President joe biden, all the way back on what feels like ages ago, november the 3rd of our brand name in chief has been running a sort of scorched earth transition policy from outright denying his defeat in a half brained attempt to muddy the upcoming Electoral College vote on december 14th to his randomly on purpose firings of pentagon and Homeland Security officials who just happen to disagree with them about the election. Trumpets how the news media is and political punditry is fawaz outrage, machine running on full time minutes on a full tank of gas 27. 00 ratings, clicks and pearl clutching was galore. But it wasnt until recent reports that on his way out the door, the donald may drawdown or outright end the u. S. Wars in afghanistan and iraq. That, that hit the washington d. C. Where it hurts the most right between its military Industrial Complex legs. In fact, the hill is now reporting that acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller announced on tuesday that President Trump has ordered the pentagon to poll 2500 u. S. Troops from afghanistan, iraq, by mid january. And that the Defense Department will cut the number of troops in afghanistan from 452500, the number of forces in iraq from 322505 january 15th, just 5 days before joe biden would get sworn in. Naturally cries of National Security dominated the airwaves in response to this news. Yes, it was an all out political news media blitz to convince you that somehow removing us troops and bringing them home from war are now multigenerational wars. That somehow puts them in more danger than being in a never ending war. But that wasnt the only bad news for the pentagon this week, as it appears once again. They just cant seem to get the old books right. Reuters is now reporting that the pentagon failed, failed its comprehensive audit in fiscal 2 the and fiscal year 2020. Thats the 3rd year. The pentagon has failed since the 1st audit was conducted back in 2018. But apparently my friends there misuse and disregard for keeping proper accounting of how they spend billions and billions of our tax dollars. Apparently thats ok. You know, because golly gee, we have a, theyre Getting Better at it. At least thats according to department of defense comptroller, thomas harker, who told the media that hopefully by 2027 the pentagon will finally have a clean audit. Its time if you want to go on a city street, you want to see the missiles which see this joyce state graves. See this least systemic deception is a late show which some welcome one and all to watch in the harsh winter. And im going to cry. So let me show you. Here we go. Man 2, big stories coming out of the military Industrial Complex. This week we got donald trump saying, hey, im my pole of afghanistan. Iraq, even syria, before he leaves office on the 20th of january and the pentagon just cant seem to get its books right over. I mean, both of those stories are really being the one thats getting more, you know, News Coverage in the other one is obviously pull out methods in part because nobody knew this was coming beforehand. He didnt talk about this during his campaign cycle. Aside from, you know that the ongoing, he just doesnt like wars, he had no real strategy of what the pullout was going to look like. Who was going to still be there if anyone was going to still be there . And what that drawdown when that drawdown would start . So i think that now there are people who are questioning it, basically on the basis of whether he can actually pull it off more so than anything else. Yeah, i mean, other, i mean, ive always noticed over the years and nothing gets washington more frightening than someone saying, hey, we might, we might slow down the war machine a little bit. Look, i, i am not a fan of donald trump by a member pertaining to be a fan of donald trump, but if someone wants to talk peace or at least get our soldiers out of harms way, so were stop killing civilians overseas. We stop seeing our guys die overseas and just stop that. I dont care who the guy is or woman, theres the bring our troops home. I just want to see him brought home. And i think that there are a lot of people who would agree with that. For me personally, it is more of a what are his alterio motives because im trying to pull troops out a long time ago. So youre going to need a full 4 term president. He could have done this towards the beginning of his term. He couldve done in the middle. He could have done at any time other than the time. Hes also arguing that the results of the most recent election were false and the ballots went missing and all the crazy things he thing right now, i think that theres something more here and there i dont think youre alone. No, also remember too is that its not like trumps above because as well as he was talking about pulling troops out of syria down a stand. They were accused talking about potentially bombing iran. So its not like hes some big peacenik coming along. The other big story of this audit, which is really interesting, that the pentagon spot being audited for decades. And people forget that as our money at the end of the day that theyre using, that they should be responsible for. Despite Congress Passing a law way back in 1990, requiring all federal departments of the government to be audited every year. It took nearly 2 decades, but the 1st pentagon oughtnt to ever even be attempted. Ridiculous. Were digging less and quite sad because it seems like federal agencies have no problem auditing individuals and more other federal agencies. So i think that when it comes to the pentagon, there is a lackluster process, because in all honesty, there are a lot of skeletons there. Everybody knows that and i think that you know that as best as they can. Theyve been trying to keep a lot of things under code. Oh yeah. Thomas harker of the acting department. The prince comptroller is kind of overseeing the audit that he said, what you are seeing is a much a mature ation of the process. Many of the individual agencies or services are developing more capability and better accounting skills so that they can resolve a lot of the problems youre seeing. Youre seeing significant process progress in certain areas. Q magine telling the i. R. S. If they came to audit you, thats true. But if you imagine the average citizen telling the i. R. S. Look, i know your audience, me, and i know i failed this audit for the last 20 years. But look, im progressing, its getting a little better, or youll be in jail period. No question that they would come, they would take all of your stuff in you and that would be the end of it. And yet, and yet we let the pentagon get away with this and guess how much it cost to just audit the pentagon 203000000. 00 and about a 1000000000. 00 in remediate cost to fix identified problems, not even the ones we havent identified. The effort covers really roughly the 2. 00 trillion tax dollars in Department Assets including and i didnt even know this. The roughly 26500000. 00 acres of the way. I mean that the pentagon owns talk about a massive agency. That is a lot, not only cash, but also assets. The last interesting thing i got a note on this is its interesting how quickly both sides come together. Were talking earlier today when it comes to like saying, oh, maybe we should pull some troops out of certain areas of the world. And you have democrats and republicans jumping together to say no, dont do that, which is interesting that theyd let it go. But one bottles talking about subverting the election process. No, i again, i think youre absolutely correct there because if they can stand out on this thing, they should have also been able to stand down on the total failure of the president to acknowledge that this election is over the mississippi known for its lack of civil rights progress. Holding on to the Confederate Flag for far too long. And systemic oppression has something new up its sleeve. Recently mississippi governor and truck loving republican take reeves call for 3. 1000000. 00 to protect children from far left socialist teachings. Thats right. In the midst of a School Crisis cope with 19 job loss, the state that consistently falls at the bottom of the rankings in education, health care, and economic development, what dollars it doesnt have a conservative driven conspiracy theory. The Patriotic Education fine as its now been dean has a few goals. According to governor reeves who claims democracy, capitalism and other American Values are quote, the victims of a targeted campaign from foreign and domestic influence. And no other nation has done more for its citizens or to advance freedom and prosperity across the globe. Well, not to be outdone by the magnolia state florida too has its share of problems. The States Democratic Party is under fire not only for its lack of unity and failure to deliver a win for by but for mismanagement from top to bottom. The florida Democratic Party has had one bad cycle after another, but 2020 takes the cake with question defeats all the way down the ballot, and internal party fighting hasnt helped with trucks decisive win margin 2016. The state once considered a valuable swing state, lost that status completely in 2020, in the democratic stronghold, Miami Dade County jail, as well. Democrat, sean scholl, a former state representative, summed it up with quote, we have to turn out problems, messaging problems, coalition problems, its up and down the board. Well, florida seems to have 99 problems and theyre all long standing. Florida democrats have until the Governors Office in over 2 decades and have been out of power in the state legislature for a quarter century. In fact, since obama won florida in 2012, democrats have only won one statewide race. A lot of blame is going on. The lack of latino support there for democrats. Other call outs are centrist and socialist battles. And of course, funding issues. Florida 99 problems and a democrat will mean one of their better hurt. And i mean, thats crazy. I mean, when you look at the issues that were seeing in michigan and florida, i think both of these cases or indictments of both parties are certain agree because you see the, you know, whats happening in florida. The democrats just cant seem to get a win because they said, we dont know our message and we dont know what to do. And then in mississippi to waste 3000000. 00. And it is a fresh rating. And ive talked to you about this before though im from chicago, i grew up in mississippi and florida. Mississippi is a state that is consistently the butt of all the rest of the state jokes because they rank poorly in Health Care Outcomes in education. There isnt a marker of success that mississippi has done well. So we talk about the dollars for the poorest state in the union. Youre going to throw it at Patriotic Education, which is something, as you probably can recall, came up during spite against b. L. And he didnt want you to black lives matter. He didnt want to have a conversation about Racial Equity in classrooms. So his pushback was, lets talk about Patriotic Education. Lets remove things that have to do with black people, even though schools talked very little about, you know, the plight of africanamericans or the civil rights movement, or our time from slavery to now in their classrooms. Any way the majority of schools have whitewashed education. Now, the governor of mississippi wants to replace an already incredibly, you wore a blue Education System with what he calls Patriotic Education. What they need to focus on is actually math science, reading skills, you know, the regular education curriculum. And you know, if you have 3000000. 00 to spend mississippi dont care what its going to get a measure of the thing is you cant read the propaganda if you cant read, if youre going to change, or like at least teach kids how to read 1st, and thats when the and that tragically is one of the big problems, you see a lot of schools across the mississippi is just the basic level. Like you said, mass science really focus on the who cares about what the core bunda mentals they dont have yet. This is red meat for a conservative base, which this is the irony here is ridiculous because mississippi is a solidly red state. It has no means or motive of turning blue. And there is nothing that can be done. Im sorry to, you know, the democrats have to live there. Theres nothing that can be done to quake that it went so hard. Trump, but actually every single republican since reconstruction. It is very interesting that this is where they want to go. Its interesting. Heres the other thing too. Well its look at florida because you have to bring the port of florida is interesting because look, they passed a 15. 00 minimum wage there. Thats a very left under the leftist is under the terminology, leftist progressive kind of thing. But yet the whole state got behind that. So why arent they getting behind democrats . And so its an interesting question you ask and i think that to flow back to a previous conversation weve had florida is a state that is very much a worker state. And at the end of the day, we have so many people who are Blue Collar Workers who have a lot of people who work in who work in the hospitality industry, people who work in the tourism industry. These are individuals who want to see more from their wages. That doesnt necessarily mean that they are the same folks who stand and hold banners under the socialist mob. I think that what the democrats can learn from this is that dont run away from things that people actually want to see happen. If you think that they are democratic socialist who also agree that the minimum wage or living wage is a good thing. Thats cool, but people outside of that want to see it happen as well. You know, i think thats the problem is that the democrats right now are so afraid theyre having such an identity. Crisis of being so afraid to be labeled as social, you know, part of the party is like all of socialism. So terrible. Then the other party is like, no, no, we love this. And the problem is i think that they have lost a lot in this election showed us at least they lost a lot of the blue collar base that they know that thats absolutely true. And i think the other big story about Florida Democrats are focusing on is you, as you can recall, former d. N. C. Chair, debbie wasserman, although shes a floridian. Im still a representative there. It becomes very hard for democrats to figure out what happened in florida when the diverse counties, miami dade didnt show up when you have the latino population, which they claim to invest in for the past few years showed up in large numbers for donald trump in the largest number of any state in the country florida did in terms of its latino voters. What can you do . I think the problem at the end of the day for me is i think, i think theres too Many Democrats who are trying to utilize the old ninetys era ideology of, well we got to go more, right. If we go more right and become republican lite or you know, prochoice republicans and then suddenly miraculously will get those republican vote. Its not about giving republican votes, its about getting blue collar and worker votes and blue Collar Worker votes respond to things like 15 dollars in which they respond to things Like Universal Health care. Not because theyre socialist ideas, but because we need those ideas that kind of saved us from the situation room in, the country. Absolutely wrecked. Thats why were seeing them link up with f. B. I. , you know, which is something that nobody would have ever expected. But that 15. 00 minimum wage matters good point. All right. 2 as we go to break, remember that you can also start watching the hawks on demand for the brand new, portable t. V. Which is available on all platforms of epically. Pick it up, coming up americas lawyer. Yes, the one and only mike pesca, tonio joins us to discuss and intrigue you watch through. Coming out of florida against one of the worlds biggest multinational construction companies, do not want to miss this conversation. So stay tuned for watching. Looks like a little boy will pull you out of the museum. It will always be good if the house hold on a promise, he made it keep it or dont or dont let you come up with a good on time because im not bad with the internet. But i did, i say a general point about anonymous and it is about join me every thursday on the alex simon show. And ill be speaking to us of the world of politics. Business, im show business. Ill see you then infrastructure and Construction Projects keep america going. But the companies that make it possible rarely make headlines. But that all recently changed. A Construction Industry giant that is making waves were all the wrong reasons. 23 sconce that construction barges carrying cranes, beans, and other equipment broke free during hurricane sally. This cause major devastation across the scandia and santa rosa county. And while thankfully no injuries were reported. The barges cause damage leaving the pensacola bay bridge out of service for 6 months. Locals are holding sconce go countable because they are upset with the company hasnt been open about their world in the disaster, nor have they done much to remedy the affected parties. This is notable because gods good makes big money in the u. S. 2700000000. 00 in commercial and multifamily projects. The Company Built structures like the world trade center, met life stadium where the new york giants and jets play, as well as several airports, hospitals, and other structures. Lets go, lets go also has a long history of problematic mistakes and some are deadly. The company has been charged with fraudulent labor practices, bribery least, bribery scandals, and black contractors filed racially motivated harassment claims against them. In florida, local businesses, whats going to pay up revenue losses resulted from the bridge outing and claims of sconce going not following hurricane protocol have erupted here for more on this developing story as might happen. Tonio, host americas lawyer. Welcome, mike. Thank you. Yeah, i think you, you know, as i listened to you all open the program, i thought it was interesting. The story about the pentagon was so interesting because its, its, its kind of a macro of what were talking about. Youre in a more of a micro story, and that is accountability whos, who is watching the people who are making decisions about things like the pentagon and with americas lawyer. Weve been trying to analyze whats, whats happening with the new infrastructure build out. Ok, we, we have, we have a lot of infrastructure build out taken place all over the country in various places. But what were not doing is were not really looking we, its almost like weve abandoned our responsibility to say, let me show up at the hearing that were going to have with the company. What scotts who are they says, where they say were the people that are going to improve your infrastructure . Were going to build a 400000000 dollar bridge, and you can count on us in what we, what weve, weve analyzed. And weve, weve taken a look at, you know, mass protests taking place in the streets, individuals going state to state on big national issues. But weve forgotten about whats happening in our backyard. And this, this, this act of forgetting whats happening. Our backyard probably will cost this disc immunity, billions of economic loss. And as you pointed out, this was a company, its a Foreign Company that shows up in pensacola. They make a presentation to city council that are half asleep on whats going on in state. You know, state legislators who are completely out of the ball game politicians who care about how much money they can give me the media, barely paying attention to it. And we dont show up the people who live here dont show up at that meeting. And had they done that, they would have found out that this is a company thats paid 20000000. 00 fines, accused of bribery in argentina. Critical to the fact that they almost cant leave business in south america because of their criminal conduct, cited for using subs, sub standard Quality Equipment and subs, subs the standard materials. But heres my point. The point is we have to worry about those bigger stories. We have, there are things we have to show up in the streets about what we have to get back to the days when were showing up at those hearings. And were talking about a company that has 100 in 70000000000. 00, global revenue, who has now left us in a position in this community. And i can take this story and i can superimpose it all over the country, whether its building roads, whether its building bridges, building infrastructure, where the People Living in that community have abdicated their responsibility to show up and ask questions. Why its so bad that what weve done it with our, with our firm is were committing ourselves to following stance, go wherever they go in the country, wherever they make a presentation. Were going to be there with askance with story. The outrageous quality of negligence that took place there their absolute denial of any responsibility. So were going to show up with those stories. But i think we have to go back to the days where maybe, you know, it was a generation that always showed up for the year. And you know, if there was, if theres a public hearing about building a new park, if theres a public hearing about building a new road, people were they are. And its almost like theres a generational disconnect where were not showing up at like, i want to ask you how often do you see these big super conglomerate Multinational Companies like building our infrastructure in our backyard here in this country. Because to me that seems like a job that the government should be doing itself and providing those jobs, not outsourcing it to some company from what sweden or scandinavia. Yeah, yeah. You hit it on the head. You have you stolen my talking. Sorry. There is, there is no, if youre going on the hit, there was a time when we had government that did this. We didnt go to sweden or germany or china or, you know, japan to, to build our infrastructure. Of course, you remember, i mean, where you can still see it in your, in your, in your head jansha, the building of the skyscrapers the place of the turn of the 19th century. You know that the, you have those visuals when it was an american, it was american undertaking. And then we got into this idea where we can send our business to Companies Like scan stuff rather than holding a local Company Responsible for what were doing. Weve, we become so globalized, that its become a point that we have forgotten our responsibility to show up at hearings in stopping this thing. No matter, no matter whether i win this case or not, there will be no way to correct the damage thats been done to hundreds of businesses. 2nd, 3rd generation businesses. You remember i handled the b. P. Chase. It was the same kind of problem, but there they are. That was a different now says here, weve invited them into our house. Theyve taken advantage of us and now theyre going to go back to sweden and do it to somebody else unless we change the way we think about how we do business and us in this infrastructure. This infrastructure to this is a really sad situation. Mike and i full disclosure, i live in pensacola and pastes both of them santa rosa county, respectively. So i know the importance of that, that the, of that bridge to those businesses. But this isnt the 1st time the Construction Company had a foray into bad press or lawsuits. How were the other allegations handled, you know, by death in orlando highway project, project labor practices, racially motivated harassment. Theres so much the list goes on and on. How they got above those things somehow. How do you think this is going to play out . Got about a minute and yeomanry. Have you been reading my notes what you think you meant . And the only way it plays, the only way it plays out is this. We have to perp, walk criminals. Ok. When people do things wrong, knowingly, when 1000000 gaijin, bribery, whether its in argentina or anywhere in the country. When they, when we have, we are using substandard quality material to build our bridges or a roads. We have to treat them the same way that we would anybody else whos guilty of those violations. We have to put them in, in a perp walk. We have to say, who made this decision . Who knowing that it was going to be our for suitably resulting in the count of disasters that you bring from that kind of business. So you have, we have to treat them like we have to treat them like they are just because theyre dressed up in armani suits, doesnt change. And most certainly my, we need a lot more folks like you and thank you for that call action. And for people to get out and Pay Attention to whats happening in their local neighborhoods in their backyards, because thats how you get a change of government front to back. Thank you so much for the good work youre doing and always welcome on the show. I was a pleasure having your answer. Thank you. I sure appreciate it. Love might get his fireman if hes right though people got to get out. Hes definitely ready. And i think that that call i was extremely important because there was a time where people were a lot more engaged before businesses than Business Practices came in. That might have some type of negative effect. Now there are very few people who show up to those meetings, but the stern aeration, these jonesy, of the millions theyre taking to the streets. So we might see if we might see in the future, we are everybody about is our show for you today. Remember in this world we are not to love them up, so i tell you all, i love you, i am tired and im on the keep on watching all those hawks never break been like everybody. Its been decades since the fall of spains fascist regime. But old wounds still havent healed from going into the because for me, from a dog to bottom is a bow or so to me on the bus at us as mean older than us. And they seemed to know cells of newborn babies were torn from their mothers and given away and forced adoption. I dont really feel that my own role, but as a fellow mentor to this day, mothers still search for grown children while looking in hope for their birth. Parents seem wrong, but all in all just dont call me yet to shape out this day become active and engaged because of the trail. When so many find themselves worlds apart, we choose to look for common ground. Shell welcome you should all just normal guy called a memory a little know well, you know, but notice when you watch him cruising up on the board with him with you when you see each other, you put some nice to meet. You look for us one in something you wonder if you believe there are these, which youll see in the local, which is based on your own work or one with your leanings lead to such as to start to look at your bullshit a little ruthless and shoot the theory work that you dont like the last chapter carefully because this hours headlines, stories for teenagers are along 15 people reportedly charged in connection with the beheading of a teacher in front. Another taken into custody is a known islamist radical going cold turkey coated restrictions put the skids on Many Americans enjoying thanksgiving celebrations. Our guests debate whether festivities all to be right during a time that these current guidelines are cutting into our emotional health