In this episode of Firebrand, we discuss the latest in the ongoing story regarding the release of information regarding Republican candidates running for Congress by the U.S. Air Force, as well as a new revelation regarding the use of force to take out Saddam Hussein. We also hear from Rep. Ana Paulina Luna, D-N.J., who is coming up with a new plan to take on military leadership that may have been involved in partisan politics and election interference. Finally, we have an update on the vaccine mandate, and an update regarding the removal of Saddam Hussein's body from the United States military base in Mykonos, Iraq. Firebrand is brought to you Live from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C., where we are broadcasting live out of Room 2021. Thank you for listening to the Firebrand Firebrand Podcast and stay tuned for more! - The Firebrand Crew Subscribe to Firebrand on iTunes and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and other Podcasts! Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Become a supporter of the show: Rate, review, and subscribe to our other shows! We post polls, questions, thoughts and thoughts on all things related to the show, and we'll feature the most popular shows on the next episode on next week's episode of the podcast. on next Tuesday s episode of The Swamp Dweller. Subscribe, review and subscribe in the comments section! and spread the word out to your friends about what you're listening to us on your thoughts on the Swamp Thing! on social media! If you like what you like it's cool, share it! or share it on your feed, comment about us on it's great, subscribe and subscribe on your Insta story, and share it with your fellow patriots are listening about what we're listening about it? we'll be listening out there! Thank you! - Tom Pizzi, the PodCastle, the podcasting greats, the greats and the deep state, the Deep State, the real life version of our thoughts and all that s going down there. We'll be talking about it! - Tom's Thoughts, the deep down there, the truth, the good vibes, the rest of it's all that's good, real life, the wildest thing going on everywhere else, the REAL ESTEED!
00:04:24.000Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
00:04:31.000Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
00:04:34.000He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.
00:04:37.000So we're going to keep running those stories to get hurt again.
00:04:40.000If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
00:05:44.000We are broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. And what you just saw there, scenes from the Tennessee legislature insurrection where leftists are threatening to take over the Tennessee Capitol, demanding gun control as if somehow gun control is the answer to violence.
00:06:06.000Law-abiding gun owners don't make our communities less safe.
00:06:10.000And I believe that what you just saw in Tennessee very well may have been inspired by a member of the United States Congress who was acting a fool yesterday.
00:06:20.000We're going to have that video for you later in the show.
00:06:22.000We've got Congresswoman Ana Paulina Luna coming up with a big announcement regarding what she is going to do to check military leadership that may have been engaged in partisan politics and election interference You don't want to miss that.
00:06:37.000Updates regarding the vaccine mandate, regarding some of the weird, woke stuff that we've seen on our military bases.
00:06:43.000Even drag queen shows, if you can believe that.
00:06:46.000And we've also got news regarding the 2002 authorization to use military force to take out Saddam Hussein.
00:06:54.000It seems as though Congress and military leaders may finally be on the same page that we can repeal that.
00:07:01.000Saddam's body has been cold for a while.
00:07:04.000We've got some feedback on the live stream already on Instagram.
00:07:38.000During the last midterm campaign, the Air Force released the service records of two Republican members of Congress to a research firm linked to the Democratic Party.
00:07:48.000Apparently, the research firm lied and claimed to be conducting an employment background check on the members of Congress.
00:07:54.000Records belonging to several other people were also compromised.
00:07:56.000What kind of clarity are you getting from the Pentagon on this story?
00:08:02.000Well, I talked to the Secretary of the Air Force, and he said it was done by accident, that they were deceived, that this company acted like they were doing this on our behalf, had her social security number illegally, other personal identifying information.
00:08:16.000And so the Air Force mid-level manager that got this thought they were doing it on my behalf, and there was a total Tucker of 11 Air Force folks that are either in Congress or candidates that this happened to.
00:08:28.000And so we were assured by the Secretary of the Air Force that they figured out what happened, they put fixes in place, they apologized, they took responsibility.
00:08:36.000The real culprit though is the Democrat campaign arm of the Congressional Campaign Committee who paid $105,000 to a Democrat firm to get To do opposition research and where they used our information illegally.
00:08:51.000And I think this is dirty politics for sure, but I think it's very likely that it's illegal.
00:08:57.000And all this data and all the evidence has been given now to the Attorney General.
00:09:01.000That's Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, and he's right to place a considerable amount of blame on the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee.
00:09:12.000It seems as though the Democrat arm of their Senate operation was also involved in paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to this opposition research firm called Due Diligence that then got this information from the United States Air Force.
00:09:27.000But it was concerning to me that it's predominantly Republicans who had their information released.
00:09:33.000As sure as General Bacon that there wasn't a collusion here.
00:09:37.000There wasn't an effort by some in senior leadership at DOD to try to scuttle Republican campaigns.
00:09:44.000I had the chance to ask the lead general in charge of personnel for the United States Air Force these questions at a hearing yesterday of the Military Personnel Subcommittee.
00:10:50.000Yeah, and it's an opposition research entity that gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial campaign apparatus, right?
00:11:01.000I don't know that much about due diligence, but I know that we released the information inappropriately.
00:12:06.000Because we have civilian control of the military.
00:12:09.000We may have to change our laws to hold people accountable.
00:12:13.000And pardon me for not trusting your vague reference to the layers that you've put on.
00:12:17.000But, Mr. Chairman, I request that this committee get specific answers for what the accountability regime was for this unlawful action by the United States Air Force.
00:12:27.000And that we not take as an article of faith the representation that they think they've taken the appropriate action.
00:12:31.000They've taken the illegal, inappropriate action to compromise these records, and I think we should hold them accountable for it.
00:12:39.000We are back live, and it is amazing to me that these generals with all of the stars on their lapels can come in and suggest to us, after they break the law, after they do something wrong, that because they self-assess that they're taking appropriate action, oh well, you broke the law and now you say you're taking appropriate action.
00:13:02.000What kind of clowns would believe that crap?
00:13:04.000We need specific answers, and I'm glad that Congressman Jim Banks, who chairs the Military Personnel Subcommittee very effectively, will be on the case in that matter.
00:13:14.000Now, one of the members of Congress who was a Republican candidate who was victimized by this leak, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.
00:13:22.000Florida woman, prior guest on Firebrand, and we had a chance to talk not only about how that leak came to fruition, but what she plans to do about it.
00:13:40.000When did you first learn that your records were among those that the Air Force had released to a Democrat political opposition research firm?
00:13:48.000So right after the speaker's fight, we basically had started getting inquiry from...actually, my friend started writing me.
00:13:55.000So my old supervisor from about 12 years ago just hit me up randomly one day and sent me a screenshot Of a number, and it was a reporter from the New York Times that said, Hi, my name is so-and-so from the New York Times.
00:14:07.000I heard that you were, or we know that you were Representative Luna's old rating supervisor.
00:14:12.000We have some questions about her for you.
00:14:15.000And so when I saw that, I just, I immediately knew.
00:14:18.000I was like, look, your service records, whatever is public, they're never going to know who your rating supervisor is unless they saw my EPR information.
00:14:25.000And so immediately on seeing that, I was like, they somehow obtained my records.
00:14:28.000Now, initially when I brought this forward to certain people, they're like, there's no way that they had obtained it.
00:14:34.000And then about two and a half weeks after that, then we found out.
00:14:37.000So you found out that your records had been illegally released by the Air Force because you were able to trace the breadcrumbs of where people were going to evaluate your service records.
00:14:56.000I was at Keesler Air Force Base and then Portland Air National Guard Unit.
00:15:00.000So I was all around, but I knew because of the fact that they had actually written a rating supervisor, which is not public access to just any random person that does a records request.
00:15:11.00011 candidates for federal office had their records released.
00:15:15.000Have you talked to some of the others about how they feel about this?
00:15:18.000Yeah, there's actually been more than that now.
00:15:19.000So they're now saying there's a Senate candidate who had their records released.
00:15:22.000And then J.R. Majewski, I reached out to early on.
00:15:25.000He had never received a letter from the Air Force, and it actually wasn't until after our inquiry from both House Armed Services and Oversight that then he received a letter from the Air Force, and that was maybe about last week.
00:15:35.000J.R. Majewski was a Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio, lost a very close race, and these issues that were illegally released by the military seem to have been really utilized by his political opponents.
00:15:48.000In your case, it seems it was the media trying to smear you with this illegal release, right?
00:15:53.000And what's unique about my case, J.R. Majewski, and then Jennifer Ruth Green, Is all of our records were sent to media companies.
00:16:03.000So Jerry Majewski I believe his was sent to Politico.
00:16:07.000I think it was Jennifer Ruth Green that had her records sent to Axios and then mine were somehow obtained by the New York Times.
00:16:13.000And so what they did was is they basically obtained these and then they leak it in the media that way or they try to go to people that you might have worked with to have them say something bad about you and then they print it.
00:16:23.000What do you make of the fact that all or almost all of the records released were of Republican candidates for federal office?
00:16:29.000I think it was absolutely an inside hack job by the Air Force, and it was interesting because when my office separately reached out from House Oversight and House Armed Services, mind you, I'm a member of House Oversight, We're good to go.
00:16:55.000And so when I got that message back, I realized that one, if they're going to admit to something, they should have done it right then and there.
00:17:02.000I knew that they're going to play hardball.
00:17:04.000So I actually ended up working with Judicial Watch and I FOIA'd the record.
00:17:08.000I figured out how she had obtained information that her records are released.
00:17:13.000And what's interestingly enough is that the Air Force actually told the press that it was a low ranking service member and it ended up being from what we're hearing a GS-12.
00:17:24.000Well, I am frustrated that senior leadership at the Air Force can't seem to give a straight answer regarding whether or not anyone has been fired for this.
00:17:33.000And if they're able to just say, oh gosh, it was a mistake that just happened to overwhelmingly target Republicans, that it might happen again.
00:17:40.000If there's no accountability, do you worry that this will occur in future election cycles where it's election interference by our own government?
00:18:05.000And that was given to Due Diligence LLC via the DCCC, which is the Democrat Congressional And so ultimately what I'm finding is that these people, if they're not held accountable, which they haven't, no one's been fired, they're going to continue to do it again.
00:18:23.000And so we're going to make an example of them.
00:18:25.000One thing I know about you is you don't let this stuff go by.
00:18:27.000So walk everyone through your plans to specifically use some of the rules that we fought for during the speaker contest to hold them accountable and to highlight their misdeeds.
00:18:37.000So we ultimately had negotiated during the speaker's fight for something called the Holman Rule, which allows us to defund any federally appointed position.
00:18:45.000And so I worked with my team and we actually filed the paperwork two days ago, 6 p.m.
00:18:50.000We made the deadline and we're ultimately going to go after the general who's in charge of records and personnel management because in the military especially, your wins and your losses are both a responsibility and accepted by leadership.
00:19:04.000And if that general wants to play games and they think this is a joke, that they are not held accountable, then we're going to come for their commission.
00:19:10.000Well, the general in charge of personnel for the Air Force looked like a fool when I asked her questions about this recently.
00:19:15.000And so what you're saying is that you are going to make these personnel officials at the Air Force quite famous because you're going to put up for a vote in the House of Representatives whether or not to specifically zero out their salaries.
00:19:27.000Yes, and I actually spoke with the Cardinal for Appropriations on Defense, and I... Asked his basically input and to see what he had to say and he absolutely said, you know, these people need to be held accountable.
00:19:41.000This is not going to just not go anywhere.
00:19:43.000And it is important to note though that, and you know this firsthand based on what we saw during our trip to A base, but the military seems to think right now that they're not held accountable to the civilian sector, and that's the American people, and that's Congress.
00:19:57.000And so when they treat this like it's a joke, and these are people's social security numbers, this is their health care information, they need to be held accountable.
00:20:03.000And so we're going to make sure that they know that.
00:20:06.000if you come for luna she comes for you that's the message coming for their salary for their authorities and this should never happen again i worry that in part this was an operation to deter future republican veterans from seeking office in the congress what would be your message to the folks out there who have fought in some of these forever wars who love our country they've left the military and now they're eager to continue a patriotic commitment and they're thinking about Campaigning for a public
00:20:36.000Whether or not you are a veteran or not, I think just in general, just understand that if they can't find something on you, they'll make it up.
00:20:45.000You know this better than anyone else.
00:20:49.000And ultimately, what you have to understand is that this is literally one of the last known blood sports you have to be able to defend yourself.
00:20:56.000But understand that a service record especially is so incredibly important.
00:21:02.000One, Voters are going to trust you more.
00:21:04.000And two, you have the ability from personal experience to speak on withdrawing and not engaging in these forever wars.
00:21:10.000In my entire lifetime, President Trump was the only president that ever got us involved in another foreign conflict.
00:21:16.000And that's why I love President Trump.
00:21:18.000But when you hear the rhetoric that goes around and people say, well, if we don't fight them there, it'll come here, talking about terrorism.
00:21:25.000And then you look at, you know, who's they're funded by, Raytheon, Boeing, whatever it might be, the military industrial complex.
00:21:31.000That is why we are in the deficit that we're in.
00:21:34.000That is why we have the healthcare crisis that we have in our country with mental health in regards to PTSD. And that is exactly why they don't want anti-war veterans in office.
00:21:43.000And so just understand that if you're going to take that position, which is my position, which is your position, they're going to come for you, but you can hit them right back.
00:21:50.000They always tell us that if we don't fight them over there we're gonna have to fight them at home and so then we deploy all of these capabilities abroad and increasingly in the information domain we are training military officials how to do information operations and my worry is that after that's done abroad that's what comes home.
00:22:09.000And now you have a government, enterprise-wide, that is literally trying to shape the nature of truth for people in our country.
00:22:16.000And if the Department of Defense is involved in that, and if one of the features of that operation is to try to discredit veterans who are running for office, who may not always comport with the military narrative, then that's something that should concern all Americans.
00:22:31.000But one thing I'm so grateful for, this isn't just talk anymore.
00:22:35.000We are taking concrete actions to hold these people accountable and to limit their ability to do this harm going forward.
00:22:41.000And if they're not defunded, they should absolutely be fired.
00:22:55.000That was Congresswoman Ana Paulina Luna, one of Florida's best, certainly one of America's best.
00:23:00.000Make sure to give her a follow at Rep Luna.
00:23:03.000On Rumble, Dixie Sam is sure glad that Congresswoman Luna spent some time in Biloxi at Keesler Air Force Base.
00:23:10.000And Dee on Rumble says, Because there are no consequences.
00:23:16.000Well, I think you heard from Congresswoman Luna there.
00:23:19.000There are going to be consequences in the pocketbook and with the authorities that some of these people have who cannot give us straight answers.
00:23:28.000Where we have consistently failed to get straight answers has been the military vaccine mandate.
00:23:34.000I have opposed the military COVID vaccine mandate from the beginning.
00:23:38.000I'm glad more Republicans have come to our side.
00:23:41.000We had to shut down that mandate by force of law.
00:23:45.000But what moved me were the experiences of our service members, experiences that were shared on Firebrand last year.
00:23:53.000Take a listen to some of those concerns.
00:23:57.000Master Sergeant, one of the things that concerned me in an investigation that my office ran into the United States Navy is that when people submitted requests for religious accommodations, they were often met in response by a form letter, which to me indicated that an individual review of people's claim,
00:24:17.000how this decision was grounded in faith or scripture, wasn't really made Do you have any observations about the process of requesting a religious accommodation and how the Air Force looks at those?
00:24:35.000I've seen hundreds of denied religious accommodation requests to include denied appeal requests.
00:24:42.000I've seen a handful of the approved ones, and all of them start with the premise that the government has such a strong interest in vaccinating us that While they determine all of our religious beliefs are to be sincerely held, they determine that even as strongly as our beliefs are, they're not as strong as the government's desire and need to vaccinate all of us.
00:25:05.000Even in situations such as my own, where I currently have No restrictions on me as an unvaccinated member at my location.
00:25:14.000I don't have to do any social distancing.
00:25:18.000My life at my job is the exact same as any vaccinated members, and I'm not unique in that scenario right now.
00:25:25.000But the only approvals they've been doing that I've been able to see and that court documents have shown are for people who are already on terminal leave, already in their final months, where they won't return to a base.
00:25:36.000In fact, their approval specifically says that they are only approving it because they will not return to a base.
00:25:42.000If the member's not returning to their duty station, that's not an accommodation.
00:25:49.000That was Nick Cupper interviewed on Firebrand really about this time last year, and everything he said ended up getting verified by an Inspector General's report conducted by the Department of Defense Inspector General.
00:26:05.000I confronted our senior military leadership with those findings yesterday.
00:26:13.000Mr. Secretary, you told Senator Schmidt yesterday that if the 8,000-plus service members were Who've been separated from the military due to the vaccine mandate want to reapply that they're welcome to do so, but that you would do nothing to solicit their reapplication or to incentivize it.
00:26:52.000That's the Inspector General for the Department of Defense, who wrote on June 2nd of 2022, we found a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by federal law.
00:27:21.000If we direct you by force of law to re-engage and incentivize the re-enlistment of these folks with full back pay and rank, do you have the capability to follow that instruction?
00:27:31.000You put provisions in the law to enable those those people to those former service members to reapply in accordance with the servicemen service.
00:27:44.000Well, we will do that just like we had to put the And I get the sense that the only reason you're not reaching out to these folks is pride.
00:27:53.000Because otherwise they would be totally able to serve and it seems that your personal pride is getting in the way.
00:28:00.000Pride is one of the seven deadly sins and it's clear that it is inhibiting Secretary Austin from full service to our country and the patriots who are willing to put on the uniform to defend her.
00:28:12.000And when you look at a military suffering these recruiting challenges and then you've got 8,000 people who volunteered who would be in uniform today but for this illegal vaccine mandate that was administered outside of federal law It's just crazy to think we wouldn't be a stronger country if these folks were re-engaged in the preservation of our nation and in the defense of
00:28:43.000But nonetheless, that's the position of Secretary Austin.
00:28:45.000So while they're not focused on re-enlisting people to keep us safe and secure, they do seem to be focused at the Department of Defense on the woke and the weird.
00:29:24.000That's actually not what the record seems to suggest.
00:29:27.000You were going to fund one at Ramstein Air Force Base.
00:29:29.000That one got cancelled, but that's DOD insignia.
00:29:33.000That's a drag queen story hour for children.
00:29:35.000Then also at Malstrom Air Force Base outside of Great Falls, Montana, you had a drag queen story hour for kids.
00:29:44.000At the Joint Base Langley-Eustace, you put on a drag queen story hour on a Saturday for the first ever kid-friendly diversity equity inclusion summer festival.
00:29:53.000And at Nellis Air Force Base, you had the Drag U Nellis on June 17th.
00:29:58.000Who funded these things, Mr. Secretary?
00:30:00.000Listen, drag shows are not something that the Department of Defense supports or funds.
00:30:07.000Why are they happening on military bases?
00:30:31.000You may stand by it, but it's belied by the evidence over and over again.
00:30:35.000I mean, are you aware of the piece, Biden's military, Air Force Base in Montana holds drag show, drag queen story hour for kids in the Western Journal.
00:31:03.000Who else could make a dad joke out of military bases hosting Drag Queen Story Hour?
00:31:09.000And it is a bit odd to see the Secretary of Defense just repeatedly say things that are either wildly naive and uninformed or factually untrue.
00:31:19.000Go ahead and put up the headlines Whether it's the American military news giving us a report on what was going on at Langley, Newsweek talking about what was going on at Nellis, Breitbart did reporting on this, and we even have the Air Force advertisement created by the United States Air Force with taxpayer dollars.
00:31:43.000Who do they think pays the light bill?
00:31:45.000At these military facilities when they've got Drag Queen Story Hour.
00:31:48.000Obviously the military was funding it and they shouldn't.
00:31:51.000Ultimately General Milley agreed that this was something, if it was going on, that they wanted to know more about.
00:31:57.000And I had some questions for General Milley because as you'll recall years ago he said that his real focus was getting in touch with his white rage.
00:32:40.000So that was two years ago, and I couldn't resist this in my last opportunity questioning General Milley to find out what he's learned about his white rage and how well-read he indeed is.
00:33:08.000What is White Privilege is the book, and it's actually written by a DOD official, a senior official in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and there are now hundreds of these books in dozens of schools, and I wonder if you guys connect this to your problems with recruiting.
00:33:34.000Go ahead and put up the next slide, please.
00:33:37.000Okay, well, in the next slide, this is a tweet by one of your employees in charge of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it's patently racist.
00:33:47.000They say that she had to give Karen the business, that she talks about caudacity, presumably of Caucasian people.
00:34:22.000I would like to point out, Chairman, that our students in DoDEA schools scored the highest on the eighth graders and fourth graders scored the highest in math and reading in the country.
00:34:34.000So I want to thank all of our DoDEA professionals who made that possible, and I encourage them to keep it up.
00:34:58.000Help us so that we can confront the people who are supposed to be in charge with the misdeeds that they pretend that they do not know about.
00:35:06.000The United States military is engaged in misadventures all around the world.
00:35:10.000Oftentimes we think we can topple some secular dictator and we're going to get the emergence of a Jeffersonian democracy afterwards, but too often it is more chaos, more terrorism, more bloodshed, and more despair.
00:35:23.000The 2002 AUMF, Authorization to Use Military Force, is directed at Saddam Hussein's government, and it has remained in effect as a permission slip to engage in more Middle Eastern adventurism, despite Saddam being dead.
00:35:39.000I asked General Austin whether or not we should repeal the AUMF as the United States Senate has done.
00:35:52.000Is it the position of the Department of Defense that we need to keep the 2002 AUMF? You're asking me if that's a decision by the Department of Defense?
00:36:24.000We still need the 2002 AUMF, you think?
00:36:26.0002001 AUMF provides us what we need in terms of authorities.
00:36:29.000So in your mind, we could repeal 2002 then?
00:36:32.000That's up to Congress, but if Congress does that, then we still have the ability to do what we need to do based upon the 2001. There you have it.
00:36:46.000Finally, years after Saddam's death, we are able to repeal the 2002 AUMF and the House of Representatives should get to the business of doing precisely that.
00:36:55.000We started the show today with images from the Tennessee legislature where leftists appear to be engaged in some level of physical altercation with lawmakers because they want gun control to deprive law-abiding citizens of their rights.
00:37:09.000Somehow they think that will make them safer.
00:37:11.000I believe what you're seeing in Tennessee right now was directly animated by the spectacle from the House of Representatives yesterday.
00:37:19.000What you're about to hear is from Representative Jamal Bowman, a Democrat from New York, chastising Second Amendment champion from Kentucky, Thomas Massey.
00:38:31.000We've got guns here to protect us, and he doesn't believe that kids should have somebody to protect them.
00:38:39.000Every school that's allowed it has never had a shooting, not even an accidental discharge at any of the schools.
00:38:45.000The grace and patience and intelligence of Thomas Massey was on full display there.
00:38:54.000While Jamal Bowman lacked logic or reason or decorum, Thomas Massey explained that if you create hard targets out of schools, you deter this type of violence against the vulnerable.
00:39:06.000But now we've created a society where everyone knows that you may have a school resource officer or two, but there is not an armed citizenry ready and able and capable to protect themselves in far too many cases at a school setting.