 June the 29th, 2022, it's Wednesday, 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Time for American Issues, take one. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And today's title is Roe v. Wade, reversal, expect a backlash. I'd like to go right to my guests. And I'd like to introduce Jay Fidel, my co-host. Cynthia Lee Sinclair and Winston Welch. Welcome, everyone. You know, we've got so much to talk about. We're only going to talk about Roe v. Wade reversal, but also we're going to talk about yesterday's January 6th house hearing testimony. So we got a lot to chew on and let's get to it. Hey, Jay, the immediate response from many states, once the Roe v. Wade decision or reversal was made by the Supreme Court, many states immediately went to their backup plan to enact a total ban on all abortions within that state, a number of states. It's now, the list keeps growing. I guess my question is this, what significant reactions will the Democrats have in response to these significant reactions of these many red states? You know, Maria Raca, Maria Raca is the woman in the Philippines who was such a, she won some sort of huge prize for journalism. And she spoke at the East-West Center yesterday. And her message was that it falls on the journalism industry, on journalists, including us, to get the word out about this, to make people understand what's going on. So that's my first reaction. But, you know, I think we'll see more states, you know, outlaw Roe v. Wade, outlaw abortions under the decision of Roe v. Wade. And we'll see states like California, which is already in the process of adopting pro-abortion statutes. And Hawaii might do that too. We have to do what we can to encourage them to do that. Like California, I don't think as many states will do what California is doing as the states that are, you know, outlawing abortions. But there are statutory changes in our midst, and that is one reaction. The other reaction is that the women are out there. The, you know, the Roe v. Wade women are out there everywhere in demonstrations, in articles in every newspaper, and they're really making a statement. I don't know where that goes. In the past, those kinds of demonstrations and articles haven't gone very far. You know, we saw a certain amount of reaction to the leaked copy of the decision a couple of months ago. But now, I'm not sure it's gonna go that much further. I think the solution here is in November, and the reaction that may count is how people vote in November. And I noticed that some of the Trump candidates, Trump primary Republican candidates, lost in the last couple of days. So that may be a reaction to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. One thing is clear is that the country is in a convulsion over this. It sounds more and more like a civil war on the issue of Roe v. Wade, which is absolutely crazy. We had a show yesterday about how the world is reacting to this reversal of Roe v. Wade, and they pity us because most of the world allows abortions and they don't understand why the United States is so torn about an issue or seems so easy to resolve. In any event, I think we have a long way before we reach a balance on this. You know, when it comes to the stitch you, we have a lot of women who have limited means, financial means, mobility. And so traveling to another state for an extended period of time, maybe not be as feasible as one might think. So the question is, do you see a role in the federal government as far as a clearinghouse, if you will, perhaps with the abortion pill, telemedicine and prescriptions sent via the federal mail where the state cannot intercede in the acceptance or interference of the federal mail system? I sure do. That's M-A-I-L, not M-A-L-E, by the way. Thank you. I sure do see a solution there. The pill is in widespread use already, not only in the United States, but elsewhere. It is like 97% effective and the FDA has approved it. So it should be a solution. Maybe it's the high-tech solution we've been waiting for. Maybe it's better than the other more physical solutions. But let me say that that's not the end of it. I mean, even if we all agree, all of us agree that that would work on a wide scale basis. Don't forget that there are people out there that would take this up in the courts and would get it up to the Supreme Court. And I don't have to tell you what Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito will do when they get their hands on a case involving the pill. So yes, it's a solution, but no, it may not be final. Okay, thank you, Jay. Cynthia, I wanted to go to you because in the title, it says, role-waid reversal, expect a backlash. What are backlashes do you expect that society will start to see as a result of this decision? Either political platforms created or new social reforms. From your perspective, what do you think is on the horizon? A lot of people are gonna die. Women are gonna die. This isn't a pro-wife measure that's going on here. It's just a pro-birth, more like a forced birth, which is completely different and will definitely cause death in women all over the country, especially in low income and families of color. So what I'm hoping anyway, the backlash is gonna be a huge grand swell of even Republicans that are not pro-birth that will come on board also and really show in 2022 at the midterms and put more Democrats in the Senate and in the House, keep our edge in the House and then add more in the Senate so that we can really make a difference legally because right now our hands are tied because of the numbers in the Senate. So unless we get a groundswell of that and we have to remember voting rights are under attack too, so hopefully. Other than get the vote out in the midterms, do you see other social, either boycott of red states or some kind of social protest that takes the form of other than an increased voter turnout? I'm a member of a number of women's groups, some that were started way back just as a way to vent about Trump and what he was doing and have gone on to stay together and continue those support levels. And I see just swamped everywhere. Everyone is saying that they are up in arms, they are angry, they are hurt, they don't understand this, all of that stuff. And so that's what I see on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, everywhere. So I really think that we have a chance to make a difference by voicing our opinions and getting that word out through social media and through us here, we're talking about it. Think Tech is talking about it in other shows and it makes a difference, really makes a difference. Well, that leads to my frustration, I guess, on this issue. I mean, obviously I'm, I think I'm mad as hell because many of these states now have laws that implicate, you will carry the term in the cases of rape or incest and I just can't get my arms around that for one second. But I guess my frustration is, I understand there's a lot of emotion and a lot of people are very angry, but how does that manifest itself into a concrete specific change in our society other than get out the vote? Can you imagine or project in the future of what that might look like? And I know this is a tough question because I'm asking you to predict the future, but it's important for Democrats to know that sometimes talk isn't enough. It's concrete movements that actually have concrete specific mental station of that anger and that emotion. Right, well, we know that Nancy Pelosi is trying to do the best that she can to shore up what Biden is doing in the sense of, you know, the FDA and their approval of that pill was in 2000 and over 50% of all abortions are done by that pill. So if we can shore that up and the states are not supposed to be able to, you know, overrule the FDA. So they can't quite out, you know, there's already I think one case in Mississippi that's already trying to go after the pill. So you know it's gonna happen in all the other states. One thing that I think is important to remember, you know, Alito cited the fact that abortion is not alluded to or numbered specifically in the constitution. Well, amendment nine says that that doesn't exclude things from being in the constitution and being legal. So he's going on a premise that isn't even correct anyway. And then on top of that, the thing that is the most dangerous here are the felonies that are going to be charged for women that seek abortion outside of the state if their state has it being illegal. And so what does that do? Well, that would be challenged in court, of course. Well, of course, but that makes them felons so that immediately attacks the 19th amendment also because now there's all these women that have been accused of felonies and aren't able to vote anymore. So it changes the voter registration levels and stuff too. So that's such wide ranging effect. Yeah, exactly. That's why this is a topic that deserves about three hours versus 15 minutes. Can we make one last thing on it? Sure, go ahead. I think the one last thing that I think is so important for Democrats to do in going forward with this next election cycle. And that is don't just put Roe v. Wade on their ballot and their sites, put everything there because all equal marriage, contraceptive, all of those things are exactly, if they have a minute or a chance to do it, they will. So unless Democrats get specific about what all this is, not just, oh, women are gonna be, I mean, everybody's gonna be affected. All right, thank you. Good points. That leads me to, your last point leads me to the question for you, Winston. And that is Clarence Thomas very, very clearly stated that it's contraceptives and gay marriage rights are also the next target to be addressed. To what degree do you think the Supreme Court will try to undermine gay marriage rights and contraceptives? Well, he openly said it's up for grabs. I mean, in many ways, Clarence Thomas is the only one that's had an honest answer on all of this. He's been open about where the attacks should go next on this. So, of course, he didn't go back to Loving v. Virginia, which is interesting because he would be including himself or it was it Plessy v. Ferguson was at the separate medieval ruling. So he didn't go back on that and say that because those aren't enumerated in the Constitution as far as I'm aware either as is marriage equality or the right to have a contraception, but those were brought up specifically and said, yeah, maybe the state does have a compelling interest in banning or denying all of these things. Of course, you're looking at what may be the last gasps of sort of, I don't want to even call it religious fundamentalism but a way of viewing things that a majority of Americans don't share. Well, abortion is there's no winning on this topic. It's just another way with this ruling to divide people further and that's just really stirred up an entire hornet's nest. The writing was on the wall about this, but when he's opened the door to these other things, absolutely it's going to be, you're gonna have all types of things. And you've seen this already, that there's been more laws in the last year that were advanced and passed in the same state, banning discussions of sexuality or of talk about transgender folks or look at what's happened in libraries where you've had a, I think it's the Penn Foundation, PEN or Penn organization that follows this but mass numbers of librarians pulling books preemptively because they don't want the mobs with their torches showing up at their libraries to know that in the stacks, there's a book about and Tango makes three which is true story about two gay penguins that adopted an abandoned chick. Well, that's suddenly harming the children. So they're preemptively all over this nation taking books out of libraries. We're seeing attacks across the board. It's just gonna be a complete storm of lawsuits as we go further and down and down and down into- So do you perceive the Supreme Court being sympathetic to those new attacks? Well, you know, it's interesting because was it Alito that, I think it was Alito that specifically said or maybe it was Gorsuch that said we should not construe this to be anything beyond abortion. And now that they also at their confirmation hearings said that this was settled case law. So we can't assume that anything with the Supreme Court but we know that they are definitely probably hostile to these rights that have been given to people over the last 50 years but based on what's happened just from this ruling and knowing that their reputation is sinking faster than the Titanic where they held, they went from 37% and fall down to 25%. Now, and that was before the ruling came out officially. So they have to be cognizant of the fact that we're a nation of rule of laws but when people don't, when you're going in the case of this ruling when you have the overwhelming majority of Americans saying that abortion should be legal at least in some circumstances and you're going against that and it's nine out of 10 Americans or something along those lines. You're really out of step with the public and so they're probably looking around and saying maybe we shouldn't do this but are they gonna kick it down to the states where these things are passed all over the place and let that percolate up through the system and see what holds water? Yeah, I think we're gonna see a lot more of that to come with those rights you were talking about. Okay. And let me show one thing in on this very point and that is yesterday the Supreme Court announced a decision regarding prayer in a football team and of course a high school that was supported by state and federal funds and they ruled that yes, the coach could require the team to do prayer before the game. Remember the First Amendment is very clear on prohibiting the establishment of a state religion of separating church and state. So the Supreme Court is still doing it right now, every single day. They're using their conservative Catholic viewpoints and they're basically trying to change a democracy into a theocracy and there's about four justices trying to do that. I agree, Jay. That was a Bremerton, Washington high school case and he prevailed. Jay, before we change subjects here, we have a question from Mike and the question is this, is lying under oath and a pitchable offense for a Supreme Court justice? I assume Mike's referring to the Senate confirmation hearings. Well, the question assumes a lot. It assumes that they were lying. If they were lying, I suppose you could mount an attack but you'd never get it through Congress. So lots of luck on that one. But if I have an opinion, say about Roe v. Wade in year one and I say, well, I consider that settled law and I agree with that case and so forth and then in year two or three, I've changed my mind. I've changed my mind in terms of my own sensibilities and in terms of the legal concepts involved, I'm entitled to do that. I think that's a settled practice, if you will. So I don't think you can get them on lying even if they lie but if you make the argument that they lied at the beginning and then they had a change of heart, it undermines the notion that they lied. Yeah. So lots of luck on that one. That's not gonna get anybody anywhere. Sorry. Susan Collins, Congressman Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, they're trying to save their political baking by indicating just that. That's not what they were told in private by these justices before the confirmation hearings and excuse me, it was Senator Collins, not Congressman. But that's their position that they were not being truthful. Yeah, so what? Next time they shouldn't vote for a candidate proposed by that president, what have you? But there's not too much they can do now. It wasn't under oath. You can't get even to first base on that claim. Right. Okay, switching gears here. Jay, still with you. The testimony from Ms. Hutchinson, quite a credible witness and certainly has created quite a stir, especially with Donald Trump. But the question that the main thing I wanna ask you is to what degree did she shine a light on Trump's involvement and knowledge about the weapons the protesters had prior to the invasion of the Capitol and does that now implicate him with that knowledge that he specifically knew that they had weapons that could kill people? Yeah, well, none of her testimony was directly what he said. It was all what somebody else said. On the other hand, it was highly credible. She's definitely a Republican in a Republican White House. And in fact, she has worked for a number of Republicans that we just truly hate. Like what's his name, Ted Cruz and the like and a bunch of others that we truly hate. So I mean, on the one hand, that makes her more credible that she's come out now on this. On the other hand, you really wonder about her core values. Well, let me address that because, you know, she made it very clear on those conversations she had direct witness to versus those that was basically secondhand information. And I think she did well to make that distinction. But I think the one that she said she had direct witness to was Trump's comments about, you know, let him in, get rid of the, get rid of the metal detectors and let them in. I want more people into my rally. That was her testimony. Okay, if that's direct what Trump said in her presence, that's a major piece, okay? And if you ask me on the basis, not only of that, but of the circumstantial, call it hearsay that she got on various other points when she testified yesterday, I would say she has brought him in. She has, you know, found him responsible for the whole thing. I mean, we knew this. We here at Think Tech knew this a long time ago, but now I think the country has no choice but to know this. So I think she has taken the whole affair to another level. And I personally feel she's very credible, both as, you know, from her background and her conservative leanings, but also from her, you know, demeanor in the testimony and the way she put it and the things she said. So I'm convinced, but let me add one other thought is that she's not gonna convince everybody. There are still Republicans who are sworn to deny anything about Trump. They're sworn to avoid any implication of guilt by Trump and they still believe that it's a witch hunt and Trump is innocent and she's just part of a cabal that would like to bring him down. So the jury, as it were, is still out, but this was a powerful and shocking revelation. I agree. Cynthia, what struck you, what impact did Miss Hutchison have in your opinion that was the most point at point of the testimony? I'm like what Jay said about how she has firsthand knowledge of him saying that, you know, get rid of the magnetometers. I didn't say it right, but the magnometers, no. The mags. The mags. Thank you. Don't say maga, that's all. Yeah, I was afraid I might see so. But the fact that she heard him say that, and we've known all along about all this stuff, like Jay was saying, the thing that sort of struck me is that I have thought all along that, you know, Trump just lied and said, go to the Capitol, I'll be with you. I thought he was lying to his supporters and went back to the White House on his own by his own choice to hear, and I thought that was very craven and horrible. Well, then to hear that he knew, and he wanted to go with them, and he knew they were armed, which means he had intent. So that just ties him straight to all of this. And boy, I wanna say- Well, that would be a White House attorney, Pat Cipollone's position that, my God, if you go there, there'll be so many charges, we won't be able to even count that many. Basically, that's what he said. He only had these charges. The revelation is that these guys knew, in advance, it was going to happen. And that suggests the existence of a wide conspiracy, including Trump and all his friends at the White House. So it's not just that they knew, but they had been involved. They knew in the planning, they were involved in the conspiracy. Correct, good point. Winston, I know you've been doing a lot of reading on this hearing. I've seen many articles that you've gone through. What struck you as the most important part of Ms. Hutchison's testimony? Just the fact that she did testify, that you have a died in the wall, she's the last remaining person in the room, right among them and was a true believer. And when she came out and she said she felt disgusted as an American and she was personally saddened and disappointed, that's now, the other thing is this is like a 23 or 24 year old who's, this is the future of America. So she's and died in the wall believer. And they didn't ask if she'd vote for him again like they did for the rusty fellow from Arizona. But I was just amazed with her poise and her character, she seemed very credible to me. But the fact that this is continuing to go on, I would urge our viewers to not necessarily listen through the filter of anybody. I watched Fox News last night to see what they had to say about it. And they were so dismissive of this. And I was just kind of saddened by that knowing that that was where 40% of Americans are getting their news from. But I looked at CBS and NBC and ABC and PBS and their different takes on it. And it's important that people watch these hearings whether the Republicans have, they have the chance to get in at the very beginning and have the rebuttal and all of that. But for right now, Liz Cheney is absolutely brilliant. The way that this hearing is being conducted is really, really, she's, it's so on point. It's amazing. It's how you wanna see government work, really. I mean, I know there's certain things that other people would like to see in there, but just the fact that they are exposing it for what it is. But if you're not reaching the people, like Jay said, you know, who are we, who is this really for? Donald Trump is not going to jail. Maybe some of the people surrounding him will once they find that. But at the end of the day, we're just trying to say, this is disgusting. It is, the stench is so bad. We need to move away from this. And, you know, the whole thing about the Roe v. Wade and the other things that have come up, you know, I saw that Lauren Boebert was at her name, Lauren Boebert. She says churches should be allowed to direct the government. The church is supposed to direct the government. The government's not supposed to direct the church. That's not how our founding fathers intended it. And I'm tired of the separation of church and state junk. It's not in the constitution. It was in a stinking letter and that means nothing like they say it does. The crowd applauded and shouted, amen. She coasted to a handy victory yesterday or the day before. There's a lot going on in our country, but what heartens me out of all of this is that people are saying, get up and vote. And this on both sides is that your vote matters. And they're saying, let's look at the midterms. There's still a great huge deal of faith in the nation and in the process as flawed as it may be or seem and what's coming out in these things. We're also seeing people saying, get out and vote. So I take some heartening to that. That, you know, again, the ship is off course. It's a big ship. It takes a lot to turn it around. And we're gonna see a lot of noise this summer, a lot of noise. And in the next few years, but maybe out of all of it, we can come to some understanding of what it means to be an American and where we're going with this great experiment. There's no certainties of anything in life, but a little generosity and kindness towards each other is still where we need to be going and turn down the rhetoric a little bit and find out what our common values are and focus on those. And where we end up, that's discussion for a lot more shows in the future, but yeah, there's just so much- Well, we took a stab at it for 15 minutes today. So much percolating now, Tim. It's hard to even, there's so much coming down the pike. It's hard to even follow it by the minute. It's amazing. So- It is a fire hose of information, I agree. All right, well, we've run out of time. I do want to go around the table one last time. Jay, with you, your final thoughts, either about Roe v Wade or the testimony that you saw yesterday. I like to look at this for a moment from the 50,000 foot level. You know, the temperature in San Antonio that killed the people, the 50 people in that truck was way over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, there was an article in the morning paper about how some technology guys found some information technology that will predict weather using AI. And the reason that's important, they say in the article is that weather is getting worse and worse and we have to get a handle on how much worse it's getting because of climate change. And what I'm here to tell you is, from a biblical point of view in the classical sense, at the 50,000 foot level, the planet is being destroyed and humanity is under an existential threat. And we are farting around here with all these issues that we're talking about and they're all completely irrational. Right down to Putin in his war, we're in a state of madness and we're not attending to the existential threat that is likely to kill a good portion of humanity. And I'm really sorry to see that. Excellent point, Jay. Thank you for making it. Ms. Sinclair, to you. Well, I have a thing from Bob Woodward who says, you know, Bob Woodward was a Watergate journalist, right? And he says that Cassidy Hutchinson's January 6th testimony is enough to end Trump's political career calling it Trump's political obituary. Who else hopes he's right? Mick Mulvaney also came out and said that her testimony was very credible. And so we've got all these Republicans coming out to support what she did, which I think is great. Now to close for the Roe v. Wade stuff. There's an old Chinese proverb. When sleeping women wake, mountains will move. I want sleeping women to wake so we can move this crazy mountain of bigotry and injustice. Amen. Thank you. Appreciate it. Winston, you get the last word. Amen. I wanted to say that for our gentle viewers, these last few years have been so tumultuous. It's filled with so much rancor and so much division and strife. And as Jay said, it's, you know, that we're rearranging chair decks on the Titanic, but we can do something. We can't do something about Donald Trump, exactly. We can't do something about COVID, exactly. We can't do something about Roe v. Wade, wherever we stand on these issues, exactly. But we can look locally and see what we can do. We can see about joining an organization that helps the homeless, that delivers meals to the elderly, that involves us in some way in our local community. It's not to say we shouldn't and can't be active on these other issues, but inside of our families and with our friendships, with our professional relationships, we have to figure out a way to say, okay, enough with all of this. Let's start working on solutions instead of more division, more problems. Let's find what our commonalities are, go back to decency, some level of kindness and consideration for our fellow humans and work from there. And it is that those decisions at the micro level are entirely possible for us to undertake. So think globally, act locally. Thank you, Winston. That's why we love having you on. Please leave us with a good feeling in our hearts and our soul. Thank you. And to counter that, I'm gonna have my last word and that is although it was secondhand information from Ms. Hutchinson, I believe that the catch of stain that's on the White House dining room wall is no sooner gonna come off than the stain that Donald Trump left on the office of President of the United States. And that's my final word. Join us next week for American Issues Take One on Wednesday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. Won't you join us then? Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.