The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW: New NDAA Jab Mandate "Protection" Does Nothing

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Davis Younts, YountsLaw.com, currently involved in many religious exemptions against jab mandate explains that even AFTER Biden signs NDAA, it won't really protect military personnel against punitive Pentagon measures. Younts served on active duty in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps for over a decade. A former prosecutor and experienced trial attorney, Younts represents military clients throughout the United States and around the worldFind out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughZelle: @[e-mail] App at:  $davidknightshowBTC to:  bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Mail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

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Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18plusgamblingcare.ie Joining us now is Davis Yontz. He's a lawyer who's very heavily, and of course, a former JAG, and he's had a lot of experience as a military law in the service. He's got a wide range of qualifications in a lot of different areas. He's been a pastor. He's helped people

get religious exemptions in this vaccine mandate situation. And we talked to him a week or two ago, and I wanted to get an update after what has now been put into the NDAA, they're still separating people in the military. So I want to talk to him about the current status and even what this change that's been inserted into the NDAA, what that's going to entail after it finally becomes, after it finally goes into effect, and it's going to be a while before that happens. So joining us now is David Shantz.

Thank you for joining us, sir. Hey, good morning. Merry Christmas. Thank you. thank you thank you that's coming soon isn't it that's right so that's great uh so okay biden has not signed this thing yet it's been put into the bill uh he says he's not going to veto it i don't know when they did the ndaa back uh in 20 you know last last year it went into effect the 2021 2021 NDAA went in. He signed it first week of January or something. So, you know, probably looking after the holidays before he signs that. And then there's another 30 days before it's going to go into effect. So tell us what is happening now. I know people are still getting kicked out.

And then what you think is going to happen after he finally does sign it and the 30 days have happened and it goes into effect. Yeah. So let's talk about the language first. And there's a little bit of history to just talk about the importance of the NDAA, right? So the NDAA is the way Congress exercises some control over the executive branch when we talk about DOD. So what happened last year is there was a fight to do this last year, right? There was a fight to use the NDAA in the mandate. That wasn't done. But what Congress did do is say the worst case scenario for a military member discharged

for refusing the vaccine mandate for no other reason is a general discharge. That still takes away significant benefits, including GI Bill and other benefits, prevents any kind of retirement, future service, and all of that, but it was a concession. Let me ask you, does the general discharge, does that affect your VA benefits, your health benefits, or do you still keep those? You keep some of them. If you have VA disability, you keep that with a general discharge. So it's better, right? It's better than certainly a worse service characterization, but it's not great. And it's not all of them. And it's not all of them. You certainly lose,

yeah. I mean, the most significant one that most people worry about is the GI Bill. That's huge. You also lose things like veterans preference points for federal jobs, state jobs, county jobs, things like that. A lot of employers don't want a military member with the DD-214 discharge paperwork that says misconduct, and then there's a general discharge. So it does have an impact, but it was an improvement. Before that, hey, we were being threatened with court-martial. That's what we were being threatened with before the last NDAA. So that's where this started with the NDAA. That was a step. Now what the NDAA has in it is language that says, hey, the vaccine mandate ends. There is no more vaccine mandate and 30 days and 30 days, the DOD has 30 days to implement.

That's it. That's all the language does. What it does not do is address what's going to happen to those who've already been kicked out or what's going to happen to those who've already been kicked out or what's going to happen to those that are in process in some stage of the process or not. So once this is signed into law, we can expect the DOD to put out new policies within that 30-day window and individuals who are somehow haven't been affected by this yet might be saved. And I say somehow haven't been affected by this yet might be saved. And I say somehow haven't been affected by this yet. There are very few people currently serving in the military that haven't already been impacted by the mandate.

That's right. Because when you say in process, I would think that everybody's either taking the vaccine or they're in process about this, right? So it sounds like it doesn't do anything. It doesn't do a lot, right? So it sounds like it doesn't do anything. It doesn't do a lot, right? And there's, so a lot of this is going to come down to DOD policy and what's going to happen as far as the implementation of this goes. So here's an example, and I won't get into too many details, but last week I was in an administrative separation board for an army officer over 17 years of service,

right? Less than three years till retirement, who the board found that by refusing the vaccine, he engaged in misconduct. We disagreed with that. We argued it wasn't a lawful order, but that's what the board decided. And they recommended separation with an honorable discharge. So the question is, I mean, that's a prime example. What is the army going to do with someone like that? The vaccine mandate ends. That's the only thing that's preventing him from continuing to serve. What are they going to do? Are they going to say, okay, you know what?

That individual can continue to serve. They can get to the retirement. Are they going to say, no, we gave you an order to get an unlawful order, but we gave you an order to get this injection. You didn't. And so you violated that order. So we're still going to kick you out for violating the order. Yeah. I saw that report and that's why I wanted to get you on, uh, because I knew you were

involved in that. And, and it was amazing to me. It was the same day that the thing was, uh, you know, passed by the Congress the same day they separate him out. And I didn't know that they gave him an honorable discharge. It's almost kind of admitting that this is wrong, that they're the ones who are acting dishonorably. But that is amazing.

And I didn't realize that it doesn't do anything for anybody who's already in process now. And then, of course, let's assume that, you know, they don't get separated. There's still going to be marks against them in their file, right? There's nothing to stop that. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

And so the best way to kind of lay this out is just to use an example, right? So we'll just use an example. And you can use me as an example. That's fine, right? So I submitted a religious accommodation to the Air Force. It was denied. I submitted an appeal. It was denied the same blanket denial for the same reasons that everybody else sees same blanket language. I was given an order. I was given five days to take the injection. I didn't. Okay. That five days went by and I was anticipating potential

adverse action. And then what happened is a federal court issued an injunction in the Doster case in Ohio that protected me. Okay. That protected me from adverse action or being separated. But many of my clients in a very similar situation, but just a few days earlier would have received an official reprimand. Okay. In the air force, it's a letter of reprimand, the army, it's a general officer memorandum official reprimand. In the Air Force, it's a letter of reprimand. In the Army, it's a general officer memorandum of reprimand. But if that had happened to me, that would be in my official file. It would be a part of my official record that I'd been reprimanded for failing to follow an order, and I would be potentially processed for separation.

Even if I wasn't, and even if I chose to stay in now, then what I would be facing is that letter of reprimand would impact my performance report as an officer, my annual performance report. And so what I would have as an officer competing for promotion with my peers is a reprimand in my file and a referred performance report. And there's, so that's just as a starting point. So obviously I would not be, I wouldn't be promoted. I wouldn't be eligible for command positions, other things. It would end my career. It would end anyone in a similar situations career. So that's just, that's like step one. The other thing it does that a lot of people don't realize, and this gets into the weeds

of the way the military works, but if you retire, if you're an officer who retires with that reprimand in your file, it triggers what's called a grade determination review board. What that means is the Air Force, the Army could reduce you from a grade, say Lieutenant Colonel, to major for retirement purposes because of that paperwork in your file, right? So it's this weird follow-on process. So again, in my case, if there hadn't been an injunction, if I had received a letter of reprimand, I'm attempting to retire.

I may be retired as soon as this month may happen here this month, but I would have to then go through an officer grade determination review board and I could be reduced in rank for retirement purposes because of that reprimand. Wow. So that, that's just an example of sort of everyone that's in this process. And, but then, I mean, and again, interrupt me with questions, but that doesn't even talk about what the DOD policy is going to be for everyone that continues to serve, for those who aren't going to retire or get out. It just smacks of vindictiveness. It's just amazing to me to see this. Right. And so again, we have to look at the history of what we've seen. The Navy and the Coast Guard, we talked about this before, Navy and the Coast Guard were the

worst offenders. They were the worst offenders. In the worst offenders in the height of this the navy was doing things like telling people hey you can't leave the ship you're you're deployed on a cruise for eight months you can't even get off the ship you can't do a single port call unless you either have the vaccine or booster but even before the vaccine was mandated and the boosters are not mandated but that's what they said there's nothing that would prevent the navy from continuing to do that moving forward, even with the mandate ending, because they're not saying, we're not saying you have to take it. We're saying you can't leave the ship if you don't take it. The other thing the Navy did was they said, Hey, if you're not vaccinated, you have to report 14 days early and quarantine for 14 days before the ship leaves the dock to deploy. Navy did that.

Navy also said, you can't go to church if you're not vaccinated. That happened to my clients. So all of those coercion tactics, all of those things that were in place before there was a mandate. At LiveScore Bet, we love Cheltenham just as much as we love football. The excitement, the roar, and the chance to reward you. That's why every day of the festival, we're giving new members money back as a free sports bet up to 10 euro if your horse loses on a selected race. That's how we celebrate the biggest week in racing. Cheltenham with LiveScoreBet. This is total betting. Sign up by 2 p.m. 14th of March.

Bet within 48 hours of race. Main market excluding specials and place bets. Terms apply. Bet responsibly. 18 plus gamblingcare.ie. There's nothing now that's going to say just because the mandate ends that the military isn't still going to engage in those coercive policies regardless of religious affiliation,

regardless of pending religious accommodation or not, regardless of how long that litigation takes to move forward. So that's going to be very, very interesting to see. Will the DOD actually engage in a full sea change here? Are we going to see the same kind of coercion and discrimination that we saw even before the mandate was official? Wow, that's amazing. Now, you mentioned, and I wasn't aware that they had done anything

to mitigate the mandates a year ago when they were passing the NDAA. How did that break down? Because, you know, Congress has not changed at this point. We still have the same people there. We've had an election, but we haven't had anybody, any new people come in or anybody exit since the election. That isn't going to happen until January. So it's the same people that are voting on this NDAA in 2020 that did it in 2021.

How did things shake out a year ago? Do you have any idea? Was there no – I mean, the Republicans still don't have a majority. Kevin McCarthy is saying, well, we're going to block this if this doesn't happen, they don't have any more Republicans there this year than they did last year, did they not have any Republicans sign on to any of that stuff last year? Well, the biggest difference is it was a group of like 12 senators that came out and supported this change to the NDA this time.

So there were enough senators, Republican senators, that took a stand this year that didn't take a stand last year. And so there would have been no agreement and the Senate could have filibustered the NDAA if they hadn't done something in the House. So you got House support behind it. So logically, what you hear when you talk to representatives, when you talk to the political insiders here is, oh, now the statistics show us that this isn't as much of a threat or the pandemic is waning or we know so much more about natural immunity now. But the reality is they're also facing tremendous pressure because of the recruiting crisis. There is a recruiting crisis. And so they're looking at this as a potential way to mitigate that crisis to say, well, there's people, a lot of people that don't want to be under this mandate.

So they're not joining the military. So I think there's a perception that this will help solve the recruiting crisis. Well, you know, the story needs to be, I think, how they are going to continue to punish people, even with this small thing if they're worried about a recruiting crisis that needs to be the point of publicity to say do you really want to join uh an organization that's going to be so vindictive and uh disregarding of the constitution your religious liberty because nothing is really as you point out you know you had had a big change in congress uh in us in Senate, but they didn't

have enough votes last year or this year in terms of Republicans in the House to really change anything. So if anything's changing, it's some Democrats who have changed. They've changed because they're concerned about recruiting, but they're not concerned about what's happening to the troops because they didn't do anything to ameliorate what the punishments that have been meted out or to stop these punishments that are going to continue to happen, right? That's absolutely right, and I think they're missing something critical, and this is a critical point. So many people get caught up, this is about a particular vaccine or particular medical product and a particular mandate.

It is in part, but in larger part, this is about religious discrimination. And it's about the fact that they're mandating a product that still isn't, the FDA version of it still isn't being produced. So you're talking about military members who are seeing the executive branch, DOD, ignore the law, ignore Congress, ignore the law as far as what's already on the books. So it's the handling of this and it goes deeper. I mean, this goes into woke policies. This goes into CRT. This goes into transgender issues and just the anti-extremism training that I've sat through, right? All of that comes into play. The recruiting crisis. Yeah, absolutely. I think the mandate impacts it, but there's so much damage that's been done to morale of good people in the

military by the way this has been handled even before COVID that I do think there's going to be significant recruiting issues moving forward. I agree. Yeah. People who are anticipating going into the military, there's enough of them that are going to see all the things that you're talking about. It's a full spectrum of a lot of different things. And it's like, I really want to get involved in that. When you look at the CRT and all of the, you know,

as you pointed out the woke policies, I prefer to call them political correctness. Cause I don't like to let these people pick their own terms. They're not awake. They're, they're Marxist. They're political, politically correct Marxist.

But you know, when you look at all of that stuff there, you know, that is so telling about where the institution is. And why do you want to join yourself to an institution like that and invest years of career into an institution that's going to act the way this institution is? And that even is bigger than the Pentagon.

It goes to the Congress as well, but has absolutely no concern about the people who are in the service and who have dedicated their life to this. has absolutely no concern about the people who are in the service and who have dedicated their life to this. They have no concern to protect them. All they're concerned at this point is, well, how can we put a Band-Aid on this and make this problem not appear so we can recruit more people into the system? They don't want to fix the system. That's absolutely right. And I think what we're missing too, and this is where my faith plays a huge part in this, but what is the moral standard? What is the ethical standard for the military today? all of those things in officer training. We talk about how that undergirds everything we do, but what is that morality? What is that ethic? What is that shared ethic? To me, the shared ethic of the military, senior leaders in the military is secular humanism and atheism. Yes.

And that always leads to tyranny, right? So if their moral framework, if their worldview is secular humanism and atheism, then we see tyranny as a consequence of that. So that's part of the problem as well. That's a much deeper spiritual issue that we need to be addressing. But you can't, and part of my frustration too with recruiting, not to get off on a tangent on that, but they keep lowering standards. And it just makes me just shake my head every time because I think, okay they keep lowering standards. And it just makes me just shake my head every time because I think, okay, keep lowering standards. We're going to lower standards. We're going to lower standards. You're telling everybody, hey, we're going to lower standards for the Navy. We're going to lower standards for the Army. We're going to lower these standards.

That's not how you recruit heroes into the military either. I mean, think about what you and I perceived as military service when we were young, when we were growing up. Even just like G.I. Joe, there was this idea of this integrity, these values, putting others before yourself. All of these things, this framework, the good guys, right? And it was about achievement. It was about do you dare? Are you even good enough to get into the military? Are you even good enough to do this training and take part in this?

And now what we're saying is, hey, we'll lower the standards for you. And everyone should feel welcome and comfortable and happy in our military today. And I don't think that's recruiting. I don't think that's doing anything for recruiting either. You want to bring someone in and have a successful organization, build up that organization, make the standards higher and challenge people. And that's going to be better long-term for our military as well. You're exactly right. I remember when that was the selling point. I remember the commercials were looking for a few good men. I remember the commercials saying, we get more done before most people wake up. It was about a challenge. It was,

you know, and, and that was what they were looking for. They were looking for people who are going to take that challenge and work hard and, and try to extend themselves. And that has just disappeared with all this diversity, inclusivity and equity and all the rest of this stuff.

That's right. Yeah. The army went from be all you can be to an army of one, right. You know, and the air force, we used to say, aim high, right. Aim high, go bigger, achieve more, become great, you know, and that was part

of it. But you change that and military service just isn't as attractive anymore. Well, and you look at it, it was a thing that went around a few months ago, viral on social media, where they compared the training of the recruitment videos in China, Russia, and the U.S. It's so sad if anybody remembers that. I mean, it was a traditional stuff that you'd see in the Russian and Chinese armies where they're doing challenging stuff. It's like, are you good enough to get this done? I mean, this is really tough stuff. You have what it takes was the other stuff you know that it's it's uh this woke lgbt type of uh thing and and people would respond and say well all you got to do now in the military is just be able to push a button anybody can push a button that's what we're

looking for we're just looking for diversity it's like really we're in big trouble right right yeah we're gonna yeah that that's still yeah there's still a core of our military that needs to be able to carry a rucksack and march for 20 miles, right? That's right. That's right. Well, it's absolutely great. New recruitment slogan says my son has joined the military. We have lower standards. Yeah. Do it. Yeah. Anybody can do it. That's, that's what they're, I guess, I guess that's what they're saying. You know, if you are the right demographic, we want you, we're looking for a few demographics and only those demographics. And if you're not that demographic, maybe we don't even want you. Is there anything else that's on your radar about this that you want to tell people? I really think, you know, the key in all of this and my biggest fear and what I've been praying through and talking to tell people i really think you know the key in all of this and my biggest fear and what i've been praying through and talking to other people about is just because the military

in ends the mandate does not mean this fight is over right we we don't know what's going to happen we still have significant litigation going on in federal court regarding the the religious discrimination as well as the illegality of all of this and i still have i mean i'm going to be talking to an army officer this afternoon who's facing separation over this still that's still in process and again even if the mandate ends they may still move forward to try and separate him on you know under the allegation of violating a lawful order so we need more you know the hope is that in January, February, the Republicans in Congress will move forward with legislation that does more than just this,

but how they're going to get support for it, what support's going to look like in the Senate, we don't know yet, but there's going to be a lot more work to do. So we just can't lose sight of that. Yeah. I remember when this thing was running through from a political standpoint, there was a couple of different amendments that were offered in the Senate to try to restore benefits to people or to give them the option to be reinstated into the service if they wanted. And I remember one of them was from Mike Lee, and it was going to require 60 or more votes. And another one was only going to require a simple majority. And I forget why there was that difference there. But you never heard any more about the one that just had a simple majority.

The one that got all the publicity and the one that some Republicans signed on to was the one that was going to require 60, and there was no way they were going to get to that. And I said, this is just virtue signaling. So I was kind of surprised to see that they did anything. But now the more we look at it more closely, uh, it looks like it wasn't a surprise at all. It looks like it was kind of more than anything. It was a head fake.

And that's, that's really sad to see that. So the fight goes on and, uh, you're right at the center of that Davis shots. Thank you so much for doing that. Tell people again, uh, your website where they can get in touch with you. You've got a legal practice and you help people with, uh, religious liberty issues and other things like that, as well as what's going on in the military, but you've got a lot of experience in JAG and other things in the military, and you're working with a lot of people over this vaccine mandate and separation stuff. Tell people how they can get in touch with you.

You can follow me on Twitter, at Davis Yonce, as well as the website, which is just my last name, yontslaw.com thanks david thank you so much davis appreciate it the common man they created common core to dumb down our children. They created Common Past to track and control us. Their Commons Project to make sure the commoners own nothing and the communist future. They see the common man as simple, unsophisticated, ordinary. But each of us has worth and dignity created in the image of God.

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