaccine at least - there is a vaccine that exists. Remember the beginning of COVID - of course, everyone remembers - there was no vaccine. So this feels like - theoretically, we should be able to address it faster because we have a vaccine, but there's just a shortage nationwide of the vaccine. So that's, I think, an extra frustrating layer of the monkeypox problem - is that we have a tool, but we just don't have enough of it. In COVID, we just were all completely in the dark for months and months and months and months - and anyway. [00:32:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and unfortunately the effect on the ground of not having enough is the same as not having any. [00:32:23] Melissa Santos: Right. Yeah. [00:32:24] Crystal Fincher: And so people are left with greater exposure to the virus and to spreading the virus than there would be otherwise, because we don't have the adequate supply of it. Which they say they're working on, but of course those things - unless you are prepared beforehand and making an effort to be prepared beforehand, it takes a while to get that ramped up. I think they're saying the earliest we could anticipate additional supply would be in the September timeframe, and oftentimes that's when it starts to trickle. And so it could be October before we see a meaningful amount of additional supply or longer. Just stay on top of information, be aware out there, and we will see. Very important thing happening within the City of Seattle - is Seattle City Council district redistricting, and what's happening. There have been some good articles written recently - both in The Seattle Times, especially in The Stranger by Hannah Krieg - about racial equity advocates actually being happy about the newly proposed political boundaries for council districts. But some residents of Magnolia, the expensive and exclusive Magnolia community, who have been known to advocate against any type of growth, or development, or any change to their community, other people getting greater access to their community and the political power that comes with who they've been and their ability to have an outsized voice, realistically, in local politics. They're not that happy. What's happening here? [00:34:16] Melissa Santos: The proposal that at least is moving forward at this point would split Magnolia, right? So this is something that communities of color have argued as being - Hey, in other areas, our communities are split and that dilutes our voice. And now it's interesting that Magnolia, which is not historically an area where - that has been predominantly people of color - every district in Seattle is changing - safe to say that it's been a whiter area. They're saying - Hey, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa - wait, we're gonna get split, that's gonna dilute our voice. So it's an interesting dynamic there. And what's also interesting - and it makes sense because the same organizations have been working on city redistricting and state redistricting, to some degree - we're seeing this movement to really unite and ensure communities in South Seattle are not divided. So in this - this was something that they really were trying to do with congressional districts - is make sure that South Seattle communities of color have a coalition and aren't split. And especially having the - well, let's see, and at least in state redistricting - making sure the International District is connected in some way to other parts of South Seattle and Beacon Hill. That was a priority in one of the congressional district redistricting for some of these groups that are now working on Seattle redistricting. One of the things that it would do is put South Park and Georgetown in the same district, which is interesting because I think those two communities work together on a lot of issues that affect the Duwamish and affect - again, a lot of people of color that live in those districts - there are issues that really would affect both of them. And so putting them in the same district, I could see why that would make sense. And you also have - I want to make sure I have this right, but I think - making sure Beacon Hill and it is connected to South Seattle as well. I'm gonna check here - is it also the International District here we're talking as well? Oh, Yesler Terrace - that's right. [00:36:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, so CID and Yesler Terrace will be in District 2 - kept them both in District 2 - that those were some really, really important considerations. And large percentages of those communities have talked about how important that is. You just talked about Georgetown and South Park being in that district. Looking at Lake City, Northgate, and Broadview in District 5. Also keeping growing renter populations together in South Lake Union and Downtown together there has been making a difference. Both communities of color and, as we talk in the larger redistricting conversation, communities of interest - and now with more than half of the City being renters - renters have been largely overlooked in terms of redistricting and City policy until now. And really what a number of these organizations are saying is - we've been overlooked, we have not been absent, but we've been ignored in this and communities and voices from places like Magnolia have been overrepresented and have been catered to this time. And there's a saying - when you're used to privilege, equity looks like oppression. And so Magnolia is saying - we're losing our voice - and kind of collectively, interests from the rest of the City are saying - no, what you're doing is losing the ability to speak over our voices. But now that we're all at the table and all have a voice, it's time for us to also be recognized as valid and important and worthy of preservation and continuity and representation and not have it broken up in favor of predominantly wealthy homeowners who are saying - well, we're a historically important community. Well, are you historically important and the change that the rest of the City has seen hasn't come to your district because you have fought so vehemently against it. And then turn around and say - and that's why you should cater to us and keep us together because we continue to fight against any kind of change. And realistically saying - hey, other districts have changed and boundaries need to change in those other areas to accommodate that. And so this does - certainly not all that advocates have asked for, but some meaningful progress and some promising boundaries, I think, for a lot of people in the City, for a lot of people who are not wealthy, for people who are renters no matter what the income is - because of the challenges that just the rental population is facing. And to your point, neighborhoods who have worked together and who share interests, who now have the opportunity to have that represented politically within the City? I think that's very helpful and I definitely hope people stay engaged. In this redistricting process. And as the voices from some of those communities who have had greater access to an ability to participate in these redistricting and City processes, and who've had the inside track and who have been listened to to a greater degree than others, that you add your voice to the conversation to make sure that it isn't drowned out by anyone else. Looking at a recent announcement - and kind of announcement is a better word than a new policy or a plan - because it is just announced and announced the intention to take action, but we have yet to see. There was a press conference yesterday about emergency walk-in centers for behavioral health cases, addressing our regional behavioral health crisis here. What was announced and what is the deal? [00:40:32] Melissa Santos: What exactly is going to happen remains a little bit unclear to me exactly, but basically King County Executive Dow Constantine announced a plan to just expand services for people who are experiencing a behavioral health crisis. And it's going to be part of his 2023 budget proposal, which isn't coming out 'til next month. So the idea is having more short- and long-term treatment - so more walk-in treatment that's available and more places to send people who have acute mental health needs. He was talking about how the County's lost a third of its residential behavioral healthcare beds - Erica Barnett at PubliCola reported on this pretty extensively - and there's just a concern there just won't be enough. I was surprised by the stat that there's only one crisis stabilization unit in the County that's 16 beds - that's not very much, especially when we know people suffer mental health crises more frequently than that small number of beds might indicate. So what's interesting is we want to put more money in somewhere so people aren't getting treated in jails, that they have a better place to go, but we're not quite - we don't know exactly the scope of this, or how much money exactly we're talking about to put toward more beds. I guess there's some plans to do so - is what I got from the executive. [00:42:06] Crystal Fincher: Certainly from a regional perspective, we saw representation from the mayor's office for the City of Seattle, county executive certainly, county council, regional leaders in behavioral health treatment and homelessness - all saying that - Hey, we intend to take action to address this. Like you said, Dow said that he will be speaking more substantively to this in terms of details with his budget announcement and what he plans to do with that. Universal acknowledgement that this is a crisis, that they lack funding and resources in this area, and say that they intend to do better with a focus, like you said, on walk-in treatment and the ability to provide that. But we just don't know the details yet. We'll be excited to see that. And you covered this week, just the tall task ahead of them, because we've spoken about before and lots of people have talked about even in this press conference, a problem that we almost require that people - the only access that people can get to treatment sometimes is if they've been arrested, which is just a wildly inefficient way to address this, especially when it plays a role in creating some of the problems with crime and other things. But even with the newly rolled-out intervention system with an attempt to - if someone who previously would've called 911 now can call a dedicated kind of other crisis line to try and get an alternative response - but even that is severely underfunded. What's happening with that? [00:44:00] Melissa Santos: So with 988 - this is the three-digit number people can call when they have a mental health crisis and they'll be connected to a counselor who can help talk them through it. The idea is ultimately for that system to also be able to send trained crisis responders - largely instead of police in many, many cases - meet people in-person, not just talk to them on the phone. But we just don't have enough of these mobile crisis response teams. There's money in the state budget to add more over the next couple of years, especially in rural areas that just don't have the coverage right now. They just don't have enough teams to be able to get to people when they need it. That's something they want to expand so there's more of a response than - that isn't a police officer showing up at your door. So that's the ultimate vision for this new line you call - 988 - but it's not fully implemented right now. You still will get some support. And if you call, I'm not trying to say people should not call the line, but they don't necessarily have all the resources they want to be able to efficiently deploy people - I shouldn't say deploy, it sounds very military - but deploy civilian trained helpers to people who are experiencing a crisis. So that's where they want it to go and The Seattle Times had an article just about how some of those designated crisis responders right now are just stretched so thin and that's just not gonna change immediately, even with some new state money coming in to add more people to do those sorts of things. And designated crisis responders have other duties - they deal with actually to getting people to treatment - some involuntarily in certain cases. Again, it's different than a police response and right now there's just not enough of those folks. [00:45:55] Crystal Fincher: Which jeopardizes the willingness of people to continue to call. Certainly the possibility that a police response can ultimately happen from someone who was requesting a behavioral health or another type of intervention response. And that is still a possibility which some people find challenging or - hey, they expected to avoid that or have something different if they call this and that might not always be the case. But it's certainly a challenge and I think one of the things that was talked about yesterday, which kind of wraps this under a whole umbrella, is there needs to be a lot more done in terms of infrastructure and capacity from - with there being someone to call, someone appropriate to call for whatever the challenge is, an appropriate response. If that is a behavioral health trained person, a crisis intervener, someone like that - and places to take people. Someone does respond and then can connect that person to services that exist. We have problems in a number of areas saying - yeah, we offered services or services are available and they aren't, or they aren't appropriate for the crisis that's there. They don't meet the needs of the person and their situation. So certainly a lot to build out. I think it is a positive step that we're hearing acknowledgement of this and a unified plan to take action, but still need to see what actually results 'cause sometimes we hear big fanfare to start and don't get much substantive on the back end. Certainly I hope with a number of the people involved in this that we do get some substantive progress and I hope to see that, I would expect to see that - but I'm looking forward to it. With that, I think that wraps up this show today. Thank you so much for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, August 12th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, assistant producer is Shannon Cheng with assistance from Bryce Cannatelli - we have an incredible team here at Hacks & Wonks - just want to continue to say that it is not just me, it is completely our team and not possible without this full team. Our wonderful co-host today is Seattle Axios reporter Melissa Santos. You can find Melissa on Twitter @MelissaSantos1. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on the new Twitter account @HacksWonks, you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii (spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I). Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show deliver to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show and Election 2022 resources at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

The Steak for Breakfast Podcast is is wrapping up a big news week with a huge Friday edition of the show. We've got a few of our great friends joining us today to bang out the news and hosted two hard-hitting, America First Interviews.   Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security official, journalist for One America news, U.S. Marine and great friend of the show, Christina Bobb was back with us today. We get an update on her new career endeavor - serving President Trump as a lawyer for Save America. Christina lends her insight in our first block as we check in on the State of the Union.   Current America First U.S. Senate candidate out of Nevada, Adam Laxalt joined us again on the podcast. Adam has surged in the polls and is beginning to extend his lead in a race that will determine the balance in the U.S. Senate. We get a full update from the campaign trail and hit on a few major issues.   James, one of our dearest friends and host of We the People Radio Podcast jumped in with us today to do the backend of our news blocks. In this segment, we unpack the moves that Elon Musk is making in regards to Twitter and give our analysis on his possible motive.   Next we take a hard look into the disaster on the U.S. Southern Border with the impending repeal of Title-42. As border state officials do their best to hold off the influx of migrants while protecting their citizens, we hear some of the best takes from the experts and discuss the grim reality of this out of control crisis.   Arizona State Senator and Constitutional Republican Kelly Ward jump onto the show for the first time today. She lays out her current campaign platform for our listenership and gives her first hand experiences regarding what changes have occurred (or haven't) regarding the current election system in AZ. Senator Ward also gives us her perspective on what Arizona is trying to do best secure its southern border.   Subscribe to the show, rate it and leave a review before you download, listen, like follow and SHARE Steak for Breakfast content!   Steak for Breakfast:   website: https://steakforbreakfastpodcast.com   linktree: https://linktr.ee/steakforbreakfastpodcast   MyPillow: Promo Code: STEAK at checkout • Website: https://www.mypillow.com/steak • Via the Phone: 800-658-8045 •   Christina Bobb  • (Save America) •   Twitter: @christina_bobb   Adam Laxalt  (NV Senate Race) •   Website: https://www.adamlaxalt.com/   Twitter: @AdamLaxalt   Kelly Townsend    Website: (https://kellytownsend.com/) •   Twitter: @AZKellyT   • James (We the People Radio) • linktree: https://linktr.ee/wprusa   Twitter: @WPRUSA17

Bio: Adrian received an A.B in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995. From 1999 to 2001, Miller served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Miller went on to serve as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. From 2004 to 2010, he served on the board for the Southern Foodways Alliance. In June 2019, Adrian lectured in the Masters of Gastronomy program at the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche (nicknamed the “Slow Food University”) in Pollenzo, Italy. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position. Website: https://adrianemiller.com/ A transcript of this interview with Adrian Miller was edited and produced by the Culrinary HIstorians of Northern California. https://hangtownfry.substack.com/p/adrianmiller If you follow my podcast and enjoy it, I'm on @buymeacoffee. If you like my work, you can buy me a coffee and share your thoughts

In this episode we discuss: Tahmina's path to becoming an immigration lawyer and her experience as an organizer during the Trump administration Her experience as a Muslim American during the Trump years and in light of the Muslim Ban Tahmina's two books Legal Heroes of the Trump Era and The Startup Visa available on Amazon.com The ways in which Tahmina believes a "startup visa" could benefit the United States, the tech industry and individual immigrant innovators all at the same time Jessica and Tahmina comparing notes about representation of business immigrants vs. deportation defense and family based cases Jessica and Tahmina's beliefs about what would be best for immigration in the next era of reform and new ideas for how immigration can evolve in the United States.   JESSICA SMITH BOBADILLA BIO  Jessica's website: https://www.attorneyjessica.com/.  Jessica can be reached at (559) 264-2500 through her firm or for the podcast at iamattorneyjessicapodcast@gmail.com.   Follow Jessica on Social Media: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   TAHMINA WATSON BIO Tahmina Watson obtained her law degree and graduated from Brunel University, London, England in 2000. She was Called to the Bar in 2002 (became a barrister) as a member of the Middle Temple Inn. After completing her pupillage (apprenticeship) from Bridewell Chambers in London in 2004, Tahmina continued as a practicing barrister, handling mainly criminal defense matters, before relocating to the United States in 2005. She was affiliated with Temple Court Chambers in London as a Door Tenant until recently. Tahmina was admitted to the New York Bar in 2006. Prior to founding Watson Immigration Law, Tahmina was a partner at White & Watson from July 2006 to December 2008 practicing exclusively in the area of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization law.  Before that, Tahmina externed with His Honor Judge Ricardo Martinez at the District Court of Western Washington in downtown Seattle.   She also interned for multiple terms at the Northwest Women's Law Center (now known as Legal Voice). Tahmina is admitted to practice law in Washington State and the State of New York.  She is also admitted to the federal court of Western District of Washington.  She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the King County Bar Association. Tahmina is currently an unregistered member of the Bar of England and Wales. Past memberships include the International Bar Association, The American Bar Association, King County Washington Women Lawyers and other minority bar associations. She continues to be a member of the Middle Temple in London, UK.  Tahmina is an Adjunct Fellow at The Niskanen Center, a Washington DC-based think tank. She advises on immigration policy issues. Tahmina currently serves as Chair of the Response Committee of the Washington Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA WA), a committee she helped create after the November 2016 election.  She currently serves on the Board of Trustee for the King County Bar Association.  In addition, Tahmina recently helped form a non-profit organization called WIDEN- Washington Immigrant Defense Network which combines skills of immigration and non-immigration lawyers to help indigent detainees.Her other community activities include serving on the board of Point Hope, an organization that helps children. She is an active member of the pro bono community in Seattle, e.g., Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, One America etc..  Tahmina often provides free legal advice at local legal clinics.  Furthermore, she is an active supporter of Chaya, a Seattle based non-profit organization that assists battered women from a South Asian background. She serves as Chair of the Legal Advisory Committee of the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Coalition. Tahmina is also a columnist with The Seattle Globalist.She proudly served as the 2009-2010 President of the King County Washington Women Lawyers (KCWWL).  She also served on the board of Washington Women Lawyers from 2008-2010.  In the past, she served on the board of the Asian Bar Association of Washington.  She recently completed her term on the Mercer Island School District Diversity Advisory Committee.  In addition, she was the Advocacy Consultant for the feature film ‘For Here or To Go?',  a movie that advocates for high-skilled immigration reform and a Startup Visa. She fluently speaks, reads, writes (and sings when playing her harmonium) Bengali, and knows conversational Hindi and Urdu.  In her spare time, Tahmina likes to volunteer in the community, listen to audio books and spend time with her family.  She is the designer and owner of Pinky's Shoebags, a novel storage solution for the woman who can never have too many shoes. Tahmina can be contacted at her practice http:/www.watsonimmigrationlaw.com or her podcast and author website which is http://www.tahminawatson.com. Her firm number is (206) 643-9707.  Her podcast Tahmina Talks Immigration is available on Apple, Spotify and other platforms.

Dawson on One America Podcast--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ryan-dawson01/support This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ryandawson.substack.com/subscribe

We tell you all the places we went to in the short afternoon we had in New York during our first day in the city. By mistake we call the One World Trade Center, One America, ups! So Sorry! Go to our Instagram to see a reel of all we talk about in this episode @thetalkshowforkids --- 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/talkshowforkids/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/talkshowforkids/support

This documentary tells the story of the moment when a film producer christened the Dallas Cowboys "America's Team," setting a decades-long debate over whether or not the franchise deserves that lofty designation. It details America's obsession with the Cowboys and the team's rise to mythic levels. With the disappearance of Western icons such as John Wayne, America was looking for new heroes and found them in the team with the blue star on their helmets. The one-hour show features interviews with former Cowboys players such as Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman and Drew Pearson, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and NFL Films producer Bob Ryan – the man behind the historic nickname – each reflecting on the cultural significance of the Cowboys in America and how the team represents the entire nation.

Tahmina is a Seattle-based immigration attorney, podcaster, and activist. She is the founder of Watson Immigration Law and founder of the Washington Immigrant Defense Network, which funds and supports legal services for detained low-income immigrants. She is also the co-founder of Airport Lawyers, which provided critical services helping vulnerable people affected by the travel bans. Tahmina will discuss the differences in immigration activity between the Trump and Biden administrations. https://watsonimmigrationlaw.com/Twitter: @tahminawatsonPodcast: Tahmina TalksTahmina Watson Bio:Tahmina Watson obtained her law degree and graduated from Brunel University, London, England in 2000. She was Called to the Bar in 2002 (became a barrister) as a member of the Middle Temple Inn. After completing her pupillage (apprenticeship) from Bridewell Chambers in London in 2004, Tahmina continued as a practicing barrister, handling mainly criminal defense matters, before relocating to the United States in 2005. She was affiliated with Temple Court Chambers in London as a Door Tenant until recently.Tahmina was admitted to the New York Bar in 2006.Prior to founding Watson Immigration Law, Tahmina was a partner at White & Watson from July 2006 to December 2008 practicing exclusively in the area of U.S. Immigration and Naturalization law.  Before that, Tahmina externed with His Honor Judge Ricardo Martinez at the District Court of Western Washington in downtown Seattle.   She also interned for multiple terms at the Northwest Women's Law Center (now known as Legal Voice).Admissions and membershipTahmina is admitted to practice law in Washington State and the State of New York.  She is also admitted to the federal court of Western District of Washington.  She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the King County Bar Association. Tahmina is currently an unregistered member of the Bar of England and Wales. Past memberships include the International Bar Association, The American Bar Association, King County Washington Women Lawyers and other minority bar associations. She continues to be a member of the Middle Temple in London, UK.Adjunct FellowTahmina is an Adjunct Fellow at The Niskanen Center, a Washington DC-based think tank. She advises on immigration policy issues.Community ActivitiesTahmina currently serves as Chair of the Response Committee of the Washington Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA WA), a committee she helped create after the November 2016 election.  She currently serves on the Board of Trustee for the King County Bar Association.  In addition, Tahmina recently helped form a non-profit organization called WIDEN- Washington Immigrant Defense Network which combines skills of immigration and non-immigration lawyers to help indigent detainees.Her other community activities include serving on the board of Point Hope, an organization that helps children. She is an active member of the pro bono community in Seattle, e.g., Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, One America etc..  Tahmina often provides free legal advice at local legal clinics.  Furthermore, she is an active supporter of Chaya, a Seattle based non-profit organization that assists battered women from a South Asian background.She serves as Chair of the Legal Advisory Committee of the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Coalition. Tahmina is also a columnist with The Seattle Globalist.She proudly served as the 2009-2010 President of the King County Washington Women Lawyers (KCWWL). 

In the middle chapters of “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander breaks down racism baked into the justice system, and the group talks about being raised with different expectations, and passing those lessons along to their children. Plus, the exhaustion that comes with constantly being teachers, but the responsibilities we have to educate the people that we talk to. Got a question or a response? Reach us at fmhouston.com/ama!

Hello, listeners (readers), I'm so thankful and happy you're here today! and I'm very honored to introduce you to Adrian Miller, otherwise known as the Soul Food Scholar. I recently read the second of Adrian's 3 books (so far) The President's Kitchen Cabinet, about the The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas. I loved this book of historical anecdotes which were interesting in their own right and also often served to teach larger truths about the office and the country. But honestly, I was hooked while reading Adrian's bio, which was written with a humor and humility that belied his impressive resume.  Among other accomplishments, Adrian Miller served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. He is a James Beard Award winner, attorney, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado and currently leads the Colorado Council of Churches as they work together for justice.  Adrian was kind enough to come on and answer my fumbling questions about many of these topics - from the scholarly definition of Soul Food, to his personal history, and finally his ongoing and, sadly, often frustrating work on the front of racial reconciliation. I am grateful to Adrian for his scholarship, wisdom, and time, I commend his books to you, and I am thrilled to share this interview today. Listen to Adrian Now   Highlights from this episode with Adrian Miller Historical context for church and meals in minority communities "A community cannot come together without food" Why is there a vegetable plate at any soul food restaurant? What's the hottest trend in soul food? Complicated relationship: Southern Cooking, Down Home Cooking, Soul Food What's the definition of Soul Food and is it being redefined? Who can make Soul Food? His childhood ambition and what went from there Working for President Clinton's initiaive on race Is simply listening to each other enough? Food & racial reconciliation A dinner guide for difficult conversations His research process   Ways to Connect with Adrian Miller, Soul Food Scholar Website: https://adrianemiller.com/ Instagram: @soulfoodscholar Adrian's First Book: Soul Food Adrian's Second Book: The President's Kitchen Cabinet Adrian's Latest Book: Black Smoke   Recipe Related to This Episode (From Adrian's Mom!) Lemon Icebox Pie More About The Storied Recipe Podcast The concept of The Storied Recipe is unique - every guest gives me a recipe that represents a cherished memory, custom, or person. I actually make, photograph, and share the recipe. During the interview, I discuss the memories and culture around the recipe, and also my experience (especially my mistakes and questions!) as I tried it. My listeners and I are a community that believes food is a love language unto itself. With every episode, we become better cooks and global citizens, more grateful for the gift of food, and we honor those that loved us through their cooking.   Subscribe to the podcast in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or simply search for The Storied Recipe in your favorite player.   I am also a storytelling photographer celebrating food in extraordinary light You can shop The Storied Recipe Print Shop (where every image tells a story) here.   Please Rate or Review The Podcast Podchaser is donating 25 cents to Meals on Wheels America's Go Further Fund for EVERY podcast and episode review on Podchaser this April. And the best part is they will DOUBLE it every time a podcast replies to the review! Of course, I'd be honored to reply to your review - So!!! You can help me spread the stories on this podcast to more and more people all while sending meals to those in need!!

The first Coming to America was a hit. And we talked about it in class... back in high school... still don't agree on which class, though. It was the beginning of a great friendship. But yeah... we talking bout Coming to America. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/azibo-and-james/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/azibo-and-james/support

Do you love him, that is politically love him? Or, do you hate him? There seems to be no in–between. One or the other.Extreme positions but then again, Trump is a man of extremes. All or nothing with this business man. You are with me or you are against me is the mindset, the position, the psyche of:         THE DONALD. His personality is engaging, energizing and exceptional. Perhaps that is why one half of our country and its adult, legal voting citizens embrace him. But his personality can be abrasive, antagonistic, contradictory and confronting. We the people will, think so many, never have another President like him. Those who hate him shall Amen and those who love him grieve for him and for America. For without him, back to politics as usual. The turn–off side of Trump's personality cost him the election, so say many. But look at the promises he made in 2016. TRUMP PERFORMED. The vast majority of the political promises candidate Trump made were PERFORMED by President Trump. Contrast that with Joe Biden who presented himself as a political candidate Democrat centrist, shunning the extremists like Sanders, AOC and the radical Muslims Tlaib and Omar, promising to unite America and bring together its factious and diverse elements in a new American unity. There has never been a larger political lie since 2008. Trump promised and performed. Biden promised to get elected. THE DONALD fundamentally changed the Supreme Court of America. In came Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, Catholics all, joining fellow Catholics Thomas, Alito and Roberts for a total of six Roman Catholics on the Supreme Court:          TWO THIRDS!With the exception of Roberts, in many ways a chameleon and unpredictable in decision making, all are constitutionalists, originalists, rule of law thinking Justices, nothing but good for America. Whatever happens in the political arenas federal and state, we the Christian and conservative people can only hope for the full protection of our beloved Constitution and especially the freedoms of the First and Second Amendments. Thank you President Trump, thank you.And the MILITARY. Trump strengthened the American military, knowing the incredible war–like threats which exist verbally. Military budgets were increased and military aid was provided to America's friends. Military respect for America increased worldwide.And TAXES. Taxes were generally lowered especially on the Corporate side. The economy grew, even boomed in certain areas. Unemployment was at an all time low. Americans were confident, working, spending, enjoying a lifestyle they had not for years. Then came, according to Trump, THE CHINESE VIRUS. Corona, Covid–19. Destroyed most of those economic gains and probably was the most significant factor in the political defeat of THE DONALD. The oppressive Obama REGULATIONS AND EXECUTIVE ORDERS were done away with. The essential freedoms for business to grow and produce were restored. The SWAMP was identified, attacked and cut back in size and influence. Trump believed and practiced the Reagan philosophy and admonition:         GET GOVERNMENT OFF PEOPLE'S BACKS!And the MEDIA, corrupt to the core, incredibly biased to the point of being un–American or even anti–American was identified for what it is. The media hated Trump and Trump hated the media. Twitter replaced the press conference. No effort, real effort was made by the press to ask and interview, but merely seize an opportunity in person to attack, confront, belittle and reign hostility upon the President of the United States. Trump exposed them for what they are, the three networks, the cable–haters CNN, MSNBC and others, turning to Fox even though at the end of his term, Fox began slowly to turn left which occasioned the rise of NewsMax and One America, most interesting new conservative cable outlets which began to take much of the Fox audience. Biden and the new – old Democrats will now be the darlings of old media and it, negative for four years, will become once again positive and supporting. Donald Trump vigorously supported the essential and fundamental five freedoms of the First Amendment and especially the first and most predominant freedom:         FREEDOM OF RELIGION.No President, said so many African Americans, was more friendly to religion, the church, and Christianity, and Black Christians then Donald Trump. Of course, the media made sure he never got credit for that. Many wise African Americans saw the danger to religion, and especially Christianity as religious freedoms under the First Amendment were eroded, step by step wherever possible. Trump, with Executive Orders, did everything possible to prevent that from happening and to preserve, protect and defend religious liberty. As a Christian, I thank you for that Mr. President. THANK YOU! Trump aggressively attacked the immigration problem. He did everything possible to stem the tide of illegal immigrants entering our country illegally. He championed the wall, the Mexican wall and much of that was built. Democrats aggressively opposed the law then, but now, under Biden and with their full governmental control, the priority of the wall returns. Trump attacked the trade problems America has. He utilized tariffs to protect us against the unfair practices of foreign nations, including and especially CHINA. PRESIDENT TRUMP was PRO–ISRAEL. He in many ways authored and motivated the ABRAHAM ACCORDS. Bitter, hateful enemies became friends. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, even the Sudan and others became friendly to Israel, restored nations and resumed trade. Trump confronted CHINA, a brutal communist–controlled nation. He exposed China for what it is, a war–like, freedom–oppressing nation determined to be the most important, the very first and most powerful nation in the entire world. Trump exposed China's unfair trade practices, the governmental support of industry to compete worldwide which of course included the oppression of its own people and asked the world to recognize China for what it was and is. Naturally, Trump had no Democrat or media support. Biden, you can be sure, will undo any good Trump did and China will once again resume its unfair practices and even subterfuge against America and WE THE PEOPLE. That perhaps is something to be feared as much as anything. RUSSIA, the great Bear is on the rise. Russia is equal to or even superior to America militarily. Russia will increase in competition and threat to America under Biden. And IRAN. This war–like, hatred–filled nation is determined to destroy the nation of Israel, the Little Satan and then, find ways to attack and destroy THE GREAT SATAN, namely our beloved America. Iran will resume nuclear production under Biden, of that you can be sure. America will change, CHANGE BACK under Biden. Trump promised to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and Biden will do everything possible to make America the spineless, even socialistic nation he and his Democrat allies want it to be. Be aware of that my fellow Americans. If Biden and the Democrats have their way, America will be socialistic, A SOCIAL STATE in four years. What a tragedy that would be.Donald Trump THE DONALD was arrogant. His personality was put–off. He showed so many times a significant disrespect for others. He was aloof, even selfish, possessed of an ENORMOUS EGO. He shot from the hip, said what he thought and felt, nothing held back. He at times became UNHINGED, very rarely scripted but always ready with verbal attack. He was strong, tough, independent, one–of–a–kind, probably never to be repeated. Donald Trump was never really a true Republican. Some thought him to be Libertarian but more appropriately INDEPENDENT. He had disdain for Democrats, but as well, so much of the Republican Party. He regarded many Republicans as RINOS, Republicans In Name Only. He worked with them when he could but departed from them perhaps more often. No President was ever like Trump and none to follow will ever be like him. Fox columnist Liz Peeks said this of Trump and his presidency:“It is hard to imagine that President Trump will soon leave office. His presidency has been so big, so full of energy and purpose, that it seems almost impossible that it will come to an end.”Peeks goes on to say that Trump supporters are angry, believe the election was unfair and fraudulent and that Biden and the incoming Democrats will do nothing to protect their interests. Many feel that it will be necessary to “take on” the liberal mob, whatever that means. Trump and his Administration, says Peeks, have faced “unprecedented opposition from the liberal media and dishonest Democrats.” An understatement to be sure. Peeks goes on to say the following:“For his supporters, patriots from all walks of life are fed up with political correctness and the censorious Left, the Trump presidency has been a breath of fresh air.” Indeed, an exceptional it has been in the pursuit, preservation and protection of American EXCEPTIONALISM. No President in our history will have the LEGACY which Donald Trump will have. THE DONALD was indeed a breath of fresh political air. Now we go back to POLITICAL BUSINESS AS USUAL. Four years from now, America will never be the same. I grieve for younger Americans who will never know the America and the lifestyles so many of us have known, and loved, and done our best to protect and defend. But, to live is to choose. America chose Biden, whether fairly or not, as the leader on the pathway to socialism. The day will come when Americans all will come to appreciate what Donald Trump was and did for America in a marvelous attempt to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. At times, Mr. President, you were hard to like and appreciate but I for one thank you for all you did for my country and the true America. I stand with 75–100 million other Americans with the hope that all the PROMISES YOU PERFORMED remain. WE LIKE YOU WILL FIGHT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! 

Optimized Advisor Podcast host, Scott Heinila, sat down with Nick Bernatowicz, CLTC®, RICP® - Senior Sales Consultant with Producers Choice Network and Brad Shepard, CLTC® Regional Sales Director with One America. They are experts in Long-Term Care Planning with a combined 25+ years of experience. During this episode they discuss the critically important topic of planning for extended health care. Connect with Scott on LinkedInConnect with Nick on LinkedInConnect with Brad on LinkedInFor more on the Optimized Advisor Podcast click hereFollow us on LinkedInFollow us on InstagramFollow us on Facebook**This is the Optimized Advisor Podcast, where we focus on optimizing the wellbeing and best practices of insurance and financial professionals. Our objective is to help you optimize your life, optimize your profession, and learn from other optimized advisors. If you have questions or would like to be a featured guest, email us at optimizedadvisor@mailpcwest.com

Does it seem like our political divide is worse than ever? Andrew Hanauer has devoted his life to studying polarization (what happens when societies rip themselves apart) and has incredibly practical insights into how our nation can move toward unity. Hint: it's going to take aggressive moves from each of us. This is part 1 of a 3-part miniseries taking an aggressive look at politics. 

Schedule your 15-minute call with Anthony or Cameron here: https://calendly.com/anthonyfaso/15-min-phone-call https://calendly.com/cameronchristiansen/15min Check our on-line course at www.InfiniteWealthCourse.com  In this episode, we interview Dennis Martin, President of Individual Life and Financial Services and Steve Cox, Vice President of Product Development of Individual Life and Financial Services at One America. We discuss many of the reasons why One America is one of the companies we recommend to clients. In this episode we discuss the following topics: What are dividends? And how are they calculated? Should we be comparing declared Dividend Rates amongst competitors? How does the insurance company view the PUA Rider? How the new CSO tables will affect policies moving forward? What kind of impact does our current low-interest-rate environment have on mutual companies? If this trend continues what some options insurance companies may exercise? What is the difference between Direct Recognition vs. Non-Direct Recognition? Which one is One America/AUL? Policy Loans Why One America charges loans interest upfront? What is the benefit of this? Benchmarks One America is proud of – Why we use One America and will continue to do so Whole Life vs Universal Life – AUL's Perspective  Quotes: “Remember it's a savings account, not a checking account.” - DM