Heartland Journal Podcast

Heartland Journal Podcast EP224 Andres Guilarte & More 7 3 24

Joining us is Andrés Guilarte a political activist for the freedom of Venezuela. He is on staff with The Fund for American Studies (TFAS). Andrés had to leave his life in Venezuela after an oppressive regime crippled the economy, caused widespread starvation, blanketed the nation in blackouts, and silenced and jailed those who dared to speak out and criticize the government. Now, TFAS is sending him on a campus tour across the United States to share his eyewitness perspective of how a country with so much wealth and promise completely collapsed. For more about Andres go to https://tfas.org/staff/andres-guilarte/ If you like what you hear make sure to subscribe to the show and share it with your friends. You can find us at http://heartlandjournal.com

Duration:: 58m
Broadcast on:: 08 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Heartland Journal's podcast. With your host, Steve Abramawans, editor-in-chief of partlandjournal.com. - Howdy and happy Fourth of July Eve. My town does fireworks tonight and the city of Franklin does them on the actual fourth. So two nights of celebrating independence begins soon. But first, I'm Steve Abramawans and this is the Heartland Journal podcast. We are focusing on our nation's say with always an interesting person, making a positive change in our community and actually we're gonna focus on another nation today too. And welcome to our People in News, where I interview people who are making an impact and are lovers of truth. Today we are talking with special guest, Andres Galarti. Andres Galarti is a political activist for the freedom of Venezuela. Andres has to leave his life in Venezuela after an oppressive regime crippled the economy, caused widespread starvation, blanketed the nation in blackouts, and silenced and jailed those who dared to speak out and criticize the government. Only a few years ago, Andres was a university student studying international relations at the Central University of Venezuela. On top of exams and typical college student concerns, Andres studies were interrupted by tear gas as government officials targeted students on campus. He spent his college years advocating for his fellow students and fighting back against the rise of tyranny and erosion of freedoms. He was a member of Students for Liberty Latin America, serving as a coordinator from 2015 to '16 and a senior leader from 2016 to '17. In early 2019, he left Venezuela to intern with the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Today, he continues to push back against the rise of government control by sharing his story as a fund for American studies speaker. Mr. Galarte, how are you today? - Hey, Stu, and thank you so much for having me doing great. - Glad to hear that, glad you're with us, and we're glad you're here. So from your new home of America, since tomorrow's Independence Day, tell us about the Venezuelan you grew up in and what Hugo Chavez did to it in the 90s so we can feel good about being here in America today. - You should, you feel great. And, you know, I think the main reason is because a lot of people here in the US, you never have to experience the kind of things that are not only, you know, resembled to Venezuela, but it happened in Cuba, it happened all across Latin America, happening in the Soviet Union, and it's still happening across some countries, which is a highly condensed and centralized government using socialism as the economic tool to oppress people. That's what happened in Venezuela. So, you know, it was born in 1994, it was five years before Hugo Chavez, the late Venezuelan President arrived to power in 1999. And, you know, I didn't came for money, I came from a family that never met my father. So I had a, basically, the idea when I tell two people in my speech is that, you know, I came from a family that had just a single modern education, but Venezuela, as maybe some of your listeners remember, used to be super rich back in the day, you know, in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, Venezuela was known as the Saudi Venezuela, because until today we still have the biggest old reserves in the world. And there was so much investment going to Venezuela, business and entertainment and things happening, people from Venezuela, traveling across the world, and it was very prosperous. So I was born in that Venezuela, and my mom, you know, lived her life in that Venezuela. So we have a good family, a good foundation, but, you know, that didn't withstand what happened in the future, as soon as Chavez reached power in 1999, and he never said he was a socialist or a capitalist. He always saw himself, like, you know, he was four, he came from the four people, then, you know, he moved what's best for then, you know, he identified politics as his usual for the far left. And as soon as he got to power, he changed everything he could. One of the best things that you have in the US, why you should be celebrating tomorrow and every day, that you actually have a feral system that has in place boundaries, boundaries from power, you have leverage of different powers that sustain the whole republic from, you know, the judicial to executive and even to the same people, because you have rights that will know most people don't have in other places of the world. We didn't have that in Venezuela. So Chavez won 50% plus one, and he was able to change everything in the country. He changed, you know, the way several ministries were happening, like you call here secretaries, departments, he changed the way the military was managed, he changed the way the oil industry was managed, he changed the name of the country, he just basically took power of every single institution, most importantly, of the elections institutions. So he was able to commit fraud up until his death in 2012, and Maduro is still in power following the Chavez agenda, which is called Chavez in Venezuela. And that's what we have right now, 25 years of Chavismo of hardcore socialism that has evolved from what we saw in the Soviet Union, the Cubans took that, and now Venezuela took that too, and just make it to the point that it's a very efficient dictatorship in staying in power. - So what did his successors leading up to today's Nicolas Maduro, whose father was a trade unionist, a socialist, what did they do with the government that Chavez left them? - So the main thing that we have to understand is that like you mentioned, Maduro is also part of the same system, and he was Hugo Chavez's Secretary of State in Venezuela, California, first minister, and among other things. So as soon as Chavez died, one of the most important things that happened is that he became a myth, he became more than the man, he became Hugo Chavez and it's a joke, but sometimes they even referred to him to the more hardcore Chavez does, as the intergalactic supreme leader, something resembling in Kim Jong-un in North Korea. You know, the idea that the man died, the spirits here, we have to follow Chavez's idea because he was the second coming of the founding father of Venezuela. And not only that actually happened in Venezuela, I remember like Hugo Chavez up until these days and it's an international figure. So in many places in Latin America and in Europe mostly, he's seen as, you know, as the demand that revolutionized socialism worldwide and bring it back into a sphere. So Nicolas Maduro used to tagend us, took the same institutions, but the thing is like Maduro is not even a quarter of how charismatic Chavez was, because that's one of the things that you have to admit, who Chavez was highly charismatic, which allowed him to implement the agenda that he did. But Maduro has to require or more direct approach to suppress people. Chavez did suppress people in a direct approach like, you know, attacking people directly, putting in jail, his opponents, oppressing the protest and many other things. But Maduro went way beyond that because he didn't have the support that Chavez had on some section of the population. So that's what you have right now, which was just Maduro just following the same Hugo Chavez agenda and clean up the leadership of the party and the government because it's the same thing in Venezuela to remove all Hugo Chavez trustees and implementing more and more Maduro trustees. Because there is still some Chavez that had said that, you know, like we were better under Chavez and we have to remove Maduro because we need a kind of a Chavez figure in power. So Maduro is just playing the same, the same playbook that Chavez created and unfortunately the opposition is doing it too. - So Chavez actually had two terms to do his work. He was there from 1999 to 2002 and then 2002 to 2013, sounds like he may have skipped a few elections there, but he died 5th of March, 2013. So 16 years, like two presidential terms, for example, Obama ate and Biden ate. How did he change the country in his time? So, and then back in 2015, why did they let you go to Washington and the Cato Institute, wouldn't they want to keep you there so you wouldn't expose the regime, like you're free to do now? - So, Chavez actually had three terms because he was elected in 1989 in 2002. There was an attempted coup against him, which, until this day we know it was completely failing. In some, to some degree, it was an inside coup. He had an election in 2006 that he won and then he had what we call him in Venezuela and it happens a lot across Latin America. So it's like, I forgot the name in English, but it's like you get the opportunity to do a referendum, that's a referendum, a referendum on the president. So he wanted to, but again, since he took power, everything that happened after work, you can't say it was a fair election because it's not like in the US that you have county commissions that are handled in the county elections, in Venezuela, you have a feral power, an actual feral power that is election power and it's completely over controlled by the party of the Chavistas. So they controlled all the way that the elections are happening in Venezuela up until this day. So, when I left Venezuela in 2019, I was very active in politics when I started college in 2014 until I graduated in 2018. I'm actually, before going to college, I used to call myself as a socialist because I went through the whole public education system that they have in Venezuela that basically brain washes you into thinking that socialism is the only way that you have to hate the US and other countries because they're the ones who blame from Venezuela and the mayors and which obviously is the greatest thing that ever happened to humanity. So I went through that education system and it wasn't until I get to college that I realized there's a whole plethora of ideas out there and I realized that I was wrong and I switched completely to capitalism. I started my activism in college. I became the president of my student government. So I was managing some of the protests that came from my school out to the street. The whole operations that you have to do as a college student, you shouldn't be doing because it's not your goal as a student to trying to get freedom by overthrowing a dictatorship. So after I finished my college in 2018 and I was left in a dark place in a void because I started international relations. So in theory, my goal in life was to become a professional in foreign relations. So in Venezuela, basically joined the foreign service. But that's impossible in a country like Venezuela because if you want to be part of a foreign service, you have to become part of a ruling party and that was not in my plans now. So I applied to an internship in Cato Institute in late 18. Thankfully, I was elected and you may think that, you know, the government is very good in keeping track sometimes of their activists and they're actually not. If you see what happens usually is that a lot of people just exit Venezuela. It means that you can't go back, which is my case. And if you can't exit Venezuela, and you probably are like some Venezuelans are right now in their Argentina embassy as being recorded there. So I left in January 12 of 2019. That was one week before they went out. Anything happened with what we're doing with Venezuela and the U.S. government broke diplomatic relations so the embassy and the consulate were close. So if I didn't left one week before that I did, I wouldn't have been able to take the opportunity that took me here to the U.S. - Wow. And so what was it like at the Cato Institute? They do good work. - Yeah, the Cato Institute is a great think tank in the sense that, you know, they're a authoritarian think tank and so they have beef with both parties. So they have, they have a lot of great policies, a lot of great scholars in there that are great thinkers and everything. So when I got there, you know, coming from the, basically the hood when I came from Venezuela and then started to live in Washington, D.C. You know, that was basically a dream because I love politics my whole life, not in the sense of activism, but you know, the institution of politics as the art of interaction between human beings, I saw the D.C. as the, you know, the heel, the most Chinese heel where it comes to politics. If you love politics, that's the place you have to be. So being in D.C., and that was a terrible winter, by the way, when I arrived here, it was just, it was a dream come true. In the sense that everything that you learn in D.C., everything that you learn from the people in D.C., everything that you learn in general in the country because not only what I learned in the Keto Institute, but after the Keto Institute, I started doing all the speeches, I've been traveling to 38 states in the country. And just overall, the way that the U.S. is built upon the free market system and the institutions that you have in here, it's just wonderful. And, you know, we wish that we could have that in other countries, I guess not. - You mentioned the phrase shaviste, a shaviste, how much did Simone Billovar and Fidel Castro affect everybody that's been in power since you've been alive in Venezuela? - It's a big influence because, so Simone Bolivar is basically our church Washington, he's our founding father in Venezuela, and he's the one that leading dependence efforts against Spain, not only in Venezuela, but across Latin America. He built what once was the great Colombia, which was a combination of several countries in Latin America until they all independence itself into what it is to the Latin America. So Simone Bolivar is a huge figure, not only in Venezuela history, but Latin American world history. The thing is like when Hugo Chavez took power, he basically took the founded father's ideas and said that everything that they intended to do was what he wanted to do. So that's something that socialists do all the time. Fidel Castro also did it, and our socialists do it, is that you have to place your agenda and your mint as we are the descendants of the people that liberate us, and we have to bring back the same fight. So it was Simone Bolivar against the Spaniards, now it was Chavez against the US, Chavez against the international capitalist institution. So he portrayed himself as a new liberator of Venezuela. And also he was, like you said, highly influenced by Fidel Castro. So you remember when the Cuban revolution finished and Fidel Castro got to power, as soon as that happened, the next country in the early '60s that he aimed to expand his influence what was Venezuela. So he actually went to Venezuela in the early '60s. He met a lot of people. He tried to start building a movement that went through a lot of different changes that we will need a whole podcast to explain it. But eventually what happened is that he influenced Chavez deeply. When Chavez was in the military, he was in the Navy, an Navy officer, not a Navy officer, so he was teaching at the Navy Academy. He met a lot of people that used to be part of the early movements that Fidel Castro built in Venezuela. And they were bringing these Marxist ideas from the Soviet Union, Marxist ideas from Cuba, and that highly influenced Hugo Chavez to the point that as soon as Chavez won power on through this day, or biggest ally in the region is Cuba. And in the sense that we give free oil to Cuba, we give free food to Cuba, in the sense that they give us, that we have many agreements with them in terms of health policy, basically all the intelligence unit in Venezuela was built by the Cubans, and then the Iranians also came in and the Russians. And there is a huge influence in the Cuban revolution and the Fidel Castro doctrine in Chavez. You can't say that Chavez will have been able to build what he did today without bringing Cuba and Fidel Castro into the conversation. - And they all hated the gringo. So how did America interact with them and make things worse while they tried to make it better? - Well, if we start from the beginning, Clinton supported the candidacy of Hugo Chavez when he was running because let's remember, when Hugo Chavez ran in 1999, he was an outsider in Venezuela. We used to have a part of the system that you have in here. We have copay and democratic action. Those were the two main parties that were both leftist parties, but one was more centrist at the other. So they both were the parties that were interchanging powers since the '60s up until Chavez. So they were highly unpopular at that point. And Chavez came as an outsider, Clinton supported his candidacy. And as soon as they won, and the US realized that, yeah, this guy's not good, because Chavez was basically changing the whole oil industry and he did, and as you know, and we wish he was better today in the interest of the US to have a free Venezuela because we have the biggest oil reserves in the world. So you don't want to be dependent on Europe and other countries. In the case that it happens, like we have seen with the recent Ukraine work, when the oil prices skyrocket around the world and you have most of that coming from the Middle Eastern countries, and you don't have the best relations with those guys, well, you will prefer that Venezuela will be the one supplying you as one of the best allies that you could have. So when they realized that Chavez got to power and he was taking a whole different approach because he wanted to ally with Russia, he wanted to ally with Cuba, he wanted to ally with the Iranians, with everyone else, then they say, well, then we have to do something. And what they did is still in the analysis, but definitely it hasn't been the best approach in the sense that they never actually took care of the real problem in Venezuela, which has always been Cuba. Like you can't fix the Venezuela and itcho, which we're not trying to fix in one way Cuba. And we know how Obama, for example, performed when he was, just giving more and more free weight to Cuba and also in one way to Venezuela. Trump was, we can say, one of the only presidents that actually took a hard posture and doctrine against Venezuela. But then now Biden is just struggling when it comes to foreign policy for Venezuela. - Yeah, and gas prices here are high. We have sanctions on Russia, Iran, and just recently Biden added Venezuela. AP said the United States is re-imposing sanctions on Venezuela's vital oil sector over what it says is the government's failure to adhere to democratic principles ahead of elections in July. Well, here we are in July. Do you think this month's elections will go the way the US wants and they could lift those sanctions and prices could go down? Or is that why they are selling our last 42 million gallons to Exxon and BP, a British company, to keep those prices down before November, but we won't have it in an emergency like a hurricane or war? - Yeah, and you know how it is, it's obvious it's coming and you never know what these hurricanes are gonna happen, you know, sometimes nothing happens and sometimes it's just terrible for the South, so South Pass of the US. So it's complicated because you're asking me what, if what the US will want happens in July elections in Venezuela. And I honestly have no idea what the US wants because we have a commander in chief that we just, it always is a mixed signal when it comes to Venezuela. You will think that we want free elections in Venezuela and not just free because here's the premise, if there is free elections in Venezuela, Chavez and Te Chavismo and Maduro wouldn't be in power because they're highly unpopular, they always commit fraud and when it comes to real numbers, their support is below 10% in Venezuela. But since they can do basically whatever number they want in the elections, they never lose the election. It doesn't matter how many people are against them. So if there is free elections, they will lose. That's the premise, that's the theory and what will actually happen. Now, is the US doing the best actions to try to force a free election in Venezuela? I don't think so. Because I think that the best course of action was what was happening in the previous administration, which is full force, full sanctions on the individuals like they did, putting a bounty on the head of these people, isolating them from the rest of the world and especially from their allies. But right now it's very difficult because it doesn't matter how many sanctions you put in Venezuela. We sell our oil to our countries that are black market from the US, like Russia, Iran, Turkey. We just get the food from that. We are in depth probably for the next 50 years to China because of the money that they have given us in order to stay afloat. So I don't think that there will be really a good outcome for freedom in Venezuela and that you like 28 elections in the country. Because unfortunately, the whole system is completely controlled by the government. And again, we're not talking about politicians, we're not talking about just a bunch of dictators, we're talking about a criminal enterprise that is being that the president in Venezuela is just a part of that criminal enterprise. You have Hezbollah operating in Venezuela. You have the Colombian paramilitaries like Ilan and FARC operating in Venezuela. You have the Cuban intelligence in Venezuela. You have terrorists being foreign in Venezuela, which we saw something happen recently in other countries. For example, they went and killed an exiled military in Chile. You have some of the biggest bands in Latin America and some of them are even right here in the US, like the two guys that killed the nursing student here in Georgia, they were from the Tarawa train, which is an international criminal enterprise from Venezuela. So it's a whole system that if you actually believe that the criminals are gonna let that go because someone is voting in an election, then we are all naive and we haven't learned anything about the detourages of socialist, total terrorism. So an election is not gonna have any consequences in the criminal enterprise because what you actually need is the military to support you. And if we win in fair elections, we will need the military to say, oh yeah, you won, but lure you out, this is what it is. And unfortunately, the military is also part of a criminal enterprise. And they have no incentive to protect any fear free election because they just want to maintain the system. - Now you just defined a narco terror state. And I know you have a hard stop in about six minutes from now, but I really wanted to get into some of this stuff. So I'll go for it and if you have to go, I understand, but you mentioned it, Trenda Agua Gang. They are known for extreme violence and murder. They were a prison gang and Maduro's let them leave and come here, what kind of problems were its members there and what are they doing being allowed to come here? Why would we allow this, the State Department? And so the illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of murdering a 12 year old Houston girl, lured her under a bridge, said it's their culture and didn't know rape was illegal. Lots of them don't murder, but that's what they said. Is that just an excuse? You know, they were released into the US with GPS monitoring after illegal or entering. So they were caught and out free. They simply cut the ankle bracelets off. Is the border secure and are most of these guys being kept track of, like my work is says, or are they completely free to roam and terrorize the country? So definitely the border is not secure. So we're talking about this particular gang is a very, very dangerous gang that was born in the prisons of Venezuela. So it's called the Aragua train because Aragua is one of the states in Venezuela. That's where the state that they were born. So they, when you have to understand is the most of the crime that happens in Venezuela happens from the prison. So the head of the gangs usually are in prison and they like to be in prison. I don't know if your listeners can go and see some documentaries of some prisons in Venezuela. Some of them had clubs and pools and stuff. And it's like, these guys have the best DBs and they get, you know, it's insane. The amount of benefits that they get in some of these prisons because they own them. So one of the actions that the government in Venezuela has done to undermine the US and other countries because what happened here is not only isolated to the US. These people are also in order countries in Latin America. You said Chile, they're in Peru, they're in Argentina, they're in order countries in Ecuador. So it's like one of the best ways that they do is undermine other countries by releasing their criminals. Now, I myself am a refugee, you know, I write here legally, but I understand the struggle that people are having in Venezuela and if they see that a country is failing them and then you see that the US has basically no actual legal way to come here because the immigration system is completely broken. There's people waiting 10 years for a green car. And it's not because in terms of you, the server or not, it's just that the whole system is broken. And then you see, well, if we can just go through the border because it's open, then we just go through the border. So I understand what some people can see, but the thing is like from every tent that comes and one of them is a one of these criminal dangerous criminals, that is going to override the whole system because then you have what happened in Texas, you have what happened here in Georgia, and you know, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow because we just don't know. These people are everywhere in the country. We're not talking about millions. At best, it's a couple of thousands, but that's enough. That's enough to terrorize people because you know, the people in Texas, how do you know now if a legal immigrant is actually a poor refugee that is trying to escape the worst humanitarian crisis in Western Hemisphere or is it a member of the worst criminal gang in Venezuela? It's very difficult to know it. And you shouldn't have to be guessing who it is because we should have a secure border. What if you, you know, if John Smith arrived to the border, the US government can see, okay, you're John Smith, let me see your records, let me see where you are, let me see what you have done. And if they don't have any records, then you're gonna be in a temporary prison until we find out who you are. But that doesn't happen because we don't have, we don't have the capacity to deal with the thousands of people that are daily coming through the border. So they just can't have endless prisons full of people because we just don't have the means for that. So, and that's to blame the administration. So to blame the policy that have been implemented and in comes to immigration for the border, but the broken system is to blame the whole country, the whole party, the two parties because none of the two parties have actually sit down and said we have to fix this because there's no other way. If you fix the broken immigration system in Congress and you fix the border, this whole issue wouldn't be happening. But that's not the will of the current leadership that we have in the country. And unfortunately, the people are paying that. You're seeing that happening across the country and even myself and you just don't know what is gonna happen because you never know if some of these people that came through the border, they have a hit job and they're trying to find some people, some exile from Venezuela. Like again, they didn't in Chile. There was an outspoken military member, ex-military from Venezuela in Chile, trying to do something against the government, they send some guys to Chile and they'll kill him right there in the middle of his apartment in another country. So can that happen in the US? He probably can't, we just don't know. - Well, God protect you. Do you have one more time for one more or do you have? Okay, so Latin America is or used to be considered a Catholic territory. The Pope is even from Argentina. Do you think the Democrats that seem to believe in demographics as destiny or replacement theory might actually import believers in Jesus and the Bible and could vote more Republican family values and not actually buy into the Democrats' agenda of gay, transgender, free healthcare and making it harder for jobs to be available or are they more into socialism? Like you said, you were trained in but saw the light so their plan might actually work. - You know, I like to believe that the best majority of people legally or illegally are coming from Latin America in the core of them. If you think about it, they are willing to put everything they have, they sell absolutely everything based on coyote, thousands and thousands of dollars in order to escape what they're living. And if you see where they're coming from, it's Venezuela, it's Guatemala, some of them for doulas, you know, a bunch of countries that are, some of them are failing, Venezuela and some of them are in the track to be. So if you're a recent in person, you don't escape Venezuela, go through hell because coming through the sell the border, the whole track is hell on earth to come here and vote for the same people that destroy your country. So, and if you combine that with what you just said and Venezuela is one case of that, we're a majority Catholic country, we're a highly devoted of a virgin Maria, there are several different congregations in Venezuela. It's a very huge thing and it's also in Mexico, you know, in many other countries in Latin America. If you take into account that, it's usually the lack of traditional Latin American profile of a person is someone that wouldn't buy into this walker in the policies. You're not gonna see a traditional Venezuelan support under 10-year-old child trying to change their sex from boy to girl from girl to boy, that's just not gonna happen. If I had said that to my mom when I was 10 years old, I will still have some kind of resembles of my body of what will have happened to me because I just know something that happens in, yeah, that's not something that happens in Latin American family. So, and I myself have talked to some people, this is anecdotal, of course, but there is some study and statistic out there of people that have come legally and people that have been interviewing the ground when they come, most of them, yeah, are Catholic. So, these things, whole playbook that Democrats, eventually, are gonna overthrow the system because they're importing boats. I wouldn't be so sure about that. I'm very certain that, again, if someone goes through hell to escape hell, they're not gonna go there and bolt again for help. That's just, that's not a recently, something that a recent person does. Now, Democrats are very highly people that can persuade others. And when you're very, when you're coming here and you are in so much need that you have, you don't have the means to actually succeed and that Democrat comes and tells you, "Do you wanna get everything for free? "You're gonna get this, this, and this, and this." If you support us, that might be a different conversation. So, that's why I advocate that Republicans should be more open to immigrants. Should we more open in the sense that, understand that immigrants are just gonna make their Republican party better? And we're seeing that all over the place. That's how you see now that more Hispanics, especially with events of the last two weeks, are moving towards Republicans because we have the best economic policies. We have the best solution for immigration. And one last thing, Stephen. Hispanics that, back in the day, after the Reagan had missing the 80s and everything that happened after work, spent years and years to nationalize in this country and build their families. And everything that you have to go through to eventually become American and be proud of that. They see people through the border from their same countries coming here and defaming the U.S. Some of them making fun of the U.S. Some of them committing crimes. They are not gonna vote for the people that allowed them to come in. There is a very sense of proudness and in the Latin American culture that if you work hard, you're gonna get what you want. And if you see someone else not working hard, then you're gonna change them. And I see a lot of Hispanics that have been here for years. They see that Democrats have created policies and allow people to come here to basically not work and be paid to do nothing. And that's why some of them are, and most of them are eventually gonna move Republican. - All right, I like to hear that. Well, thank you so much. You went into a little overtime there. So, Andreas, God bless you. I wish the best for you. But tell us about real quick WPAI, of course, and where people can hear more about you while you're on social. - Yeah, so, Steve, and I do my speeches like the one I did in Knox County a few weeks ago, sponsored by the Funk for American Studies. It's an intern, impact facing the seed that has educational programs to everyone in the country, to students, to college students, high school students, and professors. And that's what I do as a passion. So, I just go out there and speak about Venezuela. My actual job is with WPAI. We are a data company. We provide the political data to campaigns and organizations, candidates and think tanks, packs, everything that needs data. In this sense, of course, we're conservative. So, we provide conservative data because we want conservatives to win elections. And, you know, that's basically what I do. If people want to follow what we do, and especially what I do when it comes to Venezuela, I'm an activism. All my social medias are Andres, Seven Gilarte. That's how you can find me in every social media. And if you just put my name in YouTube, there is several of my speeches that I have done. So, you can see what the story is that, yeah, I compacted a little bit for the podcast, but you can see the story of how Venezuela got to where it is right now. A little bit of my personal story, how I escape. And, you know, when I try to do here in the US, so we don't have a second Venezuela. So, yeah, thank you so much, Stephen, for having me. - Thank you. I wish we had more time, but hope to have you on again sometimes. Good luck. - Yeah, absolutely. Take a take a day and I will be here again. Thank you. - Hey, it's Yaffe from WVNN Radio and Huntsville and talk radio one of 2.3 in Chattanooga. And I'm on the Heartland Journal podcast. (upbeat music) - Wow, Steve. - Yeah, what'd you think of Andres? - I think a lot of what Venezuela has been doing is really crept in and has been part of the United States government itself, to be honest. - I'm hoping that a lot of people thought they heard some similarities with what we're dealing with, criminal enterprise and who is given the power positions in the seats to make a big change. And so let's do that. Let's hear clip number one, we'll frame it that way and then I'll kick this off. - United States embassies under his presence. - What does that mean? - So we have embassies all over the world in every country. That is essentially sovereign American territory. Under his watch, we have had to evacuate seven United States embassies. - I did not know that. - That has never happened in American history. - So we are. - That's how weak we are. - That's how weak we are in the world stage. That's how bad it is. - And okay, help me. Why has that happened? Why are we evacuating? Because there's no protection, there's no fear. - I'm gonna say real quick and I'm gonna give it to us. - Yeah, yeah. - When you are weak and our adversaries know you're weak, they push you. It's no different than the bully in the school you are. If you're timid and the bully knows you can get away with it, what happens? He comes for your lunch money every single week. Every single day. - Until you punch back. - Until you punch back. We have been weak under Joe Biden. And so our adversaries around the globe, big and small, know that they can push us, but where's the ego? You can talk. - I'm gonna give you my free. - All right, we'll get back to that in a second. That was Byron Donalds. He's a congressman from Florida, a Republican, happens to be African-American, but saying exactly what we're worrying about right now. So I wanted to tell you a little something. Here's some news. McKinsey and Company is an American multinational strategy, not publicly traded. That'll be important to remember for this. A management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinley, sorry, McKinsey. McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the MBB management consultancies, MBB. The firm mainly focuses on the finances and operations of their clients. Okay, that's who we're talking about. They are a long way from 1926. Just last year, what $15 billion plus in revenue? Remember that. And 45,000 employees. I'm old enough to remember when Arthur Anderson, one of the largest accounting firms fell and lost 85,000 employees. So too big to fail is bull, as is too old to fail. When Solomon Brothers died, found in 1850, survived their 1990 $290 million treasury bond scandal only to die later in 1997. So it can happen. Let's go. Consultant firm McKinsey to pay $230 million in latest US opioid settlement by Nate Rayburn, September 27, 2023. Consulting firm McKinsey and Company has agreed to pay $230 million to resolve lawsuits by hundreds of US local governments and school districts alleging it fueled an epidemic of opioid addiction through its work from bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdy Pharma and other drug companies. The settlements, which require a judge's approval, were disclosed in papers filed on Tuesday last year, opens new tab in federal court in San Francisco. The money is on top of 641.5 million that McKinsey already paid to state attorneys general, so combined almost a billion. So what does a for-profit company do when they lose a bunch of money, no matter by trading a bad product like new Coke or lawsuits, we'll go learn it back, right? Last thing on that business model of McKinsey, the lawsuits accused McKinsey, one of the leading global consulting firms of contributing to the deadly drug crisis by helping drug manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, design deceptive marketing plans and boost sales of painkillers. Nearly 645,000 people died in the United States from overdoses involving opioids, both prescription and illicit from 1999 to 2021. That's pre-COVID, right? According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 22 years for you liberals listening and that's pre-fentanyl. So McKinsey settled, Purdue is gone, the end, right? No, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge by President Joe Biden's administration to purdue Pharma's multi-billion dollar bankruptcy settlement, resolving those related claims against the drug maker. US Supreme Court halts Purdue Pharma bankruptcy settlement pending review by John Crussell and Andrew Chung, August 11th, 2023. In a court filing, the administration told the Supreme Court that this is Biden telling the Supreme Court that Purdue's settlement is an abuse of bankruptcy protections meant for debtors in financial distress. Not people like the Sacklers, according to the administration, Sackler family members withdrew $11 billion from Purdue before agreeing to contribute $6 billion to its opioid settlement. $6 billion, a lot bigger than the original $230 million, right? Many other stakeholders have responded in opposition to the administration's request to halt the settlements, a group compromising more than 60,000 people who have filed personal injury claims stemming from their exposure to Purdue opioid products told the Supreme Court they support the settlement, including legal immunity for members of the Sackler family. Purdue estimates that its bankruptcy settlement approved by US Bank of Judge in 2021 would provide a $10 billion value to its creditors, including state and local governments, individual victims of addiction hospitals and others who have sued the company. Regardless of how one feels about the role of the Sackler family in the creation and escalation of the opioid crisis, the group told the justices the fact remains that the billions of dollars in abatement and victim compensation funds hinge on confirmation and consummation of the existing plan. So the money is still at stake. So what does a good corporate citizen do? Find new markets to make more money back, right? Fast forward to today, we need to upgrade DEI acronym to reflect what it represents accurately, disingenuous exaggeration, indulgence. Stephen Miller, MD, PhD. The act of shamelessly exaggerating one's accomplishments and abilities to make up for a lack of actual skills. New study shows McKinsey's studies promoting DEI profitability were garbage. By Tristan Justice, April 3rd, 2024, last month, a report out last month shows that studies from the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company showed a correlation between diversity equity inclusion programs and significant profits were based on junk research. A 30-page paper published in Econ Journal Watch found that studies conducted by the consulting giant in 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2023 could not be verified to find significant results supporting conclusions that favor corporate DEI regimes. Our results indicate that despite the imprimatur often given to McKinsey's 2015, 18, 20, and 23 studies, researchers concluded McKinsey's studies neither conceptually in terms of the correct definition of causality, nor empirically in terms of their set of large US public firms, support the argument that large US public firms can expect on average to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial to ethnic diversity of their executives. End quote. In other words, McKinsey's studies touting diversity are not reliable. Over the past few years, McKinsey has released at least those four studies claiming a positive relationship between DEI and firm performance. That new paper published, showed in Econ World, finds these results can't be replicated, quote, "Our inability to replicate the results suggests that they should not be relied on to support the view that US public-y traded firms can't expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial affect diversity of their executives." Don't do it. In a series of very influential studies, McKinsey, I told you, 15, 18, 20, we report finding statistically significant positive relations between the industry adjusted earnings before interest and tax margins of global McKinsey chosen sets of large public firms and the racial ethnic diversity of their executives. There it is in writing. Wrong. However, when we revisit the McKinsey's test results data from firms in the public observable S&P 500 as of December 31, 2019, we do not find statistically significant relations between McKinsey's inverse normalized harden doll Hirschman measured of executive racial ethnic diversity and mid-2020 and either industry adjusted earnings before interest and tax margins or industry adjusted sales growth growth margins, return of assets, return on equity, and total shareholder return over the prior five years, 2015-2019, combined with the erroneous reverse causality nature of McKinsey's test, our inability to quasi-replicate their results suggests that despite the impromator given to McKinsey's studies, they should not be relied on to support the view that US publicly traded firms can expect to deliver improved financial performance if they increase the racial ethnic diversity of their executives. Thank you. That was from Jeremiah Green. He's an associate professor of accounting and holds the Ernst & Young Professorship of Accounting at the May School of Business. The one law firm that accounting from it did not go to business time. You know, Steve, when you're talking about McKinsey in the back of my head, I'm going, they are attached to horrendous, horrendous things being done and they are like the big PR campaign guys that come out and spin everything so that you don't really know what's going on. They are-- That's right. And in September 28th, 2023, McKinsey published, how do ESG goals impact a company's growth performance? Total garbage. You also church for it and read it. If you own a business or work at a business, you'll see right through it immediately it is garbage. New McKinsey Research finds that companies that courageously, nice adjective, pursue stronger profitability while improving ESG performance deliver superior, another strong buzzword. Superior shareholder returns. Total lie, Disney, Target, Budweiser, Johnson & Johnson stocks at Lowe's with markets at all time highs. See the disconnect? They all fell for it with lame leadership like tractor supply who wasted money on pride and DEI stuff at the expense of profits or customer satisfaction. It's permeating all corporations America to please BlackRock and China and the false idol of an ESG score to be added to index funds and make their quarterly bonuses even as stock values and sales decline. Even the company that my son went to work and I'm not going to mention them as a ESG crap in it. Oh yes. - Participation trophies for ideology over capitalism and meritocracy. Now you know how we got here. That's called a clear and present danger to our security. Elaine Donnelly, the president of the Center for Military Readiness outlined the military recruiting woes for the Federalist last week as the Pentagon prioritizes far left DEI initiatives. "Monic recruiting shortages are forcing the army "to cut 16,500 occupational positions, "most of them vacant," she wrote. "The Air Force has proposed a reduction of 8,000 troops "after missing recruiting goals for the first time "at over 20 years. "The navy is short, 9,000 sailors forcing longer "deployments for others," she explained. "Race conscious, diversity, equity, and inclusion, "DEI policies are making personnel shortages worse. "Minority recruitment has remained steady or increased "which is fine," Donnelly wrote, "but a steep decline in white recruits "almost entirely accounts for the ongoing recruiting crisis." Wall Street Journal last week, banks, law, and consulting firms are watering down their diversity recruiting programs. Minority students worry about the impact on their job searches. White-color companies that once championed programs to recruit diverse employees are now tiptoeing away from them, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the third law firm or accounting firm that didn't go out of business, and JP Morgan are among those that recently moved or altered descriptions of their programs for underrepresented students. Tracktor Supply, the largest Tracktor supplier in Tennessee, apologized, banned Woke from Stores, buyers, DEI teams, activist Benny Johnson, recapping Robbie Starbucks, take down of Tracktor Supply's public company, subject to ESG rules, clip number two, please. - Massive victory, I've exposed the Woke Agenda at Tracktor Supply Corporate Office for three weeks and now they've responded. Here is their statement, you are not gonna believe this, the power of us, the power of our America First Movement. They will no longer sponsor pride festivals. They are eliminating all DEI rules and retiring their DEI goals. They will no longer submit data to the human rights campaign or corporate equity score indexes. This is the way for like these Marxist organizations to force corporations to engage in Woke activism. They will withdraw from the carbon emissions goals which hurt farmers, I mean really, which is about eliminating farmers from the map. They promise to continue to listen to their customers and team members refocus their team engagement groups on mentoring networking and supporting businesses instead of institutionalized racism, hiring people based on their skin color. This monumental change is thanks to you who supported the work and exposing this and the whistleblowers at Tracktor Supply and my fellow farm owners who respectfully spoke up. This is incredible, I'm working more to get information about what's going on here. And apparently there is a major conference call that happened at Tracktor Supply where they announced that they were rescinding all of this. And then here, this is unbelievable, Tracktor Supply tweets this out, the actual statement, statement from Trackter Supply. For more than 85 years Trackter Supply has been focused on one thing serving life out here. Every day 50,000 team members take care of their customers, family, deeply valued the relationship they call home. We are passionate about bringing good neighbors in our hometown because without you, we would not be where we are. It is imperative that our customers hard earned dollars are taken care of, our team members and communities that we all love and not the left wing radical sociopathic agenda that is actually against the customers of Tracktor Supply. Okay, let's continue. As you supported us, we have invested millions of dollars in veterans causes, emergency response, animal shelters, state fairs, rodeos, farmers and 4-H organizations and other farming organizations, FAA. We work hard to live up to our mission and values every single day and represent the communities and customers. We have heard from our customers that and that we have disappointed them. We've taken that feedback to heart. This is remarkable. I've never seen anything like this. The speed at which this happened. The power that we have. There it is right here. Going forward, we want to ensure that activities of giving tie directly to our business, for instance, this means we will no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign. We focus our team member engagement on mentoring networking, further focus on rural American priorities, including education, animal welfare, veterans causes, good neighbors, stops and stop sponsoring non-business activities like pride festivals and voting campaigns. Eliminate DEI roles and retire current DEI goals as a while still ensuring a respectful environment, withdraw our carbon emissions goal. Oh, man. Oh, baby, come on. - That's awesome and Steve, I think we have more power. We have a lot more power. We just have to use it. - Two billion dollars taken off your market cap in the market before quarter-end bonuses are in, we'll definitely focus the mind a little bit. So thank you, Robbie Starbuck, episode 182 for those following along at home. Change can happen, Steve, you're right, with activism from the right too. So let's finish this off with the first clip on America on 4th of July Eve, clip 1.5. - My favorite president Trump story. This is my number one favorite of all time. When we were negotiating with the Taliban, well, President Trump was still the president. President Trump wanted to get out of Afghanistan, but he wanted a conditions based withdrawal. Meaning that you do what we tell you to do and then we will start pulling troops back slowly as long as you abide by our rules. It's President Trump and Mike Pompeo and they are talking to Taliban leadership in the room and they had one translator in the room. President Trump looked at the Taliban leader and said this, "I wanna leave Afghanistan." But it's gonna be a conditions based withdrawal and translator translating. And he said, "If you harm a hair on a single American, "I'm gonna kill you." And the translator goes, and Trump goes, "Deab, deab, deab." - Tell him what I said. - Tell him what I said. reached in his pocket, pulled out a satellite photo of the leader of the Taliban's home and handed it to him. - Shut up. - Got up and walked out the room. Do you know if for 18 months not a single American was killed in Afghanistan? - Sure it is. - That's the definition of strength, that's what I'm talking about. And so you could imagine that kind of sentiment being around the world. If we have an embassy in another country, no one's gonna touch it. Because they're gonna be fearful that they'll get a Moab on their head. That's our President Trump rules. This is the opposite of strength. This is the definition of weakness. And so now we're being feasted upon by other countries when our embassies are there because the Americans aren't gonna do anything about it and they don't want us there anyway. But the point of us having an embassy there and the point of us having sovereign American soul is to be able to keep an eye on the world to a certain extent, to have that presence. But you can't have that presence, we have feckless leadership. - They tuned us for my thoughts for the day. ♪ Sing this song about the heartland ♪ ♪ The only place I feel at home ♪ ♪ Sing about the way you're good man ♪ ♪ The words until the day light's gone ♪ ♪ Sing the ring ♪ Time for my quotes for the day before I share and remind everyone to subscribe to heartlandjournal.com. Please, if you'd be so kind, just go there heartlandjournal.com and give us your email and zip code and we'll deliver news right to your inbox for free. Really hope you like it. How can it possibly be that so many Americans are rallying to support Ocasio-Cortez when all they need to do is look at Venezuela to see where she is leading them? Charlie Kirk. I barely need to reiterate what you already know. The close links that exist between our people and the people of Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, the promoter of the Bolivirian Revolution and the United Socialist Party he founded, Fidel Castro. It's quite challenging in dealing with a country like Venezuela where the diplomatic relations, if they exist at all, can be strained. Alejandro Mayorkus, US Secretary of Homeland Security since 2021. Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela. The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime. Jimmy Carter, as in Muriel Boatlift mass immigration from Cuba in 1980 Jimmy Carter, ever see those Scarface movies, those guys. May as well have been talking about Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon and the J-6 prisoners today, right? Between October 2022 and this January, CBP has encountered more than 410,000 Venezuelans at the Southwest border, 304,000 apprehended after entering illegal Lee and nearly 106,000 others stopped at the ports. That's it for this episode. Thank you, Andrés Galarte for, well, surviving and bringing your story to us and sharing it with us and doing the good fight on the right side of democracy to try to prevent what happened in your homeland from happening here, although it seems to be happening fast. That is it for now and this week. I'm your host, Steve at Brommont's editor and chief of heartlandjournal.com. Proud to be, see you all next week. Peace in our time and definitely glory to God. Amen and happy Fourth of July, everybody. (upbeat music) - Any views or opinions represented on the podcast are personal and belongs solely to the creator and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the creator may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity unless it's quickly stated. (upbeat music) ♪ From the heartland ♪ ♪ Yeah, I'm on the heartland ♪ - Happy Fourth of July. - Thank you, sir. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)