THE BIG SHIFT with Jim Paymar Jim Paymar

Today, we’re investigating a topic that we all need to survive, water. Without water, there would be no plant life, no forests, crops could not grow, livestock could not exist, so we’d have nothing to eat. The fact is, we as people consist of water. The
average adult human body is about 60% water.

Tragically, the world, with some 8,000,000,000 people, growing to 10,000,000,000 by the year 2050, is running out of water as we heat the planet to such an extent that glaciers and snowpack that feed mountain streams disappear.

We are draining ground water from aquifers to the point of no return, and we pollute sources of clean drinking water by using rivers and lakes as virtual industrial and residential sewers.

To discuss this vital issue impacting all of our lives, is Adrienne Esposito, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment based in New York. Adrienne has been a long-time champion of water protection, public health, preventing pesticide use, ending plastic pollution and creating alternative energy sources.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the American way of life is our justice system. The courts are a pillar of our democratic society. A jury trial is a constitutional right.

Our founding fathers believed the right to be tried by a jury of our peers was the highest law of the land. It’s included in the 6th and 7th amendments of the Bill of Rights.

But our court system is under fire. Local courts have been chastised for convicting people of color at a far greater
rate than whites. The system often compels innocent people to plead guilty. Different courts in adjacent jurisdictions yield different penalties for the same crime. High-level white-collar executives are rarely prosecuted for serious crimes.

The highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court has been accused of becoming a partisan appendage of the Republican party with six of the nine justices being appointed by the GOP, three justices were appointed by ex-President Donald Trump while President Barack Obama was denied one appointment to the high court.

To discuss these critical issues, impacting all of our lives, is Ron Kuby. Kuby is a nationally known criminal defense and civil rights attorney who’s worked on some of the most high-profile
cases in America including New York’s vigilante shooter Bernard Goetz, terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman who orchestrated the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and mass murderer Colin Ferguson. He was a partner with famed attorney William Kuntsler one of the most important civil rights lawyers of the 20th century. Kuby has also hosted national TV and radio programs.

If there was ever a point in time where the world needs to change, it is now. We have two major wars raging, one in Europe and one in the Middle East.

Millions of people in scores of countries do not have enough to eat. Climate change is foreshadowing catastrophic weather events, from rising seas to ferocious storms to incinerating droughts.

Joining us to discuss how we might move forward through the darkness to the light, is world renowned, virtuoso cellist
Michael Fitzpatrick.

Michael travels the world using music as a vehicle for increasing peace and compassion for humankind. He’s performed the Musical Keynote for Pope Francis at The Vatican. He performed twenty Musical Keynotes for the Dalai Lama's public talks. Fitzpatrick served as Co-Music Director of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “music is the universal language of mankind.” Ludwig van Beethoven said, “Music can change the world." Fitzpatrick has intriguing thoughts about a musical transformation for our planet.

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE "FREEBIRTH" PERFORMANCE AT THE END OF THE PODCAST. ONLY A SHORT SEGMENT PLAYED DURING THE INTERVIEW.

Today we’re looking into a subject you may have heard about lately Conservatorship, also referred to as Guardianship. It’s been big news after superstar pop singer Britney Spears wrote a book about being placed in involuntary conservatorship for 13 long years, with her father having near complete control of every aspect of her life. 

Currently, an estimated two-million Americans live under guardianship or conservatorship. 

A shocking fact, state courts confiscate $50 billion in money and property every year from those placed under court ordered guardianship which typically lasts about six years, so an estimated $300 billion worth of assets in this country are under the jurisdiction of a guardian or conservator.

The state-run guardianship system, or conservatorship, is largely unregulated and there are predators in society who prey on the weakest among us. Some people are forced to take medication. Many feel they are virtual prisoners with no rights. There is no national uniform set of principles or guidelines to protect people paced in guardianship.

Joining me to discuss this extremely controversial area of jurisprudence is Diane Dimond. 

Diane is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, syndicated columnist, and former television correspondent who specializes in crime and justice issues. Diane has reported for NBC’s Today Show, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, Court TV. She’s written for Newsweek, the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast. She’s the author of Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case. She has written a new book, We're Here to Help, When Guardianship Goes Wrong. 

Please take a listen to my latest podcast, Suburbs will Decide, Biden or Trump. How the vote takes shape in November of ’23 and ‘24 are elections of critical importance. Will suburban America decide the who becomes the next president and determine which party controls congress? Who is the suburban voter today and what drives them to the polls? 

My next guest is Lawrence Levy, the Executive Dean of the ⁠National Center for Suburban Studies⁠ at Hofstra University in New York. Prior to his academic life, Levy spent 35 years as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for Newsday, a major New York newspaper. He was a finalist for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in journalism and has won numerous top awards for coverage on suburban politics, education, taxation, and housing. 

Political experts are calling the November 2024 election the most important of our lifetime. It could be a rematch between President Joseph Biden and former President Donald Trump, who has been indicted four times, is confronting 91 criminal charges and has been impeached twice. 

Beyond the presidency, Congress is polarized. The Senate has 49 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 3 independents who typically vote with the democrats. The House of Representatives has 222 Republicans, 213 Democrats, and one vacant seat. Razor thin margins in both houses of Congress. 

No one has a crystal ball but how influential will the suburban vote be in 2024 based on the economics and politics we are experiencing today? The future of America, the future of the American dream, the future of the world order is at stake.

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Most foreign policy experts agree the most important geopolitical issue of our time, beyond the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is America’s relationship with China.

America and China are the world’s two largest economies by far, they are the top emitters of greenhouse gases, the cause of global warming and extreme weather events. The two nations also spend more on their militaries than any other country.

For several decades America and China became economically interdependent. But in 2018 former President Trump imposed hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs on China citing unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft by China. The Biden administration has kept the tariffs intact.

China’s military expansion in the South Pacific, has pushed the
two nations into an arms buildup, a rivalry that threatens the world order. Without the two most powerful nations cooperating, collaborating,
and coordinating, there is the prospect of conflict.

We are joined today by Dr. Mei Gechlik, a China Law & Policy Expert, Founder & CEO at SINOTALKS, and Former Director of Stanford University's China Guiding Cases Project. Dr. Gechlik was born in Hong Kong and has extensive experience in China, observing court trials and interviewing judges to complete her Stanford doctorate on judicial reform in China. Apart from law degrees from Beijing and Stanford Universities, she has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at U Penn. She's widely recognized as one of the world’s leading Chinese American legal scholars.

We’re going to discuss how America and China might avoid future tension and work toward finding solutions to our shared global challenges and avoid armed conflict.