 Welcome, Aloha. Thanks for joining us at Think Tech Hawaii and a little reminder this is fundraising time of the year. We completely depend on you folks for support and subsistence and sustainability. So if you log on to Think Tech Hawaii and are so moved, all the help of any kind and any amount is greatly appreciated. As a wise man once said, the best nation is a donation. Who was that wise man, Chuck? Today we're going to explore what have we seen so far in 2023 that may give us some idea of what we're looking at coming up in 2024, a big election year. Okay, and we have with us today the Professor Emeritus from the University of Dayton School of Law, visiting professor at Washington and Lee School of Law and French Order of the Golden Palm awardee, Ben Davis, and former chair of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution. So Ben has worn many hats in his years. Some of them apparently took with him some of his hairline, but he still has nothing left to be able to brag about. We also have with us Tim Avichella and Tim is moving toward dual citizenship. The great theory that Mark Twain and others have reminded us always leave yourself an exit if you need one. Hopefully we won't. So today we're going to explore what have we seen so far in 2023 that gives us any idea of what might be out there in 2024 and the way of choices and directions. Ben, you want to start us off? What have you seen so far? So, well, I'll maybe speak about a couple things. First is, so I had COVID at a super spreader event last last Sunday a week ago by 50th reunion where apparently 12 people have gotten COVID. So I think we should keep in mind that COVID is still around. And so if you're not vaccinated or not boosted or get there, and that packs over is what I took on the Monday and by Friday I went negative. This stuff was magical. So I think our friend COVID in its various mutations, something that's going to be around and how the CDC deals with it and copes with it, I think will be something that will be in the air, so to speak, for this period that's coming up. The second thing that I was going to speak about is, again, it's hard to predict, but I've been kind of involved last couple of three weeks with some developments in Ohio where there's been an effort to put in place what I call miseducation bills, which are trying to basically create these indoctrination centers at the university where you teach that in right wing ideology. And also BAN DEI, there's also a, you know, there's going to be a high constitutional method on the ballot in November. And so the Ohio legislature has passed a rule that it has to pass not by majority like it's been for 100 years, but by 60% to be adopted. And that's going up for being considered at a special election. The reason I'm saying about all this stuff in Ohio is I'm noticing a distinct mobilization going on by people against these things, opposing these things in the Ohio legislature, you know, civil society type people and things like that. And I just find that kind of interesting because people have been sitting for a long time, Ohio is kind of a red state, right? But my sense is that, well, it may not be as red as people thought it was when it comes for this next 2024 period. And so that's the thing that I'm kind of looking at is an interesting development. So those would be the two things I'd point out. Thanks, Ben. And for reminding us on the one hand, I mean, as Professor Emeritus from the University of Chile, the old school of law, Ben Davis leaves and Ohio just goes to hell in a hand basket. But there's a wave of resistance. So you have apparently left some successors that are still fighting the good fight. And also for reminding us that there's a lot of toxic stuff out there, including COVID. So exercise, wisdom, judgment, discretion, and restraint. And when it's appropriate, if you're on a long flight or you're in an enclosed area in close quarters with people for an extended period, use your head, use your mask. Yeah, absolutely. A small price to pay for as much as people may be belittled for what has apparently proven to be some measure of mitigation. Yeah. So what have you seen so far in 2023 that it gives you some sense of what might be out there for 2024 and where it might go? Well, being defined as somewhat cynical, I see hope. What I saw in 2023 was hope. And what was that hope? I saw some diminishment of Donald Trump's influence and power, certainly from last year's midterm elections, but more so what recently occurred in the negotiations on the debt ceiling limit between Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden. If you recall, Kevin McCarthy was nothing more than a lap dog for Donald Trump. Whatever Trump caught him about, Kevin McCarthy was there to follow his instructions to the tee. That didn't happen here in these negotiations. We heard on the CNN town hall meeting that Donald Trump thought that United States should default on its debt, a cataclysmic event that would occur and forever change our economy and probably part of the world's economy. That didn't happen because Kevin McCarthy, in this case, Speaker of the House, was his own boss. He wasn't following strict orders from Donald Trump and look what they came up with. They came up with a solution. It appears we will not default on the debt. And I applaud Kevin McCarthy, which I can't imagine doing. So I saw hope that occurred this year. And I think we'll continue to see the diminishment of influence that Donald Trump thinks he owns and will continue to try to pull off, but I think his best days are over. Well, and we have the advent of Chris Christie into the Republican presidential candidacies. And that's certainly not going to provide a voice that has anything particularly good to say about the former president. Well, Christie is no wallflower. I expect a mix up in 2024 and a fairly energetic one at that. That would be an interesting debate. Oh, it'll happen beyond the debates. It'll be several news headlines. Christie says this. Trump responds. It's going to go back and forth. It's perfect for the media. They love that kind of stuff. Yeah. Just to jump on that, I thought I saw something really interesting with Ron DeSantis being called out about some school board down in Florida that was banning or maybe making only available to certain age kids. This poem done by the poet who spoke at the inauguration, right? Amanda Gorman, right? Amanda Gorman, right? So this young poet, like 23, right, who I think is from Florida. And she had the best line I ever saw. I said, it's amazing that one family, who turns out to be kind of associated with the oath keepers, by the way, can get my poem banned, but this entire country can't get guns banned, you know, to protect kids. But when DeSantis was called out on this, he said, it wasn't me, you know, was it that song, you know, where the guys is, where you doing this? Wasn't me. Hey, man, wait a minute, didn't you pass the law? Wasn't me. Why don't you talk an anti-wolf? Wasn't me, you know, I mean, it was caught in this contradiction. I thought that was a nice, beautiful moment in Iowa to see the guy having, you know, payback that's happened. If I may, Ben, I couldn't agree with you more. You know, isn't it odd that DeSantis, very early on, especially before he announced, got what we would call in the Pacific Northwest, the Seattle area, his nose got a little ahead of his ski tips. And I don't know if he knows how to rein that back. I don't know if it's in his personality to rein back his distinct aspects of his personality. I know he's carefully scripted, and they caught him off, you know, off guard at one of his rallies here, and was very insulting, but maybe he's not Donald Trump 2.0, and maybe that's his issue. Yeah, I just think he's too young. I mean, he's 44, and he doesn't have enough experience behind him to be able to handle the entire country. I mean, he's got a very friendly legislature down there in Ohio, and sorry, in Florida that could do as big, but in the rough and tumble that's DC, where I think the old joke was, you want a friend in DC, get a dog, you know, that, you know, his game is going to be much, much harder, much, much harder. And so yeah, I think that he's, yeah, he's over skis, and it's good for him, because, you know, with the stuff that he passed, like the six week abortion ban thing, which is actually just an abortion ban, since a lot of women don't even know they're pregnant six weeks. You know, it's just, he's got, you know, he should get some help. I mean, I'd be happy for him to really get caught by a lot of comments and questions, and I have to hope, however, that the actual reporters are willing to play that hard game, because it seems like a lot of times the reporters are not as tough as I think I used to remember some of them being back when the Nixon days and things like that, you know, it's like that access, access reporting where you get access to somebody. So you kind of do a softball interview with them. Like, I saw this guy from CNBC do an interview with Elon Musk, and he looked like he was starstruck because he's with the, you know, the richest man in the world. You know, hey, so what? The richest man in the world can still be a bonehead, you know. Well, I think you've hit a spot on with the media and it's reporting where it's lacked thereof. Yeah, I've got the golden ticket for the interview, to be in the ring to ask questions. So I better softball the questions or I won't be invited back. And that's a huge deterrent for good journalism. Yeah. And the question is, how do we get rid of the invitation for journalists to attend? Well, yeah, you know, you wonder up the chain of command in the corporate settings of these, you know, journalists are being kind of discouraged from being top, you know, because the rating, you know, the old rating thing, you know, that won't work for it. I mean, you know, it really, you feel like just this kind of softening of the aggressiveness of the fifth estate more generally, and you know, you can go out, look at democracy now or something like that, but they're not going to get these people to come on there on their show. You know, the town hall by Trump as an example is like, I mean, she was doing a hell of a job, you know, because the guy lies every 15 seconds, right? But you know, it's still just the way it was all set up with the so-called undecided who obviously had been handpicked to be all kind of pro-Trumpers, you know, it was just like, that was like, silly in a way, but you know. It looked horribly orchestrated as far as those who were in the audience, and certainly wasn't a bright day for CNN. Yet, although I was highly critical of the town meeting, it has turned out that Donald Trump in many ways self-incriminated himself, and that may well come against him when it comes to Mr. Smith's desire to indict him for the document issues. Yeah, yeah. So that gets me to another thing about these investigations that go on in the Department of Justice. You know, there's an old phrase I learned from some military people, which was along the lines of different spanks for different ranks, right? You know, there's another version of that, which is manure, but it's not the word manure, it goes downhill, okay? And so when you're down, so the way it kind of plays out is that if something happens, it's like misfeasance at the bottom, no, malfeasance at the bottom, misfeasance at the top. I made a mistake, or mistakes were made, they wouldn't even admit that they made the mistake, or just mistakes were made. And so when you get these hopes up about a Department of Justice actual prosecution, you know, because the investigation seems terribly obvious. I, you know, it's just like, I'm like, is Jack Smith really going to be the one who's going to pull the trigger? Or is Merrick Garland really going to be the one who's going to okay Jack Smith going ahead? Or is it going to be that thing where somehow it doesn't happen? I mean, I saw during the torture stuff, right? All during that, that the Attorney General did everything, whether it was Mukasey or whatever the other one was, to avoid going up the chain of command. You know, he had those soldiers that Abu Ghraib, that court marshal, right? He had their, their general got administratively reduced to a colonel. Okay. But all the people put in place the 54 country torture regime, the CIA type, all that stuff. Not one of them ultimately got prosecuted, even though there are a lot of investigations that happen, you know. And so that's the thing that worries me, is that we hear a lot of noise. And maybe it's true or not, that Jack Smith has the good, especially on the documents thing. I mean, my goodness, that's like, looks like a slam dunk to me. But, you know, you got the January 6th, in low level, both malfeasance, they're getting prosecuted, they're going to jail, even this guy from Oath Keepers got 18 years, right? I mean, you know, that's some serious stuff happening. But once you start to go to the quote, the suits above, you know, you see, all of a sudden, it, you know, the delay, delay, delay, you know, now, one trip, one thing that's interesting right now is that you have the prosecution and state court in New York, that's going on, on those, on those campaign finance felonies, 34 felonies and all that. And then that's interesting. Trump's people have just tried to get it removed from state court to federal court. And this is basically an old game where you, when a state prosecutor goes after sort of a current or federal official, they try to get it removed to federal court because the federal court take a look to see whether this was within their official duties. And then the federal court concludes it's within its official duties to basically kill the criminal investigation. And that's the game that Trump is trying to play there to say that everything he was doing was within his official duties. So therefore, you know, federal court watched the state criminal complaint. There is the battle about that that's going to go on and that federal court will see how that plays. But then the other one is looking down at Georgia, right? There's the state prosecutor in Bolton County there. And then, you know, they get in place, this commission from the governor that's supposed to be able to remove prosecutors, you know, I'm like, the game, you know, the moving pieces in these games sometimes are so twisted. It's kind of appalling. So, you know, you hope that there'll be some accountability, really meaningful accountability for all these people that do all this awful stuff. But I just don't know. I just don't know, you know, if we're capable of really doing that, you know. Well, what I find interesting is, you know, we've witnessed for the last five years, the slow march, very slow march, on some cases, accelerated march to autocracy in our, in our form of government by our leader, leader and his staff. The question is, yeah, that was looked like it was happening on a federal level, but very quietly, very slowly, we're seeing autocracy being implemented on the state level. And certainly things that would look very much like an autocracy or a fascist state that happened in Florida about banning books and what, what will not be tolerated in schools, words you can't say, and a host of things. So the cynic part of me starts to come out again that takes notice of this and says, how do we reverse this? How do we get back to where it's out of favor? It's out of fashion to be a good old fashioned fascist. And I don't think we're there yet. And Chuck, you know, maybe this is where media comes in for 2024 is, I hate to say, but it's the scarlet letter thing. It's, it's the, the shame designation that one should own and where when they're acting like little fascists. Okay. Well, and we'll see whether media steps up or not. Yeah. It might be too hard by using that word, by the way, am I, am I exaggerating what I'm, I'm sensing in the last five years? No, I think you're exactly right. And the thing that's really bothered me is the acquiescence of people to this, you know, it's like the go along to get along mentality that, well, you know, whoever the boss is, you know, is saying this is the way to go. And so, okay, I'm going to go with what the boss says, you know, you know, and, and this kind of false security I think people have that think the strong man, the magical strong person is going to, you know, solve all their problems. There's, there's, there's a streak in Americans that is, and in other countries too, but in Americans, that streak has been strong for, I mean, this cult of what 30% of the Republicans who live and die by what Trump does, I'm like, I mean, what does the guy have to do for people to say, okay, okay, that's enough, you know what I mean? I mean, really. But, you know, this kind of fascinating, I would say another thing is that, you know, we have the cult of money in the United States, which is that if you're making a lot of money or you're so-called billionaire, you know, you're supposed to be quote unquote smarter than all the rest of us and they must know something and all that stuff. And so I think he gets a certain amount of credibility as do others like Elon Musk and all that, because they're on a pile of money, right? But as in terms of actually running a country, you know, I got to give some credit to Joe Biden for the efforts that have been put into go towards the middle class, go towards the working class, get money in their pockets. You know, I saw a number recently where it's like unemployment rate was 3.5% or something. I was like, shock, that's a number I haven't seen since the 60s, I think. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember those kind of numbers from unemployment. And I was like, that's amazing, you know, and there's pressure for wages to rise. I said, that's great. On the other hand, you know, in this kind of Democrat, Republican kind of donor class protection, you know, apparently 40% of the inflation happening is because of price gouging, basically, where companies have said to their shareholders, because you can't lie on those shared older calls. The shareholder calls, they don't fight. They'll go after you in a second with a case, you know, is a materially, you know, not revealing some material fact. So, you know, they're saying, you know, we've got price power. We've got price power, exercising to increase our profit mark, you know. And there's no real strong, sort of, I don't know if it's antitrust or FTC or even state level calling out that, you know, to really cause those people in the C-suite to kind of think twice about that increase, you know. So, I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to ask you something. Since your career has been based in education and, you know, we were talking, you were talking earlier about, you know, how this slow move to fascism or, you know, autocracy is being missed. And I guess, from an education standpoint, do you think that is a direct result of our lack of teaching civics early on and throughout junior high and high school that the amount of ignorance that Americans have about their own government, how it works, how it should work, how it was formed in the first place. What were the ideas that formed this government? Do you think we've lost that? And that's why they, to quote Joni Mitchell in Yellow Taxi, you don't know what it's gone until it's gone. Right, right, you know. So, they don't know what they're, they don't know what democracy really is, so they don't know when it's going away. Yeah, no, I, you know, when you think about the diversification of education in this country, right, there's the public schools, then there's the chartered schools, then there's the private school, and then there's the homeschooling, you know, that are these different parts, I don't know what the percentages are of each of them. But, you know, it's an interesting mix. And then the question is, what is the content of what's being taught in each of those? Like, you know, there was social studies that maybe kind of took on the role of civics, but then as there's been kind of this dumbing down thing going on in terms of the educational system. That's been one of the words I had about what was going on in Ohio, because it was not only dumbing down, but it was actually trying to indoctrinate with one view of everything that's there. You know, I don't know if you remember when you were kid in school, they said that, you know, was it George Washington could never lie? And, you know, he cut down the cherry tree, right? You know, that I remember that kind of stuff. I cannot tell a lie. Right, right. You know, being the gospel that I learned, and I hope that by today, you know, we would have figured out, well, actually, you know, it's a little more complicated than that. But I'd say, you know, the level of the student varies, right? You know, but what I'm trying to say is that we get a sense of the richness, the complexity of it. You know, that's one of the things, like one of the things that I learned down here in Virginia, I went out to James Madison's plantation, right? And they had a tour. And they told me that in 1824, the market of Lafayette was kind of doing his grand tour around the country. You know, remember the good old days of the revolution, right? So he goes to James Madison's place. He proceeds to castigate Madison for not having friends and slave people. You know, that's not something I just learned that a year ago, or you know, that would have been an interesting part of the market of Lafayette's story that I thought would have been give some, you know, some some aspects of what's going on, you know. Well, that you've hit it right there is, you know, shining a light on a history that none of us were taught now is woke, and now has been associated with a negative connotation of liberal. So anything liberal, woke or Democrat, is all in the same basket. Therefore, don't shine a light on anything that might make us look bad. Right. And that's where the comment made that, you know, if you can't deal with your bad history as a country, you have a problem. You know, one of the things that I heard about in the late early sixties or so, for example, in Germany, you had all these kids who were teenagers who are asking their parents, what did you do during the war? Because the parents have been silent about what they've done under the Nazis. And it created this huge shock in Germany of student rebellion and all that because these kids all learn, you know, their parents were supporting Hitler back in the day. And it was like, you know, contradiction in their head. But there's been such an effort in a country like that to know the history, to understand it, you know, and to move forward, integrating all that stuff, that, you know, this is how bad we can be, you know what I mean? This is how bad we can be. But this is how good we can be, too, you know, that kind of thing. But I don't know, you know, it's, yeah, I find that they're, you know. Is there a solution to 2024? Well, you know, it's like, you know, that's the thing about the, for the American dream, you have to be sleeping, right? You know what I mean? I mean, that's, that's, I've heard that comment. I said, you know, it's truly, you don't have to be woke. You just have to be awake, you know, and be willing, you know, be willing to hear something, you know, just to be willing to, to, you know, because there's so much, so many false narratives, right? I mean, we're good. It's amazing. Like, I just saw something where they were saying that, you know, that Brian Sicknick, who was killed in the Capitol ride, you know, these folks on the right are saying that he was actually killed by the DC police. You know what I mean? I mean, I said, come on, man. I mean, really, really people? Yeah, you're going to throw that stuff out there. It's insane. Anyway, straight and eternal. Before we leave, I've got to say that the quote of the day is, you don't have to be woke. You just have to be awake. That's the quote of the day, Ben. I appreciate that. That's just random coming out of where. Who knows, you know? Good place. In our last minute, any last thoughts you want to leave us with, Ben? I would just say that I want to encourage people to be active in whatever way that you can. It might be if there's some legislation to testify, it might be going out and demonstrating like with the poor people's campaign when they do something. I don't know what it might be sending 10 bucks to somebody. I don't know what it is, but just don't sit back because they're people working real hard, especially very rich donors, to keep their sinicure. If you want this place to be the kind of America that you've always hoped it would be in the 21st century, you've got to fight for it a little bit. Jim, any last thoughts? Yeah, last thought is, as we come to a 2024, we're going to have an election next year. Let's remind ourselves, be it Gen Z, be it millennials, be it baby boom, baby bust generations, let's remind ourselves what it took to make this country a great country, and that is its government of democracy. And though we change parties, we do so with the freedom to say goodbye. You've served your term. You're done, rather than captivating the office for years and years to come, or would be hopeful to capture the office for years to come. And I would write to everybody of how we got here with the form of government that we have, and I wish people would pay more attention to that. Ben, Tim, thank you so much, and thank all of you for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii, and for reminding us the message is stand up, speak up, speak up. Another great quote. 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, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.