 It's Wednesday. It's April the 20th. It's 11 o'clock. It's time for What Now, America? I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And today's title is Public Transportation, Mask or No Mask. We had a federal judge here recently, Catherine Mazzell from Florida. Rather a judge that hasn't really tried a whole lot of cases. And she is, thank you, Cynthia. I guess that's zero. She has struck down the mask mandate, the federal mask mandate. And that has great implications for this new BA2 variant that's creeping its way into every state of the United States. And to complicate matters, now there's confusion. And to what degree of confusion will take place is only up to a matter of time. I know that the Department of Justice may appeal this ruling from Catherine Mazzell. But they're waiting for the CDC for more information. In the meantime, we will grow more confused and indecisive of when to wear a mask or when not to wear a mask. So that is the topic of the day. I'd like to introduce our guests, Jay Fiedel and Cynthia, Lee Sinclair. Good morning. Good morning, Tim. Good morning, Cynthia. Hey, let's tackle this confusing topic because here we are. Do we wear a mask? Do we not wear a mask? I know that the Department of Transportation has on some flights, they were not seeing mask mandatory requirements. And then they lifted them in midair. And to the videos that you saw of passengers cheering, I'm sure that not all passengers were cheering, particularly those that were over 65 years old for those are immune compromised. Maybe they're not cheering. Jay, what's your opinion about what we're seeing right now where passengers and public transportation don't know whether or not they should wear a mask or to wear a mask? That was really weird when they cheered. I think that it demonstrates that the country is all screwed up about this mask business. And it also demonstrates that Trump is still alive and well. It's not only his legacy, it's his active actions right now. You heard on Rachel Maddow that he's been behind all these absurd objections to Biden's nominees being considered by the Senate, not just Katanji Brown Jackson, but others that have been rejected. And Trump has been behind that, been funding research and efforts to write them up to make them look bad. And so this is kind of another example. This is his legacy. The youngest federal judge in the country, Cynthia said before the show that she hasn't tried any cases. The American Bar Association found her unqualified to serve as a United States district judge. And I accept their word. They're conservative themselves. They're not particularly liberal organization. And when they find them unqualified, appointed by Trump, that's really serious. In any event, here's this unqualified judge and she makes a nationwide ruling. She didn't have to make a nationwide ruling. Unconditional nationwide ruling to stop the mask mandate. It was playing right into Trump's hands, right into the QAnon, right into all the conspiracy guys, right into the conservatives around the country, the base. The base won that. I can see Trump dancing since then about what this judge did. She was doing his work for him. And that's the legacy I'm talking about. He's active. He's alive and well. We're probably not spending enough time watching him because he's doing this kind of stuff. As for the people in the planes that cheered, I really wonder whether that was good coverage. Because as you said, Tim, a lot of the people in the planes would not have cheered. I would not have cheered at all. Here we have obvious information on the front page of every newspaper in the country that were having a surge in various places with a new mutation. And it's getting worse. People are getting sick. And yet, you have a federal judge making effectively a medical decision. I'm sure she knows as much about medicine as she does about the law, that there you go. So what we have now is predictably. I mean, if you sat behind her and you looked out across the bench at the time she made this decision, you would say, what's going to happen? Is this going to help? Is this going to make COVID better? Is it going to save lives? No. It's going to play to the right wing. That's all it's going to do. It was a political decision. And now lives will be lost because of it. So if I was looking across her shoulder, I would never, ever have made that ruling. I would want to save lives. I would want to save the country. We have other countries that are doing even draconian things, try to stop the spread, not the US. And as you said, Tim, it's in a state of absolute confusion now. Nobody knows which end is up. This is also part of the Trump legacy. Nobody knows which end is up. And at the end of the day, lives, did I say that? Lives will be lost. Thank you, Judge Moselle. Yeah. Well, if you're someone who's going to be taking public transportation, be it transit rail or air flights, what's the recommendation? Do we all keep a mask in our back pocket just in case? Certainly, Amtrak has not lifted the mandate. And New York City has not lifted the mandate. So is the solution just to carry a mask and wear it? Let me say something I was saying before the show began. And a lot of the confusion and the lack of confidence in the government and the CDC is the government's own fault. And I'm sure they're well-intentioned, but they don't sit behind the judge. They don't turn the table and see how are people going to respond to our change in advice, which has happened a number of times. And over shell, I forget her last name, the CDC lady. She's changed her mind. Sometimes you say, what? Again, what? Can we have a little consistency here? And so over the last year, the Biden year, the CDC has lost the confidence of people on both sides of the aisle. And so I think you have to make up your own mind about it. And you have to do your own critical thinking, because the government is not here to help you. The government, you can quote me on this, is here to confuse you. They may be right in some moral sense. They may be right in some technical sense, but they're not right in communicating and dealing with a divided country, which is what we have. And they have effectively, by their limp-risted approach to this over the past year, they have created the division we see where people argue about it in schools and school boards and, well, everywhere. And that's why some of the people on those airplanes applauded. But I think what we have now is a situation where Think Tech Hawaii should develop a subsidiary and call it the Think Tech CDC, because it would actually do better critical thinking. And we would be more consistent and more protective of the American public. For me, I mean, really, that's what I think. For me, I am going to continue to wear a mask. And I have one fear I'd like to share with you guys. There are people out there that have learned to hate masks. It's a political issue. If I wear a mask in a crowd now, I am making a political statement, because people don't believe it's necessary. And they think that I am just making a political statement. And they're going to be angry at me. They're going to be mad at me. I am going to be exposed to epithets and criticism and worse, because I do wear a mask to protect myself and the people in the next seat. But that's not going to stop me. I want you to know I am going to wear a mask just as before for my own safety and for the community. And because the Think Tech subsidiary, the CDC Think Tech, has suggested that I should be doing that. Right, Cynthia? OK. All right. Well, Jay, you should be more forceful about your opinions about the CDC and mask wearing. You're a little timid, I think, sometimes. No, points well made, Jay. Actually, points very well made. In fact, Cynthia, Dr. Tom Frieden for a former director of the CDC was just interviewed with Jake Tapper about 15 minutes ago. And the question came up is, what's the recommendation for those who are smokers over 60, overweight? And the direct quote from Dr. Tom Frieden was, when in doubt, mask up. Damn the political ramifications. Now, he didn't say that. I'm saying this. Damn the political ramifications of wearing a mask. And do what's going to save your life. And obviously, cloth masks are no longer suggested or surgical masks, but KN95s or KN95s to try to protect you. So the question is, is Dr. Tom Frieden correct? He's absolutely correct. I'm one of those compromised people that's been wearing a mask all along. She has barely started to feel comfortable about not wearing one when I'm outside. But now, I'm going to be wearing them outside, too, just because there's so many other people running around with absolutely no consideration for other people. They may be well, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't make somebody else really sick to the point of dying. And so that's where I go. When did this country become so incredibly self-centered? When did I see recently that there are these long-haul effects? Even if you don't go into a hospital, even if you don't need oxygen or anything like that, there are various things they are just discovering now that will affect your life forever, including, for example, a metric on brain size. Don't ask me how this happens. But apparently, in long-haul cases, your brain size shrinks. And presumably, your ability to do cognition, maybe your ability to do critical thinking for voting, too, you know? Well, Jay, just to address what you just said, as you well know, when it comes to any kind of long-haul mystery disease that's not directly correlated to a body part or an organ, they say it's psychosomatic. And I guarantee you, those that have long-haul COVID conditions that cannot be directly verified as a COVID related disease, they're going to say it's psychosomatic. And the insurance company's not going to pay for it. That's what's going to happen, because the numbers are going to increase. The dollars to treat such of these elements will increase. And at some point, the medical insurance companies will say, no, it's all in your head. Well, that's already happening. That's not something that will happen. That's just something that is already happening now. So I think we really need to worry about that. You know, this judge, just a little bit more about this judge, 33 years old, never tried a case, Trump appointee during the lame duck session, just to be more specific about who she is. And let's not forget another important part. She's down there under DeSantis's wing, right? So who knows how much money she got paid for this. So will the DOJ appeal? Well, Did you see that Namby Pamby statement about that? That was so, I will if I won't, if I won't, if I will. There's no answer to that, Tim. I'm so mad about that. Well, it wasn't, I meant what I said, I said what I meant, that's for sure, Jay. Why didn't you put an automatic stay on that order? I don't understand why they didn't do that. Here, it just made a calculated medical decision to extend it to May 5th or May 3rd, right? And so it's just around the corner anyway. So what, these people can't hang on for five more weeks, not even five more weeks, three more, four more weeks, till it gets a medical review and instead we're going to let, wait, one federal judge with almost zero experience on the bench cause what she's been there for a year and a half. No, she's never tried a case ever in her life. And then all of these other things saying that she was not qualified. And yet she's allowed to make a decision that... Well, if you saw her opinion, if you saw and read her opinion, which I saw excerpts from, I'll use Jay's terminology, Mandy Pamby. Well, and worse than that, she did not hear one single testimony in the case, nothing. She didn't hear anything for the case. She said she didn't need to, she could make the ruling on her own. And so she ruled and she cited that it was the Public Health Services Act of 1944. And she said that it had exceeded that time limit that's on that, that health act, the Public Health Services Act of 1944. Now... She should have gone to 1219. And referred to the medical science of the middle ages while she's at it. Exactly. I mean, here she has like no experience. She doesn't have a half a brain it looks like to me anyway. So where is she getting all this stuff from? You know, she's in Florida that just the heart of the most screwed up Trump supporters, the most screwed up Republicans that you can find anywhere in one cluster and they're there in Florida. You're obviously not running for office anytime in Florida. I could say that. Hey, since I'm gonna change topics there because we have a, and we always appreciate these things. We have a viewer, Mike has commented and here's his comment. I think there's a big misconception about how mass are effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus. It is not effective in preventing a person from catching the virus but instead effective in spreading it from somebody that is infected. Can I speak to that? I actually know some things about that. If you are wearing a KN95 mask and it fits snugly around your face, granted your chances of being protected would be better if everybody else was wearing them too. Cause really the main thing that it does is it stops, I'm wearing a mask. It stops my virus from getting out of the mask. So it stops those droplets. But it also stopped if it's really tight fitting, KN95, KN95 not so much, it actually protects you somewhat. Somewhat, yes it does. So it's not a complete either or kind of thing. You're not as protected but you are still protected. Where does this come from? It's a barrier between you and air that's contaminated. It's a barrier. I don't need a PhD to tell you that. It's gonna stop the flow of the air and thus the virus one way and the other way. We've heard enough of this kind of mysterious thinking from the CDC and from the right. It goes both ways and you can't convince me of any other approach. That's why I'm going to wear a mask and I do care about the community but I also care about myself and I believe that I am not gonna be breathing in virus, not nearly as much if I have a barrier between me and the air around me. And that's- All right, Jay, let me go to you. Go ahead since you finished your comment I wanna go to Jay out in the after you. Because that's exactly sort of what I just said, right? You're more protected if everybody's wearing one but you are still protected if you wear one and keep your distance especially now if people are not gonna be wearing their masks. Distance is another thing that's important and expose your time, the time that you are exposed to somebody. If you're standing almost face to face with somebody, if you got a mask on and they are spreading virus you are probably gonna catch it. So it matters a lot of different things are involved which is why it's a little confusing but definitely it's better to wear it than not. I do not understand why the CDC, this is to your point now, Tom, Tim, I do not understand why the CDC and the government didn't stand by their decision. Their Nambi Pambi response to this judge was essentially admitted that they weren't confident of what they said before about May 3rd. Are you more confident now because they gave this Nambi Pambi response or less? I mean, they don't seem to be able to stick on it in any way and they're exceeding to a judge who doesn't know which end is up. I don't understand what the government is doing for us. All right, I wanna kind of switch tack here a little bit. You know, if you're immune compromised or if you're older than 60, are you gonna be concerned about going in public? Are you gonna be concerned about taking public transportation? And further, will that have an impact to retail sales and the economy? Well, if you start to exclude yourself. You give me more credit perhaps than I should get because I am not responsible for the economy. Either I don't do a lot of shopping, I stay at home. I've seen you shop, yes, you are. I stay at home like Cynthia, I don't go out and that's been my MO for the past two years plus. And guess what, Tim? Guess what, Cynthia? It's gonna stay the same way because I don't wanna catch it. I know a lot of people who had breakthrough cases and they were miserable. And not only miserable, they were worried about long-term effects. So, I mean, I see it as a threat and these guys wanna blow it off, that's fine, it's not fine because they're blowing it off on me. But I'm gonna stick to my MO that I have been following for the past couple of years. Like when it's safe, I wanna have somebody credible, somebody consistent, somebody scientific and not political in any way, tell me it's safe. But I don't have that. I have mounting confusion, confusion that's been spiraling around for two and a half years. I don't think the Biden administration has been less confusing, well, it has been somewhat less confusing than the Trump administration. But the government and particularly the CDC seems to be a political organization and I do not rely on them. Well, all this, what I just heard is I get a deferment on paying back the build back better piece of that that you and I made many, many months ago and I get a deferment on that and good. That's true, we're not gonna go, we're not gonna take any chances in the pizza parlor by now. That's right, so there you go. News in 2024. Some guys are opportunistic, you know that, Tim. I know one of them, I'm talking to one of them right now, because he made that bet with me. You're talking to yourself, what? He set me up. Okay, Jay, also Dr. Tom Friedman said that many folks that are over 65 have not received their first booster and yet it would show that there would be great, great benefit for them to do so. So we're not just dealing with a mask issue, we're also dealing with a vaccine or booster issue. What is the approach that they should take now that we're gonna have an environment of non-mask wearing? Oh, it's much more serious for them. It'll clearly, I mean, on the other hand. Well, why shouldn't they get, why wouldn't they wanna get their first booster? Well, why didn't they have their first booster up till now? It's been available for more than a year, a year and a half even. Okay, but they got their vaccination, so they obviously had a fear of contracting the virus. I'm sorry, I see what you're saying. What would prohibit someone from getting their booster? Because the CDC said to get a booster, that's why. You know, and I got a booster in September of 2021, I think it was, and another one more recently. And I would do that if they said, oh, go down for a third booster, I would take it. There's really no point in taking a risk on this. But you know, it strikes me that we have, it's increasing resistance. You know, the low hanging fruit in terms of people who would take the vaccines is diminishing. They don't wanna take it. There's a lot of people who have gone into that. Well, two things. One is the political aspect of it. I'll stop in a minute, Cynthia, tell yours. The political thing. And the other thing, okay, is confusion. We are rife with confusion. It's really a problem in this country. Cynthia, you have the floor. I have a reason, a possible reasoning why people aren't getting boosters. And that is that they got the shots only because they were required to for work. They didn't do it because they felt like they should. They just did it because they had to. So there's a big difference. They're only gonna get just that little bit that they have to get. They're not gonna go any further, right? I think it's a great point, Cynthia. Yeah. And there's a lot of other little reasons like that too. They feel like, oh, I don't need that booster. I'm healthy. I got the shots. I don't need any extra. That's for the people that are sick or the people that are compromised. You know, the problem is the booster. It's not clear that the booster actually deals with the mutations. It's not clear. And the best you can get out of the CDC is it, well, to some extent, or Pfizer or Moderna, to some extent, but it's not as clear that the booster will help you for the new variations. Now, this is a great concern. Booster will. Because there's another point of confusion there. Well, apparently what they're saying is that the second booster will help you even against the Omicron and this BA2. So the first booster, no, would not help. It would only give you, maybe, they didn't know for sure, right? This is all sort of. Well, doesn't that play into the, doesn't that play into the resistance about vaccinations for those who say, why do it if it's not effective? Does that play into their wheelhouse? Absolutely it does. You bet. Of course it does. But you know, all of this is just like experimental science anyway. We've never dealt with any of this stuff before. It's not like we can have any specific answer for it, right? And that's partly why it gets so confusing and why we keep getting these odd, you know, they don't really match type of direction from the CDC. But I am sort of furious with the DOJ for saying, I will put us, you know, I will, you know, go after it, challenge it. If the CDC says it's okay, but they didn't put a stay on it while he waits for the CDC to decide. Let me clarify one thing. What do you mean put a stay on it? The judge who issued the order would have to put the stay on it, or some other judge, maybe an appellate court would have to put a stay on it. It's not for the administration to put a stay on it. They do not have the power to do that. They could file a stay. Not the DOJ could do that. You have to request it. You have to apply for it. It's a motion. But they're not. Why are they? No, they're not. They're waiting to see what the CDC says. And it's been how, what, three days more? The CDC hasn't said. Okay. To me, it's like, they either need to say, okay, we're close enough to May 3rd, so we might as well just go for it. That's what they're saying, by implication. But yeah, by, but they're not saying it. They're just doing it. This is the thing that I don't understand. Well, your AG is Merrill at Garland. He's Mabie Pambie. Well, yeah, we know that part. But that's not a surprise about anything, right? He seems to be Mabie Pambie about everything. So hesitant to do anything for, it's almost like he's afraid to do anything. It's not his decision. It's not his decision. It's the president's decision. He works for the president. When you talk about criminal prosecution, he makes his mind up. When you talk about this kind of thing, Joe Biden calls him on the phone and says, this administration wants to appeal that order. You're my lawyer, appeal the order. Okay, let me go to that, Cynthia. I'm sorry to cut you off, but he just made a very important point. We have this state infusion. No, the Republicans are gonna really seize the moment. Other than Donald Trump, most presidents say the buck stops here. Donald Trump never did that, never said that. To what degree does Joe Biden take a hit with all this confusion? And how does that affect his popularity? I think he's gonna take a big hit. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead, Cynthia, you go. I concede my time to Cynthia. Thank you so much, since, yeah. Okay, we won't go into why. So we gotta think about some of the confusing factors here. New York has come out and said they are still requiring masks on all of their, out of JFK. So when you might be on the plane, you go by whatever the airline says, but when you're in the terminal, if you're at JFK, you have to have a mask on. But if you're in New Jersey, at LaGuardia, you don't. Because New Jersey has not done that. Same with the ferry system that so many commuters use between New Jersey and New York. When they leave New Jersey, now that's about it. Okay, yeah, I agree, Cynthia. You see the back pocket? Yes. Yeah, that's confusion. To what degree does Joe Biden take a hit with all this confusion? I said he takes a big hit. That's what I, I think he's a really big hit. I think his, he has sort of undermined all of the good moves that he's made. Okay, to Jay's point, to Jay's point that he's in charge of this, not the DOJ, to what point is his hit fault that he's not getting on the phone with DOJ and they say, move. Is that his fault? And does he deserve a hit from the Republicans? I think he's gonna take a hit from the Democrats too, because all of the good work that he's done so far is sort of undermined by this, what? You mean you don't know what you're talking about this whole time we've been trusting you? And in reality, we see now that you're just winging it. That's what it feels like to me anyway. All right, Jay, to you, same question. Oh, I think he's gonna take it and I'll tell you why. This is the namby-pamby thing, you know, the confusion, the failure of having a decision he will stick by. It's problematic. And, you know, you can say there are people in his staff, his chief of staff and people in the White House who are advising him to the best of their ability and they're smart and they're credentialed and all that. But he's not looking at the way people react in these decisions or non-decisions that he makes. And little by little, people are seeing him as weak. Okay, so what happened in Afghanistan last year, they see that as weak. What's happening now with COVID, they see that as weak and there are various other political things happening. You know, what happened to build back better? What happened to my pizza, for example? You know, it's, you know, the back story is that Tim was gonna buy me a pizza because I said that that would happen. The answer is 2023. Well, how about 2022, the election? So the other thing, and I have to add this, is that right now we're in a situation with Ukraine and Joe Biden has stood up. He's been, you know, trying to coalesce the coalition and get Europe working again to deal with Putin, okay? And so far, it's been, what do I say? Timid, sorry, timid. At the same time, Putin has blown off the sanctions. He's blown off the, you know, all the things that Biden has done and coalition has done. He's, you know, just as Trump, he's drilled down relentlessly and he is doing the same things that we have complained about, war crimes, atrocities, weapons that are not permitted by the Geneva Convention and on and on and on killing people, raping people, shooting them in the back of the head, it's going on and on and on and nothing Biden has done has even slowed that down. It's actually, it's speeding up. And so you have to say, wait a minute, is this the same thing as COVID? Is this the same thing as failure to get anything through Congress? This is weak. And when, as I really hate to even think this, but as and when Ukraine can't handle it anymore, as and when something really bad happens there, it's going to be Biden's fault. There's no way he's going to escape blame on that. Okay, thank you. Jay, that'll be your final comment. Cynthia, believe it or not, Cynthia, as strange as this may seem, we've run over time again. And so you'll get the final word. Your last comments, please. Okay, let's see. I guess I should stick with the main subject we've been talking about, huh? And leave that Michigan State Senators comment for another show. Okay. But it was an important one just to give her one little quick shout out and then I'll stick to this. Okay. Sorry. I knew you're going to do it anyway. So go ahead. State Senators, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMurray. And you just listened to her speech. And I'll tell you, Jay, a little while ago, you said it's up to me to fix the world. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make everybody listen to that speech over and over and over and over again until they finally get it in their heads. Okay, back to the right subject. They have done, Jay, you asked a little bit ago about studies and how do they know? Do masks work? Do they not work, right? Well, there was a 2020 investigation into a hotel outbreak in Switzerland that showed that the people that only had face shields and no mask got sick and the people with masks did not get sick. There was another Tennessee study that found that communities with mask mandates had lower hospitalization rates than areas where masks were not required. So we do have some studies. We do have some actual data that we can base what we're saying here on, right? Not just personal. I know I'm gonna keep wearing a mask. I'll even start wearing one outside again now because of this room. So that's what I say. That's my life. Thank you. As always, Cynthia, your comments are dead spot on. Jay Fidel, your comments are always spot on, no matter if I win or lose a bet with you. And that's where we are today. I'd like to thank Jay Fidel, Cynthia Lee Sinclair for What Now America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And please join us next Wednesday at 11 o'clock. Until then, aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.