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March 23, 2025 - Stew Peters Show

01:02:46

The Major Richard Starr Act: Fair Benefits for Veterans

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	Hey folks, here we are again.
	New administration, of course, as we all know, unless you've been seriously living under a rock.
	New administration, old legislation coming back.
	This one, however, I believe will be a good discussion and gives us an opportunity as a community to outline maybe one instance that we have in front of us where Either side of the aisle seemingly is working together.
	Can you believe that?
	I am talking about the introduction this past week of the Major Richard Starr Act back into Congress, hopefully to go to the Senate, and hopefully to go to the President's desk to be signed into law.
	And as our lawmakers say, quickly.
	It would be nice, and we'll dig into it.
	Simple concept, the law, the legislation that is to be voted on.
	It's a pretty simple concept to understand, although been safeguarded, in my opinion, a little bit here and there for quite some time.
	So we'll get into it.
	We'll cover it.
	So with that being said, stick with us.
	Don't go away.
	We start now.
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	Alright, so, concurrent receipt.
	Concurrent receipt has been something that, I sound all discombobulated in my headphones, so I'm sorry if I'm doing some adjustments here as we...
	As we get going.
	Okay, there we go.
	Concurrent receipt.
	Concurrent receipt has been something in the veteran community, in the military community, as it pertains to retirement from the service, or the ability to obtain such benefit.
	It has been virtually impossible.
	The federal government has always said that you can't double dip.
	And what I mean is, When you get out of the military, for those of us watching or those of you watching or listening that don't know, when you get out of the military, you then go to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
	You submit your claim for disability for any injury or condition or what have you that may have been sustained as a result of your service, and they assign you a rating, a percentage, and based on that percentage,
	your monthly compensation.
	First of the month, directly deposited, shows up first of every month.
	Now, if you retire from the military, and you also apply for disability benefits through the VA, traditionally,
	you're not allowed to collect both.
	And so some have said, That this really isn't fair.
	This really isn't fair to the men and women who have decided to serve this country.
	They've put in the time.
	They've put in the work.
	Some of them have sacrificed a lot.
	And they should be cleared to obtain every benefit possible.
	Some also say that it shouldn't matter It shouldn't matter specifically what it costs.
	The veteran population in this country is so low, some say, that it really shouldn't cost all that much.
	And so a lot of people disagree.
	There's a lot of talk about it in certain circles.
	And I feel like it's a pretty small group, even amongst the veteran community, because there isn't...
	There isn't a ton of people that do a full 20-year career.
	There's a lot, but there isn't a ton.
	And so back in 2021, there was a gentleman by the name of Major Richard Starr.
	He had contracted some sort of cancer.
	We'll hear about it in the publication that I chose to speak about today that I'm going to go through with you.
	But he died in 2021.
	His cancer and his lung issues all were as a result of burn pits, they say.
	Major Richard Starr was one of the biggest factors in getting the PACT Act moving as fast as it did and eventually got signed into law by Joe Biden.
	And it has been a benefit that veterans are receiving and able to apply for pretty successfully, it seems.
	Now, here's the sticky point.
	There's also a group of military retirees that were medically retired that didn't quite make it to 20 years of service.
	Roughly 50,000 veterans in this country are medical retirees from the military, including myself.
	I was medically retired, just for full clarity.
	The Major Richard Starr Act is a piece of legislation that was put forward and it says that if you are a medical retiree from the United States military and you also are or have been granted VA disability of at least 10% or more and you also qualify for what's called CRSC which is Combat
	-related special compensation, which means if part of the reason that you are medically retired is due to injuries or conditions you sustained as a result of direct combat,
	not necessarily just being deployed, not necessarily just being on active duty, but if you sustain such injuries that You sustain these injuries on active duty,
	while deployed, actively engaged in a combat situation.
	A firefight, an IED detonation, a mortar attack, a rocket attack, some kind of hand-to-hand combat, a V-bed, anything.
	Anything that's combat related.
	You now also potentially qualify for what's known as CRSC.
	The federal government says that you can't have all three of those benefits at one time.
	Your VA disability offsets your Department of Defense pension.
	One for one swap.
	So for every dollar of pension that you get, you either take the pension or you take the VA disability.
	And, of course, everyone takes whichever one is greater.
	Now, the other sticky point is that you can receive your CRSC payments, your combat-related special compensation payments.
	You can receive those along with your VA disability payments, but you cannot receive your Department of Defense pension.
	You still have the one-for-one swap with your VA disability.
	So the argument became, well, Social Security recipients who also qualify for Social Security disability, as I understand it, and maybe I could be wrong about this or have a couple of the facts misunderstood,
	but the way I understood it was, if I qualify for Social Security, But I also qualify for Social Security Disability.
	I'm allowed to get both.
	And so the argument of the Major Richard Starr Act is, if veterans were injured in combat, and those combat-related injuries led to them being medically retired,
	they should then be able to also collect their pension.
	And also collect their VA disability because they're essentially separate benefits.
	But the law states that as a veteran of the United States military, I can't take federal money from two separate agencies for the same thing.
	But the Richard Sarr Act, the way I understand it, makes it sound as if...
	DoD pension is not the same thing as VA disability, which is true.
	So why are we not allowed to collect both?
	And so it becomes a little bit confusing.
	This has been brought up in the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate more than once and has never passed on to the president.
	The last time it was introduced, I believe, was in 2023, and we'll hear about it.
	It had pretty good support from both sides of the aisle.
	So when I was talking about, this is maybe one instance where we can find something good to talk about as it pertains to what's going on in our government these days.
	With both sides for one goal.
	Because it seems that...
	This thing, this bill, has pretty good support from both sides of the aisle.
	Last time it was presented in 23, it was shot down because apparently the proposal didn't have any text in it.
	There's nothing in it about how they were going to cover the cost.
	And apparently they believe that this is going to be some extremely Extremely, extremely expensive benefit to pay out.
	Keep in mind that roughly only about 50,000 veterans would qualify for said benefit.
	So let's just get into this for a minute, and I'm sure that I'll have things to pause on.
	But to be quite honest with you, there's a lot of this that...
	That I agree with.
	When I first started reading through this, I thought to myself, well, shit, here we go again.
	It's going to be another show of me half the time or a quarter of the time standing up on a soapbox and cussing and swearing and spitting all over this microphone and getting my blood pressure all up.
	But I don't know that that is really all that necessary today.
	Which I'm thankful for.
	Because sometimes, let's go down this rabbit hole for a second.
	Sometimes I feel, sometimes I get the feeling that I do too much bitching.
	I do too much soapboxing, if you will.
	But the truth of the matter is this.
	The truth is that I believe that That many times, the things that we talk about on this show, and even on Disgruntled over on Three Clicks Media, my other show that I do, the things that we talk about are pretty clear.
	There's not a whole lot of gray area to be confused about.
	And when we find instances in which it's pretty clear to the common person that veterans or their family members or even the American people, the taxpayer,
	is getting screwed over, it just gets skipped over by the people that have power.
	And so sometimes I think, well, Maybe the problem is just not big enough.
	The people that we look to to solve some of this stuff are bigger than the problem.
	Maybe they think that.
	Or maybe it's the truth.
	Maybe some of these things that we call injustices and we call unfair and we call bullshit, even though they are all of those things, the folks that really have the ability to make the change Don't see that it's as big of a deal as it really might be.
	Because it doesn't affect enough people.
	Which doesn't leave us feeling any better, right?
	Because to us it's still a big deal.
	The things that I talk about on this show are things that I pick out.
	They're things that I think may be interesting to the audience.
	They're things that I'm passionate about.
	And I think that...
	If I picked things that I didn't really care all that much about, the show wouldn't be valuable to anybody at all, including myself.
	So, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	It's all important to me.
	And if you're a returning viewer or listener to this show, it must be somewhat important to you.
	Or you like hearing me be wrong, or you just like watching me and getting my blood pressure up.
	Whatever the case may be.
	So, anyway.
	Let's go back to the topic.
	I'm sorry for the goat trail traveling.
	But the Major Richard Starr Act, this is something that would give a lot of relief to many veterans in our communities.
	And I think it would bring a lot of pride back.
	To many veterans who believe that this is unfair to them.
	And I guess we'll leave it up to the court of public opinion, whether or not it's unfair or not.
	But I can see, again, I can see both sides.
	I can see where veterans who would be potentially eligible for this benefit feel slighted.
	You know, I don't know that I feel slighted.
	I feel like through my retirement process and where I'm at now, I feel like I got taken care of pretty well.
	But I don't speak for everybody.
	But I can see where somebody would say, yeah, man, it kind of just nips at you a little bit.
	It's kind of frustrating that they would do that.
	Because for a lot of people...
	That are in the situation of being able to qualify for the Major Richard Starr Act, their career was cut short.
	They didn't want to retire, many of them.
	They didn't want to go home.
	Maybe they wanted to deploy again.
	Maybe they wanted to continue their goal to...
	Fly, Apache helicopter, whatever the case may be.
	They didn't feel like they were done yet.
	And many times for these people, the injuries that they sustained or the conditions that they found themselves in were kind of out of their control.
	And even knowing that...
	When you join in and you go and you deploy or you change duty stations or whatever the case may be, you always know that the potential for a career-ending event, depending on your job,
	of course, the potential for a career-ending event is there frequently.
	Like, as an infantry soldier, I knew.
	I think most people do.
	Even if we're on a two or three or four day long training mission, FTX out in the woods or out in the desert or whatever, there's still things that could happen that could end your career.
	You could crush your foot in a tank.
	You could fall off a tank.
	You could get hit by a vehicle.
	Somebody wasn't paying attention.
	Who knows?
	There's a lot of accidents in the military.
	And maybe we don't talk about that enough, but there's a lot of accidents in the military.
	The potential for accidents around all that equipment, it's big, it's heavy, some of it's clunky and it kind of moves janky.
	All great stuff, you know, like the Bradley, for example.
	I was a Bradley gunner for a couple years, and that Bradley just moves chunky.
	And if you're in the way of that sumbitch, it ain't asking.
	It ain't asking to get into your space.
	It's going to take your space, whether you like it or not.
	And so those accidents happen, and careers get cut short.
	And then also, careers get cut short.
	For sure, as we all know and can imagine, get cut short in combat situations.
	Which is, who would qualify for the Major Richard Starr Act?
	You have to be eligible for CRSC.
	You have to have been medically retired with less than 20 years of service.
	And you have to be at least 10% disabled through the VA system, or the three qualifiers.
	And so just to get those three qualifiers is a lot of paperwork and a lot of talking on the phone and a lot of visits and a lot of this and a lot of that.
	So it's a lot of work to get there for everybody involved.
	But these guys and gals, Are the ones that sustained injuries in combat.
	These are our war fighters.
	And there's no delineating between whether or not they really were or really weren't.
	Because in order to qualify for it, you had to have been engaged in combat.
	So these are our war fighters.
	These are our trigger pullers.
	These are our tankers who are operating these big, large, who knows, two billion dollar tanks, however much it costs to build those son of a bitches now.
	And they're getting shot back at, they're getting blown up.
	I mean, these are our gunfighters, our warfighters.
	And so, one can probably see and understand How they get a little bit perturbed about the idea that there are people in our communities that qualify for one benefit and qualify for a second one and are able to collect both.
	Is there fraud and waste and all that other shit in the Social Security program?
	I think we've seen it.
	We've definitely heard about it.
	I think if we go out and look for the receipts, I think they're out there now.
	I think there's more than enough people talking about it.
	And so, yeah, it becomes a little sour for veterans.
	But let's start going through this before we get a break.
	We'll probably get halfway through it.
	Members of Congress are trying again to pass legislation that would give medically retired service members full access to both their military retirement pay and disability compensation from the VA.
	A bipartisan group of senators on Monday introduced their chamber's version of the Major Richard Starr Act, legislation that, if passed, would provide roughly $50,000 full retirement pay and disability benefits.
	So, that's what we were talking about.
	50,000, roughly.
	Maybe it's 51-2, right?
	Who knows?
	Currently medically retired service members with fewer than 20 years in uniform who receive retirement pay from the Defense Department have their pay reduced by a dollar for dollar.
	It's reduced by a dollar for every dollar you receive from the VA and disability.
	Currently medically retired service members with fewer than 20 years in uniform and a disability rating of less than 50% have their retirement pay reduced by a dollar for every dollar they receive in VA.
	So it doesn't really matter what your disability rating is.
	It's a dollar for dollar reduction.
	The bill would eliminate the offset allowing What is known as concurrent receipt for these former service members?
	Now, think about this.
	About 15 years ago, when I was still young in the Army, in the military, and some of the older guys were thinking about getting out and retiring and this and that and the other thing, these conversations about concurrent receipt came up.
	I also spent a couple years working for a member of Congress where I worked in the district doing casework and outreach.
	Here in Minnesota, but I also had the opportunity to go to Capitol Hill a few times and do some work out there and kind of see how that worked, which was a really interesting experience.
	It was a great job.
	I loved it.
	But, man, you would hear these guys talk about concurrent receipt, and it was like the holy grail, right?
	Boy, if you could figure out a way.
	To work in concurrent receipt to your benefits?
	You were the cat's ass, man.
	Everyone wanted to talk to you.
	How'd you do it?
	What forms did you have to fill out?
	Who did you talk to?
	And who really knows?
	This is really a thing, huh?
	It was like the magic mystery benefit.
	Well, did it really exist?
	It was like the Delta Force of veteran benefits, right?
	Like, it's there, but is it really there?
	You know, nobody really knew until they knew, right?
	Where were we here?
	This measure corrects one of the deepest injustices in our present veterans' disability system, which was, this is a quote from Senator Blumenthal, who's a Democrat from Connecticut.
	So, like, let's give credit where it's due, huh?
	It is unacceptable that tens of thousands of combat-injured veterans are denied full military benefits they earned.
	Co-sponsor Senator Rick Scott from Florida said the proposal ensures that veterans who have made sacrifices have access to their complete benefits.
	This legislation makes a critical change to treat our veterans fairly and support our nation's heroes.
	I urge my colleagues to support its quick passage, said Senator Scott.
	Now, some say that veterans' issues should be or is the most nonpartisan subject in all of American government.
	Well, I would say that that's bullshit.
	I would say that it should be the most nonpartisan deal in all of American government.
	Here in Minnesota, boy, there's some creepy shit going on with veterans' benefits in our legislature and good old Tampon Tim.
	That dumb son of a bitch is just destroying Minnesota.
	And he's got a bunch of people going along for the ride.
	And currently, in our veterans committees within our legislature and Senate, the DFL here in Minnesota is conducting this seemingly tyrannical takeover of veterans benefits.
	They're trying to make it so that they get to tell veterans who they can talk to to receive their benefits.
	They're trying to tell us, our community, the warrior culture, where you have to go to receive your veterans' benefits and who can help you with them.
	Now, we all know The only people that can really make a determination on what you get for benefits is the Department of Veterans Affairs.
	But also remember that there are state agencies that are charged with the task of helping veterans navigate the benefit conundrum.
	I believe that it's very rare that veterans can navigate this benefit funhouse, if you will, by themselves.
	And if they try, it'll take forever because if you don't initial here but you sign here or you miss one piece of paper or you, you know, you...
	You flub up on the date and you put 2024 instead of 2020.
	I mean, all those things, right?
	Like, they're probably pretty normal even when you're buying your house or you're buying a car or something.
	Like, there's all that stuff.
	And they're very strict about all of it.
	But the moral of the story is that there's a lot of places that veterans can go to get help, to get their benefits.
	Now they talk about these claim sharks who are making veterans pay up front for help, and if they do get approved, they get a cut of this back paycheck and this and that.
	Yeah, that's bullshit, too.
	Like, those guys, either they need to get accredited and do it a different way, or they gotta go.
	But between veteran service organizations, State Department of Veterans Affairs, And VA-accredited attorneys, I don't believe that our government should be telling us where we have to go.
	If I want to hire an attorney because I believe that the VA has got it wrong, or there was a mistake made, or they unjustly denied me some benefit for some dumb reason, and I want to take the VA to court after I've been denied, I want to be able to do that.
	Of course it's going to cost me some money.
	Lawyers don't work for free.
	So, I should have the ability to make that decision.
	But here in Minnesota, Tampon Tim's capital, not a thing.
	The state of Minnesota is going to tell its veterans, nope, you need to go to these people.
	And if you don't go to these people, where do you go?
	Nowhere else.
	There'll be nowhere else to go.
	So veterans who don't want to be part of the VA system, they don't want to talk to those people because they've tried, or they don't trust it, or whatever the case may be, they're fucked.
	Because they're not going to do what they're told.
	So this whole thing is refreshing to see.
	We got quotes from Republicans and Democrats.
	And you can see, if you see them talking about it on TV or on the internet, you can see that they're talking together.
	And they're presenting solutions together.
	They're co-sponsoring the bill together.
	That type of thing.
	So let's give credit where it's due.
	At least they're coming together to make good of 50,000 veterans.
	I suppose it's a good start.
	Got a long way to go.
	The caregivers are still getting screwed.
	Homeless veterans are still getting screwed.
	We're still not solving the suicide numbers, so those guys are still getting screwed.
	We've still got a lot of work to do.
	But it's refreshing to see that they can at least come together on one thing.
	Maybe it's a start.
	Maybe we grow from there.
	And it's also worth saying that in 2023, when this thing was put in, For a vote, there was a lot of bipartisan support there also, which we'll get into the rest of this publication after we take a break.
	So don't go away.
	We'll be right back.
	Music
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	Alright folks, let's just continue on down the road.
	So we ended the last segment talking about how it's refreshing.
	Refreshing to see both sides of the aisle working together for a common goal.
	And it just so happens to be a veterans issue, which is even more cool to me anyway.
	Let's continue on with the publication here because there's some good information coming up.
	The last time the bill was introduced in 2023, it garnered 326 supporters in the House and more than 70 in the Senate, but failed to be considered for a vote largely because it did not include recommendations for covering the cost.
	So we talked about that.
	It had more than enough votes and support to go through, but it didn't make it to the floor to be voted on.
	Because they didn't have anything in there with recommendations about how to cover the cost.
	How they were going to make up this, what did they say it was going to cost?
	Almost $10 billion in 10 years, over the next decade.
	So, I mean, $10 billion over the next decade is a lot of money.
	Assuming... I believe that we're just going to be adding to this number of 50,000 veterans that are going to be medically retired as the years go by.
	And so I think it also needs to be a common, important part of the discussion, how we're going to keep paying it.
	Because, like I've always said, Don't promise us something that you're going to have to take away later.
	It'd be better just to not have it at all.
	And then just let veterans be pissed off about it for a few years until we just come to terms with the fact that, oh, well, they tried.
	Just can't afford it.
	But the argument always will be, we're wasting money here, we're wasting money there, we're sending money here, we're sending money there, but we can't take care of our veterans that were medically retired because of their combat service.
	Which maybe will always be a sticky point for people.
	But I suppose the government just needs to decide if that's a fight they want to fight or if that's a bug that they want to hear buzzing in their ear.
	From here until the end of time, I suppose.
	The House version of this bill, also introduced this week, has 185 bipartisan co-sponsors, including...
	Representative Bill Rackus from Florida, and Representative Ruiz, who's a Democrat from California, who are leading the initiative.
	The Senate version already has 43 sponsors.
	So, people are signing up for this thing.
	And I believe that now, and I haven't read it yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if they reintroduce this, They put it in a way to cover the cost.
	At least a recommendation.
	But now I will go back and I will confirm and do the research and find out.
	If anybody has questions, I will certainly figure it out and put it out.
	But it would be pretty god dang stupid if they didn't.
	I think we all can agree about that.
	Nearly four dozen veteran service organizations have voiced support for the bill, and several have made it one of their top legislative priorities for the year.
	During a joint hearing March 3rd before the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander Al Lippert Said that combat injured veterans should not be treated differently than Social Security recipients, huh?
	Who no longer are required to offset some types of pensions as a result of the Social Security Fairness Act.
	So if nothing else, based on that alone, this thing should pass right through.
	You would think.
	Retirement pay and disability compensation are separate benefits earned for different reasons.
	Congress continues to wrongfully treat their concurrent receipt as double dipping.
	It's time to correct this injustice for our military retirees.
	And so, he's right.
	This was Mr. Lippard, who's the commander of the VFW.
	The National Commander.
	And he's right.
	It's always been a sticky point in the halls of our government as it pertains to veterans.
	Allowing veterans to obtain concurrent receipt has always been a no, can't do it.
	And some years ago, they started to allow concurrent receipt.
	But boy, was it...
	It was a very, very small percentage of people that qualified, and in order to qualify, there was some extremely, extremely tight standards.
	And so, one has to think that maybe for good reason.
	Maybe not.
	Maybe this is another issue of power and control, right?
	But it is expensive.
	If we think about what the VA pays out in disability benefits every month to veterans, and we think about what the Department of Defense pays out in pension payments every month, well, if you add 50,000 people plus the more that we're going to add on,
	that number is going to continue to grow year after year after year of people who are double dipping.
	It does get expensive.
	But should it be on the backs of veterans that they need to figure out how to save money?
	And I think that we've seen, as of late, that there's a whole lot of ways that this government can be saving money.
	And that the $10 billion, or as they're going to say here, $9.75 billion over the next decade, Well, it's possibly easily made up if we just continue cutting the bullshit that has been identified recently.
	AMVETS National Commander Horace Johnson said the bill must be passed out of fairness.
	For far too long, veterans and their families have been told to wait while billions are wasted.
	Johnson said in front of the House hearing was on February 25th.
	In 2022, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average offset or loss experienced by these veterans is about $1,900 a month per person.
	The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, also estimated the legislation would cost roughly $9.7 billion over the next decade.
	Army Reserve Major Richard Starr developed lung cancer.
	Okay, so here we get a little information about Richard Starr himself.
	He developed lung cancer as a result of exposure to environmental pollution in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	He was medically retired after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and quickly learned that his military retirement pay would be offset by his VA disability pay.
	He began advocating for a change but died in 2021 before seeing serious consideration of legislation to address the issue.
	And so, I guess where I struggle with this is that maybe this should have been something that was put into the PACT Act.
	Maybe this is a benefit that should have been inserted into the PACT Act legislation.
	To the best of my knowledge, the passing of Major Richard Starr and the reason for his passing, which was burn pits, those are things that are all in the PACT Act.
	The lung cancer and all those other...
	Predetermined conditions, the rhinitis, the sinus, all forms of cancer, all kinds of stuff.
	My question, I guess, would be, why wasn't this inserted into the PACT Act?
	It was being talked about at the same time, and so maybe this wouldn't have to be a top legislative priority.
	For our veteran service organizations, because to be quite honest, there's a lot of things that should be legislative priorities.
	This is, too, not saying that it shouldn't be, but it seems to me that it's about the same time as the PACT Act was gaining some traction.
	Jon Stewart was roaming around D.C. and causing a ruckus.
	In the name of veterans, which was great.
	But I think maybe there's some kind of treachery afoot.
	Why wasn't it inserted?
	And was that conversation ever even had?
	To be eligible under the act, veterans must have been medically retired, qualify, For combat-related special compensation, so the CRSC pay that we talked about at the beginning of the show, and have a combat-related disability of at least 10%.
	In introducing the House version this week, Congressman Varakis said he was committed to passing the bill.
	Military retirement pay and service-connected disability compensation are two completely different benefits.
	One does not diminish the merits of the other, said Mr. Bilbrakis.
	And that's where they ended the publication.
	And so again, I guess I just want to outline that I believe that we owe it to the men and women Who have served this country to at least have conversations about how to best serve them at all times.
	This major Richard Starr Act, I believe, if nothing else, is a benefit that tells veterans, tells men and women who served,
	That their service is really appreciated.
	And some will say, well, you know, does extra paycheck really show appreciation?
	And in many cases, I would say no.
	I think that this one is a little bit different, and only because, especially nowadays, we don't get to see a lot of bipartisan work.
	At least not out in the open.
	At least not that's talked about publicly, that's not put out there in the ether for everyone to scrutinize or to give kudos to.
	And so then that conversation becomes, well, do we need to spend $10 billion over the next decade to show that we can work together?
	And I'd like to say that the answer to that is unequivocally no, but I think that we're coming to a place where, yeah, this is a way for the American people,
	at least the American people that support veterans, to see that in the halls of our government we can work together.
	I think we are at a place right now where there's just stalemates all over the place without people even really having conversations about why.
	We have stalemates in places just because of the party you choose to affiliate with or to register with or the one that you voted along with.
	And conversations stop there.
	You know, oftentimes I think to myself, I don't remember.
	I don't ever remember America being this way years ago.
	And I know that I make it sound like I'm this super old man.
	You know, I'm going to be 43 in a couple months.
	And maybe I was too young to know.
	But I don't remember ever not even being able to have a stern discussion with somebody about what I thought or what I believed.
	And then still, you know, go, hey man, you want a beer?
	I know we just had this discussion and maybe got a little heated, but whatever, bro.
	You want a beer?
	Like, that just doesn't seem to really happen anymore.
	Either you associate yourself with people that share your political beliefs, or you're at odds with people that don't.
	Clearly, or clearly both.
	I mean, people live in both spheres.
	time goes by that we grow more
	We grow back into a place where we can have discussions and agree to disagree, or maybe we can have discussions and say, hey, look, man, let's just not talk about it.
	Because I value our friendship, or I value our relationship, or I value this or that way more than I value trying to prove my point or try to disprove your point.
	Because really, at the end of those conversations, you never really change anybody's mind, I don't think.
	I don't know that you ever really get them to think a different way.
	I think nowadays, if you can get somebody just to even hear you out, you've made progress.
	If you can get somebody to go, well, hey, that's an interesting point, that's an interesting perspective.
	I've never thought about that.
	That's a huge step forward into just being able to have a discussion that goes beyond, a little bit beyond your comfort zone.
	It almost seems as if we've been duped.
	We've been duped by the establishment.
	We've been duped by the powers that be into discourse.
	We've been kind of just shoved into this place where we're just, either we like here or we don't.
	We don't find ourselves in places where like, ah, well, you know, I don't agree with him, but he's a good guy.
	I don't know that that happens very often anymore, at least not around here.
	And trust me, I understand.
	I understand, folks.
	Minnesota, if you don't know, if you're not from here and you don't know, the swamp of shit, the swamp of turds, is pretty effing deep up here in Minnesota.
	And I have a feeling that the whole country is going to be reminded for quite a while, once again, when old Tampon Timmy Keeps running his mouth on a national stage.
	That guy is a disaster.
	And recently, people close to me who are staunch Democrats have been openly talking about how horrible the guy is.
	If you know any Minnesota Democrats and how stuck in their views they are, to hear them say, well, that son of a bitch.
	F that guy.
	I'd never vote for him again.
	If I ever see him in public, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind.
	These are his people.
	So, you're going to see, because to the best of my knowledge, this dipshit's on a town hall tour.
	And you're going to see a bunch of blue hairs.
	And you're going to see a bunch of young people with blue hair.
	The blue hairs are going to be with the real blue hairs.
	And they're all going to be ridiculous and stupid.
	Close-minded.
	Much like there's a lot of people on the right, super far right, that are super close-minded.
	Borderline craziness.
	There's a lot on both sides, folks, in my opinion.
	A lot of common sense has left us as of late.
	Anyway, we're running close to the end of the show, but I want to end with this.
	I believe that we're not lost as a country, as a society of people, and especially as veterans, the veteran community,
	the warrior culture.
	I don't believe that all is lost.
	I think that when it comes to veterans' issues and how we see the world Take care of each other and how we choose to coincide is going to be on us.
	I don't believe that there's a whole lot of help coming for veterans.
	And so if we don't help each other, we're going to have to just go along to get along.
	And so the point of shows like The Richard Leonard Show The point of Disgruntled on Three Clicks Media over on YouTube, the point of Veteratainment, my nonprofit I started, is to be able to take care of veterans the best way that we can without the government's fingers in it.
	Without the government telling us what we have to do.
	If we don't take their money, and we don't take their grants, and we don't...
	Participate in their government organizations and all that other bullshit as much as we can.
	Like when we start doing housing and hopefully putting homeless veterans off the street into homes or places that they can be out of the cold, we're going to have to work with some kind of government to subsidize the housing for them.
	But to get it built and where it's at, And how it's advertised and how it's filled up and all that other stuff.
	We don't want the government's fingers in none of it.
	And that's our goal.
	And so if we don't take steps to look out for each other and to take care of each other, it's going to be a tough road.
	And for those of us who decided of our own free will, To walk into a recruiter's office and sign that line and swear an allegiance to this place.
	We've now come to a time, just like when you were in the military, if you're not going to look out for your own career, there's no help coming.
	Well, if we're not going to look out for each other, there's no help coming.
	So we've got to do it.
	And for those of you watching or listening that aren't veterans, Thank you for supporting the cause.
	If you do, any way.
	We love the support.
	And we just, we aim, I aim, our group, Vetertainment, Three Clicks, The Richard Leonard Show, we aim to do it without the sticky fingers of the government telling us what to do.
	We know how to take care of veterans because we are veterans.
	Anyway, that's all the time that we have for this evening.
	Thank you for joining us.
	We'll be back with you next week, so come on back now, you hear?
	Have a good night.
	Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
	Good night.
	Good night.
	As Christians in a Christian country, we have a right to be at minimum agnostic about the leadership being all Jewishly occupied.
	We literally should be at war with fucking Israel a hundred times over, and instead we're just sending them money, and it's fucking craziness.
	Look at the state of Israel.
	Look at the state of Tel Aviv, and look at the state of Philadelphia.
	You tell me where this money's going.
	You tell me who's benefiting from this.
	I am prepared to die in the battle.
	Fighting this monstrosity that would wish to enslave me and my family and steal away any rights to my property and to take away my God, go fuck yourself.
	Will I submit to that?
	And if you've got a foreign state, you've got dual citizens in your government, who do you think they're supporting?
	God, right now, would you protect the nation of Israel and protect those of us, not just our church, but every church in the world and in this nation that's willing to put their neck on the line and say, we stand with them.
	We stand with you.
	You can look at Trump's cabinet.
	You can look at Biden's cabinet.
	for Jews.
	I have a black friend in school.
	I have nothing against blacks.
	She has nothing against me.
	She understands where I'm coming from.
	Excuse me, I'm a Jew, and I'd just like to say that, you know, in our Bible it says that you're like animals.

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