 Hi, my name is Sandy Baird and we're back with Channel 17, CCTV, or Town Meeting TV. And what's happening, which we had to stop because of COVID many months ago, and we're delighted to be back, and we thank CCTV for making in-person broadcasts possible again, a kind of a civic journalism that we're all happy about. I'm here today with a colleague of mine, Joy Hopkins, and we're going to be talking today about what's happening and what's going on in the world since the shutdowns and since the pandemic. A new world is dawning with us, and Joy has been observing it all these months. And so I'm going to ask her to tell me what her observations are, since she is a very sharp observer of reality. What's happening? Thanks, Sandy. Some people might argue with you. I know, of course. Well, they'd argue with it about me, so. But we are taking the opportunity because it's a show what's going on, like the great stuff. And a lot of times, I do wonder what is going on. So I had a job, I was laid off, and I applied for unemployment, and through a lot of kind of loops, for instance, just the short version, you go online, and they'll say, you have to verify your birthday, for instance, call this claim an assistant slide. Call? Yeah. Then you call the claim and assistance line, and you might be caller 392 or 414, or we'll call you back. And then maybe four hours get a phone call, and then redirect you, and then it takes all this time. So anyway, about eight weeks went by, and I had not had any adjudication on this claim. And I had read in the paper that supposedly 80% of filers were fraudulent. And I just thought that doesn't make any sense to me. That was just a figure that was 80% of the filers were fraudulent, and that it was some internet scam or whatever. So I just thought I'm going to look into this a little more. So there are many articles in the paper about unemployment. There was a woman, 72, in my age bracket, waited 14 weeks to get through everything. By getting through, you mean to get a check in the end, right? Yes. To get through to someone, to get everything working, and to receive any benefit, even one week, anything. Because at that point, as you know, there's a cataclysm of events. Once you've missed your rent once, twice, well, you could be evicted. So anyway, I read everything I could read locally about this. And I came across this company that was called Maximus that was mentioned just lightly in one of these articles. So I started to look into it. And I'm just going to read the letter that I sent Doug Hoffer. Who's the auditor? He's the auditor. And this will kind of set the situation if we want to talk further or you want to ask me questions about what I have found out. This is by no means a journalistic enterprise. It's just notes that I've taken on a couple of what I see as a really large scale systems change that really is going to make departments of state government and maybe federal government obsolete and redundant. This is what I wrote. I'm very concerned that the state of Vermont has outsourced all social programs. Now that means Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment, et cetera, with the addition of the company now handling veterans benefits. I believe that you will be unable to audit or even oversee the disbursement of state government funds. I've been waiting for this at this time. Everything's been resolved for the record. I have been at this time of this letter. This was true. I've been waiting for nine weeks for unemployment benefits. I cannot pay rent, phone, et cetera. And hardship due to the failure of the unemployment program. I have spoken to over 20 phone agents and two supervisors. This is becoming a scandal. How many people are in my situation? Please look into this. It feels like the fraud is on the part of Maximus. In fact, Maximus had been convicted of fraud in 2018 and had to return $30 million to the state of Virginia, Google it. Are you aware that 20 states are using Maximus, including New York state and the controller, the state controller in New York state, said he cannot manage or oversee what's going on with these private companies? Okay. So this is a private company? It is a corporation? I mean, you know, there's a lot of corporate law. Yeah. But we'll get to that in a second. Are you aware that 20 states are using Maximus and they are in 20 countries? Countries? Countries, like Angola, et cetera. Where is the accountability? Thank you very much for your interest, sincerely yours. Okay. So in looking more at this, here's Vermont. So just on a very simple level, say we got $2 billion, that's chump change in the trillion from the federal government. So let's think about this a minute. All that money is going to the states, but it really isn't. It's going to Maximus and it is being handled as a company that does this. Sends out checks? It does everything that you would think a state department of labor would do, okay, or health and services or whatever the state government. If they're handling food stamps, snap, what do workers do if they don't dispense funds? What are the workers doing in those departments? If Maximus is handling all of the applications, all of the approvals and dispensing of funds? And that is what's happening, correct? I don't have all the specifics, but that is what they do. And I just read recently that they are now managing VA benefits in 18 states. So the money comes from the feds into the state of Vermont, but it goes to this company called Maximus and then Maximus doles out the benefits. And I believe it is also in the medical field. So there's some dovetailing because we have Medicaid has another corporation, Paradigm, which I don't know enough about, but that handles managed care, people that are on Medicaid and handling their lifetime issues regarding insurance and so on and so forth. They're all kind of hard to understand laws that we really can't follow up on and are gargantuan. So when I looked, I was kind of aghast at when I just thought, wow, if Vermont was even being managed by the same company as managing New York City, it's just such a disparate. So once I was in this situation and I looked up some details, oh, and I can get back to that letter because he did answer, I should do the answer before I go. So it's a provider of health and human services worldwide, that's a lot of money. So it was founded in 1975, 30,000 employees and 2.4 billion in annual revenue. Well, let's look at that. Let's say, let's not even go to a trillion, but it would make things easier. If our state got $2 billion and we were dispensing those funds in our own human services department, our own AITANETI families department, et cetera, then we get the administrative fees. If we allow another company, a private company to do that, where are we? So you know, as you're an attorney, you handle guardianships and so on, there's always an administrative fee that a person can charge. And I'm sure that this company is charging administrative fees, otherwise how would they make money? Interesting, I suppose, right? I don't know. So the bigger problem is, if people aren't getting what they need, who do they go to? Do they go to the corporation? Because I'm under the impression this is a state government program, but when I get deeper into it, it seems like the state is in fact not administering its own funds. Now, I also looked into who are the major investors in this. Now a lot of the companies, I have not had time, I'm not, you know, this is something I just took a cursory look and was kind of, I mean, I think we all know things are privatized, but the scale of this is huge. And when you looked at the scale of something like Haliburton in the Iraq war, the tales starts wagging the dog. Yes, exactly. There's a lot of interest that want to keep it going, the factioning in what we should be doing. So it's a real dangerous situation. And then with the COVID response, we've got that problem too, where we have the federal government giving whatever, let's say $2 billion, maybe more, I don't know, to private drug companies to make the vaccine. Right. Okay. Right. So things go, go, go. But in fact, we're kind of skirting regular laws. Somebody has emergency powers, and then things get changed, and we're not really sure what the rules are. Right, right. And then the emergency powers. And I think this is going to spill into a concern I have regarding the court. So what seems to happen is the government says, okay, you still have freedom of choice. About vaccines. You're not going to mandate that you get a vaccine if you have a health emergency or you don't want to or whatever, you still have your rights. But if the corporations where you work or Broadway, the, all the theaters decide, you know, you have to show your papers wherever you go, then corporations are kind of enforcers of an agenda that kind of gets the government still saying, we don't, you know, but it's a goal possibly of both parties. I just don't know. I don't know where this is all leading. I know it's leading to citizens really being left out of the discussion completely. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Because if it's of the people, by the people, for the people, we can't even audit these billions that, and you notice all this money when they said infrastructure. Yeah, right. I'd like to see some roads. Bridges. I mean, a building just fell down in Miami. I know. I saw that. I saw that building for my cousin's funeral. And I, and, you know, my mother had passed away and she left us a little money and my cousin died. And I said, I'm going to go to his funeral and go to Miami. So I stayed in this hotel and keep a skein. I could see everything. And at first I said, wow, South Beach looks like it's sinking into the water. And I was in this taxi and I said, is this an illusion or does it look like it's sinking? Oh, they have to pour sand. They bring up the sand and put it in front of the beaches. So it's everything's sort of a facade of what it should be. So infrastructure becomes lots more social programs, which I see going right into Maximus. So in looking at that, and this is going to go far afield a little bit because this will be the poetic linguistic side of this. So Maximus sounds like a Saturday Night Live name for a company, doesn't it? Yeah. So then I was thinking, oh yeah, why do I think that's, oh yeah, Circus Maximus. Yeah. The Roman Empire. Yeah. And why did we have it to distract the masses? So they would just go and watch the Christians being eaten by lions or whatever. Kill each other. The other one is Paradigm, which I have just done a little bit. And that is managing, I mean, Medicaid funds. That's a lot of money too. Managing care, managing the money, managing, I'm not sure how it works. But that name really indicates to me changes in structure, context, fundamental principles. That's what a Paradigm shift is. Yeah, right. It doesn't say shift, but the Paradigm does feel like it's changing, especially for people in our age group. Because we are used to a lot of freedom. Right. We are used to freedom itself. If you want to monitor on your phone, my kids say, so what, mom? I'm not doing anything. They don't find that their phone tracks them. Is that disturbing? So there's a lot of kind of trust and good relations with big brother. Well, I don't, I don't get this at all, especially because there's such Trump derangement syndrome. And people, though they hated Trump, they welcome Biden so much. They're not really looking at what's really going on under Biden. The other thing that really bothered me, and not, I want to think that, that it's old fashioned to want your freedoms. I know. Concept. I know. Especially because people like you and I have always been dissenters. Always. Or just feel like I want to be in a, because I was in top radio. We, you know, we knew what the perimeters were, but you have to feel like you can discuss things. That's the basis. Humans, that's why we have language. It may not be the best thing, but it's all we've got. Well, it's also the way we, you can't create art very much in a totally unfree society. Well, and comedy is going to be tough. I know. Because satire right now. Nothing's very funny either right now. Because people's lives feel like they have been threatened. Nothing. That's, that's really serious stuff. So making jokes about it. People would be ready for that. It's not funny. I know. It's not really. Not be ready for that. But what did I want to say on? Oh, so let's say I absolutely hate someone. I was raised by these words. I may not agree with you, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it. Exactly. If I say that now, it sounds like I'm a radical, you know, or I'm a, that's not for now. So when, when Trump and these companies, these international, multinational companies have decided who can talk and who can't talk, they've rendered government obsolete because rules around you being able to say things or you having the platform to say them, the censoring right now, I feel like if people are okay with censoring, if it's censors, the people they don't want to hear from. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's dangerous to me. Of course. And it's not looking at the big picture when we have trends and indications that are happening like that. We've got to look down the road. So what you, but you're talking about kind of two different kinds of big companies. Aren't you? Well, I'm talking about the reach. Yeah. Yeah. And the replacing of the systems we have. So when people say the great reset, that's going to be the monetary system completely changed. That's true, but it's more than that, I think too. It's going to be crypto. You'll be able to, you know, you won't have cash. You won't, the black market economy might be barter, barter might be outlawed. Just what's happening is an unraveling of our traditional way of life and rights to give it to a overarching, even Alan Newman today on the morning show with Kurt Wright and Marcus. He said he's a globalist and people, because people want one world, but the, the, the, the labor as in having a birth is going to be long, hard and we're not really consciously choosing it. It's coming down on us. We're adjusting to it, but it bothers me that a former president, regardless of whether you like him or not, approve of him or not, or whether whatever that, that person's denied the airwaves. Right. Then sometimes I was thinking, is he still around? I mean, it seems like no matter what, even GW, who know, who there was sort of collective dislike for George W. Bush, um, I think he sat down with 60 minutes a few weeks after. They won't, but, but they, they will not do it. Right. They won't do it. This is what I'm saying. I know. This is how people talk. I know. Who are they? I know. Who is preventing people from speaking? I, I was going to ask you about that. Is that the big internet companies like Google, Twitter, Instagram? They're the ones that take stuff off YouTube, right? Well, I think it's been like 200 million people have been removed from Facebook for discussing things that Facebook decides around the infection and so on. Right. Uh, they've been removed. Um, but right now, because there's a collective, that's okay, because the people that are getting censored are perceived as dangerous. Right. Mainly Trump supporters. Um, but that, that has a, that bites you in the rear in the long run. Um, so this is a concern I have because I just see these mega, mega things, uh, without any accountability and really, to me, rendering government obsolete. Right. And that actually, if you're going for a globalist like, uh, Agenda 2030, which is the UN sort of plan for the world, that is the idea that nationalism is preventing the world from getting organized and being more, um, powerful. Yeah. But say the UN would decide water conservation, decide where people will live, decide, and this is for the greater good. Uh, but that isn't, I mean, I think in elementary science, right? The blood cells get together and create tissue and then the tissue creates an organ and we're kind of doing that as a society. There's a move towards another entity. Some of the stuff that has bothered me is that what I see in place is huge companies profiting from everything, I guess, um, but being allowed to do so by our federal government and sort of it's a partnership. Right. Like, for instance, between big pharma, big media, big government, and really the people in Washington more and more. Also, I think that it's a myth for me to look at, oh, the Democrats, the Republicans, they're all paid by those very companies. Exactly. They're paid by the same people. Right. But I think this snuck up on people because they thought that that partnership would be really with Trump because he's a Republican and he's a billionaire, but in fact this, the tightening of that partnership has been really with Biden more than with Trump because we've seen that partnership have more and more power with the election of Biden. Um, and that's the part that, and people seem kind of duped by the whole thing. Well, I guess for both of them, I say two wrongs to make a right. I know that, of course. I mean, I, I, to see, uh, to see this, uh, as, you know, to see them as a solution. No, no, of course. Of course it's wrong. But I mean that's the, that's sort of the, um, imprint we're left with. Right. Oh, what a relief. Isn't he great? Because he's like a nice, kindly grandfather. And you're not allowed to criticize it. Right. But, you know, and I heard Schumer going off on Trump. It's like, guys. Over, he's gone. Forget about it. I know it. So I, I don't trust them anymore. I see them all cut out of the same piece. Me too. But I always did. So I never had any real personal feelings about Trump or really Biden. I just saw them as two figureheads of the same regime. You know that two clicks put it that way. And now the other click is in power. But how about on an international scale too? We've had Iran. Yeah. Uh, in Argentina and, um, the Russian, uh, destroyer 35 miles off of Hawaii. Yeah. And we're just like, what's going on? Nobody knows anything. I feel like we got a new landlord. Maybe we were, maybe went into debt to, uh, China and we're kind of getting managed. So it just feels different. That's all I know as a citizen. I'm extremely confused with what's going on. I think everybody is. Can I mention one other thing? We only have five minutes. We were going to talk a little bit about this privatization. What I've noticed, as you've said, I'm a lawyer, right? So since the pandemic started and the shutdowns, the court also switched to an entirely electronic system, which nobody can work. And there's no blowback. Because we have a Y and there are a couple of reasons. Well, because attorneys, no matter how feisty they are, tend to go along with what the court is going to say, because frankly, you don't want to get in trouble with the court. They could yank your license, right? Um, which still to put everything online, then I looked up, I to see, and I don't have enough. That's what is called. Okay. But that's, that's owned or a subsidiary of the Tyler corporation. Yeah. So once again, do we want our courts being managed by private corporations? I don't. Do people know it? No. Our legislators know it. And you know why they don't? Well, I don't, I don't have time to read this, but what Doug Hoffer wrote back, which I was really thrilled that he did, and was, um, he, he really laid it out. All state, thanks for your note. Sadly, I hear of others in your situation. I will contact the department, but we'll not use your name without your approval. I told them he couldn't use my name. Uh, FYI, all state contracts with vendors like Maximus include audit provisions in the boilerplate contract language. Benders are required to provide any and all documents related to performance at our request. That's a little different than being able to get in and see the books and figure out who got their benefits who didn't. Anyway, I'm sure it's a management nightmare. I know nothing about it. I'm just a little old citizen asking a few questions. Well, unfortunately, too few citizens are asking questions. That's why I think it's so important that all of us continue to do that. And I'm happy to talk to you about, because it is totally confusing. The court has, what happened during the pandemic and the shutdowns was that the other thing that happens, people are absolutely isolated from each other. So if I were still going to court during this year, and this had happened, uh, which the courts were closed. Anyway, I would see other lawyers. This year, I haven't seen any other lawyers because we're all sitting in our offices on Zoom or on Odyssey. And there's been complete lack of being able to organize politically. And we just looked at, uh, the, uh, Vermont loss. What is that called? Where you did law line? Yeah, Vermont legal aid, Vermont law line. Still closed. Still closed, yeah. But, and with no, I mean, this place, that sounds so grateful in a way that this place has reopened because this, this place, CCTV is kind of a citizen, journalist organization. Just anyone could, could be used the airway, which is what we need. Which is what we're doing right now, actually. But one other thing about the courts, and then I think we should close. What I've seen happen is that who can use this electronic system? Not new Americans. They don't have computers. They don't have language. They don't have the skills. So are you saying as a client, I would have to be in Odyssey too? They prefer, prefer that. I got a call from a woman. I don't want a private corporation privy to what is privileged information with my attorney. Exactly. So that's what's happening. The whole thing is fraught with problems, Sandra. That no one can use these systems either. That's another huge problem. But with that, maybe there's a lot more to say. And it certainly isn't anything like democracy. And in fact, City Hall, remember, is still closed. It is? Yes. So you can't go there and complain. Shame on you. Why don't they want to open? Because they can control all dissent that way. In other words, I used to be able to go down to City Hall during the meetings and sit there, and there would be a public forum. And you could give a talk to your city councillors. No more. You can't go there. And in fact, if you're on Zoom, waiting to talk to your city on Zoom, how many hours is that going to take? And it gives the politicians, they can organize who's on Zoom and who isn't. There's just a total sea change in everything. But the problem is everybody thinks it's going to go back. I don't. It's too convenient for the big profiteers, and it's too convenient for the big politicians as well. Anyway, so I think we should close for today. Okay, Sam, thank you. And then be back. No, thank you. And thank you, CCTV, for letting us rant a little. Bye.