Podcasts about staff gen

This week, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George will appear before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees with a new mission — the Army Transformation Initiative. Anna and Jake preview what to expect. Plus, the Senate's about to dive into a brutal reconciliation fight, with GOP factions pulling in opposite directions. Want more in-depth daily coverage from Congress? Subscribe to our free Punchbowl News AM newsletter at punchbowl.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's Land Warfare Series program, sponsored American Rheinmetall, Dan Driscoll, the 26th secretary of the United States Army and Gen Randy George, the service's 41st chief of staff, join Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss how the Army is redirecting 8 percent of its budget each year for the coming five years to new priorities, how many more cuts in existing programs will be needed to achieve Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's goals, the need for greater efficiency and to stop buying systems that are no longer needed, learning the right lessons from the Ukraine war, understanding the nature of possible conflict in the Indo-Pacific, how to speed acquisition of key systems like the MV-75 tiltrotor as well as land and weapon systems, role of heritage and new defense economy firms in more quickly addressing Army needs, why shrinking the force is a bad idea, the impact of staffing the Golden Dome air and missile defense network, and more.

Ryan popped across the Potomac to the Pentagon to speak with Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George about the ambitious Army Transformation Initiative. Following a directive from the secretary of defense, the initiative aims to streamline the Army's force structure, cut wasteful spending, and rapidly modernize its capabilities. 

In a major and unprecedented shakeup to the U.S. military's leadership, U.S. President Donald Trump removed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Brown in late February, while announcing his intention to replace Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the head of the U.S. Navy. The personnel changes have been framed as part of an effort to eradicate "woke ideology" from the U.S. military. It is not a coincidence, then, that Brown is Black and Franchetti is the first woman ever to command a U.S. military service branch. But the Trump administration's attack on efforts to address historical injustices for minorities and women - known as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, initiatives - goes beyond purging people of color and high-ranking women officers from the chain of command. As part of this agenda, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has also proposed a radical departure from the U.S. military's approach over the past decade. Though a slow-moving institution that is far from progressive, the Defense Department has undertaken a series of reforms to be more representative of the country it serves. That has included things like adopting a plan to implement the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, updating its harassment policies and protecting its employees from discrimination. Since taking over as defense secretary in late January, Hegseth has articulated his commitment to "restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence." Along those lines, he announced the creation of a Restoring America's Fighting Force Task Force charged with "overseeing the Department's efforts to abolish DEI offices and any vestiges of such offices that subvert meritocracy, perpetuate unconstitutional discrimination, and promote radical ideologies related to systemic racism and gender fluidity." This task force and other envisaged reforms are all aimed at eradicating "wokeness" from the U.S. military and Defense Department. This agenda reflects Hegseth's retrograde and patriarchal vision of the U.S. military. But his justifications for all of these measures are often invented or based on false premises. These misrepresentations are aimed at portraying the U.S. military as hamstrung by politically correct overreach. In both his public comments and his highly critical book about the U.S. military, Hegseth has castigated "woke" generals and policies that, he argues, undermine the military's effectiveness. For example, during his Senate confirmation hearings in January, Hegseth cited personal interviews conducted while writing his book to assert that commanders are expected to "meet quotas" in order to increase the number of women in the ranks. That practice, he added, was one of many "direct, indirect, overt and subtle" ways that the U.S. military has changed its standards to accommodate women recruits. Hegseth had previously asserted that women should not be present in ground combat operations, stating in November, "It hasn't made us more effective. Hasn't made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated." Hegseth's statements make it seem as if women have been coddled by the military in order to goose their numbers, to the detriment of readiness. Hegseth's remarks play well to Trump's base, but they aren't just for public consumption. They have real implications for the well-being of U.S. servicewomen, as well as for women in countries where the U.S. military is active. On both counts, however, he is demonstrably wrong. As Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand pointed out during his confirmation hearing, there are no quotas for women in the infantry. That is a politically expedient lie for Hegseth and his allies. With regard to standards, for instance, retired Army Lt. Col. Ellen Haring told NPR, "Not only have standards not been lowered, but when they first decided that … they were going to open combat jobs to women, the services were given three years to actually set standards because up until that point in time, standards had...

To achieve financial independence and a constitutional budget, a cultural shift must occur. (No easy task since entitlements are deeply embedded in the American psyche.) A constitutional federal budget would require phasing out the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation, Labor, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, in addition, scores of agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, to name a few. Murray Sabrin, PhD, author, Mises Institute Associated Scholar, and Emeritus Professor of Finance at Ramapo College of New Jersey, joined me to discuss how a “radical” elimination of government is needed to restore American financial independence.President Trump has fired former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown, who publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement. This far-left, anti-American, and extremely racist movement is antithetical to military leadership. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife were also fired for proactively pushing DEI policies in their roles. President Trump has justified the firings by saying that one of the major problems in our military today is a focus on pushing woke leftist agendas instead of a focus on readiness and protecting America. John Deaton, author, former federal prosecutor, US Marine veteran, and 2024 GOP Massachusetts US Senate nominee, joined me to discuss how removing “WOKE” allows the US military to return to the mission.Richard V. Battle, an award-winning and best-seller author of eleven books, a media commentator, and motivational speaker and trainer for over 30 years on leadership, sales, and faith, joined me to discuss DOGE, tariffs, the Zelenskyy blow-up at the White House, and President Trump's recent joint session speech.Become a supporter of Tapp into the Truth: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tapp-into-the-truth--556114/support Tapp into the Truth on Rumble. Follow, watch the older shows, and join the live streams.The Mises InstituteFrom Immigrant to Public Intellectual : An American StoryMurray Sabrin, PhD at SubstackNeighborhood Health ClinicFood Stamp Warrior: A MemoirDeaton Law FirmRichard V. BattleAmericans Who Made America: 18th Century – Birth of the RepublicIf recent events have proven anything, you need to be as prepared as possible for when things go sideways. You certainly can't count on the government for help. True liberty requires self-reliance. My Patriot SupplyDiversify and protect your hard-earned wealth. Use America's Premiere Conservative Gold Company, Harvard Gold Group. Use promo code TAPP.Support American jobs! Support the show! Get great products at great prices! Go to My Pillow and use promo code TAPP to save! Visit patriotmobile.com or Call (817) 380-9081 to take advantage of a FREE Month of service when you switch using promo code TAPP! Morning Kick is a revolutionary new daily drink from Roundhouse Provisions that combines ultra-potent greens like spirulina and kale with probiotics, prebiotics, collagen, and even ashwagandha. Just mix with water, stir, and enjoy!If you are a content creator in need of a professional drone or you just enjoy flying a drone on the weekend, EXO Drones has you covered!  EXO Drones Plus, get 15% off your order by using this link.Follow Tapp into the Truth on Locals Follow Tapp into the Truth on SubstackHero SoapPatriot DepotBlue CoolersKoa CoffeeBrainMDDiamond CBDSauce Bae2nd SkullEinstokBeanstoxBelle IsleMomento AIHoneyFund"Homegrown" Boone's BourbonIsland BrandsBlackout Coffee Co.Full Circle Brewing Co.Pasmosa Sangria  

On this week's Defense & Aerospace Report Washington Roundtable, Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute think tank, Michael Herson of American Defense International, former Pentagon Europe chief Jim Townsend now with the Center for a New American Security, and former Pentagon comptroller Dr. Dov Zakheim of the Center for Strategic and International Studies join Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss GOP lawmakers move toward a budget resolution and reconciliation measure as defense hawks work to boost Pentagon spending; prospects fora full-year continuing resolution; the race to redirect 8 percent from DoD spending a year for five years to the administration's new priorities; President Trump's firings of the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, the former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Vice Chief of the Air Force Gen. Jim Slife and the three military service judge advocates general; Elon Musk and his team continue to terrorize federal workers; Washington sides with Beijing, Pyongyang and Minsk by voting against a UN measure blaming Russia for the war against Ukraine as Washington extorts gas, oil and rare earths concessions from Kyiv without extending security guarantees; the suggestion that a neutral Ukraine will ensure peace; Trump's bizarre Gaza video as the first phase of hostage and prisoner exchanges end between Israel and Hamas.

On today's Strategy Series program, sponsored by General Atomic Aeronautical Systems, Dr. Richard Andres, a professor at the national defense university and the former adviser to the secretary of the Air Force and commander of US Cyber Command, joins Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss the report for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies he cowrote with former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Buzz Mosley, USAF Ret., and Mitchell's Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem, USAF Ret.; why jointness has prioritized today's readiness over strategic planning and the need to return more authority to the military services to accelerate innovation and program execution.

On this innovation conversation to highlight key topics in the countdown to the Apex technology and innovation conference next year in Washington, sponsored by Clarion Defence, Dr. Alexander Miller, the US Army's chief technology officer and senior adviser for science and technology for Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, joins Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss the changes needed to better take advantage of rapidly changing innovation cycles, the future technologies that will have the biggest impact on warfighting, fielding what the Army needs more rapidly and in large quantities, how to the Army can benefit from commercial innovation and better harness car and industrial product makers to satisfy military needs at speed and scale, a more nuanced Ukraine lessons that are applicable beyond the context of the current conflict, whether the big problems posed by Chinese and Russian militaries have been framed to better guide innovation efforts to solve specific challenges, role of allied and partner S&T as well as industrial capabilities to equip US forces, and more. To learn more about the Apex conference, sponsorship and attendance opportunities please visit apexdefense.org

Would Donald Trump push to end the income tax in his second term? Kamala Harris and the Democrats are looking desperate as they return to yelling that Trump is a “Nazi fascist.” But Glenn explains why Trump is the worst “fascist” that he's ever seen. Why are young men leaning to the Right and young women to the Left? Glenn has a theory. Glenn reviews an insane debate between Ben Shapiro and leftists who clearly don't know what abortion really is. Rebel News reporter Avi Yemini joins to reveal what he's finding as he travels America asking voters about who they're supporting. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) exposes how much influence Iran has over the Biden-Harris administration. He also comments on the recent claims made by former Trump White House Chief of Staff Gen. John F. Kelly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In February, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin gave us the details on the service's re-optimization plans in an exclusive interview. This week, the Chief released a letter to the entire service detailing progress toward that goal. Vago and J.J. review where the service is and how much lies ahead. Plus the week's headlines in airpower. All powered by GE!

On this Land Warfare episode, sponsored by American Rheinmetall, Gen. Randy George, the US Army's 41st chief of staff, joins Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian to discuss the biggest lessons from Russia's war on Ukraine; the problems that Russia, China and other adversaries are posing that must be solved; whether different armies are needed to fight in Europe and Asia, and what's common between them; preparing the force intellectually, operationally, doctrinally and culturally for the highly kinetic nature of a possible future fight; how to move faster to field needed capabilities at scale; modernizing on a flat budget; his “Transforming in Contact” initiative and how much of the Army has to change to transform the force; the changing nature of advantage and building a culture that can adapt rapidly to maintain advantage despite changing threats; what the Army needs from industry; tradeoffs that can be made among the military services to better coordinate roles, missions and capabilities; recruiting and training the right personnel; and a look ahead to the Association of the United States Army's annual conference and tradeshow Oct. 14-16, 2024.

On December 17, 1969, a news release from the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) announced the termination of Project Blue Book. According to the document, Secretary of the Air Force Robert C. Seamans Jr. stated in a memo to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John D. Ryan that “the continuation of Project Blue Book cannot be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.” An early indication that this was coming was Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a scientific consultant for Project Blue Book for the entirety of its existence and Projects Sign and Grudge before it, finding out that there was nothing for him in the budget for the upcoming year. Of course, not everyone agreed with the Air Force's decision and people continued seeing UFOs, but they no longer had an official organization prepared to take reports. Read more →Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/podcast-ufo--5922140/support.

For review:1.  Despite a daily humanitarian pause- IDF Will Continue Rafah Fight.IDF: The pause “for humanitarian purposes will take place from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) until 7:00 pm (1600 GMT) every day until further notice along the road that leads from the Kerem Shalom crossing to the Salah al-Din road and then northwards.” 2. Israel and Hezbollah continue cross-border strikes, leading to fears of escalation in the conflict.3. Ukraine Peace Summit Concludes in Switzerland. More than 90 countries and international organizations attended the summit. Russia was not invited, and its biggest backer China was not present, leading some to cast doubt on the summit's effectiveness.4. USAF Chief of Staff (General David Allvin) coy about the future budgeting priority of  Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) stealth fighter. 5. Defense News Interview with French Army Chief of Staff Gen. Pierre Schill, concerning Force Modernization- by Rudy Ruitenberg.6. US Army Names M-SHORAD Platform after Vietnam Medal of Honor Hero- Sergeant Stout.On 12 March 1970, U.S. Army Sergeant Mitchell William Stout grabbed an enemy grenade thrown into his bunker and used his body to shield the blast from his fellow Soldiers. Sergeant Stout is the only Army Air Defense Artilleryman in US Army history to earn the Medal of Honor.

On this edition of Parallax Views, are major US officials like National Security Spokesman John Kirby, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and Sen. Ted Cruz throwing US military veterans under the bus in an attempt to excuse Israel's conduct in Gaza? This became a question for some after John Kirby said "We did it to" in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to a question about Israel's conduct in Gaza. In the first segment of the show, The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft's Kelley Vlahos returns to the program to discuss her piece in The American Conservative entitled "‘We Did It Too': The Ugliest Excuse for Israel ". Kelley interviewed military veterans like Ret. Col. Douglas MacGregor and Ret. Lt. Col. Daniel Davis to get an idea of what men who served in the armed forces may be thinking of the statements being made by Kirby, Milley, and others about Israeli military conduct and comparing it to US military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. We'll also discuss the $320 million dollar boondogle that was the Gaza pier project and how that's ended on a rather sour note. In the second segment of the program, James R. Webb, son of Sen. Jim Webb and a former combat veteran in the Iraq War and Marine service infantryman from 2005-2010, returns to offer his own commentary on Kirby's comments, the Gaza war, reports of Israeli soldier's taking lewd pictures of themselves posing with stolen Palestinian Gazan women's underwear, the nature of atrocities and how they happen in warfare, lack of discpline as a driving factor in atrocities, the slogan that "Israel is the most moral military in the world" above and beyond the US military, Benjamin Netanyahu's lack of strategy in the current war, how atrocities and mass civilian casualties can create future security threats/terrorist threats, the IDF, Jim's experiences in Ramadi, a rather funny anecdote about Jim's father's reaction to the Rambo movie sequels, misperceptions about American military veterans, Fallujah and use of excessive force/brutality in war, and much, much more!

For the Army, the command post of the future will need to be agile, resilient and intuitive.It will be a big lift not only for the Army, but for the contractors who are building the technology to support it.This is one of many reasons why the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George on May 28 signed off on the Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) Capability Characteristics (C2 Next).The Army released a notice on SAM.gov to say the characteristics of needs are available, but vendors have to “apply” to see them as they are not public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For the Army, the command post of the future will need to be agile, resilient and intuitive. It will be a big lift not only for the Army, but for the contractors who are building the technology to support it. This is one of many reasons why the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George on May 28 signed off on the Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) Capability Characteristics (C2 Next). The Army released a notice on SAM.gov to say the characteristics of needs are available, but vendors have to “apply” to see them as they are not public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A conversation between brothers in arms who have known each other since the early 1980s - one an athlete, the other his coach at the time.----more---- SUMMARY Neither has ventured far from the Air Force or the Academy. Lt. Gen. Richard Clark '86, the Academy's 21st superintendent, opens up about his leadership journey to Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mike Gould '76, the man who first coached him all those years ago. Gen. Clark's leadership story is exceptional and Gen. Gould does a masterful job of helping him tell it.   OUR FAVORITE QUOTES "The one thing that doesn't change is our mission. And our mission is to develop lieutenants, better leaders of character that are ready to go out and win our wars and that are ready to go out support defend the Constitution. That is it." "Whenever there's Americans on the ground, we're going to do whatever it takes to help them you will do whatever it takes." "Seeing those young guys go out there and do that, and do what they needed to do to help other Americans to help their fellow servicemen that made me prouder than anything." "I am very happy and comfortable to leave this torch with them to hand the torch off to them. And I'm just proud to have served with them." "I am leaving with a lot of gratitude in my heart, just from our cadets from our permanent party, from the alumni that helped us do this and the other supporters."   SHARE THIS EPISODE FACEBOOK  |  LINKEDIN  |  TWITTER  |  EMAIL   CHAPTERS 00:00:  Introduction and Mission of the Air Force Academy 01:09:  Lieutenant General Rich Clark's Background and Career 08:27:  Making the Best of Unexpected Assignments 10:18:  Leadership in Challenging Situations 00:09:  Introduction 07:28:  Enhancing the Academy's Facilities and Programs 14:57:  Developing Leaders of Character 31:11:  The Importance of Alumni and Supporters 37:51:  Transitioning to the Role of Executive Director of the College Football Playoff 45:08:  Conclusion   TAKEAWAYS  - Leadership is developed through challenging experiences like overcoming adversity, mentoring others, and leading in high-pressure situations like combat.  - Support from family, mentors, and sponsor families can help one persevere through difficult times and find purpose.  - Having an open mind and making the most of unexpected opportunities can lead to unexpected benefits and career success.  - Giving back to one's alma mater through things like financial support, mentorship, and service helps continue its mission and benefits future generations.  - Expressing gratitude to those who support your mission helps foster positive relationships and a sense of shared purpose.     LT. GEN. CLARK'S BIO Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark '86 is the Superintendent, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado. He directs a four-year regimen of military training, academics, athletic and character development programs leading to a Bachelor of Science degree and a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force or United States Space Force. Lt. Gen. Clark graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1986. His commands include the 34th Bomb Squadron, Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota; 12th Flying Training Wing, Randolph AFB, Texas; Eighth Air Force, Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, and Joint Functional Component Commander for Global Strike, Offutt AFB, Nebraska. He has also served as a White House Fellow in Washington, D.C.; the Commandant of Cadets, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado; Senior Defense Official/Defense Attaché, Cairo, Egypt, and as the Commander, Third Air Force, Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Prior to his current assignment, Lt. Gen. Clark served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. - Copy and image credit:  af.mil       ABOUT LONG BLUE LEADERSHIP Long Blue Leadership drops every two weeks on Tuesdays and is available on Apple Podcasts, TuneIn + Alexa, Spotify and all your favorite podcast platforms. Search @AirForceGrads on your favorite social channels for Long Blue Leadership news and updates!            FULL TRANSCRIPT OUR SPEAKERS Our guest is Lt. Gen. Richard Clark '86  |  Our host is Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mike Gould '76   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  00:12 The one thing that doesn't change is our mission. And our mission is to develop lieutenants, better leaders of character, that are ready to go out and win our wars and that are ready to go out and support and defend the Constitution. That's it.   Announcer  00:27 Welcome to the Long Blue Leadership podcast. These are powerful conversations with United States Air Force Academy graduates who have lived their lives with distinction. All leaders of character who candidly share their stories, including their best and worst moments, the challenges they've overcome the people and events that have shaped who they are, and who willingly lend their wisdom to advance your leadership journey. Your host for this special presentation of Long Blue Leadership is Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mike Gould, USAFA class of '76 and currently serving as a member of the Association and Foundation board of directors. And now, Gen. Mike Gould.   Lt. Gen Mike Gould  01:09 My guest today is Lt. Gen. Rich Clark, the 21st superintendent of the Air Force Academy, Class of '86 at USAFA, and if I'm not mistaken, you're about 46 days away from retiring. After a 38-year career, that when you think about it, has spanned so much in our country, starting with the Cold War through conflicts in Southwest Asia, in the Middle East, and the culture wars that we all experience today. I think his experience in active duty is highlighted most by seven commands that he's held; a bomb squadron, a training wing, to numbered Air Force's, the joint functional component command for Global Strike, served as the commandant of cadets here at the Academy. And now like I said, as the 21st superintendent. In addition to that, Gen. Clark served as the senior defense official, and the defense attaché in Cairo during some interesting times, and also served as a White House fellow. And if that's not enough, he's flown over 4,200 hours in the B1, both the EC and KC-135, the T1, the T38, the T6 and the T21. And most notably, 400 of those hours are in combat. So Rich, as you look back on the past nearly four decades of service, I'm sure you have a lot to think about as it's all coming to an end. And really, how it all started. I'd like you to please share with us a little bit about your life as a young child. And you know, some of the influential people who you met in your formative years, and then kind of how that led you here to the Air Force Academy.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  02:58 Wow, well, first, can I call you Coach, General Gould?   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  03:02 You (can) call me Coach…   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  03:03 I'll call you Coach because you were my coach when I was here, and you saw me walk in the doors here. So, I'll talk a little bit about that. But I just want to thank you for letting me be here today. This is a real honor. So, thank you.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  But I grew up in the Bay Area, Oakland, Berkeley, California, and my parents were divorced. So, it was my mother, my brother and I. And then when my mom got remarried, we moved to the East Coast to Richmond, Virginia, and that's where I went to high school, and not a military family. My dad was drafted back in the Vietnam era. He served a short tour, so I don't really remember those days. So, I don't consider myself really from a military family and really hadn't considered joining the military. I played football, I played a lot of sports. Growing up, football was my primary — and track actually, but football the primarily, and I had signed to go to William & Mary in Virginia, and I was going with my best friend from high school and actually in junior high. And Coach Ken Hatfield came to my house. And the Air Force had been recruiting me. So did Army and Navy. And he actually came to my house though and visited my parents. And he had dinner at our house, and my mom thought, “He is such a nice man. And he was like, “Look, just come out and see the Air Force Academy.” Now what he didn't know was that I wanted to, I was very interested in flying more commercial. I always thought I wanted to be a commercial pilot. And he convinced me to come out. My mom was like, “Just go; it's free.” You know, I was like, OK, and so I still had a couple of college visits left. So, I came to the Air Force Academy. I'll be honest, I got here and after seeing the place and seeing the opportunities to fly — just to have a great education and to play Division I college football, I was hooked. And I, my dad — my stepdad who I consider my dad — made me call the coach at William & Mary tell him I was changing my mind. And I signed and came to Air Force. And when I got off the bus and got on those footprints , and they started yelling at me, I was like, “Hey, wait, I'm a football player. You're not supposed to yell at me.” That's what I thought. And that was not true. And the rest is history. And, you know, it was an important decision in my life, certainly. But, you know, I appreciate Coach Hatfield being persistent and coming to get me and, you know, talk to my parents, formative people, obviously. But it was a great decision. Great decision.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  05:48 Did you also visit West Point and or Annapolis?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  05:52 I did not because I didn't want to go to a — I wasn't interested, really in a service academy. What I will say, though, I did fill out an application to Air Force before Coach Hatfield came. And I did go and do an interview with my congressional member. Because my guidance counselor convinced me to do that in case I didn't get another good offer from somewhere else. And I actually got a congressional appointment. But then the Academy contacted me, and I told them I was going to turn it down. And that's when Coach Hatfield came to my house. But I, I went through the motions, I think, but I didn't really have an intention to come. I wanted to go to William & Mary, and I wasn't even going to visit Army and Navy because, you know, there wasn't something I was interested in.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  06:46 I'll bet you've looked back and asked yourself the question, what would you be doing now had you gone to William and Mary, or one of these other schools?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  06:54 Hard for me to picture my life without being in the Air Force and the Air Force Academy, right?   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  07:01 Now, you let on a little bit about falling in on the footprints. But as you look back at arriving at the Academy, and you're in now, you signed up and you're going to be a Falcon, what kind of memories do you have about basic training and leading into your first fall semester?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  07:21 Yeah. So, here's the here's one memory I definitely have — and I talk to the cadets about this sometimes — I mentioned the phone-booth to them. And they're like, “What? “What's a phone booth?” Well, you know, I explained to them, there were these big boxes that had a telephone and you had a card that you could call home. And in basic training, about halfway through, you got to call home. And I call my mom. And I said, “Mom, this place is not for me. I'm ready to come home.” She's like, “Oh, that's great. Because the William & Mary coach called last week to see how you're doing. You could probably still get your scholarship.” And I was like, “Oh.” I was expecting her to say, “Well, you better not come home.” But she said, “You know, that's OK.” And truth is, I looked out the door, you know, they had the glass doors, and all my classmates are lined up out the door waiting for their turn to come in. And honestly, I thought, “Man, I'm not ready to leave these guys yet.” And so, she said, “You come on home, it's OK.” And I said, “Well, you know what, mom, I think I'm just gonna' finish basic training. And then I'll see. I want to stick that out with these guys.” You know, I made some great friends. It's not what I expected, but I liked the people. So, I stayed. And then after basic training, she asked me, “Are you still going to come home?” And I said, “Well, you know, I think I'll stick it out one semester, I'd really like to play football because I've gotten in with the team now. And I got some friends on the team. So maybe I could play one season. I think I've got a good chance to make the varsity.” And I did that. And then it was, “You know, Mom, maybe I'll stay for my rest of my freshman year.” It was like one step at a time until eventually I was like, “You know, I'm in.” But it was not a done deal for a while for me, you know, where I just said, “You know what, this is it. I'm in the right place.” I think after that first year, though, I realized that I was, you know — it took some time though. And football had a lot to do with it. The friends you make, the success we had as a team. That was just great. And I love my squadron. I was in 7th Squadron. Great, great friends there. So, after a year though, I feel like I was in but there was that moment in that phone booth and basic training where I was like, “Man, I don't know.” But I did it and I'm glad I did.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  09:52 Well, everything you just went through right there was referencing the people. That's what kept you there. But then you get into academics and you get your military training. How did you navigate some of those things? And you know, I know you had fun with your buddies and football is always a hoot. But about the other challenges that the Academy threw at you?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  10:15 Yeah. So, I actually, I liked academics, I did pretty well, I was on Dean's List most semesters, like seven of my eight semesters, I made the Dean's List. So not that I didn't have some challenges. I mean, there's those certain courses that you're just like, “Oh, my goodness.” But overall, academics wasn't the big challenge. I think the challenge for me was not having some of the freedoms that you wanted early on because you're sort of getting acclimatized to it, you know, you're getting used to not being able to do certain things, the military lifestyle, you have to get used to that a little bit. But once I got that — and going back to the people, everybody's kind of struggling with that. And when you're all struggling together, it just makes it a lot more bearable and doable. And I think after that first year, I was in, I was like, “You know, I'm in the right place. And I'm gonna' stay here.” I did have a moment though. When I was a sophomore, I tore my knee up playing football, the last game, San Diego State. Just ripped my ACL. My MCL — meniscus cartilage — had [to be] reconstructed. And I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to play football again. And that made me kind of think a little bit about was I going to stay. And I had to come to terms with some things, you know, “Why am I here? What's my real purpose?” And as much as football meant to me, I was here for something bigger than that. And I realized that unfortunately, at that point when I was injured, I think that was also the point where I really came to terms with why I was here, that it was something bigger than myself. And I wanted to be a part of it. And so I stayed. I was still determined to play and I did get to play, you know, the next season. But my purpose was a bit different, you know, and that injury really helped me kind of figure things out and sort through my greater purpose.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  12:18 Gave you that confidence of overcoming adversity.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  12:21 Absolutely. Like sports does. Right. That's it.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  12:24 Now, back in my day, we didn't really have a sponsorship program — sponsor families in town. But I think by the time you were a cadet, that program existed to have a sponsor family.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  12:41 They were awesome. The Frables, Neil and Elizabeth. I just had lunch with Neil about four months ago. We still we stay in touch and they're just awesome. And they were so good. They sponsored four of us. And they actually gave each of us a key to their house. And a key to their third car. Oh, my goodness, that was a lifesaver. And they cooked a lot. And we ate a lot. And they just they really opened their homes up to us. So, I credit them. I mean, they were my second family, and still just love them for what they did for us. They were a great, great sponsor family.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  13:24 When you were a cadet, did you participate in any formal leadership programs? Did you hold some positions within the cadet wing?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  13:35 O don't think they thought that highly of me. I wasn't that kind of cadet. I was the D.O. for my squadron. And that was because one of my buddies was a squadron commander. He's like, “Hey, man, will you help me?” And I was like, “Yeah, I'll do this.” But that was the most leadership experience I got and, you know, informal way. But I was glad to do that. It was my squadron. Although, when I told my friends to clean their rooms up and stuff, they'd always give me grief. You know, all these seniors. We were all seniors together. And they're like, “Who are you to tell me this?” Peer leadership is the hardest thing in the world. But yeah, I didn't rise to the level of like group or wing leadership or anything like that. So, the cadets were already surprised to hear that I'm like not, I wasn't that good of a cadet. I mean, I was like your average kind of cadet that did pretty well.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  14:28 Well, you're being modest here. I watched you lead on that football team. You guys had some success and a really tight group.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  14:35 We did. I loved our team. We had a lot of leaders on our football team, though. And people — I always characterize the leadership on our football team — people knew when they needed to lead. You know, there was just times where someone needed to step up and be a leader. And it might not be that you were the leader all the time. But when it was needed, somebody always stepped up. And that was I think the hallmark of our team. And it was just a great group of people, humble leaders, all about team success. And I learned as much leadership from football as I did anywhere else here at the Academy. And credit to Coach DeBerry, Coach Hatfield, you know, all of our coaches, and my teammates, for just helping me develop as a man and, and what kind of a leader and person I wanted to be. So that was as much of a leadership laboratory as anything for me.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  15:33 So, it sounds like when it came time to toss your hat and put on the gold bars, you were prepared to go out and be a lieutenant in the Air Force.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  15:43 I think I was. And my first job was right back and coaching football here. So that was a nice transition from the Academy. I taught unarmed combat, PE, and I coached the JV football team and you, you were at the prep school then I think, Coach, and so… But that was a phenomenal job. And there were like eight of us that stayed back and did that. That was just great. And you know, you had to employ some leadership there because you're trying to lead the cadets. And whether they're on football or in the PE class. So, I learned a lot doing that, but I really enjoyed it. I love being back here. And honestly, it gave me a whole different appreciation for the Academy. Because when you're a cadet, you are looking about five feet in front of you and you don't stop to look at the mountains and you don't stop to look at all that everybody's doing to make this place happen and the passion that people really have for our cadets. That was when I first kind of said, “You know what, this place really is special.” But you don't get that as a cadet necessarily. Some cadets, so they're special anyway, but cadets like me, I didn't know, and I was just ready to graduate. But that one year gave me a whole different appreciation. And I'm grateful for it.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  17:00 Right. And then you headed off to pilot training and like most lieutenants, you know, you're gonna' mix in with a new group of people, a new group of friends. Talk to us about your experience as a student pilot, and then on to start your career flying big airplanes.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  17:18 Yes. So, me and one of my good friends, Mike Chandler, we decided we were going to go to pilot training together. He was a teammate in football. And we were actually roommates when we traveled. And we decided we're going together. So, we both went to Laughlin. And we thought we'll go to Laughlin so there's no distractions, there's good weather, we're going to kill pilot training. And when we got there, we realized there's no distractions at all. And there was nothing else to do there. But we had a great time because of the people in our class. And we're the only two Academy grads in the class. But we just we bonded well as a class and pilot training was pretty good. I do remember though, I almost washed out, like in the first month, because I had a couple bad rides in a row. And you know how you get a couple, three bad rides, and you're out? And especially in those days, we lost half of our class, they washed out 50% of our class. And I had these bad rides. And I had to go to what they call an 89. You know, and what that was if you if you fail three rides in a row, right? If you couldn't do your no-flap landings, and you couldn't get them right in the T-37, then you went to an 88. You fail the 88, then you go to the 89. 89 was the elimination, right? And so, I had to go to an 89. And I had to fly with the squadron commander. And the night before, I call my mom again. I always called my mom. And I was like, Mom, tomorrow might be my last flight because I flew today, I failed the ride, and I don't think a whole lot is gonna' change between tonight and tomorrow. And she was like, “Well enjoy it. Because it might be the last time you get to fly an airplane, so you need to at least have fun. It's been your dream and my heart goes out to you. But enjoy the flight. Don't make your last flight something that was a bad memory for you.” And I was like, “Well, if I fail, it's gonna' be a bad memory.” She said, “But at least have fun. You can have fun.” But it was great advice because I went up there, Coach, and I was just relaxed. I even stopped studying when I called her. I didn't study that night. I went to bed, got up in the morning, didn't get up early and study. I went in there, I did my ground evals. I was usually pretty good in the ground evals and I just went up and I flew the sortie. I remember, he told me to do a cloverleaf, you know, the maneuver the cloverleaf, which was my favorite. I did the cloverleaf and he goes, “OK, we can head on back to the pattern now get your pattern work done.” And I said, “Can I do one more clover?” And he's like, “I don't recommend it, the one you did was fine.” And I said, “I know I just like the cloverleaf. Sir, can I just do one more?” He was like, “OK.” And I did another cloverleaf thinking, “You know, this might be my last time I did the cloverleaf.” I flew back to the pattern, I'm talking to the IP and stuff. I did my landings, you know, really uneventful. Got out of the plane, we're walking back, and he goes, “I don't even know why you're in this ride. That was a great ride.” And I was like, “You mean, I passed?” And he was like, “Yeah, great job today, Lt. Clark, you passed.” And what I realized, it was about just relaxing and flying the plane. And it was the best lesson I ever got in an airplane, when you can relax and just let your training kick in. And just don't worry and let your instincts take over. You just fly better. And my mom sort of taught me that. She's like, “Just relax and have a good time.” So, I sort of credited her with keeping me at the Academy. She got me through pilot training. I mean, she was my mom, too. So, I give her that credit. But yeah, that was a good pilot training memory. And, you know, everything's been great since then.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  21:12 So, you head off, and you're going to the EC135 first, right? So, talk to me a little bit about your career progression there as a captain and major and things you look back on from that period.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  21:27 Well, so, here's one big lesson that I got out. When I got the EC135, I wanted to fly C-130. Really I wanted to fly a gunship. And I thought, “I don't even know what that is I didn't put it on my dream sheet. How did I end up getting this?” I was bummed out. And then one of the IP(s) said, “You know, they handpick people to go into the EC135.” Oh, really? Well, because the EC135 was the airborne command post — the nuclear mission at Offutt and you always had a general officer on board. And you could only fly with instructor pilots and a co-pilot. You couldn't have a straight aircraft commander in that plane. And the co-pilot had an immense amount of responsibility in that mission, and you got a whole lot of flying time. And when you got done with that assignment in two years, you got your choice of your next assignment. And a lot of guys went to fighters. They had to compete for that. But then for me, it was the B-1 and I saw that that was available. And I learned that when I first walked in the door because several people got to FP111s and B-1s. And I was like, “Man, I could do this.” I got 2,000 hours in the T-38 because they had the ACE program, the companion trainer program in the EC. And between those two aircraft, I got 2,000 hours, which was plenty for me to go into the B-1. And then I flew the B-1 basically the rest of my career. And so, it was really one of the lessons I learned. Sometimes you get put somewhere that maybe it didn't want or maybe didn't expect, but you make the best of it. And sometimes there's these, sort of, hidden benefits and successes that you didn't even know about. But if you go there and just bloom where you're planted, good things happen. And I learned that early. Fortunately, in the EC135. I flew the B-1 for 17 years. I flew at McConnell which ended up moving B-1s out of there. Dyess Air Force Base, I flew at Ellsworth as a squadron commander. I did do a stint in the Pentagon and legislative liaison in there and I was also a White House fellow, which was an amazing opportunity for me. But those years and the B-1 and doing the Pentagon and the White House fellow were really amazing years. I met Amy in there and we got married. When I was stationed at Dyess as a captain, well, actually I met her as a captain — we dated, and I pinned on just a few months before we got married. But my flying career was just awesome. And my first command was just absolutely a pinnacle point. It was squadron commander and the 34th Bomb Squadron. And I got into that squadron. Sept. 5, 2001, is when I showed up for that and I had just left the White House fellowship, which was just a fantastic opportunity. But I was riding high Sept. 5, and then Sept. 11, happens and everything changed. The squadron deployed and I wasn't checked out yet in the B-1. I had to go through a re-qual program. And so, I can remember when they left. The squadron was heading out and they were, “…or maybe we could just take you as an unqualified pilot,” blah, blah, blah. There was no way that that was going to happen. And so, I can remember that day, when they were leaving, they left about a month after Sept. 11, in October. And I just went and helped pack up bags. I just did whatever I could to help that squadron out. I wasn't the squadron commander at the time. But I remember thinking, “Man, I can't believe the squadron that I was going to go in is going to go without me.” But they did. And I helped. And I tried to be as much of a contributor as I could. And when they came back, I was all qualified. And then a couple of months after that, I took over the squadron. And then they tapped us to go again. And so, I got to deploy the squadron in combat over Iraq. We deployed to Oman and we flew missions at the beginning of OIF. And that was just an unbelievable experience, growth experience, leadership experience, but really, just something I'll never forget, you know, it was hard. It was tough. We're there for about six months. But leading in combat I think is something we all prepare for and want to be ready for. But it's also an honor, you know, to be able to have that kind of responsibility. And I think back on it, and my timing couldn't have been better for me to be able to do that. It was just a highlight of my career.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  26:31 Can we entice you to tell a quick war story about a Distinguished Flying Cross that you are awarded?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  26:37 Oh, well, I could talk about that. Can I talk about a different story there? I have a better one, I do. This was one of my proudest moments I think I had as the squadron commander. I had to line up all the crews, you know, to put experience within experience and make sure that they were balanced out with the people that I knew, and who was going to perform the best. And I had 24 crews. They actually sent me extra crews from a different squadron to make sure that we had a full complement. And the last crew that I had were two of the most inexperienced people in our squadron. Two captains and two lieutenants. And one of them was a brand-new FAPE. Has just come from T-37s into the B-1. And I had to have 24 crews and they were the last four people. And I didn't really have another way to balance the experience and inexperience. So, I did it. And the flight commanders were like, “Don't do it. We can't send these guys out like that.” And I said, “We have to; they need to go. And so, on the second night, they went out they had 24 JDAM, 2,000 pound GPS bombs. And they started out. They orbited in the area, they did well. First they delivered their 12 bombs on-target, the direct targets from the ATO, and they hit those targets. And then they were orbiting, waiting for what we call it, x-cast, somebody to call in and say, “I need some bombs.” And our mantra in the squadron was whenever there's Americans on the ground, we're going to do whatever it takes to help them. You will do whatever it takes. And so, they're orbiting, and they're about at bingo fuel in there, meaning the fuel that they needed to go back, and they get a radio call from an AWAC. There's troops in contact and they need some air power. So, they give this crew, the aircraft commander, this young FAPE goes, “Well, we're close to bingo, but we're not there yet. So, give us the coordinates and give us the radio frequency,” and they fly. And they get this JTAC — joint tactical air control — on the ground. And he's like, “We're getting shelled from a ridgeline. There's Iraqi armored vehicles, they're hitting us hard. We need some bombs. We got 150 soldiers down here, can you give us some bombs.” He's like, “Got it, give us the coordinates.” So, they start getting a nine-line there. They're loading the coordinates, and the “Wizzo” is just putting the bombs, you know, he starts putting them on target. Boom, boom, one at a time. And they get the coordinates, bomb on target. But then they hit bingo. And so the aircraft commander tells the JTAC, “Hey, we're at bingo fuel, we need to get going or we're not going to be able to get back home. But we'll get somebody else out here.” And the JTAC says, “If you leave us now, we're going to get pummeled. Can you stay a little longer?” He says, “We'll stay as long as you want.” And so, they keep putting bombs on target. And they keep putting them down until they went Winchester and the JTAC says, “Hey, the shelling stopped. You guys are cleared out.” And when they turn their nose to go home, they didn't have enough fuel to get back. And so, they get on with AWACS and they're talking to AWACS trying to figure something out. They're looking at divert. Field diverting into a field in Iraq is not a good idea. But finally, a KC-135 flies into the country, into Iraq, unarmed, unafraid, gives them gas and then those guys can come home. And when they got back, they were three hours past their estimated arrival time. And I met him at the airplane because I'm going, “What happened?” And when the aircraft commander comes down the ladder, he's got salt stains on his back. They were working hard. I said, “What happened? He goes, “Sir, we overflew our bingo.” I said, “Well, certainly there's more to it than that.” And so, we go into the intel debrief and they told that story. And all of those, that whole crew, was awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses for what they did. And so that of all the things that happened, to see those young guys go out there and do that, and do what they needed to do to help other Americans, to help their fellow servicemen, that made me prouder than anything,   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  30:44 I guess it would. And you took a chance, in a way, by putting this crew together.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  30:49 I did. Yeah. As far as I was concerned, I didn't have a choice, you know, but I had to trust them to do their job. And they were trained. I mean, they had received the training that was required for them to go to combat, so we have to trust them to do it. And they did it.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  31:05 Well, that's a really cool story. And if my math is right, you are about 15-16 years into your career at that time. Let me shift gears a little bit. How much thought did you give to staying in touch with or staying engaged with the Air Force Academy while you were out? You know, developing your career path.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  31:33 I gave a lot of thought to it. I used to come back for football games. I came back for my reunions for sure. And I don't think financially at that point, I hadn't gotten involved. But a couple years later, when our class, our 20th reunion was starting, that's when I really started realizing financially I could and should start to give back to the Academy. So that was when I think from a financial point, I really connected and realized that. But just from a present standpoint and coming back, I came back at every opportunity. I came back for games; I came back for some mentorship opportunities that people asked me to come talk to cadets and things like that. But I never thought I would get to come back here to work. You know, it never crossed my mind until someone asked me to be the commandant years later. And that was like beyond imagination for me, especially knowing what kind of cadet I was. I was like, “OK, you really want me to be the commandant? I don't think so.” But I got that opportunity down the road. I mean, that was after a lot. I went on to be a wing commander, you mentioned I was the wing commander. At 12th Flying Training Wing, I got to fly all the trainers and that was just awesome. And then I deployed to Iraq for a year, which was an intense year, hard year, I would say probably the hardest year I've had, you know, in my career. And then I got promoted to one star. And they sent me to Barksdale Air Force Base as the vice commander of 8th Air Force. And when I came back from Iraq, I knew I'd gotten promoted. And that job was kind of roundabout. They said, “Hey, we're gonna' send you to Barksdale to be the vice at 8th. But that job is actually going to be downgraded to a colonel and you're about to pin on one star. So we're not sure what's going to happen with you next.” I was like, “Oh, man,” trying to remember the lessons of the past though. I said, “OK. This is where I'm going so let's bloom where I'm planted,” right? So, we all move there. Things were great. And then I remember the MATCOM commander called me in one day and he goes, “You know…, they get the phone call from the secretary. I'm gonna', one, I'm a newly pinned on one star. And he goes, “Hey, you know that job you're in is a colonel job?” And I was like, “Yes, sir, I know. But I love it.” You know, I was being positive. He says, “But we're gonna' have to move you out of there.” “Yes sir. Understood.” And he goes, “What would you think about going to the Air Force Academy and be the commandant?” You could have knocked me over with a feather. And that's when you and I first connected, when I got to come be your commandant when you were the supt. And that was just a dream to be able to come back here and that's when I really connected back, you know, when I got a chance to see it, even from a different level. I talked about it as a coach you know, and seeing how special it is and seeing how passionate people are about our school. But being the commandant gave me a whole different view and being able to engage with the cadets and understand what they were doing and trying to push that development for them. Just amazing and I loved it, and Amy loved it, to live in the Otis House, having the cadets over, trying to help them with their, you know, their development. And that's a big job, right? We all know that because you take it very personally, because you want them to be everything that they can be in there. So amazingly talented. You just want to take that talent and give them every opportunity you can to thrive. So, we did that. And after that, even Amy, she might as well be a grad. I mean, she just fell in love with this place after those two years. Our kids, Milo and Zoey, they were 10 and 8 coming in. Our family just was immersed in USAFA.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  35:40 So, I was going to ask you about the role that Amy and the kids played in your development as a leader, but I got to see it firsthand. And you just went through that. When you had to leave the Academy, if you can remember, I'm sure you do remember this, I wanted to keep you here for a third year. Because you were that perfect role model in so many ways for the cadets. Not only your leadership, you know, in the job, but your family and the way these kids could then look up and say, “I want to do that someday. I think I can be like that guy.” And we wanted to keep you another year and then you came out on the two-star list and you moved on to what was undoubtedly a really, really tough assignment as the DAT and senior guy in Cairo. Tell us about that little bit.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  36:30 Yeah, well, if you remember at first they told me I was going to the Pentagon to be the 8th, which was like the big job. If you're a two-star, you go there, the 8th as the programmer. And Amy loves D.C. And so, they told us we were going there. And then I get a phone call from then-Chief of Staff Gen. Schwartz, actually, he called and said, “Hey, I need you to talk to the GAO management office, the GoMo, who do all the assignments for the general.” And I was like, “Oh, yes, sir. Is there a problem?” And I think you might have known about that — you probably knew about this already. Because it was bad news, I think he wanted to tell me personally or something. And so, I called GoMo. And they go, “Yeah, your assignment's changed. You're not going to the Pentagon, you're going to Egypt.” And I go, “Is there a base in Egypt?” They're like, “No, you're gonna' be working at the embassy as the DET.” And I was like, “Ah, OK. All right. That's good.” And so, then the first thing that came to my mind was telling me, I was like, “Oh man, she's gonna' flip out.” Well, I called her. And I said, “Honey, we're not going to D.C.” And here's the thing. Our movers were already in route, like, they were coming to pack us out. And I said, “We're not going to D.C., we're going to Egypt.” I was bracing for impact. And she goes, “Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? That's amazing.” I was like, she couldn't care less about what job I had, she couldn't care less that I was giving up like the best job to target. She was just looking for that adventure of Egypt. And that actually took a lot of heat off me. Because if she's happy, I'm happy. And so, we went to Egypt. And it actually turned out to be great. But we got truncated on the training. Like, you're supposed to get language school, you're supposed to go through this whole defense attaché course. And I didn't have time because it was a late breaking change. And they said, “Don't worry, you don't need all that training because Egypt's on skids.” That was the exact words of the guy that that told me I was getting a job. And he meant Egypt is in a good place. You know, they just elected a new president, democratically elected, and everything's good. Well, when we got there, I got to the airport and we're all sitting in the lounge at the airport, and I picked up a newspaper, and it was in English. And it said that day, the president fired all the military, all the top military leaders. I was like, I guess we're not on skids anymore. And it just went downhill from there. I was there for a month, and they attacked the embassy. And then a year later, the coup happened. Amy and the kids and all the families within the embassy had to go home. It was an order departure. They all had to leave. I remember telling Amy because I was in the meeting with the ambassador when all this happened. And I said “Hey, you might want to pack a bag because I think you're about to go.” She's like, “Pack a bag?” I said, “You can only pack a carry on.” “How long are we going to be gone?” “I don't know.” And they left and they went to D.C. And we had no idea. They ended up being gone for nine months. The kids started school and everything. Well, there was two thirds of the embassy stayed, but it was actually, from a professional standpoint, awesome. To be involved, often to be our representative on the military side, to work with the Egyptian military to try to help navigate through this coup d'état. And they're a country that we were very interested in keeping as a partner. I got a lot of good experience and just cool, like, opportunities to do things. It was a little scary at times, but I actually loved it. And then Amy and the kids came back. We look at that as one of our best assignments as a family. It was just — the Egyptian people are amazing. The travel that we got to do was incredible. And I just loved the assignment, and it goes back, you know, I mentioned to you, sometimes you get an assignment and you're like, “Gosh, what?” And it turns out to be the best thing ever. And that was one of them.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  40:50 And I thought for sure, somewhere in there, you were gonna' say you called your mom.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  40:57 Then I was married, so then I just had to stop calling my mom after that. Well, I still call her but not for advice. I gotta' call Amy, so, you know?   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  41:06 Well, you had a couple more really challenging assignments. But let's talk about your time as superintendent. Not too many people think that you'll grow up someday and have that type of responsibility. And then when you get here, you realize that it's probably one of the most heavily scrutinized positions you can have in the Air Force.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  41:26 That's an understatement.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  41:29 We can both agree on this.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  41:34 But other than the general leadership and the experiences you have throughout your career, this place is different. USAFA is different than any other command, and in many ways more challenging, because you just hadn't had that experience. How do you reflect back on your time as superintendent and the fact that you you've worked through, I think you had two presidents, two commander in chiefs, you had a couple different secretaries, and they all have guidance that comes to you. But your job then is to make that guidance into your own policy. How have you dealt with all that?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  42:14 You know, honestly, all of us military members are — our job is to make the commander in chief's policy our policy, and to execute that policy. That's our oath. And that's what we do. And so, you know, for me, I feel like we've all done that. I mean, we've all at some point in our careers had to say, you know, “This is the law of the land.” I mean, I'm gonna' follow my oath to the Constitution, support and defend. And that's a part of it. So, in that aspect, you saw it was no different. But like you said, it's such a, I don't know, everybody has an idea. Everybody thinks they can run the Air Force. Everybody thinks that it should flow along their ideological lines, or whatever. And, frankly, it's about our country's policies that we have to abide by. But the one thing that doesn't change is our mission. And our mission is to develop lieutenants that are leaders of character that are ready to go out and win our wars, and that are ready to go out, support, defend the Constitution. That's it. And the policy things that people get so hung up on, sometimes they're really on the periphery, and they're not as entrenched. And what we do as people might think are — our core mission has never changed. There are some nuances, there's some things that might change a little bit, society changes. Young people change, you know, people that are 18 to 24. It's a pretty volatile group, in a way, and they change with society, too. So, we have to tweak and adjust based on our superiors, you know, people in the Pentagon and OSD and our president. We have to change based on society, and who we have coming into the Air Force Academy. And frankly, parents get a vote in this and the things that happen. And alumni always have a voice in this as well. They make their voice well known. But in the end, what it's my job to do is to make sure that our team is inoculated enough from all that, that we can continue to do our job and make sure that these warfighters are ready to go out and do what those lieutenants and those captains did for me as a squadron commander. That we're putting people out that are ready to go do that. And I always have in mind, like that story that I told you, Coach, it's always in the back of my mind. I hope that I'm developing people that are ready to go out and do what Those guys did that day. If our lieutenants are ready to fight like that, then we've succeeded. And that's my goal. I've never been a political person. But I get dragged into it all the time. And my job is to make sure that when I do get dragged into it, that we're still able to execute our mission, and that I don't drag the entirety of the Academy into it. And you know how it is. That's our job as leaders: to provide that top cover, and that shield, so that our people can do their job and produce those lieutenants that are going to go win wars.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  45:34 Well, that's a great attitude, and you've done it well. Tell me about your relationship with the Association of Graduates and Foundation? How have they contributed to your successes here at the Academy? And is there anything that the two organizations could do better?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  45:52 Well, I will say, let me start off with, enormous support from the Foundation and the AOG. And it's hard for everyone to really know what kinds of things you guys do for us. But all you need to do is drive around the campus, right? And look at the North Commons area, look at our new hotel, look at our visitor center, that's coming up, look at the Cyber Innovation Center that's coming up, look at our football stadium that's getting built. All those things are either fully private or public-private, that the Foundation has to not only raise the money, but facilitate those things happening. And I would say that, nowadays, we're not going to have very much construction that's going to happen here or any growth that the Foundation isn't involved in. You're going to have to be involved in pretty much everything that we do, if we want to keep evolving as an Academy. And since I've been here, the Foundation has done that. And the Foundation and the AOG are only as strong as our alumni. And I guess I've always known that intuitively. But since I've been here, it is entrenched in me and I will always be a supporter of our Academy from a financial standpoint, from my time standpoint, but it's critical, not just for our Academy, but really for the product, those 1,000 lieutenants that we put out, they benefit enormously from the help that we get. And those are just the big things. Forget about all of the research opportunities, the travel opportunities, the opportunities to bring in guest speakers, NCLS, you know, the National Character and Leadership Symposium is NCLS. There's so many other things that people don't even know that only happened because someone was willing to put their resources behind our Academy. And so, you know, the Foundation makes that happen for us to AOG brings them in, but together, that support is just enormous. And, you know, I get a lot of compliments about people who they see — the visitors that we have coming through the Carlton House, you know, the supt. house — thousands of people that come through there: cadets, donors, dignitaries, all kinds of people. All that happens because of gift funds from the Foundation. We're able to represent our Academy in a way that people can't even understand. And that also, you know — there's a synergy from that and an exponential effect from us being able to do those kinds of things that most universities do. But the government doesn't always support those things because it's not in a funding line. But the Foundation helps us to make those things happen.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  48:45 Well, you've summed it up pretty well. Our goal is for the Association to be relevant in the lives of cadets through their time here at the Academy and onto their careers. So that eventually they follow into that continuum where they go to the Foundation and say, “How can I help?” And we're seeing that happen now. And it's nice to hear you recognize that it's been a factor in your time. We're close to running out of time here. Richard, let me ask you about your next big challenge, executive director of the College Football Playoff. This is exciting. What are your thoughts there?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  49:19 So, I am enormously grateful and blessed to even have this job. I still kind of don't believe it. You know, because it's such a dream job. I'm going from one dream job to another, you know, but it's funny. What I'll say is, it came out of the blue. A search firm contacted me and I had some, I had known them because I was involved in another search for the Mountain West Conference to find our commissioner. And the people that ran the search knew me just because I was on that panel and everything. And the guy calls me one day. He goes “Hey, Rich, I heard you might be retiring soon. I think you mentioned to us would you be willing to put your name in the hat for the executive director of the CFP.” I was like, “Is that a trick question?” And so, he said, “Now you're the longshot candidate.” They wanted a nontraditional candidate on the, you know — they have 15 or 20 people that they're looking at, but they wanted a nontraditional. I was like, “Yeah, I'll do it.” I said, “Can I ask though, do I really have a shot at this?” He goes, “Yeah, everybody has a shot.” I'm like, “OK, so I got a shot. Let's do this.” And I did a phone interview, then I did a Zoom interview, then it was narrowed down to three and an in-person interview. And I got the job, and I couldn't believe it. But what's really interesting, the things that they liked about me, like, they asked me some questions like, “Do you have any media…?” They go, “Do you have any media experience?” I was like, “No.” “Do you have any experience in managing college athletic teams?” “No.” You know, “Do you have any experience and revenue generation?” “No.” I, you know, and I thought, “I'm just done.” But then they started asking me leadership questions and things that any of us in the military, we would all knock them out of the park. They are things that we've all lived and done things that I learned here, you know, at the Air Force Academy. They weren't hard questions; they were things that are second nature to us. The other thing that they liked was that I played football for four years. And being a student-athlete myself, they thought that that was a big benefit. So really, it goes right back to being here at the Academy and getting that job. And now I look at the challenges that it faces, then you just talked about all the scrutiny we get here as a superintendent. Yeah, I think I'm walking right into another job where I'm going to get scrutinized. It's going to the 12-team playoff, you know, this year. Last year, you know, number five team, everybody was all mad and lost their minds. And I think the committee did it right, though. Next year, it'll just be team 13 that's going to be mad. So, I'm ready, though. I'm excited about it. Amy's excited about it. We're going to move to Dallas, which is where the headquarters is. But I still am, you know, I'm sprinting to the finish in this job. So, I don't have a lot of time to think about it. But it's nice to know that I have another great job that I'm going to be able to flow into. I feel incredibly blessed by it. And just for the opportunity to continue to contribute to student success. And to be a part of that.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  52:32 That's a really good thought. And let me just ask you to close this out, Rich. Any parting thoughts to your team here at the Academy, to the cadets and to your teammates as you move on to your second career?   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  52:50 Well, first of all, and you know this, as much as I do, you know, as the supt, you know, you're at the head of the table, right? And you're trying to provide the top cover. But it's really so that all of the amazing teammates — we have the dean of faculty, the commandant, the athletic director, the prep school, airbase wing, just across the board. You know, all of those people in the flying training group too, even though they're not AETC, there's much of this character development effort that we have. But they're the ones that get the job done. And what makes the Air Force Academy so special is that everyone is so passionate about our cadets, and trying to help them to be ready to go out and do the things that we need them to do. That's what makes us special. It's also what makes it kind of hard, though. But I will take hard when people are passionate any day, you know? They just will do this mission and they will do it, whatever it takes to make it right. And to make sure that we're giving those cadets everything they deserve. I couldn't thank them enough from all of our senior leaders right on down to the, you know, the people in the trenches working in Mitchell Hall. You know, I just love this place because of the people that make it work and that make it go to our cadets. I'll be very honest, there's people that go, “What's wrong with this generation? They don't, you know, they're not patriotic; they're not athletic.” These people don't know what on Earth they're talking about. Come spend an hour, 30 minutes, with our cadets and you'll change your mind. These are the most incredible people. They are patriotic. They want to go serve. They might be different than we were. They might be different than you know, even the classes before us. But there is no lack of patriotism and them wanting to serve and them wanting to do great things and to reach their destiny. And they are every bit as much leaders of character as anybody, this generation. They're better. They're smarter, they're more athletic, they're more in touch with their world around them. I am very happy and comfortable to leave this torch with them, to hand the torch off to them. And I'm just proud to have served with them. And then just to everyone out there, all the supporters of the Academy, and we do have a lot, I just thank them, you know, for letting us do our job at helping us do our job and supporting this Academy. So, I am leaving with a lot of gratitude in my heart, just from our cadets from our permanent party, from the alumni that helped us do this and the other supporters. It just makes me feel good about our country, you know, people still care, people still want to serve and to go do great things. And this place exemplifies that, like no other.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  55:48 Rich, that gratitude goes both ways. We're awfully proud of you, Amy, Milo, Zoë, and we just thank you for your years of service and the leadership you've exhibited here at the Academy. You left a mark, trust me, and we wish you all the well in the future as you go on about, and please stay in touch. Thank you.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  56:11 Thank you to the AOG and Foundation. And I'll say this, you know, I thank Amy because she's the one that was willing to go an extra four years because I could have retired as a three star when we started and she said, I'm in that passion from our time as commandant, she was like, “I'm in, let's do this.” And another four years wasn't easy for her. I'll be honest with you. She wants to live in her own house. She wants to… she started a new job. But she, she owned it. And she loves this Academy too. And I have to thank her and Milo and Zoë. They've just been my, that's my team. You know, I mean, in the end, you know, I thank God for them. I thank God for every opportunity. But I am just full of gratitude. So, thanks, Coach.   Lt. Gen. Mike Gould  56:59 Well done. Thank you. Lt. Gen.Rich Clark, 21st superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy.   Lt. Gen. Richard Clark  57:03 Thanks very much. Yeah, thank you.   Announcer:  57:08 Thank you for listening to long blue leadership. If you enjoyed this episode, we encourage you to subscribe, share it with your family and friends and post it to your social channels. Long Blue Leadership is a production of the long blue line Podcast Network and presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association and Foundation. The views and opinions of the guests and hosts do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Air Force, Air Force Academy, Academy Association and Foundation, its staff or management. The podcast drops every two weeks on Tuesday mornings. Subscribe to Long Blue Leadership on Apple podcasts, Spotify, tune in plus Alexa, and all your favorite podcast platforms. Search @AirForceGrads on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and more for show announcements and updates and visit long blue leadership.org for past episodes and more long blue line podcast network programming     KEYWORDS Air Force Academy, leadership, character, military career, pilot training, squadron command, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Lt. Gen. Richard Clark '86, superintendent, United States Air Force Academy, executive director, college football playoff, Association of Graduates, Foundation, leadership, character development, support, gratitude     The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association and Foundation      

Defense One's Sam Skove speaks to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George; and Defense One's Jennifer Hlad speaks with Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of U.S. Army Pacific. You can watch both of these interviews on Defense One's YouTube page, here.

https://thepostmillennial.com/bumble-cuts-staff-as-gen-z-turns-away-from-dating-apps https://medium.com/@antarikasen/the-growing-ideological-divide-among-gen-z-men-and-women-15038eeea210 https://fortune.com/2024/02/02/woke-gen-z-men-more-likely-than-baby-boomers-believe-feminism-does-more-harm-than-good-research-says/ https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/01/29/young-men-are-becoming-more-conservative/ Follow me for more content on these platforms! Twitter- https://twitter.com/Insideforwalls

In one of the most significant reorganizations in recent history, the Air Force is reshaping its service's structure in an effort to meet the security challenges of an increasingly complex global landscape.Among the biggest changes is the creation of a new command center, which will play a crucial role in centralizing the planning process for the service's future requirements and capabilities. The Integrated Capabilities Command will allow other command centers to focus on daily operations rather than independently determining their own requirements or planning for the future.“It's just what the name infers,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said at the Air and Space Forces Association's Air Warfare Symposium Monday. “They will design and they will put the requirements in and test one Air Force, not some of our functional Air Forces and then we have to put them together later.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In one of the most significant reorganizations in recent history, the Air Force is reshaping its service's structure in an effort to meet the security challenges of an increasingly complex global landscape. Among the biggest changes is the creation of a new command center, which will play a crucial role in centralizing the planning process for the service's future requirements and capabilities. The Integrated Capabilities Command will allow other command centers to focus on daily operations rather than independently determining their own requirements or planning for the future. “It's just what the name infers,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said at the Air and Space Forces Association's Air Warfare Symposium Monday. “They will design and they will put the requirements in and test one Air Force, not some of our functional Air Forces and then we have to put them together later.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Times for Action - Deconstructing the Political StageWebsite: http://www.battle4freedom.comNetwork: https://www.mojo50.comStreaming: https://www.rumble.com/Battle4Freedomhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12543797/Liberal-actor-John-Cusack-says-Democratic-Party-elite-sold-working-class-decades-accuses-not-having-moral-intellectual-honesty.htmlLiberal actor John Cusack says Democratic Party elite 'sold out the working class for decades' and accuses them of not having 'moral and intellectual honesty'The Hollywood actor is known for his political activism and left-wing viewshttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12542687/Biden-pick-CONFIRMED-chair-Joint-Chiefs-Staff-Gen-Charles-Brown-motto-accelerate-change-lose-replaces-Gen-Mark-Milley-three-years-wore-fatigues-walk-Trump-church-photo-op-amid-BLM-protest.htmlBiden pick is CONFIRMED as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Gen. Charles Brown - whose motto is 'accelerate change or lose' - replaces Gen. Mark Milley three years after he wore fatigues to walk Trump to church for photo-op amid BLM protestGeneral Charles Brown is confirmed as the new chair of the Joint Chiefs of StaffHe will replace controversial General Mark Milley, who was in the role since 2019Brown made headlines when he spoke up about the cop killing of George FloydOur Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule. - Gerald R. FordIt is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. - Edmund Burkehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12542105/First-3D-Printed-Vegan-Salmon-Supermarkets-Revo-Foods-Fungi.htmlNothing fishy about it! Lab-grown, 3D-printed SALMON goes on supermarket shelves for the first timeVegan salmon-maker Revo Foods hopes the product will curb global overfishingRevo says the fillet uses at least 77 percent less carbon than wild-caught salmonhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12543703/Poland-STOPS-supplying-Ukraine-weapons-war-Russia.htmlPoland STOPS supplying Ukraine with weapons - handing Putin a huge victory on the day Zelensky tries to win more aid from the US amid cries to cut supportWarsaw is one of Kyiv's main supporters, welcoming refugees and providing aid But Polish PM declared his government will no longer send weapons to UkraineThe move piles more pressure on Zelensky who today seeks more US supporthttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12532469/African-migrants-exploit-immigration-loophole-Nicaragua.htmlHundreds of African migrants sneak into the US in broad daylight after exploiting immigration loophole in Nicaragua that allows them in with no questions asked for just $160Hundreds of migrants from Africa and elsewhere are using a loophole in Nicaraguan immigration law to make their way to the United States DailyMail.com traveled to Lukeville, Arizona, and saw at least 600 migrants, many of them African refugees, crossing the southern border on one day alonehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12540421/Stanford-covid-lockdown-skeptic-Dr-Jay-Bhattacharya-touts-court-ruling-Biden-administration-censored-criticism-masks-school-closures.htmlStanford Covid lockdown skeptic Dr Jay Bhattacharya touts court ruling that Biden administration censored criticism about masks, school closuresCourt of appeals ruled Biden administration censored skeptics on social mediaThose skeptics argued that their petition critical of lockdowns was scrubbedREAD MORE: Lockdowns had 'catastrophic' impact on children's social skillshttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12544785/Biden-plans-track-illegal-immigrants-released-U-S-ID-cards-wait-court-appearance.htmlBiden plans to track illegal immigrants released into the U.S. with ID cards as they wait for court appearanceICE is preparing to rollout a pilot of its Secure Docket card program for migrantsThe program will provide asylum seekers released into the U.S. with ID cards to help better keep track of them until their court date Republicans claim the program is another example of the Biden administration welcoming illegal immigrants rather than prioritizing deportationhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12545385/kathy-hochul-migrants-new-york.htmlNY Gov. Kathy Hochul's migrant U-turn: Video reveals how Democrat welcomed asylum seekers 'with open arms' in 2021 - but TODAY she tells them: 'Go somewhere else'The Democrat addressed the migrant crisis in NYC on WednesdayOver 110,000 asylum seekers have arrived since the spring of 2022, with over currently 10,000 arriving every monthThe Roosevelt Hotel, Paul Hotel and Paramount Hotel are among the hotels designated for housing migrants in Manhattanhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-12545589/NFT-crash-worthless-value-Bored-Ape-artwork-Justin-Bieber.htmlNFT crash: 95% of the market is now 'worthless', study finds - as value of 'Bored Ape' artwork owned by Justin Bieber plummets by 97%The vast majority of NFTs created are now worthless, according to a studyAnd even the most popular and prestigious NFTs are down more than 95 percentJustin Bieber paid $1.3M for an ape NFT in 2022, but it's now worth around $50Khttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12545967/Scientists-discover-11-aggressive-prostate-cancer-genes-time-large-global-study.htmlScientists discover 11 aggressive prostate cancer genes for first time in large global studyFindings come from the largest-scale prostate cancer looking at geneticsHas major implications for genetic testing to catch and treat cancers early https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12545855/Devastating-transition-green-energy-metal-mining-23-million-people-toxic-waste-rivers-polluted-farmland.htmlDevastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy: Mining for electric-powering minerals has left 23 million people exposed to toxic waste, 500,000km of rivers polluted and 16 million acres of farmland ruinedToxic byproducts of metals mining also pollute 10.7 million acres of flood plains Researchers estimate the pollution also impacts 5.72 million livestock worldwideScientists hope their new global database and mapping tool helps stem the tidehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12546669/zelensky-biden-white-house-ukraine-joe-jill-olena-funds.htmlZelensky takes battle for more funds and weapons to the White House: Ukrainian leader hints to Biden he wants more missiles in pivotal talks as Republicans refuse to budge on $24B in aidZelensky met lawmakers on Capitol Hill, military leaders at the Pentagon and President Biden at the White HouseHe hinted to Biden he'd like more air defense missiles

My friend and repeat guest Darren Isom is down to speak some truth. In this fun episode, we talk about the generational and cultural shifts in the workplace as Boomers retire and millennials are taking up the mantle of leadership. We discuss the challenge of Gen X'ers being the sandwich generation, how we're not setting BIPOC leaders up for success and why tights are not pants. This episode is perfect for anyone who has felt confounded and whipsawed by the rapidly changing norms and shifting expectations of the workplace at the nexus of generational, cultural, racial, political and pandemic shifts. TL:DR: I'm tired, y'all and maybe you are too. Don't miss the opportunity to connect with Darren on LinkedIn and check out his podcast, "Dreaming in Color," for more inspiring conversations. Listen to Darren's Podcast: Dreaming in Color Connect with Darren Isom on LinkedIn "The easiest way to disrupt a broken narrative is to create one and tell one that is more compelling and more beautiful." - Darren --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nonprofitlowdown/support

The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Episode (06/06/2023): 3:05pm- According to a report from Katelynn Richardson of The Daily Caller, “[a] federal judge sided Tuesday with families who sued over Florida's ban on gender transition procedures for minors, declaring that ‘gender identity is real.' A group of families, backed by several LGBT activist groups, sued Florida in March shortly after the rule restricting minors from accessing surgical sex change procedures, puberty blockers and hormone therapy took effect. Northern District of Florida Judge Robert L. Hinkle, a Clinton appointee, granted a preliminary injunction against the law to prohibit it from being enforced against the plaintiffs, and proceeded to make the claim that ‘great weight of medical authority supports these treatments.'” You can read Richardson's full article here: https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/06/judge-gender-identity-florida-injunction/ 3:30pm- While speaking with the press, National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby refused to answer questions about a Washington Post report that stated the United States had intelligence detailing a Ukrainian plot to attack the Nord Stream pipeline three months before it was ultimately attacked. 3:40pm- Aaron Maté—journalist at RealClearInvestigation—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss his latest article, “Russiagate Prober Durham Neglected DNC Hack Claim, Despite Evidence It Too Was a Democrat Sham.” Maté writes: “Special Counsel John Durham's final report faults the FBI for opening the Trump-Russia collusion investigation on baseless grounds and relying on Hillary Clinton-funded material to pursue it, all while ignoring a warning that Clinton was plotting to frame Trump as a Russian asset. Yet Durham does not address the Clinton campaign's equally central tie to Russiagate's other foundational allegation: that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by hacking Democratic party servers and releasing the material through Wikileaks to help elect Trump.” You can read Maté's full article here: https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/06/06/what_durham_skipped_903673.html 4:05pm- Jed Rubenfeld—Professor at Yale Law School & First Amendment expert—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss his latest editorial in The Wall Street Journal, “The Big Tech Censorship Machine is Running in 2024.” Professor Rubenfeld writes, “Meta slapped 180-day suspensions last week on the Instagram accounts of people working for Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign—before a single message had been posted from those accounts. This came shortly after LinkedIn shut down Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's account, apparently for expressing disfavored opinions on China and climate change. This censorship should worry anyone who cares about democracy in America. It isn't only antidemocratic; it's a thumb on the scale that could easily tip a tightly contested election.” You can read Professor Rubenfeld's full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-censorship-machine-is-running-in-2024-ramaswamy-rfk-jr-election-campaign-linkedin-meta-twitter-462f8aae?mod=opinion_lead_pos5 4:25pm- While appearing on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) predicted that the Department of Justice will indict former President Donald Trump—citing Attorney General Merrick Garland's strong dislike for Trump. 4:35pm- On Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer viewed, and was briefed on, a subpoenaed document that allegedly shows members of the Biden family benefited financially from relationships with overseas companies in exchange for foreign influence while Joe Biden was serving as Vice President of the United States. Speaking with the press, Comer pledged to hold Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for not surrendering the document. Will Wray be held accountable for not complying with the subpoena? Why isn't the mainstream media expressing any interest in this story? You can read more here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-oversight-lawmakers-briefed-by-fbi-on-biden-document-alleging-criminal-bribery-scheme 4:50pm- Ford, Tesla, Volvo, Volkswagen, and BMW are among the auto manufacturers that have eliminated AM radio from their electric vehicles—but a group of bipartisan lawmakers, including Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ted Cruz (R-Tx), want to prevent the removal arguing public safety is at risk. 5:05pm- In a recent piece, The New York Post Editorial Board wrote about how questions surrounding the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have led to Americans losing confidence in all vaccines. You can read the editorial here: https://nypost.com/2023/06/04/covid-vax-disinfo-has-weakened-americans-confidence-in-all-vaccines/ 5:30pm- During an interview with NewsNation, whistleblower David Grusch—who served as a member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)—claimed the United States government has the remains of flying space crafts of “non-human origin.” Are aliens real??? What about Sasquatch? 5:40pm- While speaking with CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said accusations that the military has embraced “woke” ideology are “grossly over exaggerated.” Today is the 79th Anniversary of D-Day—June 6th, 1944, when “more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.” You can read more here: https://www.army.mil/d-day/

The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 3: In a recent piece, The New York Post Editorial Board wrote about how questions surrounding the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have led to Americans losing confidence in all vaccines. You can read the editorial here: https://nypost.com/2023/06/04/covid-vax-disinfo-has-weakened-americans-confidence-in-all-vaccines/ During an interview with NewsNation, whistleblower David Grusch—who served as a member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)—claimed the United States government has the remains of flying space crafts of “non-human origin.” Are aliens real??? What about Sasquatch? While speaking with CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said accusations that the military has embraced “woke” ideology are “grossly over exaggerated.”

Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Thursday, June 1, 2023. Stand Up for Your Country.   Tonight's rundown:  Talking Points Memo: Bill analyzes the recently passed debt deal and what it means going forward Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley scrap a planned Air Force drag show in Nevada Bill gives you the viable GOP presidential candidates in the field An update on the situation involving FBI Director Christopher Wray and the House Oversight Committee ABC airs the 1619 Project's take on racism and American history This Day in History: Marilyn Monroe is born Final Thought: Lifeguard shortage   In Case You Missed It: Read Bill's latest column, "God and Country" Join 'Team Normal!' Order your gear at BillOReilly.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This edition features stories on a new road system built by coalition forces and Afghan engineers, a visit from the Army's Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey to Afghanistan at Bagram Air Field and Soldiers transporting a Humvee via a Shanook helicopter. Hosted by Tech Sgt. Gene Taylor.

This edition features stories on the Chief Master Sgt. Of the Air Force Rodney McKinley announcing retirement, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz discussing changes in the physical fitness program, a new mental health clinic opening, network security, Air Force leadership testifying to members of Congress relating to real property acquisition and Secretary of the Air Force Donely continuing to serve. Hosted by Senior Airman Robbie Arp

This edition features stories on Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and his wife Suzie Schwatz talking about developments in taking care of Airmen and their families and the F-22 Raptor aircraft. Hosted by Master Sgt. Shawn Sprayberry.

Join Jim and Greg as they welcome news of the U.S. striking back against Iranian-backed bases in Syria after an Iranian drone targeted a U.S. position. But they also wonder why the Biden administration is simultaneously easing sanctions against Iran so it can make millions selling electricity to Iraq. They also roll their eyes as Politico rolls out puff pieces on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. Both Bragg and Milley are lauded as examples of apolitical devotion to their jobs. But the facts tell a very different story. Finally, they have fun with the Columbia University promotion of Hillary Clinton "running" again - but only to teach her new class on her experience in foreign policy.Please visit our great sponsors:4Patriothttps://4patriots.comNever get caught in the dark. Use code MARTINI to get 10% of your first purchase on anything in the store…including the Patriot Power Generator.

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown sat down with Defense One's Marcus Weisgerber to discuss priorities for the year ahead, lessons from Russia's Ukraine invasion, and more. 

[00:30] U.S. Ineptitude on Full Display (14 minutes) CBS News revealed that the U.S. military tracked the Chinese spy balloon from the moment it left China, and that the three flying objects shot down last weekend were harmless research balloons. Russia began a new offensive in Ukraine just after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Putin had lost the war. The Biden administration's leading diplomat in Afghanistan, Karen Decker, used Twitter to lecture Afghan women about black power instead of helping protect them from the Taliban. The U.S. is facing a crisis in leadership. [14:50] Biden Ignores East Palestine Disaster While Promoting Electric Cars (21 minutes) Yesterday, Joe Biden gloated about his plan to purify the air by adding 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations around the country—while still ignoring the massive environmental disaster in East Palestine. [36:00] Trump Supports Ballot Harvesting (5 minutes) Donald Trump has decided that if the law won't hold election fraudsters accountable, he will beat them at their own game. He stated in a fundraising e-mail this week, “Our path forward is to MASTER the Democrats' own game of harvesting ballots in every state we can.” [41:00] The Right Attitude for Prayer and Fasting (14 minutes) Combining fervent prayer with regular fasting is a powerful spiritual weapon we must use. Praying and fasting for the wrong reasons will not get results, however; it must be done in the right attitude to achieve great success.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, August 31st, 2022. The last day of August is upon us, and that means, Pumpkin spiced coffee drinks are as well… God help us. FLF Magazine: We are on a mission to make magazines great again. So, subscribe to our Fight Laugh Feast magazine. This is a quarterly mini-book like experience, packed full of a variety of authors that includes theologically-driven cultural commentary, a Psalm of the quarter, recipes for feasting, laughter sprinkled throughout the glossy pages, and more. Sign your church up, sign your grumpy uncle up, and while you are at it…sign up the Pope, Elon Musks, and Russel Moore. Disclaimer: This magazine will guarantee various responses and CrossPolitic is not held liable for any of them. Reading the whole magazine may cause theological maturation, possibly encourage your kids to take the Lord’s Supper with you, and will likely cause you to randomly chuckle in joy at God’s wondrous world. Sign up today! Four issues and $60 per year, that is it. Go to fightlaughfeast.com right now to sign up!. https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/12/study-finds-around-one-third-of-americans-regularly-get-their-news-from-facebook/ Study finds around one-third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook Around a third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook, according to the latest study from Pew Research Center, whose surveys aim to better understand the current media landscape in the U.S. In the updated report, Pew Research found that around half of U.S. adults, or 53%, said they “often” or “sometimes” use social media to get their news. This is spread out across a number of sites, but Facebook is at the top of the list. Now I’m sure a lot of you already have your alarm bells going off at this point, but don’t worry, it gets worse in a bit! The study found that 36% of U.S. adults said they “regularly” access Facebook to get news. This is a significantly larger percentage than almost any other social media platform, with the exception of YouTube, which is used regularly for news by 23% of U.S. adults. Beyond that, the percentages are much smaller. Even Trump’s preferred platform for communication (well, until recently), Twitter, is only used regularly for news by 15% of U.S. adults, Pew found. Only around one in 10 Americans or fewer said they regularly got their news from other social media platforms, including Instagram (11%), Reddit (6%), Snapchat (4%), LinkedIn (4%), TikTok (3%), WhatsApp (3%), Tumblr (1%) and Twitch (1%). Pew notes that the lower percentages for using these sites as a source of news also has to do with the fact that fewer Americans report using these sites at all. Pew additionally examined the demographic makeup of those who use social media for news, and found that white adults make up the majority of the regular news users for sites like Facebook and Reddit. Both Black and Hispanic adults, meanwhile, made up around a quarter of Instagram’s regular users (22% and 27%, respectively.) Facebook was found to also skew toward women (63% versus 35%) when it came to regularly using it getting the news, while Reddit skews toward men (67% versus 29%). Now, remember how I said it gets worse? Well take a listen to Facebook CEO and lizard-human hybrid, Mark Zuckerberg, on the Joe Rogan Podcast. Mark Zuckerberg Answers to Facebook's Moderation of Controversial Content-Play 5:02-6:42 I don’t know about you, but my b.s. Alarm bells are ringing… Mr. Zuckerberg, you definitely do know the percentage off the top of your head. That’s a bold-face-lie. Also, did you catch the part where Mr. Zuckerberg openly admitted the part where the FBI is in the business of fact checking now? That’s scary… who fact checks the FBI? Who holds the FBI accountable when they’ve gone rogue? You have to believe that either the FBI is so inept, or they’re lying, and tried to effect the outcome of the election. Who else comes to mind with fact-checking? The World Heath Organization? The CDC? Who’s fact checking them? Let’s dive into some statistics on the election results… https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/2020-election-outcome-would-differ-with-hunter-biden-laptop-coverage-poll/ 79% say ‘truthful’ coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop would have changed 2020 election Nearly four of five Americans who’ve been following the Hunter Biden laptop scandal believe that “truthful” coverage would have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll. A similar percentage also said they’re convinced that information on the computer is real, with just 11% saying they thought it was “created by Russia,” according to the survey conducted by the New Jersey-based Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics. And an even higher number — 81% — said US Attorney General Merrick Garland should appoint a special counsel to investigate matters related to the first son’s infamous laptop, the existence of which was exclusively revealed by The Post in October 2020. The poll results, published Wednesday, are based on responses from 437 adults who said they were following the laptop story “very” or “somewhat” closely when they were surveyed online earlier this month, according to the TIPP. On the subject of the 2020 election, 79% overall said it was “very” or “somewhat” likely that “a truthful interpretation of the laptop” would have resulted in the reelection of former President Donald Trump instead of the election of President Biden. Among Republicans, 57% were strongly convinced Trump would have won, compared to 48% of independents and just 44% of Democrats. But majorities in both parties — 89% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats — said they believed the laptop “is real,” along with 74% of independents. I wonder, how the electoral map would have looked with these findings in mind? Hmmmm… I’ll leave that to you guys… Moving on… https://dailycaller.com/2022/08/30/us-military-ammunition-arming-ukraine/ US Military Running Low On Ammo After Arming Ukraine Pentagon officials are concerned that U.S. ammunition stocks donated to Ukraine have severely depleted U.S. stocks, weakening U.S. readiness in the event of a conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The Biden administration has drawn much of the over $13 billion in weapons systems and accompanying ammunition the U.S. has provided to Ukraine from existing arsenals, according to the WSJ. While the Department of Defense has declined to disclose the number of ammunition rounds in storage at the beginning of 2022, before the war in Ukraine began, it has taken few steps to replenish depleting stocks, sparking worries that the U.S. may not have the ammunition it needs for its own protection. The level of 155mm combat rounds, fired by the howitzer weapons system, in U.S. stockpiles has become “uncomfortably low,” a Pentagon official told the WSJ. The U.S. has sent 806,000 rounds of the 100-pound explosives to Ukraine as of Aug. 24. “It is not at the level we would like to go into combat,” the defense official told the WSJ. U.S.-supplied howitzers have seen extended use from Ukrainian forces since entering the conflict in late May, Fox News reported. Last week, the U.S. provided smaller 105mm ammunition to feed Ukraine’s howitzers in order to spare 155mm rounds for the U.S., according to the WSJ. The U.S. military most recently employed howitzers in a strike on Iran-backed targets in Syria on Aug. 24. Depleting U.S. arsenals “was forewarned, including from industry leaders to the Pentagon. And it was easily fixable,” Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the WSJ. The Army plans to conduct a “deep dive” into the “ammunitions industrial base” to determine the best way to support Ukraine while retaining necessary supplies for the U.S., Army officials told the WSJ. It has requested an additional $500 million yearly for upgrades to ammunition factories and increasing the threshold on existing production contracts, but has not signed any new contracts. Officials also said that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley authorized monthly reviews of U.S. weapons stores to monitor readiness. However, defense industry leaders said the administration has not clearly communicated the changes in production requirements brought on by U.S. assistance to Ukraine and has not expanded production capacity to make up for the additional munitions needed to replenish stocks. The Biden administration has requested a record $773 billion defense budget for 2023. While additional funding can alleviate part of the problem, ongoing supply chain issues can make the months or years-long manufacturing process take even longer, according to the WSJ. Accountable 2U ​​https://Accountable2You.com/FLF Using a smartphone or computer opens the door to a host of digital temptations. In a world saturated with pornography and other harmful content, what's a Christian to do? We need to take a proactive approach, welcoming transparency in our digital media choices—and Accountable2You makes that easy. Their accountability software shares detailed activity reports from all your devices, and your kids' devices, in real time to the accountability partners that you choose. With accountability in place, your family can effectively guard against temptations online and live with purity and integrity. Learn more and try it free at Accountable2You.com/FLF https://thepostmillennial.com/oregon-wind-farm-sees-blades-bolts-fly-off-as-failures-mount-report?utm_campaign=64487 Oregon wind farm sees blades, bolts fly off as failures mount: report A new report has revealed the unreliability of a major Oregon wind farm, discovered after a blade from a windmill detached and flew across the field. According to The Oregonian, in January, a delivery driver found some broken, industrial-size bolts on the ground near one of Portland General Electric’s towering wind turbines but did not know who to tell and used it as a paperweight. On Feb 1 at 2:11 am, one of the turbine’s 11-story tall blades flew the full length of a football field and plowed a 4-feet deep furrow in a wheat field. The heavy-duty bolts that kept the blade attached to the tower scattered like shrapnel. PGE’s flagship wind facility, which opened 15 years ago to expand green energy technology in Oregon and nationally had other warning signs as well according to the outlet but it wasn’t until the blade breakdown that the company took action at Biglow Canyon, one of Oregon’s largest wind farms, and shut down all 217 turbines for testing, keeping some out of service for four months. Though industry groups insist that wind farms are very safe and major malfunctions are rare, wind farms are growing older and components are aging. An investigation by The Oregonian found a massive set of maintenance problems and equipment failures that are reducing electricity generation at Biglow Canyon. According to the outlet, "there is no effective national, state or county reporting requirement or database tracking safety or operational incidents at wind farms, and only 13 of the largest of Oregon’s 48 wind farms are regulated by the state, numbers that include multiple phases of some projects." Additionally, PGE launched an investigation into the blade throw but has asked the Oregon Department of Energy to keep those confidential until the end of the year because of the possibility of litigation. To eliminate all its greenhouse emissions, PGE would need to massively increase its renewable energy resources and manage them effectively for decades. However, wind power is heavily dependent on federal subsidies, and according to experts consulted by The Oregonian, "those subsidies are structured in a way that incentivizes operators to skimp on maintenance for older equipment that is no longer eligible." https://www.boundingintosports.com/2022/08/washington-commanders-rb-brian-robinson-shot-during-attempted-robbery-in-d-c/ And finally, it’s time for the topic that I love… sports! Washington Commanders RB Brian Robinson Shot During Attempted Robbery In D.C. No one is immune from crime in America’s cities these days, and this weekend residents of Washington D.C. were especially reminded of that when Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson, 23, was shot multiple times during an attempted robbery on Sunday. According to the NFL’s Mike Garafolo, Robinson was rushed to the hospital by emergency responders after the violent attack, reporting that “#Commanders RB Brian Robinson is in stable condition after being shot as the victim in an attempted robbery, sources say.” As the news regarding the situation broke, the Washington Commanders followed up by issuing an immediate statement to alert fans that Robinson was alive and safe. Additional information regarding details from the shooting came later from NFL Network Insider, Tom Pelissero, who was one of the first people to share the information online after receiving a statement from a D.C. Police spokesperson. According to a report from NBC Washington, Robinson got into an altercation with several suspects shortly after midnight Sunday as they attempted to steal his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. It was that altercation which led to the shooting. Late Sunday night, Commanders Head Coach Ron Rivera met with Robinson and later posted to Twitter that Robinson was in “good spirits” to ease everyone’s anxiety regarding his current health. Robinson is now but one of the many innocent D.C. bystanders who have been victims of violent crime this year alone. According to D.C. Police crime statistics, there have been 126 people killed via homicide just in 2022, which is a 12 percent increase from this time last year. Violent crimes and cases regarding burglary have also risen five percent since 2021, with robberies up 20 percent, and car thefts up three percent. Well Praise God this one ended with Robinson walking away. This has been Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. If you liked the show, hit that share button down below. If you want to sign up for a club membership, then sign up for our conference with that club discount, and THEN sign up for a magazine, you can do all of that at fightlaughfeast.com. And as always, if you’d like to email me a news story, ask about our conference, or become a corporate partner of CrossPolitic, email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News… I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great day, and Lord bless!

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, August 31st, 2022. The last day of August is upon us, and that means, Pumpkin spiced coffee drinks are as well… God help us. FLF Magazine: We are on a mission to make magazines great again. So, subscribe to our Fight Laugh Feast magazine. This is a quarterly mini-book like experience, packed full of a variety of authors that includes theologically-driven cultural commentary, a Psalm of the quarter, recipes for feasting, laughter sprinkled throughout the glossy pages, and more. Sign your church up, sign your grumpy uncle up, and while you are at it…sign up the Pope, Elon Musks, and Russel Moore. Disclaimer: This magazine will guarantee various responses and CrossPolitic is not held liable for any of them. Reading the whole magazine may cause theological maturation, possibly encourage your kids to take the Lord’s Supper with you, and will likely cause you to randomly chuckle in joy at God’s wondrous world. Sign up today! Four issues and $60 per year, that is it. Go to fightlaughfeast.com right now to sign up!. https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/12/study-finds-around-one-third-of-americans-regularly-get-their-news-from-facebook/ Study finds around one-third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook Around a third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook, according to the latest study from Pew Research Center, whose surveys aim to better understand the current media landscape in the U.S. In the updated report, Pew Research found that around half of U.S. adults, or 53%, said they “often” or “sometimes” use social media to get their news. This is spread out across a number of sites, but Facebook is at the top of the list. Now I’m sure a lot of you already have your alarm bells going off at this point, but don’t worry, it gets worse in a bit! The study found that 36% of U.S. adults said they “regularly” access Facebook to get news. This is a significantly larger percentage than almost any other social media platform, with the exception of YouTube, which is used regularly for news by 23% of U.S. adults. Beyond that, the percentages are much smaller. Even Trump’s preferred platform for communication (well, until recently), Twitter, is only used regularly for news by 15% of U.S. adults, Pew found. Only around one in 10 Americans or fewer said they regularly got their news from other social media platforms, including Instagram (11%), Reddit (6%), Snapchat (4%), LinkedIn (4%), TikTok (3%), WhatsApp (3%), Tumblr (1%) and Twitch (1%). Pew notes that the lower percentages for using these sites as a source of news also has to do with the fact that fewer Americans report using these sites at all. Pew additionally examined the demographic makeup of those who use social media for news, and found that white adults make up the majority of the regular news users for sites like Facebook and Reddit. Both Black and Hispanic adults, meanwhile, made up around a quarter of Instagram’s regular users (22% and 27%, respectively.) Facebook was found to also skew toward women (63% versus 35%) when it came to regularly using it getting the news, while Reddit skews toward men (67% versus 29%). Now, remember how I said it gets worse? Well take a listen to Facebook CEO and lizard-human hybrid, Mark Zuckerberg, on the Joe Rogan Podcast. Mark Zuckerberg Answers to Facebook's Moderation of Controversial Content-Play 5:02-6:42 I don’t know about you, but my b.s. Alarm bells are ringing… Mr. Zuckerberg, you definitely do know the percentage off the top of your head. That’s a bold-face-lie. Also, did you catch the part where Mr. Zuckerberg openly admitted the part where the FBI is in the business of fact checking now? That’s scary… who fact checks the FBI? Who holds the FBI accountable when they’ve gone rogue? You have to believe that either the FBI is so inept, or they’re lying, and tried to effect the outcome of the election. Who else comes to mind with fact-checking? The World Heath Organization? The CDC? Who’s fact checking them? Let’s dive into some statistics on the election results… https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/2020-election-outcome-would-differ-with-hunter-biden-laptop-coverage-poll/ 79% say ‘truthful’ coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop would have changed 2020 election Nearly four of five Americans who’ve been following the Hunter Biden laptop scandal believe that “truthful” coverage would have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll. A similar percentage also said they’re convinced that information on the computer is real, with just 11% saying they thought it was “created by Russia,” according to the survey conducted by the New Jersey-based Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics. And an even higher number — 81% — said US Attorney General Merrick Garland should appoint a special counsel to investigate matters related to the first son’s infamous laptop, the existence of which was exclusively revealed by The Post in October 2020. The poll results, published Wednesday, are based on responses from 437 adults who said they were following the laptop story “very” or “somewhat” closely when they were surveyed online earlier this month, according to the TIPP. On the subject of the 2020 election, 79% overall said it was “very” or “somewhat” likely that “a truthful interpretation of the laptop” would have resulted in the reelection of former President Donald Trump instead of the election of President Biden. Among Republicans, 57% were strongly convinced Trump would have won, compared to 48% of independents and just 44% of Democrats. But majorities in both parties — 89% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats — said they believed the laptop “is real,” along with 74% of independents. I wonder, how the electoral map would have looked with these findings in mind? Hmmmm… I’ll leave that to you guys… Moving on… https://dailycaller.com/2022/08/30/us-military-ammunition-arming-ukraine/ US Military Running Low On Ammo After Arming Ukraine Pentagon officials are concerned that U.S. ammunition stocks donated to Ukraine have severely depleted U.S. stocks, weakening U.S. readiness in the event of a conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The Biden administration has drawn much of the over $13 billion in weapons systems and accompanying ammunition the U.S. has provided to Ukraine from existing arsenals, according to the WSJ. While the Department of Defense has declined to disclose the number of ammunition rounds in storage at the beginning of 2022, before the war in Ukraine began, it has taken few steps to replenish depleting stocks, sparking worries that the U.S. may not have the ammunition it needs for its own protection. The level of 155mm combat rounds, fired by the howitzer weapons system, in U.S. stockpiles has become “uncomfortably low,” a Pentagon official told the WSJ. The U.S. has sent 806,000 rounds of the 100-pound explosives to Ukraine as of Aug. 24. “It is not at the level we would like to go into combat,” the defense official told the WSJ. U.S.-supplied howitzers have seen extended use from Ukrainian forces since entering the conflict in late May, Fox News reported. Last week, the U.S. provided smaller 105mm ammunition to feed Ukraine’s howitzers in order to spare 155mm rounds for the U.S., according to the WSJ. The U.S. military most recently employed howitzers in a strike on Iran-backed targets in Syria on Aug. 24. Depleting U.S. arsenals “was forewarned, including from industry leaders to the Pentagon. And it was easily fixable,” Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the WSJ. The Army plans to conduct a “deep dive” into the “ammunitions industrial base” to determine the best way to support Ukraine while retaining necessary supplies for the U.S., Army officials told the WSJ. It has requested an additional $500 million yearly for upgrades to ammunition factories and increasing the threshold on existing production contracts, but has not signed any new contracts. Officials also said that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley authorized monthly reviews of U.S. weapons stores to monitor readiness. However, defense industry leaders said the administration has not clearly communicated the changes in production requirements brought on by U.S. assistance to Ukraine and has not expanded production capacity to make up for the additional munitions needed to replenish stocks. The Biden administration has requested a record $773 billion defense budget for 2023. While additional funding can alleviate part of the problem, ongoing supply chain issues can make the months or years-long manufacturing process take even longer, according to the WSJ. Accountable 2U ​​https://Accountable2You.com/FLF Using a smartphone or computer opens the door to a host of digital temptations. In a world saturated with pornography and other harmful content, what's a Christian to do? We need to take a proactive approach, welcoming transparency in our digital media choices—and Accountable2You makes that easy. Their accountability software shares detailed activity reports from all your devices, and your kids' devices, in real time to the accountability partners that you choose. With accountability in place, your family can effectively guard against temptations online and live with purity and integrity. Learn more and try it free at Accountable2You.com/FLF https://thepostmillennial.com/oregon-wind-farm-sees-blades-bolts-fly-off-as-failures-mount-report?utm_campaign=64487 Oregon wind farm sees blades, bolts fly off as failures mount: report A new report has revealed the unreliability of a major Oregon wind farm, discovered after a blade from a windmill detached and flew across the field. According to The Oregonian, in January, a delivery driver found some broken, industrial-size bolts on the ground near one of Portland General Electric’s towering wind turbines but did not know who to tell and used it as a paperweight. On Feb 1 at 2:11 am, one of the turbine’s 11-story tall blades flew the full length of a football field and plowed a 4-feet deep furrow in a wheat field. The heavy-duty bolts that kept the blade attached to the tower scattered like shrapnel. PGE’s flagship wind facility, which opened 15 years ago to expand green energy technology in Oregon and nationally had other warning signs as well according to the outlet but it wasn’t until the blade breakdown that the company took action at Biglow Canyon, one of Oregon’s largest wind farms, and shut down all 217 turbines for testing, keeping some out of service for four months. Though industry groups insist that wind farms are very safe and major malfunctions are rare, wind farms are growing older and components are aging. An investigation by The Oregonian found a massive set of maintenance problems and equipment failures that are reducing electricity generation at Biglow Canyon. According to the outlet, "there is no effective national, state or county reporting requirement or database tracking safety or operational incidents at wind farms, and only 13 of the largest of Oregon’s 48 wind farms are regulated by the state, numbers that include multiple phases of some projects." Additionally, PGE launched an investigation into the blade throw but has asked the Oregon Department of Energy to keep those confidential until the end of the year because of the possibility of litigation. To eliminate all its greenhouse emissions, PGE would need to massively increase its renewable energy resources and manage them effectively for decades. However, wind power is heavily dependent on federal subsidies, and according to experts consulted by The Oregonian, "those subsidies are structured in a way that incentivizes operators to skimp on maintenance for older equipment that is no longer eligible." https://www.boundingintosports.com/2022/08/washington-commanders-rb-brian-robinson-shot-during-attempted-robbery-in-d-c/ And finally, it’s time for the topic that I love… sports! Washington Commanders RB Brian Robinson Shot During Attempted Robbery In D.C. No one is immune from crime in America’s cities these days, and this weekend residents of Washington D.C. were especially reminded of that when Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson, 23, was shot multiple times during an attempted robbery on Sunday. According to the NFL’s Mike Garafolo, Robinson was rushed to the hospital by emergency responders after the violent attack, reporting that “#Commanders RB Brian Robinson is in stable condition after being shot as the victim in an attempted robbery, sources say.” As the news regarding the situation broke, the Washington Commanders followed up by issuing an immediate statement to alert fans that Robinson was alive and safe. Additional information regarding details from the shooting came later from NFL Network Insider, Tom Pelissero, who was one of the first people to share the information online after receiving a statement from a D.C. Police spokesperson. According to a report from NBC Washington, Robinson got into an altercation with several suspects shortly after midnight Sunday as they attempted to steal his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. It was that altercation which led to the shooting. Late Sunday night, Commanders Head Coach Ron Rivera met with Robinson and later posted to Twitter that Robinson was in “good spirits” to ease everyone’s anxiety regarding his current health. Robinson is now but one of the many innocent D.C. bystanders who have been victims of violent crime this year alone. According to D.C. Police crime statistics, there have been 126 people killed via homicide just in 2022, which is a 12 percent increase from this time last year. Violent crimes and cases regarding burglary have also risen five percent since 2021, with robberies up 20 percent, and car thefts up three percent. Well Praise God this one ended with Robinson walking away. This has been Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. If you liked the show, hit that share button down below. If you want to sign up for a club membership, then sign up for our conference with that club discount, and THEN sign up for a magazine, you can do all of that at fightlaughfeast.com. And as always, if you’d like to email me a news story, ask about our conference, or become a corporate partner of CrossPolitic, email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News… I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great day, and Lord bless!

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, August 31st, 2022. The last day of August is upon us, and that means, Pumpkin spiced coffee drinks are as well… God help us. FLF Magazine: We are on a mission to make magazines great again. So, subscribe to our Fight Laugh Feast magazine. This is a quarterly mini-book like experience, packed full of a variety of authors that includes theologically-driven cultural commentary, a Psalm of the quarter, recipes for feasting, laughter sprinkled throughout the glossy pages, and more. Sign your church up, sign your grumpy uncle up, and while you are at it…sign up the Pope, Elon Musks, and Russel Moore. Disclaimer: This magazine will guarantee various responses and CrossPolitic is not held liable for any of them. Reading the whole magazine may cause theological maturation, possibly encourage your kids to take the Lord’s Supper with you, and will likely cause you to randomly chuckle in joy at God’s wondrous world. Sign up today! Four issues and $60 per year, that is it. Go to fightlaughfeast.com right now to sign up!. https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/12/study-finds-around-one-third-of-americans-regularly-get-their-news-from-facebook/ Study finds around one-third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook Around a third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook, according to the latest study from Pew Research Center, whose surveys aim to better understand the current media landscape in the U.S. In the updated report, Pew Research found that around half of U.S. adults, or 53%, said they “often” or “sometimes” use social media to get their news. This is spread out across a number of sites, but Facebook is at the top of the list. Now I’m sure a lot of you already have your alarm bells going off at this point, but don’t worry, it gets worse in a bit! The study found that 36% of U.S. adults said they “regularly” access Facebook to get news. This is a significantly larger percentage than almost any other social media platform, with the exception of YouTube, which is used regularly for news by 23% of U.S. adults. Beyond that, the percentages are much smaller. Even Trump’s preferred platform for communication (well, until recently), Twitter, is only used regularly for news by 15% of U.S. adults, Pew found. Only around one in 10 Americans or fewer said they regularly got their news from other social media platforms, including Instagram (11%), Reddit (6%), Snapchat (4%), LinkedIn (4%), TikTok (3%), WhatsApp (3%), Tumblr (1%) and Twitch (1%). Pew notes that the lower percentages for using these sites as a source of news also has to do with the fact that fewer Americans report using these sites at all. Pew additionally examined the demographic makeup of those who use social media for news, and found that white adults make up the majority of the regular news users for sites like Facebook and Reddit. Both Black and Hispanic adults, meanwhile, made up around a quarter of Instagram’s regular users (22% and 27%, respectively.) Facebook was found to also skew toward women (63% versus 35%) when it came to regularly using it getting the news, while Reddit skews toward men (67% versus 29%). Now, remember how I said it gets worse? Well take a listen to Facebook CEO and lizard-human hybrid, Mark Zuckerberg, on the Joe Rogan Podcast. Mark Zuckerberg Answers to Facebook's Moderation of Controversial Content-Play 5:02-6:42 I don’t know about you, but my b.s. Alarm bells are ringing… Mr. Zuckerberg, you definitely do know the percentage off the top of your head. That’s a bold-face-lie. Also, did you catch the part where Mr. Zuckerberg openly admitted the part where the FBI is in the business of fact checking now? That’s scary… who fact checks the FBI? Who holds the FBI accountable when they’ve gone rogue? You have to believe that either the FBI is so inept, or they’re lying, and tried to effect the outcome of the election. Who else comes to mind with fact-checking? The World Heath Organization? The CDC? Who’s fact checking them? Let’s dive into some statistics on the election results… https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/2020-election-outcome-would-differ-with-hunter-biden-laptop-coverage-poll/ 79% say ‘truthful’ coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop would have changed 2020 election Nearly four of five Americans who’ve been following the Hunter Biden laptop scandal believe that “truthful” coverage would have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll. A similar percentage also said they’re convinced that information on the computer is real, with just 11% saying they thought it was “created by Russia,” according to the survey conducted by the New Jersey-based Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics. And an even higher number — 81% — said US Attorney General Merrick Garland should appoint a special counsel to investigate matters related to the first son’s infamous laptop, the existence of which was exclusively revealed by The Post in October 2020. The poll results, published Wednesday, are based on responses from 437 adults who said they were following the laptop story “very” or “somewhat” closely when they were surveyed online earlier this month, according to the TIPP. On the subject of the 2020 election, 79% overall said it was “very” or “somewhat” likely that “a truthful interpretation of the laptop” would have resulted in the reelection of former President Donald Trump instead of the election of President Biden. Among Republicans, 57% were strongly convinced Trump would have won, compared to 48% of independents and just 44% of Democrats. But majorities in both parties — 89% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats — said they believed the laptop “is real,” along with 74% of independents. I wonder, how the electoral map would have looked with these findings in mind? Hmmmm… I’ll leave that to you guys… Moving on… https://dailycaller.com/2022/08/30/us-military-ammunition-arming-ukraine/ US Military Running Low On Ammo After Arming Ukraine Pentagon officials are concerned that U.S. ammunition stocks donated to Ukraine have severely depleted U.S. stocks, weakening U.S. readiness in the event of a conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The Biden administration has drawn much of the over $13 billion in weapons systems and accompanying ammunition the U.S. has provided to Ukraine from existing arsenals, according to the WSJ. While the Department of Defense has declined to disclose the number of ammunition rounds in storage at the beginning of 2022, before the war in Ukraine began, it has taken few steps to replenish depleting stocks, sparking worries that the U.S. may not have the ammunition it needs for its own protection. The level of 155mm combat rounds, fired by the howitzer weapons system, in U.S. stockpiles has become “uncomfortably low,” a Pentagon official told the WSJ. The U.S. has sent 806,000 rounds of the 100-pound explosives to Ukraine as of Aug. 24. “It is not at the level we would like to go into combat,” the defense official told the WSJ. U.S.-supplied howitzers have seen extended use from Ukrainian forces since entering the conflict in late May, Fox News reported. Last week, the U.S. provided smaller 105mm ammunition to feed Ukraine’s howitzers in order to spare 155mm rounds for the U.S., according to the WSJ. The U.S. military most recently employed howitzers in a strike on Iran-backed targets in Syria on Aug. 24. Depleting U.S. arsenals “was forewarned, including from industry leaders to the Pentagon. And it was easily fixable,” Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the WSJ. The Army plans to conduct a “deep dive” into the “ammunitions industrial base” to determine the best way to support Ukraine while retaining necessary supplies for the U.S., Army officials told the WSJ. It has requested an additional $500 million yearly for upgrades to ammunition factories and increasing the threshold on existing production contracts, but has not signed any new contracts. Officials also said that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley authorized monthly reviews of U.S. weapons stores to monitor readiness. However, defense industry leaders said the administration has not clearly communicated the changes in production requirements brought on by U.S. assistance to Ukraine and has not expanded production capacity to make up for the additional munitions needed to replenish stocks. The Biden administration has requested a record $773 billion defense budget for 2023. While additional funding can alleviate part of the problem, ongoing supply chain issues can make the months or years-long manufacturing process take even longer, according to the WSJ. Accountable 2U ​​https://Accountable2You.com/FLF Using a smartphone or computer opens the door to a host of digital temptations. In a world saturated with pornography and other harmful content, what's a Christian to do? We need to take a proactive approach, welcoming transparency in our digital media choices—and Accountable2You makes that easy. Their accountability software shares detailed activity reports from all your devices, and your kids' devices, in real time to the accountability partners that you choose. With accountability in place, your family can effectively guard against temptations online and live with purity and integrity. Learn more and try it free at Accountable2You.com/FLF https://thepostmillennial.com/oregon-wind-farm-sees-blades-bolts-fly-off-as-failures-mount-report?utm_campaign=64487 Oregon wind farm sees blades, bolts fly off as failures mount: report A new report has revealed the unreliability of a major Oregon wind farm, discovered after a blade from a windmill detached and flew across the field. According to The Oregonian, in January, a delivery driver found some broken, industrial-size bolts on the ground near one of Portland General Electric’s towering wind turbines but did not know who to tell and used it as a paperweight. On Feb 1 at 2:11 am, one of the turbine’s 11-story tall blades flew the full length of a football field and plowed a 4-feet deep furrow in a wheat field. The heavy-duty bolts that kept the blade attached to the tower scattered like shrapnel. PGE’s flagship wind facility, which opened 15 years ago to expand green energy technology in Oregon and nationally had other warning signs as well according to the outlet but it wasn’t until the blade breakdown that the company took action at Biglow Canyon, one of Oregon’s largest wind farms, and shut down all 217 turbines for testing, keeping some out of service for four months. Though industry groups insist that wind farms are very safe and major malfunctions are rare, wind farms are growing older and components are aging. An investigation by The Oregonian found a massive set of maintenance problems and equipment failures that are reducing electricity generation at Biglow Canyon. According to the outlet, "there is no effective national, state or county reporting requirement or database tracking safety or operational incidents at wind farms, and only 13 of the largest of Oregon’s 48 wind farms are regulated by the state, numbers that include multiple phases of some projects." Additionally, PGE launched an investigation into the blade throw but has asked the Oregon Department of Energy to keep those confidential until the end of the year because of the possibility of litigation. To eliminate all its greenhouse emissions, PGE would need to massively increase its renewable energy resources and manage them effectively for decades. However, wind power is heavily dependent on federal subsidies, and according to experts consulted by The Oregonian, "those subsidies are structured in a way that incentivizes operators to skimp on maintenance for older equipment that is no longer eligible." https://www.boundingintosports.com/2022/08/washington-commanders-rb-brian-robinson-shot-during-attempted-robbery-in-d-c/ And finally, it’s time for the topic that I love… sports! Washington Commanders RB Brian Robinson Shot During Attempted Robbery In D.C. No one is immune from crime in America’s cities these days, and this weekend residents of Washington D.C. were especially reminded of that when Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson, 23, was shot multiple times during an attempted robbery on Sunday. According to the NFL’s Mike Garafolo, Robinson was rushed to the hospital by emergency responders after the violent attack, reporting that “#Commanders RB Brian Robinson is in stable condition after being shot as the victim in an attempted robbery, sources say.” As the news regarding the situation broke, the Washington Commanders followed up by issuing an immediate statement to alert fans that Robinson was alive and safe. Additional information regarding details from the shooting came later from NFL Network Insider, Tom Pelissero, who was one of the first people to share the information online after receiving a statement from a D.C. Police spokesperson. According to a report from NBC Washington, Robinson got into an altercation with several suspects shortly after midnight Sunday as they attempted to steal his Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. It was that altercation which led to the shooting. Late Sunday night, Commanders Head Coach Ron Rivera met with Robinson and later posted to Twitter that Robinson was in “good spirits” to ease everyone’s anxiety regarding his current health. Robinson is now but one of the many innocent D.C. bystanders who have been victims of violent crime this year alone. According to D.C. Police crime statistics, there have been 126 people killed via homicide just in 2022, which is a 12 percent increase from this time last year. Violent crimes and cases regarding burglary have also risen five percent since 2021, with robberies up 20 percent, and car thefts up three percent. Well Praise God this one ended with Robinson walking away. This has been Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. If you liked the show, hit that share button down below. If you want to sign up for a club membership, then sign up for our conference with that club discount, and THEN sign up for a magazine, you can do all of that at fightlaughfeast.com. And as always, if you’d like to email me a news story, ask about our conference, or become a corporate partner of CrossPolitic, email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News… I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great day, and Lord bless!

Five years after World War II ended, Winston Churchill said he was still amazed that the United States, which before WWII had a tiny military and was fully committed to isolationism, “were able not only to build up the armies and air force units, but also to find the leaders and vast staffs capable of handling enormous masses and of moving them faster and farther than masses have ever been moved in war before.” He was speaking in general about the United States, but much of the credit arguably was with Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimpson.From 1940 until the end of the war, Marshall and Stimson headed the army machine that ground down the Axis. Theirs was one of the most consequential collaborations of the twentieth century. According to Dwight Eisenhower, the two possessed more greatness than any other men he had ever met.The general and the secretary traveled very different paths to power. Educated at Yale, where he was Skull and Bones, and at Harvard Law, Henry Stimson joined the Wall Street law firm of Elihu Root, future secretary of war and state himself, and married the descendant of a Founding Father. He went on to serve as secretary of war under Taft, governor-general of the Philippines, and secretary of state under Hoover. An internationalist Republican with a track record, Stimson ticked the boxes for FDR, who was in the middle of a reelection campaign at the time. Thirteen years younger, George Marshall graduated in the middle of his class from the Virginia Military Institute (not West Point), then began the standard, and very slow, climb up the army ranks. During World War I he performed brilliant staff work for General Pershing. After a string of postings, Marshall ended up in Washington in the 1930s and impressed FDR with his honesty, securing his appointment as chief of staff.Today's guest is Edward Aldrich, author of The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration that Won World War II. Marshall and Stimson were two very different men who combined with a dazzling synergy to lead the American military effort in World War II, in roles that blended politics, diplomacy, and bureaucracy in addition to warfighting. They transformed an outdated, poorly equipped army into a modern fighting force of millions of men capable of fighting around the globe. They, and Marshall in particular, identified the soldiers, from Patton and Eisenhower to Bradley and McNair, best suited for high command. They helped develop worldwide strategy and logistics for battles like D-Day and the Bulge. They collaborated with Allies like Winston Churchill. They worked well with their cagey commander-in-chief. They planned for the postwar world. They made decisions, from the atomic bombs to the division of Europe, that would echo for decades.

Biden administration officials are concerned that China could seek to declare a no-fly zone over Taiwan ahead of a possible visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as an effort to upend the trip, potentially raising tensions even further in the region, a US official told CNN. China could also respond by flying fighter jets further into Taiwan's self-declared air defense zone, which could trigger a response from Taiwan and the US, the official added. They did not detail what a possible response would entail. China has sent warplanes into Taiwan's self-declared air defense zone identification zone many times in recent months, an act which does not violate any international law but which usually results in Taiwan taking precautionary defensive measures, including sometimes scrambling its fighter jets. Chinese planes have not entered the island's territorial airspace -- the area extending 12 nautical miles from its coastline. The State Department has called on China to cease its intimidation of Taiwan. Pelosi has been planning a trip to Taiwan in the coming weeks, according to three sources familiar with the planning process. While other members of Congress and former US officials have visited Taiwan this year, Pelosi would be the highest-ranking US lawmaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years. Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich traveled there in 1997. Tensions between Washington and Beijing over the issue of Taiwan have heightened in recent months. The Chinese Communist Party has long claimed democratically ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has repeatedly vowed to "reunify" with the island of 24 million people -- by force if necessary -- despite having never governed it. The US has committed to providing Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though recent weapons sales to Taiwan have been slow to arrive, which has raised concerns among US lawmakers. The Chinese embassy in Washington referred CNN to the remarks from the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating firm opposition to a possible Pelosi visit when asked to comment on the airspace concerns. The Financial Times was first to report Pelosi's plans for a visit. President Joe Biden cited concerns from the US military about Pelosi's possible trip earlier this week. "I think that the military thinks it's not a good idea right now, but I don't know what the status is," Biden said on Wednesday when asked whether it was a good idea for Pelosi to travel to the self-governing island. Col. Dave Butler, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman, said the military "in general" briefs decisionmakers on military assessments. "We talk about what adversaries may do, discuss logistics and military plans and readiness," Butler said. He declined to say whether or not Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke with Pelosi about a proposed trip to Taiwan. Pelosi said it's important to show support for Taiwan on Thursday, but said that she would not be discussing any travel plans, calling to a security issue. Pelosi said she heard "anecdotally" about Biden's comments on her possible visit, but said she had not heard anything from the President directly. "I think what the President was saying is that maybe the military was afraid of my plane of getting shot down or something like that. I don't know exactly," Pelosi said. State Department officials also have some concerns, two sources said. State Department spokesperson Ned Price deflected questions about the trip on Thursday, calling it a "hypothetical" at this time. "I am not going to be offering any advice from the is podium," Price said when asked about the State Department position on her possible visit. Price reiterated that the Biden administration is still adhering to its one China policy, noting that the US does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan but has a "robust unofficial" relationship with the island. Voicing opposition to the possible Pelosi visit, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, said Tuesday that it "would seriously violate the one China principle and the stipulations in the three China-US joint communiqués and harm China's sovereignty and territorial integrity." The spokesperson for Taiwan's official office in DC, Sabina Chang, told CNN that Taiwan has "not received any information about a planned visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi." - by Kylie Atwood, CNNSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, Tom Jones, the president of Northrop Grumman's Aeronautics Systems sector, discusses accelerating acquisition, how the B-21 bomber program is moving fast, what it will take to ensure the US Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance effort is a success, USAF Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown's Integrated by Design concept, and mitigating supply chains and inflation impacts; and Dr. “Rocket” Ron Epstein of Bank of America Merrill Lynch with his key takeaways from this week's Farnborough International Airshow with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian.

Hour 3 -  Good Monday morning! Here's what Nick covers this morning: CBS opted to bump a Young Sheldon rerun from its 8 p.m. primetime slot in favor of the Jan 6th committee hearing on Thursday evening. The decision backfired. Just 3.24 million people watched the network's "Capitol Assault Hearings" coverage Thursday night, according to the TV Ratings Guide. Exactly one week prior, 3.86 million people tuned into CBS to watch a Young Sheldon rerun. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said during the January 6 Select Committee hearing on Thursday that then-President Donald Trump did not call the Pentagon to request National Guard troops to address the Capitol attack, but they did not mention Trump had already approved National Guard troops.

This week, Martha sits down with former Secretary of Defense under the Trump administration, Mark Esper, who explains why he believes President Vladimir Putin ultimately decided to invade Ukraine.   Then, Secretary Esper gives an inside look at the Trump presidency. He tells Martha where he believes Trump was successful, and where he went wrong.  Then he details why he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley took steps in the final days of the Trump presidency to ensure the military wouldn't be used to overturn the election.   Follow Martha on Twitter: @MarthaMacCallum  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our interviews with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown Jr. and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond from the Air Force Association's 2022 Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando. Our coverage is sponsored by Leonardo DRS.

President Biden said he will move U.S. troops to NATO countries in Eastern Europe in the “near term," as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley warned a Russia invasion of Ukraine would be “horrific” for the country and would result in “significant” causalities. Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling is the former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe. He tells Anderson Cooper why he doesn't think President Biden's statement is “significant at all.” Plus, the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol has issued a subpoena for former Deputy White House Press Secretary Judd Deere. CNN's Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger joins AC360 to discuss what the committee is hoping to learn from him.  To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley not only confirmed that the U.S. intelligence community, and therefore the Department of Defense and the U.S. administration believe that China test-launched a new hypersonic weapons system sometime in late July, he said it was close to a Sputnik moment. To understand better what Gen.Milley is saying, I spoke with one of the most knowledgeable hypersonics and hypersonic weapons systems experts and aeronautics engineers, the former DoD's former Director of Defense, Research and Engineering, Mark Lewis. He's now the Executive Director, Emerging Technologies Institute at the National Defense Industrial Association. Later Sarah Mineiro from the Center for a New American Security and Kaitlyn Johnson from the Center for Strategic and International Studies discuss their take on Milley's statements, and what the U.S. Space Force is doing to coordinate with the defense and space industries and to also work with Congress on getting the funding to meet current and future threats and challenges.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley defended his behavior during the last days of the Trump administration, including a phone conversation with his Chinese counterpart, which was intended to assure him the U.S. was not about to launch a military attack. Gen. Milley told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee he “personally informed both Secretary of State Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Meadows about the call.” Independent Sen. Angus King is a member of that committee and questioned Milley. He tells AC360 he was “doing his job, and he may well have prevented a war.” Plus, the search for Gabby Petito's fiancé, Brian Laundrie continues as CNN has learned Laundrie and his parents stayed at a campground about 75 miles away from their home in early September. The camping trip was during the window of time that Laundrie returned to Florida without Petito and she was later reported missing. CNN National Correspondent Randi Kaye gives AC360 the latest on the investigation.   Airdate: September 28, 2021   Guests: Sen. Angus King Randi Kaye To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters the situation in Afghanistan “is still very dangerous, very dynamic and very fluid” and said U.S. troops are “at risk.” CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward joins AC360 from Kabul to describe the chaos she’s been seeing as people have been rushing to the airport in an effort to flee and countries are racing to evacuate their citizens. Plus, Covid-19 vaccine booster shots will be offered in the U.S. beginning September 20, pending FDA authorization. Dr. Francis Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health. He tells Anderson Cooper “when you try to balance benefits and risk,” getting a booster shot seems like “the wisest thing.” Airdate: August 18, 2021 Guests: Clarissa Ward Dr. Francis CollinsTo learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

After the U.S. announced plans to withdraw, Taliban fighters seized large swathes of territory. Spokesman Suhail Shaheen joins Christiane Amanpour to explain the Taliban's thinking. Nader Nadery also weighs in, a senior member of the Afghan peace negotiation team, who says the Taliban is intimidating communities and that a ceasefire is needed now. Then award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the devastating loss of her father, mother and aunt during the pandemic at a time of collective mourning in the world. Susan Glasser is Staff Writer for The New Yorker and the author of a bombshell article published last week that revealed that Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Milley was engaged in a staunch fight to stop Trump from striking Iran after losing the election. She unpacks all this with our Michel Martin. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

This episode we discuss a variety of topics including a podcast debate, politics, Victoria secret and much more. enjoy!!!! Victoria Secret https://roguerocket.com/2021/06/17/victorias-secret-phasing-out-angels/ Juneteenth national holiday https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/juneteenth-holiday-marking-the-end-of-slavery-becomes-law-after-decades-of-inaction/2021/06/17/b3d5dba4-cf89-11eb-a7f1-52b8870bef7c_story.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab&utm_content=curated Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milleyhttps://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/06/23/general-mark-milley-critical-race-theory-matt-gaetz-vpx.cnn All 50 Republicans blocked voting rights legislation https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/filibuster-voting-rights.html https://www.buzzsprout.com/731348Twitter: @TakesbeerbreaksInsta: @hottakesandbeerbreaksFB: Hot Takes and Beer Breaks Gmail: Hottakesandbeerbreaks@gmail.comMerch:https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/14256010-hot-takes-and-beer-breaksDiscord: https://discord.gg/fmp7gsss

Well, today The Atlantic came out with an article detailing comments Donald Trump has made denigrating our military, including those who have been injured and made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.Obviously, that made a lot of news as it should have. But what struck me the most was a comment he made to former Chief of Staff Gen. John F. Kelly as they stood at the graveside of Kelly's son, who was killed in Afghanistan.Trump reportedly asked him, “I don't get it. What was in it for him?”That was typical Trump. Everything is all about him, and he can't understand why anyone would have any motive for anything, including military service, if it was not all about them.So take a listen… to “What Was In It for Him?" from Not Fake News.biz.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lean-to-the-left-podcast--4719048/support.

The military is starting to realize fast-rising budgets may not go on forever. After three years of increases and likely a fourth for 2020, the Air Force is betting 2021 will be the last jump. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said more money will go to building a digital Air Force. Federal News Network's Scott Maucione is had the latest details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

After years of claiming the military was in a readiness crisis, top military officials now say US forces are back on track. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran said their services are nearly where they need to be to compete with near-peer competitors like China and Russia. Federal News Radio's Scott Maucione joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin me to talk about what's changed.