Welcome to the Kansas deflector Podcast. I'm Tim Carpenter, the Kansas Second District congressional primaries a showdown among five candidates. There's the former Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt. There's Jeff Carr's a former staff member Congressman Jake le Turner and Governor Sam Brownback Sean Tiffany threw his cowboy hat into the ring along with the conservative Chad young. The fifth and final GOP candidate in the contest is Michael aokal. Topeka. He ran previously as a Libertarian candidate for Topeka mare and he's with us now to talk about why Kansans should send him to Washington, DC. Mr. Ogle, welcome.
Good morning, Tim.
First question I should ask you is why are you a candidate for Congress of the United States?
I'm running for office, because I think that American exceptionalism needs to be pursued, and I am the right person to put the American exceptional bring American exceptionalism back to America.
All right. You know, for some political people, we know something about their background. They've served in political office for years and years and years. We know a little bit about them. So this kind of do a briefing on yourself as to your background and where you come from and what you've done and so forth.
I joined the military. I graduated high school here in instride, Shawnee heights, I graduated early, I joined the military. I served, got out and got an Army ROTC scholarship, and I didn't go well. I went through join, we joined the Guard and got through OCS joined a got through college joined OCS. Commission then I got a platoon. You went to Fort Benning iopc Victory officer basic course where I mean it was just the greatest does the absolute fun time all you do you what's clean weapon are its weapons in its its, its hand to end instruction attained and fighting. It's just, it's just the warriors of America. And I got a platoon and my platoon had just come back from Iraq. So instead of being all ramped up, like a young lieutenant should be I kind of had to go into let's let's recover these soldiers. That kind of mode is a very different experience than what I had imagined. But I, you know, I, I might, I think we did a good job with them. There was four structural changes, we had to go through I LBC went from an infantry company to an engineer company. And you know, which was a lot of conversion. But once you break out the seafloor and start blowing things up, soldiers tend to get excited a little bit. So, you know, we moved on from there went to went to the Horn of Africa, deployed to the Horn of Africa, in Operation Enduring Freedom, dealt with some border issues dealt with, in observe some of the French Foreign Legion guys handling some border issues. We dealt with some border issues on our own in Africa, with Al Shabaab. And it's a human trafficking issues, and there was a whole lot of the whole lot of things that we dealt with that were not necessarily military that you would imagine, but it was it was it was exciting, nonetheless. How
many years do you have? Did you serve in the Kansas National Guard? I
did. 21 total and I retired as a major. Okay. Excellent. All right. I currently work as a Service Officer for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. And I help veterans get their their service connected disabilities, our our team is seven works off work 2023, we had a $350,000 budget, and we brought back $250 million in compensation for disabled veterans alone to the state of Kansas. So those are federal tax dollars that are returned to the state and you say no spent in our economy.
And so, so this is an important question, actually, that you raised that, you know, why is it so difficult for veterans to get the benefits that on in black and white print they desert?
It's a it's a slow play process? Because one of them they got the federal government wants to recognize them slowly, a lot of veterans feel like they will pass away before their their their benefits get approved. And frankly, that's one of the reasons why I'm running the toxic the burn pit areas, they had a burn peer recognition act in Congress that that didn't pass we got pack doc will pack doc put us on a burn pit registry instead of a numerating the toxins that we were exposed to which the burned peer recognition act did, and the registry. So we'll look at the illnesses you guys come down with over the next 30 to 40 years. Well, we'll be dead by then. So so we need to we need to get some help with the VA and locally, we need to get the VA to write Nexus letters. So the VHA can run a Nexus letter to the BBA, which is the Veterans Benefit Administration so that so that service connection can get approved. There's just so it's just complicated. Yeah. And the veteran has to claim it like the veteran has to walk Don't feel that they have a need for it and claim it and there has to be a chronic disability. And a lot of veterans think, Well, I'm not as bad off as the next guy. Well, it's the law that you should be taking care of. And America wants to take care of its veterans. So that's good. It's
worthwhile. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some of the issues that you talk to potential voters on the stump about, I know you're an advocate of term limits.
Yeah, term limits is, is very important. Because we have politicians that are going to Washington and they're making their whole careers in Washington and taking, they get bought and paid for by companies. And everybody thinks, Well, Congress has like a 13% approval rating, but they don't vote their own representative at office, that's my guy is okay, everybody else is wrong. I gotta tell you, you sit there long enough, everybody's guys gets wrong. We need we need fresh blood and turnover to ensure that American interest or be a citizen interest are being taken care of,
in this instance, the second congressional district, which we're running for, Congressman Jake le Turner has decided not to seek re election to another term. And so it's kind of a natural term limiting, you know, after a handful of years serving in Washington, so that turnover, I certainly brings more ideas to the table, rather than just having people kind of set in their ways. Sure. But we also lose institutional knowledge as well. Another issue talked about on the campaign trail is energy independence, you know, the United States being not so tied to foreign countries, you know, strange places for their their energy sources. So what do you think about that? Right?
Well, the path forward is American energy independence, we just got out of a 20 year war in Afghanistan, we didn't get out because it was the nice thing to do. We got out so China could mine lithium to put in green cars. China's right up buying up swamps, a land the size in Nebraska, in Africa. And they're they're putting in these mines that demand lithium, that the mining lithium is not a green process. So whatever you think you're getting, it's not green, it's just not green on the other side of the world. And I gotta tell you dealing with China's interest, have they had the they were selective abortions, they would not have female babies, they would have male babies. Well, what they're doing now is they're exporting those males, to China for life or to Africa, to Afghanistan, to places around the world to have lifelong interest there, they're spending a ton of money on that which is going into place this place, other males in those regions, and I can see that popping off in Hatton causing conflict, the path for us forward as energy independence and to take the money away from that situation. As far as foreign policy goes, American energy independence is very important for peace and prosperity. And we just we got to get there.
I think self reliance is good. I think oil production domestically is up. I don't know if it's satisfies the whole demand. But I know there's more oil being pulled out of the ground and us, United States in the past. So So is it sort of a kind of a geopolitical issue? Or is it just about jobs in America? I mean, what about energy independence, I
would take all of the above on that. We need jobs, we need opportunity. We need American exceptionalism, we need an economy that can run on American energy. And so we can have American jobs we need, we don't need to send our young men and women over into harm's way so that they can secure energy interests. While we, you know, we need to be able to control foreign economies, so that they're not so that they can't engage in warfare. So and we do that by having a good independent economy here. You know, when the army we call the looked at money as a weapon system? Well, you know, what I can get done with a little bit of cash or a little bit of a economic good economic policy, I want to get it done that way, instead of being violent about it, you know? So,
yeah, so you kind of touched on this, what are your thoughts about international aid? The United States sends a lot of money, resources overseas and to other countries do? Is it enough or too much?
I think it's too much. We need to if anything, enables stronger communities, but I gotta tell you, what I've seen around the world when in through the military is that the countries that we provide aid to do not share American value. And if we're going to do this, like anything, we need to be unapologetic, unapologetically American, okay. There's, there's enough. There's enough American exceptionalism to house all forms of people, any race, creed, ideology, any of that. It can all be housed under the idea that that our founders put forward under America, we got to make sure it extends that far. But if we go over and we, we culturally pretend that we're not American, we're not going to we're not going to get anywhere. America is a great country and we need to display that wherever we go. Hmm,
the fort. There's a bunch of other public policy issues here. But before we go any further, I wanted to ask you about some controversy involving this 2019 domestic violence incident involving you. It led to a plea, I believe, of aggravated domestic battery. Do you want to explain what happened and whether or not you think that's relevant to run for public office even?
Well, coming coming back from deployment, I had some issues with with PTSD, and I had to take you know, there's a psychological processes recovery process, there's medications, I took medications that make me angry, and I couldn't find the right medications. The doctor, I had two doctors removed from my care team, then when I'm retired, and one of them was just removed at the VA and another therapist had hung herself before my appointment at the VA. That was Jordan does 2018. So I kind of removed myself from the from the recovery process, and there was some other pressures. My, my son, stepson who has a severe TBI from my ex's previous marriage, with the father did abuse the child that, you know, there was some things going on there that I'm not sure about now. But going forward, you know, the kid was in an audible and he banged his head on the door, and it was routed, all night long, and he'd cry. And it just kind of threw him back into a bad spot. But I wasn't prepared to slide down the stairs a lot. And what I wasn't prepared for it really was being made out to be the bad guy. There was constant investigations from the wall, we had this wall and I could explain to his kids banging his head on the door to slide down the stairs and the kid can't explain anything. I mean, so the constant that's, you know, you know, so we could explain what happened, we could show him what he was doing, but he couldn't. We couldn't and none of these were substantiated. But it was just the constant. Constant investigates, I wasn't prepared to meet into the bad guy for taking on this mentally disabled inaudible kid.
So then it boiled Yeah, surfaces really oily and it it really
boiled over because the kid came home with stuff stuck up from up his bottom from the school. And I called the police over and over and I railed and I called everybody that I could DCF I think I even tried to call the FBI and they wouldn't do anything because I couldn't get there. The implication would have been at the school, that there would have been somebody at the school that had put something up his bottom, gosh, and, but they knew who I was, you know, Christmas 2019 We were going into a divorce and we knew it, me and my ex wife. We wanted to hang on for the kids to have one more good Christmas. That was it. That was the thing. And and it just didn't work out, you know, my, my accent started, started a pattern of using using drugs and staying out all night. And and so when I told her I told her that night and Christmas Eve, so we can't have drugs in the house anymore. And she says well, snitches get stitches, and I said, Well, okay, and I go down to the den, and I got and I got really drunk, which I shouldn't have, but it just it was too much pressure at the time. And so I go forward. And I get up and everything is upset, you know, everyone's upset in the morning. And it's very brief, very brief instance. You know, I remember nobody being happy. But I also remember, you know, I remember hung overly. For drunkenly see I'm going upstairs. And I'm told my told my ex I'm going upstairs she'd called the police. And after I touched on their family members face, which that's
the domestic violence bar. Oh,
no, dude, that part was before the before the call. It was, in my mind. The whole thing was insignificant to this day, my ex walks around saying I learned to hit and choke people without causing bruises or marks in the army. And I can tell you, that's not part of the doctrine.
So what was the resolution? Okay, so there was an arrest or as a prosecution, what was the resolution? Where you place on probation? Did you go to therapy?
Yeah. So yeah. So you know, the SWAT team came out and I gotta tell you there was there was a lot of people upset that they came out and they were upset at me, but I would you know, I've been recently the attacks in the police and my attacker and a letter in the mail a ticket in the mail. And that was much more peaceful than what happened to me, which I'm grateful for. In any event, yeah, there's a resolution we got the court, you know, the COVID-19 and just come on. On it was 2019 Christmas 2019 2020. And the indefinitely delayed all trials, I think, in March of 2020 20. And the Supreme Court of Kansas now that here's the thing that when you talk to lawyers about this, they say, well, we didn't suspend the constitution. We didn't you have a right to a speedy trial, but we didn't. Well, we just suspended the statutory restrictions as well. The statutory stuff is there to be adhered to. When when things go wrong, because we know the tolerances and limits of what people can endure. That's, that's why we have that. So when we have it a Kobe know if if the society values security of staying at home instead of justice, that's what society values that's just too darn bad. Society needs to be an active role in the administration of justice. That wasn't gonna happen under the circumstances. I couldn't see my kids, I had six months had gone by and I hadn't seen my kids. My attorney had told me that there was some charges he could get dropped. And obviously, I've explained, you know, that I pled to and there's obviously some some things that I've explained about, you know, there was no no bruising or no physical evidence to that
was what was the what was the sentence? Yeah, two years probation?
I was God, I, you know, I met all my requirements with
and that probationary period is over.
Yes, I got one year, I've met all the requirements, the probation within one year and applied to have the probation period ended. And they accepted that,
what do you think, do you think this is a relevant issue for people running for public office,
I don't think it's a relevant issue. And here's why. If you talk to me back then I was, I had a lot of things to recover from, and things are not good for me. Now, stuff happens in people's lives, it's not always the best, it's life is a full contact sport. And sometimes people get burned. And if we, if we keep ruling people out, because of the things that have happened in their past, we'll never be able to get to the point in the future. Some of this trauma, some of these things that have happened to me have really given me a lot of wisdom, insight, empathy to situations that I wanted to have a positive impact on. But I couldn't address properly because I hadn't lived enough life yet. And I'm really grateful that I've had these experiences. Because it's made me incredibly empathetic, incredibly understanding of the conditions of people in our society that need the best good government, the people, if, if you need to be governed, most people really don't need it. And but if you really need to be governed, you need somebody that understands and will provide the best good government possible. I think that I've talked to sheriffs all around the district to, and most of them are saying they need mental health resources, because people do have mental health issues in America. It's just a thing. Well, I've been there, I've been down that road, I've recovered my site, my psychiatrists now has said that I no longer need the act of support of a psychiatrist, because I've made it to that level in my recovery. But mental health issues are real. And we don't get people that can articulate these issues and bring them forward. If they've never been through it. Well, it's just get the hit, take the hits, and go forward and get through it and bring these issues to the public.
So all right. There's many other issues that people in the district are curious about. Real quickly, the there's, you have a military background. And so there's a lot of controversy in Congress about the US support for Ukraine, we're putting a billions of dollars into that effort to try to hold back the Russians. At the same time, Israel is using a lot of us firepower to to move into Gaza, and try to grapple with Hamas. What what do you what are your thoughts about those conflicts?
Well, Ukraine, it's kind of nice to see Russia line their tanks up in rows and be fight a fight that they can sustain into a neighboring nation. America should feel very, should feel very secure that the Russian bear is not the Russian bear that it's been made out to be. As an infantry officer and maneuver officer I, I definitely can tell you, it's it's that is what it is. As far as Israel goes, our main effort in Israel should be to maintain nuclear deterrence for the Middle East region in the world. We, you know, I think that the United States is supporting both sides on this issue of Israel, I think what we really should do is make sure that economically, the countries that are nefarious and engaging in terrorism over there need to be economically crippled, so they can't engage in terrorism, and we need to maintain nuclear deterrence. So if we go boots on ground or provide too much more help to Israel, I'm very sure that Iran and some of these other nuclear powers you know, I don't want a new colorized nuclear fallout in Israel. I don't want that. Yeah, you know. So I, you know, I think that what we need to do is just let Israel be the big kid on the block. They've done that for years. They've, you know, the seven days war they they've been able to defend themselves. They've shown that and so we can let them be the big kid on
this whole issue deciding when to withdraw support or or reduce that support gets tricky. I mean, in Afghanistan and Iraq, those became tough questions, you know, we've devoted this, this human capital, we've devoted all kinds of resources, and Shall we walk away those those questions are hard. And to me, when you look at Ukraine, we we've been their ally and and supporter, and likewise, in Israel, but for some reason, there's political people in Washington to say, Well, yeah, well, you know, with Ukraine, we can just walk away. And I think that sends a bad vibe to anybody else who might want to be our ally.
Right? Well, here's, here's the reality. We didn't support Ukraine, because it was it was wonderful, and the greatest thing to do, we wanted to get out of Afghanistan. So China could get in for the two minute lithium. The powers that be in Washington wanted to keep funding their military industrial complex allies, and Ukraine gave them a wonderful opportunity to keep funding those military industrial complex allies. And as our great President Eisenhower from Kansas has said, be wary of the military industrial complex and through.
But another area where a lot of resources are devoted is to particularly the southern border, the United States, there's a large number of all kinds of immigrants from all over the place, that are coming across the border, legally and illegally. So what's your take on all of that?
Well, I want to ease the path to legal immigration, illegal immigration and the coyotes the the human traffickers that are they're putting their hopes and dreams on criminality and abusive people, we need to go ahead and send our rangers and our our Special Forces teams down there to RAID, RAID those entities and maybe engage in foreign internal defense to build up Mexican cities in Mexico agencies in Mexico that are capable of reducing that kind of criminality and defending against that kind of criminality. And we got graeagle assets, and I think we can put the national guard on the border and allow them to detain people.
So you think that's a proper role for the Kansas National Guard that I know some guard people have been to the border, to do various things. But there was an appropriation of we'll say, approximately $15 million in this last legislative session, and Governor Laura Kelly vetoed that, do you think that veto was wrong? Because Kansas shouldn't be participating with other states in that border security effort?
I'm not 100% sure on that specific funding, what I am going to say is that the process down there matters in America. The greatness of America is that what we need to do down there as secure humanity because what's not going on right down is humanity would do that there's there's like I said, there's human trafficking. There's people coming up starving, they're there, they're out of you know, we we have to one for the good for the good of America. One. We can't have people coming up here to suck on our on our welfare system we meet with if if good immigration happens when it's a success for the host nation and a success for the immigrants. So we got to make sure that we do allow immigration, it is successful for both both parties. And I think the energy independence is a great way to get there because we'll create more jobs which you know, which will allow more success in our in our country for everybody. But, but what we really need to make sure we do militarily and security wise and as a police force in this nation, border patrol and everything else is ensure that what we're doing is humane, because it can get out of hand very quickly.
So President Trump, former President Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president. It's gonna run against President Joe Biden Democrat. So what do you think about your party's got Donald Trump?
Donald Trump? He, he's a great guy. I think that he has long played into many, many cultures. And he is he is sat with many people and he has identified what America needs right now. And he's put himself on the line to to bring America back. And, you know, the Make America Great, again, is wonderful. It's a wonderful slogan. But the thing about it is, is the citizen has to make America great again. And what I want for the citizen is for your slice of America to be what you want it to be. I want you to be empowered. I want you Buy into America, I want you to buy in that America is the greatest country in the world. And I can get there by providing opportunity through American energy independence and bringing our tax dollars home. President
Trump has tons of fans in Kansas and elsewhere. But one of the things that just as an observer reporters that he seems to have trouble squaring up the facts with his policy pronunciations. And so I just I'm kind of curious about you're a candidate. When you go out, would you distort the truth on a regular basis? Is that just an okay thing to do now? I don't worry, or do you find that a shortcoming of Mr. Trump?
Well, I think I think in candidacy, it's hard because we're usually limited to three to five minutes of elevator speech to appeal to people. So I think that gets very hard for anybody. Sure. And then, as far as President Trump goes, he's a real estate developer that became a reality TV star, you're not gonna get Ronald Reagan, the actor, the great communicator, you're gonna get reality TV, and as long as the policy in action is great, that's, you know, those are the dynamics at play, you know, Ronald Reagan was great, and he could play the part very well of the United States president he knew how to do it. Trump is, is touching on a lot of great issues, but a lot of pro American issues. Pro America, that's what we need, how he gets there, is for Trump. Okay,
so we're gonna have to go to the lightning round here a little bit, there's a The United States has a massive federal debt, run a deficit all the time. So your thoughts about that, you got
to balance the budget. I mean, in a perfect world, we would pay $3,000. For every child born in America, that's $3.2 million, are 3.2 million children in America $3,000. In attach it to their social security number, even though I call this playing capital security in 65 years, that $3,000 investment is now 1.4 million at a 12% rate of return in the market and I hear people in Washington can invest really, really well. Okay. The Citizen then gets the bond interest, it's five or 6%, or, or dividend, but then the money refers back to the general fund. So we can end the need for excessive the the income tax, we can end the need for all kinds of taxation. With this $3,000 up front now paying down the debt, you know, maybe if we get our energy cost a little lower, we can we can attach some kind of tax to go specifically to the debt to, to the energy. And if we can secure it now, there's plans with that there's problems with that plan. There's there's the gap between who's paying into Social Security and who comes out. But in the end, it's a savings. I don't have the actuarial brain to figure it out. But I'm sure somebody in Washington or somebody around does, so I don't mind talking about the plan. And I know, I know, it's risky to talk about Social Security. But imagine, instead of paying Imagine instead of paying for them, this is the problem, the boomers don't have as many Xers and the millennials aren't as many millennials, so they're coming up and trying to pay this this debt from arrears? Well, what we need to do is get to where we're paying it, upfront capital security, the debt is paid up front, the social capital security for the citizens was paid up front by the National generation, and the Now Generation then moves it forward. So it's paid and we could get to a point where we don't need taxation, because like I said, that 1.4 million or burden back into the general fund and 60 era and we had that at at the passing of the citizen 30% of the population doesn't make it to 65 So you do have that 65 You would have 30% of that money available at 65 years,
you know a lot about guns so what there's people that will go on the campaign trail and Kansas and talk about the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms and so forth. Are there limits to that or do you think it's a an open door in terms of people having the firearms that they desire? Well, I
think that what we're doing is we're doing things the wrong way as far as gun control I'm not I'm not for gun control. I'm not for restrictions on the right of the citizen to keep in bear arms. I'm not really for federal gun laws. Now what I might, what I might consider is regulations on the militia or militia activity. You know, and those things I think would be best handled at the state levels at this time is different states have different tolerances for what they enjoy or what they like but what I think this would do is open open the opportunity for tourism and adventure adventure. You know, if you had if you could go to a private range, and she crew served weapons, you know, you would have your shoot crew served guns, you know, by a militia pass for a day or whatever you would be.
So instead of going to like Worlds of Fun, you would go to Worlds of gun Well, it's possible. It's your fire cannon.
Yeah, it's possible. Yeah, that that kind of activity could be possible that
could be pretty popular. Yeah, as long as nobody got hurt.
I mean, and I think, you know, we've got a bunch of veterans that are around right now that would be great to feel those do those jobs because they they've done it safely for years and
other issues. There's social issues, all sorts but what about abortion?
I don't see a good path forward for abortion through legislation right now. And I'm not for sex selection abortions, I'm not for abortion past viable, the child being viable. I'm not for you know, that. If you look at if you talk to women that have had abortions, some you know, they have one, but there's another woman in there who's gone her 20th. And she's talking about going to McDonald's. So the psychological care needs to be there for these women that are going through those those problems. And I think that the problem with creating a law about abortion is that it the ban, like banning stuff creates black markets, and it creates violence around the issue. And so I would, I would very much encourage society, if you're against abortion, and I am against abortion. I'm very pro life. I respect the sanctity of life and but, but I think privately, we need to go forward and address the issue in much different ways privately, because the law will create a ton of violence around the issue.
Before we leave this conversation, I wonder if when you are out there our do the general public ask you questions like what kind of other questions maybe things that we haven't considered or even those we have you get questions about certain things people in the in out there in Kansas that are that are they what are common suggestion to you?
The The biggest one is from the sheriff's that I've talked to in District twos is mental health resources for for people that they would otherwise because I mean it it's just a reality. The jails are full of people who have mental health trauma, and most of them don't need to be there. Most of them need to recover. And I've recovered. I am like the model of this happening like we can you know, if there's Derek Schmidt's privates that wants to privatize prisons, right, very much for privatized prisons, well, that's not a mental health problem, mental health approach. And I think violence in those prisons is privatized prisons is 30% higher than the violence in in the prisons that we have that are government run. The idea that, you know, the idea that DCF is a great we need to put our resources DCF is a craptastic government agency for the state, we need to put our resources into what really needs to be governed and there's things out there that really need to be governed there's there's there's there's incredible poverty, there's children that are that are actually dying in Kansas that are actually dying, and they're they're dying, because they're they're impoverished. We need to put our resources into those and I'll tell you, government, I'm for liberty, and I'm for domestic tranquility. And I'm for the more perfect union when you see the riots that have happened under the under the Trump administration, because then they call them race issues, issues with the police and they call and then then the January 6 riots, the public is so frustrated. But what I what I was offer is is that this these aren't new things. You know, in the 90s, there was a lot of domestic problems with law enforcement. You had Randy Weaver who just wanted to move out and be alone in Idaho. And the FBI pursued him clear out to the northern Idaho on Ruby Ridge and caused a lot of problems for him and his family and he wind up going to court they shot his him they shot they shot his son, they shot his dog, they shot his wife while he was holding the baby and they shot and they took him to court and he was found not guilty. Well, that's a lot of trauma. Fast forward. You know, you have David Koresh in the in the Branch Davidian, called now I'm not in an agreement with David Koresh or the Branch Davidian cult at all but David Koresh like to go to the record store every Thursday to listen to records and they could have arrested him at the record store and they burnt the place. Well, what did that cause? A disturbance in domestic tranquility. If you look at the motivations of Timothy McVeigh, we have a huge problem. If we do not do the right things in government, if we do not do the right things in law enforcement if we do not do them the right way. We are not ensuring that domestic tranquility we are not ensuring liberty and we are not pursuing a more perfect union.
I think we'll leave it there. I want to thank Michael A Ogle have to be good candidate in the second congressional district or Republican candidate. I want to thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you
