Venezuela Raid, Jack Smith Testimony, Premiums Skyrocket, Georgia Fraud

In this episode of 'The Civil Union,' the host dives into a wide range of pressing issues, from recent political actions to personal grievances. The discussion covers Trump's recent raid in Venezuela, the implications for taxpayers, and questions the motives behind U.S. military interventions. The host also critiques high healthcare costs in the U.S., blaming GOP policies for premiums skyrocket and proposing universal healthcare as a solution. Further political commentary includes critiques of Missouri politicians and the scandal involving Pam Bondi's brother. 

00:00 Introduction and Today's Topics

01:36 Missouri Politics and Criticisms

02:34 Venezuela Raid and Political Commentary

06:31 Greenland and National Security Concerns

08:07 Georgia Election Interference and Jack Smith's Testimony

13:12 Healthcare System and GOP Critique

15:00 Pam Bondi's Brother and Legal Controversies

16:16 Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker: 0:05

You are listening to the Civil Union where life and politics make sense and sometimes it doesn't, but we talk about it anyway, left-handers, left thinkers, left wingers welcome and if you're part of that Red Hat Brigade, fuck off.

0:20

Big topics today. Venezuela raid Greenland, Jack Smith's testimony the night the lights went out in Georgia. And what does AG Pam Bondy's brother have to do with Missouri? Welcome everyone and welcome millennials to your 500th once in a Generation event. But first I wanna say thanks. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. It's one thing to say you'll show up. It's another to show up and listen. I'm going to start texting my congressional leaders and PACS to rush donations to meet my grocery bill deadline. Does that sound like a good idea? Or maybe I'll ask for a donation to meet my mortgage payment deadline. How about the 40% increase I saw in the medication I pick up at the pharmacy. The amount of texts I get from candidates and pacs asking for money donations is outrageous. Hey, I get it, but damn, life is so expensive. Everything costs money. By the way, I have two reminders for you. Number one, if you haven't already, follow us on Instagram or TikTok at the Civil Union pod. And number two, and this is for my Missourians. This is your daily reminder that Josh Hawley and Eric Schmidt are an embarrassment to our state. And has anyone seen Anne Wagner? It's fascinating. She has the time to write bible verses on Facebook, but has no time for a town hall for her constituents. Does this mean she's retiring? Doubtful. She has Pax funding her circus. Reelecting, these guys is like backing up the Titanic and hitting that iceberg all over again. Of course, their constituents are in the water while the GOP are in the lifeboats. When I think about that movie, Titanic, I always think of the dinner scene with Kathy Bates and the scene cuts to her telling a tagline of a joke and then he lights a fire and everyone at the table laughs. It's been like 84 years since that movie came out, and I've always wanted to know what that joke was. Hmm. Random thought there. Okay. Here's the kickoff. So over the weekend, Cheeto, Benito and Hegseth raided Venezuela and took Maduro and his wife in into custody.

Speaker 8: 2:44

I'll start off by saying that this is gonna cost us taxpayers like three Medicare for alls. The corporate wealth hogs who take all our money, pay employees crap and get to skip out on taxes, will just get to sit back and watch all this destruction unfold. There are very few Americans who have any idea why the United States even did this if it was really about drug trafficking. Why did Trump, pardon the former Honduran president? That guy was convicted of bringing more than 400 tons of cocaine in this country. If it was about an unlawful president, why did Trump's sanction Brazil for holding their former president of attempting a coup gangs? Why did he embrace the president of El Salvador? Which according to us, Intel has close ties to MS 13. Yes, Venezuela is ruled by a wicked regime. The administration has not made the case that an urgent threat to America's national security even existed. To try to justify the use of our military forces, but congrats to all of us millennials. Our 500th once in a generation event in 1991, I was three, a Republican president took us to war for oil. In 2002, I was 14. A Republican president took us to war for oil, and in 2026, you do the math there, a Republican president takes us to war for oil. Credit is where credit is due causing a recession while starting an illegal war is very on brand for the GOP. Isn't it an unpopular president failing on the economy, losing grip on power at home, decides to launch us into a war? Could this be a distraction for Americans to forget about the Epstein files and the DOJ moving like molasses to get the files released? They're three weeks overdue for the release, by the way. When I'm three weeks late on my Netflix bill, it's canceled. Maybe this is a distraction for us Americans to forget the closed door Jack Smith testimony that was publicly released on New Year's Eve when everyone was on holiday. It's even possible that at midnight on New Year's Eve, 22 million Americans had their healthcare premium skyrocket. I have witnessed social media users trying to equate the legality of this raid and compare it to Obama not getting congressional approval for Operation Neptune spear, otherwise known as the unloving of Osama Bin Laden. Are you kidding me? Did they forget nine 11? You know, sometimes I have to remind myself that 25 year olds today were babies on that horrible day. These user comments are from people our age. Who would have thought that the GOP's idea of America first would mean tactfully? Increasing our insurance premiums, abandoning our farmers, purposely continuing to increase our grocery prices. Restaurants and small businesses are closing all around me. And does Sean Duffy have any comments on Maduro's travel sweats? Why did they change Maduro's clothes like four different times? I couldn't tell if those were AI generated or whatnot, but he was wearing sweats and we're not allowed to wear those at airports anymore. Then we have hexa, say this

Speaker 9: 5:58

US just all on full display in the middle of the night. Nicholas Maduro. Had his chance, just like Iran had their chance until they didn't and until he didn't. He effed around and he found out.

Speaker 8: 6:15

He effed around and found out, I guess Trump wrote that speech for him, but, hey, where's jd? He's nowhere to be found in this mess. The last I heard from JD was at the Turning Point event. That looks like a comeback tour for Erica Kirk.

6:32

We need Greenland from a national securities situation. It's so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not gonna be able to do it. I can. Trump is now embolden after the capture of Maduro. Now he wants Greenland, Denmark, and many allies at NATO say Trump should be taken seriously on the Greenland situation. Firstly, I believe that the American president should be taken seriously when he says that he wants Greenland. But I also want to make it clear that if. The United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily and everything stops. That is including our NATO and does the security that has been provided since the end of the second World War. I believe in democracy and I believe in the international rules. Of course, I also believe that you do not change borders by force either one way or another. It is not only the position of Denmark and the Danish kingdom, fortunately of Europe too. The Danish Prime Minister's comments came after she told Trump to stop the threats against the autonomous Danish territory. Going as far as saying as that this would end nato. Many NATO allies agree after their emergency meeting on Monday, Greenland's Prime Minister echoed Denmark's response after Stephen Miller's wife posted a map of Greenland draped in an American flag, captioning it in all caps with the letters SOON soon. In newly released audio Trump pressures, Georgia House speaker to hold a special session to overturn his 2020 election laws. The call was documented in the recently dismissed criminal election interference case against Trump. I've got some of my people looking at that because frankly, that was a theory of us getting of coming into session that, uh, we had not, uh, considered. Uh, we have been. Thinking that we had to travel down the road of having three fifths of the house members. Oh, be brutal. Which we couldn't give by the way. You, you do it to uncover fraud, you could say for transparency and to uncover fraud. Possible fraud. So who's gonna stop you for that? You know, it's like a federal, he a federal judge. We won this thing by four or 500,000 votes, just like we did Alabama and every other state. In the south and uh, we won. We won. We won your state massively. They took votes some way, but it's very beatable. If we had a special session, we'll present and you'll say he. It's been massive fraud. We're gonna turn over the state. The Georgia House speaker appeared to entertain Trump's pitch, though it's not clear to what extent during the 12 minute call, Trump claims that he won Georgia. Trump actually lost Georgia by more than 11,000 votes. That was the night the likes went out in Georgia. House Republicans decided to publicly release the transcript of Jack Smith's deposition on New Year's Eve. While most of DC was tuned out for the holiday, Smith used the grilling to mount a robust defense in his investigation into Trump seeking to subvert the 2020 election. Smith denied claims that his work was tainted by politics and repeated his view that Trump was guilty of a historic crime. The president prayed on Republican allegiance of people who supported him. Discovered evidence came from people in his own party, the ones who put country before party. The ones who were willing to tell Trump the truth, even if it meant Trump before them. Smith said he came to believe that Trump's J six insurrection Tweet attacking former VP Mike Pence while he was at the Capitol. Without question. Put the VP's life in danger. Smith said that he never officially decided whether to bring additional chargers against the figures he alleged were Trump's co-conspirators, including Giuliani, Sidney Powell and John Eastman. Smith also said he had no plans to call John Eastman, a builder of Trump's last ditch effort to stop. Joe Biden's January 6th, electoral certification as a trial witness, but said he would have welcomed Trump calling Eastman as a defense witness. The former special counsel repeatedly leaned into the defense of his probe and expressed confidence that a jury would have convicted Trump if the case went to trial. Asked several times, Smith avoided strain into a federal judge's order that barred him from disclosing details of his second investigation into Trump's hoarding of classified documents at Marra Largo. He also maintained he never communicated with Biden or White House staff before or during his investigations. Multiple people asked Smith if he would be surprised if Trump directs his DOJ to target him. Smith responded that he has no doubt the President wanted to seek retribution against him. Both parties press Smith extensively about his pursuit of the phone records of Republican lawmakers who Trump and his allies contacted during the days and weeks before January 6th. Smith said he wanted former speaker Kevin McCarthy's phone records because he knew McCarthy spoke to the White House as the violence unfolded that day. Republicans pointed to Smith's comments about Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who in 2022 testified against Trump in a dramatic hearing, and I actually remember watching this on tv. Hutchinson ly said another Trump a told her that a furious Trump lunged for the wheel after learning the vehicle was headed back to the White House instead of the Capitol that day. Could you imagine if Trump actually showed up at the Capitol during that insurrection? Smith told Congressional investigators. His office spoke to at least one officer who was in the SUV for Trump's return to the White House, but nearly everything Hutchinson testified to was hearsay, so most of that would've been admissible in court. The evidence here made clear that President Trump was by a large measure, the most culpable. Most responsible person in this conspiracy, the, these crimes were committed. Mm-hmm. Uh, for his benefit. Um, the attack that happened at the Capitol as part of this case does not happen without him. Um, the other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefits. I have always not sure if it was my upbringing, but I have always been an advocate for universal healthcare. Call me crazy. I believe a healthy population will support a better economy. Why have the GOP always been against a universal healthcare system? I say this because. Right now the American Health System's longstanding cost problem is accelerating and it's accelerating fast. About 22 million Americans are seeing their coverage skyrocket. These are small business owners, chiropractors. These are anybody who is not getting health insurance through their company. We're talking about families who will see healthcare costs go up by thousands of dollars. The GOP has not come up with a better plan than the Affordable Care Act. The GOP holds the House Senate Supreme Court. These guys have sat on the sidelines on this for 16 years. In those 16 years, they have continued to rip apart the healthcare for small business owners and those business owners' families. Even if you receive health insurance through your employer, these a CA premium hikes are going to trigger coverage cancellations, which will further destabilize the insurance markets. My question for the GOP is this, how are you financially benefiting from your sick constituents? And don't give me the BS that it's, it's too expensive. Apparently, we're able to spend billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars for Trump to run a second country when he can't even run the one he's in charge of right now. What common sense says this will be a success, and how much profit revenue will his CEO oil buddies make off of Venezuela? What does Pam Bondy's brother have to do with Missouri? The DOJ abruptly dropped charges against a client represented by Brad Bondy, the US Attorney General Pam Bondy's brother, federal prosecutors in Missouri agreed to dismiss an indictment against a property developer who faced felony wire fraud charges. Prosecutors under the Biden administration accused the developer of lying about hiring women and minority-owned subcontractors on a housing development in order to allegedly secure favorable tax and sensitives the decision to drop the charges was part of a department-wide directive to no longer prosecute cases against those accused of violating the race and sex-based presumptions program in St. Louis. This is the second case where federal prosecutors dropped charges against clients of Bondy's brother in Florida, a client who faced two counts of theft of government property related to COVID relief fraud, also had prosecutors withdraw outstanding subpoenas. Sounds fishy and sounds like a conflict of interest. Hmm. Okey dokie. That was a lot. But if you made it this far, I wanna say thank you. Thank you for listening. Make sure to follow the socials. Where's Alex? Well, he's taking a step back, but I'm hoping to have him and different guests sprinkle in throughout the year. And on that note, here's a Mel Robbins quote. This is, especially for all those internet trolls who are attacking you and your comments out there, your dream is meant for you. It's there to call you forward and help you grow. So don't you dare let somebody else's opinion, especially those internet trolls, keep you from pursuing it. Thanks everyone.