 Good afternoon here in Hawaii. Good evening or good morning if you're watching from somewhere else. Thanks so much for joining us think tech Hawaii. And we're back. And we're about to enter come Monday, February 1 the year of the tiger. And we have with us Tina Patterson from Germantown, Maryland. Good morning. Rock on tour arbitrator mediator. Jacqueline of many trades. Rebecca Ratliff survived many years at very high levels in the insurance claims industry. Pretty much intact and stronger than ever. And that's testimony to the kind of strength that we all admire and emulate. And then Davis, what can we say now at Washington and Lee formally University of Toledo School of Law. In demand pretty much everywhere. We're an NFL football team and you were looking for a new head coach. At the top of pretty much anyone's list. Okay, so the year of the tiger known for strength, exercising evils and courage bravery. Do we have any tigers with us or any of you born in the year of the tiger. 1955. I don't think so. I don't think I was. I think there was a movie wasn't there a movie called the year of living dangerously which was about a year of the tiger and also didn't it wasn't the year that Mao died was the year of the tiger. Tiger would be 1950. Yeah, okay. Okay. 1974. 86. Those years have gotten past me either above or below. Okay, well, my, my wife is a tiger year person so. Aren't they supposed to be very unsettling years that you tiger years is what happens or. Years of change. The change can be depending on how the energies align. This is the year of the black water tiger and so it could be fresh start kind of year or it could be. As you say, threatening kinds of change. So, we'll have to see. What do you think's on the horizon for the year of the tiger. Well, I'll jump in by just saying that the Europeans and the American reaction to the Russians are doing on the border with Ukraine. I'm hopeful that we won't have a war that somehow the cool heads. I don't know if they're cool, the hot heads or whatever heads. They, you know, at the end of the day, people are not going to start shooting at each other because I think everyone understands whether anywhere in Europe and Russia. I think that, you know, we don't want to have a shooting wars is already a kind of a war going on for eight years there, but escalating to another level so maybe that's what I think will be a little bit of light if I could say it like that that this we will wind our way out or down our way from this kind of thing. Maybe I'm speaking to hopefully but I just think that no one in Europe would ever want to go back to war. None of it. Yeah, and one of the commentators made an interesting remark. He said the greatest risk of war with Russia and the Ukraine is Putin, because she said, Putin is like Trump. If he really feels it's going to play to his base, he may do it, even though it makes no political sense at all. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the only, the only thing I would just say is that he is KGB, you know, and so, you know, and he's, you know, he's got his, I think he's smart enough to see where the power angles work or don't work for me. He's a user of power, fair enough. But though are all these other players too, trust me, they are ruthless at the heads of these countries. I would include Biden in that, you know, I mean, it's when you're running this thing, you've got your national security folks and all that around it, there are options being played out. And I just think that when everybody looks at what the, what happens if you go to a hot war, they're like, no, we, you know, we, it's, it's, you know, that there's what 13,000 American troops that are going to be in the, you know, the whole Estonia thing. So that whole, are we really going to do this in this way, you know, I just don't think that anyone has a stomach for that kind of, at least I hope that have a stomach for that kind of atrocious thing. So that's where in place I'd start the second thing is the, the briar resignation, right, or that this swirling this whole midterm, right, with, I think, and I was trying to remember whether Biden has promised to put a black woman on the Supreme Court and whether Johnson back in the mid 60s promise when he put there, you know, Thurgood Marshall was his nominee, whether he had made a promise beforehand I did hear that Reagan, when he ran had said he promised to put a woman on the Supreme Court as part of, this pitch so the, you know, this is kind of an interesting moment to watch how this all plays out with regards to both the cases that are before the Supreme Court, and how the briar succession gets done. And I think it's an interesting set of energies I don't know if they're good or bad or dark or like that or whatever she's but I think it's pretty exciting and I heard some names of some incredible black judges black women judges who are being considered. So, I don't know. Those are a couple things that struck me. And so, what does it tell us the nature and timing of priors resignation. And here's a guy who's been a very pragmatic consensus oriented. They're very influential in swinging Kennedy's vote with the other four, a number of times. An important negotiator. Yeah. Yeah, the three liberal justices. What is the timing of his resignation. Tell us about what he's seeing or what he might think is important. What does it tell you. I can jump it again. If, but I wanted to further Tina or Rebecca, if you have something that you wanted to say on this but one comment that I'd make is, I think that the cat got out of the bag a little early for him for what I'm reading. In other words, he made decision two weeks ago that this what he was going to do. But when he was going to make the announcement kind of got caught up in somebody getting a scoop here and there. So, you know, his timing may have been forced on him so to speak that that it ends up now as opposed to maybe when he wanted to. But be that as it may. The thing that is, is that the nomination process of someone to be his replacement is going to eat up this year. Right. And I think it'll be interesting to see how that plays out and what the whole dance of the politics sort of puts out in the open as to who people really are one more time. You know, it's the Maya Angelou line of like if somebody shows you who they are one time, you can believe him but now with an explicit choice of a president saying I'm going to put a black woman on the Supreme Court. You can watch how you know the forces of resistance and the forces of embracing such an idea will how they will play themselves out in in in this American kind of series of euphemisms that we watch in the way that people talk about things you know, I mean, who's going to be resistant. Who's going and how are they going to express their resistance to the person is you know is it going to be the classic sort of not enough experience right you know or, or, you know how did you decide this way I mean if they've seen some of this with other justice that happened who came out of public defender or other types of areas, you know, like, you know, are you a radical leftist so to speak because you are, you know, defense counsel, you know, I mean, it's like, come on, you know, it's just like, I'll be curious to watch both how the person is supported and how the person is defended I salute the person who puts their hat in the ring to do this, and that woman is going to be a very strong woman, but I will be really happy that she's on the court. For a couple different reasons but what personally one of the reasons I really be happy is that the only justice on the spring court, who quote unquote is a black person will not still be Clarence Thomas. Oh my goodness, yeah. You know, you mean, yeah. Yeah, great, great. I mean, for me to have another voice from the black community is who's a jurist was excellent and all that stuff. Because, you know, I read on cases unfortunately affirmative action cases coming up now and all this stuff. And, you know, I've gotten tired of kind of the, the Thomas stick on certain things I mean you just had this decision that they had to do the National National Archives releasing documents for the regards to Trump, right, you'd had the district court and the appeals court that basically said release them. And it goes to the Supreme Court and it's an eight one decision. Now one of the things that maybe people don't realize is back when it was the tapes of Nixon. It was a nine oh decision to release the tapes and that was one of the reasons that precipitated his resignation that there was no leg to stand on at the Supreme Court. And so, you know, to be the one leg so to speak to for the somebody to think that is the way to that there was some merit to the Trump arguments you know, you know, I bothered me, and there was even a sort of a concurrence from the governor I read and I was like, you know, these guys are you know, I thought that the the elephants of this position which was basically under the standard that would have applied when the, if he was in office. This stuff is not covered. Boom. We're not going to get into the post presidency part of it, we're just going to say, understand that would have applied. If you've been a president. It's, he couldn't keep this stuff out, you know, and it's like, that's a great. You know, I mean it's a good result it's a one it could have been 63 or something else but still, it bothered me that Thomas you know marked out that place that I think is, it's kind of a like a little sort of list if I can say it in the American tradition the sort of less measures they are the king is with you know, even the king is without fault or something like that or some sovereign pixie dust is remains after you've left office in the presidency. You know, no, you know, that's not that's why we fought the revolutionary war to stop that kind of way of looking at things and there is a debate, I mean there's been back to the beginning about this sort of the sovereign immunity status of the, of the president right but, you know, I always thought it came down on the other side which is the president is an administrator that we put in place right. And when they leave there's a new boss and the new boss decides what the administration does you know for good or for evil unfortunately but there you go. Well in fairness we got to remember that he's got to go home to somebody who's a big fan of the oath keepers and the proud boys. Yes, you got to live with what you got to live, but the timing is important. Tina your thoughts. Then you come. I have a list of things that I was thinking about for this year the tiger and what I, I want to talk about the Supreme Court justice candidates and I agree with you wholeheartedly been. The timing was a surprise to prior when it was actually announced because when I heard yesterday was like, okay, you know, knowing this man's history. This would have been something thought out and count well calculated, given that we've got this backdrop of midterm elections and I don't want to sound like I've got the cloud of doom, hovering over me, but I think we're going to see some midterm elections that we don't want to see. People have been waiting since 2020, and they're seeing the midterm election as that opportunity, which means this justice candidate has to be vetted and in place. The most recent appointment. That was a fluke. I'll say that that was a fluke and we probably won't see that again where someone is literally vetted and pushed through within a week. Yeah, you know, well, it was, it was three days, you're right. I don't think we're going to see that one, you know, when I heard on the news, you know, Biden is Biden plans to appoint a black woman and the first person I thought of is the recently deceased Professor Lanny Guinear and the grief that she went through when she was, she hadn't even started the process and people were peeling back things from 2030 years ago you said this you must mean this. And I thought whoever these candidates are as you said they have got they are going to have to have armor on because we already have Senator saying whoever the candidate is, we're going to we're going to give them a hard time. And so where does the process become fair. Where does the process really allow for us to see the best of what that candidate can do, or what they may potentially do as a justice. I'm also concerned about as far as timing the midterm elections, and I'm going to go back a step as well because I think this is also tied in as well. This discussion, and I'll admit I'm a little bit of a foreign policy wonk so this discussion regarding Ukraine, Russia and the United States was before my time. And I'm, I'm talking about the concept of brinksmanship. We Biden whether you like him or don't like him, he is trying to exercise his version of brinksmanship, and it could either go smoothly, or it could blow up, and a lot of it is going to be contingent upon the NATO countries that are in the vicinity of Ukraine, but it also means the 1950s when a brinksmanship doesn't apply today, and jurisdictions are already being warned. If this moves forward and escalation begins be prepared for a cyber attack, whether that's social media, or that is your, your systems, whether that's a bank, whether that is your, your utilities that be prepared for cyber attack, we've seen it before. We've seen it. Again, people are always talking about well it's generally China. There's a number of actors. I see that played in as well, and how even with this process of selecting the next Supreme Court justice could be subject to misinformation and sending out stories disinformation to really get the public riled up about something that may not even happen. So, well, Chuck, you were talking about the energy and what it could and could not be the other part of the year the tiger that I remember is the opinionated and stubborn aspects are sometimes associated with this year, and we could literally see this one I listened to the representative from the United States to Russia as he delivered the President's message yesterday, and the story continued with President Biden has indicated that he is prepared to request personal sanctions against Putin. You know, again, rinksmanship but are you really prepared, and are you prepared for what that aftermath may be, because then I think you're absolutely right he will use by any means necessary and I don't mean it in the sense of Malcolm X, as he stated it but I mean he will use any course. We saw it in the 2016 election, we saw it to some extent in the 2020 election, but I think they're all woven in. The last thing I'll say and Rebecca I'll hand it to you after this. I'm hearing this and I know I brought it up last week. We saw the moving dynamics in our society, US society but also globally, but point to if we looked at the US from an outside lens, we are on the brink of civil war. And that civil war would be related to the outcome of the 2020 election people are still upset about that. COVID what that means it's dividing families it's dividing businesses, it's dividing jurisdictional regulations you have governance telling school jurisdictions, you don't have to follow your, your mask mandate kids show up, and then your local jurisdiction say no show up with the mask. And then you've got still have this ongoing discussion of regarding race. And, and it's, it's that just slow disintegration, you know, and I, again back to the foreign policy piece. If we were looking at another country we'd say you know they're, they're on the brink. They're on the brink of becoming a failed nation or they're on the brink of having, I'll say a coup d'etat, or an insurrection, but oops we had that in January 2021 didn't we. I'll stop there, Rebecca, it's yours. Exactly. So, I have to say, first of all that I'm really enjoying listening to the analysis coming from you then and from you Tina, I think this is all brilliant. And I think you've said it all very eloquently more eloquently than I could have. I have many of the same concerns, the state that America is in and I think I've stated before, I'm a very patriotic person we have family, a lot of family members who are in the military on my husband side. And I always, for me, hope in America Springs eternal. Despite our historic realities. But I hear you, I have concerns about the continued civil unrest escalating. I have concerns about how everything is getting politicized. And I'll tell you I have a son in college I was talking to him today and he was telling me about just the emotional unrest on his campus just just how college students are traumatized by the COVID pandemic and the effect on their ability to take advantage of their, you know, academic opportunities and other. It's affecting sports it's affecting lifestyles in a way that politicizing everything just exacerbates. And, and so I have concerns about the America that I have, you know, hope for. Because we, we seem to be headed on a trajectory where there's just there's so much unrest. I don't know how that gets fixed and I mentioned that maybe in the show a couple of weeks ago, even though I'm an optimist. I just don't know, you know what's going to happen to the American, you know, America the beautiful, because, you know, all of these different platforms and agendas. You don't have to repeat anything you said Tina or you been I think that you're spot on. They're just so many factors now that aren't even the point has become pointless. Yeah, yeah, and so it's, you know, we're really struggling as a nation, and what we do here affects what goes on all over the world and so I do I have so many of the same I have the same concerns. So we've got a power group with incredible media influence and public control of the narrative that seems to believe that the divisive disruptive obstructive things that you're talking about that are painful for the everyday lives of all of us. That stuff works for them because they can blame it on the other side. It's the old he touched it last thing. How might some kind of understanding energy resistance to that minority authoritarian divisiveness grow from the grassroots level. Because it's not going to come from leadership. No. So, the, I think a big part of the way the, the particular populist movements we see now is doing what I think the psychologist call projection right you know, a casting onto the other person what in fact you were doing right you know. And unfortunately that mind game is a very difficult game to think in terms of that whenever somebody says something you know, and so what would be great was to have leaders who could deconstruct that in a way that people realize the, you know, the, the the absurdity of certain things like, I did think that by made a speech at one point about the election where he said now think about it folks. Every senator and house of representatives election was fine. But somehow the president on the same ballot was supposed to have been fake, you know, I mean, and I thought that's a nice little phrase that to bring it on whether you believe it or not, you know, in terms of believing all the stuff about the big live. I thought that was a really clear way of making people say, hey, this doesn't make sense. You know, right. Where's the logic. Yeah, you know, I mean if you want and you remember yourself voting and putting it up and you voted for XYZ and a BD and, and then magically, the part that's the president was weird and everything else was okay. You know, it's like, I thought that was really good to me you know it's like. I mean, if you can buy this stuff, you know, and there's reasons to buy the stuff that are to your advantage like you know you can get, you know, what your, your, you can shape the electorate for your advantage I mean there's all the cynical political game part of it. But in terms of sort of breaking through that effort of projection, just like I think when Biden did that little sort of hesitancy about, or he said that the incursion the Russians might do a little incursion into Ukraine and all these people freaked out. I heard the Trump said, oh, Biden has given Putin the green light. I said no, it's Trump giving Putin the green light by that projection. You know, sort of, like, you see all these people mouthing the kind of Russian vision of things on places like Fox News and all that you know it's like, people don't you see, you know, or being able to break through that and and and and express it in clear ways. I don't know who can do it but saw a little spark of it with that Biden comment at that point other guys Cliburn Cliburn's good at that stuff at breaking through on things so maybe it's we need to have more Cliburn, you know, I don't know. So one thing that we don't seem to have. And MLK day just less than two weeks ago have reminded us that it's the kind of charismatic leader that speaks to and for the people that might help galvanize that common sense recognition that hey wait a minute. You're saying that you guys one bunch of seats in the house and gains over here and over there and at the state, but the election of the president was stolen while you were doing all that galvanizing common sense and getting people to think logically for themselves is a challenge. So in our last minute. Hey, any magic sauces for how we get there, Tina. There's a group that I follow and I like their former heads of state and other leaders, they're called the elders. And what they what they purport is what you're talking about it's it's people working together. At the grassroots level but also from bottom up and saying this won't work and it's people like Mediba former Mediba. I was just Jimmy Carter is about to say Jimmy Stewart Jimmy Carter and and other heads of state and leaders that are saying you know this isn't working we've got to take a different approach so I would look to them I was going to say former president Obama but that brings up that that riles another group all together so I'm going to point to the elders. Any quick thoughts in our last minute. One person that I think it's been consistent for a long time is Reverend barber. As a force, I mean I know that he had successfully but in North Carolina his movement had done things in North Carolina bring together all kinds of people and a kind of almost neo civil rights movement kind of thing. And I just think that he speaks clearly. And, but it's getting the bandwidth and the craziness of our social media that that he gets heard, but as a voice of a from the people, you know who I've always found him very powerful and persuasive. And Rebecca to finish up. Who should we be listening to our next generation. The young people who are coming up who have to live in this world that we are that you know that we've crafted the next generation. They don't stumble over they don't buy the tyranny and they don't stumble over what color somebody is wearing or what shade their skin is and I think that really if we listen to our young people that we will think we'll get where we need to be. And thank you all for that. Hey, with the image of Greta Thunberg in our minds. Hey, we'll see you again in a couple of weeks. Stand up speak up speak out. See you.