Episode 709: Midrats 15th Anniversary Show with Claude Berube

Well you appreciate you and who will are with us live, I'd like to invite you to go ahead and find the chat room if you will have it on during the course of the show, and if you have an observation you want to share or even a question you want to address to the three of us, that's a great place to do because we'll be watching it during the course of the show and we'd love to take your ideas on board. And as always i'll do the

Aultar call. If you're with us live or you're new to mid Rats and you don't already, you can go over to iTunes, Spreaker, wherever you get your podcasts, look us up, find us and subscribe that way. If you can't join us live all the time, you can at least have us waiting for you when you have a time. Better of your convenience. And as I said, this is the sixteenth season. That means this is our fifteenth anniversary show,

and it's amazing how fast time flies. And I couldn't think of a better way to have the fifteenth anniversary show then to bring on somebody that is as responsible or at fault as marking myself for mid Rats. And he really needs no introduction for the regulars. But if you want to know all the publicly available details about our guests, it will be on the show page and you can go click and all his good stuff there.

But he's not just a friend of the show, but he's a personal friend to Mark and I a great author and a great company as well. Claude Barribey, Claude, thank you very much for helping us to share our fifteenth anniversary show together.

think I've heard one gotcha question. And you guys ask some solid questions, some broad based questions, and let the let the authors answer it. I think it's the same way that Brian Lamb used to do his interviews for book notes. And I appreciate that because you hear from the experts.

help myself. But in preparation for the fifteen year fifteenth anniversary show, you know you and I, you know, we talked a few months ago about blogging and writing online and a lot of the players, like the folks we have here, are still added after a couple of decades, I went, you know what about on the podcasting point of view? And well, first of all, when you if you go to AI Grock and open AIS chat GPT, you have to remind them because they'll say, oh, the

longest military related podcast. It's not a History podcast started twenty eighteen. Just you give him a problem, you sure you don't want to look deeper. And if you're looking at a podcast that has gone uninterrupted, we are the longest national security podcasts, which pret a little feather here. I guess we're just obstinate and pernicious about wanting to

talk about the things we're passionate about. But when I was looking at it, that was twenty ten when Mark and the late Raymond otherwise z Owes is colern to a lot of folks and we started chatting here and you can find those they're all available online.

narrowed environment and sources that they could dive into. And here we find ourselves, you know, thirty years later from nineteen ninety five. And it's not just people who are writing individually online. There's online newspapers almost there's lots of War on the Rocks is one example. Places that have lots of sources that you can dive into, quasi official ones like the Modern War Institute, which I think the Modern War Institute's spear started in twenty twelve, about two

years after we did. I think they're the second longest running one continuously. And some people say there's too many places to get information. I don't think so, but that just in our adult part of our adult experience, it's amazing the amount of information that is available there and almost real time, concerning national security and defense issues. And I'm curious causes somebody who has seen this from not just a consumer but a producer. You've run a couple

of podcasts, you've got a new one coming up. You've a prolific author and a writer online, but you're also a consumer, and you have worked on the political side of the spectrum and the official DoD side of the spectrum as an Intel officer. Yeah, look at that thirty year thirty year spread. You know, how do you see that with all those little hats that you wear in your life.

it's trying to sift through that. I think the way the national security ecosystem for all of this information has played out is directly proportional to how the legacy media has played out the past thirty years, along with how you have this proliferation of media, and we have to ask ourselves get back to the question of what is the media? Well, how do you define media? Is it simply CBS ABC In a new generation? It then became

including CNN and MSNBC and Fox. And then you have this era of all of these outlets as the Internet provided outlets for them, Social media provided outlets, websites, blogs, and I wrote about this the year I think it was a year before midrat started and it was an article I wrote called shoot with the Navy can Handle the Truth creative friction, I think, sorry, it's been a while since I wrote it.

to provide their expertise. Example, Dan Rather, I had a piece on President George W. Bush and a supposed letter that was detrimental regarding his National security National Card Service, and all of a sudden, I think it was a blogger who had this one expertise, and his expertise was historical scripts or fonts.

he was completely outside of the system. I mean, remember when he was writing anonymously, people thought he must have been some current or active or retired captain based on his knowledge and the questions he was going at. But Raymond had this incredible ability to sort through the that was often sent out by different outlets and get to basic questions. And he would ask these these incredibly insightful questions and then provide an analysis based on what he saw.

That's the upside. The downside is, and I'm speaking from my historian's cap here, I in one hundred years, it's very unlikely people will know about this. Here's why you and Mark and I probably remember driving cars that had eight track cassette players. Well, even if you get an eight track tape today, if you know what it is, you may not be able to find a player, or if you do, it's going to chew up your tape. In the same way, we think that everything that is

going online today will be available in the future. So unless you have hard copies like the New York Times. I like the New York Times. I have a subscription because of the archive archival material available. It is a record for one hundred and sixty seventy years now. There are a few places like that that still print and

that will be accepted into, say the Library of Congress. However, places like Galaron's website Information Dissemination, which had rich analyzes that was often counter to what was being submitted or promulgated by the Pentagon and other Navy adjacent organizations. His work may be lost to history, and I think the democratization is also a tragedy in that way from the future understanding our era better.

I don't know if if people just you know, they're going to tune into the things they want to listen to. And sometimes, you know, you you don't read the some some newspapers because they don't agree with you politically, and you're you know, you just can't stomach of reading them. But I'm pretty sure people will listen to different podcasts based on their own biases and all that, and that to me is, you know, that's one of the benefits, except that we don't always know. What we don't know

is to paraphrase one of our firm I guess. So the good news is that you get immediate feedback and a lot of these on a lot of these other channels. So if you make a if you make a bonehead mistake on a blog post, just often somebody will point it out right away to you. Or if you do that on X god forbid, you don't just get one

person giving you feedback. And I'll use the example of the mat Gets misspelling or misusing the word Marshall when he was talking about the imposition of martial law somewhere. You know, he got lasted for that. And I don't know him at all, and he may maybe he just is totally uneducated. But you know, that kind of feedback is something that the mainstream media did not get and

hasn't gotten used to. So I think that that is an aspect of the current media, which is this electronic The speed with which it can be things can be fixed, corrected, adjusted, and the truth can be gotten out, I think is really important in terms of where the media is going. I think a lot of the things that we've discussed over the years, everything from shipbuilding to the right of China. You know, a lot of that wasn't getting reported by

the people that were like the Washington Post. I don't think they were really covering what China was up to, you know, ten fifteen years ago, like we were.

or their wives. That's why, in a way we are in a dark age or what may be in the future referred to as a dark age of information, because everybody's texting each other. Those things are not person Well, I'm sure there's some people who preserve those things, but those will not necessarily be preserved and available for future generations.

So you don't know how people are interacting, who they're interacting with in a way that you could literally going back to the qunea form and the people using vellum and quills and every other device you had. To your other point about the availability of expertise, yeah, I agree. I think, especially with the early Navy bloggers, you had people who were are experts in a way that somebody from the Washington Post, unless they were a naval officer

or a Marine officer, wouldn't be able to understand. They might not understand the questions or the nuances about a ship or aircraft. So in that way, it's extremely helpful to have these podcasts and these websites where the experts are talking and explaining things, you know, folding right into

that and where I think it has become what for a lot of us was either just a hobby or our therapy and writing has become essential.

There were some people and they were a minority, who got energized about it because they couldn't micromanage every two seconds, but it really showed our sailors in a great light. One of those things similar. It'd be great to have had a similar crew on board the Eisenhower the last year with Captain Hill as the CEO. He was really active. He kind of did it himself to show our sailors, and when you do that, it always turns out really well.

But something has changed back to when we had the embeds back in two and three, things started to retreat from the general space. And I remember, I know y'all have had similar experiences working both directly and indirectly with public affairs officers, either in an official or unofficial way, and I am willing to put a stake in the ground that two of the best people that I saw

on how they productively. When I defined productively, it is not productively for me, it's productive for the Navy productively interfaced with both traditional and also new people in the information space. That was Chris Servello and it was Charlie Brown, and those two people had an interesting intersection where I kind of draw the line where something happened. I would love to see the email exchange and the memorandums it took place. But in the transition from CNO. Richardson to CNO. Gilday,

there was that whole experience with Admiral Moran. Charlie Brown was was pretty well engaged in the open on this. But after that experience, that's when a lot of the doors and the culture which had already been narrowing, really started to narrow. And you know, Claude, from your perspective, which is different than ours, I mean, I don't want to speak for Mark either. He may have a different take on this, but at least for me, is that

a fair observation? And how have you seen how pos have changed, not just from the three Invasion but let's just put a mark in the ground when we started the podcast in twenty ten, because it really really has gotten gotten more difficult, especially in the last five years.

there and organizations which have corporate communications officers. You have a brand, you have messaging for that brand, and you have marketing for that brand. The last thing you want to do is taint the brand, and so your messaging and your marketing is going to reflect that. So I have to wonder, with all the issues that were happening in the past sixteen fifteen years in the Navy, whether that was reflective of a greater proportion of major issues.

You look at the Fat Leonard scandal, for example. I took a look at how various outlets were portraying or not reporting on the Fat Leonard scandal. I mean, if you're an entity that accepts corporate sponsorships, and part of that has to do with retired flag officers, are you going to be reporting on Fat Leonard in the same way that say, an article might appear in SIMSEK And I don't think that's the case. They're not going to

talk about something negative. I mean, I've got, you know, a pile of emails and other things over the years where a message from a Navy organization was completely false and so and that went out to the media, and you know I had the evidence. No, no, this is absolutely not true. And you just have to, I think, in a way accept that because if you look at the media, whether it's the legacy media of the past, you know, fifty years or take newspapers of the eighteen thirties.

I'm pretty familiar with those from my PhD, where he had Jacksonian and anti Jacksonian papers. The Jacksonian papers weren't going to say anything negative about Jackson, and the anti Jacksonian papers weren't going to say anything positive about Jackson. And I think it's simply the same case today with whatever kind of organization you have you're not going to

see that. And that's why even I who as a kid, when the afternoon paper would come in, you know, and after my buddies and I had got been all playing football or baseball or whatever season it was ice hockey, I'd actually read the paper because I was kind of, you know, interestedly what's going on. I don't do that as much today. Part of the reason is because I have to start questioning and okay, well, who owns this

and this. In the case of Maine, for example, we had the largest paper of Portland's Press Herald, which still exists, and at the time, let's see Shelley, Congressman Pingree's been in for I think twenty years as a member of Congress. Well, our husband, a billionaire, owned the Portland Press Herald. So you knew that anything coming out of the Portland Press Herald was going to be positive or at least not

negative to Congresswoman Pingree. So what you're starting to see even in this state today, the local papers aren't covering certain issues, they're not doing investigative journalism, and so it's the rise of these outside entities that are trying to do it. As media influencers. I think I'm not sure that's probably what we're seeing today with the Navy as well. You're not going to see a recruiting ad for the Navy that says, oh, hey, join us. You know we

really let us tell you about Fat Leonard. Now you're going to show football helmets and in the sky and you know, a ship going off to war. You're not going to talk about the negative. And I think as long as you understand where they're coming from, you can fat. You can look at alternate media outlets.

distressed of the media grew. That went through a whole generation or maybe two generations of people until Desert Storm when they began to embed reporters. You know, that works pretty well and as fine and dandy as long as the stories are good. But then you get you know, the concerns. You get an Abu grab or a or a you know, another Negati story, and all of a sudden, all these it's like turtles, you know, they had their heads stuck out, and all of a sudden they go

back into full retreat. And then they only want to have good news. And then you see things like the classification of the Inserve reports. You see that that they don't want any negativity. So you you you get, uh, we don't get necessarily accurate stories about what the problems

are with say the paint on navy ships. I mean, I would like to have CNO or the NAVCI or some of the condes says, yeah, we're restricted in their use of quality paint because of you know, the the ecological people that the say we can't use this stuff we were using because it hurts the environment. I mean, you know, I just that kind of of honesty, and I you know, you worry. I worry. I look at things like the the tilt rotor aircraft and nobody thinks

they're safe, but they're gosh, we're still flying them. And I'm wondering, you know what General or admiral is going to stand up and say, uh, after we lose another one of those things and kill thirty or forty people. Uh you know, yeah, we knew that was bad, but we you know, needs of the needs of the service, we we have to kill a few every now and then just to just to make sure we're going to go for right. That is the you know that that is That's That's where I get stuck with this stuff.

I want. I want the honesty, you know that an acknowledgement that Fat Lenard happened. But I also want the accountability. You know that the people that that were responsible Fat Leonard ought to be publicly humiliated of nothing else. And uh, you know we're not doing that kind of thing. So who's responsible for the for the failures of the lcs?

You know, where's the accountability for that? Who's responsible for the changes to the constellation class free it that are causing it not to be being produced as rapidly as it should, you know, and we could that kind of cycle is where we I think we lose by not having honest information.

And you know, I find that to be really an appalling job when you get down to it.

that exposed serious challenges with the program. And how long did it take for whether it was GEO or CBO or CRS to start looking at this seriously? And then did the Navy ever really acknowledge? I think quietly they acknowledged because they started decommissioning, you know, one of the class of lcs. But when you have an organization that is so focused on a positive brand, nobody else is

ever allowed to critique that brand. And what happens is they either deny something exists or they attack the messenger. We see this in politics as well, certainly, and I think the result is that there is a consequential lack of self awareness and self critique, and consequently there is an inability and there's a difference between critique and criticism.

You always want to reevaluate to see if you're on track, and if you take that out of the process, then you have an inability to improve or innovate, you know, And I think that's a danger. That's a flaw that we've had for going on probably fifteen or twenty years now, is that we are not allowed to critique anything coming

out of official word. So you're seeing from a national perspective, outside of national security, a fundamental distrust of media that has according to their own polls, you know, ninety seven percent of one party and things that were said that were completely untrue. And then you start to look at what's happening in the defense world is how much can we rely on the individuals. So what you do is you look at the people who are really good. You know,

I think of somebody like Chris Cavis. I would if there was an article positive or negative from Chris Cavis on an issue, I would listen to him because I think he has experience, he has authority, and he's an honest broker and that's really and he knows he really knows his stuff. I mean, Chris is just amazing when you know, I haven't talked to Chris in the ages now, but he knows the Navy, unlike probably most ninety nine

point nine percent of people. And so you look for the people who are telling the truth on issues.

and it's disheartening. And you have that culture of untruth when it comes to you know, what we try to do here with with our writing and our podcast is you know you mentioned Chris Cavis, which he's great if you talk to one on one because his personality is has the rough edges burned off of it, but he

does his official stuff the same way. He's merciless. And that is one thing about this information space is when you're looking for information, if if somebody like if I put something out there that by an honest mistake, I get something wrong. You know, the SB twenty two has four tilt rotors. People go, no, you idiot, it is too and I go, oh, it's the type of that's my excuse. Anyway, there's a lot of self policing that goes on, especially when there are bad faith actors out there.

That information might get out there that's from a bad faith actor or somebody who is not telling the truth. But then there are eight or nine people with a much larger whether individually or cumulative, public exposure, who'll come out and correct it, either nicely or with a with a bat to the forehead and.

But the New York Times is underwritten by some some billionaires. The Washington Post is owned by what some people are

calling a look art pretty close. You know, you have these large people owning these traditional institutions, and you also have I wrote an article a couple of years ago about the failure of the institutions, and you can see that a lot of the institutions that have been around a long time in the military information space, they tried and have tried to put their toe in the water in a more open You mentioned SINSEC that they've had a few challenges recently as they've tried to get the

right people to give a sustained effort. But it'll right itself. That's a good example. I mentioned War on the Rocks, which is more of a commercial operation, but there's a broad spectrum of discussion there at War on the Rocks.

But our traditional institutions they've stuck their toe in the water and then have either backed out or it produces something that is so not effective that it really doesn't break above the background noise because they just they just for whatever reason, can't can't get that when you do look at it, And a lot of the stuff in the press too, you have to ask questions because you have every time you step off the Pentagon Metro, you've

got Lucky Martin bowing, somebody's trying to sell you something. But when you grab a lot of the traditional institutional publications and organs and activities sponsored by and there's been a lot of discussions recently in a different sector of our economy about the influence of AG business on a lot of the Sunday morning talk shows and other coverage and how that and how they've influenced the USDA and government nutritional So influence is real when that money goes

in there. When you pick up a when you pick up a publication or whether online or on dead Tree, and you're reading something and you look up at, oh, this is sponsored content. So that is something that I think it's a good check as best as we can. And Mark was spot on about bringing away the unclassified insert.

We don't have many checks, but this is a system that's developed over time that is even going around the government and the traditional institutions, and it has the way to break news because people will reach out to folks that have podcasts. You know, Ward Carerols has has got a great aviation podcast. Salamar Cogliano a huge reach. I think.

I think the knowledge of civilian mariners in the Merchant Marine by Salama Cogliano on YouTube, he's tripled or quadrupled it amongst decision makers simply because he decided to jump into space. And his information is good, and his information that is reliable and presentable, and it's presentable. And when I look, when I'm trying to look at, you know, fifteen years from now, what will things look like in

the defense base, the future is disaggregated. I don't see how you go back to that old model where if you were the somebody on the joint staff that needed to get a word out to the media, you made five or six phone calls and that's all you had to do.

not have advertising during the show. We would now have sponsors, and you know, that's probably cost us who knows how much money over the years, but we've never had to cowtow to a sponsor or pretend or towe some line that they would demand that we toe, so you know, and I don't know how that's going to work in the future because everybody seems to be monetizing everything online

as fast as they can. But I think it's important right now, and then they have somebody who doesn't really have to bend over to a power that can make or break them financially.

I really think you guys ought to work with them because they are into something and it was completely dismissed. They say, oh yeah, this will you know, fade away. It's online, it'll be a go gone in a year or two. And here they are still going strong now. I hope that future junior officers also participate in SIMSEK because they aren't bound by somebody. They can put something

out there and they're responsible. You know, there's been a lot of changes in leadership, but I don't think at any time SIMSEK has been irresponsible in what they've put out online. And they've done so independently. And when you bring money into a situation, whether that is a media organization, a newspaper or a post or Portland Press Herald, or an organization that covers navy issues, there are going to be questions. And I want to I also want to

add Selma Cogliano. Here's here's somebody. I think salas over three hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. It's probably more. I haven't checked in about a month or two, but Sal's ability to connect with viewership is really important. Sal could put out the same kind of information and it could be dry and nobody would listen to it or watch it. But it's Sal's personality that really helps drive that. And in the same way I think it's a positive, it's

also a negative. And here's why you all remember h ros Buo. You know he when he left the race in I think in June or July nineteen ninety two

as an independent, he was leading the candidates in the polls for a short time and his movement couldn't continue without him. Most political movements fade away after the individual who has been driving it go away. And Sal has done such a great job, and you got guys like John Conrad who's done g Captain. They've both presented this information that is now available to legacy media. So that BBC,

I know, has called on Sal. In fact, they called me on an issue about a year or two ago and I said, no, no, no, the person you want to talk to here, you either call Sal or John. John Conrad said, these are the experts. So the expertise is getting out there. The hope is that there will be people after them who follow them, who can do the

same thing. And I again say this to both of you guys, and whether it's worn the rocks or information dissemination, we've got to find a way that this counter, these arguments, or these checks and balances in media are not lost to history, because otherwise the only thing we're going to be left with is the official word, and that's the last thing you should.

people running running that organization. These are the board of directors or the whoever was in charge of and uh, you know, those those controversies that caused them to be disinvited were the same controversies that are occurring today in the in the in the public forums about matters that are pertained to how we treat people in this country and and how we deal with the issues of excuse me, my dog has discovered somebody out in my front door.

Uh anyway, Yeah, so I think that you know that is that really concerns me, that that people were getting disinvited from participating in the activity of that of that one of the activities of that institution on the basis of opinions they expressed. You know, somebody could have argued against them, rather than just saying we don't want your kite here anymore.

or two issues. I think it's important to not attack the messenger, listen to what is being written about, and encounter that if you so choose. I think that is one of the beauties of having you know, back when you guys had blogs, you had comments sections, and somebody could call you out on you know, hey, this is absolutely incorrect, and here are the reasons why that is really important, because then you reach out to two folks.

I know, I've I know, I've had this on usually you may I've done I've been doing substack now for about six seven months. But elsewhere where somebody said no, no, no, here's what you got wrong. And I always try to make a correction on Twitter or Blue Sky saying hey, look here's what I wrote. I didn't know X so or not exits in Twitter, but X as in Y xyz,

I didn't know X at the time. I am deleting my message as a result of not having that knowledge or being corrected, and that the information should be out there. So that's really important. I think that whether it's the blogg of sphere or what came after, is there is, Marcus, as you suggested, a self correcting ability something you don't

see in legacy media overall. You know, my mother was in politics for thirty years, and if there was a correction to something that they got wrong that she pointed out, you wouldn't see that on page one anymore. You'd see it on page B seventeen. That's just how things go.

a question and I will point them elsewhere. And this is something that's begin from the start, because when Mark and I started blogging back in two thousand and four, it was a fairly it was a fairly small group. And the one thing that was so good about it is somebody, would, you know, ask me a question that

was outside my area of expertise. So if it was an aw question, I was like, hey, go talk to Will Dawzel over Steel Jawscribe, or I would get an email from lex Lefon of Neptunius Lexus like hey, I just wanted to let y'all know this is going on. What do you think? And we would balance off each other and would collaborate, and you come up to today and you still see that there's not a competitive There

isn't I'm going to hide things. It's an interesting culture that I think is why it's a little more nimble, it's a little more productive and interesting than some of these false starts, more controlling organizations have had. Is the fact that if you let the ecosystem work and such that you know, this person right here is unreliable because they don't do like Udoo Claude and say, hey, I described the two two they're wearing as blue. They're actually

wearing a pink one. So I've corrected the record and I'll find a more accurate picture. That type of thing, that type of self correcting that goes on here produces a better and more nimble product that I don't think you see in a lot of institutions because they did don't want to have a mistake because then that makes them them look bad as opposed to hey, you know,

this is something that's easily corrected. And I think that also is part of a culture going forward fifteen years from now that I think is going to continue because

of that feedback loop. It's I know that all of us interface with people. For instance, I'll use somebody who's been in my comments section since two thousand and four, two thousand and five, A Byron. He has a multi decade experience as a shipfitter, and I would make some comment about a ship or a construction, and he would sometimes he's in me an email. A lot of times he put me on report right in the comments section.

And that's okay because you need correct things, and you know you will hear things, and you'll call folks in industry who you've been communicating with for a while and they will they'll either say, yep, that's a valid concern, or you might want to give so and so a call. There's a lot in this environment, in the podcasting world and the blogging world and those that are influencers over

in social media that cross pollonization. It's really really, I think, a lot more active then the consumers might be aware of. And they should be comfort in that because it's I know, I've been called out by people that I respect a lot,

and I've tried to nudge people as well. It's a very active and welcome way that kind of a little bit of anarchy organization has taken place, and I think that part of it at least continues to get better as we've had some some newer players come into the information space to replace those that have gone to find other things to do with their time.

that which is is heavily edited. I I post. I think War on the Rocks and when Strategy Bridge was out, they had the best editing processes. They were ruth I was just say ruthless. From a writer's standpoint, they're ruthless, but from also from a writer's point, I was like, you're the other right. You always listen to your editors, and I've always listened to the editors of Strategy Bridge and War on the Rocks. And it goes to show

that online sources can be serious and credible. And I think the fact that Simpsex does this I now edit for Simsek, the fact that Warn of the Rocks has done this, the fact that you guys have been corrected in your comments shows more of a seriousness and accountability in a way that print media often can't be or won't be.

totally disagreed with the official line. And it's that kind of thing that that is really worthwhile in in in the kind of thing we're doing now, we are also getting. The good news is we're getting a lot of people in I don't know how often it happens to sal but we we get questions from people who are in positions and the government stuff who are interested in what

we have to say. So we've you know, we we want to get and hope to get you know, some of these political guys on the show to about what they want to talk about, as you know, we don't. You know, we're not a gotcha show. They get the hour to talk just like everybody else. I think we've only had in the history of the show, we've only had one guest that we thought, is this guy ever going to stop talk?

also more importantly, what influence does it have? And this is something I've looked at over the years off and on about how magazine article. You know, you always as a writer, you want to have some sort of influence, but I don't know. I don't know what real effect things have. I know in the past that I said that they probably did, but in reality, some articles, whether they were mine or somebody else's, I don't know if

they did. And it would be an interesting PhD dissertation for somebody to be able to try to tie actual articles with results, whether that's the way something has really changed, not the way that you're saying that things have changed, but the way that it really happened at a much deeper level than just you know, doing your your helping your own brand.

and you're off and running. And so people reach out to us, and there have been a couple of things that have come up that have come to me that I've gone, hmmm, this is something that if it needs to come out, it probably be best if it didn't come from me. And you know, this is where the quote legacy or the mainstream media comes comes into play. And you mentioned Chris has been in this information. Chris Cavis has been this information for a long time. I

know other people have done this too. I have back probably two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, Lex and I did this together and said, nah, neither one of us should do this. Let's give it to this person, not Chris, just so I want to intentionally get them in trouble. But you can hand those off to people in legit. You can pick up the newspaper or the magazine at whatever newstand might still exist, or it shows up in the ap and stuff, and you kind of

keep it to yourself. But I know I'm not the only one that's done that. A lot of the guys in the space have done that, and in a way it's almost a I hate to call this the minor leagues. But there are ways that when important things do come up that might now have come up otherwise into large

exposure media that do via these new avenues. Because whether you're talking about comment section or you can have without too much specificity, you can have worker bees or even middle management bees who have tried to affect change internally and they can't, So they affect change x eternally, whether that is a policy or if that's an activity that

might not otherwise be seen. And that's I think another very healthy in a free society mechanism that this media that we've watched grown over the last fifteen years is really really valuable. One podcast Geopolitics Decanted from Silverado. That guy has a great podcast. He doesn't come out and put out information as much as I wish. That's something else that is in the national security arena. That's a

must listen to listen podcasts for me. And there's information that's come out from him, especially concerning Russia and the Russia Ukrainian World War, but also in the Middle East that might show up in the Atlantic a year from now. You might find in Foreign policy, cut by an editor by a third and interviews, some play that you would

never see anywhere else. So I think that this medium is just going to get going to get better as people with that type of knowledge based background bring on some really informative players into the space that hopefully is getting in the ears of people that have their hands on the levers of power. Yeah.

Capitol three times over the past thirty odd years. The second time I worked up there, I remember working there was an MLA from another Senate office, a military legislative assistant who was much older than me, and an op ed had come out about something that his office and my office were both dealing with, and I went over and chatted with him over a drink and I said, Hey, what do you think about this? And he gave me a very valuable lesson. He says, look at who wrote this. Yeah,

it's a think tank, but who paid him? This guy is notorious for being paid to write op eds, so you even even folks on the hill have an understanding that you have to understand who is credible and who isn't. And I just think that's that's really important to understand.

what would otherwise be a rather limited database. So that's that's one of the benefits of being a host or a or they get the asked the questions on the on a on a show like this is you do have to do the research to make it so that you know, you don't come across as a complete doofiss, which only happens about eighty percent of the time.

I think it was a real call. At the time, Hill didn't exist. I don't think until money three or so. I may be wrong, but they'd send it to the washing Post somebodys, hey, did you see this thing from X y Z trade publication, and then it becomes a story that you've actually initiated. I think after so many years, that's that's why you can be so cautious about what

you're seeing and who's putting out information. And that's why I think that you know, a program like this is important because you guys aren't working on behalf of nefarious elements or positive elements. You're just asking simple questions of the folks who come on. You can agree with those folks or not. I mean, they're people that I've learned a lot from over the years on Midrants and there are a couple that I knew that were you know,

Baghdad bobbing the whole situation. Yeah, we've had some interesting characters along the way, and you've been one of those interesting characters, but in a good way. From our first year what we've kept. Thank you for an hour, Claud. And now that you've relocated from Maryland to Maine, we know that you're just not spending all your time finding different ways to cook Labster.

single digits for free? But the places we'll say. I've got a chapter in a volume about star trek and leadership that's going to be published we think later this year from an academic publisher, and that's going to be comparing Starfleet Academy to the Naval Academy of the positives and the negatives. I'm working on an article right now about naval education reform and why it can't happen. The

book I'm working on now just started researching. It is on the Navy and the Pacific factors of victory for World War Two, and it's the nineteen thirty nine to forty one era. And I'm also starting a new Senate podcast, sorry, a new podcast called the Senate. It will be up and running later this month. I'm just in negotiations right now actually with an entity that I just wanted to

wait until I had that. But that'll be a weekly podcast, not on politics, but on policies, the history, the procedures of the Senate and sort of demystify the organization and inform people in a way that isn't partisan and what we've become accustomed to over the years. Sorry, those are some of the projects that I'm working on. Are you going to buy the street Fighter? That's the question all of us want to know. Sea Fighter FS one. I cannot comment on that on air, but there's something I'm

actually working on if if it is available. Uh, I'm really hoping it's I'm really hoping now that it's off the Naval Vessel Register, that I can do something for a particular entity and we'll see.