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ZERT Coffee & Chaos 144 – Minnesota in the Crosshairs: Power, Corruption, and Consequences
08 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What current events in Minnesota are impacting public trust?
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Welcome back to Dessert, Coffee, and Chaos podcast, a show where we talk about anything and everything relating to what it means to be a survivalist and a prepared individual in today's society, day, and age, whatever you will. I'm your host, Chris Bartogone, ZP002. Back with me on my show, the co-host of the show, Jamie Franks. Jamie, still a gentleman extraordinaire. Jamie and his mustache.
Welcome back. Happy New Year. Yeah, man. Happy New Year. It is. Yeah, we recorded our last show on New Year's Eve and our first show eight days later. So here we are.
We're off and running.
We are. We're off and running. And first, I want to go ahead and apologize for last week's show. We did have to cut it short due to some technical issues.
glitches technical difficulties if you will um and yeah we were like 80 through the show and like the yeah our technical difficulties were just not going away so we just decided to cut it
yeah so uh we didn't get into the kind of the the last bit of the show we got into a good portion of it and um so i do apologize about that we're going to kind of pick off where we are pick up where we left off last week but we do have a lot to talk about since it's we're eight days in and so much shit has happened already um we are let's see we've passed our uh our what is it?
Six year, six year anniversary of insurrection day. Um, so the January 6th is, yeah, it was 2020, right?
Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. Like, geez. There you go.
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Chapter 2: How is the political landscape shifting in Minnesota?
The next day was like 35,000. I mean, it was insane. Um, But, you know, whatever that we're just talking about what's going on five years ago. And now we are here. We are eight days in.
And well, to me, like January 6th was like a bad look. But I'm still of the opinion that like nothing really happened. Like January 6th is mostly a big nothing burger. And it's funny how however many years it has been, I guess, five years. People are still trying to like. pump it up into this bigger thing that it really wasn't. I find that weird.
Yeah, no, I agree. But We're going to pick up where we left off. That's the second time I flopped that one. Now we're just going to go with pick off. We're going to pick off this subject, and we're going to pick off that subject. But you had some questions when it came to New Year's resolutions, and I think you had a couple other points that you wanted to touch on, which kind of lead us into –
what we're going to talk about today. Like I said in the opening, and I say every week after we get to the opening, I thank you guys for being here and picking up the show on Spotify and Apple through the Firearms Radio Network. But we talk about, you know, anything and everything relating to what it means to be a prepared individual and a survivalist in today's day and age.
And mindset is something we've talked about a lot. But we also talk about happening things and current events, which is kind of where we're going to blend and blur the lines of that today as we cannot help, but see anything and everything about Minnesota happening right now.
So, but before we get to that debacle, not, not talking about the Vikings in football, um, you, you had a couple of points that you wanted to touch on from last week's episode. So since we are recording this and it is going out same day, so this will be, uh, we, we recorded this earlier and now it's going out. So.
Yeah, I typically I only listen back to the shows when like Paul's on here. Somebody else usually listen back to our show. So I don't know how much of this was hearable and discernible from the last episode or not. But we were kind of wrapping up the last episode by talking about New Year's resolutions. And I was kind of making the point that several years ago, I noticed that.
that year to year, um, like, you know, in, cause it's 2026 now. So I'll just, just as an example, I'm going to kind of make this up, but like in 2022, I, that year I shot more shotgun shells than anything else. And then the next year I shot more nine millimeter than anything else. And the next year I shot more three Oh eight than anything else. And then, and I wasn't doing that on purpose.
I just kind of started paying attention and realized that I went through these like cycles and it's because I, I think it's a good metaphor kind of for life. On any given year, I'm focused at becoming better at this thing. And so these other things fall off. And then the next year, I kind of shift fire and I'm like, okay, well, now this skill or this thing over here is kind of falling off.
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Chapter 3: What happened during the officer-involved shooting connected to ICE?
Um, but, uh, so like this year I want to shift focus. That's one of the things I want to kind of jack up is, uh, is reconnecting with friends, especially since I'm going to be retiring from the military this year and my quote unquote mandatory friendships, uh, that I enjoy at work or those are going to not exist anymore. Cause I won't be going to work with all those people anymore. And, um,
I want to touch on that. One of the big things when people talk about joining the military and staying in it for as long as you did is the camaraderie and the brotherhood and sisterhood that you make over there. I'm sure that that's going to transcend your retirement from the Navy and some of those guys you'll still keep in touch with, right?
It's weird. This is... This is something I've always said my entire career is the the the worst part to me about me being in the military is constantly having to say goodbye to people. And that comes in many different forms, like it could come in the form of I'm going on deployment for a year and I have to say goodbye to my daughter and family and whatever. house and car and life and everything.
Cause I'm going to be gone for a year and I have to say goodbye to all those things for a year. Or you can be at a, a unit and you can be best friends with this guy and you guys hang out together all the time. And you're like brothers. And then one of you either gets out of the military or transfers or whatever, and you have to say goodbye. And your intention is to stay in touch.
But now, you know, you go to a different unit, they go to a different unit. Now you're on two completely different schedules. You could be on two completely different sides of the world. And it's, and like little by little that, that friendship just erodes away. And then you become friends with somebody else. And then you're, you're like best friends with that person for three or four years.
And then one of you transfers or both of you transfer, one of you gets out and you're, your intention is good and you intend to stay together. But I mean, I can count on one hand, literally, um, the amount of people that I was like super duper close friends with from, um, assignments in the past, uh, where that I still keep up with.
I mean, it's just, that's, it's just kind of the way of the world. You, you transfer, you, you become focused on your new job at your new unit and these new people. And then everything else kind of falls by the wayside or, um, like the, my friend Rich that like I was, he was one of my best friends in the world. And then he got transferred.
He got this opportunity to be attached to this unit in England for like four years. And, and like, so he transferred to the other side of the world and a completely different time zone and everything. And I mean, even though we were best friends that we just kind of, we just kind of fell off and it's, it's nobody's fault. It's just one of those things. And, but like when you're,
at my job now, we're kind of all forced to be in the same room for a few hours a day and we all get along together well. But in a few months, that's going to be coming to an end. And I hope I go on to some different job where I make new friends or whatever.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the recent fraud allegations?
And it's that old set of cowboy boots that I put on after years. They're broken in and they're so comfortable. Right. And it's busy. It's very busy. And, you know, I like over the years, November to December, you know, me and my current boss were talking about stuff that we want to do for dessert. And then I had some downtime from work. So I was able to get caught up on orders.
And like the last five days, I have not, have not had any time to get a lot of orders done because I, I'm super busy and I'm preparing for show. It's show season is upon us. So it's just like immediate engagement into getting stuff ready for shot show for shot show. And then for the buy groups right afterwards. And then I've got to do filming for KDG and I still have to film content for Zert.
And I still got to get orders out for Zert. And, you know, then I'm dealing with whatever kind of problem we're having on the backend of Zert where we can, you know, get new orders coming in. And it's a lot. And, and, And what I find is the moment I am done doing day job, I then switch to the phone and I'm down still doing the work job.
And, you know, it's made it challenging to sleep at night because I get to sleep. Okay. Cause I start watching something that's monotonous and boring and I fall back, fall asleep, but then I wake up. to go to the bathroom, whatever. And then all of a sudden I'm awake. My brain's up. My brain's like, Oh, you're awake. You're up. Hold on. What about this? What about that? What about this?
How about doing this? And then it's just like, I can't. So that was the only thing I said, you know, when it comes down to new year's resolutions, guys, listen, if you, if you feel the need to do it, do it. If it's like, well, I'm going to get healthy. I You know, look in the mirror and say, should I have done that? Should I have waited till January 1st to do that?
Or should I have been doing that the entire time? And I'm not sitting here talking from a pillar of health and fitness, you know, by any stretch of the imagination. But if that's where you're at, then, you know, make it so.
Yeah, if that's the excuse you need, then great. Run with it. Right. That's better than not doing it.
So yeah, exactly. But just understand that's an excuse. It's not, you should be able to do that. Um, so that's kind of, I think that was like the last thing that we talked about and I wasn't sure if there was anything else that, that you kind of had.
No, we were just, we were talking about Christmas, but like I got a cool little, like a handheld ham radio for Christmas and I want to be, I want to figure out how that thing out. And then, um, this wasn't a Christmas present, but I got a, I got a gen five Glock 47 and, um, Oh, nice. I got that one. I think I got a pretty good price. I know.
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Chapter 5: How do narratives form before all facts are established?
I would say that's a fair assessment, a fair assumption.
Short of FUDs who just need a rifle for hunting, and that's that. So if that's you, sorry. But go out and get a pistol. And so I challenged him. I was like, let's get into the pistol market. And I was thinking A, and he went to Z. And I was like, okay, we'll see. And then he showed it to me yesterday in a 3D printed prototype. And I was just like, oh, okay. I like that.
So I'm super excited when it comes out. And I can't wait to tease it. I mean, we've already designed the rollout plan on how we're going to go to market and how we're going to tease it. And hopefully it will be, it will do well. Sorry, folks, I have no idea how we ended up there. Where were we going with that?
I don't know, but you suggested A, and he went to Z. I hope he didn't design the latest Glock killer that's not going to be a Glock killer. No, no, no.
Okay. Well, you were talking about Glock, and you were talking about your new Ben Steger, Stoger. Yep. inspired pistol and all the accoutrements you've added to it.
Just for a quick sidebar, I've long said the only thing that I really think is really wrong with Glock pistols is they come with crappy sights on them, but I've also said that I think they do that on purpose because they know everybody wants... They give you sights that are good enough, understanding that most people are probably just going to go out and buy Trijicon sights or
Or whatever they like.
Yeah, that's what I was about to say, like those Glow sites or the Dawson Precision or whatever.
Listen, folks, just a little plug for the old affiliates here. Just so you're aware, if you're a ZERT member and you log into the website and you go to the affiliates page, you'll see that we are partnered with HiViz Sites and you can get... sites for your Glock over at high-vis and anything else that high-vis makes.
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Chapter 6: What is the importance of situational awareness in chaotic events?
He knows it's, it's too late to stop that train. Um, And so he's just bowing out ahead of whatever else is probably about to come to light. So that's my guess, because he's not doesn't seem like a very smart guy, but I think he's at least that smart.
So, yeah, I mean, I think so. But, you know, I guess and this is going to listen. Don't come at me in the comments when I put this out there, but. I guess I'm trying to understand the hierarchy of government for a second, right? So the governor runs the state. Right. That's a fair assessment. And then you got mayors that run different cities.
But where does the representatives for Congress and Senate sit? Do they sit above the governor, equal with the governor? Like, obviously, one of the Congress people there, whatever you want to call her, I don't want to assume anything, but is that Ilyan Omar. And she's somehow in the middle of it as well.
I mean, I always describe myself politically as a strict constitutionalist. And I mean, in terms of the Constitution, where the Constitution focuses on small government and... Advocates for states rights, meaning the state should take care of as much as they can take care of on their own without involving the federal government.
So, I mean, if you look at it that way, I would say that a state governor is probably a little higher in the hierarchy than than a congressperson or senator. Yeah.
So I just I'm wondering, I'm wondering where that blowback is going to fall. Is it just going to be on waltz or, you know, are there is there going to be some other kind of spill over to these congressmen and women?
You know, my thing that I hope that most of the accountability does fall on government officials of whatever variety, be it Congress. Minneapolis City Council or state legislature people. I know each state calls that something different, like state representative or state legislature or state senator or whatever it is. I don't know what they have in Minnesota.
But I hope most of the blowback and the accountability that comes from all of this, talking about the fraud situation in Minnesota, I think a lot of... A lot of people that don't see the whole picture, the big picture, their immediate knee-jerk reaction is, oh, we need to get rid of all them Somalis.
But as I said on my social media, it wasn't the Somalis that dug a tunnel under Fort Knox and stole the gold. Of course. the government created a system that allowed these people to take advantage of it.
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Chapter 7: How do personal experiences shape views on preparedness?
It's never... To my knowledge, nothing has ever even... Nobody's ever even tried to do anything to her for it. This seems to be a widely known and widely accepted thing that is happening and apparently is okay because people that have been doing it for half of a century have not been held accountable. So you, as new congressperson on day one, Dudley Do-Right, Why not?
This is one of those things where you're almost a fool if you don't do it. If all these other people are doing it and not being held accountable, you can stand on your soapbox and preach about it all you want to, but at the end of the day, they're all getting richer and you're not. You're only...
you're kind of only hurting yourself is it right no but these other people are doing it and apparently it's okay um but the other thing i was going to say is i just i heard a thing yesterday that all these whistleblowers have started coming forward in california and i hope this is true um and they're saying that if if what these whistleblowers are saying is true that uh
a bunch of stuff is about to come to light that they're saying, like, as far as like amount of money is 10 times more than, than what's been uncovered in Minnesota. I hope that's true.
Yeah. But so, you know, obviously that that's, that's Minnesota. And then, um, On the government side, and then the big news that I guess happened – when did it happen? Yesterday? I don't even know.
Well, the apprehension of Maduro happened during the night on January 1st, like overnight between January 1st, January 2nd. So then everybody was talking about that.
And just to the point of there is everyone, everyone that was like, no Kings, no Kings, no Kings are now like, leave that King alone. Like, you know, he was a dictator and it's like, no dictators, no dictators. And then now they're all like, oh shit, leave that dictator alone.
Like the people on the left, here's what I figured out is they fucking are going to go broke on trying to figure out what flag to fly for the month. What position to support? What thing that they should be mad about? It's too much for them.
Yeah, I saw a meme of a person taking down... There was like a... there was like a crumpled up, it was a cartoon, but there was like a crumpled up Palestine flag in the corner. And then the person was taking down their Somali flag. And there was like a brand new, like Venezuela flag and like in a bag. And it's like, uh, I had to take down my Palestine flag so I could hang up my Somali flag.
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Chapter 8: What advice is given for engaging with social media during crises?
I'm fucking sorry. I'm going to miss it. Cause I got to work. I'm out. I got to work. I'm not taking the day off. I'm, I'm really trying to figure out, like, I would love to go to one of these now with a microphone and be like, why are you here? Did you have a job? You, your problems would be so much less.
And I'm talking to all you that are probably not listening to this right now because you're out at some fucking rally in the middle of the day. I'm talking to all you though. Why are you there? Do you not work?
However, I have become aware. Yep. Power.com. Um, I have become aware like over the last, like really like, I think like since COVID, um, I personally can't speak for how true it is, but I have I've seen screenshots of it and stuff like where there are these people now that are like that are like professional protesters that they they're on some email list.
And if there's a protest or a demonstration happening, like within 50 miles, they get an email and it tells them what time to show up and what color T-shirt to wear and what to put on their sign. And they show up and they get paid five hundred dollars to protest for protest. for four hours or whatever. So I do know, or I've heard that that's a thing that actually exists now.
So, and that folks is what is wrong with this country. We pay people to go cry about something. They a don't know shit about, or B don't care about. They just go there for the free money. Um, and again, I defer to my original statement, get a job, go to work. And some of these things that you feel are problems will probably not be problems.
Um,
That's true, yeah. And here we are. I'm sure you were going to segue into this anyway. But then all of these people that really are not experts on anything. And I mean, I've deployed the area of the world where Venezuela is. Oh, by the way, most of these people that are shooting their mouth off about it probably can't find Venezuela on a map. But I've deployed in that area twice.
And I'm vaguely familiar with the... geopolitical situation in that area.
I knew the name of the president of Venezuela was Nicolas Maduro, and I knew there was all this stuff with him dealing with Russia and China because there is the presence of Russian military vessels and aircraft and stuff that go in and out of Venezuela, and that's something we need to be aware of as American military people operating that area and all that stuff.
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