CD331: December 2025 — Authorizing Future Disasters

This is a significant, significant safety setback. It represents an unacceptable risk to the flying public, to commercial and military aircraft crews, and to the residents in the region. It's also an unthinkable dismissal of our investigation and of 67 families, 67 families who lost loved ones in a tragedy that was entirely preventable. This is shameful. It is shameful. I am so damn tired of being lied to I don't think I can deny it anymore You can't stick to your story if you think it flies But I'm not gonna buy it anymore Hello, my friend, and thank you for listening to the 331st episode of Congressional Dish. I am your host, Jennifer Briney. And today's episode is going to be about the bills that became law in the month of December 2025 and some other things. This is basically the summary of the last month of last year. And this episode took me a while to get to you because I had to look through the National Defense Authorization Act, which was 1,259 pages. Now, if you're not familiar with it, the National Defense Authorization Act is a bill that needs to become law every single year because it authorizes our war-related activities. And this is actually a bill that Congress never fails to get done on time. And if you have listened to my episodes or know anything about government funding, you will understand how kind of wild that is that the NDAA has been passed on time for decades. I think it's been over 60 years since they've failed to meet that deadline. And because they always meet that deadline, it is seen as an excellent opportunity to attach things and have them hitchhike into law that probably wouldn't become law on their own. And this year was no exception. And so I think I found some of the more important secrets, including one that I am furious about that is going to make all of us who fly in airplanes less safe. And so we will look at that in this episode. We're also going to look at the bills that were signed into law on their own. We are also going to look at some weird vetoes that were done by President Trump and Congress's reaction to them. And then finally, the Senate did that thing again that they have been doing throughout this whole Congress. This is actually an unprecedented move until this Congress. But essentially, the Senate is now confirming President Trump's nominees to different positions in batches. So it used to be one by one, but they have now for the third time done a large batch of confirmations with one vote. And in this particular batch, there were 97 people confirmed all at once. I'm not going to give you a lot of information about these people, but I did decide to let you know about the three that I saw that have the highest red flags. And so, yeah, that is what we are doing today. and if you appreciate knowing what is actually becoming law because I know that I started this podcast because I couldn't find a place to easily find this information and so that's why I'm reading these bills and watching these hearings and letting you know with this podcast if you appreciate having this information please pay for congressional dish because we don't accept advertising on this show that is on purpose because I want this show to be something that is designed for you I want you to be my customer. I do not want to sell your time to advertisers and make you my product. And so we have decided to essentially do this on the honor system. If you appreciate the show and you get value from it, we ask you to please return that value in some kind of financial form. Also, if you're someone who wants to act on these laws while they're still in the bill stage, and you want to contact your member of Congress or lobby against them or whatever, if you just want to know about them while there's still bills, I am now helping you do that with episodes that we call Last Week in Congress. I think the name kind of explains what they are. These are available to everyone who pays for the show on Patreon. We are asking for $5 an episode at this point, although people pay more or less. It's really up to you. But basically, if you're paying for the show, you get access to those Last Week in Congress episodes, which are going to keep you more up to date on a regular basis and allow you to act on these before they get signed into law. Thank you to everyone who is paying for the show. I would not continue doing this without your support. All right. So now let's get into the National Defense Authorization Act. Now, the biggest scandal that I found in the National Defense Authorization Act has to do with air traffic. So if you fly on any kind of airplane, this is something you're going to want to know. And this is actually a follow-up to an episode that we had done last year in response to the January 29th, 2025 airplane crash at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. You might remember that at 8.48 p.m. on that night, an Army helicopter, which you're going to hear referred to as PAT-25, well, that helicopter was conducting a training flight for the military along the Potomac River, and it crashed into a passenger jet and killed everyone on board. And so here's Matthew Brayman from a hearing last year. He's the director of Army Aviation. And here he is explaining what happened from the military's point of view. And just so you know, in this clip, you're going to hear him refer to the NTSB. That stands for the National Transportation Safety Board, and they do the investigations into all of the crashes that happen like this in the United States. The night of 29 January, PAT-25 was conducting an annual proficiency and readiness test, or APART. And as part of that flight, it was approved to operate at contingency locations associated with their direct admission. This has led to questions as to whether PAT-25 was transmitting automatic dependent surveillance broadcast out or ADS-B out. The specific status of both its operation and functionality is something that is under the investigation of the NTS-B. The crew, however, was approved to operate with that capability off in accordance with Army policy. So to summarize, the military gave the helicopter permission to fly with ADS-B, which communicates its location to other aircraft in the area. The military gave the helicopter permission to fly with that equipment off. And one of the key problems exposed by this revelation is that the military had the permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to do that. And so as part of the response to the crash, that permission was revoked, as it should be. Because if an aircraft is flying near an airport, it should have to transmit its location to air traffic control and to the other planes. And so the military for the last year has been required to have those location broadcasts on when flying near the DCA airport and all of our airports. And we were all safer for it, you know? Well, not anymore, because in Section 373 of the National Defense Authorization Act that just became law, they did this. Upon first glance, they put in a section that looks like it enhances safety. So I'll read it to you. It says, quote, The secretary of a military department may not authorize any manned rotary wing aircraft of the Department of Defense to operate a training mission in a covered airspace unless such aircraft, while being operated, is actively providing warning of the proximity of such aircraft to nearby commercial aircraft in a matter compatible with the traffic alert and collision avoidance system of such commercial aircraft, unquote. great right but there's a giant loophole and that comes in the form of a waiver because the bill then allows the defense department to waive that rule as in not follow it if the defense department determines that a waiver is quote in the national security interests of the united states unquote and if they've done a risk assessment and it doesn't matter what the assessment says they just have to do one and they have to tell the secretary of transportation and it's crystal clear from this bill that these waivers are not for like one-off flights here and there because it says Congress has to be notified about these waivers if they're going to be in effect for more than 30 days, which shows that blanket waivers covering long periods of time are clearly going to be allowed. And here's how Jennifer Homendy, she is the National Transportation Safety Board Director and quite frankly, one of my favorite people in our government. Here's how she reacted to this provision being included in the NDAA. So the NTSB vehemently opposes Section 373 of the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA. This section to the lay reader is drafted to seemingly enhance safety. I want to be very clear that it does not in any way enhance safety. In fact, it reverses safety changes made after the mid-air collision, after issuance of our urgent safety recommendations, after the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, rightfully implemented our urgent safety recommendations and essentially gives the military unfettered access to the crowded and complex D.C. airspace. This is a significant, significant safety setback. It represents an unacceptable risk to the flying public, to commercial and military aircraft crews, and to the residents in the region. It's also an unthinkable dismissal of our investigation and of 67 families, 67 families who lost loved ones in a tragedy that was entirely preventable. This is shameful. It is shameful. And she got even more specific with her warning in a letter that she sent directly to Congress. Reading from her letter, she said, quote, Section 373 would roll back broadcast requirements to the very conditions that existed in the D.C. airspace at the time of the accident. Section 373 provides Department of War from the secretary to a general or flag officer with any military department, the broad authority to waive a minimal requirement, unquote. She goes on to say, quote, It is clear from our investigation so far that the Army and potentially other military departments within the Department of War do not know or understand the complexities of the D.C. airspace, how to conduct a thorough safety risk assessment, or implement appropriate mitigations to ensure safety for all. Concurrence by the Secretary of Transportation does not alleviate these concerns. In fact, the language seems to allow military departments to do what they want in the D.C. airspace, with very little input from the secretary and none from the FAA, aviation industry and others impacted, unquote. And in response to this, there was an effort by Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, who's a Democrat, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who's a Republican, to get this removed from the NDAA. And so it is crystal clear to me that our senators did know about this ahead of time. But Senators Cantwell and Cruz were unsuccessful in their efforts, and their amendment never even got a vote. And so, less than one year after causing 67 of us to die, the military is once again allowed to do whatever the f*** they want, thanks to this dumpster fire of a Congress. And this is wild, because you know who flies in and out of the downtown D.C. airport all the time? Members of Congress. And so this is amazing, really. Because they basically decided to prioritize Department of Defense and defense contractors' convenience and profits. Because compliance with this rule would require both the military and their contractors to upgrade their aircrafts in order to add the location broadcasting equipment to their planes. And they would have to coordinate with other agencies when flying in D.C. and in other airports. It's just kind of a pain in the ass. And so members of Congress decided that saving them money and hassles, which has already killed 67 of us, well, saving them money and the hassle matters more than our safety, even their own safety. And I want to make it crystal clear that the NDAA doesn't just allow the military to fly around unseen to other aircraft in Washington, D.C. This is a problem nationwide. And quite frankly, it's not just the military that is flying around without the equipment that allows their locations to be broadcast out and other aircraft's locations to be received in. This is a problem for all of us in the United States, no matter where we live and where we fly. Here's Jennifer Homendy again. Again, she's the NTSB director in a press conference on January 27th, 2026, just two days before this recording. Question is, are there other hot spots? And am I concerned that the FAA is not paying attention to those other hotspots? The answer to that is yes. The FAA did an evaluation of the national airspace, I believe, as a result of Senator Cruz and Senator Cantwell asking for that evaluation. I'm not sure that I'm not comfortable with it. I keep hearing about other areas in the airspace where they're concerned. And Burbank is one where commercial airlines have called me to say the next midair is going to be at Burbank. And nobody at FAA is paying attention to us. And so what happened in Washington, D.C., she knows the National Transportation Safety Board is telling anyone who will listen that this can happen outside of Washington, D.C. And she's thinking that it will. And this Congress decided to make that situation worse. While we on the topic of U airspace we also should look at another provision that was included in the NDAA that has to do with drones Because as we heard in the congressional testimony that was included in the June 2025 episode of Congressional Dish called Beware the Drones there have been authority gaps that have been preventing both federal and state and local law enforcement to act when there are suspicious drones in public places. And so the NDAA authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, the Attorney General and state and local authorities to, quote, take such actions as are necessary, unquote, to mitigate credible threats posed by drones. The state and local authorities have to take a training and be certified by the Attorney General Pam Bondi before they can use counter drone authorities, which means Pam Bondi is going to be the one who decides what that certification is going to look like. Now, on the one hand, I guess this is good because we do have large events pretty much daily in the United States, And the witnesses in those hearings were crystal clear that they were concerned that the lack of clear authorities in regards to countering rogue drones was putting us all in danger. But I also think there's danger in allowing law enforcement to act too. I'm thinking specifically if law enforcement is allowed to just shoot drones down, we could get hit and hurt by both the shots and the debris. I would like some guardrails in place around law enforcement too. and those kinds of guardrails are nowhere to be found in this new law. Law enforcement from Christine Ohm to Barney Fife get to decide what actions are necessary and therefore legal. I just find that authority to be way too broad, far broader than I'm comfortable with. And so don't be surprised if sometime soon you hear a story on the news about the government shooting things out of the sky because they're allowed to do that now. The only guardrail that was kind of put on this authority is that the authority is going to expire in 2031. And so Congress will have to actively re-examine this decision in five years. Another authority that was added by the National Defense Authorization Act is one that allows the Department of Defense. Oh, and by the way, it is called the Department of Defense the entire time in this bill. Department of War is just a nickname by the Trump administration. It is still officially the Department of Defense. But anyway, another authority that this bill added to the Department of Defense's authority basket is one to enter into contracts to help Border Patrol, which with ICE and Border Patrol violently patrolling our streets right now and snatching immigrants and U.S. citizens off of those streets and out of our homes on the daily and scaring the shit out of those of us who haven't been infected with MAGA brain worms, well, I think this official permission is important. Because every task that is taken off of Border Patrol's to-do list frees up more of their personnel to enter our cities and terrorize us. And the National Defense Authorization Act does just that. It frees up Border Patrol agents by allowing the Defense Department to do these tasks for Border Patrol. They can do detection and monitoring. They can do warehousing in logistical supply chain tasks. They can do transportation, vehicle maintenance, training, although they're not allowed to be the primary instructors. But the DOD can do intelligence analysis, linguistic tasks, they can do data entry, and they can do aviation. But there is one silver lining here, which is that even though this will allow more border patrol agents to be sent into our cities where they don't belong, like Minneapolis, which is a thousand miles away from the southern border, even though they will be freed up to send more of their agents to places like that, there is no permission in here for the military to actually patrol our streets and physically help border patrol with whatever it is that border patrol and ICE think their mission is. Because all I know for sure is that their actions prove that their mission is not to round up people with criminal records in a targeted way. But the good news here is that the military is not officially allowed to participate in whatever it is that Border Patrol is actually doing. And as far as the law matters right now, which is also unclear, that lack of permission from Congress is at least worth noting. So now let's jump into our time machine and revisit a global crisis from the last Trump administration, the COVID-19 pandemic. And it's possible that this summer, we might get some answers about how that pandemic started. At the very least, we might find out what the intelligence community has discovered about that. Because by July 19th, the Director of National Intelligence, who right now is Tulsi Gabbard, is required to produce a report on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and China's efforts to hide information. The review needs to include an analysis of what was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and needs to analyze gain-of-function research's possible role. It has to tell us who is funding gain-of-function research, and it will analyze the possibility that COVID originated in an animal and then spread to humans. Because I know that we were told that it came from a bat in some Chinese meat market, and if you didn't believe that, well, you just need to shut the f*** up. So this report is going to examine all of those things, and I'm kind of excited for this report. Although there's always the possibility that, like the Epstein files, a lot of this happened during the Trump administration and maybe it won't look that great. And so maybe this administration will issue the report covered in black bars or not at all. But I guess this summer, we're going to see. And while we're on the subject of public health, section 316 of the NDAA really pissed me off because that section alters how the military regulates PFAS, which are forever chemicals, in firefighting equipment. And just so you understand the anger, one of my best friends is a firefighter who served two tours in Iraq. And so this one feels like a direct attack on someone that I love. Basically, this provision is going to expose firefighters who are already exposed to all kinds of toxic shit that make them far more susceptible to cancer than regular non-heroes, well, this is going to make them possibly exposed to even more toxic shit, specifically forever chemicals. Now, I can't say the actual name of these things, and so I'm not going to try, but the nickname for these chemicals is PFAS, and these are chemicals that bioaccumulate, so they build up and stay in your body, ever increasing with each new exposure, and there is no known safe exposure level for many of these PFAS compounds. And because of how dangerous these chemicals are, the 2023 NDAA flatly prohibited the Defense Department from buying firefighting equipment if it contained any intentionally added PFAS. But military contractors who make firefighting equipment apparently didn't like that. And so this new NDAA says that firefighting with PFAS is now permitted to be purchased again, unless it fails to meet the latest National Fire Protection Association 1970 standard, which is a standard that is written by a nonprofit in partnership with industry. And so obviously, this opens the door to our military firefighters being exposed to forever chemicals. And so this clearly wasn't written by Congress for their benefit. And so who does benefit from this? Well, I think it's clear that it's the military contractors. Because by allowing industry to write the standards, which can be weaker than the standard of none of this shit is allowed, well, that would mean more vendors who do use Forever Chemicals in their manufacturing will qualify for contracts. And I guess our military firefighters will just pay for that with their lives. Small price to pay, I guess, for the noble cause of helping shareholders make a buck. And since I just mentioned my friend who served in the military and is now a firefighter, I should probably tell you that the authorization for the use of military force that got him sent to Iraq has now been repealed. In fact, both authorizations for the use of military force against Iraq. So the one passed in the 1990s for daddy Bush's Iraq war, and then the one passed in 2002 for baby Bush's Iraq war. Well, both of those were finally repealed in this NDAA. So that's a bit of good news. But I'm not exactly celebrating because the authorization for the use of military force that passed after 9-11, that's the one that legalizes our wars on whoever all over the world, that one still stands. And that's the one that's been used to justify W. Bush and Obama and Trump and Biden and now Trump again. It's been used to justify their bombing of all sorts of countries that we aren't actually at war with, including last month in Venezuela. And as for Venezuela, was that operation which bombed Venezuela repeatedly, killed dozens of Venezuelan citizens and resulted in the capture of Venezuela's president, was any of that authorized by this NDAA? Nope. In fact, the NDAA, if anything, nullified one of the Trump administration's excuses for launching that attack, which is that they said that Venezuela was somehow responsible for fentanyl being brought into the United States, which is not true, but it not being true has never stopped the Trump administration from saying anything. But that reality is visible in the NDAA because in this NDAA, there's a whole subtitle called the Bust Fentanyl Act. That section expands sanctions, orders, reports, and specifically mentions China, Mexico, and Haiti, not Venezuela. But the most important part of the Bust Fentanyl Act is the end, which says, quote, nothing in this subtitle or the amendments made by this subtitle may be construed as authorizing the use of military force, unquote. And so fentanyl, which doesn't come from Venezuela, that was one of the president's stated reasons for attacking Venezuela and removing their president. But the NDAA not only didn't authorize that attack, but this paragraph makes it crystal clear that fentanyl is not an acceptable reason to use military force. And yet, that happened. and so that's really all that I found in the NDAA that could affect you in any real way and so now let's move over to the new laws or at least the new laws that have a chance of affecting your lives because there were more than this but these are the ones that like could matter to you and so first they signed into law the MAP Waters Act of 2025. This is a law that requires the Forest Service and Interior Department to create an information database about federal waterways that are used for recreation. So like navigation information, it'll also have information about what areas have fishing restrictions. So if you're a fisherman, this one's for you. And those fishing restrictions are going to have to be updated in real time. It's going to take a minute though for this to actually exist because they have five years to make it happen. But in five years, you might have more information about where you can catch your fish. This was completely uncontroversial. It passed Congress without even getting a vote. Also passing unanimously was the Disaster-Related Extension of Deadlines Act. This is a tax change for people in disaster areas. And so basically, if the IRS postpones tax deadlines because of a disaster, that extra time is going to count when calculating how far back a refund can reach. And so basically, taxpayers in disaster zones aren't going to lose refunds just because payments were made before a delayed filing deadline. Again, completely uncontroversial, and now it's law. Another bill that didn't need any recorded votes was the Montgomery GI Bill Selected Reserves Tuition Fairness Act. This will be good for our veterans because this new law requires that the Department of Veterans Affairs disapprove courses of education provided by educational institutions that charge higher than in-state tuition for individuals utilizing veteran education benefits while living in the state where the education is located, regardless of the individual's state of residence. And so basically, this is a bill that's going to stop the screwing of veterans when they're trying to get educated. Everyone in Congress supported this and now it's law. And then from here on forward, I'm going to tell you about all the new laws that trash our environment So we have a new law called the Coal Industry in Montana Act This one kills a rule that was finalized in November of 2024 So this is a Biden years rule That would have protected 1,745,040 acres of land in Montana from the coal industry Now this one was a controversial bill It passed 211 to 208 in the House Just barely made it Every Democrat voted to protect the land in Montana from a polluting and dying industry, along with only one Republican, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Every other Republican was down for this. This is why I call them the party of pollution. Very similar situation in the Senate. It passed 50 to 47 over there. All of the yes votes, surprise, surprise, came from Republicans, and all the no's were Democrats and independents. But they're outnumbered, and so that's a lot now. Also law is a bill it's h res 105 if you want to look it up but this has to do with oil and gas in north dakota this is another regulation killer this one kills a rule that was finalized at the end of the biden administration again that would have prevented the oil and gas industry from developing and poisoning land in the process of land in north dakota with low potential for production it also would have limited new oil and gas leases to areas within four miles of existing minds. Very similar vote to the last one. It passed the House 215 to 11. Voting to pollute North Dakota was every Republican in the House, except for, again, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and every Democrat voted no. Over in the Senate, it passed 50 to 45, with every yes on polluting North Dakota being from a Republican, and every no was once again a Democrat or Independent. Also now law is H.R.E.S. 106, which had to do with 3.6 million acres of land in Alaska. This is another regulation killer that kills a rule finalized in November 2024 towards the end of the Biden administration that would have protected 3.6 million acres of land designated as of critical environmental concern in Alaska. but the Republicans in the House, except for Brian Fitzpatrick again, all voted to allow those 3.6 million acres in Alaska to be polluted. This one passed 215 to 210 because all of the Democrats, just like in the other cases, voted no. And this pattern is continuing in the Senate where it passed 50 to 46. Once again, all Republicans voted to poison Alaska and all of the Democrats and independents voted no. They also passed into law H.J. Res. 130. This has to do with coal mining in Wyoming. So this one kills a decision from the Bureau of Land Management, which was done again at the end of the Biden administration to stop future coal leases on Wyoming federal land This decision had been made after a lawsuit had ruled that the Bureau of Land Management and that Wyoming office specifically had to evaluate the climate impacts of federal coal leasing as a part of the requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act. But the Republicans in this Congress, in the party of pollution, killed that rule that complied with that court ruling. This one passed 214 to 212 in the House. You're going to know the pattern because all Republicans, except for Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted as if their campaigns are funded by fossil fuel interests. And every Democrat did not. Over in the Senate, it passed 51 to 43. All Republicans voted with the coal industry and against the courts and the climate. All Democrats and independents did not. And we got another one, folks. HJRes 131 was about oil and gas in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. This one kills another Bureau of Land Management rule from the end of the Biden administration that would have prevented 1.2 million acres of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge from being polluted by fossil fuels. This one passed 217 to 209 in the House. Once again, all Republicans except for Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania voted to pollute the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. But here's where the pattern broke. This time, three Democrats joined the party of pollution. Those Democrats were Jim Costa, who represents farms around Fresno, California, Vicente Gonzalez of oil-soaked South Texas, and Henry Culler, the guy that Trump pardoned in an attempt to get him to become a Republican, which in Trump's defense, this guy votes with Republicans all the time. And so with his record of corruption, like he would fit right in with the Trump people, but he's still technically a Democrat, but voting with the party of pollution on this one. But over in the Senate, the pattern that we've seen throughout this whole episode, it held, it passed 49 to 45. All Republicans voted with the fossil fuel polluters and all Democrats and independents did not. Sticking with polluting Alaska, there was also SJRES 80. This one had to do with the Alaska Petroleum Reserve. This one killed a Bureau of Land Management plan from 2022, way back in the Biden administration, that had closed almost half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to oil and gas leasing in order to protect wildlife and surrounding communities. Alaska's own senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, introduced this rule killer that will lead to less protections for Alaska's land, wildlife, and communities as a favor to the fossil fuel industry. This one passed the Senate 52 to 45, and John Fetterman joined the party of pollution this time in voting to allow more pollution in Alaska. But the rest of the Democrats and independents said no. Over in the House, this past 216 to 209, and the same three Democrats, Jim Costa, Vicente Gonzalez, and Henry Culler, they voted again with the fossil fuel industry to pollute Alaska along with all of the Republicans except for Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Now, at this point, I should be telling you about two more laws, but I'm not because President Trump vetoed two completely uncontroversial bills. No one saw this coming. And so let's examine what happened here because it was weird. So first we had H.R. 131, which was the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act. This passed the House and the Senate without a recorded vote. It was completely uncontroversial. And what it would have done is it would have facilitated the completion of a pipeline project to bring clean water to southeastern Colorado. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation called this pipeline a major infrastructure project that upon completion would provide reliable municipal and industrial water to 39 communities in southeast Colorado. And this project has been on the drawing board since the 1960s. It was designed to eventually stop groundwater withdrawals in the area, which can produce water tainted with high levels of salt and radioactivity. So there's no controversy here. And yet President Trump vetoed it. And so to find out why he did this, I looked at a letter that he wrote to the House, and he pointed to the history of the pipeline construction and argued that it dragged on for too long and had cost too much money. He said, quote, enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies. Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the nation, unquote. But the Congressional Budget Office estimated that this bill would only cost the federal government less than half a million dollars, with an M, not even a B. And so this clearly isn't about the cost. And so why did Trump veto it? Well, here is the speculation. The speculation is that President Trump is pissed about two things, and this veto was retribution against Colorado for them. So one, people believe that President Trump is pissed that Tina Peters is in prison in Colorado for trying to help him prove that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which it wasn't. But Tina Peters was the elected clerk and recorder of Mesa County, Colorado, and that county had made her the chief election official. That position gave her legal custody and responsibility over voting equipment, passwords, and security procedures. And a few months after President Biden was inaugurated, Tina Peters conspired to give unauthorized access to election equipment to some dude who then copied information about the voting machines, including sensitive security information. And then, of course, she obstructed the investigation after she got caught. This is audio of the judge in Tina Peters' case when he sentenced her to nine years in prison for what she did. I'm convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You're as defiant as a defendant as this court has ever seen. You don't have those histories of drug and alcohol abuse. There's no lifetime of trauma, not even close to the type of mitigating circumstances I would see from many folks who sit in that chair. No, to the contrary, Ms. Peters, you are a privileged person. You are as privileged as they come. And you use that privilege to obtain power, a following and fame. And to be sure, there's no doubt in my mind that that is exactly what you wanted. And it defies all sense of common sense to believe when you suggested to me a few moments ago that you didn't want this attention. No, you crave it, ma'am. And there is no one in this courtroom who would consider that to be anything other than the absolute truth. But to get to the point of what it is that you did here, it's my impression distinctly that you never took your job of clerking particularly seriously. You didn't complete the certification. One scandal after another followed you in your time as the clerk. And ultimately, it was a belief that the echo chamber in which you live couldn't be wrong, among other things, that led you to do what you did here. This thought process, unfortunately, seems to consume so many in our country, regardless of race, gender, political affiliation, or the like, that what it is we hear and think can't possibly be wrong. There are many things in my mind that are crystal clear about this case. You are no hero. You abused your position. And you're a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that's been proven to be junk time and time again. In your world, it's all about you. But at bottom, this case was about your corrupt conduct and how no one is above the law. No one in this country has absolute power. Your position as a clerk and recorder, a constitutional position, does not provide you with a means by which to do your own investigation, to not listen to the judiciary, to not listen to the executives higher than you, to not listen to the legislature who sets the law as it may be. This is nonsense. Our system of government can't function when people in government think that somehow, some way, the power they've been given is absolute in all respects. And that's where you fell. You have no respect for the checks and balances of government. You have no respect for this court. You have no respect for law enforcement. And you do not have respect for your fellow colleagues when you were a clerk and recorder who weren't lockstep in your beliefs. The person that the judge had that opinion of is the person that President Trump wanted to pardon. But she was convicted by the state. And so pardons only work for federal crimes. President Trump has absolutely no ability to pardon her in Colorado State. And so the theory is that his veto was a way of bullying or punishing Colorado on her behalf. But there's another person that this veto bullies and punishes, and that's the bill's author, Lauren Boebert. Now, Lauren Boebert is a Republican, but she voted to release the Epstein files, and Trump's veto denies clean water to her district. And so that looks like revenge to me and a lot of other people as well. The bill authorizing and funding the project passed, like I said, without a vote in either chamber. It had unanimous support. And so to override the veto, you need two-thirds of the members present to vote yes, which should have been easy since there was exactly no opposition to this bill. But when that vote happened, the House voted to sustain the veto. All Democrats voted to override the veto along with only 35 Republicans. 177 Republican sheep changed their votes and voted no because President Trump told them to. And the only people that are really going to suffer for that are the residents of Colorado who are not going to get clean drinking water. And then President Trump vetoed another uncontroversial bill. That was H.R. 504, the Muskokie Reserved Area Amendments Act. Now, this bill was written by a Republican backbencher named Carlos Jimenez of Florida. And this bill would have expanded the Muskokie Reserved Area to include a portion of Everglades National Park in Florida and would have required the Department of the Interior to provide structures within that because the Muskokie, it's a tribe within that tribe's new territory from flooding. In his letter explaining his veto, President Trump accused the tribe of, quote, seeking to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected, unquote. And so basically, he's pissed off that this tribe objected to the existence of Alligator Alcatraz, which was the inhumane detention center that was located near the Florida Everglades until a judge ordered it shut down. When this passed, like I said, in the House and the Senate originally, it received unanimous support. and so there should have been no problem overriding the veto. But the House sustained this veto too. 188 Republicans voted against a thing that they were unopposed to the month before to please their master Trump. Only 24 Republicans voted yes the second time. All right, so that's it for bills that became law and weird vetoes by President Trump. And so now let's look at the confirmations. And unlike in the last few episodes, I'm not going to get into too many of the confirmations because the patterns remained. We have people who are super anti-abortion that have been confirmed to the Trump administration. We have people with glaring conflicts of interest. And I will tell you about the worst of them that were confirmed in a batch of 97 people instead of getting their votes one by one. But I do want to tell you about four people because one of them got a vote on his own. And then the other three are just so conflict of interesty that they made my top three worst of the batch of 97. So first, let's look at the guy who got a vote on his own and who I think might be interesting to you. And that is Jared Isaacman, who is now our NASA administrator. And this is another billionaire confirmed to the Trump administration. What's interesting to me about him is that he's a private astronaut who purchased and flew on two SpaceX missions. And I'm worried here about privatization because SpaceX already has contracts for a lot of the tasks that NASA used to do in-house, but instead has already privatized. And this guy, Jared Isaacman, plans to accelerate Mars exploration, which is Elon Musk's wet dream. And as you know, he is the guy who started SpaceX and still profits from it till this day. And so I have concerns about Jared Isaacman's background in paying for private spaceflight and for basically saying he's going to go into NASA and do the things that Elon Musk wants to do. He makes me concerned that we are on a path for further privatization of that agency with him in charge. And that brings me now to the batch of 97. Isaac Mann was the only interesting person who got his own vote. Otherwise, the confirmations of most people in the month of December were done in this batch of 97, where 97 people were confirmed with one vote. And therefore, you can't really go by that vote to judge who supported these people and who didn't. basically the Republicans voted yes, the Democrats and independents voted no. And so let's just examine the three with the tallest red flags that got confirmed in this batch. So the first person I want to tell you about is a name that I actually recognized, and that's Robert Kadlec, who's now our Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Deterrence, Chemical and Biological Defense Policy and Programs. But I recognized his name from the first Trump administration because he was one of the Trump officials in charge of their COVID response at Health and Human Services, which, as we all remember, went fabulously. But like I said, he served in Health and Human Services at the end of the Trump administration. So during COVID, he actually served right until Trump was booted out of office, due in large part to his incompetence leading us through a pandemic that he repeatedly denied was even happening. But as for Robert Kadlec's role in that disaster, to be fair, he wasn't the absolute worst. Robert Kadlec played a central role in Operation Warp Speed, which is the name for the Trump administration's efforts to speed up development of the COVID vaccine. And let's be fair, it worked. But Robert Kadlec also did some shady shit with his power because of course he did. Because in the early months of the COVID pandemic, Robert Kadlec was involved in the awarding of a $628 million contract for vaccine production. This contract went to a company that had repeatedly failed federal inspections and wasn't approved by the FDA to do this kind of work, and which ended up producing contaminated doses of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca's vaccines. And in the end, nothing it produced was able to be used by American taxpayers, despite us paying them well over half a billion dollars. And so what does this have to do with Robert Kadlec? Well, before entering the first Trump administration, Kadlec was paid by that very company, it was called Emergent, as a consultant. And so the accusation is that Robert Kadlec helped funnel business to a company that was paying him personally in the private sector He used his power when he got it to give them money as a government official. And so it's kind of like, you know, a corrupt businessman in the Trump administration. I can't believe it. But the problem is he wasn't punished for doing all of this. And now he has a very similar position only in the Department of Defense. Because as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Deterrence, Chemical and Biological Defense Policy and Programs, that puts him in charge of our military's purchasing decisions in those areas, which means he gets to decide which companies get contracts. And so I guess we just have to hope that the companies that he was paid by lately are more competent than Emergent was. And another corrupt consultant that has now been confirmed to the Trump administration is Mindy Brasher. She's now our Undersecretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Now, Mindy Brasher, before this confirmation, was a Texas Tech University animal scientist and made many hundreds of thousands of dollars defending and consulting for big food companies, including Cargill, Purdue Farms, and Merck, which makes animal drugs. And now Mindy Brasher is in charge of policing the companies that made her personally wealthy. Her agency decides where our 8,000 food inspectors go, which problems get announced to the public in which businesses get shut down. But businesses don't seem to be too worried about her. Because when her nomination for the USDA position was announced, a lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association declared it as great news for us here in the industry. And that's probably because when that very industry sued ABC News for using the term pink slime, well, it was Mindy Brasher who was paid about a hundred grand to testify that pink slime is fine. It's beef. It's healthy. It's no problem. And her testimony helped the beef company secure a settlement that's been reported to be about $177 million. And so it appears to me that we have yet another industry fox in our government hen house. And that brings me to Doug Troutman. He is now our assistant administrator for toxic substances at the EPA, which makes him one of our top cops for chemical safety. But before getting that job, he was the CEO of the American Cleaning Institute, which is a lobbying organization that has a long history of fighting back against regulations of chemicals and which questions the science that finds that cleaning chemicals are harmful to our health. He became the CEO of the American Cleaning Institute after working there as a lawyer and a lobbyist for more than 17 years. And the pattern of industry guys being appointed by Donald Trump to police their own industries, it is so consistent at this point that it's starting to feel boring and redundant to even keep mentioning it. In fact, Public Citizen recently did the math and found that out of all 37 nominees to the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency who needed Senate confirmations, 25 of them, more than two-thirds, came from the industries they are now policing. And so that's what your Congress did in December. They made it less safe to fly. They They made it more likely that our environment will be polluted. They made it more likely that residents of Colorado will drink radioactive water. And they confirmed in a scandalous way, more industry moles into our government. Not great, Congress. Not great. So now I am really excited to tell you about our new executive producers because we have quite a few. and they sent in some really good notes this week. And if you're not in the know, executive producers are the people that are creating our most valuable episodes list. Every time you get an executive producer credit, you get to put your vouch on an episode, which moves it up that list. And I've got to say, I love that list because I really agree with it. But these people are putting their money into this show. They are literally producing these episodes. And so that's why I think their vouches are so valuable because these are the episodes that they have chosen to specifically pay for. And so first, I'd like to thank Sean Newman, who put his executive producer credit on Congressional Dish 330, which is Prosecutor Jack Smith's deposition episode. Really glad to see an EP on that one. I heard very little feedback from that episode. I didn't know if you guys liked it. And so, yay, it has an EP. I found it to be an interesting episode. And so thank you, Sean. I love sharing the byline with you on that one. That was its first executive producer credit. I'd also like to thank Brooks Rogers and that is a name that has been Dude, Brooks has been supporting this show since the very beginning It's very cool to see your name on this list And Brooks put a executive producer credit on 329 citizens detained and sent in a message He said hi, Jen. I know it's been a while since I communicated with you It has I feel like we used to chat back when I, you know responded to my emails But back to his note, he said i'm still paying just as close attention and I am more thankful for you than ever. I have not missed a single episode. I love the Last Week in Congress podcast and find them extremely useful. I believe I have an executive producer credit available and I want to put it on 329 Citizens Detained. It is exactly what I was watching for and it is critically important. Thanks again for all you do. I hope you remember that however silent we may appear for however long, there are people like me who appreciate you more than we can express. Thank you so much for saying that because that is something that I tend to lose sight over. I find that there are some people who comment on everything, which actually, I love that. It makes me feel very validated. And I tend to forget that I am one of those people who loves things and I never say a word to the people that create them. And so I know that you're out there. And so, Brooks, it is genuinely really cool to hear from you. And I also love that you put an executive producer credit on that episode because I also find it really important. And that is actually the fifth executive producer credit that went on that episode. What I find kind of funny about it is your name is the first out of all five executive producers, which is not anonymous which That is fascinating to me that more and more people want to be anonymous with their executive producer credits But on that episode in particular, like are we afraid of the trump administration? I mean, I get it. I'm putting my name on all this stuff and I I have some concerns Um, not enough to make me stop doing it but I do think it's interesting when you go to that episode, it's like four Anonymouses and Brooks Rogers. So it's me and you, Brooks, on that episode. But I don't mind the Anonymous. The Anonymous is a credit. It helps the episode move up the list. It doesn't matter. It's just the first time I've ever seen that many Anonymous credits on a single episode. But all of you who put your credits on that episode have made it the fifth most valuable episode on the list. So that moved up real quick. So thank you for doing that. Speaking of anonymous, we have two more anonymous executive producer credits. And there are two messages that go along with each of the credits. So the credit that I will tell you about first is one that's going to go on the 24th episode of Congressional Dish. That is old. And that one was called Let's Gut the Stock Act. And the message for that one says, I chose this episode because most valuable episodes should be recommendations for new viewers. And I think this one is just that great for anyone new to the show. The episode covers the passing of a bill for increased transparency to congressional stock trades and their overlooked but shockingly blatant removal of one of the key provisions. It is short, sweet, and impactful. It's an episode I point to as to why I listen to the show. I don't think people understand how impactful that episode was to me. It was the 24th episode. And before that, I wasn't sure I had a podcast here. But watching that, which I still consider a scandal happen, seeing that it was covered by damn near no one, and it's still reverberating to this day, that action, because as we know, our members of Congress are trading stocks all the time and their reporting comes out so late to kind of be irrelevant in a lot of different ways. So I think that was a really impactful episode, but that was where I knew that I had something with Congressional Dish. It was a really, really important episode for the future of this show. So I think it's really cool that we have now a second executive producer credit on that one. So thank you. And this also tells me that our anonymous person here has been listening for a very, very long time because I think we recorded that one in 2013. In fact, I think it was the week of the Boston Marathon bombing, which would have been April of 2013, if I remember correctly. So yeah, that was a long time ago. But as for the second executive producer credit, that one went on Congressional Dish 319, Beware the Drones. And here's the message that went with that one. I chose this episode because drones are scary. They're a modern evolution in warfare that our legal system has not caught up with. This episode covers the glaring gaps in our laws and our readiness slash ability to respond to them. I think it's one of the more important episodes Jen has done recently, and I don't understand how it isn't on the most valuable episode. So I'm giving it my credit to get on there. Definitely give it a listen if you haven't. And I'm just going to pause this for a second. We actually talked about this in this episode. So I actually do recommend listening to that episode, even though this NDA gives those provisions, because in that testimony, they did talk about the nuances of what law enforcement wants, needs. It was a pretty in-depth conversation. And I think by listening to that episode, you might understand my conclusion a little better where I'm like, I think this blanket authority to do whatever is necessary might be too broad. And it is because of the testimony I heard in that episode. So I still think that's really relevant despite what we saw today in the NDAA. But back to the note, it says, I listen to Jen's show because I like learning what's going on in Congress. I think it's important and she does a great job with it. I definitely feel more informed and knowledgeable with what's going on. I also really like that she's transparent with her sources. That's phenomenal. I love, loved that. Now I know where to find bills and hearings on my own and I'm better at doing my own research. Good job, Jen. I love hearing that so much. Back to the note, she says, yep, she's biased, but she's pretty open about it. I like the honesty and frankly, I don't give a shit because I'm an adult capable of discerning data, forming my own opinion. Her base facts are correct, which is the main thing I care about. She tells news stories about things I don't typically hear, such as the right to repair and corporate junk fees. And when I do disagree with her, at least her takes are well-researched, logical, and I know where she's coming from because I can find it in her show notes. Plus, I've checked her sources on numerous occasions. It is accurate. So quit bitching, haters. I love this so much because I do wonder sometimes if the time and effort that we put into the show notes is actually being used by people. I think just for the credibility alone, it's worth the time and effort because if someone wants to check my work, I do make it easy. But I often wonder, does anyone ever do that? And so this is verifying that, yeah, people do. And the credibility that I was hoping to gain by doing so, it sounds like I have. And so these are really validating notes, you guys. Thank you so much for this. And thank you for the executive producer credits. That whole system is... I'm really, really happy with it. And I really love sharing some of the production credit with you guys. Speaking of production credit, I also want to thank Claire, my assistant. I want to thank Mike at Pro Podcast Solutions. I want to thank Mark at podcastbranding.co. I want to thank Lauren, who's my sister. She does the executive producer credits. I want to thank my dad, Nand Robin. They do my taxes. And I want to thank Brian Karras. He's our guardian angel. Thanks so much for listening. There's actually some really good hearings that are happening lately. So Marco Rubio testified this week. He is the reason we invaded Venezuela. So I really want to hear that testimony. If it's good, I'll make an episode out of it. There's also, we don't know if they're actually going to show up, but now that ICE is murdering people on the street, Republicans are starting to try to do some oversight of them. And there is at least requests for the heads of ICE to come to two different hearings. So we'll see if that actually happens. That would be in about mid-February. So we're starting to see some signs that there might be some oversight in this election year, which as you know, at the end of 2025, this is what I was saying I was expecting to see in 2026. So we might have some interesting episodes coming up, but also we had a bunch of funding happen. And so I'm gonna have to look through those funding bills and tell you about the dingleberries in there because as you know, if you listen to last week in Congress, we saw some opposition to the funding bills from Democrats and Republicans alike, which tells me that there's some secrets hitting in there. So I'm going to go and find those bodies and let you know what they did. So the January episode, that one might take me until the end of February because there's so much funding for me to go through. All right. So that's it. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon. Bye. We got a president who plays with the facts And then he waves a flag to cover his tracks As if a lie is alright In the end we'll justify the means Now we are so damn tired Of being lied to The polar ice caps aren't going away We don't think we can deny it Anymore You can't stick to your story If you think it lies But we're not keeping quiet Anymore We are so damn tired Of being lied to Government jobs consume the profits of the private sector. We don't think we can deny it anymore. You can stick to your story if you think it flies. But we're not keeping quiet anymore. Now we're not keeping quiet. These bills represent common sense, bipartisan solutions that actually solve problems.