Left Face

On this midterm edition of Left Face, Dick and Adam recap election night and what it felt like on the ground, from the Democratic Party watch party in Colorado Springs to watching the returns come in from D.C. They go through the Colorado results, including the CD5 count, the CD4 and CD3 races, and the down-ballot wins in the state legislature, then widen out to Texas, Michigan, Kansas, Iowa, Georgia, and the ranked choice count still underway in Alaska. They also cover how Republicans responded, with Trump’s reaction and JD Vance’s quick pivot to blaming the war in Iran. Looking ahead, they discuss the fight over the speakership, impeachment talk, Schumer and Jeffries, war powers, and the close results on Propositions 134 and 135. The episode opens with an original poem, “Ode to Democracy,” and closes with a message to newly elected Democrats: this is not the time to fumble.

With the midterms days away, Adam and Dick walk through how to get a ballot counted in Colorado: use drop boxes instead of the mail, register and vote in person on Election Day if needed, sign up for ballot tracking, and answer the calls if you’re on the cure list. They also discuss the CD5 race, including the national forecasts, the shift in ad spending between the Crank and Killen sides, and why Dick’s own Falcon state house district has no Democrat on the ballot.The middle of the show covers the rally circuit, including Trump’s Ohio stops, a speaker at Ramaswamy’s rally attacking Al-Sayed, and a viral Fox News interview from a North Carolina rally. They also cover Colorado’s standoff with federal poll watchers and the claims circulating about voting machines and canvassing boards. Dick then makes the case against the phrase “common sense” in politics, and they close on the two Dan Sullivans on Alaska’s Senate ballot and what ranked choice voting does to that story.

Adam and Dick open with Hormuz Watch. Oil still isn’t flowing, Houthi ballistic missiles hit the Riyadh airport, and the U.S. is pulling diplomats and some embassy-duty Marines out of Saudi Arabia. They also cover Trump’s repeal of the Russian energy sanctions, the planned trilateral talks with China and Russia, and reports that new strikes on Iran are being telegraphed for after the midterms.Then they cover the DOJ’s recent actions. The raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, the Virginia state senator investigation, and the Corey Lewandowski probe all raise questions about whether the unwritten rule against charging candidates near an election is gone. They also touch on the press secretary’s bar-passage controversy.The back half goes local. With about two weeks until the election, they discuss the internal poll putting Killen at 46 to 44 in CD5, the yard-sign energy in Falcon, and the 2024 HD16 race decided by three votes. They also look at the tight Colorado Senate majority, the CD4 race against Boebert, and why returning your ballot early gets you off the canvassing list.

Twenty days before the election, Adam and Dick start with a Halloween song and work through a heavy news week. They cover the decision not to stream an upcoming execution, and the school shooting in Bend, Oregon, where a parent with a concealed weapon stopped the attacker. They discuss why the shooting doesn’t settle the gun policy argument and what practical gun safety measures could look like with so many guns already in circulation.Then they turn to the midterms: the House looking likely to flip, competitive Senate races in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, Musk’s spending on the Paxton side in Texas, and the Talafrico nickname. Adam recaps the Ballots and Brews event at Cerebus and where El Paso County Colorado Progressive Veterans goes after Election Day, including legislation for Colorado veterans.The Hormuz Watch looks at what Congress could do about the Iran war after the new session begins in January, including a war powers approach and how the courts might respond. The episode closes with RFK Jr.’s comments on the Pennsylvania measles deaths, his shift on vaccines, and the large new MMR and autism study.

Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson record a late-night edition of Left Face. They start with the federal government’s plan to execute Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, by firing squad and to live-stream it. Both hosts, who were serving at the time of the attack, say they won’t lose sleep over Hasan’s sentence. They argue that broadcasting it turns a forgotten murderer into a terrorist recruiting tool and the martyr he said he wanted to be.Next, they cover ICE activity in Colorado Springs, including a child pulled from school after her parents were detained, and an ICE shooting during a traffic stop in New York City with a five-year-old in the car. That leads into a ballot question on local police cooperation with ICE. Dick explains where he draws the line between jail handoffs and following local police around.Hormuz Watch looks at the U.S. buying Russian oil despite laws barring it, Rep. Adam Smith raising impeachment, Houthi strikes reaching Riyadh, a sitting senator denied access to U.S. bases in the region, and a CNN report on Hormuz traffic that didn’t match the ship trackers.They close with the CD5 race between Rep. Jeff Crank and Jessica Killen as it turns negative, and with Progressive Veterans knocking doors for veteran candidates Mike Pearson in HD 22 and Michelle Tweed in HD 21.

Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson start with the congressional hearing featuring former special counsel Jack Smith. They argue it was performative clip-hunting ahead of the midterms that buried what Smith actually said about January 6th. They also cover the senator whose "gotcha" text messages fell apart when it came out that Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game, not in Atlanta.Most of the episode breaks down Secretary Hegseth's annual State of the Forces address, delivered this year to E-6s and O-3s instead of generals. The hosts go through the main pieces:Another 20 percent cut to general and flag officers by JanuaryProject Meridian, the think tank of Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer LuckeyThe new Autonomous Warfare CommandThe American Corps of Cadets ROTC push at schools like Liberty and HillsdaleA new Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to HegsethA proposed "Fortress America" megabase and an energy self-sufficiency mandate for every installationDick, a former intelligence analyst, weighs in on where drone warfare is headed. Adam questions what the religious office and the school list are really for.They close with Tennessee's failed lethal injection and their views on the death penalty, deterrence, and the cost of getting it wrong.

In this live episode recorded at COATI, Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson talk about a contradiction in military life. Service members risk their lives to bring voting to other countries, but veterans and active-duty troops often vote at lower rates than the public they serve.The hosts share their own stories. They talk about checking out of local politics while moving between duty stations, voting absentee in home states they no longer followed, and not realizing that the Colorado they'd retire to was being shaped by elections they ignored. They make the case for Colorado to drop state income tax on active-duty pay so service members have a reason to register here. They also explain why Colorado Springs' southeast side, with turnout well below the rest of the city, has the most at stake.The conversation then turns to the midterms. They cover the Iran war as a motivator for military families, the eight suicide attempts the Navy confirmed in the Lincoln strike group, the growing gap between public will and military orders, and why veterans should use the credibility they carry at the family dinner table. Adam and Dick close with how they each went from active duty to civic engagement and running for office.

Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson cover three stories this week. First, three Republican senators, including John Cornyn, are calling for an investigation after reports that a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin paid for part of Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding celebration. The hosts compare it to the Hunter Biden coverage and to a House ethics filing that let Rep. Jeff Crank accept wedding-related gifts from donors without itemizing them.Next, Dick gets on his soapbox about a Northern California sheriff who seized ballots without a warrant and was ordered to return them. The conversation turns to the "constitutional sheriff" folklore, pandemic-era standoffs in rural New Mexico, and a county clerk's publicity stunt about hiring Tina Peters.The episode closes with an expanded Hormuz Watch on the UN General Assembly, where Trump defended the war and Iran's president held up photos of the girls' school destroyed early in the conflict. Adam and Dick debate whether Iran's selective framing holds up, why the U.S. strike was so hard to defend given how much planning time there was.

Adam and Dick record on backup equipment at Plan B Studios and cover a lot of ground. The episode opens with the Project Taurus town hall, where supporters and a bipartisan group of opponents spoke and City Council voted to delay its decision until a week after the next election instead of adopting a moratorium. Adam, who spoke at the meeting, and Dick, who has built data centers, dig into the military and classified-data sales pitch, the noise claims, and the push for an April moratorium ballot measure. From there: Rep. Thomas Massey's articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth and whether Speaker Johnson sent the House home to avoid them, Mitch McConnell's return to the Senate, Libertarian Party yard signs and why the movement struggles to function as a party, and the Hormuz watch, covering diesel over $6 a gallon, fuel shortages abroad, reports of damage to U.S. bases, and Vice President Vance's back channel calls with generals. Next week's episode is live on Sunday afternoon, starting around 4:55.

Hormuz and the Red Sea heat up as tankers burn and a Saudi pipeline goes dark. Witkoff and Kushner cozy up to Putin in Moscow. The GOP's midterm convention delivers culture-war theater and Trump's out-of-nowhere $5,000 bribe. Plus: the reflecting pool scandal nobody saw coming.