 We're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel on Think Tech. And today we're going to do community matters with informed citizen Carl Campania, who incidentally is a host on what? What's the name of your show? Mover Shakers and Reformers, Politics and Hoi. Okay. And he's got a lot of great thoughts about what's going on and valuable, contributed to the public conversation. Today we're going to talk about Trump Week. We're going to make this a Trump Week show, which we do from time to time. Trump Week in the first and second weeks of July 2017. We're going to look at what he's been doing and what that means and try to interpret it and even predict what will happen in the future. One thing Carl, you mentioned a minute ago is that NPR tweeted the Declaration of Independence. Why and what happened? Yesterday, NPR, I don't know if they've ever done this before, but they're utilizing multimedia and Twitter is one of the sources and resources. Obviously, we know the president uses that. But what they did was they decided to, without commentary, they decided to tweet out the entire Declaration of Independence. It's not inappropriate on an independent state. Not inappropriate on Independence Day, exactly. That's all they were doing. They were tweeting out, by the way, here's the Declaration of Independence. That itself is not necessarily remarkable. The remarkable part is where many, I don't know how many, but many Trump supporters decided that they were going to jump on that and comment through Twitter and other means criticizing it because they believe that it was an attack on President Trump. Revolution against Trump. Revolution against Trump is what they thought NPR was calling for. The level of ignorance in this country is fantastic. It is not selective ignorance. It is decided determined ignorance. Do you want to be ignorant? You can do it. You can. Not hard. You haven't talked about it. But let's talk about these letters that came, the letters that sought the voter roles in all 50 states the last few days. Two letters. Yes, and actually only one letter was talked about last week. There were actually two letters. One by the presidential voter fraud or election fraud commission, the presidential commission that's being headed up by Mr. Cobot. He sent out a letter to all of the states from his commission. And then the second one, which wasn't talked about much and was only brought up earlier today that I saw anyway, from the Department of Justice, Mr. Jeff Sessions himself, sent a letter out to all of the states. They were basically asking for the exact same information and that is all information, all personal information and everything that can be gathered from the entire voter rolls from state to state, from all 50 states. That amounts to all hundreds of millions of Americans. That amounts to millions and millions of Americans, many of which don't even vote. But yeah. Ah, right. Voter rolls include people who don't necessarily vote. They don't necessarily vote. That's the whole population, effectively. Yeah. So what does this mean? Why did they do that, Carl? Well, okay, the commission itself, the voter or election fraud commission itself is there because of earlier this year, President Trump declared that he would have won the popular vote if it were not for the millions and millions of Americans. Three to five million people had voted fraudulently. Exactly. And everyone consulted said that's poppycock. There's no evidence of that at all. So he goes ahead, you know, ultimate hubris and he establishes a commission to look into it. Correct. And the guy in the commission? I don't remember his first name, but his last name is Kobach. And the interesting thing about him is, I think he's from Kansas. He actually himself has been fine for activities related to voter fraud. So now he's the person in charge of gathering the data on voter fraud, I guess. And he also was a person who said there has been no voter fraud. In the past, he has said there has been no voter fraud. With respect to this election in 2016, he said that he did say that at one point, that there is no indication that there was widespread voter fraud. But he seems to be an expert in that area, having been fined for voter fraud. So therefore, the president put him in charge of looking into it and finding those three to five million votes. You know, and your tax money is going to fund this Kaka-Memi commission. Yes, it is. It's a whole thing. It's a goose chase. It's a distraction. And we'll talk more about distractions in a minute. Absolutely. The other letter. So that in itself is preposterous. And what I'll add is at least 41 of about 44 states so far have said, outright, no, we're not giving you any voter information. Don't worry about the other ones, though. Well, any of them giving them. I'm happy that 44 of the 50 have said no. But you can see an immediate reaction. It's impressive. Yes. Yes. So six are still out there. I'm not sure what they're waiting for. So, okay. Hawaii has said no. Hawaii has- Or is that he's still out there? No. Governor Ege put out a statement saying that we have not been asked for anything. But if we were asked for something, we probably wouldn't give it to them. Good for him. That was Ege's statement, Governor Ege's statement. So that was that letter. Now, that letter itself has got its own unfortunate repercussions on that one. And we'll see if anything ever comes up that. The other letter, which is actually more insidious and perhaps more damaging, is the one from the Department of Justice. That letter was based on the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Based on that act, they're calling for the exact same information, all of the voter information, personal information and so forth, from state to state to state in order to make sure that everything is on the up and up from the voter roll. And they're utilizing that act because within that act, well, first of all, let's start with the basis of that act. The purpose of that act was to help register more people to vote. But there is language in that act that says, if they're not actually eligible to vote, here are some ways, here are some tools or techniques in order to kick people off the voter roll. So there's actually language in that act to kick people off the voter roll. So Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice is using that act as leverage to gain the information so that they can proceed with voter suppression. An ma. That's very, very scary, Carl. It's, yes, it's beyond scary. If there are words, other words that we will get to later that that is actually, it's beyond scary. It is actually something that we need to as a country recognize and that all people, I don't care Democrat, Republican, independent, green, or I'm oblivious and I've never cared about politics in my life, need to recognize the ramifications of that. So you take these two letters, both from questionable figures, but both working for Trump for sure. Okay. And they go out and they have a dampening effect on voting. They have, they sort of signaled us the federal government. We used to like the federal government. The federal government is intending to suppress voting. But we also have other issues about voting. What are they? Well, there has been for years, a couple of decades or more, and we've been talking about voter suppression. And oftentimes it has been targeted towards urban inter-cities. But more and more it's being looked at in larger perspective as really the people have really dispersed through a number of areas. So there are voter suppression actions that have been going on for years. And what is included in that is the requirement for very specialized and difficult to obtain voter ID. You must have an ID, a very specialized ID, or an ID that's going to cost you money because you have to get on a bus, take the day off of work, and travel all the way to this one place. Just make it hard for you. Make it hard for you to get the ID so that you can actually register to vote. Especially if you are in the poverty zone. If you have no money, you can't afford to do the things you need to do to vote. Exactly. Exactly. So that's one voter suppression technique. There are other suppression techniques that have been used as well, employed as well in various ways similar to that one. And then you have the district gerrymandering. Happening. That is currently happening. And first of all, do you know the etymology of the term gerrymandering? No, tell me. Okay. The term gerrymandering comes from the fifth vice president of the United States. He was vice president under James Madison. His name was Elbridge Gerry, D-E-R-R-Y. And he established the idea of gerrymandering the district. So. But a great contribution after him. So he goes down into the annals of history. Yes, he does. Down. Down. In the operative word. Definitely down. Having been the one who initiated redistricting. So Republicans are trying to do this right now. Oh, absolutely. And it has already been done in multiple states. And there have been a number of court cases on the state level and federal level. Some of them have already passed and gone through and have been working their way up the rank. There's one in particular that's happening at the moment that the Supreme Court of the United States of America has agreed to hear. And that is the case in Wisconsin. So that case will be heard, I believe, this fall. October term. In the October term. Well, they will review the gerrymandering claims in Wisconsin. This is going to be an important case. Very important case. And it will define the court. We'll show us what's going on in the court. It will define the court. It will define the direction for the country from this point forward, that regards to gerrymandering. Yeah. It will, if it goes the way the Republicans want, it will give them the full authority to redistrict everything so that they are basically redistricting the Democrats out. Manipulate the vote. Manipulate the vote. Manipulate the vote. Because I believe this is the only way that they can actually win in the coming year. Yeah. And let's not forget that there is significant evidence out there that the Russians, I mean, I think it's sort of generally accepted, the Russians through social media and email and otherwise electronically, if not in other ways, tried to manipulate, did manipulate the vote. You know, I suggested that Hillary Clinton would have won had they not done so. And the Russians were manipulating the vote in Trump's favor. And here's the thing, I believe, just me now, that Trump knew it and agreed to it and encouraged it, maybe was part of it. And that he is doing everything in his power to distract and delay and obfuscate the current attempts at investigation, which we haven't heard much about lately, because we've been distracted by so many issues coming from Trump. Well, the good news there, I mean, first of all, okay, you're not alone in your belief. First of all, I agree with you. But there's a lot of evidence that you can amount to that. And one thing to understand with regard to the investigation, whether it's in the congressional committees or in the special committee, they usually take 12 to 18 months to go through this process, no matter what. You're more confident than I am, Carl. What I'm choosing is to be more confident in the process and in hopeful, positive conclusion, rather than not. Knowing that what's only been technically five, six months. But everything we've heard, everything we've heard has been dousing these investigations, or somehow disrupting them. And remember too that the Republicans control Congress and they can control these investigations too. The only one that can't control is Mueller. Is Mueller, that's right. Although they're trying to and they're trying not to. Trump is going to fire him after a while. Give him a chance and he will fire him. Everything they're doing is supposed to put pressure on him to give the result they want to end it. They know there's nothing here, we're going to end it. They're trying to put that pressure on. They're threatening to fire him to make sure that, you know, try to get him to, I mean, that's all they're trying to manipulate. That's obstruction of justice. And that's one of the cases now. See, understand that there's an investigation into the potential collusion. There's a criminal investigation into collusion and obstruction. There is a separate case being brought up to investigate what and how many aspects of corruption may have been I guess employed. So there are multiple investigations going on, criminal and otherwise, to just determine what happened and what we do from there. One of the biggest pieces of the criminal investigation is looking into Trump's finances. And how he has tied himself globally and also to Russia. And in what ways he actually may be unduly influence. But the FBI hasn't hasn't had a replacement directly yet, huh? No, no, and many agencies have not had replacement executives. Oh, no, no, well, and, and he hasn't been appointing people, even the US attorneys that he fired, he hasn't replaced them. So, you know, what you have is a government that is sort of limping along where they, there's that management level has not, has not been populated. And it gives my opinion, it gives Trump greater power when he dismantles all of these agencies by not appointing the people who lead them. Okay, that's, that's one element of what he's doing. But there are other elements. He's at war with the press. He's at war with the intelligence establishment. He's, gee, I think he's at war with the country myself. And all this leads to a theory that you and I should discuss right after the break. And it's the theory of coup, coup. We'll be right back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which dreams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube, and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Sounds like scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say, forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children, adults, and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. You can be the greatest. You can be the best. You can be the king, come playin' on your chest. You can be the world. You can be the war. You can talk to God, go bangin' on his door. You can throw your hands. Bingo. We're back here on Community Matters. So we're talking about Trump Week this week. We're talking with Carl Campania, who is an informed citizen. And we're talking about some of the things that emerge in watching Trump. So we talked about these letters and the suppression of voters. We talked about the gerrymandering publicans that are involved in. Gee, we're talking about being at war. War with the press, war with the intelligence establishment, folding into this isolationist mode in general. Gee, I mean, war with the whole country, really. And it suggests a coup, a slow coup, or maybe a ramp up to a coup. But it suggests profound changes in the way our democracy works or has worked. And we are at a very important turning point of some kind here. We are. We are. And the reason I'll make reference to the idea of a coup is if you look it up, and it's been talked about by others, not just me. If you look at it and start going down the list of things that you need, now it's what Hitler did, it's what a number of other rulers did, who became dictators and otherwise, you start going down the list of what you need to do in order to actually do a coup. And if it's a military coup, that's one thing. You just have the military come in and they take over. Well, he's trying to get close to the military, isn't he? Well, he's always been trying to get there. 54 billion extra. That may not happen, but he's announced a policy that would attract a lot of military people. Right. And that is, I don't think he's trying to do a military coup. He's also given greater authority to the brass to change troop levels and to engage on the ground. For the president of the United States to give his military autonomous control over military levels around the world is also, I believe, relatively unprecedented. Because let's also remember, it's not his job to declare war. It's the Congress's job to declare war. This is also a very important piece to understand. When you look at the Constitution, and this was actually brought up yesterday, I believe by a couple of different other people, but when you look at the Constitution, the president is not the first job listed. The House of Representatives is the first job listed with the Speaker of the House. Well, again, you go right down the line, the president is the sick person mentioned, sick position mentioned. And it's mentioned, the first mention of the president within the Constitution is when we impeach the president, this is the procedure which we will do. Interesting. The president has evolved. The office has gotten more powerful, and that's dangerous. And over many decades, it's become more powerful. But now we have a situation where the president makes critical remarks of the judges, of the judiciary. I find that unprecedented. That's quite remarkable. So-called judges. That's an act against the Constitution to do that. Let me say this. When you look at it from this perspective, the classic textbook corporate takeover, hostile takeover of any other, from one corporation to another corporation, what you do is you jump in, and as soon as you start to get your claws into it, you start going through all parts of that business, putting your vice president in charge of all of these different departments. Your vice president then goes through the process of dismantling each and every one of those departments so that that company ceases to exist, and it just gets enveloped into your company. That is a corporate takeover. In a governmental sense, that's a coup. In a governmental sense, and that's- That's a dictator. That's a dictator, and that's exactly what he's doing. He has put all of these people, people who are against the education department, against the energy department, going through every facet of it. He has not, he has fired and not refilled the Department of Justice and all of the lawyers. He has not reappointed and he has fired a number of state people as far as diplomacy from around the world, and has not replaced with any of them. We don't have enough people out there to do anything. So what he's doing is crumbling the infrastructure that we have as a government globally because he wants this isolationism, this nationalism. That's so interesting that just yesterday, and I don't necessarily ascribe to this, but that there was a play, a performance organized in front of Ilani Palace. And there were a lot of people involved in this, a lot of people came to see it. I was asked to come and I went, but other people in the community went. And I must say, it was a study. Tom Coppin wrote a book about the overthrow, right? This was a play about the overthrow, about the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of the overthrow and how those guys managed to overthrow a monarchy. That was the legitimate monarchy of the place. And it goes into some detail, as his book does, of exactly what kind of deception they pulled off in order to achieve this. Not saying that sovereignty is right or wrong, just that it was a phenomenal examination of how they did this. And you know what? It sounds a lot like what's going on in Washington. You dismantle the existing structure. You make it hard for people to vote. You make it hard for the native Hawaiians to run for office and hold office. All of these things, it's a whole accumulation. And what they did, by the way, they proclaimed, they proclaimed Sanford Dole the president. There was no election of Sanford Dole. They proclaimed him. And so it was essentially for a while until the, what do you call it, the organic act, it was a dictatorship, essentially by a group, an oligarchical dictatorship. And I am so worried that there's a parallel. And we'll be discussing this on the show, not certainly to push an agenda, but merely to find out the mechanics of how that worked. Because it's relevant today, how you take one government and dismantle it and replace it with another government, maybe that the people may not actually agree with. And the people who are in charge of that government at the moment, currently as part of the United States' concerns, are all the Republicans who want nothing more than to make sure that they maintain that power to pass the laws they want to change our rights based on how they see fit. Rather than a consensus and recognizing that half the country at least disagrees with some of what they're doing, let alone a lot of what they're doing, they don't care. They just want to put in their dictatorship of this is how things are going to be, and we are going to require that everyone in this free country, we're going to create freedom in this country to not have to worry about these other constraints that are tied to being free. Very, very scary, Carl. I mean, when you put all this together and you talk about the possibility of the president taking more power than the Constitution would allow him and diminishing other branches of government in the process, it doesn't speak well because his judgment is questionable, his values, his morality, his ethics very questionable, and to enhance his power, that's really not a good idea. My question is to what? If they're doing this and if the Republicans themselves who are enabling and supporting him because they're not detracting from him or trying to slow him down, if the Republicans are in this for the same goal, what is that goal? Is that goal to eliminate all of the Democrats? Is that goal to have complete control over this country? And then what? Is it really so that the Republicans become the rulers of this country, or is that connection that we've heard to Russia a bigger role, a bigger part of this whole conversation? Because we've heard talk about yes, Trump's connections and yes, Trump's administration's potential connections and financial ties here and there, but then we've heard that Trump tied, or I should say Putin tied entities have donated to Paul Ryan and to Mitch McConnell and to various other Republicans. So where? Our system is so transparent that it can be manipulated this way and it is being manipulated this way. I mean, for that matter, Putin can hire public relations firms in New York, Washington, San Francisco to advance his position and make him look good. I would suspect that kind of thing has happened. Maybe it's happening right now. Get advice and how to deal with the American public opinion. Anyway, I mean, this is pretty scary time and the Republicans don't make me feel any better about it and for that matter, the Democrats seem to be having trouble in maintaining some kind of vision here and in winning elections. So at the country in my lifetime, actually, Carl has never been as much at risk and not only in the way he's doing, dismantling the government, but in the way he's dealing with foreign policy and the way things are working in the world. We live in a very, very global village now, but you said, you told me that at the end of the day and the end of the show, there's a bright light and I'd like you to take the next minute or two as your opportunity to try to persuade me and maybe others that there's a bright light here. It's not all a dark future. Okay, I will try. The bright light because I'm of the type of person that if I can't see a positive future, if I can't see a pathway towards a brighter opportunity, then there's a real problem. So I need to look for that and then try to help make that happen, support that in some way. What I see is all of this effort that's going in at the moment for voter suppression and gerrymandering and all of these voter rolls that are being called for and all of this stuff that's being done at the moment is being done specifically, and this is the bright light, specifically because the Republicans know they're about to lose at least one chamber in 2018 and are in line to lose the presidency in 2020. That bright light to me is there and it is obvious because they are spending so much time and effort and money to make sure that they can control the vote because if they cannot control the vote, they will lose. It was made very clear and it was said plainly by the Montana candidate that, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we don't want everyone in Montana to vote. If everyone in Montana votes, we will lose. He said that publicly. So what the Republicans know is the path they're taking at the moment is the narrow path that will most likely lead without them gerrymandering and suppressing to them losing in 2018. So that's the bright light. We just need to make sure that we get out the vote, that we help our neighbors register to vote, and that we get them there. That's what we have to make sure of. Well, I hope you're right, but it could be prophylactic. What I mean is the Republicans would do this even if they weren't concerned and the Democrats would do it even if they were concerned. So we have a great disparity in the country. Some people recently called it the Second Civil War between rich and poor, between all these diverse groups, between these polarized viewpoints all around the country, and it's very sad that we have that. I mean, let's take care of each other. Let's speak together on these things. We've had high moral values. Those are being questioned now. Well, we've given up the moral ground globally. We've just given up the moral ground globally. We've given up leadership globally to China primarily. Yeah, we have to come back. So let's do make America great again, Carl. Let's get back to America that was great. Yeah. Thank you, Carl. Carl Campania, informed citizen here on ThinkVec. Thank you so much. Concerned and informed.