Left Face

Adam and Dick open with Hormuz Watch. Oil still isn’t flowing, Houthi ballistic missiles hit the Riyadh airport, and the U.S. is pulling diplomats and some embassy-duty Marines out of Saudi Arabia. They also cover Trump’s repeal of the Russian energy sanctions, the planned trilateral talks with China and Russia, and reports that new strikes on Iran are being telegraphed for after the midterms.

Then they cover the DOJ’s recent actions. The raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, the Virginia state senator investigation, and the Corey Lewandowski probe all raise questions about whether the unwr...

Twenty days before the election, Adam and Dick start with a Halloween song and work through a heavy news week. They cover the decision not to stream an upcoming execution, and the school shooting in Bend, Oregon, where a parent with a concealed weapon stopped the attacker. They discuss why the shooting doesn’t settle the gun policy argument and what practical gun safety measures could look like with so many guns already in circulation.

Then they turn to the midterms: the House looking likely to flip, competitive Senate races in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, Musk’s sp...

Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson record a late-night edition of Left Face. They start with the federal government’s plan to execute Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, by firing squad and to live-stream it. Both hosts, who were serving at the time of the attack, say they won’t lose sleep over Hasan’s sentence. They argue that broadcasting it turns a forgotten murderer into a terrorist recruiting tool and the martyr he said he wanted to be.

Next, they cover ICE activity in Colorado Springs, including a child pulled from school after her parents were detain...

Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson start with the congressional hearing featuring former special counsel Jack Smith. They argue it was performative clip-hunting ahead of the midterms that buried what Smith actually said about January 6th. They also cover the senator whose "gotcha" text messages fell apart when it came out that Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game, not in Atlanta.

Most of the episode breaks down Secretary Hegseth's annual State of the Forces address, delivered this year to E-6s and O-3s instead of generals. The hosts go through the main pieces:

In this live episode recorded at COATI, Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson talk about a contradiction in military life. Service members risk their lives to bring voting to other countries, but veterans and active-duty troops often vote at lower rates than the public they serve.

The hosts share their own stories. They talk about checking out of local politics while moving between duty stations, voting absentee in home states they no longer followed, and not realizing that the Colorado they'd retire to was being shaped by elections they ignored. They make the case for Colorado to drop...

Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson cover three stories this week. First, three Republican senators, including John Cornyn, are calling for an investigation after reports that a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin paid for part of Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding celebration. The hosts compare it to the Hunter Biden coverage and to a House ethics filing that let Rep. Jeff Crank accept wedding-related gifts from donors without itemizing them.

Next, Dick gets on his soapbox about a Northern California sheriff who seized ballots without a warrant and was ordered to return them. The conversation turns to...

Adam and Dick record on backup equipment at Plan B Studios and cover a lot of ground. The episode opens with the Project Taurus town hall, where supporters and a bipartisan group of opponents spoke and City Council voted to delay its decision until a week after the next election instead of adopting a moratorium. Adam, who spoke at the meeting, and Dick, who has built data centers, dig into the military and classified-data sales pitch, the noise claims, and the push for an April moratorium ballot measure. From there: Rep. Thomas Massey's articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth...

Hormuz and the Red Sea heat up as tankers burn and a Saudi pipeline goes dark. Witkoff and Kushner cozy up to Putin in Moscow. The GOP's midterm convention delivers culture-war theater and Trump's out-of-nowhere $5,000 bribe. Plus: the reflecting pool scandal nobody saw coming.

Adam and Dick break down a rough stretch for military leadership and election security. The Secretary of the Army just resigned amid friction with Pete Hegseth, following the ousting of the Army Chief of Staff and roughly 80 general officers pushed out or sidelined — more than half of them women or people of color. They talk through what that institutional knowledge loss actually costs, and where AI-driven weapons systems are already outpacing the ethical debate around them. Then: the Supreme Court's ruling letting the Postal Service restrict mail-in ballot delivery in states that haven't handed over voter rolls, why that lo...

Left Face returns with hosts Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson digging into the ouster of the Army's chief of staff following an inquiry into a costly helicopter flyby at Kid Rock's property, then turn to a rare competitive debate in Colorado's 5th District between Rep. Jeff Crank and challenger Jessica Killen — covering inflation, tariffs, and each candidate's attempt to distance themselves from their party's edges (Bernie Sanders on one side, Thomas Massie on the other). The hosts dig into tensions between the Democratic Socialists of America and the party's moderate wing, a local data-center moratorium petition effort, the ongoing Ho...

After a few weeks off, Left Face is back with a "Russian roulette" grab-bag episode covering the fallout from the Strait of Hormuz standoff — including new casualty numbers, extended ship deployments, and reports of a mental health crisis aboard a carrier still in theater. We break down Trump's Air Force One decoy maneuver leaving a NATO summit in Turkey, an Air Force major's court-martial-bound protest, and a full political roundup: Jon Ossoff's viral shot at the White House, Lindsey Graham's sister stumbling through a Senate debate, and the FBI raid tied to Rep. Eric Swalwell's past ties to a co...

Dick and Adam cover Fauci's contempt-of-Congress hearing before Rand Paul's committee, the fallout from Lindsey Graham's death and his sister's appointment to his seat, and the ongoing "where's Mitch McConnell" saga. They dig into Trump's request to the Supreme Court to restrict mail-in voting without an underlying case, the SAVE Act, and what mechanisms — if any — exist to check the 60-day War Powers cycle on Iran. Also: the Hormuz Strait closure, Saudi's muted role in the escalation, and the Doge-cuts-to-food-safety thread connecting a wave of measles cases and blueberry recalls back to the broader budget fight. Plus, a first look...

Adam and Dick track the widening Iran conflict as Trump's war notification clock resets past 60 days, unpack Hegseth's testosterone screening order alongside his beard-waiver crackdown, and dig into a rough week for ICE — shootings in Maine, Houston, and Aurora tied to unqualified personnel and no accountability footage. Adam also reports from inside El Paso County's election audit (spoiler: it checked out, again) before closing on the DSA-backed Maine Senate campaign that torched itself over a Nazi tattoo and a vetting firm's failure.

This week Dick and Adam sit down with Pablo for a change of pace: no headlines, just three veterans reflecting on why they joined and where America stands 250 years in. Each guest walks through their enlistment story, from Adam's post-9/11 decision to Pablo's path through the Sea Cadets to naval aviation to Dick's Army enlistment at 17 with a baby on the way. From there the conversation turns to whether the country is really at its lowest point right now, with Pablo laying out a case that backlash after racial progress (Reconstruction, the 1920s Klan resurgence, the post-Obama years) follows...

It's primary election day in Colorado Springs, and Adam and Dick take a breather from door-knocking to break down a trio of Supreme Court rulings dropped the same day: loosened coordination rules between parties and campaigns, a ban on transgender athletes in women's sports, and an upheld (for now) birthright citizenship precedent that agencies seem to be ignoring anyway. Then it's back to Hormuz watch as the Iran-Israel ceasefire collapses almost exactly on schedule, followed by a breakdown of Trump's reflecting pool conspiracy theory at the July 4th 250th anniversary event.

Dick and Adam break down the UFC 250 spectacle on the White House lawn — the production value, the military band, the Colby Covington antics — and the disturbing details of a foiled domestic terror plot targeting the event. Then they dig into the new Iran ceasefire deal: who's calling it a surrender, what it means for U.S. troop posture in the Middle East, and why nobody trusts an IAEA inspection regime. Plus: a minor league team's pride night forfeit, the reflecting pool algae bloom, and a reminder to get your primary ballots in.

This week on Left Face: the Graham Platner saga in Maine takes center stage, breaking down the SS death's-head tattoo controversy, the womanizing allegations from a Republican lobbyist with timing that raises eyebrows, and what it means when a populist grassroots phenomenon becomes a national liability for Democrats. Then it's Hormuz Watch, where Adam and Dick try to make sense of the on fire status of the Strait, a wild story about an Apache crew rescued by an unmanned drone boat, and whether Trump's Iran strategy is coherent or just a mouse in a maze. Plus: is Elon Musk...

Adam and Dick open with this week's Hormuz Watch — the strait is still closed, the news cycle is exhausted, and the administration has no endgame beyond getting back to where things were before. Then it's the debut of Conspiracy Corner: the Lone Star tick, Alpha-Gal syndrome, and the theory that Bill Gates bioengineered a meat allergy to save the planet (as explained by a sitting congressman on Joe Rogan, naturally). From there, the guys break down the Texas Senate Republican primary — Ken Paxton's runoff win despite Trump's late endorsement and the national Senate GOP committee going publicly against him — and wh...

A naval blockade letting every ship through, a clemency that may have been a political trade, a $1.8 billion fund of questionable legality, and one Kentucky libertarian willing to torch his career over Epstein. This week on Left Face.

Project Taurus stirs up the neighborhood, Iran stays nuclear-adjacent, and Israel reminds everyone who's really driving U.S. Middle East policy.

The Hormuz situation has a third status now — not open, not closed, just barely cracked. Adam and Dick break down the asymmetric threat keeping ships from moving, the 90-day war powers shuffle, and why we're headed for Obama's deal with Trump's signature and a lot of dead people in between.

Virginia let the people vote and the Supreme Court threw it out anyway. A Supreme Court nominee won't commit to the 22nd Amendment. And an untrained guy with a gun almost did the unthinkable because a cop didn't listen to his dog.

Adam and Dick break down the administration's Iran war messaging — from the 60-day war powers clock getting "paused" by a tweeted ceasefire, to Hegseth's belligerent non-answers before Congress. They unpack the marijuana reclassification as a shiny distraction, dig into the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and what Louisiana's governor did within 48 hours, and get into a genuinely interesting debate about whether racial gerrymandering — even the remedial kind — was ever the right fix. Plus: the military as an authoritarian proving ground, the "common sense" doublespeak both parties use, and why Democrats need to put the pillows down and ac...

Dick and Adam break down a chaotic week in American politics — four congressional departures in seven days, from Swalwell's swift fall to a Texas Republican who only left when the margin gave him no cover. They dig into the soldier who bet on his own classified mission in Venezuela, what it reveals about the dangers of betting on anything, and why the genie is very much out of the bottle. Plus: Kash Patel's lawsuit against The Atlantic, a cabinet secretary who took her staff to a strip club, and why the CD5 race is finally getting national money for th...

This week Adam and Dick are joined in studio by Pablo Capistrano — 20-year Navy veteran, local activist, and co-founder of Civic Shield, a firearm safety program serving vulnerable communities in the Colorado Springs area.

In this episode:

We start close to home with the story of Freedom Acres Ranch — a Black-owned farm in Yoder, Colorado run by CW and Nicole Mallory. What began as a fresh start after Hurricane Harvey became a years-long campaign of harassment, a bogus felony stalking charge from El Paso County Sheriff's Office, and most recently a drive-by shooting in April 2025. If y...

Adam and Dick break down a chaotic week in American politics, law, and foreign policy through a veteran lens from Colorado Springs.

Topics covered:

An honest conversation about military culture, what basic training actually does to your worldview, and why arming troops on base might get people killed.

Iran was built for a long war and only has to survive to win. The guys break down why the administration's victory claims don't add up — and what the real endgame looks like.

Adam and Dick open with two local items — No Kings 3 hitting Colorado Springs tomorrow and Syracuse University's veteran candidate training program, now with an ideation track for folks still on the fence about running.

From there, they get into Colorado Springs city council banning vehicle camping and why that sale is dead on arrival with the current council, contrasted with the San Jose tiny home model that actually worked by dropping the sobriety-first requirements and just opening the doors.

On the federal side: ICE gets deployed to airports with no coherent mission, no shift briefing, an...

Dick and Adam open with Iran's public execution of protesters — including a 19-year-old wrestler — as a deliberate message of state terror, then pivot to Pete Hegseth's $200 billion war funding request and what the quadrupling of that number actually signals about U.S. military strategy. The conversation shifts to the Time Magazine investigation into César Chávez, the allegations of sexual abuse against him, and how Dolores Huerta and the Chávez family have responded. The guys also touch on Cuba's continued grid failures, the erosion of U.S. soft power through tariff politics, Ukraine's drone knowledge-sharing, and why floodin...

Iran's decentralized military structure means no single target stops the drone and missile threat. Meanwhile, lone-wolf attacks are ticking up stateside. Adam and Dick connect the dots between foreign escalation, domestic terrorism, eroding civil liberties, and an administration that treats every crisis as an opportunity to grab more power.

Left Face Podcast — Pikes Peak Region Politics Through a Progressive Veterans Lens

This week on Left Face, Adam and the team unpack a chaotic week in American politics and global conflict. From cabinet shakeups in Washington to a rapidly escalating war with Iran, the conversation dives into the deeper forces shaping today’s political landscape.

The episode begins with the firing (or “lateral move”) of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and what it says about the current administration’s governing style—one driven less by consensus and more by execution of a pre-written political agenda.

The hosts...

The episode covers a range of topics including local candidate forums, the Iran situation, the importance of educated voters, and the potential impact of federalizing elections. It also delves into the recent conflict with Iran, the Epstein files, and the absurdity of current political events.

Takeaways

<...

The Left Face podcast discusses the dramatic week in veterans news, focusing on the interim rule that impacts veterans' benefits. The conversation delves into the responsibility, reaction, and details of the rule, as well as its insulting nature and political affiliations. It also covers the Supreme Court ruling, potential conflict with Iran, and the formation of new alliances. Additionally, it addresses the lack of oversight and accountability in the administration, as well as advocacy efforts at the Capitol and the role of veterans in political advocacy.

Takeaways

The conversation covers community activism and hope, military appreciation day at the Capitol, the Minnesota situation and Second Amendment, response to attack, and government shutdown. It also highlights the importance of veterans' political engagement and the impact of community activism on political change. The conversation covers topics related to government funding and potential shutdowns, the impact of political pressure on funding decisions, the influence of education and qualification standards on government officials, and the long-term impact of social media regulation. These themes are explored in depth, providing insights into the current political and social landscape.

...

The conversation covers a range of topics, including the military grand jury ruling, the impact of the halftime show, and the role of the DCCC in campaign support. It also delves into the use of ICE administrative warrants and the accountability of political figures. The discussion provides valuable insights into these key themes and their implications.

Takeaways

Chapters

The conversation covers a range of topics including military grand jury rulings, ICE administrative warrants, political outbursts, Hispanic representation in politics, and campaign funding and strategy. The discussion delves into the implications of these topics and their impact on various aspects of governance and public policy.

Takeaways

Chapters

The conversation covers the topics of youth activism and protest, veterans' influence in politics, and the Minnesota situation and law enforcement. It delves into the impact of youth activism and the role of veterans in political advocacy. Additionally, it explores the recent events in Minnesota and the actions of law enforcement in response to protests. The conversation covers topics related to government funding and potential shutdowns, the impact of education on government officials, the challenge of reestablishing standards and qualifications, and the long-term impact of social media regulation. These themes are explored in depth, providing valuable insights into the...

The conversation covers a range of topics including the ICE occupation in Minnesota, the concept of perfidy in warfare, and the impact of the pacifist movement. It also delves into discussions about the Davos economic forum, Trump's Greenland agenda, and the resistance in Minnesota. The conversation highlights the potential impact of peaceful resistance and the challenges of international conflict and political tactics.

Takeaways

Chapters

The conversation covers a range of topics including VA healthcare frustrations, Minneapolis protests, the Trump administration's use of the Insurrection Act, civil rights movements, crowd control, ICE operations, the Epstein files, foreign relations, global power dynamics, Greenland and international relations, and the UN and global governance. The discussion delves into the complexities of these issues and their implications for national and international affairs.

Takeaways

Chapters

The Left Face podcast discusses the Colorado Democratic Veterans Council, legislative efforts, and the tragic shooting of Renee Good. It also delves into the response to the incident, authoritarian behavior, misinformation, and the increase in the military budget. The conversation highlights the government's control of private industry and the deployment of authoritarianism.

Takeaways

Chapters

The conversation covers a range of topics including veterans issues and politics, the impact of the cannabis industry on veterans, US foreign policy, and international relations. The discussion delves into the outlook for 2026, the cannabis industry's influence on veterans' access to products, CIA operations in Venezuela, and the strategic importance of Greenland and Nigeria's oil. The conversation provides insights into the intersection of these themes and their implications for veterans and global affairs.

Takeaways

Chapters<...