 politics for the people. My name is Stephanie Stoll Dalton. I may not look like her, but I think the same way. We're doing musical hosts today, okay? And I'm Jay, and I'm kidding. And I'm going to host this show about politics for the people, and the subject is yes, Rome is still burning. Or put it this way, is Rome still burning, okay? We're going to take a look at the domestic issues we've been covering all along and how they're doing while Europe is burning. That includes a whole bunch of things. So, Stephanie, have things gotten better domestically while Rome is burning? Things have not gotten domestic. I have not gotten better. Things are status quo and declining, and hopefully the media is not losing ground in covering these topics sufficiently. That's my question is about the proportion of the news attention. Have we lost it to the hot war, or are we still getting all our details here? I'm presuming from what I'm reading, it's sounding overwhelming as usual, so perhaps we're not. But that is a concern, and we need to look to action here. And the president's looking to action there, so we need a reconsideration of where the responsibility lies. So, Tim, is the media doing a good job in this time of crisis in Europe? And if not, do you forgive them? They're doing a stand-up job. They're in the field. They're doing what they were designed to do, report facts and tell a story, and they're telling a story. So, they're doing, I think, wonderful. I think because news services 24-7 is hard for the human psyche to take it all in, all at once, 24-7. And I think people get emotionally burned out, and that's what I'm afraid of, that the crisis in Ukraine can cause viewer burnout. And hopefully that doesn't happen. Okay, Karen, now a question for you. If I look at the tube, and I only watch three channels, and I'll tell you which channels I watch in case you're interested, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, and sometimes PBS, the NewsHour. That's about it. Notice the ones that I omitted because I don't want to spoil my brain. Lord knows it needs to be preserved at my age. Anyway, so what we have here is the news, but they are spending a lot of time on Ukraine. And as a matter of fact, sometimes, some days, I think I can anticipate what they're going to say. They're going to say there was a bombing of a residential house or building or maternity ward, what have you. And a lot of people died. I know they're going to talk about what's happening at the border, and the pathos of the trains and buses and walking. Ukrainians arrive. I know that they're going to talk about Putin and the fact that he's doubling down on everything and how the Russian troops are behaving themselves and so forth. I know that is almost the same every day. I'm sorry to tell you. And the audience, as Tim suggests, wants to hear that, needs to hear that. We all need to know what's going on because these are war crimes and are amidst. But are we covering the things that are, and that makes it static? What I'm telling you is it seems to be static day after day. I wish I could say that was real dynamic, but it's not so much. At the other side of things, there is dynamic happening, isn't there, in our domestic issues. How do you feel about that? Well, I feel that it's unfortunate that the media seems to be able to only focus on one crisis at a time and then drumbeat it to death until the next crisis appears. In which case, then, a lot of other issues that I think are important, such as climate change, we talked about the climate change report that got eclipsed by the current Ukraine crisis. All these kind of factors, poor Anthony Fauci is out now. You don't see him anymore. So all these things that were so-called crisis issues before are no longer crisis issues, and they just seem to get dropped or something. Until the next crisis, and then they'll drop Ukraine and go on to that one. Yeah, and it's true. It's like, who's in charge here anyway? You wonder who makes these decisions? And you also wonder, Karen, and you taught this for years. Who follows who? If I come up with some story, domestic or foreign, and it's really juicy, and I have footage, and I have a hot commentator about it, the likelihood is that the other channels, the other news media are going to pick it up. That's the way it works. So everybody to the left side of the boat, everybody to the right side of the boat, how has that decided, if you will, among the media, the priorities? Well, you know, the old adage, if it leads, it leads. So if they have media coverage of it, you know, if it's just a meeting of two people somewhere, it's not a very exciting media event, you know, two people walking into a building to talk or something. But if they have, you know, footage of somebody lying on the ground, you know, dead or something, then that's considered a more of a put it at the top of the news story. So it's unfortunately based on sensational and human interest, that kind of thing. Yeah, isn't that true? And maybe I wish there was a way in which the media could act independent or more independent, and pick their own priorities and do it on their own time, so to speak. So Stephanie, you know, if we peel the Ukrainian curtain back, just hold it for a minute, suspend it, if you will, and look at the domestic scene. What if anything is troubling you about the dynamic on the domestic scene? Well, I think my I'm driven by the question of what is it not that democracy is the most important target of all of our work? Is it not that we have to preserve democracy at all costs? And certainly, at home, our operation of a democracy is the most important place to be making sure we're covering our basis and that we have a balance. So we look at what we're doing at home. We also then have to keep that balance and have that be our priority while looking to the other hot war issues and also China is taking advantage of all of the sanctions that are depriving Russia of its ordinary incomes and they're snapping that up. But so yes, so at home, I think it's about how leadership and policy is is going to accommodate all of this demand on it, and also inform how we're supposed to act with regard to our own operations of democracy, and then how we're going to address it in the world. Do you see any positive effect of the crisis in Ukraine on the Congress? I mean, is there a certain amount of bipartisan that pops up when when democracy is threatened in this in the same in this incredible way in Ukraine? Sadly, I think there's a lot of interest in friendship with Russia or Alliance in in in the ways that we have learned are are just obnoxious. I see a complete reflection of the game plan that's been going on here since 19 since since 2016 election and all the things that Russia is saying and doing in Putin. So there so the the there there are there is a portion of our government that has absorbed the Putin strategy and the Russian game plan and talk and turning around issues on themselves. In other words, like he's criticizing Ukraine of of having bioweapons. And of course, that that's what is one of the tactics is that you accuse other people of doing what it is that you intend to do. So but my answer to the question is that, yes, I see that there are a lot of people in our government, unfortunately, would like the benefit they want the benefits of having Ukraine absorbed by the Russia country, which is is horribly detrimental to So Tim, when you pull back the curtain or, you know, lift the blanket a little on the news as it is happening, as it is changing in this country. Do you find that there's any positive effect of the crisis over democracy in Ukraine on the way the members of Congress, specifically the GOP are conducting themselves? Thank you for asking that question. Absolutely. And what is the what is the the look what is the look behind the curtain? And that is to see the personal attributes of a dictator, the inhumanity, the brutality, the narcissism, the paranoia. The list goes on. And those who were supporting someone kind of like that as a former president, we had they start to see maybe that's not such a great idea to fit an autocrat really looks like. And they think twice maybe before they start going down the autocratic road, because it seems to be inherent of all autocrats to have these warped aspects of their personality, there's no stop rating the personality from the dictator from the dictator from the autocrat. You know, but there's a tension on that, isn't there? Because the same time the GOP is has always been at least in recent times, dedicated to try to bring the Democrats down to make Joe Biden look foolish and weak and impotent and so forth. And some of them cannot resist that opportunity now. Because this you know, this crisis is really beyond anyone's control or very hard to control it. And so they take the opportunity to to criticize him over it. So am I right? I see attention. Okay, between the GOP normal approach at trying to attack Biden, undermine Biden, at the same time, as you say, perhaps there are some members in the GOP and some people in the base actually in the country, who who understand better what Trump was about, who understand better what democracy is and how it could be lost. What are your thoughts about that tension? Well, that tension was there before Ukraine. And that was the old GOP that said, you know, we have a protocol, we have a certain demeanor about us, we have a certain platform and principles as the GOP party. As we know, 2016, a lot of those principles and platforms went away. And it was following a cult personality versus a GOP platform. So that tension has been there. I think most of it's been swept under the rug. And the the cult of personality won the day. But that's the beauty of I think, looking at Putin under a microscope to say, Hey, there are similarities between this guy and the guy we just got rid of. Number 45. And I think that tension is back and it's good to have that tension. And I'd like to see more people realize that a platform is more important than a personality. You know, Karen, we have a lot of issues miles to go before we we finish the discussion about all the unfinished business on the domestic side. But but certainly one thing we have been focused on for the past two plus years is COVID. So I ask you to report on COVID. There's a tension there too. There are still people who, you know, don't believe it, who don't want to wear a mask or a take a vaccine. On the other hand, on the flip side of that, there seems to be a scientific implication that maybe the surge is going down. And various government agencies are saying you don't need to take those steps anymore. Where does that put it in terms of the domestic agenda? I think because they there is a kind of consensus by the CDC that it is going down. In fact, many states are including Hawaii are removing their mask mandates, that it's kind of declining in terms of news coverage, which it used to lead it was leading the news for what the last year, I think at least every the first story on the news was always some COVID story with usually Anthony Fauci or somebody like that. But so I think we're beginning to see that eclipsed by Ukraine. And I'm not sure they're going to pick up the coverage again. I think it's being written off as you know, in the decline right now. Yeah, so is it behind us? If it's behind us, let's assume it's been dealt with, right? Either it it it it reduced it's it's it's lethality, it's it's infectiousness as a matter of the development, the you know, the track of the virus, you know, the evolution of the virus. Or because we took good steps, who gets credit? Can can we say that by the she should get credit here? Can we say that the government should get credit? Or as some people feel it just went away by itself? And they always told us it was going to go away by itself. No, I think there's was huge steps taken by Biden and the government to accelerate its departure. And if they hadn't taken those steps, we wouldn't see it going away, you know, happily seeing it going away. You know, the insistence that all government employees had to be vaccinated, they pushed to vaccinate people in general, by Biden and government mandates and so forth, I think was critical in reaching the critical mass they needed to get the vaccine, you know, under control, not vaccine, the virus under control. Yeah. Stephanie, since you, you know, the ordinary host in the in the evolution in the in the revolving musical chairs of the show, I saved a very difficult question for you. Are you happy about that? Thrilled. Voting. It was your best shot, Jay. I'm going to give you my best shot voting. There was an article in New Yorker three, four days ago about how busy, busy, busy that you'll be was working on, on denying free and fair voting to a huge number of people in this country, working on it every single day, working on it in so many legislatures, working out with people running for office like secretary of state in various states, busy, busy, busy, busy. And the thrust of the article in New Yorker is, boy, we got a problem. Do we have a problem, Stephanie? Are we addressing the problem? The voting rights bills seem to be dead. Let me spell that D E A D dead in Congress. What's what are we, what are we going to do? What's going to happen here? That's the question that that really is the challenge. And this has been going on for a long time as the Republicans have been focusing on this, this work at, at these lower level positions, which we thought were they're not lower level in any sense of importance, but they hire highly prioritized getting people in at the state level that would be on their team. And they've ramped that up. I mean, it's been going on for years, along with the gerrymandering. And now, but now they're really ramping it up and really focusing on the primary for the secretary of state position in the state and making and the former president is really pushing on that. No, so so it's democracy Democrats who have not paid enough attention to that. And of course, it's about winning presidential contests. And that's where the strength is of the outcomes of the strong work of the Democrats as we we control all three houses and we've had the presidency. But now we've got to get back to business and take care of what it is that the Republicans understand is so important and may win the day as a result of that. So it's a huge concern. And it's negligence on the part of Democrats. There's no excuse. You have to do the whole thing has to be a balance to process be comprehensive. And you have to consistently stay on top of it. At least Biden's coming back on the judges. So the other piece is the judiciary, right? Where where the Republicans have been doing nothing but getting GOP, MAGA judges in there. And finally, now Biden's in and he's appointed more judges than anybody ever before, including Trump. So you're you're on the mark here. This is this is highly important. Is we need yes, we needed the leaders to attend to this. And and as to the Voting Rights Act, that that's just a shame. It's criminal, especially for the people who've devoted their lives, getting that legislation through one time already in states that already have abided by. So we need to get that back. And there are people working on that they're not getting much coverage, not as much as they should be getting there again. Who is the media touting enough already maybe on the war stuff and not that we don't Can I tag tag on to that comment right there? And that is, how do we know the stuff's not getting done under, you know, behind closed doors? Just because the media is not reporting on it doesn't mean the Democrats aren't working on voting rights and back, you know, back behind the scenes efforts, or even build back better. We just don't hear about it because Ukraine is has taken and rightly so most of the oxygen is in out of the room. Well, if I could just comment to back, it's just in looking, I've been looking at the states, the state's campaigns for these offices like Secretary of State and the Republicans are doing very well, especially in in the the states that are critical for the Republicans. So that's how that's so I don't think the coverage has been reduced. It's just not headlines. So that's another part of it. Where is the coverage? Fauci's on page 39 of the post, instead of page three, or one. So I mean, if they're all those facets of how they're going to push this stuff out, and somebody needs to be tweaking it to keep the important undone work that desperately needs attention, and is going to make the difference between our having an operating democracy and not, and that needs to get out there. And who's making that decision? I guess it's citizens requesting it. But that's another question is who's pushing that? It's not leadership, or and if it's not leadership, then who does push that's another question. You know, can I just step in here with a comment? You can say the press isn't reporting some of the stuff that Democrats have been doing, you know, particularly on on these elections. But in fact, I'm going to say it in Hawaiian, I'm going to use the native Hawaiian language, the two voting rights bills, okay, in Congress, we all know, and there's nothing more to report on that, are Maki, that means dead. And that's that's a fact. So if the if the Democrats are doing anything about voting rights in Congress, you could fool me. Anyway, let's let's go forward. You know, one thing, Tim, that Stephanie mentioned was the judiciary, okay, and that Biden had the opportunity to appoint Katanji Brown Jackson. That's good. I don't think it's going to make that much difference in the court. And we have some real jokers that that Trump appointed who are doing amazing cases, cases cases that like your blood boil, and your serial hurdle, I'm telling you, we could go into that now. Suffice to say, there are some really strange federal judges on the bench that Trump appointed, they're not qualified, the sensibilities are bad, they're politically had and so forth still today, years later. And it's very sad. And they say, okay, that the judiciary is really the backstop on all these investigations, you can stop an investigation with the judiciary, and you can encourage one with the judiciary. So right now, I'm asking you about investigations, which, you know, arguably are important issues and should be dynamic issues. But as other issues, they have been, you know, covered by the Ukraine crisis. So we're talking about the select committee. We're talking about the prosecutions of the Proud Boys and all that. We're talking about trying to stop insurrectionists in the future. We're trying to investigate, hey, we're trying to prosecute Trump in the Manhattan DA's office. Look what happened to that. If you were hoping that that conviction would have felt fallen within section three of the 14th Amendment, forget about it. That prosecution's gone, gone, gone, mackay, you know what it means. So what I'm saying is, how we doing on that? Are we following, you know, are we following up on that as a country or are we spending all our time watching MSNBC? I think the select committee has gotten a lot more interviews, a lot more evidence. They're starting to put the rough draft of the report together. We're now mid-March and months ago, you and I and everyone on our shows would say, hey, this stuff has to be out by basically June 1st or else it's going to be too late. So I think they're starting to gather and organize what their brief is going to look like and what that report's going to look like. So I think that continues. You may not have the high rollers that actually go in and testify in front of the select committee. That's fine. We don't need them. It'd be nice, but they have the evidence and it will be reported. Okay. Well, I think they don't have any power to, you know, execute what they find. It has to go to the Department of Justice. If he doesn't have the evidence, I'll go one step further. They'll be a candidate in standing. I don't know who it is, but they'll take that select committee report and say, I'm challenging 14th Amendment, paragraph three. I'm challenging Donald Trump as a viable candidate that he's ineligible due to this report and the evidence of finding within it. The good point. Okay. You know, it's great. We had so many conversations. I'll lose a little pizza, I'm sure, but you know. Well, we had so many conversations about these things, you know, and I actually miss those good old days when we were bearing down on all these domestic issues that now, you know, we really have to handle Ukraine. We must talk about it as the greatest outrage of our lifetime. But, you know, Karen, there are other outrageous happening. We have the Supreme Court, which is not going to be much affected by Katanji Brown Jackson. We have a, you know, a conservative majority that's probably going to slam Roe v. Wade. That's going to vote against voting rights. There's all kinds of things. I mean, how do you feel about that? Is there a dynamic in the judiciary? Is there a dynamic on all these various, what do you call, legal and cultural issues that are coming, were coming? I don't know if they are coming before the public and the institutions we count on to deal with them? Well, I would say the dynamic is that the Democrats seem to be losing out of them. Primarily, here we have the EPA is now being a big case before the Supreme Court. Looks like it might lose its teeth to be able to execute any power in terms of global climate change and emissions of power plants. So they're all leaning, of course, all the conservative judges are leaning to give the power plants more power or less and take away the power of the EPA. So that's down, downer. And then, of course, we have abortion coming up, which is not going to look good. We have lost, it seems, the Trump in New York case, you know, where they all disintegrated before her eyes. I don't know what's going to happen at the state level, where there's a prosecutor, the Secretary of State of New York is prosecuting supposedly a similar case to what the New York City case was, but I haven't heard any status report on that at all. So I would say interlegally, the picture is not too good at the moment. Let me ask you about some of the more I say mundane, but they're really not mundane at all, but they have been, you know, talked about less. Let's talk about let's see, tax reform, wealth disparity, infrastructure, big tech abuses that I mentioned, immigration, social justice, poverty. I mean, there's a whole bunch of, I don't want to call them second tier, but we haven't talked about it as much. And it seems to me, we're not talking about them at all right now. No. And I think another issue is that a lot of the appointees have not been past the you know, committees, they need to be installed in office like the Justice Department, some appointees there, some appointees at the FCC, the FTA. All the regulatory bureaus seem to have been stalled out in terms of getting in the people that Biden wanted. So that's so anti-monopoly legislation is essentially stalled as well. Yeah. Stephanie, let's go to you with an easy one. That's a trap. OK, the economy, inflation, all that jobs, all that. Now, you know, there were those who said a few weeks ago that Biden is doing great to have more jobs and there were those who said, well, not really because inflation is eating up the benefit. And now on top of that, we have we have oil prices and various other supply line issues and cost issues that will predictably result from the shrinking of an interdependent global economy. So are we doing anything about that? We doing anything, you know, at the Fed level? Are we are we doing anything to avoid disparity and poverty in this country? What about all those initiatives? What what about Tim's favorite bill? Is that going anywhere? Never tell that was that we call it the pizza bill. You know, what's happening with that? And have we have we turned our backs on all those things? Well, to the list, you gave us of your viewing habits on TV. I'd like to add Bloomberg with Bloomberg's covering the stuff twenty four seven. OK, so and they're also running a sidebar that that kind of picks up on the major news points, too. So I highly recommend it. If you want to catch up fast without and it even runs the bar during commercials. So however, I mean, it's high level. They've got all world level global experts coming in talking about all of these things. And so that kind of gives you the big picture. But I mean, the problem with the war in Ukraine and what Putin is doing and and China is going to benefit like crazy from is to you know, to in the relationship is growing stronger. I I submit regardless of, you know, any finer points, you know, about their value systems or whatever. But, you know, the inflation bad now it's good. Now it's going to get better. Now we're going to have the rate hike next week. No, no, I mean, so all of that is on there about going this way and that way. But what is encouraging about that is that they're responsive. I mean, the people are responsive, these experts, you know, to changing situations. And that's what's really important so that when they do get to the point of decision there, they're bringing this myriad of viewpoints and having to smash that and do something about putting it into a reasonable policy that's going to have some possibility of success for us. But yeah, so I think that economic crisis is honest and Biden can't pay attention to that. It's just like the Supreme Court, as you mentioned, the new one going in is is going to make some difference, probably at least is, you know, somebody standing there saying things that are important to hear. But, you know, I think we haven't done anything about moving forward on changing the Supreme Court. So this is another one of those great big to totally important and influential institutions that, yes, the State Department needs to have to get the rest of its complement. Yes, all the rest of them do too. It's critical. And that's been, you know, our detriment to our detriment and to our vulnerability increasing it, not having those executive branch filled out by the hundreds of thousands. So anyway, but the Supreme Court, Biden's not doing any or is it there? You asked this question. Say, how do you know if he is or he isn't? Presumably he has the committee that's working on that, right? But we've got to have a change in that. The committee found that nothing needed to be changed. Oh, that's true. That was about what, two weeks ago, 10 days ago. Yeah. Well, let me let me move on to Tim with perhaps the most complex question of our discussion here. Can you forgive me, Tim? Always. OK, so, you know, I don't think anybody will argue that Biden has done a lot to repair the damage with the EU and NATO. Of course, the jury's still out on what happens. You know, the failure of the Polish Steel is not necessarily good for him. But, you know, one thing I have noticed in the past few days is this. There are a lot of countries in Africa and in South America who have not condemned Russia, who have not joined with the United States or or NATO or the EU. They're all on their own. And some of them are saying, I mean, I said not a direct quote, but it's close. We love Russia. We'll always be with Russia. Russia will always be our friend. Holy moly, how did that happen? And that's in other places in the world. And of course, you have China, which not willing to take a position. So my question is, does this reveal something that we were not attending to? Is it possible that we spent a little too much time on EU and NATO when we could have should have spent some time on these other places as well? It's not that we weren't attending to it. We weren't aware to begin with. You have to remember, much of Africa is socialistic societies. And communism had fertile ground in countries that were desperately poor. And so, you know, communism was very appealing. And it has been. And, you know, again, China has, since the early 90s, has become ingratiated in many of these African nations. And so communism is not a dirty word. Socialism is not a dirty word. And so when they say, you know, Russia has been our friend. Russia has brought in goods and services. China has brought in goods and services, humanitarian aid, engineering, infrastructure improvements to many of these African nations. And so it's not that we weren't paying attention. Is we weren't paying attention way back since the 1990s. We are now because, guess what? There's raw, raw minerals that we need for our computer chips. So now we're paying attention, but only because of that. Yeah. And before we leave that very point, which is very important, like the cobalt in the Congo. Now, now China has control of that. But remember, Ukraine, there are many rare Earths in Ukraine. There are many, there are many important materials in Ukraine that we have, we have been complacent about. We have assumed that there'll always be a supply line. Russia takes over Ukraine. We won't have that anymore. I don't think, I don't think we are focusing on that. I don't think we are focusing on manufacturing. And I think to the extent that Trump talked about trying to rebuild manufacturing, he didn't see it as an interdependent world. He didn't see it as global supply lines. He figured somehow all those rare Earths would get to us. Wrong, wrong. OK, we're out of time. And I want to ask you guys to give your last thoughts. And I have a suggested question for you. My question is this, we have been dealing with all of us, you know, this is the degradation of the United States, the loss of democracy, the loss of social justice, the loss of rationality. I mean, we could go on. And it has affected me. I'll tell you, I'm sure it's affected most right thinking people I know. And it's just it's a drumbeat. It has been a drumbeat since Trump was elected. And now on top of that, we have Ukraine where we see an absolute outrageous dictator, a murderous dictator get away with this every single day, murdering civilians, women and children all day long. And that's another burden. That's another degradation of the world order of morality, global morality. And all the while, as we discussed in this program, the real work has not been done, perhaps to the extent that it might have been. So my question is very subjective. We'll start with you, Karen. How do you feel about that? One thing I think that's unfortunate in terms of coverage and so forth is I think a lot of things have been done with this first bill that Biden passed. But we're not going to see the results of it for four or five years, like rebuilding the infrastructure. A lot of changes that he has made is not immediate. It's something you see in the future. And unfortunately, I don't think that registers with a lot of people. You know, it's sort of what they see immediately before their eyes seems to be what they think is going to be. And so I think it's unfortunate there's not more coverage of like the different ingredients of these bills and what's really going to change. And, you know, what's, for example, I did see that both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party agree that the early pundits for the party agree that the presidency, the Senate now is possibly could go back to the Democrats. And that's if, and this is a big caveat, if they choose the middle type, the old type of Republican at the local level, then it won't. But if they choose these rabid Trumpites at the local level, then there's a chance people are turning away from these people. And that means there's an opening for, you know, the senators to go Democratic. So I think that's good news. And I think from what I watched PBS News last night and actually they had a whole bunch of bills they were touting that were bipartisan that had passed this week. So I do think a lot of this bipartisan is not covered. And we don't know like, for example, there's an anti-lynching bill that just passed was bipartisan support, but it doesn't really get the news that the other issues do. So I think it's unfortunate that, you know, we're not really aware of what actually is being done in the Congress. Well, taking it all together. I mean, you're a professional in this and you do watch and think and apply critical thinking. Are you more or less optimistic about the future of the country than you were before Ukraine? Well, I don't think Ukraine has any place in my thinking, but I think I'm more optimistic because I think people are beginning to turn away from the Trump Trumpite candidates. And they're beginning to see Trump, I think decline in popularity. And so, and I think people in his own party are turning away from him. So I don't think it's a Ukraine issue, but I do, I also saw where the results of this redistricting, you know, voting votes have basically turned out to be even Stephen, you know, there's the redistricting benefited the Republicans and the Democrats to the same degree. So it didn't really, it's not really gonna affect the next election. There are some stories I think that we don't see covered Okay, I just wanna go on records and say that if the Democrats take the Senate in the next election, I'm gonna need hospitalization. That's how I feel about it. Stephanie, are you more or less optimistic or pessimistic given the compounding of these threats to our world? Very pessimistic and to put it succinctly to preserve our democracy, which has operated beautifully in its form for a long, long time and gotten us to the top of the heap here on the globe. However, if we don't do something about changing from a skeet shoot act play in our government started probably with the involvement of Newt Gingrich years ago and get out of this, everybody piling on everybody else, we are not gonna make it. And so we've got to grow up, get out of the middle school playground and get on with everybody on board. We have listed in this program how many things that are not active enough active yet in the public's knowledge. I mean, which says something about what's going on and we should know more about it and we have to have all hands on board to get at all of these issues that we're gonna maintain our leadership position and the quality of life that we have achieved because of that. So- Okay, Tim, it falls on you now. And if you don't give a good answer, I'm going to stamp my feet and create a nuclear war. And then before the answer is this, although I'm pessimistic, I'm seeing glimmers of optimism and it's optimism via tragedy. The tragedy of Ukraine is teaching the world a lesson the United States to remind us of a lesson of what a despot looks like, what a dictator who's flawed personality and the carnage that he can wreck upon a nation and its people. It's a lesson for us that we learned in World War II, Vietnam and every other war conflict. And it's being played out right before our very eyes and it's a reminder of why we need to preserve democracy and avoid despots, autocrats and people with his personality and like his personality that have been our former president. Wow, what a panel. What a discussion. Thank you all. Tim Epicella, Stephanie Stolt-Dawton, Karen Buzzers. Thank you very much for this discussion. You're on politics for the people. Aloha.