I'm delighted to have you back to Think Tech Hawaii's human-humane architecture. This being our 278th show, and thanks to our producer Michael, he will show you down there which accumulated viewer you are, the 14,834th, which we appreciate very much. We is, this is the Boston-Banish Boost Volume 15 already, and we have Mr. Boston-Banish Booster McNobled with us from his Boston, Massachusetts, and more specifically today from the building that we are analyzing and have him share with us because he just came out of a class that he taught in the engineering building in Harvard, in Boston, Massachusetts, and we have me, Martin Despeng, today in Mülheim, on der Ruhe, and we will hopefully have back in our Honolulu and the Bishop Museum, the Soto-Brown with us soon when we come back in a second. Alright, Matt, for the time being, it's just us, the temperate guys, in pretty similar temperatures, not quite half around the world as from here to Honolulu, but far away enough, sort of just around the freezing point. And before we go back to your building, that greatly you moved into it for today's show, let's do some little bit peer review and get us to another city here in Germany, which is your buddy Bundet's favorite city, which is Duisburg in Germany here. And Mülheim, we should have added an der Ruhe, and Ruhe is the river, and you call this area, the Ruhe Pot, or the Kohlen Pot, because this is where the heavy fossil industry at least used to be a heavy steel manufacturing, sort of like the Pittsburgh of Germany. So we, there's a building here, I'm here with Joey and Lenny and their ladies, and Joey used to go to school to do his master's in automotive management here, and he lived right by this building here. And so let's share that a little bit with the audience, and I have the chance to, thanks to the management of the building, they let us in me with my iPhone and with Zoom, and I have the emerging Hawaii architectural generation to check it out tomorrow from inside out, because that's most important. And as just promised, here he is, our wishes came true, DeSoto is with us, hi DeSoto. Hello everybody. So before we go back and see what we can learn from your building in Harvard, Met, for us back in Honolulu with our endless summers, we want to take advantage of us being in, you know, different places, and me in Germany here in the Ruhe Pot, in the Kohlen Pot, and this building here, it's a little provocative for you and I, and Met, because we went to architecture training school around the same pretty dark days of the just demise of postmodernism in the late, you know, 80s, early 90s. But there's always exceptions to a rule, to that bad rule of the bad times back then. And this is one of the buildings that was pretty hot and pretty fresh back then, dates back to 1993. This is by Lord Foster, Norman Foster, and it's here in DuSport. It's the business promotion center.  I mean, from your point of view, said, OK, I'm never going to go back. So you have memories, but we're freshing these memories from the terms of climate and we're assessing things in terms of the criteria of skins or first skin that we're bored with the second one that we put over, which you don't have to unless you sit in your chilled museum office there. And the third skin, we also don't really need so much as we need it existentially here. And that's that's obviously the point. So what what do you see DeSoto that sort of makes you think about, you know, things, differences and similarities to back in Honolulu? Well, these are four photographs that I'm looking at right now. I see in the bottom left corner, a traditional building in the distance, which has a stone or brick exterior of some kind that's hard. And that's going to be something that protects you from the cold that insulates you from the cold. But in that same photograph on the right, we see a fully glazed just glass wall made of large glass panels. This is not a substance that's normally that insulating unless you have several layers of it that have two or three barriers of other air that's in prison that helps keep you from being too frigid cold. And I see on the right, there's also just what looks like one pane of glass, although I can't clearly see there may be two with lines behind them. So to me, that suggests that this is not a very frigid climate, although I know in fact that it is. So something is going on that I don't see here. There has to be some kind of insulation that's keeping everybody from freezing to death. You just proved yourself wrong once again. And a good way to sort of because you keep saying, I'm not an architect, but you just proved you are pretty right on. Matt, what could we add to that expertise? Well, I I assume we're looking at at least a double, if not triple glazed wall system with sunshading devices or lamella between the glass panels that keep the sun from reaching the interior and overheating it, which would be a fairly typical installation for for Germany in particular. I don't know whether I'm on the mark there. You're the only one of the three of us who's actually touched this building. So you have to. Yeah, I know for the report, because I will be in it tomorrow with the students from inside out, which is more important. And we also have the floor plan here that we fished from the from the web. Foster after this, this precede his most iconic and sort of a hero for high rise, the comat's bunk in Germany in Frankfurt in Germany. So not that far away from this where he inverted and basically took the circulation, you know, outside of the building and freed at core, which is something that you're building in Harvard is doing a lot. And he was doing this with the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank already in earlier in the late seventies. And here he's sort of probably because of the typology being rather sort of developer driven or small, actually engineering firm that sort of drove this, that maybe from the plan, it may be not as innovative as it's from its envelope, which, yes, very much. It is a which we call a double facade. There are two facades, two glass envelopes on top of each other. There's 18 centimeters cavity space in between. And that basically the one in the back is double probably double pain at that time, because triple pain wasn't around. And then there's a single plane layer at the very at the very front. And we also see indications of transportations in front of it. Right. We see on the right, we see light rail, which we should have back in Honolulu as we keep talking about because you had electric streetcars, just like that on grade. And we need these back. And we're also at the picture at the top left is borrows from our to be, you know, recontinued comparing autos and arch, the texture, the mobile and the immobilia. This is Lenny's newest car, which she bought for around a thousand euros. This is a polo.  No, but I heard of the polo, but at the moment, I cannot remember much about it. But before we talk about the polo, just below the picture, you showed the floor plan of this building, and I want to do that. I want to talk about that quickly. It's very unusual because it looks like a lens shaped building that comes to two sharp points on either side. And I'm wondering what the rationale was or why it was built in this unusual form. Is the is the lot or the location very skinny that required this? Or just was it because it looked unusual and interesting? I think we leave this up to the audience to do more detective work because we can only guess so. And I've been on Foster's Web site and you guys should do this, too. But I think that's good homework that we assign to the audience here. And I want to go back to mobility. And I want to go back to that cars here. They're actually more than ever in Honolulu. Also important to keep to give you a climate zone because you turn the heater on because it is cold, right? So way more than anything. This is the polo three. Right now, the newest version is the polo six. And they've been around since seventy five and comparing architecture and automobiles. That was also the year when Foster did one of his first buildings, which was the Willys-Farba and Dumas building in Ipswich. And you recall that one from the history lessons met. And I do. I do. Yeah. Do you have a picture? I don't. We have to leave this up to bring it next time. We probably do. OK, next time we promise we show a seventy five polo and show the seventy five, which they just call Willys building. And I mean, the Willys just as a sort of an appetizer for that one was also a curvy linear in plan building that had an all glass envelope. In that case, it was, I think, a single layered. And then he basically moved to double layered. And you see these pretty heavily coated people there, which means and you also don't see much sun there, right? So in this situation, I will ask the management tomorrow. Why don't you move the blinds up? So you can soak up whenever there is some sun out there. You can soak it up and then you create past the solar game, right? And that's that's the point. This situation you will never have. And so Lulu, as we know, we don't have to worry about that. However, we have glass buildings, right? We started talking about if you could do if you should do basically these double facades in Honolulu again. Again, for me, it seems a little bit like too much like if you wear hair, wear a puffy coat and then have a hat that has a wind turbine and a thin film PV that runs the fan and drags it out of your puffy coat. It seems to be too much. But but again, it's it's at least better than the current buildings because we have predominant, you know, double pane glazed high rises that have nothing over it, right? No external shading, no nothing. So and one reason you met explained to us how you sell this to clients is that the maintenance of these shading systems, they're very vulnerable to wind and then keep breaking, you know, is you extend the lifetime of that one. So there is a return of investment for investing in an additional layer of facade, right? Let's go to the next slide. And because this is when we were there in about half a year ago with a whole crew here and see us at the top at the bottom right in front of the building with including our exotic escapism experts, Zana and the whole bunch here. Otherwise, and this is the situation you could imagine. OK, this is Honolulu all the time, right?  So then the sun cannot transfer through the inner thermal threshold and it will keep the building cool. You just somehow have to manage to get the heat out of the cavity space. And your firm, Matt, has done this quite a bit, quite a lot. And many of the project is almost like a signature of the office. These double facades are not just with a gen sign that we looked at last time by tracing back to the Nord LB in my hometown and and the Unilever building that you can obviously name mentioned a couple of more. So again, we just want to keep this discussion going about glass envelopes on the island. Again, you know, this is at least keeping the building cool on the inside. If you go to Foster's website, they're rightly so promoted as a very, very pioneering, biochlamatically ambitious building. And so, yeah, it's just good to revisit something from these days that were not really that interested at that time. But but some were as them. And if I'm not mistaken, I looked it up again, Matt, the office of Stefan and you guys started out around that time. It was in 91, right? That correct? Exactly, right. Exactly. So so there you go. OK, let's return to Honolulu next slide and pick up on the because after all, and perfectly, Matt, that you sit in the engineering building as we're talking, we recognize the green curtains. So let's remember that, so what is the sibling? The equivalent of that on the UH Manoa campus? We have an engineering department there, too, right? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I do not remember which one that is. And shame on me, but I don't remember. I'm not a person who is at UH too frequently. You might be in good company. So all the other guys who have this sort of senior moment as well, you need to go back and just watch the shows that two of us did about it. That's exactly right. So the art, the architect is a very iconic, traditional firm in the United States of America that Skidmore Owings Merrill. That they basically designed it and Skidmore Owings Merrill. We know for a lot of work and there's one other project on the island that is also by SOM that is preceding the UH Manoa building. So you might say there were some smart people who said, hey, this is actually a pretty cool firm that we might want to take advantage of their expertise as well. And which is that other building that we just looked at? Now, see, you're you're putting me on the spot again. I just I just got older day before. And now I've forgotten you. That is OK. Yeah, happy birthday again. Thank you. Thank you. So that's the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, which we see there. We are right there without without a friend, Ron. And the top right is a preview of a show we have to do about it when we sent me there. And that was the first time I saw it. That one is working titled Liquid Stone, Hawaii or something like that.  And that's something that we keep saying we need to do again, as far as you age, maybe back to a faster one, one more time and one last time. The Pomer, the Kommerzbank Tower in in Frankfurt for me always is sort of a a variation of what for some, including me, is one of the most innovative SOM buildings that that's within the show quote at the bottom left, sort of in the middle, that sort of column of three images there. That is the National Commercial Bank and Jeddah and Saudi Arabia, which is also basically, you know, infusing these these atrium spaces in the building and then, you know, spirals them around the more you go up in the building. And that's something that the Foster's Kommerzbank also does here, of course, because of the desert, the hot desert, the exterior facade, entirely opaque in the in the Kommerzbank Tower in Frankfurt, rightly so they're more open because we have this tricky, sort of ambivalent, kind of schizophrenic climate.  So that gets us back to the next slide in your building that you're sitting in. And as we promised in the last show, although we will return, which is also circled in here to these very, very cool breakout spaces, but we said after all, it's also a building where some serious research has been done and conducting in laboratories. And that's what we like, would like to talk about now. And we will see them in the next slide. But maybe you want to add something organizationally or so on this slide, Matt. I mean, I think just to kind of situate what we're looking going to look at the the main part of the building is divided into three blocks. The entire building is about 500 feet long. And so it was important to break the scale of the building down by by expressing it as three separate building blocks with the research laboratories inside. So you can kind of see along the top part of this picture where those three divisions happen. And then in between those laboratory blocks are where the collaborating spaces are for scientists and researchers and engineers to come out of the labs and be in a more temperate environment, let's say. Is that, Matt, when I'm looking at this, is that the area on the left that's labeled area area lounge? Yes, exactly. That's one there. And then on the other side of that central gray block with the with the labs in it, there's the other one between the other two boxes. Right. And Matt, I'm just looking at let me just quickly ask, Matt, I'm looking at the room that you're in with the green curtain and the distinctive ceiling. But I'm saying is that is that acoustical tile on the left? Or what is that? Because it looks like the kind of acoustical tile we used to have in buildings back in my youth, which is many years ago on the wall here. Yeah, yeah, with the little holes. Yeah, yeah, it's actually perforated drywall. So it's OK. It's the same thing. Yeah, and it has an acoustical backing behind it to keep the sound. It's basically for sound purposes. Right. OK, that's. And so this is a this is a quiet room. Sort of. This is like an eight person meeting room, basically. OK, conference room. And that's OK. And that's in the area lounge section. It's not too far. So just below that, you see a kind of a white triangular area. Yes, atrium. That's the atrium that's behind me. OK, so I'm I'm we're looking at the fourth floor plan and I'm on the fifth floor here, but that's the space. We're going to the next slide. Is is that the room at the bottom left that you're sitting in? Or one a lot? No, that's that room is way down on level two. OK, but it's all part of the same space, which is this atrium space or these atrium spaces run up through the height of the building. Yeah, yeah. And we also see the lab. So where the people do their hands on research there. And so I can see that the lab spaces are big and they're full of a lot of perhaps solid surfaces. So maybe they're noisy and maybe the room that you're in is to get away from that noise. Yeah, partly, although the acoustic control throughout the building is a big was a big concern of ours. So of course, in a space like I am, this is intended to be very quiet. But the laboratories, even though the general level of noise in them is higher because of all the machines that they have running in there and so forth, the steel decking that we use to create the floor slab, which is the ceiling of those laboratories is perforated as well and has a crystal insulation in it so that acoustical control in the laboratories is as good as as you can make it, you know, in a space that's like that. And then just over my right right hand shoulder in that atrium space, you can see sort of above me these Lamella this Lamella ceiling, which is also perforated with acoustical insulation inside of each of the Lamellas to control the sound in the big in the open public space. That's fascinating. Thank you for telling me no. I mean, honestly, because I would never have known that. And it's a big and it's a big topic in a big public building like this. How do you create open spaces that all spill into one another but still give people the feeling that, you know, they have a certain amount of control over their environment and they're not buffeted by noise or by cold air currents and so on and so forth. Yeah, and to illustrate that spilling in open space, please, the next slide. That you see this very, very clearly here in that section, how that sort of volcano erupts through the building as to use a Hawaiian theme familiar to us. The volcano again, yeah. And again, how, yeah, I mean, the the labs have to be more sterile. There has to be there's all these requirements, right? So you can't really do much.  And one of the most important ones is the social sense, right? And people and not just, you know, working next to each other there, but focusing on the work. But then, you know, people talking to each other and exchanging. That's what a vibrant university, you know, should should foster in their in their own self interest, right? Yeah.  They are technical spaces. They have a lot of technical requirements. They are so intended to be highly flexible and the nature of what's built in them changes quite often. But at the same time, people have the same kind of human needs when they're working in those kind of spaces for long periods of time that people have everywhere, which is the ability to see outside, to connect with nature, a lit environment and the ability to see their fellow, a low sort of occupants. So that's those are important features of those spaces, even though they themselves are fairly technical in nature. And so in looking at this side view, there are two levels below grade. But on the left, is that an open area to the to the sky? It is. It's an open court. We cut that into the old foundation of the building precisely because we were going to put occupied spaces below grade and needed to be able to give people again that connection to the outside and to daylight and to air, as well as an opportunity to come out of the below grade spaces and just go outside for a few minutes if they wanted to do so. So that's exactly what that is. Yeah. And also in the section coming back to the sort of beginning of the show here today on the right side, we see that sort of indicated something going on as a double facade. But in this case, a little different. And we see that sort of section perspective cut on on the left, that stuff that's kind of fading out. And since we're at the end of the show, we still bring the next slide up just as in to mouthwater you for discussing this further next week and to find out. And so what's in the distance there? This is what we will pay attention to in the next show a lot. And for the time being, we stay inside and enjoy one of these breakout spaces here. They're just really, really pleasant, as you say, connecting with nature, looking outside, having a tall, very tall ceiling there and still with all the little tricks that you don't shove in people's face, but you cleverly and elegantly integrate into everything. It's just a really feel good, well-being place and space there. That, yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately, the photograph was taken right as in the middle of covid. So the building was not able. We weren't able to have people in the photographs, which is always furrable. But also those spaces, I mean, the nature of the furnishings there is such that they can all be kind of pushed away to one side. In that space used for other kinds of events, speaking events, there's projection and AV in these spaces. They could have cocktail parties, dinners, informal social events and things like that. So really, it's about trying to create social spaces at many different scales throughout the building to accommodate all the diversity of uses that happen here. And this just shows another difference to other practices because the other architect, probably including like big nollie you worked for before, they always want to get their money shots, party shots without anything in there, without people and, you know, the banish practice being the opposite. It's all about the people. So you want people in there. So, yeah, we're at the end of the show. So we look forward to see you next week to discuss more what kind of mysterious stuff we saw in the background there on the outside. And yeah, you have to get back to us to find out what that is. And until then, please stay a people and planet friendly, planet and people friendly as you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks, Martin. Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.


We got to talk America's team, the Sacramento Kings last night, a big blowout win over Orlando, very much in part to a franchise record 23 threes, Harrison Barnes with a season high 30, Kings right now sitting in the fifth spot with a record of 21 and 18. Eddie, your hometown Kings, good story, good team, which? Great story, maybe even the best story in the league, but also a good team. And when they added Mike Brown, it was such a coaching upgrade for them. You just knew things were going to change for that franchise. And that roster as well. And getting some bonus at the trade deadline is a little harder to implement. And they were already behind the eight ball when they did that. But with a full camp and a full season to get this right, they've shown that, you know, they might get home court advantage in these playoffs. They're that good right now. It's great for the city. It's great for that organization who, again, we've said this a bunch of times, longest playoff drought in the four major professional sports. You want to see that in one way or another. And it looked like it might not have to be the play in. So, you know, like the beam, all that cool stuff. But they look great. And when they shoot it like they shot it last night, they've done this a few times this season, they did it to the nets. And everybody thought the sky was falling for the nets that happened. They're really hard to beat. So it's a well put together roster and they have opportunity to add some more pieces if they feel like they want to. Yeah, I agree. I think this is the best story of the NBA so far. I think Sacramento needed this. And it's just a good time right now in Sacramento. It's fun. It's positive. And they do have a very good team. I love Subdonis. I love Fox. I love the addition of Kevin Herter. Harrison Barnes is one of those guys that you know what you're going to get. He's going to be solid. He's going to do multiple things out there on the court. And they got a lot of young guys that can play and they play the right way. And Mike Brown's got them playing extremely hard and unselfish. And it's fun to watch. And this is definitely a feel good story. I feel better about them being good. But I think they're a contender. Probably not. But you know what, in their situation, I don't think it matters because it's a huge step forward for them. This is a bunch of progress that they've made. And it's been a long time coming for this franchise, for this city. And I'm just happy to see them doing well. And they are going to get into the playoffs. And maybe they get a good matchup and they can advance. But for now, you know, they're exceeding everyone's expectations and they're playing extremely well. Yeah. I think the idea that they could perhaps shock a few people in the playoffs would be amazing. It would also add to what Mike Brown's been able to do this season. And it's a year in which we're seeing a lot of great coaching. But it's never too early. Coach of the year. Would you give it to Mike Brown, Chandler? He's up there. It's hard to go against him. It's tough. I like J.B. Biggerstaff and Cleveland. I like Malone and Denver. Can John Bonn get coach of the year for what he's done in that turnaround there? There's a lot of guys are doing a good job. But Mike Brown is right there with the transition he's made with just the complete culture change, the way they have.  It's fun. And it's a happy time. It's positive. And that has a lot to do with Mike Brown's presence there. But you could go one of many ways. But yeah, he's in there. Yeah, Willie Green's up there too. It's going to be a tough race. I mean, he's deserving as well. But if Willie Green gets the one seed, the two seed, it's going to be hard to argue against that. Jack Vaughn, like you mentioned, for all the reasons we've talked about before. I like the Malone mentioned as well. You know, this is a team that is supposed to be good. But you get credit for that as well. You get credit for making your team even better. And they're already supposed to be good. It's a tight race, Joe Missoula. I was actually talking to Shiles about this the other day. And we thought it might be a two guy race. But you know, Mike Brown is right there and deservingly so. And I'm happy he's getting this. I'm happy he's getting this kind of like second life in the NBA as he sat back as an assistant. Remember his Lakers tenure ended and people were not excited about that. Obviously he had the Cavs run and people were wondering if he could win the big game and all that stuff. So his time with the Warriors obviously worked out well for him. And now he's getting his chance and he's showing what he is. He's one of the better coaches in the league. We did text about that the other day, Adina. I kind of slept on Mike Brown, but that's one of the best stories in the league for sure. So we look at Willie Green, Jack Vaughn, Mike Brown, Mike Malone, JB Biggersap. I mean, that's probably your top five right there when you look at Coach of the Year rankings as of now. I mean, it all makes sense because we're talking about any given team could take away either conference. And so I feel like given that, then there are a lot of coaches that are up for grabs as well. We're going to take a quick break when we come back, the latest on Kevin Durant from Shams and which Hornet is heating up the trade market when running back returns.


Ukraine alone makes Biden the worst U.S. president in a long time. Anti-war libertarian hero Scott Horton has a viral tweet going around which reads simply, Biden's refusal to attempt to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine is the greatest scandal in American political history. Kind of slaps you in the face, doesn't it? I've never seen anyone put it quite like that before, but if you think about it, how could it not be true? It's just a simple fact that the Biden administration is actually hindering diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to this war and that it has refused to provide Ukraine with any kind of diplomatic negotiating power regarding the possible rollback of sanctions and other U.S. measures to help secure peace. Washington's top diplomats have consistently been conspicuously absent from any kind of dialogue with their counterparts in Moscow. Statements from the administration, in fact, indicate that they expect this war to drag on for a long time, making it abundantly clear that a swift end to minimize the death and destruction is not just uninteresting but undesirable for the U.S. empire. And this isn't just another war. This is a proxy war being waged by one of the world's two top nuclear forces against the world's other top nuclear force. This is more serious than Iraq. It is more serious than Vietnam. It is more serious than any U.S. war that has happened in the lifetime of anyone likely to be reading these words because Russia has increasingly valid reasons to believe its very existence as a nation is being threatened. This is therefore a war that could very easily result in the death of everyone on Earth. The U.S. Secretary of Defense has openly said that America's goal is to weaken Russia in this war. Biden himself has made statements which can only be interpreted as calls for regime change in Moscow. U.S. officials have been leaking to the press claims that U.S. intelligence has directly facilitated the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of Russian warships. The imperial political media class are not even denying that this is a U.S. proxy war anymore. In an alarmingly rapid pivot from the mass media's earlier position that calling this a proxy war is merely an accusation promoted solely by Russia, we're now seeing the use of this term becoming more and more common in authorized news outlets. The New Yorker came right out and declared that the U.S. is in a full proxy war with Russia the other day, and the U.S. Congressman Seth Moulton recently told Fox News that the U.S. is at war with Russia through a proxy. At the end of the day, we've got to realize we're at war and we're not just at war to support the Ukrainians, Moulton said. We're fundamentally at war, although it's somewhat through proxy with Russia, and it's important that we win. How fast did that happen? How fast were we paced from its Russian propaganda to call this a proxy war to obviously this is a proxy war and we need to make sure we win? Fast enough to make your head spin, that's for sure. And it's not just a proxy war, it's a proxy war the U.S. knowingly provoked. We know now that the U.S. Intelligence Cartel had clear vision into Russia's plans to launch this invasion, which means they also knew how to prevent it. A very few low-cost maneuvers, like promising not to add Ukraine to NATO, as well as promising Zelensky that the U.S. would protect him and his government from the violent fascist factions who were threatening to kill him if he honored the Minsk agreements and made peace with Russia as Ukrainians elected him to do. That's all it would have taken. Many, many Western experts warned for years that the actions of the U.S. and NATO would lead to the confrontation we are now being menaced with. There was every opportunity to turn away from this war, and instead the U.S. centralized empire hit the accelerator and drove right into it. Knowingly. The whole thing was premeditated, all with the goal of weakening Russia and affecting regime change in Moscow in order to secure U.S. unipolar hegemony. The Biden administration was the last in a long line of decision-makers to choose this world-threatening confrontation over peace. There was an opportunity to avert this horror, and that opportunity wasn't taken. Allowing the world to come this close to nuclear war already makes Biden the worst U.S. president since Bush, at least. History may well show him his to be the single most depraved presidency of all time. Preventing nuclear war is a U.S. president's single most important job. It's so important you shouldn't even really have to talk about it, because it's so self-evidently the number one priority. And this administration is just rolling the dice on nuclear conflict with increasing frequency each day. Even if humanity survives this standoff, and the one with China that's next in line, Biden will still have been an unforgivably depraved president for allowing it to get this close. There's no excuse whatsoever for just casually rolling the dice on terrestrial life like this. Just seriously meditating on what nuclear war is, and what it means, should be enough to show anyone that any flirtation with the remotest possibility of inflicting it on our world is unforgivable. It's the worst crime anyone could possibly commit short of actual nuclear war. Now all we can do is hope some small spark of sanity ignites deep within our species before we snuff ourselves out for good.


As the name suggests, the European Central Bank is at the very heart of the financial system in Europe. They're responsible for economic and financial stability. And in a time of crisis, like now, it's their job to make sure the whole financial system doesn't collapse. This is a big question with loads of possible answers. But essentially, it boils down to this. Right now, to tackle the economic impacts of coronavirus, the ECB is in crisis mode. It's spending massive amounts of money trying to get Europe's economy back on its feet. And with that money comes a choice. They can either choose to spend it propping up fossil fuel companies and worsening the climate crisis, or they can choose to direct the money where it's needed the most into a real green new deal and build back a more just, resilient and healthy Europe. Seems like a pretty obvious choice to me.


The Federal Judicial Center presents Supreme Court 1998-99, The Term and Review, an FJTN program for judges, staff attorneys, and law clerks. Now from the television studios of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C., your moderator, Russell Wheeler. Welcome back to this third and final part of the Federal Judicial Center's review of the 1998-99 Supreme Court term. This part of our review will last about 40 minutes. We'll review cases involving jurisdiction and standing and two areas that have become staples in the court's docket in recent years, habeas and federalism. Another area that the court has revisited several times is expert evidence and the trial judge's responsibility to ensure its relevance and its reliability. Let's start with a special focus segment we prepared on the sumho tire versus Carmichael, decided last March. When a tire blew out on Patrick Carmichael's minivan, the accident killed one passenger and severely injured several others. The Carmichael's filed a diversity action in the Southern District of Alabama, alleging that the tire was defective. The case rested heavily on the deposition testimony of a tire expert, but District Judge Butler excluded the expert's evidence based on the Supreme Court's 1993 decision in Daubert Meryl Dau Pharmaceuticals. What is the federal trial judge's gatekeeping obligation in the wake of Daubert? More specifically, does Daubert, which involves scientific testimony, extend a testimony of experts who are not scientists to testimonies such as that of the tire expert to which Judge Butler applied Daubert? And what is the standard of review? Last year, in GEV Joiner, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals must apply an abuse of discretion standard when reviewing the district court's decision to admit or exclude expert scientific testimony. Does that standard apply to non-scientific expert testimony? In CUMO, in an essential unanimous opinion by Justice Breyer, the court said, first, federal rule of evidence 702 imposes a special obligation for trial judges to assess the evidentiary reliability of all expert testimony. In other words, 702 does not distinguish between scientific knowledge and what the rule calls technical or other specialized knowledge. Therefore, Daubert's general principles apply to all expert testimony. Second, the Court of Appeals must apply an abuse of discretion standard when reviewing all district court decisions on admissibility of expert testimony. What does CUMO mean for trial judges? We've asked Joe Cecil, who directs the Center of Science and Technology Project, to help us understand the case and its implications. Welcome, Joe. I'm glad to be here. Joe, at the center's workshop for district judges, there was a session on evidence, a plenary session. Almost all the questions were about CUMO, though. What's the message for district judges in this opinion? Well, CUMO expands the gatekeeping role for district judges to all expert testimony. Now judges must assess the underlying reliability of expert testimony that's based on technical and specialized knowledge, as well as scientific knowledge. Daubert, of course, as all judges know, set forth these four factors that judges might use in assessing scientific evidence. Has it been suggested to peer review? Is it accepted within the scientific community? Has it been tested? Is there an error rate? Now, are the judges going to have to take those standards and take them over to this other area of testimony that CUMO brings within Daubert? Well, not necessarily. CUMO allows judges a great deal of flexibility in deciding which factors are appropriate in specific cases. Some judges may choose to adapt the Daubert factors to evidence that is not traditionally considered scientific. For example? Well, I think accounting is a good example. Prior to CUMO, a number of courts chose not to apply the Daubert factors to accounting. Now those courts may wish to adapt some of these factors in considering accounting evidence. For example, I think factors such as general acceptance and peer review can easily be interpreted to support measuring accounting testimony against the conventions and standards of accounting practice. But some of the evidence that the CUMO decision was about, you don't think are susceptible to Daubert's traditional analysis? Well, I think that's right. And in these cases, the general lesson of CUMO is that judges should look to the intellectual rigor of the opinion, and the opinion should be tested against the standards and practices. What are some examples of these areas that... Well, I think medical testimony is a good example. This is very common in federal courts. Prior to CUMO, a number of the courts chose, well, they would inquire in different degrees to a physician's testimony when the testimony was based on traditional medical practice. Now those courts may require more support. Another example? Well, I think forensic evidence is another example. Some areas of forensic evidence such as handwriting analysis, bite mark analysis, ballistics, these are not well grounded in the conventional practices of scientific methodology, and they may be vulnerable to challenge under these emerging standards.  Make sure the expert brings the same intellectual rigor that he or she would have outside the courtroom into the courtroom. That leaves me to ask a question about the opinion of Justice Breyer, the opinion itself. It is replete with lessons about tires and the expert's testimony in this case. Do you know why he did that? Well, I think he used this extraordinary level of detail to illustrate that the tire expert in CUMO did not provide expert testimony to permit the standards of intellectual rigor that are appropriate for experts outside the courtroom, tire experts or tire engineers who are practicing in industry. I don't know that every decision will require this level of detail, but it is appropriate to include sufficient detail to permit the expert testimony to be measured against the standards of professionals who are working outside the courtroom. Would you say for... Why don't you say that what Justice Breyer offers is an example of what may be necessary in some cases, but not a standard judges have to apply in all cases? Well, I think that's right. Judges have a great deal of discretion in the standards they choose to apply. Remember, the judges' decision is going to be tested against an abusive discretion standard, and this permits a judge a great deal of latitude in deciding what factors are appropriate to the individual case. Is the abusive discretion standard going to mean that we'll have different standards of admissibility over the country, even within circuits? Well, it may. It may decide to use different factors in considering very similar evidence, and it's not clear the extent to which the courts of appeals, even under an abusive discretion standard, will permit similar evidence to be treated in dissimilar ways. One other thing. The discretion we're talking about here, of course, is not a total discretion. You'll recall Justice Scalia filed one paragraph concurrence in which he said it's not discretion to abandon the gatekeeping function, or he said even to perform it inadequately, and I think that's worth keeping in mind. Joe, Justice Breyer's opinion contains some discussion of the procedures courts might use under Kumo. Could you say a little bit about the procedures? I think judges should expect to see more motions and lemony challenging expert testimony, and judges will then have to decide how to respond to these motions. In the opinion, Justice Breyer noted that in cases involving complex evidence or novel evidence, it may be necessary to hold a separate hearing to adequately explore the basis of the testimony. But in most cases, these issues should be resolved based on the affidavits and other materials presented with the motions. Judges may also want to encourage stipulations in areas where the evidence doesn't appear to be problematic. I want to ask you a question about Rule of Evidence 702 and the changes that the Advisory Committee was working on before Kumo. Where do those changes stand now? Well, on June 15th, the Standing Committee approved the proposed amendments and forwarded them onto the Judicial Conference. They'll be considered by the Judicial Conference at its fall meeting. If the amendments go forward without change, they should take effect in December of the year 2000. And assuming they do take effect, assuming Congress imposes no objection to the Supreme Court, can district judges expect a different life under the new Rule 702? Well, they shouldn't expect great changes out of the rules. The purpose of the rule is to bring the standards into compliance, to bring the rules into compliance with the standards that have grown up since Dalbert. I see. One final question, if I may. I want to ask you about the Center's Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The first edition came out in 1994. I know you're working on the second edition. What can we expect and when can we expect to see it? The new edition of the Reference Manual will be available at the end of the year. Justice Breyer is writing an introduction to the manual. He agreed to write this before the Kumo opinion. We also include a chapter on the issues that remain unresolved in the wake of Kumo. We'll have updated reference guides, along with new reference guides, on medical testimony and engineering testimony. Okay, we'll look forward to that towards the end of 1999. That's correct. Thanks very much, Joe. Let's turn now to this term's cases on Jurisdiction and Standing. Joining me for a discussion of these cases are Susanna Sherry of the University of Minnesota Law School and John Yu of the University of California at Berkeley, Bolt Hall School of Law.  John, the last 20 years we've seen a lot of discussion in federal courts about the bar about discovery, abuse, whether it exists, and the extent of sanctions that are appropriate. This case of Cunningham versus Hamilton County, Ohio involved an immediate appealability issue of a discovery sanction. How did that come out? This is a pretty easy case for the court. 9-0, Justice Thomas writing, saying that discovery sanctions orders cannot be immediately appealed under the collateral order doctrine, which allows certain types of orders, usually ones that are separate from the merits, and finally decided as to that particular issue to be appealed immediately. Instead here, the court said that because discovery sanctions orders are so tied into the merits of the case itself that you have to wait for a final judgment before they can be appealed. John, this is consistent with the Supreme Court's recent trend in finding fewer and fewer things to be collateral orders. What effect will it have on district courts? I think this will give district courts even more freedom to manage discovery and it probably therefore will lead to more efficient discovery practice and procedures in the district courts. Thanks very much, John. Susanna, two cases involving the removal provision on the federal civil rules. Rourgas versus Marathon seem to raise again an issue we've seen in earlier terms, and that is the court's reconciling loyalty to jurisdiction rules with interest of judicial efficiency. How did this one come out? Well, in this case, efficiency one. Rourgas involved a case that had been removed from state court and the federal district court dismissed it for lack of personal jurisdiction without ruling on a much more difficult issue of subject matter jurisdiction and the Supreme Court approved that and said that the court did have the flexibility to decide the personal jurisdiction issue without deciding the subject matter jurisdiction issue. Susanna, do you think this case is consistent with the case a few terms ago, Caterpillar versus Lewis? Yes, it's very much in keeping with Caterpillar. In that case, as you recall, the case should have been remanded for a defect in subject matter jurisdiction but by the time of the trial the defect had been cured and the Supreme Court said that that was all right, that they didn't have to reverse at that point. It could be a little inconsistent with a case from last term, the steel company versus citizens for a better environment case in which the court rejected the doctrine of hypothetical jurisdiction and said that courts could not reach the merits without first addressing all issues of jurisdiction. The court distinguished that in the Rourgas case by saying that steel company involved the merits and this case involves two different questions of jurisdiction. And then there's the case of Murphy Brothers versus Machete. This was another case involving the removal of state cases to federal courts. How did that come out? Well, this was another case that started in state court and in this case the plaintiff had served the defendant with a courtesy copy of the complaint before actually serving the summons and then the defendant removed to federal court more than 30 days after receiving the courtesy copy but less than 30 days after receiving the summons and the question was whether there was jurisdiction. It's the section 1446 30 day period does not begin to run until the defendant has both the summons and the complaint and then they saw in this case the jurisdiction was proper and then they ran through some permutations depending on state law and they said that were both the summons and the complaint need to be served together. That's when the period starts running where the complaint doesn't have to be served until after the summons the period does not begin to run until the complaint has also been served and a few states where the complaint need not be served at all but only filed then the period starts to run after the summons has been served and the complaint has been filed and is therefore available so the basic rule is the defendant has to have both the complaint and the summons before the period starts to run. And Justice Ginsburg laid all this out in the opinion now it's clear for all the circuits. I think she answered basically all of the questions. Thanks Susanna. John, we had this case of Ortiz versus Fiberboard and this is asbestos class action is back in the court again it's a terribly complex case. Could you summarize the essence of it and what Justice Souter said for the court here? Sure unlike Susanna's cases here the court is not drawing bright lines they're going to solve everything for the future. Here this is a case between 45,000 claims represented by plaintiffs lawyers involving asbestos and the Fiberboard Corporation and its insurance companies and the two parties come to a settlement where Fiberboard agrees to create a sum of $1.5 billion to be used to pay out for all these asbestos claims and ask for the district court to certify it as a mandatory class action under what's called a limited fund theory under federal rule 23 B1B. Here the court holds 7 to 2 Justice Souter writing that this does not qualify for a 23 B1B treatment and so sends it back to the district court. Is this really just a settlement fund called a limited fund? Is that the way you see it? Right in fact the reason the court rejects this is because it says this doesn't come close to meeting what a limited fund is supposed to be a limited fund is usually a fund with a fixed limit that cannot pay all the claims out but which can give out a distribution on some kind of pro rata share based on a common theory of liability. Here the problem was that the plaintiffs and the defendants had settled as to the amount of the fund rather than the district court finding what the fund's extent actually was. You still had in the opinions the majority opinion by Justice Souter and a concurring opinion by the Chief Justice and on knees about this and really a pleading for Congress to take some action and then Justice Breyer descended saying I think well Congress isn't going to take any action it's for the appellate courts to provide district judges as much leeway as that continuing. How do you think this case is going to come out as going back to the district? Unfortunately I don't think this case really solves a whole lot in terms of asbestos because what will happen will go back and the plaintiffs lawyers and the fiber work corporation will come to some kind new settlement and this time ask the district court judge to actually make a fact finding as to the size of the fund and that will meet the Supreme Court's test here so then it will go back up to the Supreme Court next year in a couple of years. Thanks John and thank you Susanna. We'll turn next to the major habeas case decided this term and we'll look briefly at an important case to be cited next term in the habeas area. There were far fewer habeas cases this term than last term. We'll review one of them and then we'll preview a habeas case the court recently granted certiori on. Evan Sen Lee and Jordan Stiker return to tell us about these cases welcome back to both of you. The habeas case we're going to talk about Evan is O'Sullivan versus Borel which came from the 7th Circuit. The Supreme Court wanted to make sure that state supreme courts had a shot at state petitioners complaining about proceedings in the state courts. What happened here was the defendant asserted six constitutional claims before the Illinois trial court same six constitutional claims before the intermediate appellate court and then when he went to the Illinois Supreme Court he asserted the constitutional claims. The Illinois Supreme Court denied hearing. He went to the federal district court to petition for habeas and asserted the original six claims. Federal district court felt it had no choice but to declare that he had procedurally defaulted the three claims that he had not brought before the Illinois Supreme Court. Well writing for a six to three majority justice O'Connor characterized the issue as whether the exhaustion doctrine requires petitioners to ask for hearing in the state supreme court which of course has discretionary jurisdiction and the court held yes that the exhaustion doctrine does require such a petition. What about the south carolina rule the justice suitor pointed to where the south carolina supreme court says explicitly you don't have to come here to exhaust your state remedies. Well the court noted that states can protect their supreme courts from any flood of petitions simply by making relief unavailable in the state supreme court. I think justice suitor's concurrence is an attempt to soften the majority's language on that by suggesting that maybe state supreme courts don't have to go so far as to make relief completely unavailable it might be enough if state supreme courts say that it is not necessary for petitioners to come to the state supreme court in order to exhaust. And in this case is nominally about exhaustion but does it really affect procedural default doctrine? I think it does because until now the rule has always been that at least in the first instance what constitutes a procedural default is a matter of state law the federal courts have never treated something as a procedural default if the states themselves wouldn't have treated it as a procedural default. But that is what happened in this case. So we'll have to see. Thanks very much Evin Jordan you call our attention to Williams v. Taylor this is not a case the court decided it's a case in which they grant a certiorary but you think it has pregnant with implications for the habeas act. Yeah this could be an extraordinarily important case it's really going to be construing the heart of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The core question in this case is how much deference the federal court a state court decision construing federal law. The language of the AEDPA says that a federal court should not overturn a state court judgment unless the decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law as measured by the Supreme Court. That language has obviously a number of terms that need fleshing out the circuits have disagreed tremendously on the meaning of each of those portions of that language and so this case really gives the Supreme Court an opportunity a much anticipated and much needed opportunity to shed some light on the core AEDPA provision. Well we'll watch for that case next term and perhaps be discussing it here in a year. Thanks very much Jordan. I want to summarize three other cases in the civil area two orisa cases but more important I think the case that we thought would say whether a new value exception to the absolute priority rule survived the 1978 bankruptcy code. In 1994 it appeared that the bank court case would answer that question but bank court went off on jurisdictional grounds. This term Bank of America versus LaSalle Street partnership. An 8-1 decision, opinion by Justice Souter for five other members of the court appeared to be the vehicle for setting the new value exception one way or the other but again the court did not reach the matter. Now some background. The LaSalle Street partnership defaulted on a $93 million loan it had from the bank and filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Its proposed plan eventually approved by the bankruptcy court would pay off the bank's secured claim of $55 million and discharge the rest of the debt at 16%. The plan also gave former partners an opportunity, an exclusive opportunity to contribute $6 million in new money in exchange for ownership of the reorganized debtor. The bank objected to a crammed down, citing section 1129's absolute priority rule. That rule says that when prior claimants aren't paid in full, junior interest holders can't receive property on account of their interest. The partner said the bank received property because of their status as prior interest holders. No said the partners. We received ownership on account of the new value the $6 million that we put up to keep the reorganized debtor afloat. Now the circuits are split on whether the absolute priority rule includes an exception to accommodate such offers of new value. But just a suitor would only say that that rule may include such an exception. There was no need to decide the question because the bank's objection required rejecting the plan regardless. Why? Because the plan provided former partners with property on account of their prior interest. What property? Not the ownership of the reorganized debtor, for which they put up new money, but rather the exclusive opportunity to obtain that ownership. That is to say the judge approved the plan without considering completing plans or even competing bids. That exclusivity meant that the partners obtained property on account of their old equity position. Now the court declined to tell judges how to ensure a market test of a proposed contribution of value. All it said was don't approve plans that provide opportunities free from competition and without benefit of market valuation. The two orisa cases were both unanimous, both from the Ninth Circuit, one grounded in California state law. Let me summarize them very briefly and then of course refer you to the decisions for a full idea of what the court did. Hughes Aircraft versus Jenkinson grew out of a dispute between beneficiaries of a Hughes retirement plan covered by Orissa and Hughes. Hughes after the market had pushed the plane's assets substantially higher than the value of accrued benefits amended the plan in various ways. A class action suit claimed various Orissa violations. In a point by point opinion just as Thomas said, first in a defined benefit plan as opposed to a defined contribution plan a beneficiaries interest is not diluted and Orissa is not violated by amendments to the plan that do not affect the vested interest of the beneficiary. Second, it's irrelevant for Orissa purposes that the employer may have benefited from employee contributions that were part of a pot that created a surplus as a result of an investment gain. It's irrelevant that is if as here employee benefits are not impaired. Third and finally the plan can be implemented only as provided in the Orissa statute and not implicitly in accordance with any common law trust rule of wasting trusts. Now Unum Life Insurance Company v. Ward is another in the long line of cases involving Orissa's preemption cause. The question here concerns the savings cause within Orissa's preemption cause the savings cause that exempts from preemption any state law that regulates insurance. Does the suggestion of California case law its so-called notice prejudice rule that subjects an insurer to liability even with a late claim unless the insurer can show prejudice from the delay in filing? Yes, California's notice prejudice rule is firmly grounded in what Justice Ginsburg called policy concerns specific to the insurance industry and that fact saves it from Orissa preemption. Now preemption of course is but one facet of many elements that collectively constitute the relations between nation and state federalism. This term like recent terms had its share of important federalism cases and we'll turn to those next. The boundaries of federalism have become one of the abiding interests of this court. We'll end our program with a review of the three big federalism cases this term. Some thoughts from our faculty on how the court's recent cases have changed the legal landscape and a look at some upcoming cases as well. With us for one last time are Susanna Sherry, Katherine Urbana and John Yu. Susanna, these three cases they all came down the same day, the last day of the term they were all five four cases with the same lineup in each of the cases and they all built one way or the other on the 1996 Seminole tribe case. Let's start off with the two cases that came out of a single litigation involving college savings bank in New Jersey and an agency of the state of Florida which came to the court from the third circuit and from the federal circuit. Can you put those cases together and tell us what the court said? Yes, the college savings bank sued the Florida prepaid post-secondary education expense board for both patent infringement and false and misleading advertising under the Lanham Act and the court held in both cases that the state agency was immune from suit despite Congress's attempt to abrogate that immunity in both lawsuits. Now the first thing the court did was to get rid of the doctrine of constructive waiver so that doctrine is now gone and then the court analyzed the cases under Seminole tribe and the city of Bernie versus Flores case determining what Congress's powers are under section five. The Lanham Act case was the easier case, the court held that there is no constitutional right to be free from misleading advertising and so of course Congress was not exercising its section five powers and therefore to abrogate according to Seminole tribe. The patent act case was a little more difficult because a patent is of course a property interest and the court recognized that but here's where the court elaborated on city of Bernie. They said that in order for Congress to be acting under section five it has to first identify a constitutional violation and then adopt a proportionate remedy for that violation. The problem with the patent act was Congress had no evidence of state violation of patents no infringement pattern and therefore no power to abrogate. Susanna, how is the court's assessment of Congress's record in finding no section five power for the lack of a sufficient record going to affect how federal courts view other federal statutes? I think it's very important for the cases that are wending their way through the federal courts right now cases on the Family and Medical Leave Act the Age Discrimination and Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act in each of those cases in order to uphold the congressional abrogation plaintiffs will now have to show and of course courts will have to find that in enacting the abrogation Congress was remedying a pattern of constitutional violations by the state and not merely statutory violations. What are Congress's options after this case? Well in this case and in Alden which John will talk about in a moment the court cited Dolby South Dakota and said that although Congress can't abrogate the immunity they can condition funding on a state's waiver of the immunity and in a sense bribe the states into waiving their immunity. Thank you Susanna and as you mentioned we're going to ask you John to take up the last case Alden v. Maine as I said decided the same day this involved Congress's effort to authorize suits in state courts. In this case the same five for a majority as in the Florida cases Justice County writing holds that the Congress using its Article 1 powers states to suit in their own courts for damage actions. What does this case do beyond seminal tribe? This case is really quite an advance on seminal tribe in that for the first time the court really makes clear that state sovereign immunity is not linked to the Texas 11th Amendment which only applies to federal court rather state sovereign immunity is a structural principle in the Constitution itself further the court makes clear that to subject states unconsenting states of damages actions would allow the federal government to essentially hold state's hostages financially to federal policy. Can these suits go forward in other ways? I think that this case doesn't mean that federal law is going to be going unenforce throughout the country there are a number of options the court discusses in its opinion as to allow the execution law's powers still there and can be used to convince states to file federal law or to convince them to waive their sovereign immunity court. Second you can still file declaratory and injunctive relief cases against states third you can still file suits against cities, counties and other forms of sub-state governments. You can also file against individual state officers in their individual capacities for money damages. Well I think John there might be a problem in some cases not every statute necessarily authorizes a suit against the individual officers. For example the Fair Labor Standards Act which was at issue in the Alden case probably doesn't run against the individual officers. Thanks very much Susanna and John and thanks Kathy let me ask this question of all of you what's ahead in federalism what are we talking about next year that the Supreme Court's already granted third on in the 11th Amendment area and we'll probably talk about those one is Kimmel v. Florida Board of Regents involving the Age Discrimination and Employment Act and the other is Vermont v. U.S. X-Rail Stevens which involves key TAM actions. Well those are both 11th Amendment cases Susanna and as you know the court has also been moving in the area of enumerated powers of Congress how far do those go I wonder if those will also produce what we all already have before it the court has granted third on the case of the Fourth Circuit Condon v. Reno which deals with the Drivers Privacy Protection Act and there the court is going to revisit the question of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause and under Section 5 and the court may perhaps grant cert in one of the cases dealing with the Violence Against Women Act which also raises the same two issues Commerce Clause power under Article 1 and Section 5 power as well. So we'll be watching for all of those in the third and final part of this program on the 1998-99 Supreme Court term. We hope you have found this review helpful. Many thanks to the faculty for their summary and analysis and thanks to you not only for joining us but also for completing the evaluation forms that help tell us how we might improve future programs. One final note in preparing this program we have operated under the leadership of one of this country's leading federal judges Ria Zobel she now returns to Boston to resume her duties as a judge on the District of Massachusetts. She goes with the gratitude and best wishes of all of us at the Federal Judicial Center. Good day.


If it comes down to the choice, I think I'd choose the grave. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel the Fence, and the Biden administration, you gotta appreciate the absolute raw police state ferocity out of these people. So the latest ridiculousness, they are now going to try to consider using or hiring or something with private firms, I put that in quotes, to monitor, also in quotes, extremists, okay? So basically they're going to start setting up a police state to crush their political opposition. This is a story as old as human history. Group A gets the power of the state, they seize the power of the state, and they use its resources, namely its money and its military slash policing forces, to crush their political opposition. That's a story as old as time. That's what happened in Rome. That's what happened in China when they outlawed all other political parties except the Chinese Communist Party. It's what happened in Nazi Germany. It's what happened in the USSR. Like this is not a new thing. It's very specifically a communist tactic that they've used quite effectively quite often. But you seize the power of the state, and then you use that power of the state to crush your political opposition so that they no longer exist. And you can then do whatever you want. It is the road to tyranny and we are well on our way. So now is the time to say something if you've got a problem with that. This all comes right on the heels of an article I read a couple of weeks ago here. I'll try to link it in the description and maybe post a little picture over here of the post office spying on people that they think are extremists and then reporting their like social media posts to the FBI, the post office. They can't even get you your mail on time, but somehow they have free time to look at your social media posts and report you to the FBI if you're suspicious. And of course, it's all people that are center of right. These are the extremists that they're worried about. That's why in Biden's address recently to Congress, he used the word insurrection a bunch. He wanted to really hype up this insurrection and this fear and this danger of these extremists. And all they mean are people that don't politically agree with me, people that are right of what I deem as center. That's what they're saying. Anybody to the right of me is a political extremist and is dangerous. And the best thing we have to do is we have to control these dangerous extremists before they cause an insurrection and threaten our democracy. That's their line. And that's what they're gonna keep pushing until everybody's just like, well, yeah, I guess so. I guess we gotta monitor people. And then the police state is full in swing and everybody who's on the right is either heading to the gulag or the grave. That's where it's going. That's where it's going. Unless we're able to stand up now and hopefully avoid that, that's where this is gonna go. Make no mistake about it. If you're watching this and you're thinking, oh, that won't happen, you need to open your eyes and read a history book. Just again, just one, just anyone of any of those places where a political party seizes power and then uses the power to crush political opposition. It has happened time and time again throughout human history. It will continue to happen until Jesus comes back. That's just the nature of the human condition. The question for you right now is whether or not you're going to allow that to happen in your country, in your lifetime. That's it. That's it. This is the last stop before things get much, much worse. So if we don't stand up and say and try to do something now, what makes you think you're gonna do something later? The time for saying something and for being brave and doing something is right now. This is gonna get worse before it gets better. I fear. And I can guarantee you it's gonna get worse unless we stop this thing right now. If the Biden administration or whatever presidential administration starts using the power of the state to crush their political opposition, that's the end of America as we know it. Do brave deeds right now. Share this video, write your congressperson, call your senator, make your state pass laws to outlaw this kind of thing. Do something now, otherwise we're gonna have to endure what comes next.


Week 1 was more of the inoculation of them learning what Wright looks like, getting the introduction to the overall scheme of the martial arts instructor course. Week 2 is now the employment of it. So they got a chance to actually utilize standing free sparring. And once again, it's the inoculation to violence. A lot of Marines are not introduced to violence. A lot of Marines have never even been in a fight before. So to figure out and to get in touch with that interpersonal violence is one thing that we try to employ here. Also, to learn proper technique. A lot of these Marines are just working off of stamina and aggression. But it's completely different. This is an art. This is a discipline. So you have to be able to maneuver and be able to utilize and be able to de-escalate the situation while still being able to properly defend yourself. A big misconception is that it's a physical course. That's all we're going to do is we're going to work the body, we're going to pound the body, we're going to pound the body. Some of the major events for Week 2 were they exam, so they were tested out Monday on overall everything that they had learned from Week 1 up until now. Also, another big event was their explain, demonstrate, imitate practice for their EATUP exam. Completely bread and butter of what they're going to be doing as a martial arts instructor. One of the major visitors that we're going to have come by is Nick Moreno, who's a knife expert. And it's always good to have these outside sources come to just show them the extra to what else they can do to employ their techniques. They increase their follow-on toolbox. There's one thing, but to know a plethora of other techniques to follow on, to follow on, and be able to expand your toolbox is something that everyone should be able to have.