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Coming up on this episode of thehealthy, wealthy, and wise podcast.
I
thought we were beyond that.
And I became president and yes,African American male president.
And I'm like, Oh, we were beyond that.
But I think there was anundercurrent of people who were
like, really not happy with
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those.
Welcome to the healthy, wealthy, andwise podcast, a podcast that provides
actionable information and toolsyou can use to live a more healthy.
Wealthy, wealthy, and wise life.
This is the special brothersin law edition featuring Dr.
William T.
Chanta, MD, and attorney Bernie Brown,a former Los Angeles city prosecutor.
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Let's join the conversation.
It's kind of
terrible, but
ultimately it takes five.
There are 538 electors.
Okay.
That's a total, total, atotal for all the 50 states.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's 100 senators, 435 membersof the House of Representatives,
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and three representativesfor the District of Columbia.
That comes out to 538 electors.
And it takes a majority of those electorsfrom each state to win the election.
Okay?
So, okay.
Okay.
It's, it's interesting stuff.
It's going to be nailbiting on election night.
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Because as we both know, we'vegot two very different candidates.
No kidding.
I mean, you couldn'thave a sharper contrast.
That's true.
Why is Nebraska so, so unique?
Or why do people talk about Nebraskain terms of electoral college?
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Well, Oh, well, Nebraska is one ofthe two states, Maine, Maine and
Nebraska that are not winner take all.
Oh,
got it.
So it's one of the few states wherethe way their systems kind of set up
is the, the, the winning candidatedoes get the two senatorial votes
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automatically, but with regard to theother votes, they are not all cast.
For the winning candidate,they are allowed to vote
their district independently.
Oh, okay.
So, so each district gets representedrather than not represented in a winner.
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Take all system, loser, theirelectors are not counted.
Yeah, so, but wow, I don't know,I don't know about you, but it's,
it's really, it's really well, yougot me mumbling here, don't you?
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That's fine.
I think we're all mumbling becausewe don't know what's going to
happen, but I think, I think clearly.
I, you know, I have been, and Jess and Iwere talking about this a few days ago.
I've been following politicssince the sixties and I'm a
little older than both of you.
And I can remember back in the sixties,early sixties, actually 1960, when
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there was so much concern about theelection because the candidate was
this young guy from Massachusetts.
Um, and, and what, what a lotof people were worried about
was that he was Catholic.
And oh my God, it was going to be thefirst Catholic president possibly, and
the Pope was going to run the country.
Uh, and so now John Kennedy isconsidered one of the greatest
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presidents we've ever had.
So there's always some degree of anxiety,but I would admit that the anxiety this
level, going back to what you just said,is probably on a whole different level.
And I think because the stakesappear to be higher, I think our
system is in play as compared toone party against another party.
Previously, to my experience,everybody agreed on the rules.
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Now, this time folks want to change therules and change the system completely.
Yeah, there's a lot going onand, and, and there are people
trying to circumvent the rules.
Sometimes they'll, Use voterregistration requirements.
They'll require people to show proofof age and proof of residency and all
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kinds of, you know, things to circumvent.
The system, right.
You know, they've tried to do thisin the past and it's failed and I
don't expect that it'll work again.
However, I think it is legitimate.
I mean, technically you do have tobe a citizen of the United States.
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You have to be 18 years of age or older.
You have to be basically a residentand you have to be registered to
vote and you have to not be a felon.
Right.
So requiring people to live up tothose qualifications is a valid,
valid requirement in my opinion.
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But the reality is though, many whoare requiring that go beyond that, that
in spite of the 50 or 60 or so courtcases that occurred four years ago.
Not a single one had, was found tobe legitimate consistently, which
is why they were all thrown outof court, which is why the, the
candidates at the time lost all that.
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A lot of the things that arehappening now, and you're right,
it happened before, but this islike, you know, an acceleration
of a lot of the Jim Crow stuff.
You know, where, where the polls closeor the, the, the, the time or the
location changes in certain areas ascompared to other areas, or you got to
have a picture ID, you know, whereasbefore you didn't have to have a
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picture ID or just basic intimidation.
People call in your house orburning crosses on your lawn.
I mean, that's,
you
know, that's
where we are now.
Oh yeah.
And
it's amazing because.
I thought we were beyond that, andI think that's the Obama, Obama
became president and Yes, yes.
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African American male president.
And I'm like, oh, we we're beyond that.
But I think there was a, anundercurrent of people who were
like, really not happy with those.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, I'm sure
that, I'm sure that we, we, we arenot a a a monolith as a country,
you know, we, we really are diverseat one extreme to the other.
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And I think, I think thosepeople will always be with us.
I, you know, I, I, I have no illusion thateverybody's going to be the other way.
Because I think that is democracy.
I mean, I think that'sthe essence of democracy.
That's why we love England.
And say, well, we didn't wantto be under the King of England
and the Church of England.
We wanted freedom.
We wanted, You know, July4th, Independence Day.
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That's right.
This is what independence looks like.
And I think you hit it a really validpoint when you were talking about
certain, should we call it systems beingused to try to undermine the election.
The interesting rumor has it, rumorhas it that local precincts Or being
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loaded with with precinct workersthat may try to circumvent the system.
As you know, when we go to vote,we actually generally we show
up at a polling place, right?
And there is a precinct worker there.
And that precinct worker screensyour qualifications and make sure
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that you are qualified to vote.
And that precinct worker votes.
And then the secretary ofstate for each state certifies
that the vote is valid state.
And so there's all these littlespots along the way, all these
little places along the way wherethere's room to circumvent the
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system, to get around the system.
And so there are rumors out therePeople are being placed in positions.
Where they can actively achieve thatgoal to, to circumvent, to throw
a monkey wrench into the system.
Well, the good thing about oursystem is that the rule of law
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and the courts don't go on rumors.
And that's, this is the beauty of havingjudges and prosecutors and defendants
where they can argue it in court andthe jury decides or the judge decides.
And, and there, there have been some.
You hear suggestions, but youjust by people who lose, you know,
that, that have these rumors, butthey have not presented any facts.
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As a matter of fact, as a very famousTV station that ended up having to pay
millions of not a billion dollars becausethey were alleging this rumor that was
just part of what was called the big lie.
You know, it wasn't true.
They were sued for it and thenhad to pay a lot of money for it.
So, so far, these rumors havenot been proven to be factual,
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certainly not on a large basis.
Absolutely right.
And like you're saying, the rumor,the other rumor is that, like take
for instance, the argument wasthat the Democrats were allowing
illegals to vote and allowing peoplethat were non citizens to vote.
And as you indicated.
All of these matters.
Well, yeah, virtually all of themwent to courts of law and those
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courts of law, many of them beingpresided over by Republican judges.
All of them found that itjust didn't happen that there
was no factual basis to it.
But it's it's still scary becausewhen you when you undermine
the validity of the vote, Yes.
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You set the groundwork for disruptionand for civil war, shall we say.
Oh, I shouldn't say that, but you setthe groundwork for all types of problems.
And one of the biggest issues thatwe could face, I hope we don't.
Yes.
And that is on election daybecause of some shenanigans.
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There is a delay in the validity.
I'm sorry, in the final count of votesin certain states so that certain
states are unable to certify the votes.
Well, you know, more andmore, there is a delay.
You know, that it used to be thatyou could stay up high related
night and you would know who thenext president was or was not.
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My experience has been that, you know,one, you have to wait, even in California,
because we have a lot of absenteeballots, I guess, or vote by mail.
You have to wait.
So, so there's, that's all, that'salready going to be a reality.
I think what, what gives me hope is thatthe people in charge of all of that, I
mean, the federal government right now.
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Are not the ones who are perpetuatingthe big lie, you know, the big lie is
being perpetuated by the people who lost.
And I suspect that they will continueto do that because I believe that that
is part of their strategy to win, toundermine or to attempt to undermine
the system so that the average personjust throws up their hands and concludes
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that it's just, it's not worth the time.
And that's why one has to counterthat and have individuals exercise
their sacred right to vote.
Yes, we absolutely, absolutelywant everybody to vote.
I mean, this is your constitutional right.
And if I sound like I'm, I'm stringingthe violin and playing grandma's old, it's
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like people fought and died for the right.
And initially, AfricanAmericans, especially, didn't
even have the right to vote.
And it was considered to bewith three fifths of a person.
It was decision.
Yes.
Yes.
And so it's very, very important.
It is the process by which we chooseour leaders and our leaders are
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absolutely important to the destinyand the direction of the country.
I mean, there is so much atstake, not only with regard to the
economy, but with regard to foreignrelations, national security.
I mean, it goes on and on and on.
So the leaders that we elect arejust, is critical to the future of our
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nation and our people, our security.
So it's absolutely imperativethat everybody get out
there and cast their vote.
I know some people think,well, my vote doesn't matter.
Well, if you don't vote, you're right.
That's right.
You prove yourself right.
And one of the things that I, I've becomeconcerned about is how our media, the
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way is, and I'm, I'm a believer in freespeech and, and you know, what is it?
The Washington Post says something diesin darkness or democracy dies in darkness.
And that's the thing.
I, I agree with that.
But yeah, some of those same papersnow for some of the first times in the
history are hesitant to support or torecommend a candidate, which, which
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they've always done in the past, youknow, and I think that's indicative of
the environment where people are afraid,institutions are afraid, but yet the same
institutions supposedly of democracy.
I'm talking about the media now.
Fall into the trap of, of, of expandingthis knowledge and this fear about these
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rumors and the things that aren't true,because that's part of what they do.
You know, if it bleeds, it leads typething, you know, and they can sell
more papers and get more eyeballson the show and on and on and on.
And I think that that'snot always helpful either.
Absolutely.
That is so true.
I mean, the terrible thing about theworld we live in now, unfortunately with
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this whole thing of everything beinggoing through the media and, and, and
all of the YouTubers and all of the,everything that's out there is that.
These candidates can virtually,they say all kinds of things.
They can say anything they want.
Exactly.
And there's no truth.
Checking.
Exactly.
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You can see, well, you andI have obviously heard it
and everybody's heard it.
There's like, Outright lying.
Yes.
Just straight out where a candidatesays something and then they play a
video of him saying the exact oppositeor her saying the exact opposite.
And he still lies.
He still lies.
And then people believe it.
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Yes.
Yes.
Because the philosophers, if yousay it enough, Then people will
start to question themselves.
All you got to do is just keep sayingit, keep saying it, keep saying it.
And you're right.
That, that is an effective technique or,or has been an effective technique that
folks have used to, to get where they are.
I mean, it's just like Trump said, Oh,Pamela, she wasn't even saying she was
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black before she was, she wasn't black.
You know, she was ignoring her blackness.
Which makes no sense.
They listen to that and might hear it.
They forget.
She was head of, you know, the BlackCaucus, they forget that, you know,
that she was, it just goes on and on.
Exactly.
So many different black organizations.
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She's part of
Alpha Kappa Alpha and Howard.
Her father, her father is a Jamaican,highly respected, I think retired
emeritus in economics from Stanford.
Howard.
Yes.
You know, so, so it's, and,and all of us, quite honestly,
a little bit of our mixture.
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And I, I believe that that's, thatthat's the way it's supposed to be to
some extent, you know, I think, youknow, diversity really is our strength.
You've been listening to the Healthy,Wealthy and Wise podcast, the special
brothers in law edition featuring Dr.
William T.
Choctaw, MD and attorney Bernie Brown,a former Los Angeles City prosecutor.
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