Cspan. Org. We take you now to a hearing on transNational Crime, including the financing and trafficking of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Youre watching live coverage on cspan. Let me welcome everybody to the hearing, and thank you very much for participating. I will start with opening remarks. We will turn to the distinguished cochair for his opening remarks and a brief video. We thank you all very much for being here. A modern day cartel runs more like a fortune 500 conglomerate than like a street gang with departments specializing in logistics, accounting, recruitment, chemical science, and they manage their empires with deadly sophistication. They operate like enormous businesses because a prophet like enormous businesses. Globally, drug traffic revenue totals as much as 652 billion. According to estimates from Global Financial integrity. Mexican cartels like sinaloa and you generation operate in the billions. Enforcement against these massive organizations usually focuses on
Members of the armed forces for their service. That thinks is almost always genuine. Not everybody decides to either commit themselves to protecting the country or to putting their lives on hold for several years to protect the country. So we think that in many cases that for person has spent 2025, even 30 years in the military. They decide to start 2nd careers and Public Service and often in the service of other members of the military. Im not talking just about the pentagon of course, but also about the department of Veterans Affairs. So many of our active duty Service Members and retired veterans need help and they often go to veterans hospitals for that help. But what happens when you decide to dedicate your life to helping your fellow veterans . And you see evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. What happens when you see that the entire system is broken, that its set up not to help people, but simply to check a bureaucratic fox. People of the west. I am john curiosity, we
Affairs, that large govern mental bureaucracy created to help and to serve the countries veterans. But for multiple reasons, the department that has never run the way it was supposed to. Many veterans receive sub standard medical care, many are denied medications necessary to live their lives as normally as possible. And then another terrible development. According to military veteran project dot org 22 veterans commit suicide every single day. Saw me even do so in the parking lots of the veterans hospitals where theyve been denied care. Our guest today is ted blick, wadel. He served his country for 27 years in the us marine corps, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He decided upon retirement to consider serving his fellow veterans and he received counseling training and went to work in the department of Veterans Affairs hospital before then moving on to the vet centers. The centers are Community Based counseling clinics that were established in the wake of the vietnam war to connecting
Not everybody decides to either commit themselves to protecting the country or to putting their lives on hold for several years to protect the country. So we think that in many cases, that for a person has spent 2025, even 30 years in the military, they decided to start 2nd careers in Public Service and often in the service of other members of the military. Im not talking just about the kind of golf course, but also about the department of Veterans Affairs. So many of our active duty Service Members and retired veterans need help and they often go to veterans hospitals for that help. But what happens when you decide to dedicate your life to helping your fellow veterans . And you see evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. What happens when you see that the entire system is broken, that its set up not to help people, but simply to check a bureaucratic spa. Im john kerry. Ok, welcome to the whistle blowers the. 2 2 2 weve spoken several times on the show about the Us Department o
Members of the armed forces for their service. That thinks is almost always genuine. Not everybody decides to either commit themselves to protecting the country or to putting their lives on hold for several years to protect the country. So we think that in many cases, that for a person has spent 2025, even 30 years in the military, they decide to start 2nd careers and Public Service and often in the service of other members of the military. Im not talking just about the pentagon of course, but also about the department of Veterans Affairs. So many of our active duty Service Members and retired veterans need help and they often go to veterans hospitals for that help. But what happens when you decide to dedicate your life to helping your fellow veterans . And you see evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. What happens when you see that the entire system is broken, that its set up not to help people, but simply to check a bureaucratic box. Im just and curiosity. Welcome to the we