We rung in the new year and immediately launched into the Democratic presidential primary, in which all sorts of bad AI-generated takes on “affordable access” proliferate. In this week’s episode, Nate and Francis discuss whether or not you’re being a purity pony (or worse, a Bernard Brother) when you criticize any of the ostensible Democratic candidates. A number of news articles get discussed this week as well. Here they are for your own inspection. First, a piece from In These Times about women being the CEOs and directors of the military-industrial complex: http://inthesetimes.com/article/21682/women-military-industrial-complex-gina-haspel-trump-feminism-lockheed-marti?fbclid=IwAR1Wfvt5CXbvrwQhJjhhRq0tqo-PG7rFaKpoiueZD5U_uhyPy7auAc7BUgo And a story from Military Times indicating that Trump’s DOD is, like his golf-club buddies at the VA, trying to stealth-cut any form of socialized medicine in America: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/01/10/more-17000-uniformed-medical-jobs-eyed-elimination.html Nate also mentions an essay by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) about the way the US medical system treats black people. Read it here: http://time.com/5494404/tressie-mcmillan-cottom-thick-pregnancy-competent/ This week’s bonus episode is a one-on-one interview between Nate and veteran author Drew Pham. In this interview, Drew talks about his family's history in Vietnam and their relationship to the war, Trump's targeting of Vietnamese asylees and refugees, why he loves Tim O'Brien's work but couldn't see himself in any characters, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and its promise for people with PTSD, and quite a bit more. You can access it on the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/complexity-of-23977372 *Veterans t-shirt notice* We have a new shirt available on our store. Did you know that VA disability is UBI for warriors? Well, you do now: https://teespring.com/deeply-conflicted-tee_copy_1#pid=387&cid=101810&sid=front You can follow the show on Twitter here: @HellOfAWay Follow Nate here: @inthesedesertsFollow Francis here: @ArmyStrang