Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is the decline of Taiwan's nationalist party, the Kuomintang, the party of Zhang Kaixue. And our guest is Mr. Michael A. Turton. He is a highly respected blog. The Taiwan view is not shy to tell it like it is, or to probe deeply for the facts, the real facts. So just what is the future of the nationalist party? Since it was catastrophically routed in both the 2014, 9-in-1 elections, and the January 2016 presidential and legislative elections, it seems to have no platform or definite plan of revival. Welcome to Asian Review. It's good to see you, Michael. I think we lost audio. Hello. Oh, there we are. Okay, good, good, good. Hi. Welcome to Asian Review. I thought we lost the audio there for a second. Wow. Is the Kuomintang really going down for the count? What do you think?  Is it down for the count? I think so. I think its power base is shrunk. It's largely popular only among older people in mountain areas, which are very undeveloped and don't have large tax bases, and have populations that depend on tourism and so on. It has no rock star politicians. Ma was the last one who was really a brand name. We'll have some news about him later today. Well, let's get right into that, because there is some really, really big news about Ma Yingzhou today. Ma Yingzhou, the former president of Taiwan, a two-term president, served eight years in that position, had several other very prominent positions in Taiwan politics, the mayor of Taipei, secretary to Zheng Kai-shek, I believe it was, and minister of justice. What's the news? I'll let you deliver it. Well, the big news is prosecutors announced this morning that former president Ma Yingzhou is going to be indicted for leaking state secrets in the Wang affair. You may remember that Wang Jingping allegedly lobbied on behalf of PPP with Kregi and me, in a way that was inappropriate, some might say illegal. Ma heard that news from SID chief Wang and then made that news public and attacked Wang publicly. The result was not good for Ma Yingzhou. Ma certainly tried to do in Wang Jingping, no doubt about it. It seems to me that there's always this thing that the courts are in the pocket of the Guomendang, all the judges are Guomendang appointed, the Guomendang dinosaurs, and they ruled against Ma. They ruled in Wang Jingping's favor and he still pursued that. I know lots of people just told him to stop and he wanted to persist, so he sort of cooked his own goose, didn't he? Not only did he cook his own goose, he split his party and tanked its reputation as a pulse. He even tanked the empty dollar when he attacked Wang Jingping. So, you know, he never recovered from that, the last hundred years. Well, now that he's been indicted, I suppose he won't be able to leave Taiwan. His passport will be confiscated? I have no idea. Things seem very flexible in cases involving high officials. And he just came back from the United States. He was on a twelve-day visit to the U.S. He gave a big talk at Harvard Law School, his alma mater. Brookings Institute in Washington featured him in a special program with Richard Bush and Douglas Paul. And it goes back to Taiwan into the welcoming arms of the law. Well, it's a long process and he beat it once already, so I don't expect much. It's as good as he did. Well, you know, I swore to not reveal his identity, but I had an interview with a very, very prominent member of the Kuomintang shortly before leaving Taiwan on December 21. And we talked about the Kuomintang's image, and my comment to him was, you guys don't seem to have a road forward. The only thing you talk about is cross-strait relations, cross-strait relations, cross-strait relations. He got asked some other policies and he said, yeah, yeah, you know, we do have a terrible perception problem. A lot of people think that of us, that we only have a concern about cross-strait relations. And without enumerating them, he said, well, we do have other plans, but he seemed to be at a loss to explain exactly what they were. That's how the public perceived them.  And the service this pact was rejected. What has the KMT had? So their reputation as economic wizards was destroyed by the Mind-Joe administration. They don't have any young people. There's no rising young politicians. There's no place in development to develop them. The KMT is in deep trouble. And the traditional basis of their support was military folks, bureaucrats, and the teachers. And it seems at the last election that fell apart because lots of the parts of that coalition, you know, they voted in other directions, not necessarily for the DPP, but not for the KMT. So that's all crumbling. Well, Ma had done pension reform, and also he had done some reform of the bureaucracy, which is much needed, but which angered a lot of people in the bureaucracy. That's a tough job for who has ever been in power. That's a really tough job. And a lot of the patronage networks down south and in central Taiwan had been, felt they had been cheated by the KMT, which they have supported for a long time. That's one of the reasons who's the town lost, and I don't. A lot of the local factions switched sides because they feel they didn't get enough from here. So this has been happening. Not only have those groups, teachers, bureaucrats, soldiers reconsidered the KMT, but also there's a lot of other... They've lost their local factional support. Look at the east coast. There's now two DPP legislators there. That's unheard of. That's unheard of, right? Yeah, and they've lost, they're losing their support in aboriginal areas. So the KMT doesn't look like it has a very bright future, and I don't see much creative policy making, as you said, coming up. You know, it seems to me one strength that the KMT traditionally had was it was very good at grassroots organization. In American politics they call that getting out the vote, right? Right, yes. Especially with aboriginals, aborigines. Do they still have that ability to master support at grassroots level, and with the aborigines? Not, it's been impaired over the last several elections because the local precinct chiefs and neighborhood chiefs are slowly becoming DPP, whereas they were always KMT. A lot of those networks were...the local factions have become less important over the last two or three election cycles. Namely, Bado has a good analysis of that, a frozen garden somewhere. And the demographics are changing. Areas that have long been strongly KMT, especially the Taipei housing bubble, have been pushing young people out into the blue areas that were once strong KMT, but those young people are all DPP people. That's what the sunflower movement's all about, right? Is young people hoping for a better future, a house, a respectable job with good pay? Well, there's that, and also they don't want China to control the economy. And they don't want China, they don't want to be part of China. Yeah, exactly. So all these changes are really hurting the KMT, the parties... And the mainlanders at the top, because the KMT's internal vote is controlled by the old soldiers, and they identify with the mainlanders who came over in 1949, and that core still controls the party. And as long as the old soldiers control the vote, then that core will continue to control the party, and they won't be responsive to Taiwan, the way they should. Who are some of those key figures in the Kuomintang, just for the benefit of our viewers? Who are some of those key figures in the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party, who still exercise such great control, the older folks, if you will, that you just... The older generation is people like Lian Zhen, who used to be the premier and then ran for president in 2004. So, how about someone that's probably not so much anymore. Some of the people like Haolong Bing, who's probably the son, is now running for the chairman. A lot of those people are quietly powerful, and they're all mainlanders. They either came over in 1949 or are descendants of them. And they will keep the party as a mainlander operation, and they can't do that and be a Taiwanese party. And that contradiction is killing them. You know, it seems to me the Kuomintang has a big... there's a leadership vacuum. I mean, Hongxiu Zhu is obviously not a very popular chair. I've talked to people on the central committee of the Kuomintang. I shouldn't say their names, but they're very... How should I say it? They had less than complimentary comments about her leadership to put it mildly. Also, there's some pretty tourist comments about Ma, too, which shocked me in some cases. Haolong Bing. Some people say he is the favorite to become the next chair of the Kuomintang. What's your take? Well, he's leading in the polls, but the kind of polling they're doing doesn't tell you who they're polling. If the old soldiers support Hongxiu Zhu, she'll win. So they've put forward a couple of candidates to split that vote. Haolong's got a good chance. He's moderate. He speaks well, but he's kind of also porridge. He's not very exciting or interesting. And one thing about Hong, he's always interesting. He says amazing things. So it's going to be difficult for Haolong to win. He was lackluster as mayor of that thing. What about Wu Dany? What's your take on him? He's another candidate. Obviously, lots of political experience. Yes. Within the KMT, he's been pretty savvy. He's one of the strongest supporters. And he comes from Nantou, so his local power base is Kaini. He's Taiwanese, which for the old soldiers will be a problem, because they don't want to see another Taiwanese as head of the KMT. And if whoever becomes KMT head is likely to be the 2020 presidential candidate. So Wu Dany is not going to be very popular as a presidential candidate. I had a meeting with him once when he was Secretary General of the Guamidang. He impressed me as a pretty smart guy. He's really savvy. And he's very political. He was also, as you know, the mayor of Gaosheng. Right. Premier, vice president. I mean, the guy has experience. No one can take that away from him. But he doesn't have that appeal. There's no one with island-wide appeal right now. No one. I remember talking to him. He had accompanied Wu Fosong several times to the mainland.  And I said, well, Hu Jintao, he's living in the house that Malden did, right? He said, yeah. I said, well, that must be a really beautiful house. And he said, it depends on what your definition of beautiful is. I don't think he was too impressed by it. I think he was less than impressed. Okay, we're going to take a break here. It's going to be about a one-minute break, and we'll be right back. So don't go away. Aloha, I'm Carl Campanio, host of Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers. I hope you join us over the next several weeks as we take a deep dive into biofuels in Hawaii and explore the alternative fuels supply chain necessary for the local and global transition towards transportation fuel sustainability. Join us as we have good conversations with our farmers, our producers, our conversion technologies, our investors, and our legislators as we try to achieve our transportation sustainability goals. See you soon. Aloha, Kako. I'm Marcia Joyner inviting you to navigate the journey with us. We are here every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. and we really want you to be with us where we look at the options and choices of end of life care. Aloha. Good afternoon. Howard Wiig, codegreenthinktechhawaii.com. I appear on Mondays at three o'clock, and my gig is energy efficiency doing more with less. It's the most cost-effective way that we in Hawaii are going to achieve 100% clean energy by the year 2045. I look forward to being with you. Aloha. Welcome back to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. My guest today is Mr. Michael A. Turton. He's joining us from Taiwan via Skype. He is the creator and editor of a really interesting blog called The View from Taiwan. And a very provocative blog, extremely well written, extremely well researched. Anybody who wants to know more about Taiwan should read it. Before the break, we were talking about some of the candidates in the upcoming Nationalist Party of Kuomintang Chairman Race. As we went to break, we were talking about how long been, and I don't know, is there anything more we need to say about the candidates? It does seem that the current chair is probably going into retirement. I don't know. I wouldn't bet against her. She is pretty wily, isn't she? It's got powerful support among the people who actually vote. I want to move on here, but let me ask you this. She's often advocated this peace treaty between Taiwan and the mainland. Do you have any idea what might be in a peace treaty that she conceived? Well, obviously it would be that Taiwan is part of China, which would make it unacceptable for the public. No other conditions need to be discussed. Stop buying arms from the United States? Yeah, you know, all that stuff. She's talked about this before. It goes back to James Song in the year 2000. You know, the Kuomintang, not only does it lack leadership, not only does it lack platform, not only is it its popularity limited to the older folks who came with Zhang Kai-shek in 1949 or other offsprings, but it's divided from within, isn't it? I mean, there's the local faction. There's the Ma faction. There's the Ninjian faction. These guys don't always get along so well. Of course, there's the light blue and the dark blue. I mean, you know, they always say traditionally, they say, oh, the DPP is so divided, and it does have its divisions, but it seems these days the Kuomintang is more divided than the DPP. What's your take on that? Well, I think it's always been pretty divided. People complain about DPP factualism, but the KMT has spun off two political parties already. Three, really, if you want to count the MKP as a party. The PFP and the new party, right? Right. The KMT's problem is that it's not only a political party, it's also the Church of the mainlander identity, right? So, and these two are often incompetent because... What was that expression, the Church of the mainland identity? Was that it? That's all I think of it, yeah. Can we quote you on that? Do you have that copyrighted? I wish. Okay, that's a very colorful expression. I really like that. That's why Hong is so popular among the old...  You know, everyone's going to wear hair shirts and we're going to be staying in the Rosary 20 hours a day. That's where she is. And the old guys really like that. You know, Ma, one of my concerns about my ancient presidency was that I think that during the time he was in office, the military really lost a lot. He was not a very pro-military person. The military began to see morale problems in the military, the up-shoot of espionage cases, high-level Taiwan officers being recruited by mainland intelligence agencies. He really, you know, he didn't really do much for the military. One thing I personally respect about Tsai Ing-wen is I think she is trying to build up the morale of the military, build up the image of the military. Ma certainly, in my estimate, heard it quite a bit. Well, and of course, his ecfa was not popular in the long term. It was popular with some people, but one of the reasons that the Kuomintang fell out of favor or so, tell us about factionalism, because you've written some blogs, a really, really good explanation of how factualism works in Taiwan at the very local level. Wow. I know that's a big question that's thrown you on a show that's limited by time, but give us some hint. Give us some feel, some direction. The camp he has maintained its hold over Taiwan by basically sending money, construction money down to the local factions, which will then dole it out to their people, right? As long as the KMT has its hands on the leverage, on the leverage of power, it can keep sending that money down again. So what we have here is the same thing they have in Japan, basically the construction industrial state, where there's no part of the island that you can't use even more concrete than it has now. So the result of that has been the plundering of our rivers, the destruction of our mountains, and public debts. All of the counties are in debt. That's another way that the KMT keeps hold over the factions, because the counties don't have the kind of money they need unless the central government sends it down, and it won't send it down unless the county factions cooperate. It's a very good system. The deal that the factions made was that they would never create cross-regional or national alliances that could challenge the KMT. So it kept the factions happy by sending them money and power. And in return, it prevented them from being arises. You know, that's an important point that some of our listeners might not quite understand unless they follow Taiwan closely, is the money is generally, for the most part, controlled at the level of the central government. And Taiwan's highly centralized. And so mayors and magistrates, they have to sort of go big for money from the national legislature, from the national legislature. They have some money from, like, land, land taxes from selling off, like mining rights and rivers and things like that. So whenever they run out of money, they do that. Right. And it's interesting that you say that most of the, if I understood you correctly, that most of the counties and the cities are in debt. Is that correct? Debt is widespread at the local level, yeah. And it's debt to the central government? And it's not only money that, they've been allocated tax monies that the central government has redistributed to them, but they also borrowed money from the central government. Is that, is that, do I have it right? That's right. Okay. For example, if a pensioner leaves Taipei and retires the Pingdong, the money is at pension. I think half of it comes from the treasury and the other half from the local government. So the local government has to get that money from somewhere in the treasury. So, yeah. That's how the system runs. So if you want to be a highly successful magistrate in Taiwan or mayor, you've got to really know how to sing the tune to the legislature. Alternatively, you have to be the head of a municipality, which is why so many cities have upgraded municipalities in the last decade, right? Taijong, Taoyue, and Tainan. Because then they get a bigger chunk of the local budget. If I can remember, 57% goes to, then goes to the counties and 43% to the city. Wow. One of the cities you get a huge chunk. That's incredible. The biggest. Well, the clock is beating on here. So let's talk about identity. Because I know that that's something you're really interested in and that there's this obviously growing sense of Taiwanese identity. Something that China doesn't seem to understand, or at least it understands, but it doesn't want to admit that it understands. Right. It still wants to maintain it. Those are our brethren in Taiwan. We all want to be one big happy family, return to the embrace of the motherland. And when I go, I was invited to Xiangmen University, Taiwan Research Institute, doing my fellowship in Taiwan. And I was asked to address some graduate students, master's degree level students. They just told them my view of Taiwan. I don't know if they appreciated it. But they said, you know, people in Taiwan, they're not exactly on pins and needles about joining the mainland, uniting with the mainland, not reuniting, uniting. And they've found that very hard to believe, and I remember this one, she says, but we're all descendants of the Yellow Emperor. And I said, well, I'm not sure how far that's going to fly with younger people in Taiwan. It's really, it's almost irrelevant that they have some, whatever you want to call it, ethnic, biological, whatever. The key thing is the historical experience of the Taiwanese. And it's a settler state. Actually, it's a lot like the United States. And so the people there have a different experience. They've been under colonialism while also being colonialism. And in recent years, what's actually happened is the Taiwan identity was always there. People always thought of themselves as Taiwanese. But that was suppressed. That came to be suppressed. And then in the 90s, you saw a massive coming out. People's identities suddenly shifted according to polls. Wow, everyone suddenly shifted in the space of like six years. But of course, people don't lose their social identities in half a decade. People have started telling the truth to themselves and to others who they were. And now that's the older generation. That generation's Taiwanese identity was strongly anti-Campi. In fact, the whole generation of activists who are over 15, 16, really hate the Campi. But the young people today who have a Taiwan identity just see the Campi as more irrelevant to what their needs and link to China. And they don't hate it as much as the older generation. They're way more focused on democracy, which is an important part of their identity. And they're the first generation of Taiwan history to undergo two important things. One is to grow up in a democracy. And the other is to grow up in a period of stagnating economy. That's actually happened. I just was told we're down to 90 seconds. The time really flies by here. So in that time we have left here, which is probably about 70 seconds now, to pump in this question, which is something I probably should have asked before. Taiwan more recently has become known as a country with a two-party system. Is it going to remain that way? Or are we going to have one and a half-party system? No, it's going to be two-party because the legislature is a first pass and post. The majority takes the seat, so there's no room for a small party, so I think we'll always have a two-party system. So who are the two parties going to be? Is it going to be the DPP? Well, if you ask me in the long term, what will happen if the came people slowly fade and the DPP will split into a right-wing economic and a left-wing economic me. Okay, good. Well, I'm sorry to have to stop there, but the devilish clock has turned too fast on us again, and I really want to thank you for joining us. It was a really great discussion, and I hope to see you in Taiwan real soon.


Hi everyone, Joe for jazby's casebreaks.com coming at you with 2019-2020 Paninium Hoops Paninium Panini Hoops premium stock basketball five of us been a long week folks five box Random team break number four one spot gets you two teams each all Cardship all teams are in big. Thanks everyone right here And I as I promised just before I started this recording if you bought a spot one spot equals one of these I Found our stack of stickers they hide them from me. All right. Thanks everyone for giving this a shot now.  Let's randomize names and teams three and a five eight times each one two three four and Yeah, eighth and final time. It's my short-term memory loss there. All right after eight times. We've got E-10 down to D Baker. All right three and a five eight times for the teams one two three Four and eighth and final time after eight. We got the Dallas Mavericks down to the Pelicans. Nice All right.  Let's alphabetize this right here It's box these up As well and remember when we first opened that fresh case a number of days back I marked all these RT so we know that they're all from the From the same case. In fact, they're the these are the final five bucks of that case that we open Any trades Cole will Cole's not happy Cole's not happy with the nuggets or the Clippers. He's he'll be willing to entertain I'm willing to entertainsman trade offers if anybody's interested I'm gonna pause the video allow for a little bit of trading time when we come back We'll see if there's any trades and then the break stick around All right, welcome back folks. There was a little bit of trade chatter, but in the end no deals were done It's all good five bucks premium stock edition random team for of 2019 2020 Hoops basketball. Thanks everyone for getting in appreciate it So as most of you know autographs are not too common in this but really we're looking for all the different parallels Is what the the big chase is? And it's always good. I think in my opinion. It's always good to have the inaugural edition stuff together So four packs per box Let's open a couple at a time. I think there's been some preseason hoops happening Is there a Well, we're at we're at halftime on the Saturday night football game There was a game on NBA TV. Yeah, we got hocks at Grizzlies Think on the last preseason games of the preseason Grizzlies are up 82 64 in the five minutes after the third quarter And then real basketball real NBA starting on Tuesday, which is exciting. All right I remember all card ships, so you'll be getting everything you see here to their respective teams There's Justice Winslow. These red parallels are not numbered There's Rondo and there's Jonas Malanchunis to 99 and that'll go to the Grizzlies. That'll be for Patrick There's a nice Kendrick Nun So I think the the ones with the solid backgrounds Are the variations because usually There's there's something behind there. There's background there Miami Heat that'll be for Patrick Garcia. We're looking for Kendrick Nun to continue what he did last year There's Troy Brown to 25. There's poor Clay Thompson There's John Morant hocks are kind of my sort of Sleeper pick this year. I think Vegas only gave them like a 30-some odd win total Which I thought to be a little bit higher than that Nice John Morant for the Grizzlies. That'll go to Patrick Garcia But they've got a lot they've accumulated a lot of young talent. I love Trey young And I feel like it's just a It just clicks just a little bit Feel like that could be pretty huge. There's Tyler here another Miami Heat player Who really emerged last year we want him to keep things going to in his second year It's high voltage Steph Curry. There's Danny Green and Terry Rose here. Thanks Danny Green appreciate Helping deliver a championship to my Lakers These are also short printed shorter printed inserts We only see a few of these per case This goes to Golden State Scott Blackwell with the Warriors. Let's open up a couple more I think there are some even shorter printed inserts like the ones that look like a magazine cover I think are one of the big ones. It's that Walter helping. I miss something. Oh Yeah, I said Danny Green. Thanks for helping the Lakers. Yeah, he did. He was part of the team. I think I think all the Lakers From from from Talon Horton Tucker to LeBron James and everyone in between He he hit some a clutch three or two in the last in that final game Wish he hit one though game before but that's okay. That's okay There's James Harden Then what I'm thinking KCP to I'm thinking KCP to Where's James Harden gonna go that's for the Rockets, that's for Tom. I actually think Walter Let me think about this. I actually think KCP might have a Great year this year if healthy a great year this year There's not a bit Mitchell because he got like a two-year deal, right? I think he's been on one year deals for the like the last three years So he's like I wonder if he now feels a little comfortable like he's actually part of the Lakers now. I Wonder if that that sort of comfort gives him Some confidence high voltage Yannis going to or sorry don't have a Mitchell going to Scott Blackwell There's a Yannis down there. There's Tyler hero again a variation For the heat that's for Patrick and there's the Yannis onto to combo that'll be for the Bucks Paul That one agreed says says Walter on the Casey thing yeah, cuz sometimes I feel like in the last couple years or so. I feel like He's just been pressing a lot at times Or just there's Kelly over a junior for the Sun's nice Tom judge Or sometimes he's just shooting the ball too much because like, you know, he wants to get a contractor I don't blame him. He wants to get a contract. He wants to get paid. So he's like well scorers get paid So sometimes he's just taking ill-advised shots and But now he can just relax a little bit There's anything thanks Anthony Davis Delivering that championship. All right. We've got a couple high voltages here. There's a Paul George Going to the Clippers that'll be for Cole tried to trade couldn't trade mojo. Paul George got paid Got a big contract with with the Clippers. I'll think more Keith Morris, too There's Brad Zeke is to 99 Brandon Clark Terence Davis. We've got weather spoon cave on Looney Our last box coming up now. We've we saw a John Moran. Maybe a pallet a pelican would be nice Oh, man, you know what I want to try to do. I usually don't do this because I'm terrible at wind totals But maybe I should play NBA wind totals this year. It's not too way too long for that investment to mature Oh, there's a John Moran tribute design right there Chris Dunn Russell Westbrook 35 so the Grizzlies having a nice little break here Patrick Should be a big year for Kuzma like I'm not a like a maker break here for Kuzma Not to see how he does. I like the Dennis Schroeder is on the Lakers now There's Nasir little nice Kobe white. We want him to continue what he's been doing What he did last year there's Eric Gordon and there's Myers Leonard and that is that ladies and gentlemen This one goes to Tom and the Bulls. It's like a variation as well. You want him to continue what he did last year Let's go. All right, and there you have it ladies and gentlemen that was five box random team four of premium edition 2019-2020 Panini hoops basketball. Thanks for breaking with us. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time for the next one Bye bye


He's got too much rear bias. Speed's on 45 on his death, this is his death. This guy's going off, okay. Go on, go on, because Hila lost his confidence now. So you just get going. Hila lost his confidence. Here in Hablock North, end of day five target 2015. It's been a big, big week. Eight more stages left to go tomorrow. We're going to catch up with the top three from the three classes. Ah, we've done a pretty good job so far. Just an unfortunate mark, and Jason Easton, they had a bit of an upset yesterday. And we don't really know what we're up to. We're just sort of sitting in limbo, just trying to chase down Greeny, I think, or someone like that. Just first V8 is probably the thing we're aiming at now. The car's going well, and amazing roads. And it's interesting, as we've found your mojo, it's sort of a bit of an amateur driver. When I sort of get some seat time, you get into the groove again. We're chasing those four-wheel drive. It's absolutely flat out. Great event. It's been awesome. It's been enjoyable. We've gone fast and had a huge amount of fun. Obviously, have made some mistakes in the past and learned from them. So we've got to remember that it's 230Ks to go tomorrow. That's more than some rallies are in one day. So it's not done yet, far from it. But we just take each stage as its own thing and try to go fast and have fun. Hopefully we'll get it through to the end. So we're looking forward to another big day tomorrow. Some fantastic stages as we head over to Palmerston North for the end of the event tomorrow night. We'll see you then.


This week we are going to look at a figure that helped keep me interested in G.I. Joe when a large part of the toy line was going off in a very strange direction. This figure may not be as well remembered now, but in 1988 for a short time he was the face of G.I. Joe. Ender 788 here, it's time for another vintage G.I. Joe toy review and this week we have a guest. We're going to get some help from a friend of the channel, Kevin from SEO Toy Review. Say hello Kevin. Kevin. Say hello Kevin. Alright, maybe Kevin will be around later. The G.I. Joe toy line that was launched in 1982 has always included science fiction elements. Even right at the beginning they had laser rifle troopers and jet packs. So our G.I. Joe from the 80s could be viewed as futuristic military. G.I. Joe did futuristic military in a number of different ways. For instance, Battle Force 2000 from 1987 was overtly futuristic and more science fiction elements were added to the line as it went on. When I think of futuristic military, I don't imagine it looking anything like Battle Force 2000 or any of the other sub teams that they grafted science fiction elements onto. I don't think mega marines or star brigade look like the military of the future. When I imagine the military of the future, I imagine something like the subject of this week's video, the steady cam machine gunner from 1988, repeater. Apparently I wasn't the only one to think so because when this figure came out, his likeness was slapped onto a lot of merchandise. Kevin from SEO Toy Review is going to show us some of that merchandise, right Kevin? Right. Let's look at the perfect marriage of science fiction and military themes. HCC 788 presents repeater. HCC 788 presents repeater. This is repeater. G.I. Joe's steady cam machine gunner from 1988. This figure was introduced in 1988. It was also available in 1989 and was discontinued for 1990. Repeater takes his name from a type of firearm, a repeater or repeating rifle. There were two versions of repeater in the vintage line, but he was released three different ways. Version one was released in 1988 on a single card. Version two was released in 1989 as part of the night force sub team. It was on a double card with night force charbroil. It used the same mold as version one, but in night force colors. In 1993 version two was released again, bagged with the mail away rapid deployment force set, which also included fast draw and night force shockwave. They all had different accessories, and the set included a black special rapid deployment force edition pocket patrol pack. Repeater fits in the lineage of several different G.I. Joe traditions. He is a machine gunner, although G.I. Joe didn't have a lot of designated machine gunners before 1988, rock and roll and roadblock were important members of the team. He is a US Army Ranger. G.I. Joe's earlier Rangers, Stalker and Beechhead were significant characters and leaders on the team. He is wearing a desert uniform. G.I. Joe first moved into desert themes arguably in 1983 with grunt version two and dock. In 1984 there was a new desert themed vamp with clutch version two and in 1985 G.I. Joe got a designated desert trooper Dusty. Ever since then G.I. Joe has kept a contingent of troops and vehicles equipped for desert fighting. One desert themed vehicle released the same year as repeater was the 1988 desert fox. A nice desert vehicle and repeater looks pretty good manning the machine gun, but looking at the colors of the desert fox contrasted with repeater really makes me wish the orange parts on the desert fox were in a different color. Perhaps a green that would match repeater's vest and backpack. The tan and brown in repeater's uniform is definitely supposed to be a desert color theme. The green isn't perfectly desert focused, but it still complements the other colors pretty well. This was pre-desert storm. In the 1980s the image of the American soldier still reflected the Vietnam era with a lot of green and woodland and jungle camouflage. In the 80s a few conflicts in the Middle East pushed the public attention in that direction. G.I. Joe is based loosely on the real world delta force or the first special forces operational detachment delta. In the first issue of the G.I. Joe comic book the team is referred to as special counter terrorist group delta codename G.I. Joe. One of delta forces first missions was an attempted rescue of hostages in Iran a mission that failed that incident was fictionalized in the G.I. Joe comic book as one of G.I. Joe's first missions. What this means is G.I. Joe has been in the desert since its inception repeater continues that tradition and to me embodies what a G.I. Joe should look like apparently Hasbro's licensees also thought this is what G.I. Joe should look like because they put repeater's face on just about everything and now I think Kevin from SEO toy review will show us some examples of repeater as the face of G.I. Joe right Kevin hey hoodie Coco haha there he is told you'd be here all this talk about repeater is reminding me of a joke from when I was a kid Pete and repeater in a boat Pete fell out who's left Pete and repeat are in a boat Pete fell out who's left Pete and repeater in a boat Pete fell out who's left okay okay okay yeah well I have a joke Peter and repeater are sitting on a car Peter shoots repeater and oh that doesn't work the real reason I'm here is I wanted to share with you and your viewers some really cool G.I. Joe licensed merchandise that features repeater repeater the first item we have here are some G.I. Joe loot bags these were for giving out party favors at your G.I. Joe themed birthday party in 1988 the loot bags feature shockwave repeater and spearhead it's a pretty decent likeness of all of the G.I. Joe characters on the package there and they're sold in an eight pack made by unique repeater is even the character featured on the hang tab for the loot bags to go along with the loot bags we've got a set of party invitations with envelopes just like the loot bags you get eight invitations these are made by unique as well feature the same artwork although I think the print quality is a little bit cleaner on the invitations here there's a dog tag on the back that has the information for the party this set is still sealed so I don't know what's written on the inside but these are very similar to the sergeant slaughter invitations that were made in 86 in 1988 Milton Bradley released a set of four mural puzzles for G.I. Joe each one of the puzzles could connect to make a larger picture scene three is called road pig versus repeater and surprise surprise it features road pig repeater as well as sergeant slaughters warthog and the cobra bug as part of their yo's radical yo yo's line spectra star released a G.I. Joe themed yo yo and of course it had repeater on it they made a few other licensed yo yo's including donald duck pewee herman and ghost busters this may not be an exhaustive list of all the different licensed products that featured repeater on them but the last item I have to show off is a bubble bath container released by duker bio essence repeater's head screws off to make the cap for the bubble bath it's a pretty decent likeness to his action figure it's got some different symbols up here on the top and some red markings on his shoulders there but he looks pretty good I mean they even got the fact that he only wears one glove they did change his gun to silver it's missing the little steady cam part but they did a great job he's even got the digital camo down there his backpack is molded on and he's got this little blue base to stand on with a sticker on it 8.5 fluid ounces all right hooded cover commander that was the licensed merchandise I had to show off I'll get out of your hair and let's get back to your review let's take a look at repeater's accessories starting with his machine gun the machine gun needs to be removed with some care it can be placed in both of his hands and pegged onto the figure so all of those points need to be treated with care so you don't break off one of the grips or the peg what we have here is a two-piece assembly the machine gun and the body mount the body mount pegs into the side of the machine gun I'm going to remove that for now so we can look at the machine gun first the contents of the card on which repeater was packaged call this an electromechanical machine gun it is in black plastic it has a grip on the back and on the side and both of those grips will fit in the figure's hand on the same side as the side peg there is a hole for the peg of the body mount we will take a look at that in a moment it has a slot that goes all the way through it for ammunition but it does not include an ammunition belt and this is my biggest problem with early gi joe machine gunners a lot of them did not come with ammunition some later machine guns did but the earlier ones didn't this is not to my knowledge based on any real world weapon but it is based on a fantasy weapon which I will discuss but let's look at the rest of the system first this is the body mount for the machine gun it is also in black plastic it's kind of a long bar with a couple drums on it and some pegs it has a peg on one end for pegging into the action figure and then in the center it has a large black drum and an extension with another peg that pegs into the machine gun and then at the other end it has another barrel that looks like it's supposed to be a counterweight for the machine gun you can peg the body mount into the side of the machine gun and then peg it into repeater's belt like so and that is the steady cam machine gun the body mount will pivot on the belt peg and the machine gun will elevate on its peg and it has a pretty wide range of motion and when the machine gun is not in use you can even swing it around to his back and out of the way you can fit both grips into the figure's hand and they do fit pretty well they don't seem to be stretching the thumbs too much so I'm not too worried about breakage but while the steady cam machine gun has a nice range of motion on that body mount the figure's articulation really doesn't when he's in that pose so if you have both hands on the machine gun you're not going to get a huge range of motion on that this isn't the only time gi jo attached weapons to a figure's hip or belt a couple examples in 1990 pathfinder had two machine guns attached to his belt in 1990 ram part had a peg on his belt that his machine gun could hook onto this is supposed to be a steady cam machine gun system a steady cam is a stabilization arm for a motion picture camera it allows for a steady shot even when the camera operator is walking or running over uneven ground based on how a steady cam works repeaters vest is probably also part of the system the idea of mounting a machine gun on the steady cam is to stabilize the machine gun allowing for smooth independent motion and steady aiming the idea of a machine gun connected to a steady cam rig was popularized by the 1986 science fiction movie aliens it was common for gi jo to draw inspiration from other areas of pop culture here they are definitely influenced by aliens the idea of a steady cam machine gun seems great at first but a weapon mounted this way would need to be carried in the standing position or maybe the kneeling position that doesn't make it easy to dive for cover in the comic book repeater can sometimes be seen in the prone position with his machine gun to do this he would have to disconnect it from the mount he wouldn't really need it in that position but a bipod would be useful the steady cam is really only useful when firing from the hip rambo style after looking at such an elaborate weapon system it's a little anticlimactic to move on to the backpack but it's a good backpack it's in an olive green color the same color as his vest it's pretty large it has some good detail it has a bed roll and some straps and some pouches it's an excellent backpack but what i really want is some ammunition for that machine gun let's take a look at repeater's articulation he had the articulation that was standard for gi jo figures by 1988 so he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down he could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around he had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees he had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around this was an o-ring figure meaning he had a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside that allowed him to move at the torso a bit he could move his legs apart about so far he could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of repeater starting with his head and on his head he has a tan hat he has black hair he has kind of a big chin according to the card art on his hat he has his ranger patch and jump wings the jump wings look more like the navy and marines parachutist insignia on his chest he has a green vest over a tan shirt and there is a spot of paint for his caucasian flesh tone just above the collar that olive green vest has a mesh pattern on the front and some straps on the back and under his arms for load bearing equipment it has some pouches on the front that look like they may be for magazines but he does not come with a magazine fed weapon his arms feature rolled up tan sleeves with a brown blocky digital camouflage pattern his lower arms are bare and he has a single black fingerless glove on his left hand he's a big michael jackson fan stop some people don't like this tetris block digital camouflage style and i understand a more traditional camouflage does look better and i have a lot of love for the camouflage pattern on dusty but i don't mind this so much i understand the look they were going for it was executed better on some figures than others and i think this is one of the better ones on his waist piece he has that base tan color with more of that brown camouflage pattern he has an olive green belt matching his vest and some good detail on that belt on the left side he has a pouch and a grenade on on the right side he has a loop for the body mount of his steady cam machine gun there's also a black detail that connects to another black detail on his right leg and this looks like an extension of the steady cam mount and that does make sense a steady cam is pretty substantial and it would be larger than what's depicted on the accessories his legs feature tan trousers with more of that brown camouflage pattern all over them he has pockets on both thighs and he has that black detail that's the extension of the steady cam on his right leg and we finish up with some really nice looking black boots i have always loved this look if you think of futuristic military you may think of battle force 2000 or mega marines to me this is what futuristic military looks like repeater has a made up high tech weapon but he's still wearing an environmentally appropriate uniform future soldiers don't want to get shot anymore than today's soldiers do let's take a look at repeater's file card his file card has his faction as gi joe it has a portrait of repeater here i think this artwork looks pretty good his codename is repeater he is the steady cam machine gunner his file name is jeffree artherian primary military specialty is infantry secondary military specialty is heavy weapons birthplace is cumberland road island and grade is e6 his birthplace is in road island hasbro's headquarters was and still is in road island new england birthplaces are overrepresented on gi joe file cards this paragraph says with close to 20 years in the army repeater never got any higher in rank than e6 his performance in the field was always top notch but he could never hack it in garrison he's not a barracks soldier and never could be but send him out in the bush beyond the farthest base camp and you'll find that he's the one the other grunts want to soldier with because he's the one who's going to bring the grunts back in one piece the grunts love this guy close to 20 years in the army so he's an old timer like mainframe another favorite character of mine this bottom section has a quote it says being the machine gunner is probably the toughest job in an infantry squad number one he's got the heaviest load to carry number two as soon as he starts firing the enemy knows where he is and becomes their primary target number three the squad depends on him to keep firing through all this to provide maneuvering cover your machine gunner should always be the strongest most stand-up troop you have that's a good description for repeater and i think it also applies to gi joe's other machine gunners you could say this about rock and roll and roadblock as well looking at how repeater was used in gi joe media he didn't make any appearances in either the sunbow or the deke animated series he was only animated for commercials in the gi joe comic book series published by marvel comics he first appeared in issue number 82 and he was on the cover we meet repeater at the beginning of his gi joe tenure he is in gi joe's selection program it's a grueling course designed to test physical and mental endurance most recruits dropped out but budo lightfoot and repeater made it he reappeared in issue number 86 the 25th anniversary issue that introduced the original gi joe he was in issue number 89 where he manned the gun turret on the mean dog in a battle against cobra and the dreadlocks he was in issue number 93 where he drove the tiger sting a tiger force vehicle that's odd since he was not in tiger force his final appearance was an issue number 131 where he helped defend gi joe's underground headquarters from an attack by cobra he was in the special missions series in special missions number 19 he was on a dangerous helicopter mission in the tomahawk repeater took out a soviet armored hind helicopter with special armor piercing rounds he didn't have a lot of appearances he had potential but gi joe has so many characters it's difficult for a non-core character to get a lot of face time looking at repeater overall i love this figure back then and i love it now it may not be perfect but it has a lot going for it this is real futuristic military if you went to the future and grabbed a soldier that was outfitted for a desert mission and brought him back to 1988 he would probably look a lot like this guy i like the accessories even though the steady cam machine gun assembly can be a bit awkward and impractical it still looks cool it harkens back to a movie where a similar weapon was used and it just has a cool factor even though the backpack is a bit plain i still think it looks really good i think the figure is excellent the sculpting is great the colors are great i like the camouflage pattern i hear from some fans that they really prefer a more traditional camouflage and so do i but i still think this is pretty good the one thing that's missing is the same thing that's missing on a lot of gi joe machine gunners and that is an ammunition belt some later gi joe machine guns had an ammunition belt accessory but not repeater if you're not going to give him an ammunition belt that fits in his machine gun it has a slot that looks like it's made for one then at least an ammunition belt could have been sculpted onto the figure somewhere that's a minor complaint though repeater is a great figure i can understand why they put him on a lot of gi joe merchandise repeater and a handful of other figures kept me interested in gi joe for a little bit longer when a large part of the toy line was leaning much heavier into that science fiction side as gi joe fans we talk a lot about military gi joe versus science fiction gi joe but i say you can have both and in repeater you do have both it's a perfect combination that was my review of repeater i hope you enjoyed it thank you again to kevin from seo toy review for helping out don't forget to check out the seo toy review youtube channel he has a ton of great content on there if you're a fan of gi joe and you like this video please consider giving it a thumbs up on youtube subscribing to the youtube channel hitting the notification bell and sharing this video with your friends you can find me on social media on facebook and twitter and i have a website hcc788.com thanks as always to my patrons you will see a list of names on your screen all of those people have helped keep this channel going if you like gi joe and you'd like to help me make more videos about gi joe please consider supporting the channel on patreon you can get some special perks and even find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos thank you for watching i'll be back next week with more gi joe and until then remember only gi joe is gi joe and only gi joe is gi joe aliens


The responders responded down and we did indeed find a two-vehicle collision involving a Pike County school bus. That school bus is from the Pike Central Mullins area. There was 23 students on board. None of them were injured at all. They were all in really good spirits and we were able to get with the board. They're making arrangements now to go ahead and get these kids onto the house. But everything's fine down here right now. The driver of the second vehicle was transported to PMC for treatment. However, again, the students on the bus were uninjured.


Welcome back to Think Tech. This history is here to help, and I'm Jay Fidel, and the handsome young man is Carl Ackerman. Good afternoon, Dr. Ackerman. Good afternoon, Mr. Fidel, and you are again the supermench that I always love to talk to. Today, we're going to ask a question, a rhetorical question. Can Joe Biden hold the line, or will the GOP chaos undermine his campaign? We forget that he has a campaign running, too. All we see is Trump in the headlines, on the channels, on the cable channels, on the news, the analysts. They will talk about Trump's campaign, but they don't talk about Joe Biden's campaign. In fact, he has a campaign going. And of course, his campaign success, his campaign, is going to run on two things, how well he does, and how much criticism he gets and lies from, you know, the Trump campaign. That's a combination of things. So how is he been doing in running his campaign against the GOP mega campaign? There's a lot of things happening, a lot of factors in play. Can he swing his public opinion in his favor? Because right now in the polls, he's not doing all that well. Will the voters understand the constructive things that Joe Biden has provided and is providing to the country as against the damage and the criticism and the insults that Trump has done to him and his administration and the country? How will all of this change history? Because you will have to agree with me, here on history is here to help, that this we are living in, again, an inflection point, an historical moment in the world, in the history of the United States and humanity. Now this is going to work out. Carl, do you think that Joe Biden is going to prevail in this election just a little more than a year from now? You know, Jay, maybe I'm one of the few people, but I'm very optimistic about President Biden's chances. And the reason I am is because, and I'd mentioned this to you privately at one point, is that if you take all the people that voted for Joe Biden in the previous election, are those people going to change their mind? And my answer to that question is, especially if Trump is the other candidate, I think not. The only way that I think that Joe Biden will not win is that if people do not show up at the polls, or we have a different candidate besides Trump, who happens to be the former Trump appointee to the United Nations. That could be a tough one. But the way things are going now, and the proof in the pudding is in New Hampshire, these national polls are showing Trump and Joe Biden, former President Trump, President Biden, kind of equally aligned in the 40 percentage points. But in New Hampshire, Joe Biden is up by 10 or 12 points. So if I think it would go state by state, that's going to be a different outcome.  Of course, we have to abide by the electoral system. What did I see recently in one of the newspapers I read that they're not following polls anymore because they have no confidence in polls. I'm not sure that they're talking about the polls that favor Trump or Biden right now, because they're in some ways not really believable. Or they're just saying that the mechanics of polls these days in the political world in which we live are not reliable. But suffice it to say that we hear a lot about Trump, the newspapers, the cable are filled with Trump. We don't hear as much about Biden. And it's Trump's campaign that seems to be, you know, the news, the entertainment, if you will, the reality show, if you will. Joe Biden is almost hard to remember that he's actually running a campaign against the Republican candidate, which we know very well because that's stressed every day that Trump is likely to be the Republican candidate. So, you know, I don't know if people are getting it. I don't know if they realize what Biden is doing for us or trying to do and how he is, you know, a decent law abiding kind of guy. I don't know if they fully understand that. They may be looking for entertainment, you know, shot in Freud, you know, shot in Freud, where people want to see a failure. It makes them happy to see a failure. And that's what Trump is tapping into. He wants to see Biden look like a failure. He wants to capitalize on anything that goes wrong. For example, Afghanistan didn't do so well, although yesterday General Milley said that he would do it the same way if he had to do it again. I think that was, you know, rhetoric. But bottom line, though, is that I don't think, Trump, I don't think Biden is as exciting as Trump. I don't think he captures our imagination. I don't think he entertains us as well as Trump does. And at the end of the day, this is all one great big phantasmagoric reality show, isn't it? Well, yes. And I think that, you know, when I'm going to coin this term first here with you, Jay Fidel, and with ThinkTech, and I think what President Biden has to do is he has to talk about his doctrine. And he hasn't actually said anything really about the Biden doctrine. And he has a specific doctrine that he goes back to all the time. And if people understood this within three basic principles. One, internationally, he wants to promote democracy around the world and avoid the autocrats like we see in China and around the world in places like Cuba and North Korea and, of course, Vladimir Putin in Russia. Number two, he doesn't want to put, and this is where Biden doctrine is not as warmongering as probably the Truman doctrine. I mean, Truman, in his doctrine, he wanted to put troops on the ground. Biden does not. And the reason he doesn't want to put American troops on the ground anywhere is because of his son. And there's no accident that he carries the rosary of his son around who probably died because of his service in the army and of those giant chemical pits that he was in there. And the third thing which is new for a doctrine for an American president is that he is a promoter of everyone getting a fair deal. And what I mean by that is that he is a president that does not tolerate racism, anti-Semitism, anti or any kind of ethnic group.  And so this, again, this Joe Biden doctrine is very strong. And he should emphasize that because every time he speaks, you know, most candidates say, and God bless America, which is a wonderful statement. You know, there's no arguing with that. But that's not what Joe Biden says. He said, God bless our troops and make sure they're safe. You know, this is a guy who utters his doctrine every time he speaks, at least part of it. And the Biden doctrine, we are here on Think Tank to explicate which I just did. And I think that will help him in his campaign. But he has to hit it hard. And his promotion of democracy is the most important thing that anybody could do at this particular point in history, I think. There you go. Being rational again. It's your credentials, Carl, that make you so rational. And it's your world view making you so rational. But there's a lot of people in this country that don't have that view and aren't rational. And they can hear it. You know, for example, you know, we went and looked at the written platform of the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party a week or two ago. And I was really disappointed in the Democratic platform. It goes on and on and on in small type and find it on their website. And by the way, nobody knows who the chair of the Democratic Party is. P.S., it's Jamie Harrison, who ran against what's his name, Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and lost. And he is no great shakes in terms of a speaker, you know, of a person, a leader. There is no leader of the Democratic Party, I'm afraid to say, except Joe Biden. So what we have is this platform that is really, you know, a dishcloth, washcloth, what do you say? It's sad sack kind of platform. It articulates all the right things and great length, but it doesn't get your blood going. And that's a good reflection of where we are in this time of politics. It mentions, as I remember, it mentions Trump's name, like only once in 50 pages of the platform. It mentions the word Ukraine, like only once at the end in this platform.  Will you please do that? And I'm not saying that the Republican platform had any really, any meat in it.  But it was more exciting, I'll tell you. And it got your blood boiling, if you're a Republican, it did. So that's one thing. The other thing is that, you know, here on Think Tech, we have often remarked that Biden doesn't have the energy. And energy counts when you're talking to 330 million people. Energy is really important to win a campaign. And you have got to respond to Trump's energy with your own energy. And we've been, you know, essentially criticizing Biden for not being more energetic when he speaks. He's just as slow. And his speaking does not get your blood boiling. So as if the people in the White House said to him, his advisor said to a few days ago, hey, Joe, you got to get more excited about your speaking. You've got to act like a candidate. You've got to respond.  And he did. He made a speech. And I know you saw it. And I saw it after you did. And I was very impressed with this speech. And it was the best speech in my, for my money that Biden has ever given, for sure. And he called Trump out and all that. But you know what? It wasn't energetic enough. And it only happened once. He's got to do that every day, all the time. Whenever Trump makes these outrageous statements, he's got to do something. He has not convinced the Democrats, the people on the fringe, the independents, if you want, and certainly not the Republicans, that Trump is a monster. Now, if we're rational, we know that Trump is a monster. But there's a lot of people in this country that don't know that. And it's up to Joe Biden to establish that. He's being much too Mr. Nice Guy. You agree? Well, I think that's true. And the other thing is, I think that we have to urge all of our compatriots, you know, everyone on the left and the right, Republican or Democrat, that we have to return to a notion of civility. And I think that's all of our jobs.  You can do that. You can do that. I'm happy that you're doing that. You're doing that for both of us. Well, thank you. But President Biden, you know, is someone who believes in civility. And, you know, I think that when he calls out on President Trump, and I want to put it aside here, you know, when President Trump was elected, even though I identify with the Democratic Party now, and I have been a Republican in my past. But when he was elected president, I accepted that.  And I think that what we have to do is convince our brethren in the far right of the Republican Party that, you know, that Donald Trump did, indeed, lose the election. And maybe they will come to this right kind of truthful understanding at some point. What is that? How do you do that? How do you do that with medicine? Certain a change in diet, perhaps? I think you just have to keep, you know, being calm and saying, you know, I think that Mr. Acosta on CNN News is my, I think he's the new Walter Cronkite, because he really is very calm in dealing with these issues. And if you notice the people on Fox News are always, they're always so angry. And I think we have to stop this anger in civil discourse and things like this. But the reality, Carl, is that these people in that bubble, they're not going to buy it. They're not going to buy it. What's the name? Robert Costa. He's a brilliant journalist. And I saw a piece, I guess it was a front line interview of him recently, and he was fabulous. On the other hand, they're not going to watch him. They live in their bubble. They're going to look at Newsmax. They're going to listen to Sinclair Radio. They live that stuff.  So how do you get from one bubble to the other? How many times today have you called up a MAGA GOP Republican and convinced him to change his views?  And, you know, I think you just talk to them and, you know, say to things, say things to them, like for example, are you worried about, you know, all of these court cases?   So I think I still have hope, but I think with those Republicans who have doubts about Trump, you form a coalition, as the president just did, and with the Democrats, and we got a budget from our Congress. And I think that that's the way you do things. And I think that what will happen eventually is that we saw this just operating in the legislative parts of our government is because of the far, far right-wing guys that are, you know, like Gates. With those kind of guys, it's going to be hard. You know, it's going to be very hard because I think that they have a different agenda and it's going to be very difficult to work with them. But I think the great majority of Americans are within the great middle and I think that's that's something else. I think though, Jay, if I were running the Biden campaign, I would focus on the same thing that people focused on, you know, when the Republicans offered Barry Goldwater, even though Barry Goldwater turned out to be a fairly upright standing guy later on in his career. And that would be foreign policy because, you know, I initially thought when Trump was elected, there might be hope for him in foreign policy because no one can figure out what the heck he was going to do because he was an outsider and he might have had some additional ideas. What I've discovered now is that, you know, he wants to do things that will make him look good only and the United States is really, you know, a far down the line in terms of what he wants in terms of importance. So to give a man like Donald Trump the keys to our nuclear arsenal, I think it's a mistake, not because he's a bad man, but because he's not educated enough, in orange. Oh, I think you're really, you're really giving, you're giving him much too credit, much too much credit. He is a monster in every way.    When I say he's a monster, I mean it. I know that. And I think that there are checks and balances that were put into place that prevented him from doing things that were dastardly. But my point of contention here is that, you know, he may have committed monstrous acts and things like that, but I try to figure out, you know, what motivates people, you know, on a personal level.  And if you read his niece's book, which I did, you know, this comes from the fact that, and I think everyone in America should read it, that he can't accept loss in any form. So this whole election fraud that he has tried to implement comes from this deep set in security. And so he really is not qualified in any way to be President of the United States. And of course, if I were an employer, I wouldn't hire him because he's not for the general good. He's only for the good of himself. And let me say one more thing about President Biden. He understands, unlike Donald Trump, under the former president, that Vladimir Putin is someone that you can't compromise with, meaning you might be able to, you know, form agreements with big term. But he understands that Vladimir Putin thinks in this the following way, that the West is always going to threaten Russia, and the West is decrepit and decaying, and only Russia, Mother Russia, can save humanity. And if you're negotiating with someone like that, it's like negotiating with Adolf Hillar. You have to show him power.  If not only President Biden and the US Congress don't stop Putin now, we're going to have to put a man on the ground and stop him someplace else in a NATO country. And that may lead to World War Three. But Biden's foreign policy, including Afghanistan, I may add. Remember the slogan now during the Vietnam War, where you didn't understand that it was not a domino theory. It was, you know, basically people who wanted to settle their own issues in their own country. And there was a slogan that said, out now. And what we have to do is make sure that Vladimir Putin is out now from the Ukraine. Because Putin is, you know, a bad guy in history. You convinced me, Carl. I'm going to vote for President Joe Biden. But the question is whether, you know, the base will vote for Joe Biden, and the answer is probably not. First of all, there'll be suppression votes. The Republicans have already put systems in place that will suppress a lot of votes, including minority votes and African American votes. So it won't be an accurate representation of what the electorate wants to do, even to start. Secondly, there'll be all kinds of litigation as last time. But what troubles me most of all is the connection, the liaison between Trump and Putin, because I think at the end of the day, Ukraine is right in the center of this campaign. So Biden wants to support it. Trump doesn't. Trump is tapping into the populist isolationist movement in this country. And the Republican conservative movement that says, we don't want to spend a penny for Europe, for NATO, for the EU, for the United Nations, let them do what they want to do with none of our business. Okay. And that's really an expression of what Vladimir Putin wants. There was an article yesterday about how Putin was going to use his internet research agency, his social media propaganda machine, to try to get, this is from American intelligence now, to try to get the Congress, and especially the Republicans, but some Democrats too, and to go soft on supporting Ukraine with weapons and money. And so far, he's done some of that. Maybe a lot of it, we don't know. But if he's able to stop Congress from supporting Ukraine, I think the, you know, the syllogism is clear. Ukraine's going to lose. And if Ukraine gets swept over by Putin and the Russians in a war of attrition, which is what Putin is doing, then Trump is going to blame Biden. He's going to make that the centerpiece of his complaint against Biden, just like he complained against Biden regarding Afghanistan. Same thing. Biden is weak. knows how to do this, and I alone can fix it. And I am very worried that the effect there is that, A, Trump wins and does all those monstrous things. I mean, monstrous things that you know he will do. B, we will lose our connection, our support with Europe, the EU, NATO, the United Nations, all of those things. Trump will turn his back on all of that. And see, you know, Vladimir Putin will have his way. He will, right now, he's, you know, essentially attacking. He's already got Belarus. He's attacking Poland with his various, you know, non-kinetic kinds of attacks. He's attacking Slovakia. We saw that. He's attacking Hungary. We saw that. Okay. All these countries are under his attack right now. And I think that he's moving while we're not watching.  I mean, we have to read the paper carefully. But in fact, he's moving west into the old Soviet bloc. And if he is able to succeed at that, we're going to have another kind of world, and it won't be pretty. And I don't think the Republicans, or the base, or the conservatives, or the GOP magas, or the people who would vote for Trump understand the stakes here. It's very scary, and it affects you and me.   And you know, more than anyone, you know, you've studied the law, you've studied the law in the United States, which you and I both love. And, you know, we think the United States is just a wonderful country. And I think, I think, you know, when you go back to the withdrawal of Afghanistan, this is part of the Biden doctrine. He wanted to get American troops away from harm's way. Now, in the pullout, it was messy. And I think no one had known how the Afghan army would just collapse so quickly. But, you know, there's some blame to be cast in that debacle. I mean, I don't think anyone can get away from it. And I'm sure if Biden were to do it again, he would do it very differently. In terms of he would withdraw, but probably withdraw much more gradually, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I really don't know. I can't speak for the president. But he does not want at this point to be sending American troops into the Ukraine. And if we do not support the Ukraine, we may have to send troops on the ground. And Joe Biden, as part of the Biden doctrine, wants to preserve democracy by giving aid to other countries, not by jeopardizing the American soldier. And I think most people see it this way. And, you know, I think the person who said it best was Lynn Cheney. And Lynn Cheney came out and she said, those Republicans who are not supporting Ukrainian aid are appeasing. Appeasing, Vladimir Putin. And that's the appropriate word. Well, you remember where appeasement led in World War II? The more you appease, the more likely you're going to have to have troops on the ground. Lynn Cheney is absolutely right. And so is Biden. The problem is, do people understand this? He's got to get up there. This is all a matter of rhetoric. You remember, well, you probably don't remember. But in the 30s, FDR had his fireside chats every week on the radio. And he had a huge effect on public opinion. And during the war, he kept on doing that. He knew that he could not initiate a war. He could not maintain a war unless he had public opinion behind him. Right now, don't think he has that. This is a big problem. And if it is the centerpiece of the campaign, and I believe it is or will be the centerpiece of the campaign, he's going to lose the campaign. So what has to happen here is he has to get more more more rhetoric, stronger rhetoric, and he has to do it regularly. And he has to get people to join him. You know, it's just him. Who else is speaking? And you can't you can't say, well, MSNBC, could you deliver the the message, please? Could you deliver Joe Biden's message? No, it's just him. Kamala Harris doesn't say blue. And the result is that, you know, he's not a good speaker. I'm sorry, there isn't enough energy going on here. Trump has the headlines. Trump knows how to play that game. And the Democrats are losing that game.  He has helped our country in so many ways. So many initiatives he has tried, some he's failed, because, you know, they won't agree with him and they'll block him just so they can criticize him. But but the bottom line is that he has been a great president, historically great president in very difficult circumstances. But the people in the country don't realize this. We have got to make them realize this. And I agree with you, Jay. And let me let me be very specific besides the Biden doctrine, which Joe Biden has done is he took us out of COVID. We now have vaccinations and, you know, crazy people who don't want to get vaccinated. That's that's dangerous because they're going to die as someone who works in Medicare myself on, you know, every week. And the second thing he did is he gave put people's put people back to work. He basically gave people money in people's pockets. And the other thing that he did was the infrastructure bill.  And he's done things, because at times he can't cross over and talk to Republicans. And I think the speech you were referring to an all end here was a speech that he gave in Tempe, Arizona, when he was talking about his his friend, John McCain. And it was interesting to read both John McCain's book and Cindy McCain's book. And I think, you know, as John, John McCain was one of Biden's personal heroes and his friend. And he's he really thought that he was heroic and not allowing anyone else to be go go not allowing anyone not allowing themselves to go in front of anyone and in order to leave Vietnam, even though his the Vietnamese were negotiating with the United States about that because of his father's military status. And how brave he was, you know, flying sores over Vietnam itself during the Vietnam War. And he didn't collapse. He didn't he didn't buy into their propaganda. And he was tortured and everything.   In what in what capacity? Well, I think he was speaking, he was speaking, Trump was speaking from his, his bone spur, which got him out of any military service. It's really extraordinary how he escaped the draft. He was a draft dodger in a word. And then he surrounds himself with military people as soon as he gets into the Oval Office. And he tries to use that as a way to control the military. So he can, you know, rely on the, for example, the insurrection act against Black Lives Matter, if you remember. I mean, listen, I haven't changed my mind. Nothing you have said made me, makes me feel differently about the monster characterization. I haven't seen him do anything good. Everything he does is bad.  Well, I, you know, I'm not disagreeing with you about his about what will happen if we, if we elect Trump again, I think there will be still some checks and barriers against him. But I do think that what one must do is, you know, respect the first time he was elected, he was our president. And I said that Donald Trump is our president. And I said that in argumentation with people who were, you know, on the far left and things like this. And I think that most Americans center around the middle and realize that and will realize, especially if that campaigning goes on the way you stipulated Jay, you meant you, that Biden has to hit on specific things. And my point in this conversation is that he has to outline his Biden doctrine. And he has to emphasize that, you know, allowing Donald Trump to have to hold the reins of foreign policy is sanity on putt on the part of Well, let me close with this because we're running out of time to allow Donald Trump to run this reality show with himself on the headlines every day is Biden's biggest mistake.  And he has to get people around him in his administration likewise to respond. And I only want to mention one other thing on 60 minutes this past Sunday. We had an interview of Merrick Garland. And it was the first interview that Merrick Garland has given as as the Attorney General. And it was really impressive. It was pure Merrick Garland. Without fear of favor, he's going to enforce the law. The president doesn't tell him what to do. He does it as the the Attorney General for the people of the United States. It was a remarkable thing. But the most important part of that interview for me was when the interviewer said to Merrick Garland, why are you doing this?  And Merrick Garland actually got very emotional about this. I don't want to say teared up, but it was right there. He said, my parents were involved, my family was involved in the Holocaust. And some of them were killed, murdered in the Holocaust. And, and I know what it means to live in a country without the rule of law, ruled by an autocrat, a dictator. I know what it means to live in a country without the in a country without the Constitution. And I care desperately about that. And that speaks for both of us, doesn't it? It does. And I'll just say that, you know, I always call you the mention, Jake Vidal, but we should both end this by just saying thank God for President Joe Biden and he is a real supermensch. Okay. But I'm counting on him to wake up and, and, and smell the argument. Thank you, Carl, Dr. Carl Ackerman. Having this discussion on history is here to help. Can Biden hold the line and we sure wish he can. Thanks you so much, Carl. Thank you, Jake.


All righty, let's play this here. It's like some little steps, we got the reference. Oh yeah, you mentioned that you can't scale the feet down. They are so huge, they're so huge. I think that's all very cool, let me see. I think the big thing you're gonna have to do just for yourself, because I'm not familiar with this rig, because we're lingering on this and we're kind of using that as a guide. Will you be able to do this with this rig? Because if not, then you might as well jump to right to this here, just kind of throwing it out there. Make sure that this is something that you can do and want to do. All the detail, you're gonna be able to keep alive. You're gonna have to straighten the reference a bit because it's very still. You might have to add a little bit of extra business, kind of heighten that a little bit, push it a little bit and then definitely watch out for that. And then I would start going into a few more breakdowns. Stuff like that has a lot more detail obviously in the reference. Oh, right off the bat. Yeah, I think this works. It's been a while since we've seen this. I haven't just, my feet are crazy. You might want to play with even like a bigger angle or higher angle matching this here since we're sticking to the reference fairly closely. There's something we just look at the reference here. He turns. There's a bit of a difference here in the walk, right? His little small steps. Then he gets into bigger strides in your animation. Let me just see. You're doing this. I think we could push that a bit more. So when I was watching the animation, it felt a bit almost like a cycle. We get in there and like dum, dum, dum, dum. I think to push that a bit, I will go into this where you might have smaller steps where I'm even not as far. So we can see some of the bend in here and we can feel and see the bend. But again, it could just be even shorter. And then we move into a bit of a bigger, not a full extension, but just a bit more. Even with this guy, you can see this here. It's just a bit more. But again, I want to straighten the reference to introduce a bit more contrast. Small, small, big, big. And even then you could add a little bit of a change in the head where he might look up for a moment. Just to give it a bit more interest. Sometimes taking the reference gets a bit, just not as interesting. Once you spline this, watch out, this feels a bit odd. It's starting to get a bit off balance there and then it bumps back into balance. So watch out for that where I would stay a bit more within balance and kind of look at moments like these when this is bent and you get into really that knee pushing in there and then a pop out. How this is going to be in spline. You might have to adjust maybe the leg a bit or just kind of move the elbow. You kind of have to kind of play around with that moment. So it's going to work.  It's very steppy, like feet go up fairly high. And then it feels like he's just turning in place. I know he's taking steps. It just feels like a, you know what? Turn where again. I would tweak that and stray. I mean, we're already not matching the reference, but to me it feels like you can do this and do less of a height thing and kind of shuffle that foot around a bit more and then make sure that when that foot turns that you delay that. That's the other thing that I mean again, because it's in step, but strikes me as like a one unit piece that rotates around. So breaking this up, I think it's going to help. Same thing with a turn with the knee and that arm coming over. Just so it's a bit more broken up.  It's not like he's holding on to anything and do like that compression in that pressure, but this feels like a good opportunity to go plop do something a bit stronger. And then given the time, this is a really big reach over a couple of frames. So question is once you spline this, will you have enough time to do all this? My clinician is just going to take a bit longer to do all this business to get back and you might have to nix this idea too. Because the thing is finger details and everything. If you do this, you've shown at the beginning, I don't think we need it at the end and this could be a good button to just go plop and then that's it. That's the end of it. But that's just me. Depends what you want to do. You can let me know. I mean, even for this year, you could add complexity. This could be a bigger force. You got lots of trees and this trunk could actually be here in smaller form. And when he goes back here, this might maybe too human-y, but where that arm is out and then holds on to this to then lean back, then let's go and then plops down. Maybe, just throwing it out there. But that is that. All right, thanks. All right, there's an email. You can sign up. You can start whenever you want. You can submit whatever you want. You get 16 submissions. Either way, a like and subscribe would be awesome. All right, thank you.