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Andy Stumpf

It is safe to say that I have wandered a bit. I served in the military, flew some jets, jumped out of most, climbed mountains (I jumped off of them too), taught fitness, owned a gym, and have spent the last few years speaking to organizations and leaders. It has been a journey, and in all honesty, I have no idea where it is going. I seek the things that make me uncomfortable. I move towards things that scare me. I think you should too

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Monday · 2 hr 35 min
The Watch List That Never Caught a Terrorist | Sonya LaBosco & David Londo | Ep. 481
Sonya LaBosco is a former Virginia state trooper who became a federal air marshal in 2002, one of the last classes required to pass the old tactical pistol course. She was medically retired in 2014 and now runs the Air Marshal National Council as its executive director. David Londo joined the service in 2006 and spent 20 years on aircraft, including time as a recruiter, before retiring. He is the council's president. Together they spent years working with the Boston Globe, Judicial Watch, and congressional oversight committees to expose the Quiet Skies program, and they are now producing a documentary called Watchlisted in America. This conversation covers how a program meant to find threats to aviation turned into undercover surveillance of citizens who were never suspected of anything. A computer flagged travel habits, a team of three marshals was dispatched to shadow the person, and after-action reports came back saying the same thing every time: not a threat. They walk through how it expanded after January 6, how an air marshal ended up assigning his own wife's surveillance detail, and why a Senate investigation and an inspector general audit found zero threats ever caught. We also get into the pre-9/11 standards that got thrown out, why they want the program pulled out of TSA and rebuilt as a small specialized unit, the holes in private aviation and the northern border, and a geotracking contract they say has quietly replaced Quiet Skies. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Better Help: Sign up and get 20% off at https://www.BetterHelp.com/clearedhot BÆRSkin: Right now, you can get twenty dollars off the BAERSkin Hoodie 5.0. Just text CLEAREDHOT to 36912 and they'll send the link straight to your phone.
Friday · 1 hr 8 min
Two Crashes, One Attack Ad, and a $1.9 Million Post | Negligent Discharge Friday | 11.6.2026
Michael is back from Spain, which means we open with the high-speed train that slammed into a stopped private train on the same route he rode a week earlier. Sixty-nine people died. Early reporting points to a control center manually clearing trains after the safety system had already halted them. Then the Learjet 60 that went in near vertical over Florida with nine people on board. I walk through what the ATC audio and flight tracking show: light clear ice at 35,000 feet, minus 47 degrees, moderate turbulence, a request to climb that was denied, and a small red cell they flew straight through. I cover why that wing is sensitive to icing, what mach tuck does to the center of lift, and why a 20,000-foot-per-minute descent is not something you recover from. I also address the people trashing the second-in-command online. She was type rated, qualified, and working the radio until the end. From there: a governor's race attack ad built around a candidate's estranged mother, a $1.9 million settlement for a professor disciplined over a social media post, and what the First Amendment actually protects. We close on the slave trade, reparations, and the countdown to Michael's last episodes. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm https://www.firecracker.farm AG1: https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot
November 2 · 3 hr 6 min
Torture, Gitmo, and the 9/11 Case That Won't End | Jessica Trant & Frank Pellegrino | Ep. 480
Jessica Trant lost her father on September 11th. He was on the 104th floor of the North Tower, above the impact, and he called home before the building came down. She spent years running from it, then turned around and faced it, and she now travels to Guantanamo Bay to sit through pretrial hearings for the men charged with killing him. Frank Pellegrino spent more than three decades in the FBI. He was assigned to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, chased Ramzi Yousef through the Bojinka plot, and from 1993 on carried the fugitive file on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who brought the planes plan to bin Laden. He sat across a table from KSM at Gitmo in 2007. Both appear in the Paramount+ documentary Daughters of 9/11. Most people know bin Laden. Most people cannot tell you who KSM is or why he matters. This conversation fixes that. Frank walks through how a single line on a 1993 bank record, a Minesweeper high score on a seized laptop, and a tip-off in Qatar in 1996 shaped the hunt, and how close they came to grabbing him before 9/11. From there we get into why the case is still in pretrial status 25 years later: the CIA's enhanced interrogation program, the ruling that threw out the FBI's clean-team statements, the push to try it in federal court that collapsed under politics, and a military commission that moves in two-week increments. Jessica describes what Gitmo actually looks like for the families, what the detainees' lives look like, and what finality would mean for her. We close on why the ideology outlives the man, and how to keep this from being forgotten by people who weren't alive for it. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt Workwear: Get $10 Off at BRUNT with code "clearedhot" at https://www.bruntworkwear.com/clearedhot
October 30 · 56 min
Who You Are When Nobody's Watching | Full Auto Friday | 10.30.26
Last Friday's VA disability answer generated a lot of "but what about" responses. One came from a Marine who was medically retired after Helmand, went through NICoE, and now runs a manufacturing business that sees how much money pours in from defense work. If contractors can fleece the government, why shouldn't the people who were the living, breathing tools get a cut? I break down where the training and gear money actually went, admit the price gouging I saw firsthand, and explain why someone else getting away with something has never been a reason for me to do it. You control one thing in that equation. Yourself. A search and rescue volunteer with every certification his team asks for still feels like he's fooled everyone for four years. I've been in that spot more than I'd like to admit. We get into the difference between imposter syndrome that paralyzes you and imposter syndrome that pushes you to go learn the thing, plus the structure I use to catch negative self-talk early. There's a tangent about backcountry preparedness and the people Two Bear pulls off the mountain every year. Then a quick one about fighter pilots. No regrets. Or regerts. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code CLEAREDHOT at https://cowboycolostrum.com/CLEAREDHOT.
October 28 · 2 hr 54 min
Mogadishu, the Silver Star, and the Man in the Mirror | Kyle Lamb | Ep. 479
Kyle Lamb spent more than 21 years in the Army. He started as a commo guy in the 82nd Airborne, went to 5th Special Forces Group for Desert Storm, then spent the bulk of his career in the Army's Tier 1 special mission unit, retiring as a Sergeant Major. He fought in Mogadishu on October 3, 1993, and his Bronze Star with V from that day was later upgraded to a Silver Star. He went on to found Viking Tactics and write Green Eyes and Black Rifles, Stay in the Fight, and Leadership in the Shadows. His new book: The Next Mission, is historical fiction built on the Bible, told as war stories by a special operations soldier. We get into Benaiah in the pit with a lion, Jael and a tent peg, the forlorn hope, and Agincourt. We also cover what he still thinks about from Mogadishu, the award upgrade he never asked for, the day he walked out of a ceremony at Fort Bragg and did not recognize himself in a mirror, and the infighting in the community. He explains why he PNG'd the unit, and why talking about faith takes more courage than any war story. The Next Mission: https://www.vikingtactics.com/shop/the-next-mission/ Audible Version: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-The-Next-Mission/dp/B0HLBJFTXF/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0 Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Mars Men: For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life plus Free Shipping AND 3 Free Gifts at https://www.MenGoToMars.com Ethos: Take 10 minutes to get covered today, with life insurance through Ethos Get your free quote at https://www.ETHOS.com/clearedhot
October 26 · 2 hr 37 min
27 Years Undercover, Zero Dent in the Drug Trade | Britt Elmore | Ep. 478
Britt Elmore spent 27 years with the San Francisco Police Department, 25 of them in narcotics, almost all of it undercover. He dropped out of school at 15, worked as a garbage man and a glazier, got a GED at 24, and started at the San Mateo County jail before SFPD hired him in 1998. Six months in, he was loaned to narcotics for six weeks of buying dope in the Tenderloin. He never left. His last 15 years were on a DEA task force running gun buys and federal wiretaps. He consulted on Training Day, and his dog's alert on a FedEx package helped kick off an MLB HGH scandal. We get into buying crack straight out of dealers' mouths, booking 30 bodies in an afternoon, and buying rifles from a man who had told an informant he planned to rob him. He also walks through six hours in a prison van, wired and shackled, next to a man who killed his pregnant girlfriend. We cover Flock cameras and the Fourth Amendment, fentanyl killing two people a day in eight blocks, reactive policing after 2020, and his one-word answer on how much of a dent 27 years made. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecofee.com Firecracker Farm https://www.firecracker.farm
October 23 · 57 min
"Free Money" Is Costing Someone | Full Auto Friday | 10.23.2026
A Marine veteran with no combat time or service injuries asks what I think about his stepsons' VA disability ratings and whether he should file for the same "free money." I break down where that money actually comes from, what the deficit and national debt look like, and why I'd tell him to stick to his morals. I also address the people who feel the need to qualify their service. A listener pushes back on last week's censorship conversation and cites an FBI arrest as proof that some speech has to be stopped. I walk through what the First Amendment protects and what it doesn't, why an arrest for incitement is a consequence rather than censorship, and I repeat the question I've been asking for years: show me one example where censorship was a net positive. A 25-year-old whose father coached him from high school through college writes in about losing the sport he loved, feeling behind in his mid-20s, and worrying his fiancée will be collateral damage while he figures it out. My advice is simple. Share all of it with her. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Surefire: https://www.surefire.com Ridge: One thing to pack, five ways to power! You can find Ridge's Power Bank at Best Buy or our listeners can get 10% off at https://www.Ridge.com by using code "clearedhot" at checkout.
October 19 · 2 hr 55 min
Inside the Thunderbirds and the Cost of Getting It Wrong | Ryan Bodenheimer | Ep. 477
Ryan Bodenheimer spent eleven years on active duty flying the F-15E, including 70 combat missions over Afghanistan and a stint building strike packages at the air operations center in Qatar. He was selected for the Thunderbirds, flew Thunderbird 2 for two show seasons, and instructed the next team. After the Air Force he flew airliners, then walked away to build Max Afterburner, now one of the largest military aviation channels on YouTube, and to write Take Command. The thread in this conversation is rules and when to break them. He kept a loaded jet at .99 Mach so he'd arrive with something to protect a SEAL, then went down to 100 feet because 500 would have gotten the guy killed. He went off dry on a cleared-hot strafe because he saw kids, and two targets got away. My helicopter instructor put it simply: know the rules and why they exist, then you can break them. We close on Iran, drones, the withdrawal, and the limits of air power. Enjoy. Take Command: https://mysignedcopy.com/en-us/products/take-command?srsltid=AU7gw4XIeBMvDl9pxPZIhD54iTnJC5j74cMg8n-HS_7Cxx5Z4k83omYq Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com LMNT: https://www.drinklimnt.com/clearedhot
October 16 · 1 hr 17 min
He Should Die. Should We Watch It? | Negligent Discharge Friday | 10.16.26
I asked a question this week about whether the Fort Hood shooter's execution should be made public, and the emotional response to it surprised me. One video about my post opened by telling me never to defend him. I didn't. He should die, and I spent ten years of my life removing people like him from the planet. The real question is what a public execution gains and what it costs. Deterrence and closure are legitimate arguments. So are martyrdom, the countries that already do this, and what happens when footage reaches people who never went looking for it. I don't have a deep stake in either answer, and the responses on X land much closer to an even split than my own comment section would suggest. That gap is worth paying attention to. Michael and I also get into a YouTuber's RPG-7 test going wrong, flat earthers confronting the 24-hour sun in Antarctica, the reported removal of more than 130 million names from India's voter rolls, and a 94-year-old barrister arrested in the UK over a sign. Enjoy. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Willie's Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code "CLEAREDHOT" for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95 AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!
October 12 · 3 hr 2 min
The AGI Promise Is a Cover Story | Bill Thompson | Ep. 476
Bill Thompson joined the Army at 17 and spent 22 years there, most of it on the technical and communications side of a special missions unit. He now runs Spartan Forge, an AI-driven hunting app with over 100,000 users, advises high-profile clients on communications security, and is building his own compute network to run AI without feeding anyone else's system. His core argument is that AI as it exists today is training data, matrix math, and human correction. It produces novel output, not novel thought. He argues the companies promising AGI know they cannot deliver it, and that calling for regulation lets them blame the government, guarantee investors a captive market, and shut out the open-weight models anyone can run at home. He is moving his own companies off the closed systems now. Spartan Forge: https://www.spartanforge.ai Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Better Help: https://www.betterhelp.com/clearedhot
October 9 · 1 hr 1 min
Is Convenience Making Us Weak? | Full Auto Friday | 10.9.26
Traditional Q and A to round out this week: A high school senior sent five questions about American culture for a class assignment, so I answered all of them. The smartphone posture you'll see everywhere the second you look up. Political division and why your neighbor isn't your enemy. Whether Americans can still stand on their own or just push a button and wait. What the toilet paper shortage actually revealed. Being capable of violence and choosing not to use it. Independence as a core American value and what convenience has done to it. Why people born here won the lottery and forgot. A new father who cut off contact with his own dad asks whether there's any benefit to his daughter knowing that story someday. How my parents handled it with my grandfather. The difference between trauma and hardship, and why only one of them builds anything. Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code "CLEAREDHOT" at https://cowboycolostrum.com/CLEAREDHOT.
October 5 · 3 hr 5 min
Robots Will Fight the Next War | Mike LeBlanc | Ep. 475
Mike LeBlanc spent 13 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and went on to 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. After getting out he studied his way into Harvard Business School and co-founded Cobalt Robotics, a Sequoia-backed security robot company that put close to a thousand robots into offices on four continents before it sold. He now runs Foundation, which builds full-size humanoid robots for heavy industry and for the battlefield. His book, What If Anger Is the Answer, comes out November 3. We start in Ukraine, where he has walked the front lines. Fiber-optic drones, isolated strongpoints, and a scoring system that awards points per kill. He argues most deaths on both sides now come from drones, and we work through what happens to a generation that kills through a screen. What if anger is the answer: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/What-If-Anger-Is-the-Answer/Mike-LeBlanc/9781637749227 Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Brunt: https://www.bruntworkwear.com For a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at BRUNT when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.
October 2 · 57 min
Lying Never Holds Up | Negligent Discharge Friday | 10.2.2026
A last-minute Friday episode, because I forgot we didn't have one. Michael worked under pressure. We open with the Roberts Ridge series. The criticism online was valid: I should have asked Mitch and Brian whether they believe John Chapman earned the Medal of Honor, and I should have pushed on why the members of MAKO 30 supported the Navy Cross narrative and then would not sign statements for the Medal of Honor. That gap has to be addressed directly. I also explain where I actually land on the medal, why Pat Tillman is the example of what happens when you lie to protect a legacy, and why I am not a protector of the SEAL brand. The other side of the table is coming on in mid-October. From there, a report that an AI chatbot hallucinated nuclear components on a Chinese cargo ship and had aircraft scrambled before someone caught it. Michael and I argue about whether AI art is art. A judge blocks the White House from pulling press credentials, and I explain why censorship never works and what I would do as press secretary. Lincoln shut down hundreds of newspapers during the Civil War. The last U.S. troops leave Iraq, and we talk contractors, Title 10 versus Title 50, and why Afghanistan still stings. A pilot stabbed his co-pilot on a flight to Tel Aviv and the plane dropped 14,000 feet before passengers got into the cockpit. Today's Sponsors: Helix: Go to ⁠https://www.helixsleep.com/CLEAREDHOT⁠ for 27% off sitewide. AG1: Visit ⁠https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot⁠ to get an AG1 Pro YETI Shaker in your AG1 Pro WelcomeKit.
September 30 · 2 hr 17 min
Immaculate Constellation and the Cost of Blowing the Whistle | Matthew Brown | Ep. 474
Matt Brown spent his career inside the national security world without ever wearing a uniform. He came up through grad school and think tank work in DC, earned a TS/SCI clearance, and landed in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy working the counter-WMD mission. From there he moved to the State Department. In August 2023 he walked into a Senate committee, signed his real name, and became a whistleblower on UAP. His report on a program called Immaculate Constellation was later entered into the congressional record. Today he co-runs Vanguard Enterprise, a nonprofit built to support the people who came forward after him. This conversation covers what pushed him over the edge. He says he saw transcripts showing the director of the Pentagon's UAP office was not telling senators the truth. He explains how the counter-WMD mission gave him a legitimate reason to see collection on objects around nuclear assets, and what he saw on those systems, from small orbs going in and out of water to a large triangle and a boomerang that disappeared behind its own light. We cover the reality of blowing the whistle inside the IC, the retaliation he describes, and the questions he thinks Congress should be asking now. Today's Sponsors: Toehold: https://www.shoptoehold.com Use code "Andy" for 15% off at checkout Ethos: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://www.ethos.com/clearedhot. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trustpilot rating as of 6/1/2025.
September 28 · 2 hr 20 min
From Ranger to Rancher: Picking a Fight With Big Food | Patrick Montgomery | Ep. 473
Patrick Montgomery served in the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2010 to 2014, deploying to Afghanistan the day after the Bin Laden raid. Six weeks into that first deployment, his brother-in-law, also a Ranger, was killed in Paktika. Patrick escorted the body home. He got out, went back to school at Mizzou, and in 2016 founded KC Cattle Company, a farm-to-table Wagyu operation that went from selling steaks out of a pickup to a national brand after Food & Wine named its hot dog the best in America. He now runs Valor Provisions, a membership marketplace connecting American farms and ranches directly to consumers, and writes children's books about historical figures. This one covers the death notification and why clarity matters more than comfort, what it does to a family when a service member does not come back, and the nephew growing up with no memory of his father. From there it turns to business. The 2019 article that dropped half a million people on a website holding 40 packs of hot dogs. The pandemic surge, the inflation crash, and the structural mistakes that cost him. Then the bigger fight: his argument that four companies control most of America's protein, that foreign ownership of our food supply is a national security problem, and that the fix comes from the bottom up. Valor Provisions: https://valorprovisions.us/ Today's Sponsor: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Firecracker Farm: https://www.firecracker.farm
September 25 · 2 hr 6 min
The Medal, the Memos, and the Mountain | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 472
Brian Bloom has spent his career in front of and behind the camera as an actor, voice actor, and screenwriter. Mitch Hall served as a Navy SEAL with the Naval Special Warfare Development Group and later worked as a technical advisor and producer in film and television. For more than five years they have run the Ground Truth investigation into what happened on Roberts Ridge. In this last installment, they explain what it took to get back on top of Takur Ghar. They wrote to the Taliban, got permission, and spent a day on the summit testing sight lines and lighting. They also sat with men from the villages below who fought in the battle. From there we worked through the footage, the red-on-red question, and the documents behind the Medal of Honor upgrade. They laid out years of outreach to the Air Force and others who chose not to participate. They also addressed an upcoming feature film based on a version of events they say their findings contradict. The conversation ends on heroism, blame, and why the truth still matters after 25 years. Ground Truth Documentary: https://www.groundtruthdoc.com/ Today's Sponsors: Ridge: One thing to pack, five ways to power! You can find Ridge's Power Bank at Best Buy or our listeners can get 10% off at https://www.Ridge.com by using code "clearedhot" at checkout. Spartan Forge: https:www.spartanforge.ai
September 23 · 2 hr 19 min
The Ranger Account of Takur Ghar | Josh Walker & Chris Cunningham | Ep. 471
Josh Walker spent 24 years in uniform. He started as a young team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion, left for Florida State and ROTC, then came back as a signal officer and went on to serve in 7th and 3rd Special Forces Groups, logging close to three years in Afghanistan. Chris Cunningham was working as a chef in Vermont when his brother told him not to sign anything that didn't say Ranger. He listened, and served 22 and a half years. In March 2002, both were part of the Ranger quick reaction force sent to Takur Ghar. Neither had been in a firefight. Josh's helicopter, Razor 01, was supposedly headed to a refueling point. It was shot down on the mountaintop instead. Chris's element on Razor 02 landed below and climbed for more than two hours through deep snow, under mortar fire, to reach them. They walk me through the assault on the bunkers, a Hellfire that had to prove itself before anyone trusted it, the wait for exfil, and washing a friend's blood off his rifle before the younger Rangers got back to camp. I also asked why Rangers so rarely tell these stories and about the importance of people knowing the names of those that didn't come home. Today's Sponsors: Mars Men: For a limited time, listeners get 50% off for life plus Free Shipping AND 3 Free Gifts at https://www.Mengotomars.com Surefire: https://www.surefire.com/
September 20 · 4 hr 43 min
Roberts Ridge and the Fog of War vs. the Facts | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 470
Mitch Hall served in Naval Special Warfare, Brian Bloom came from film and games. Neither of them set out to spend six years on a single morning in March of 2002. They did anyway. Their project, Ground Truth, is built on seventy-five interviews, a trip back to the summit of Takur Ghar, the full unedited Predator and AC-130 footage, the radio traffic, the jock logs, and a forensic team that reconstructed the terrain and every camera orbit down to the inch. Part one of three this week. The episode lays out the uncontested account first. A friendly fire incident that almost ended Operation Anaconda before it started. A reconnaissance element pushed onto the tallest mountain in the valley on a compressed timeline, without the delay it requested, and told the summit was empty. A SEAL out of a helicopter under fire. A crash landing miles off target. A second attempt with no armor, no rucks, and ten minutes of fuel. Four Rangers killed on and around a ramp as the sun came up. Seven Americans dead by the end of the day. What follows is the part that has never been public. The viral video most people cite as proof is nine minutes assembled from an hour and forty-nine minutes of raw footage, out of sequence, with a closing sequence taken from four minutes after everyone agrees the fight was over. The technology credited with reopening the medal case is examined by name. So is the bunker, the two fighters said to be inside it, and the decision to pull air support with the quick reaction force on final. Two Medals of Honor came out of this mountain. So did a feud between two branches that has run for more than twenty years. Ground Truth Documentary: https://www.groundtruthdoc.com/ Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanknifecompany.com LMNT: https://www.drinklmnt.com
September 18 · 1 hr 2 min
They Don't Need A Warrant Anymore | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.18.2026
I asked for positive news this week. What I got was surveillance, a global humiliation, and a man duct taped to his seat at thirty thousand feet. We open with reporting that Homeland Security has been analyzing the financial data of American citizens, and that some units have used it to steer local police toward pretextual traffic stops. Banks have run keyword filters on transactions. Agencies have swept up bulk records from money transfer services. Credit reports, utility bills and location data get purchased outright from private brokers, which sidesteps the Fourth Amendment entirely. There is a term for where that ends up. Turnkey totalitarianism is a system where every pillar of mass surveillance is built and operational, waiting on one person to connect it. I could not steel man the argument that we are not already there. From there we get into age and capacity in elected office, Apple's attempt to certify that a photograph is real, and why current AI produces novel output but not novel thought. Then it lightens up. A competitive fitness scandal goes worldwide. An actor announces what he would do to people in a fight. A first class passenger gets restrained with zip ties and duct tape between Dallas and Newark. We close with 163 missing children recovered in Florida in four days. Today's Sponsors: Willies Remedies: Order now at https://www.drinkwillies.com and use code CLEAREDHOT for 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders over $95. Or use the store locator to find Willie's on shelves near you, like your local Total Wine, Specs, ABC or local liquor store AG1: Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/clearedhot to get a FREE AG1 Flavor Sampler and AGZ Sampler to try all the flavors, plus FREE Vitamin D3+K2 and AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription order!
September 14 · 2 hr 6 min
Air Traffic Control Is Running on Windows 95 | Dan Rickert | Ep. 469
Dan Rickert graduated from West Point and commissioned into the cavalry, running Bradleys and gun trucks through Iraq in 2008 before going to selection and finishing his nine years in uniform on a Special Forces team with 10th Group. He left the Army in 2015 and spent the next eight years at Palantir, moving from project management to international work and eventually to chief of staff on the defense side. He is now VP of Operations at Air Space Intelligence, the company the FAA selected to rebuild the software that runs the national airspace. Much of this conversation is about what people get wrong about the defense industry. He argues that competition produces a better product for the people using it, that a human has to stay in the loop on any decision that matters, and that skepticism is healthy either way. We also worked through privacy and security, and whether the two actually have to be traded against each other. From there we covered drone warfare and trench fighting in the same conflict, rebuilding an identity after the uniform comes off, and the work of modernizing air traffic control. Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Betterhelp: Sign up and get 10% off at https://www.BetterHelp.com/clearedhot

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