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Navigating the holidays: Compassion and safety in a season of celebration · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:04
  We are faith and fury.
• 0:06
  Love and fire.
• 0:09
  This is the human equation where every voice counts and every truth cuts deep.
• 0:17
  With your host, Joseph Pancar.
• 0:20
  Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the human equation.
• 0:23
  I'm your host, Joe Pangaro.
• 0:26
  So we are we are moving through our calendar year.
• 0:31
  And we have some upcoming holidays that we're going to look at.
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  And I think it's important that we consider some safety and security things when it comes to dealing with the holidays and how we get out into the world and shopping and all that.
• 0:52
  But we'll get to that, I think, maybe towards the end of this broadcast.
• 0:56
  So stand by.
• 0:57
  I've written an article called Stay Safe While Shopping.
• 1:02
  Holiday safety tips for shoppers.
• 1:05
  Imagine that.
• 1:06
  I'm going to send it in so you can get it up on the platform.
• 1:09
  So you can take it take a look at it.
• 1:11
  There's a whole bunch of tips there based on experience that I've had with holiday season shopping as a law enforcement person and watching these different scams take effect.
• 1:22
  And we'll try and talk about some scams too, things that can happen to people.
• 1:27
  My father, Ted, my father-in-law Ted, he's 92, and he's uh he's a very good man.
• 1:32
  He's a very good guy.
• 1:33
  I talk about him a lot here on the show because his life perspective really adds to the human equation.
• 1:40
  He's seen things, participated in things, and done things in the course of 92 years that is different than a lot of our life experience.
• 1:49
  Right?
• 1:49
  Now, I'm I'm in my early 60s, very early 60s, and first of all, I can't believe I'm here, but I am.
• 1:55
  Um I'm here, and I have a lot of life experience compared to, say, my son Joseph, who's in his 40s, and my son Alex is in his 30s, all the way down to Marisa, who's in her mid-20s, and Jack is in his early 20s.
• 2:09
  My four kids.
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  Their levels of life experience, all different from each other for lots of different reasons.
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  So I was having this conversation the other day.
• 2:21
  I forget who was I was talking to, but we were talking about, you know, the perspective of how do you see the world.
• 2:28
  What is what is how do you see the world and how do you know what's right, what's wrong, what's true and what's not true.
• 2:35
  And I think a lot of that comes from your life experience.
• 2:39
  Now when I look, and say my children would ask me a question, and I'm I'm very I'm very pleased that they still do.
• 2:47
  I still do get calls from my kids, and they'll say, hey dad, what do you think about this?
• 2:54
  And while I'm used to that from the younger children, you know, because they they their whole lives they're asking, you know, mom and dad questions.
• 3:03
  And as they move into their mid-20s, my daughter and my son, the young 20s, you know, I'm expecting that kind of thing from them, you know, because they're they're so close to that age when we were the first people they turn to.
• 3:18
  My son Joe, who's a corporate attorney and a brilliant man, and my son Alex, who is a talented craftsman and a brilliant man, these these two young men still call their dear old dad once in a while, and they'll say, Hey Dad, what about this?
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  What do you think?
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  Can I run this past you and get your perspective?
• 3:39
  And I think that's great.
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  Now, we get our perspective from the things that we see and do and the lessons that life teaches us.
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  So this this conversation I was having the other day was about how do you how do you view the world?
• 3:55
  How do you view the world when something goes wrong in your life, when you have a problem?
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  So one of the many topics that we're we're still yet to have, when I have the panel back on, I'm going to uh get into this a little deeper.
• 4:10
  But one of the things that can happen as the holidays approach is that there are a lot of people suffering grief.
• 4:17
  They're suffering with grief and pain, lost loved ones, a lost love, uh maybe their their family has had some kind of uh breakdown where they don't get along very well.
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  Uh and we see that in in lots of lots of places.
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  And the perspective of this, understanding this, is that not everyone is having a great time, right?
• 4:42
  And and how do we how do we interact properly with people to make sure that we don't we don't cause them a problem?
• 4:50
  So without beating around the bush, I think I probably mentioned this either in this show or the end of Chasing Justice, which you can find all those podcasts, multiple years of shows on the uh platform here, America Outloud.news.
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  But I lost my wife recently.
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  Totally unexpected, out of the blue.
• 5:13
  Uh we were planning for our whole summer, we were getting ready for my son, my youngest son's wedding, we were living life.
• 5:20
  We were planning parties and getting ready, and and she felt strange.
• 5:25
  She had some pains.
• 5:27
  So I guess this was in late May, early June.
• 5:31
  Well, it led us to a bunch of doctors, and her pain got worse, and it was just an absolutely horrible situation.
• 5:37
  And unfortunately, uh she was given a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia out of the blue.
• 5:45
  And they told us that you know this can last for several years and there's treatment and this and that.
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  Well, she lasted five weeks from the time they told her she had this till the time we lost my sweet Kathleen.
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  Now that's been very difficult.
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  In the in the ensuing three months, uh I've gone through an unbelievable amount of emotional change.
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  You know, I don't even remember the first month.
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  I really don't.
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  I I kind of walked in a daze, I walked in a fog.
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  Uh then the next month I started to recognize that oh my gosh, I can't believe this happened to me.
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  This is terrible.
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  I can't believe this happened to my my beautiful Kathleen.
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  How did how did she get so sick out of nowhere that she's gone?
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  Now, our faith is carrying us, and I know she's in heaven.
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  I have no doubt about it.
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  I know that she's with our Lord because she was a good and faithful servant, and she was a good person, and that's where my faith tells me she is.
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  So I'm I'm good with that.
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  But that first month was a blur.
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  The second month was more of a of a shock, and towards the end of that second month, the shock was wearing off, and you start to realize this really did happen, even if I couldn't fathom it seven weeks earlier or eight weeks earlier, it really did happen.
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  And in the last couple of weeks, I'm coming out of the fog.
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  The fog is starting to clear, and I'm putting things in perspective.
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  And the reason I bring this up is not to elicit, you know, sadness out of anybody.
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  It's to talk about the journey and the journey as we move into the holidays.
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  And this is one of the points that I wanted to make, is that while it is my personal journey I'm going through, I also know other people uh that surprisingly lost people this year.
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  And we talk to each other, and it's I guess that's cathartic.
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  You talk to each other, and you know, what are you doing, how are you doing, how are you coping with this, you know, those kind of things.
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  And uh as we approach the holidays, um, I have to say it's um it's bizarre.
• 8:02
  It it is really bizarre because I want to, I'll always enjoyed the fall holidays.
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  Always some of my most favorite times is the fall.
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  You know, I I always did like uh around here in New Jersey, we have what's called local summer.
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  So the month of September is usually beautiful weather.
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  The ocean is in the 70s, the high 70s, you can swim, and there's no tourists around.
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  That's why it's called local summer.
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  We get to enjoy our beaches and and all our beach community stuff that we can't really do throughout the summer season because it's so inundated with you know, tourists, people who want to come and enjoy this stuff.
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  But September, I always like September because you had beautiful warm days.
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  Uh the ocean was warm, clear skies, really, really nice.
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  Then as we hit October, October, I have to say, other than July, I do love July.
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  High summer is in the month of July.
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  That is just when the earth is is roaring, the temperature is is warm, you can feel that heat, and then you have my garden is growing, everything is really at its peak in July.
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  But when you get to October, October and July fight a battle in my head, which one I like the most.
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  I really love the month of October because you have warm days, and then you have cool, crisp nights.
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  And those nights are nice for a fire in the backyard.
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  I enjoy nothing better than a fire in the backyard in the fire pit with a uh a nice uh aromatic tobacco product, as the great Ronaldus Magnus used to call it, Rush Limba, and a nice bourbon, and either sit there myself and enjoy the stars and the and the sky and all the wonders of uh nature in the fall, or with friends and family and sit around the fire and relax.
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  And there's a conviviality to sitting around a fire.
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  You're not on a phone, you're not on a TV, you're not looking at a screen.
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  You're looking at people.
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  You're talking to people, you're enjoying the nature around you.
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  You know, the warmth of the fire, the crackle of the fire, the color of the flames, the beauty of the stars, all that kind of stuff.
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  So I always loved that.
• 10:08
  And then there's Halloween.
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  And when my kids were little, you know, I love I loved Halloween because the kids would be excited and they would get all dressed up for their costumes, and we would go around the neighborhood with other families.
• 10:22
  And we would all be pulling these wagons, and we had our cocktails with us, and the kids would trick-or-treat, and the parents would all talk to each other, and we had a fairly nice time each and every year.
• 10:33
  And then you move into November, which in New Jersey, believe it or not, you start thinking about, you know, winter's coming in in November.
• 10:41
  And while it can be cool, you also get some just some beautiful weather, just absolutely beautiful, cool weather.
• 10:48
  It's really, it's really nice.
• 10:50
  I always forget how nice November can be.
• 10:53
  You can have some rainy days, which are the portend of the uh winter that's coming, but for the most part, we have nice weather in November, and then we have Thanksgiving.
• 11:03
  Now, Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that everyone can celebrate.
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  There's not really a religious uh holiday to it, other than we do we do give, you know, many of us give thanks to a loving God for all the good things we have, and we think about our uh forefathers and and our ancestors who started the holiday.
• 11:28
  But I always love Thanksgiving, and then we have, you know, the big Thanksgiving day, and for me, you know, we always had all our kids here.
• 11:36
  And with four kids, you have four kids, you have friends, you have family, you have in-laws, uh, my brother and his family.
• 11:43
  It was a big cacophony here in my house.
• 11:46
  And as we had grandchildren starting to join us, you know, it really became a whirlwind, a whirlwind of a day, uh, sometimes a day before, you know, kids coming home from college and stay overnight, and here they are, and so it was really a great thing.
• 12:03
  And then the the minute Thanksgiving is over, you start into the Christmas season.
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  At least we always did that here, Christmas and New Year's season.
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  And I always found it exciting.
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  One of the things that we do every year for the past, oh, it has to be for the past 20 years.
• 12:21
  We rebuilt the deck on the back of my house, and it's a big deck.
• 12:24
  It's uh it's a very big deck that my son Alex and I built.
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  And one of the things I I saw when we were building this deck is that this would be a great place for a deck Christmas tree.
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  And I envisioned having a not a big giant tree, but a smaller tree, you know, uh a four-foot tree out on my deck, uh covered in Christmas lights and garland and a couple of very, very sturdy uh ornaments, and that I would light it up and it would stay lit throughout the entire Christmas season until after New Year's, and in the dark of the night it would be a nice glow.
• 13:02
  Well, let me tell you, it was.
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  Uh for 20 years, I would put that tree out there, and it's you know, it's very dark at night in the back with the lights all out, but that Christmas tree glowed all night long.
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  And there was a neighbor behind me, she was an elderly woman, and she was moving.
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  She had lived there for many, many, many years.
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  And I remember talking to her over the fence and saying goodbye to her, you know, she was a good neighbor, and she says to me, you know, one of the things I have to tell you is that we have always loved that Christmas tree that you put on the deck.
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  Because no matter what time of the night I get up to go to the bathroom or to or to go put it, let the dog out.
• 13:41
  The whole backyards, all of our backyards are pitch black except for that glowing Christmas tree, and it really made us feel Christmassy to see it out there.
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  Going to bed at night with the glow of the Christmas lights in our window.
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  We always liked it.
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  And I didn't even realize that my deck tree had become part of her holiday experience, too.
• 14:02
  So it's it's always been an exciting time, uh, the the Christmas holidays, and then, you know, that that whole holiday week uh topped off.
• 14:11
  We watched movies, we watched Christmas movies every night with ice cream and and with the kids all home and everything and the grandkids.
• 14:18
  And then New Year's, you know, the excitement of a new year, the chance of so the fall is a is a really an amazing time.
• 14:26
  So to get back to my understanding that as we move into this time, we have people who it might not be as magical as it always is for them, depending on what's going on in their life, as it is for me in my life.
• 14:41
  Uh, my beloved Kathleen, she passed away in very early August of this year.
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  Like I said, totally unexpected, out of the blue.
• 14:50
  Um, this disease caught up with her and and just and took her out like just as fast as you can imagine.
• 14:57
  And we swung around the end of summer and we walked into the you know, September, you know, our local summer, and Kathy and I loved going to the beach.
• 15:06
  We loved sitting on the beach and enjoying the beach and smelling the uh the salt water and I couldn't bring myself to go to the beach even once.
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  I just couldn't do it.
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  That was uh that was something that we shared that I just didn't feel right doing on my own.
• 15:22
  So I skipped all of local summer.
• 15:25
  And then in October, we had my son Jack's wedding to his uh beautiful bride, my now daughter, uh well, she's a daughter-in-law, but now she's in the family, so she's my daughter, AV.
• 15:37
  Uh they were to get married in early October, but while Kathy was sick in the hospital, you talk about two wonderful, decent kids.
• 15:45
  Uh Jack and Avi came to me while Kathy was in the hospital, and they said, you know, uh however mom does getting out of this, she's going to be in the hospital for many months.
• 15:56
  So we want to get married right here in her hospital room.
• 15:59
  And we did that.
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  So a week before Kathy passed, uh, these two beautiful young people.
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  They came to her room and they got married.
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  Uh they had their friend who's a priest who's going to do the service.
• 16:11
  He came up from Baltimore, and they got married right in Kathy's room, and she got to be there, which was really a blessing.
• 16:20
  Uh, in that uh she got to see it, she got to be there and experience it.
• 16:24
  Uh a few days later, uh she was, like I said, she was suffering very badly with the with the disease she had.
• 16:33
  And she got she she knew she was done fighting.
• 16:36
  She couldn't fight any longer.
• 16:37
  We all knew, we all knew what was coming, and Kathy knew, and we had the priest in, and she had her last rites, and she had blessings and everything you could possibly have, she had.
• 16:47
  And then she said to me that she wanted to go to heaven.
• 16:51
  She wanted to go to heaven, and that was her wishes, and with the doctors, they all said, well, that's probably a good thing.
• 16:59
  She wants that because that's where this is going.
• 17:01
  This is uh we're not going to beat this this time around.
• 17:04
  This is a very, very aggressive, I think they called it the one percent of cancer in the world that grabs you and just takes you out.
• 17:12
  It's like a freight train, there's no stopping it.
• 17:14
  And they all assured us that that was uh that was the reality, and it was, but uh, and Kathy passed peacefully and quietly with her family, all of us around her, but we all got to tell her we loved her.
• 17:27
  She got to tell us she loved us.
• 17:29
  She got to be there at the wedding.
• 17:31
  So there were a lot of blessings.
• 17:34
  As we moved uh past that, and we got into the fall season, we had the wedding.
• 17:39
  We actually had the wedding.
• 17:41
  We uh, you know, we had already paid for it, it was all booked, and the guests were all invited.
• 17:47
  So we had the wedding as a celebration of Jack and Avi's love, and we, you know, we did the church service, we did everything, and we had a wonderful, wonderful party.
• 17:57
  And everyone really uh celebrated them, and we got through that.
• 18:02
  But it was it was difficult because the entire time my wife wasn't there with me, and she was supposed to be there.
• 18:09
  You know, for my kids, she was supposed to be there, but she wasn't.
• 18:13
  But we got through that.
• 18:15
  As a family, we pulled together and got through it.
• 18:18
  And now as we pull out of that, um, then we the the next big holiday is um was uh Halloween, which, you know, my kids are all grown, so I'm not trick-or-treating.
• 18:30
  But I normally put out some lights and I put out some pumpkins and all, and I just didn't feel like doing that.
• 18:36
  I just didn't it just didn't feel right to decorate, you know, to put stuff out.
• 18:39
  But I got a bowl of candy, and when the kids came by, I gave all the little kids uh their candy, you know, they it's not their fault that something happened in my family.
• 18:48
  But now, as we're moving towards Thanksgiving, I have lots of friends and family that are calling me, texting me, emailing me, um, being supportive.
• 19:00
  You know, being my friend, uh telling me how much they love us and Miss Kathy, and you know, they know it's gonna be a hard Thanksgiving, um, but they want us to know that they're there.
• 19:09
  So I I do appreciate all of that.
• 19:11
  It's really, it's really been wonderful.
• 19:13
  The people have been wonderful.
• 19:14
  But I have to tell you, I told you about the the things that happened while she was in the hospital.
• 19:21
  Uh, my son getting married, uh, Kathy getting to say goodbye to us, us getting to tell her we loved her, uh, all the nurses gathering around at the wedding.
• 19:29
  It was it was beautiful.
• 19:31
  That I am very thankful that we had that opportunity.
• 19:36
  Because I know a lot of people do not get that opportunity to say goodbye.
• 19:40
  They just don't.
• 19:41
  You know, things happen.
• 19:42
  People get in a car accident.
• 19:44
  For a lot of you, you might have lost somebody in a car accident this year.
• 19:48
  You know, they go off to work, they go off to an event, they go to do something, and then there's a there's a terrible accident, and they don't come home.
• 19:55
  You don't ever get to say you love them.
• 19:57
  You don't ever get to hear from them.
• 19:59
  They're just gonna
• 20:00
  On.
• 20:00
  And I know that that happens.
• 20:02
  Um, and it's a terrible thing.
• 20:04
  So when I look back on the difficult time that our family had, that my Kathy had.
• 20:11
  I am thankful that we had that time.
• 20:14
  I'm thankful for the doctors who were honest with me about what was going on.
• 20:19
  They weren't playing false hope.
• 20:21
  They were telling us, you know, she's comfortable, but this this disease is going to win this game.
• 20:28
  We're going to try our best.
• 20:29
  And they did.
• 20:30
  I can't tell you how hard that all the doctors and nurses and everybody worked.
• 20:33
  It was amazing.
• 20:35
  But they were honest with us, and it allowed us to prepare ourselves.
• 20:39
  So I'm thankful for those doctors and those nurses.
• 20:42
  I'm thankful for my faith that got me and my family through this, and this faith that I know comforted Kathleen as she left this world.
• 20:51
  So you might have friends who are suffering with grief.
• 20:58
  And I can tell you, I never knew there was a whole world to grief.
• 21:01
  You know, I I uh I lost my mom, you know, we all lose moms, and I was sad for a while, and but I was a grown adult.
• 21:08
  You know, you kind of expect that.
• 21:09
  Losing a spouse.
• 21:10
  I would have to say uh it's gotta be somewhat akin to losing a child, because these are people that you protect, that you love, that you take care of.
• 21:19
  They're more directly connected to you than our moms and dads when we're adults, not when we're kids.
• 21:25
  When you're kids, it's it's a child, it's terrible thing to lose a parent.
• 21:29
  But when you're an adult and you lose a parent, that's the expected way life goes, right?
• 21:33
  We all know that's gonna happen.
• 21:35
  But I had no idea that grief took on its the whole life of its own, where some days you just feel like not moving, not getting out of bed at all.
• 21:46
  Some days you get up, you get dressed, you're you you're gonna have a good day, you're gonna push forward, you you got things to do, and you have your coffee, and then you sit on the couch and you don't move for three and a half, four hours.
• 21:57
  You just play with your phone, you stare out the window, you pet the dog.
• 22:00
  Next thing you know, your day is gone.
• 22:03
  And then you have other days where you are very productive and you're engaged and you're doing things.
• 22:08
  For me personally, I had to get back to work.
• 22:11
  I had to I had to get my act together and start earning money so I could pay for my life, right?
• 22:17
  I have to feed myself, pay a mortgage, old cars, all that stuff.
• 22:20
  So I had to get back to work, and I'm blessed.
• 22:23
  I get to work from home a lot.
• 22:25
  So I would be working, and I would have a great morning.
• 22:28
  From eight o'clock till 12 30 in the afternoon, I was just pounding it down, going crazy, doing off some what, and then I'd stop for lunch and then lose all my desire to do anything, and I would just sit in my office and stare at a computer screen until 5 o'clock.
• 22:44
  Then I just turn off the lights and disappear up into my house and be ready for bed, right?
• 22:49
  So when you if you have friends and family, it doesn't have to be recent.
• 22:53
  Mine is mine is very recent.
• 22:55
  Mine is very fresh.
• 22:56
  Um, but I have a good friend of mine who lost his wife four years ago.
• 23:02
  Four years ago, and he is still suffering.
• 23:05
  He is still having a really hard time with it.
• 23:08
  He functions, he goes to work, he has hobbies, he does all that stuff.
• 23:12
  But unfortunately for him, he he still hits bumps.
• 23:17
  Now, for me, looking at him, going, okay, I see he's he's back to the world.
• 23:22
  He's engaged, he's doing things.
• 23:24
  So I guess I will probably be engaged again at some point.
• 23:28
  I don't feel like it right now, but I feel like I will be.
• 23:30
  This show is is been very helpful to me.
• 23:32
  Receiving your emails and hearing from people that like the show or don't like the show or whatever.
• 23:38
  It's it's giving me a purpose, right?
• 23:40
  It's giving me something to do to be able to tell my story.
• 23:43
  That's been very cathartic for me.
• 23:45
  But not everybody has this uh avenue.
• 23:49
  So if you have someone who is uh in grief, whether it's five years ago, two years ago, or last week, keep in mind there is no right or wrong with how you grieve.
• 24:00
  Uh everybody does it their own way.
• 24:03
  I was just telling somebody the other day, they said, Boy, you you're doing the show and you're working, and seems like it seems like you're doing okay.
• 24:10
  And that kind of hit me like a hammer.
• 24:13
  I'm like, I had a blast of guilt.
• 24:16
  What does that mean?
• 24:18
  I'm doing well.
• 24:19
  How can I be doing well?
• 24:21
  I lost my wife.
• 24:22
  I lost my best friend.
• 24:24
  You know, it was it was it was something I had to contemplate for a while and say, well, I realize you put on this smiley face for people.
• 24:33
  You put on a smiley face when people are around.
• 24:36
  Or you get distracted when people are around, and it allows you to begin to function.
• 24:42
  So like I was telling you, that first month was a I couldn't tell you what I did for that whole month, couldn't say anything, day to day.
• 24:48
  Don't know what I did, just walked in circles.
• 24:51
  Second month I started to wake up, third month, I'm coming out of the fog, and that's when you start to interact with people, but some people don't move for six months or a year.
• 25:02
  Uh so my point is as we move into these holidays.
• 25:06
  Keep in mind that not everyone is having the greatest time of their lives.
• 25:10
  It's not the greatest holiday forever.
• 25:12
  Um, but there is there is hope that we can all uh make the most of your time.
• 25:18
  So I was in church and and our our pastor is giving his uh homily, and he says, Listen, I know I know the holidays are coming.
• 25:26
  This was his theme that, you know, and it's tough.
• 25:28
  A lot of people have lost somebody this year, and it's really tough time.
• 25:32
  But think of it this way.
• 25:34
  God has kept you here, and he expects you to make the most out of the time that you have been given.
• 25:41
  And I that that really that really struck me.
• 25:44
  That really struck me hard.
• 25:45
  And I thought about that, and I said, well, first of all, had I been the one who died, what would I want Kathy to be doing?
• 25:53
  Well, I'd want her to be living.
• 25:54
  I'd want her to be enjoying things, enjoying her holiday as best as she could.
• 25:59
  Go with her her children and her grandchildren and her friends and try and live her life.
• 26:04
  You can't spend every minute mourning me that I'm gone, because soon we'll be together in heaven, right?
• 26:10
  And that's our faith, and that's the bedrock uh blessing uh of our faith.
• 26:15
  That's another thing I said.
• 26:16
  I'm thankful that I have that faith because it is helping me, even though I have good days and I have bad days.
• 26:23
  So when you come across someone uh who's lost somebody, you know, be extra kind.
• 26:29
  Take a minute.
• 26:30
  Um don't offer them platitudes like, well, they're in a better place, you know.
• 26:34
  I know people say that and they mean to say it because they're trying to be uh comforting and this and that and the other thing.
• 26:40
  What we really want to hear is, you know, did you like the person?
• 26:43
  Do you miss them too?
• 26:44
  We all miss them, and then ask them, you know, what do you do in these days?
• 26:47
  That I found has really been helpful to me.
• 26:49
  So a lot of my friends, business associates and friends have been, hey, come to this business meeting.
• 26:54
  Hey, let's go to this.
• 26:55
  What's your ideas in that?
• 26:57
  That has really helped me.
• 26:58
  So that's what I'm thankful for as we move into this holiday season.
• 27:04
  Uh I will be thankful that God has given me a little bit more time with my children, my friends, my grandchildren, and with all of you.
• 27:11
  And I'm going to make the most of it as best I can and try not to feel guilty that I'm enjoying that time that God gave me.
• 27:20
  It's not going to be easy.
• 27:21
  Like I said, I still have good days and bad days, and I just I can't believe that I'm here alone.
• 27:26
  But I have a lot to be thankful for, and Kathy and I had a great run.
• 27:31
  So I'm trying to keep that in the forefront of my mind as we talk about it.
• 27:34
  So the holidays are coming.
• 27:36
  When we come back, we're going to talk more about the holidays, and then we're going to cover some of the crazy other things going on in the world.
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• 29:50
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• 30:00
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• 30:02
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• 30:06
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• 30:15
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• 30:29
  Okay, we are back.
• 30:31
  Alright, so my producer here is staring at me and said, Boy, you got a little heavy there.
• 30:38
  Maybe that was depressing to people.
• 30:39
  I hope it wasn't depressing.
• 30:41
  I just know going into the holidays, this is a new experience for me.
• 30:44
  This is a human experience, right?
• 30:47
  It's part of the human equation dealing with these kind of things, and I wanted to talk about it because I know there are thousands and thousands and thousands of you out there listening.
• 30:56
  Uh all over the world, all over the place.
• 30:58
  And some of you might be going through the same thing.
• 31:00
  Or you went through it two years ago, and I wanted to talk about a little bit, and for those who haven't gone through it, uh, kind of give you some insight into this part of the human equation, this understanding of a person, right?
• 31:12
  So thank you for letting me go through that.
• 31:15
  I really do appreciate it.
• 31:16
  And when I talk about the holidays, you know, one of the things I noticed as a law enforcement officer was that people, uh, people who are, let's just say they're not good people, say they're bad people, say they're criminal people out there, there's evil, right?
• 31:32
  There really is evil in the world.
• 31:34
  These people will take advantage in any way they possibly can.
• 31:39
  And one of the things that we find, uh, when I first became a police officer, I was in a nice community, it had crime, crime around it, but it had very nice parts of the town.
• 31:50
  I remember I started in the summer, and by the time we got around to Christmas, it was it was a different world, you know, seeing the world from a cop car uh at Christmas, working shift work and this and that and the other thing.
• 32:02
  But I remember uh the sergeant at the briefing, it was day shift, day for day shift briefing, uh seven in the morning till three in the afternoon, and was probably early December, probably early first week or so of December, and the Sarge's given us the briefing, you know, watch out for this person, they're wanted, look out for this car, it's stolen, look out for this, you know, the trends, things you do in briefing.
• 32:22
  And he says, hey, and don't forget, we're now into December.
• 32:26
  Uh keep your eyes open on your residences.
• 32:28
  Uh, there was a particular part of town, uh, we'll call the holly section.
• 32:33
  And he says, in the holly section, every year for the past 10 or 15 years, we have the holly section burglar.
• 32:40
  We don't know who it is, could be different people every time, but that section of town just seems to get hit with home burglaries in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
• 32:52
  So over the years they've caught people, you know, but then the next year to be another set.
• 32:56
  So the the point was is that this was a regular part of the routine that they understood.
• 33:02
  And this police department, and as a new cop, I was learning that, pay attention for the Christmas burglar, which started to help me to understand how there are rhythms and there are patterns to human behavior.
• 33:15
  And if this was the same person, over and over and over again that was at Christmas time hitting these houses, that become part of their pattern, and that would lead us eventually down the road as a detective to catch the Christmas burglar.
• 33:30
  Uh and we did.
• 33:31
  We we figured out the kind of houses they were hitting, with the time of day that they hit, and we did surveillances, and me and my partners ended up catching a Christmas burglar who who admitted to you know several burglaries this season, this particular season we caught them, and then to the year before a couple early.
• 33:50
  Wouldn't talk about any others, but told about you know those four or five altogether.
• 33:54
  And that was uh interesting because we learned what was going on.
• 33:58
  So holidays can lead people who are of nefarious mindset to do bad things.
• 34:04
  And when you're shopping, you are at a particular disadvantage when you're out and about shopping.
• 34:11
  Because, you know, sometimes you're excited, you have a lot of packages.
• 34:15
  If you go to a mall, now what's really different in our world today is the uh the shopping that most of us do now is online, right?
• 34:25
  You you go on a computer screen, you look up what you want, you hit a button, and it's delivered to your house.
• 34:31
  And that's that's been very convenient.
• 34:33
  I found that very convenient uh because you get what you want, you can ship it back if you don't like it, and it's there like in a day.
• 34:40
  But many people will continue the traditional type of shopping.
• 34:44
  They're going out and they're picking up things in a store, a brick and mortar store.
• 34:48
  They'll go out and they'll be riding on trains.
• 34:51
  They'll be riding uh uh, you know, they'll be walking through malls, they'll be going to places where there's lots of people to do an event or something.
• 34:58
  And criminals will gravitate to those places and they will take advantage of you.
• 35:04
  That and scams, and we'll talk about scams in a little bit.
• 35:08
  So one of the things I did, I wrote this article, like I said, stay safe by shopping, holiday tips, safety tips for shoppers, and I'll see if I can get the great Malcolm Out Loud to put this up on the platform.
• 35:18
  Uh it's a little different than the normal articles that are up there, so I don't know if he will or not, but if you want it, you can email me directly, J Pangaro at America Outloud.news.
• 35:30
  J P-A-N-G-A-R-O, right?
• 35:33
  J Pangaro at America Outloud.news, and say, hey Joe, I'd like that article, and I'll send you a copy of your own.
• 35:41
  And like I said, you could pass it on to your family, your friends, uh, so that they just help people to remember some things.
• 35:47
  Because there's a lot of information here that's uh, you know, we all say, okay, be safe, be careful when you go out, but I look at things.
• 35:54
  So one of the things that we used to see at brick and mortar stores was that people would go to multiple stores, right?
• 36:01
  You go to this store, you go to that store, you run around, and then you have a tendency to put the packages in the car.
• 36:06
  Put your packages in the trunk of the car.
• 36:10
  Because a lot of criminals will scan the parking lots, and they look and they see packages in the back seat.
• 36:16
  Now, while you may never smash open a window and steal things out of a car, there are a lot of people who will.
• 36:24
  And it's kind of like the dog when the dog sees the rabbit, right?
• 36:28
  It goes chasing when it sees the rabbit when the rabbit runs.
• 36:30
  Well, for criminals, when they see stuff in your car, uh that's their that's the trigger for them to smash the window, take the stuff in the in the car and get out of there.
• 36:40
  And you don't want to come out, your window's broken, all your stuff's been stolen.
• 36:43
  Put it in the trunk.
• 36:45
  All right, put it in a trunk and lock it down, leave as little stuff as you can in there.
• 36:50
  What when it comes to this kind of a thought, a couple years ago I did a uh I did a threat assessment for a very, very high-end private school in the San Francisco area.
• 37:01
  And Kathleen and I went out there together.
• 37:03
  We were out there for two weeks doing the assessment.
• 37:06
  And while I was there, we we toured around San Francisco a little bit.
• 37:09
  Not into the areas where the poop's all over the ground, but you know, the Golden Gate Bridge and some of the parks and uh some of the places you could hike, and it was really beautiful.
• 37:18
  California is beautiful, it's even if it's crazy politically.
• 37:22
  And everywhere we went, we were warned by people who live there.
• 37:27
  Don't leave anything visible in your car.
• 37:30
  Nothing, not a bottle of water, not a phone charger, nothing.
• 37:35
  If they see anything in your car, they will break your window to go in and get it, hide everything in the trunk.
• 37:42
  There should be nothing.
• 37:43
  And I, uh yeah, right.
• 37:45
  And then you start to see these signs everywhere we went.
• 37:48
  A picture of a of a person with a mask on uh and holding a bag of goods, and it says, Don't leave things visible in your car everywhere, in the parks, in the downtown area, at the Golden Gate Bridge parking, everywhere we went because it was it was that prevalent.
• 38:04
  There was people gonna rob your car.
• 38:06
  So people will steal everything.
• 38:07
  So at Christmas time, at any time, any holiday, Christmas, uh, Kwanzaa, whatever it is you're shopping for, if you got packages, put them in a trunk, get them out of sight.
• 38:17
  I plan ahead.
• 38:19
  Plan ahead, make a plan.
• 38:21
  Create a shopping list, set a budget to avoid unnecessary distractions, choose shopping centers or districts that you know have good lighting.
• 38:28
  You know, where do they have where do the police officers walking around?
• 38:31
  Do they have patrols?
• 38:32
  Lots of towns will add extra patrols out in the streets during the holidays, so that uh there's more people around and and more cops and then makes everyone feel better, and criminals have a tendency to go somewhere else when they see cops.
• 38:47
  So by planning ahead, that's good.
• 38:49
  If possible, shop during daylight hours, right?
• 38:52
  And if you can't, then stay in well-lit areas.
• 38:55
  Park your car as close to the building as you can, right?
• 38:59
  Underneath a light post.
• 39:00
  That seems like a common sense kind of a thing.
• 39:03
  Make sure you lock your door and keep everything out of sight.
• 39:06
  All right, share your plans with a family member or a friend.
• 39:09
  Tell people where you're going to be.
• 39:16
  We would get our list for all the four kids and everyone we buy for, and we would leave at eight o'clock in the morning, go to breakfast, and then we would shop all day, stop for lunch, have cocktails in the afternoon.
• 39:25
  We made a day out of it.
• 39:26
  It was a lot of fun.
• 39:27
  It was a it was a fun thing to do.
• 39:29
  But our car was filled with stuff, and we used to have to stuff everything in the trunk, right?
• 39:33
  Because I yeah, practice what I preach.
• 39:36
  And uh you could see that uh she had me there with her, right?
• 39:40
  But she would also during the week say, Listen, I'm gonna return these three things, and I gotta pick up these two other things, and she'd go out after dinner, and I'd remind her, hey, make sure you park in a well-lit area, keep things out of there, you know, pay attention when you're walking with packages, all those kind of things, because you could certainly become a victim that way.
• 39:57
  So keep that in mind where you put
• 40:00
  Park your car, park it in a well-lit area, parking underneath a light.
• 40:04
  Um as you're leaving to go to your car, if there's security, ask them to walk you to the car.
• 40:10
  Because here's something that criminals will do a lot.
• 40:12
  If they they're not going to attack your car, but what they'll do is they'll hang out in the parking lot or outside the building somewhere, and they'll see an individual that they consider to be vulnerable.
• 40:23
  Maybe an older person or a woman, or it could be a man too, and they see you carrying a lot of packages, you know, your hands are full, and you're walking out into this dark parking lot, and they just follow right in behind you, right?
• 40:38
  This happens all the time.
• 40:40
  So pay attention.
• 40:42
  Look around.
• 40:42
  Take a minute to look around.
• 40:45
  Carry a pepper spray if it's legal in your community.
• 40:48
  Uh put your keys between your fingers so that if someone tries to attack you, you can when you swing, you have a little bit of power there, right?
• 40:54
  You want to protect yourself when you're out there.
• 40:57
  Um so keep that in mind.
• 40:59
  That's important where you park your car, where you put your stuff, and make sure you get your eyes open, your head on a swivel.
• 41:06
  That's called situational awareness.
• 41:09
  Be aware of what's around you.
• 41:11
  And if you're nervous, don't go walking out into the parking lot.
• 41:15
  And if you're walking out into the parking lot and you see a person or a couple of people, and they don't look like they're loading their car, they're just kind of hanging around waiting for you as you're coming, turn around and go back into the store.
• 41:26
  And tell somebody, hey, can you uh can you get me some security, walk me out to the car?
• 41:31
  Common sense things that we don't always do.
• 41:34
  All right.
• 41:34
  Uh staying aware.
• 41:36
  Uh busy and distractions are everywhere.
• 41:39
  Keep your phone used to a minimum where you're walking, right?
• 41:42
  That's another thing I see people doing all the time.
• 41:44
  You're going from one place to another, and then the phone rings, you're carrying packages, you're going to your car, you're excited, you're having fun, and you're having this conversation.
• 41:52
  You're talking to your friend, you're telling them where you're going, what you're gonna buy.
• 41:56
  What are you gonna eat next Thursday for lunch?
• 41:58
  Those are vulnerable moments that you're walking out to your vehicle, and if you're on your phone, you're being distracted.
• 42:06
  Right?
• 42:06
  This is something they tell you if you go into the city, right?
• 42:09
  What did they used to say?
• 42:10
  Oh, when I was a kid, they say if you go to the city, you don't look like a tourist, don't be sitting looking up at the big buildings, pay attention to what's going on around you.
• 42:17
  Well, our phones are our worst enemies.
• 42:19
  No matter where we're walking, we're looking on those phones, looking on those phones, right?
• 42:23
  Put the phone down, get in your car, lock the door, and look around.
• 42:28
  Make sure there's nobody around, make sure there's nobody in your car.
• 42:31
  If you left it unlocked, bad guys will also jump into the car and get in the back seat and be ducked down.
• 42:37
  You get in the car, now they're in the car with you.
• 42:40
  And we all know that in some of our cities, we've heard about it, lots and lots of carjackings, right?
• 42:46
  So you don't want to get jacked in the parking lot uh and get robbed of all your stuff.
• 42:50
  So pay attention to what you're doing.
• 42:53
  There's a there's a there's a thing out there now called jugging, J-U-G-G-I-N-G, jugging.
• 42:59
  That's a that's a new, well, it's not new, it's a it's it's a robbery, really, is what it is a carjacking, robbery, but it's now being called jugging.
• 43:06
  Hey, let's go jugging.
• 43:07
  And what they do is that people will go up to the ATM, right?
• 43:11
  You're up at the ATM, you're looking at the ATM, you're not paying attention to where you went to the ATM, and people come up behind you, and they can either grab your money when it comes out of the machine, uh, punch you in the face, rob you with a weapon, and then take all your stuff and run.
• 43:27
  Look around, where are you?
• 43:29
  If you know you're gonna be shopping, get your money before you go, so you don't have to be going to the ATM at night in the neighborhood you're not familiar with, right?
• 43:37
  So you don't get involved in jugging and getting ripped off.
• 43:40
  All right, so common sense things.
• 43:42
  If you got cash, don't be counting out big large amounts of cash.
• 43:46
  Cash is what people are looking to steal.
• 43:50
  So you're in the store and you're paying for your $200 worth of gifts, and you whip out a watt of cash and you're counting out 200, and it's obviously a lot left, more than 200 in your pile.
• 44:00
  Well, you just made yourself a target.
• 44:02
  And I gotta tell you, sometimes people who are working in these stores work with their friends and they see a vulnerable person with a pile of money, and they get on their phone and tell their friend who's out in the parking lot, hey, listen, uh, this lady is like this, this old guy is in here, he's got a watt of cash, he's wearing a blue jacket, and he's heading out to his car in about two minutes and they're waiting out there for him.
• 44:26
  You can't believe it that that somebody would do that.
• 44:29
  People will do lots of things to steal from other people.
• 44:32
  You don't want to be a victim.
• 44:34
  All right, protect your belongings, uh, crowded spaces or prime spots for theft.
• 44:39
  So I said you're walking talking on a phone, and boom, they grab your phone and they're gone.
• 44:43
  Uh they grab your purse and they're gone.
• 44:45
  Wear your purse around your shoulder and keep the bag in front of you so you have good control of it.
• 44:52
  If somebody gets your purse and they start fighting you for it, let it go.
• 45:00
  All right, unless you think you can beat this person, why would you want to take a punch to the face, a knife to the guts, or get shot over a purse and some money?
• 45:09
  Right?
• 45:09
  So if somebody's if they're gonna get it, let them get it.
• 45:12
  Another one that we see a lot uh with purses that the ladies have put the purse in the carriage and they're walking out to the car, people will run up, knock them over, knock over the cart and grab that purse and go.
• 45:24
  Protect your property, protect your things, hide them in.
• 45:27
  I went to Europe uh a couple years ago, and one of the things we were told before we left, passports, money, anything valuable, go in one of those uh things you wear around your neck, and it's got a pocket for all that stuff, and you put that underneath your shirt because pickpockets are everywhere in Europe, and they are.
• 45:45
  We've we've seen them everywhere.
• 45:46
  We're on the train and we talk to people who were there for the for the same you know, week, ten days we were there, and we found four or five people, Americans who got pickpocketed.
• 45:55
  Yeah, they were, you know, looking at something, they put their uh put their phone in their pocket and they got jostled, their phone's gone, their their uh whatchalp, their their uh passports gone, stolen, their wallets gone.
• 46:06
  Pay attention and protect your belongings.
• 46:08
  Think a little bit as you're making your move.
• 46:11
  Because going out from the store is a time of vulnerability, right?
• 46:16
  So you want to be careful.
• 46:18
  When you're using your credit cards and ATM inside the stores, we're mostly okay.
• 46:26
  But there are uh there are machines, there are machines that people can put on an ATM on a parking lot thing when you know you put your credit card in to buy your parking.
• 46:37
  Uh any place that you can plug that card into outside in the world.
• 46:43
  There are uh scammers that will put a device on there that looks just like the machine.
• 46:48
  It's pretty much a plastic copy of the machine interface, and it goes right over the top so that your card can slide in to the machine and you pull it back out, and you think you're just using the machine when in reality that piece they put on there, even though it's very thin, it has a card reader in it.
• 47:06
  And what it does is it reads all your numbers from your credit card or your uh your bank card or whatever you're using, and it skims all those numbers.
• 47:17
  Now they have your numbers, you put in your pin number, that's registered, everything's registered, then they can go use your card numbers uh to buy things that you didn't do.
• 47:27
  And it most banks will give you back your money, but boy, what a hassle it is.
• 47:31
  So I took a bunch of family members over to New York for the day two Christmases ago.
• 47:38
  Bunch of kids came in from Florida and they all wanted to go, and we ended up parking the car in Hoboken, Hoboka, New Jersey.
• 47:44
  Beautiful little community.
• 47:46
  It's really a nice little town.
• 47:48
  And there were a lot of public parking lots around with these things that look like an ATM hanging on a pole, and you go in, you plug in your card, you put in your license plate number, and you buy the amount of parking you want.
• 48:02
  Two hours, eight hours, ten hours.
• 48:03
  You pull it out, you get a receipt, put it in the window, and you're good to go.
• 48:06
  You can leave it there and you're all good.
• 48:08
  Well, we did that, and we were there for for the day, you know, eight hours or so in the city.
• 48:13
  We went into the city, we saw the tree, we saw all this stuff.
• 48:15
  It was beautiful, wonderful, wonderful day.
• 48:17
  We come home, there's the car, everybody loads in, away we go.
• 48:20
  Two days later, I saw my card being used in stores in California.
• 48:25
  Now, I was not in California at the time.
• 48:27
  I was in Hoboken, New Jersey.
• 48:29
  And I called up my bank and they said, Oh, they must have got you with a skimmer.
• 48:33
  Now they returned all my money, but what a hassle.
• 48:35
  I had to go and change all my prepaid things, you know, you set things up for auto pay and all that.
• 48:40
  I had to change everything.
• 48:41
  They got me with a skimmer, right?
• 48:43
  Because it looks exactly like the machine.
• 48:45
  And I was distracted, I had all these kids there.
• 48:47
  I didn't sit normally when I use that, because they do them at gas stations too, right?
• 48:52
  You go to a place where it doesn't look so sh to it looks a little shady.
• 48:55
  They could put them on the gas station things too.
• 48:58
  And I'm looking at that, and I usually pick at it a little bit, see if it'll come off.
• 49:01
  If it doesn't come off, I'm I'm more confident.
• 49:04
  So you got to be very, very careful what you do so you don't get scammed.
• 49:08
  All right.
• 49:09
  Uh and now the uh so that's uh that's our shopping stuff.
• 49:13
  When it comes to online internet and those kind of things for the holidays, you want to pay attention because you can get scammed very easily.
• 49:25
  Most of us are not criminals.
• 49:27
  Most of us are decent people, we're nice people, and we see things come across our phone, we see emails or we see texts and and that kind of thing.
• 49:37
  Uh Ted, my father-in-law has fallen victim to multiple scams because somebody will send him a text and they'll offer him something that seems wow, that's great.
• 49:49
  I'd love to have that.
• 49:50
  Just follow this link.
• 49:51
  And he clicks the links and he follows the links.
• 49:54
  And next thing you know, they're asking him, Oh, we'll send this to you, just give us your credit card number.
• 49:59
  And he
• 50:00
  He gives them the number, and next thing you know, the card's being used for hundreds of dollars all over the country because they stole his numbers because he gave it to them and that kind of thing.
• 50:09
  So there's a thing called a fishing attack.
• 50:12
  Fishing, not like throwing a hook in the water, P H I S I N G fishing.
• 50:17
  A fishing attack is when you get an email that looks like it's coming from the electric company, or looks like it's coming from your credit card company, or from your ATM company, or for anything else that you do business with.
• 50:33
  And they use their logos a lot of time, their stolen logos, and they make these uh these emails look real, and they tell you there's a problem with your credit card.
• 50:44
  Click this link so that we can straighten this out.
• 50:47
  And what do you do?
• 50:48
  People get nervous, or they click the link.
• 50:50
  The minute you click the link, they're connected to your phone, connected to your computer, they can go in electronically and steal all your information.
• 50:59
  Right?
• 50:59
  If somebody most legitimate creditors, credit card companies are not going to send you a text and say, follow this link and fix your credit card right now.
• 51:10
  They will tell you, is this a purchase you just made?
• 51:13
  Dial the phone number that you know to be the credit card company or your bank and ask them, did you just send me a text telling me to follow a link?
• 51:22
  And they'll tell you, no, we didn't.
• 51:23
  That was a phishing scam.
• 51:25
  Right.
• 51:26
  I worked in a school as a director of school security, and on a Friday afternoon, one of the uh clerical staff received a an email on her school email address.
• 51:43
  Excuse me.
• 51:44
  And basically it said, hey, unfortunately, there's a problem with your credit card.
• 51:49
  Follow this link.
• 51:50
  And she looked at it, and there was the logo, the name of the bank, the address.
• 51:53
  So she followed the link.
• 51:55
  Confirm that your card is in your possession.
• 51:57
  And she got her card out, and she punched in all the information and said, okay, thank you so much.
• 52:02
  Uh your card is secure.
• 52:03
  Well, now they got all our information.
• 52:05
  And then they ended up stealing.
• 52:08
  They also got into the system because she clicked the link, and now they affected all the computers in the school.
• 52:13
  It was a nightmare.
• 52:15
  So what I tell Ted and what I tell everybody is if you get a message like that, don't click any links, don't follow any links, don't buy anything online from people you don't know that you didn't ask for.
• 52:29
  Call them on the phone at a number you know to be legitimate and say, hey, did you send me this?
• 52:36
  And if they didn't, you'll know it was a scam and you'll save yourself a lot of problems.
• 52:41
  All right.
• 52:41
  So scams, uh shopping safety, all these kind of things.
• 52:47
  This is the holiday time of year.
• 52:49
  We have to think about those things to make sure that we're okay, we're safe, and we enjoy the holiday.
• 52:56
  So I'm glad we covered all of that stuff.
• 52:59
  I I I really am.
• 53:01
  We're good.
• 53:01
  We'll talk for a couple of minutes about some topical things uh in the news.
• 53:06
  Uh the Epstein files.
• 53:08
  This is percolating up, this is bubbling up.
• 53:11
  Most of these things we already got.
• 53:13
  Uh I think a lot of us are anticipating that there's some list somewhere with the names of these men on there who wanted to uh abuse these young girls, and they're very well might be.
• 53:24
  Uh, you know, if uh this guy was running a uh uh a prostitution ring where he was abusing these young girls, there might be a list of his best customers.
• 53:33
  But I've done prostitution stings, and a lot of times we had regular customers coming in and out of these places, and we saw when we went in there and did the raids uh that the people's real names were not in there.
• 53:47
  They were given um uh some other kind of a pseudonym.
• 53:51
  So LL4 is not the person's name, is not Johnny Jackson's real name.
• 53:58
  They didn't put down Johnny Jackson came in and then had sex with the prostitute.
• 54:02
  They call him LL4, and they'll put L L4 came in, saw uh girl number three, paid 500.
• 54:10
  Well, unless you have that key, like in a map, a map key to know who who is LL3, who is that?
• 54:17
  Right?
• 54:17
  You you're not you might not see names.
• 54:20
  You might see other kinds of uh writings to indicate who people are, and the only people that would know that really is Jelane Maxwell, the bad person, and Epstein who's dead.
• 54:31
  So we're gonna get these things.
• 54:33
  You know, Trump didn't want to release them, now he wants to release them, and now we're finding out there's a lot of people who had interactions with this Epstein guy before he was convicted of any kind of uh criminal sexual problems, because he was convicted, uh, not of the things that people think he should have been convicted of, but other things.
• 54:52
  And a lot of these people, politicians and rich people were still texting him, emailing him, going back and forth with him.
• 54:59
  Not necessarily about the sex trade, but other things.
• 55:03
  And people are jumping up and down and screaming, huh?
• 55:06
  If somebody engaged in improper, illegal sexual assaults of these young girls, I don't care who it is, they should go to prison, right?
• 55:16
  That's just that's a that's an ugly thing in in our lives.
• 55:20
  And if anyone, I don't care if anyone engaged in it, I care who they are, what party they're from, they should be held accountable.
• 55:26
  But a lot of things you might find are going to be more cloaked than that, and it's gonna be hard to figure out some of that stuff.
• 55:33
  It's it's it's a dark, nefarious world when people are committing crime.
• 55:37
  They're not as stupid as some people think they are.
• 55:39
  So we want to keep that in mind.
• 55:40
  We'll see, we'll see what comes out.
• 55:43
  Uh recently we saw that there's they're they're trying to change uh voting districts to change the Congress, right?
• 55:51
  So we can't get people elected the way we want, so we're gonna change the voting districts so that we can elect more of whatever party it is.
• 55:59
  So Texas was gonna create five new Republican districts, and then California said, Well, we're gonna create ten new Democrat districts, and we're gonna go back and forth.
• 56:10
  And Texas actually did it uh legally.
• 56:13
  Uh they had a law passed that made these new districts.
• 56:16
  You can agree with it or not agree with it, but they did it legally.
• 56:20
  Well, a judge, a three-panel judge just viewed it and came out and threw the law out and said, No, you can't do it.
• 56:27
  So there's a big controversy going on there.
• 56:30
  You know, our judges, and I and I think we're gonna look at we're gonna do some law stuff coming up in a couple of episodes, because I think we need to cover some of these things to understand.
• 56:41
  These judges that are reaching down into the system.
• 56:44
  What is the purpose of the judge?
• 56:46
  The judge is to look and see if everything was done properly and to see if things are constitutional.
• 56:51
  Not to make new law, not to uh do things politically because they don't agree with Texas getting five extra seats, which would give the Republicans power, so we're gonna throw that out.
• 57:00
  That's not the judge's job.
• 57:02
  The judge's job is to look at that law that was passed and compare it to the Constitution, and if it was constitutional, then you well, then well, that's what Texas decided to do.
• 57:13
  If you don't like it, you vote for somebody else that's not gonna do those things, right?
• 57:17
  The court should not be going in there and deciding that, well, we don't think that's right to do.
• 57:22
  Well, it's not up to you to decide right or wrong, constitutional or not.
• 57:26
  All right, so we're gonna go into all of these things.
• 57:28
  I want to thank you all for being here.
• 57:30
  You know, have a have a great holiday season, have a a great evening, a great weekend, enjoy yourself every day, and thank you for being here.
• 57:38
  I really mean that.
• 57:39
  Uh I hope uh I hope my words you find interesting, and I hope you learn some things, and we will see you down the road.
• 57:47
  Thank you, my friends.
• 57:48
  Have a great day.