 30,000 Republicans have left the Republican Party after the Capitol insurrection, 30,000 defections are not nearly enough. But there are 147 in Congress who voted to overturn the election. They did this only hours after the insurrection took place. Now we have Republicans in the Senate who are promising to defeat the impeachment. With McConnell's help, the impeachment will probably fail, and that is a gruesome result. You can say there is disagreement within the Republican Party, but the fact is that the party is still enabling Trump. We will all pay a price for that. Today the FBI issued a terrorism warning, warning us that the right wing will do more violence around the country if Trump is impeached. They call themselves patriots. They tell us they love America. That is not true. They are a tremendous threat to our democracy. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and this is a time for us to be even more vigilant than before. Watch Rediscovering America on Think Tech Hawaii and you will see what we mean. Good morning. It's January the 27th. I'm Tim Mappatel, your host. This is Rediscovering America, and again this show is Think Tech Hawaii, and in Think Tech Hawaii we try new things, new technologies, and Jay Fidel has brought just one of those new technologies to the show as of this morning. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Jay Fidel, Winston Welch, Cynthia Lees Sinclair, and Stephanie Dalton. Good morning, everyone. You know, the words of that introduction was actually pretty profound, and if you think about it, the nation's capital will retain over 20,000 National Guard, potentially up until March of this year. Now what kind of statement does that send to the nation and to the international community that we still have to protect the nation's capital with 20,000 National Guard? Jay, going to you, Joe Biden has had so many things going on this week and a half, his first week and a half of being President of the United States. Everything from wrestling with Mitch McConnell and how they deal with the filibuster or not deal with the filibuster, to getting his appointments put in place, to a plethora of executive orders and addressing the COVID virus, of all the things that Joe Biden's done in the last week and a half, what do you think is paramount and the most important? And why do you think that? They're all important. They run parallel tracks, but you know what? The one that I like most, the one that I'm most impressed with was not on your list. I'll tell you what it was. There's an article this morning about it. He's cleaning house. He's cleaning house with all of the Trump loyalist appointees by the dozens, by the score. He's throwing them out and he doesn't care about the legal implications about their contracts that made them unremovable. He's thrown them all out and he's appointing people to fill all the gaps that Trump left over the past four years. Trump is filling up a hollowed out government. He's replacing all the loyalists with professionals. This is amazing. I think that's the point he's appointing people who their mission is to the country, to the Constitution, to their agency, to their institution, not to Joe Biden. That is the operative point and yeah, he's doing it with light and speed of which many we aren't aware of, of how many he's sweeping house with. Good point. Yeah. I'm impressed with all of them, but that's my personal favorite. Let's talk about the wrestling of power between Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and how basically the appointments were being put on hold for at least three or four or five days that Mitch McConnell insisted that the Democrats put in writing that they will, they will not abolish the filibuster, the filibuster that Mitch McConnell used so well and effectively during the Obama administration to basically block every bill that Obama wanted to give. But that, that, that tug of war. Well, I, you know, my, my reaction to that is, it's kind of, I felt, I remember in our discussion about McConnell and where he said he would vote for impeachment. He would, he would allow a trial and all that, even though he's no longer the majority leader and remarkable. I didn't believe him then and personally I'm patting myself on the back because I should not, none of us should have believed him. He's got all these angles going on and he's trying to retain control of the Senate. He tried to stop all of Biden's bills and initiatives. He and Schumer is like a genius to be able to get around him this way. So I'm happy with Schumer. I'm happy with Biden and I am, I feel the same way about Mitch McConnell that I did before I'm not going to repeat that on the air. Good point. Okay. Thank you, Jay. Hey, Winston, President Biden has been executing all sorts of executive orders. Many of those executive orders, as Jay has just stated, are reversing many of the Trump executive orders, but there's some new ones in there. And I've, the ones that I think that are very innovative, although they, they kind of sound very political on the surface, but things that Americans have been hoping for and we've, they've been tried before, but they haven't been effective and specifically the one was the made in America executive order and removing the loopholes of why things aren't made in America. And what do you think about that, that particular executive order and some of the other ones that President Biden has put on his desk and has immediately executed in the first few days of his office? Well, you know, I mean, he is the president now. He is entitled to make whatever executive orders he wants to make. And he absolutely has to make out a whole bunch to just stop the damage, reverse the damage that we've seen over the last four years. It's, well, it's impossible, but at least an attempt to try it. Others will be because he owes certain political favors to, to groups. And that's just to be expected. As far as the made in America, or, you know, the pipeline shut down, or this, I saw one this morning where he said he wants to conserve 30% of the land and 30% of the seas and move us towards clean energy. These are sea changes of what we had in the last administration. For example, you know, losing federal land and protection. So it's all going to come out in the wash. But for right now, I think what we talked about before, we give the man a grace period to set the nation straight. Again, there's going to be all kinds of challenges and lawsuits to whatever it is he proposes. So nothing is set in stone right now, but I am very heartened by the decisions that he's been making by representing all the people in this country and advancing this towards a better place. You know, I don't know about you all, but I'm sleeping at nights and grinding my teeth a lot less, just having a stable, sane adult in the White House is incredibly powerful for our nation and for our world. And we have to recognize that. So whatever these, the small or large things coming out of there are. Right now, you know, I'm supportive of the president and his agenda. And we may take issue with certain things, but as a whole, we're moving absolutely in the right direction. Well, I think you you hit something that he is moving with lightning speed. And you're right, there are going to be some challenges, legal challenges. I could think of the Keystone Pipeline as one of them. You know, we had a sovereign, we have an agreement, a legal agreement with the sovereign nation being Canada, and that somehow is going to have to be rectified either through the World Trade Organization court system or there might be up to be some horse training. A lot of people, particularly the Republicans are very upset that this particular policy of Donald Trump's has been reversed or seemingly it's going to be reversed. So we'll see how that plays out. Stephanie, what are your impressions of those things that in the first week and half of Joe Biden's administration has been the most notable and the most important for you to witness? I certainly do want to ditto what Joe Winston said. And I think that having a competent, boring competence at the executive level of the United States government is a context to enjoy for as long as we can. And it also it diminishes the the fright and the anxiety about the continuing post Trump attitudes and expressions that we're having to deal with as we will for quite a long while. So I think that these executive orders are impressive. I that he's doing that and getting it going. It also signals everybody about what he really wants to do. My question has only to do maybe with the Jones Act. I think for Hawaii, that's a big issue because as I understand it and, you know, only American ships can go from American port to American port to deliver goods. And that certainly has impeded Hawaii's cargo tracking. And we could have a lot more service if we were able to have another version of the Jones Act or maybe we're not. We're going to stay with the Jones Act as I understand the position right now. But hopefully it will have some openings for a state like Hawaii. I mean, we have to use only American flagships with their hulls built in on the mainland, actually. So we're we're a little bit discomfited by that. And we also are suffering consequences of that. I mean, all throughout all of the entire Jones Act. So maybe that's a good topic to pursue at some other point, maybe on the state of the state of Hawaii. We should look into the Jones Act to understand the advantages and disadvantages of it for this particular state. So that that was the only one that I had any concern about. Otherwise, go, Joe, keep on going. One more thing I would like to see is a review of this oath taking. And as we just saw in the opening of the impeachment trial, that they're all ahead. Oh, yeah, oath. I make an oath to do this and that and protect the Constitution. And then oh, yeah, I'm coming up to sign my name on it. And then they turn around and walk off and talk about now they don't not going to do a thing about it. And they're certainly not voting for it, even before they hear the facts. So there's a reason for that. And there's a reason for that. And I think we're going to discuss that when we talk about the impeachment trial here in a minute. But there's a reason why they're walking away from it. And and it's pretty obvious to you, I think this panel and in many thousands and millions of Americans are why they're walking away from it. They don't want to be stained by it. And so let's just move on. Nothing to see here. Well, then let's just dump this oath thing. If nobody cares about it, that used to be very important. And let's get on with what's our values here. You know, they want to move forward. Let's move forward. Nobody cares. OK, well, let's let's tackle this one as soon as I get Cynthia's viewpoint on on Joe Joe Biden's first few days first few days here in the office. Cynthia, you had written to me just prior to the show about the Dr. Bricks and her position as being fed some alternative data as it pertains to a covid. Tie that in with President Biden's position on on covid vaccinations and the ramping up of more vaccinations. And given the supply for manufacturers, is that a reasonable thing to do is to ramp up the expectation that more vaccinations will take place if he's not really in control of production of the vaccine? I I think that his heart is in the right place and anything that he does is going to encourage more openness, more I. I all of that I think is important if they can get new new information out to the people even out to the people that are making them. I think that's that's really important. So it's a bold step in the right direction. Dr. Burke's coming out. It's kind of a little too little too late for me in some ways because well, why didn't she come out and tell us all this earlier? You know, she would have been fired. Well, so then she could have gone on the airwaves and told us the truth back then. It would have been really nice for all of America to have this information before they went into the polls to vote. I think I'm glad she's coming out with it now. So I'm kind of torn as far as it goes. Well, I think your position is well found. And that is, you know, your career is one thing and you could get a job somewhere else. But when you know that there's false information being fed, and that ultimate is going to lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans, don't you have a moral and ethical obligation to say my job be damned? I have information of something that is a paramount information to the nation. And if she didn't do it, I'm sorry, but she didn't do it. And that's kind of like we heard from some of the people in the White House that were saying, don't worry, the adults are still in the room or what some of those things were that they would come out and say, we're staying in this job so we can try to keep the rails on, you know. And none of that was really true. They didn't do anything to stop him. He still just plowed through with whatever he was going to do. And, you know, Dr. Fauci, he could have been fired too, right? But he came out and gently didn't push back too hard, but pushed back enough that he did contradict what Trump was saying. Excuse me, what the maniac was saying at the time. So it's, you know, I kind of understand that she wanted to stay and do as well as she could. And at least she could do some good for the people. I don't think she really did much of any good for us either by staying. And so but she could have done a lot good for us by leaving that sort of. All right, now I'm going to go around the table on this one. And Stephanie, I will get back to you on this. I'm just going to kind of go around the table. Jay, we saw the impeachment being delivered to the Senate today this week. And we saw a preliminary vote of whether or not it was constitutional to hold a trial that now that Donald Trump is out of office. We saw 55 senators vote for it, 45 against it. We had five crossover from the GOP to vote in favor of it. Clearly, everyone wants the GOP wants to walk away from this thing. Is this going to further divide the nation? It's not going to help anything. And there's no way that this is going to vote because 45 have already voted against it. So let's move on and any attempts to have a trial is just to divide the country. And if for political purposes only, what's your position on this one? We were talking about before the show and I think you expressed the view that it's much better to have the evidence out. We need to see the evidence. We need to see, you know, what the prosecution, the managers are going to say and what they're going, what evidence they're going to introduce. But then it's going to look really stark to see those Republicans vote against it when it's obvious. And we are all witnesses. You have 300 million Americans and plus, you know, hundreds of millions overseas are witnesses to what happened in detail. And you have the FBI, you know, they're going to testify or they're going to bring in witnesses. We're going to see it all. So now after that, what you have is you have those same guys, the same Republicans voting against impeachment, saying he should be acquitted. It's a substantive decision, regardless of the oath, regardless of the evidence. They're going to say he shouldn't be impeached. The world will remember not only us here, but everyone will remember how how bad that is and will be. The public will have no confidence in the in the Congress, especially the Senate. And worse, the public will have no confidence in the Republicans. They're sticking together. They're supporting Trump even now, even in the face of this obvious evidence. Now, what does that mean? Why do they do that? Why do they support the guy? Even Deborah Birx, you know, she's she's, you know, leaving the ship. And a lot of people are leaving the 30,000, 30,000 Republicans left the party and there'll be more. I think it's the general sluff off of support around the fringes of his base. They're going to leave him. You mentioned that weeks previous, you said they're sloughing off and they will sluff off and that's that's exactly what they're doing. But you see the problem, the problem, we have to find out why these Republicans are staying in under him. I mean, supporting him. Why are they doing that? And I would refer back to an article that we discussed about three, four months ago by Ann Applebaum in the Atlantic, where she compared this to what happened in Eastern Europe after the war. Why do those people, you know, maintain support of a communist regime, which was obviously lying to everyone in dictatorial regime. And the answer that was seven reasons she gave, but the one that sticks in my mind, the one I believe is the one we should dwell on is fear. These Republicans are afraid. And just as you said, they're afraid of losing their jobs. Their their job is more important than their ethics. And they'll do anything to support Trump because they believe Trump will primary them in the very next election. They'll lose their job. I'm not sure it's true that he can or will primary them, but they believe it, they all believe it, and that's why they're doing it. And it is disgusting. OK, thank you, Jay. Hey, Winston, one of the things that stuck out in my mind regarding this impeachment trial was Mitch McConnell refusal to to entertain the the trial before Donald Trump left office. He said, no, we're not going to entertain it. And then as of yesterday, he goes, I'm voting against this because he's left the office. Now, you know, that's a real political maneuver on his part. And he's setting the tone for other GOP senators. How should Mitch McConnell be remembered in all this? Disgracefully, he's his conduct has been disgraceful for well, the last 10 years. But it's it's a shame. I expected more from him, but he's a consummate politician and he's he's playing that till he's been in charge for so long. It's it's sad to see. And it's not up to them to decide whether this is constitutional or not. We have a Supreme Court that would decide that. But I think what they when the vote came right down to it and it was 55, I think the 45 or something like that, that just about reflects the public opinion on this, which goes, I think I read something. I don't know if it's Newsweek or PBS, where it was 56 percent of folks said in the country overall that Donald Trump should be impeached. So they're they're roughly mirroring the the general public. Now, that said, this general public has been misinformed, misled and lied to for years. And when they're when the media sources, you know, you have Fox News or other sources of America One or whatever it is that they're getting one perspective, it doesn't help in this process. But I was deeply disappointed in Mitch McConnell's where he should have let this be a vote of conscience of members so that they could be free to then have the party move on to whatever it's going to do. It's obviously going to split into two pieces, no matter what he does. He might as well take this pain now and let people act honorably and and move on if he wants to preserve whatever semblance is left of a principled Republican Party. And they're going to have to dig back deep in their roots to find that one, because they really lost their way. He should have done it right now, but he didn't. And we'll see where I'm not hopeful at this point that that Donald Trump will be impeached. But you know what? There's a lot of news that's going to be coming out in the next couple of weeks. And we're already seeing the dribs and drabs every day. Good point. Thanks, Winston. Stephanie, you had mentioned what good is the paper that oath of office has written on, particularly when it comes to this particular topic of the impeachment and the trial of the impeachment. What good is the paper it's written on if it's not being followed? And, you know, the evidence will speak for itself. The evidence is already quite obvious. Yet this is what pertaining to what Jay said is this. I think it's a matter of fear. They're afraid. And I don't think it's just afraid that they will be primaried. I think it's afraid that they'll be castigated in the restaurants and on the sidewalks of where they live. They're worried about what, you know, the Trump followers are going to, you know, yell at them or like we've seen at the airport, what they're going to be yelled at or spit a spat upon. You think that plays into it? Well, I think there is another variable in addition to those you mentioned, which are certainly influential for them. The really big, important, strong and influential variable is their support from donors. These people have made your donors that are have allowed the money to flow into Senator Cruz and Holly's pockets. Well, you know what, as far as I'm reading, which is not everything, a lot of that is changing. Thirty three major Republican donors are pulling back on this insurrection move that they made and the leaders of it, especially Holly and Cruz. And there may be some effect here. And if this is where the money goes, follow the money. That's a lot of money that there's the root of all evil. Why are they staying firm on their 45 senators that aren't going to even give the trial a chance in their mind? They haven't found out yet about whether their funding is going to dry up. So I think that what's going on is that this is recent, that this has come up, that the Watergate followed the money thing. So now that these big funders, these big millionaires and corporations are saying, no, X-nay. OK, and the Facebook and all of that. So with that that kicking in, I think that we might see some change in attitudes. And on this point, thank you, corporate America and all you billionaires out there. If you're the only the only things that have any honor or courage and all of that, then all of those important values that this administration is attempting to bring back. If you're going to support that, well, let's go. Where for that? All right. Hey, Stephanie, I really like those comments. And I think you're right. I think once they realize how much money is going to dry up, they may just switch their vote. Who knows? Cynthia, do you agree with Stephanie on that point? I do. I do. And I have some really good quotes from Chuck Schumer when he was interviewed by Rachel just this last week. First, he said, and so there's things that are in between some of these quotes I want you to know. I didn't, he didn't say all of this in one fell swoop, but I picked some things out that I thought were important. He called Trump the worst president ever. He said, I hope he is found guilty. He said, there is more than sufficient evidence to convict Trump. Now, when Rachel asked him about McConnell, he said, and I love this. My caucus is united in not letting McConnell dictate what this Senate will do. He first went to McConnell and said, you know, let's go do it like they did in 2001 when Dashiell and Locke, you know, had to come together. And when it was a 50-50 like that, they had to work together. Well, you know, McConnell then went on to say, you don't protect the filibuster. I'm not doing it. Well, this is what he had to say. Not giving in to McConnell. Stay tuned. No, that's right. That's right. He did. That was a great interview, actually. And I thought it was real with him. And then when when Rachel tried to, you know, press him on getting more details, he said, no details. So he said the trial, he wants it to be fair, but not dilatory. And then in the middle of this interview, because it was, you know, the interview was filmed before the show was was aired. She comes on in the middle and says that McConnell has folded on his filibuster demand. So he caved. So that's a big sign. That shows something if McConnell would fold on that. Well, first, I don't trust anything he says. So what why did he do it? I'm always suspect everything he does. But but the fact that he folded may be a precursor to the fact that he knows there's things he can't do. And so yeah, well, we also know that Joe Manson and I forget who the other senator is, is not in favor of eliminating the filibuster. That might have something to play with it, but we'll see. It's said, Amai is the other one. Mancha and Amar, the two. They are. Yeah. OK, thank you. Hey, we only got about a minute and a half left. Jay, I want to go to you real quick about Joe Biden's conversation with Vladimir Putin and the things he specifically discussed, particularly, you know, the Russian hacking and the bounty on US soldiers and the poisoning of his opponent. So a whole host of things were brought up in this conversation. What a breath of fresh air. We finally got to see a president United States stand up to Vladimir Putin. We haven't seen that in five years. Your impression, please. Oh, I'm delighted. I'm delighted the fact that he raised these things. Putin wasn't going to, you know, bend over about it, but he had to listen to it. And what we had was a real president. It was a real president, long and coming, talking about these agenda points and articulating a point of view on each one, which will maybe slow Putin down in the future. We need to have that kind of tension. We need to have Biden do that, not only now, but later on when Biden tries something fancy again. So we've drawn a line in the sand, you know, in terms of foreign policy with Russia. I want to add one other thing is that I'm I'm concerned. I know it's my last time to speak here today. I'm concerned about the covid relief act. I'm concerned that whatever we say about, you know, Schumer and Mitch McConnell. Fact is those Republicans are going to oppose Biden's covid relief act. And that is a disaster for the country. Individually, in terms of health, in terms of the economy and very worried about that, and that could be a big stumbling block. And at that point, what does Biden do? And this is a rhetorical I hope we can cover in future shows. What does he do? One possibility is he goes to the public. He says, I can't do anything, you guys. The Republicans are stopping me at critical moments. You have got to write your congressman. You have got to weigh in on this. I need your help. I think that's what he might do. Yeah, Jay, didn't Chuck Schumer say they have other tools in the toolkit and through the budgetary process, they could get through the stimulus package? Well, he said it. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah, good point. OK, thank you, Jay, very much. Hey, Winston, last comments for the last first week and a half of the Joe Biden, President Biden's administration. Oh, you know what? Like I said earlier, I'm sleeping at night. I'm thrilled that we're moving forward as a nation. We're moving forward positively. People's, you know, it's not just it's not just for one person. This is the nation is moving forward positively. We still have remnants like the speaker at the beginning of the show said the the the government did put out a warning that we have these doves domestic violence extremists out there. I've named them doves, but they're not doves, obviously. And that we got to we have to worry about that. That's a direct legacy of the last four years. We're moving beyond that. It's time to just move beyond that with the old in with the new. And this is a breath of fresh air and just seeing that man behind the desk and all of the competent, qualified folks that he's installed in office is it is just heartening. Thank you, Winston. Hey, Stephanie, give you an option, either your last comment or your prediction for the week to come. Well, I see that that that pushback, that resistance is possibly there. But if the if we're going to get on the same page now, I think maybe that's one of the ways that the the impeachment trial will help. OK, so we've already said this, that we're going to have everybody on the same page with the same evidence and the same information. OK, and then with with Biden talking about a sheen and talking about other tools in the toolkit. OK, so if these donors and corporate America want to make any statements or be of help, they're already enormously helpful in knocking these jerks off and they have no no First Amendment in prohibitions to do that. So they've already kicked in a lot. But maybe they can come up with some box. That's where the deep pockets are other than the federal government. So if the Republicans won't vote for something like this, COVID Act, this is a national emergency topic and issue. Now, maybe we can go get some money elsewhere and get some other people to buy into it. Maybe there's a little bit of George Bush's privatizing America coming back, which was. But I don't know. This is getting desperate and we don't want people to suffer. We want this. These people back doing what they do best, their work, their homes, their schools and let's get on with America. All right. Great words. Hey, Cynthia, you get the last word either your prediction for the next week or your comments about where we've been this week. OK, well, actually, this is a little bit bigger than just this last week in it. And it's sort of a follow up on something that I've been following for over a year. OK, and it's about that whole Dominion voting thing. Dude, for all of the things that have wrecked their business, I'm like, oh, gosh, they could probably maybe sue me, too, because I said things like that. I fell for that line. But this is the thing we think that that just this this this whole misinformation thing started with Rudy Giuliani started at the end. I go back a year and a half. That's how deeply they embed this misinformation stuff. So one more plea to people, please be careful. Really, that everything you read and then go, Dominion, go get him. I saw the interview with the CEO and he seemed pretty determined to extract his fair share out of Rudolph Giuliani and the like. So we'll see how that plays out. All right, we've run out of time. I'd like to thank everyone here on the show, J. Fidel, Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton and you, Cynthia. See us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock for Rediscovery in America. I'm Tim Apachele. See you then. Aloha.