Saving America

0:00This is Saving America with your host, Dr. David D. Schein, presenting the intersection of business and politics. Enjoy common sense commentary and interviews with some of the world's most interesting people. Now here's your host, Dr. David D. Schein. Welcome to Saving America. This is your host, Dr. David D. Schein. As we kick off 2026, I'll reflect on 2025 and the outlook for 2026. Not to be too punful, but 2026, sure started with a bang as Maduro is grabbed and innocent in prison, actually in jail in New York City and has been arraigned along with his wife for drug trafficking, weapons, possessions and other bad crimes. So a lot remains to be seen. I want to give a special shout out to

1:05Pete Hegseth, who's of course been criticized from time to time mostly by the whack liberals, but the execution of pulling Maduro out of there was flawless. Now the initial reports made it sound like, oh, they just ran in there in the middle of the night, grabbed him and ran out 80 bodyguards or defenders of Maduro were killed in the operation. 32 of them were Cuban officers and Cuba has confirmed that 32 of their folks are dead and I find it interesting that the impoverished country of Cuba was involved in providing bodyguards service to Venezuela. And we'll talk some more about that in another episode of Saving America. But in any event, the big, big question is what's going to happen next in Venezuela? And Jesse Rodriguez, another whack, Kami, is in charge. She's the vice president of

2:06the country according to Maduro's busted election from 2024. But there's a lot to remain. Of course, the international community has been very critical. I do feel that this was a legal rap because Maduro is an international narcotics trader. That's been well established and there's an indictment still standing for him from 2020. I do not believe he's the legitimate president of Venezuela. And therefore, this was not an interference with the country's leadership. In fact, it's an attempt to install leadership that has been wrongfully refused opportunity to take office. The great deal of joy in Colombia where many, as many as four million Venezuelans have fled the problems in their home country and are eager to go back. And the Colombians are looking forward to having a more effective neighbor than Venezuela's

3:11been as it has continued to decline. Reflecting on a year of tears and violence, I wish it could say at 2025 was a wonderful year. However, the level of violence was extreme and dominated this past year. Hanukkah is a time of celebration in the Jewish religion. Incredibly, two Islamic terrorists ruined the festive holiday by shooting at the celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, 16 people who were merely trying to have a fun time or dead and 40 more injured. The ages range from only 10 to an 87 year old Holocaust survivor. The Australian government said they were cracked down on anti-Semitism. Hey, that's a little late. The current government has a history of criticism of Israel and shown support for the terrorists in Gaza. In fairness, the two terrorists were unlikely to have been influenced by that government's position. Interestingly, in a country that brags about gun control, the older of the two murderers had six guns all legally owned. While the hostages still held by Hamas were released,

4:14most were dead and those who survived were victims of terror, not seen since the Holocaust. To those morons who think that Hamas should be supported know that they publicly executed eight of their civilians shortly after the Israeli forces pulled back from Gaza. Yeah, that's who you're supporting if you're supporting Hamas. As a sad reminder in May 2025, two Israeli embassy staff members were killed in DC simply due to their religion. In a prior saving American episode, we have covered attacks on churches, so Christians are under attack as well as Jews. Speaking of Christians under attack, an estimated 50,000 Christians and supportive Muslims have been murdered by Islamic terrorists in Nigeria under the label of Boko Haram. Despite the murders and persecutions that take place over a decade, the media has only recently focused on the slaughter when Trump made it an issue. I find this particularly objectionable when the media has made more of Hamas terrorists being killed than those innocents in Nigeria. Cuteness continued to murder the

5:14civilians in Ukraine. Its craze desired to rebuild the failed USSR must not succeed. He should not gain anything from his terrorist attacks on a neighboring country. On the domestic front, two National Guard members from West Virginia were shot in DC. One has since died and it looks like the other will survive. This senseless act reminds us of the danger these law enforcement members and others such as ICE face when they are simply helping to protect the rest of us. I believe that the ICE protests around the country are being backed by anti-American sources that need to be investigated for terrorism. The other participants are simply the results of brainwashing and are out of touch with American education system. And don't get me started on the anti-American scum holding office around this country like the governor of Illinois. Reminder 80% of the country supports close borders and law enforcement. We also had shootings at Brown University and of an MIT professor. The suspected shooter, originally from Portugal, committed suicide,

6:16had liked to see what the shooter's motivation was. We have far too much violence in our homes and communities in the United States. The murders and shootings dominate the news across our country. It is time to give peace a chance as the song says. On my base in Houston, Texas, I can't watch the evening news without reports of murders daily. This is combined with something called road rage. This is to end. I urge all of you to show hospitality to others. If you see someone driving to a danger, get away from them. Do not engage. I also call a local law enforcement to engage with the community. Let's stop dangerous drivers running red lights and other reckless behavior. Trump's first year. Trump's first year is a mixed bag. While he has closed the borders, arrested many criminally legals and inflation seems to under control. There are still many problems. I'm known not to be a trumpster, but he should get credit where it is due. He has had some real success around the world, resolving disputes. Of course, Hamas still has weapons. Iran claims it is for

7:18with the rest of the world and Putin is still killing Ukrainians. As a year ended, several high profile elections produce poor results for those residents and the GOP. I project continued high costs in those states in the city of New York. This is ironic since supposedly the winning election issue was that living costs are too high. In short summary, Trump's ratings are low because he has consistently promised too much. He has ignored the basics of management, under promise and over deliver. There is still time for him to get things on the right track, but there needs to be a focus on the key domestic issues and less on the international scene. The reported surge in GMP in the third quarter favors Trump, but that is not how the public has reacted. Part of this is that the border was closed quickly and the surge in energy production seems like no big success. But the job market is very shaky right now. Job insecurity equals people either don't vote or vote for someone other than those in power. So Trump needs to continue to focus on proving the law of everyday Americans. Outlook for 2026. Well, 2026 is not a slam dunk for sure.

8:26Inflation is not so high, but still not acceptable. 3% is not 2%. Unemployment is edging up, which is not a good sign. As I just mentioned, those who are having trouble getting jobs are not likely to support incumbent politicians. Consistent headline is the lack of housing affordability, while mortgage rates drifted down towards 6% the housing market has not been responding. That is because of the high cost of housing itself. What politicians are not talking about, of course, is the amount to retake to build something new or to do a renovation. Then ownership brings with at high closing costs and extremely high insurance rates in real estate taxes. So there are responsibilities on the political side, not just business and banking. Voters need to focus on those who will curb costs in government and stop taxing people into oblivion. My surprise prediction of the year is that the GOP will have a very good election outcome in November despite the historic trend of the party in power losing the mid-term elections. And even with the outcomes in late 2025,

9:29I see a lot of opportunity for the GOP. Number one is that the Dems keep running trash candidates. Hopefully this will start catching up with them. Also, young men, especially a moving toward the GOP, along with a new Christian bounce triggered by the senseless murder of Charlie Kirk. Path forward, each of us has a responsibility to advance ourselves. There are tremendous educational and training opportunities across much of the US. Make good connections with your neighbors, be active and promote peace and all of your interactions. Community involvement is critical. Attent school board and city council meetings vote in primaries. One reason we have had bad choices at the November balances that we do not elect the right candidates in the primaries. Work for your neighbors brave enough to run for office. We can build a better America together. I need to take a quick break but stay tuned when I get back. I'm going to have Dr. Catherine Neil Harris, who is an expert on drug policy in dealing with the serious problem of drugs in America.

10:31After I came home from Iraq, I could still hear the booms. Makes it hard to be a good mom. As America's veterans face challenges, DAV is there. I'm Naomi Mathis, Air Force veteran. DAV helps veterans get the benefits they've earned. Thanks to DAV, I was able to begin to heal. With the right support, more veterans can reach victories great and small. My victory is being able to be here for my children. Support more victories for veterans. Go to DAV.org. Welcome back to Saving America. I'm sitting here with my guest, Dr. Catherine Neil Harris of the Baker Institute to talk about how America can deal better with the serious drug problems. Our series of interviews for Saving America establishes that the world is full of interesting people. Once you hear from our next guest, I am sure that you will agree that she deserves the moniker of interesting person. Saving America welcomes Dr. Catherine Neil Harris, who is the Alfred C. Glessel III Fellow in Drug Policy at Rice University's prestigious Baker Institute

11:36for Public Policy. Her current research focuses on the availability of drug treatment for at-risk populations, the opioid epidemic, and the legalization of medical and adult use cannabis. She supports policy reforms that treat drug uses of public health issues such as alternatives to incarceration for drug offenders, needle exchange programs, safe consumption sites, drug testing services, expanding access to medication-assisted treatments, and greater integration of substance use and mental health services with each other and with the other areas of medical service. She earned a BS in criminal justice from George Mason University and her masters in PhD in public administration and urban policy from Old Dominion University. She received her Old Dominion University Outstanding PhD Student Award in 2014 and the Simon Scholarship for Academic Performance in 2011 and 2012. We welcome Dr. Catherine Neil Harris

12:36for her first appearance on Saving America. Thank you for having me and for that amazing introduction. We're very happy to have you and as we talked about before we began recording, you're a neighbor. It's great to have somebody in the hood. We ask people three questions that we give them in advance so they're warmed up and ready. In your writings, you focus on the overall issue of drug abuse in America that is not just about fentanyl coming in from Mexico. How severe is the problem in the United States? Yeah, so we do have a long tradition in the United States of substance use and substance misuse. Addiction is not a new problem that we're having. We have seen an increase in recent years in substance use disorders but the thing now that is different is the drug supply itself has changed and so what we've really seen over the last 10 years is the introduction of fentanyl into the illicit marketplace and the role that that's played in just making substance use not just dangerous or risky but really potentially deadly

13:43at a whole new level and so that means now that the risk for overdose is so much higher for people who maybe don't use substances regularly and don't have that problem of misuse but underneath that immediate threat of overdose. We have a long standing issue of substance use and not just with illicit substances but with alcohol as well. In 2023, 46% of Americans reported binge drinking in the past month. So there are certainly issues that we have here with using substances to a problematic level. And of course, I think most our listeners are aware of the fact there was a gigantic series of settlements for basically heroin-based legal drugs that were reportedly just ridiculously overprescribed to our population. So is that part of the rapid here? Yeah, so the opioid settlement is a benefit deal. Looking back in the early 2000s, Purdue is one of the more infamous names at this point but many other not just the manufacturers

14:48but also doctors and pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers, these kind of middlemen, all of these different groups really sort of engaged in letting the free flow of these drugs take place right in exchange for essentially money, right? And that's what we saw happen. We also saw that not only did that on that was kind of the supply side, this massive influx of supply of these substances but also there was a strong demand for them. If you look at some of the places that were hardest hit by the overdose crisis 20 years ago, it was places that were poor and heavily relied on manual labor, right? So we're talking about Kentucky, West Virginia, Appalachian area, right? That was an area that Purdue knowingly targeted. So now, right, where we've seen a lot of settlements come down, over 50 billion dollars currently, if the national total for the settlements, we still expect more down the pipeline and so that money is going to be really critical to helping the nation respond to the crisis,

15:48which has really sort of moved away from those prescription opioids to, you know, illicitly manufactured, fentanyl and other substances like mesinfetamine. And that ties in beautifully with our second question, which is how can America do a better job of dealing with persons with substance abuse issues and hopefully some of that money is going to go to that purpose, right? Yeah, I hope it does. As far as how the money is being used, it varies a lot by place, right? But certainly, we need more funding for treatment. So we have roughly a quarter of people who need treatment, get it. When we look at opioid use, right, we have, we're very lucky with opioids so that we have a medication, several medications that treat opioid use disorder that can manage it, that can reduce the risk for overdose. Those are substances like methadone, buprenorphine. Those tools are available, but people are not prescribed them nearly enough. I think it's around roughly 10% of people with an opioid use disorder get prescribed a medication. So that population in particular, we're not dealing with, we're not using all the tools

16:49that we have, we're not using our best available tools for a huge portion of that population. So ensuring access to those kinds of things is really critical. Funding is needed. You know, there's no way around it. Everything needs more funding. This is one of those things that we do need more funding. I will say that we have seen in the past, it's about 18 months now, it's a client in overdose deaths that can at least partly be attributed to the increase in prevalence of naloxone. And that's one thing that everybody has really gotten on board with in the last several years. Regardless of part of affiliation or any of that other kind of stuff is that we need to make naloxone more available. Naloxone is a drug that reverses an opioid overdose. That's been a big benefit. We need to continue to do that. We also need to make available things like drug testing services so that people can know what are in the substances that they're taking. Fentanyl is just one example, right? The most prevalent example right now of listed opioids, but there's other things in the pipeline, right? There's so many more synthetic substances on

17:50the market than there used to be. And we need all the tools that we have to identify these substances and offer people alternatives, right? If it whether it's treatment and also recovery services and opportunities to live a meaningful life that doesn't involve substance use. Well, it's a it's a fascinating issue. And I believe when you mentioned the treatment for opiate crisis, is that the thing that we call Narcan that's done through the nasal passage? That's right. Yeah. So Narcan is the sort of one of the name brand versions of naloxone. And so it's an opioid antagonist. And so what it does is that when you're overdosing, you essentially have too many opioids sitting on your opioid receptors in your brain, causing respiratory depression, you take the naloxone or the Narcan and that drug essentially kicks the opioids off of your opioid receptors. And that's that's how it kind of works. And it reverses that overdose. It really is a miracle drug. And so that is kind of like an immediate way to keep people alive. And then to ensure that people don't overdose in the future,

18:55right? That's where those other drugs like like buprenorphine, which goes by the name brand's suboxone and subutexas, another one, are sublocated. Having those kinds of things available because they are the best tool you have to ensure that that people who do have opioid use disorder aren't going to the illicit market, aren't getting fictional, right? That they're getting something that's safe. That is FDA approved that has a reliable dosage that's much, much safer than anything available in the illicit market. Fascinating situation. Now you write up with about the rapidly growing issue of hemp products, which chemically derived in high potent THC products available in Texas. What do you recommend and would any of your the bills presently proposed in the Texas legislature help that situation? Because there's all sorts of stuff going on in this topic. There sure is, yeah, the hemp space in Texas and around the country is just kind of in flux to put it mildly. And so in Texas right now, right? Marijuana is illegal unless it comes through

19:57the state's compassionate use program, which is a limited medical marijuana program. The main difference between hemp and THC is the amount of Delta 9 THC, anything less than 0.3 percent, Delta 9 THC is considered hemp and federally legal. And that's where sort of what we're dealing with in the state right now is that there's just been a huge proliferation of products that are considered legal, but that can be very intoxicating. And also now this sort of rise of the synthetic cannabinoids that you mentioned that are derived from hemp, but that also have maybe a lot of other different kinds of chemicals or residual solvents in them that are not healthy for people. And so this session, the legislature has been working to address these issues. There's a bill in the Senate Senate Bill 3 that essentially bans all hemp products with THC. That bill isn't necessarily going to address the safety concerns around these products because they're still going to be available, but now they'll be

20:57now if they're banned, they would be only available in an elicit market space, which is not subject to any kind of government regulation or oversight. There's a different bill in the House, House Bill 28, that would essentially ban THC and everything except for drinks. So no THC edibles or flower, but you can have THC and drinks. The alcohol beverage industry, you know, likes that one, but the reasoning behind it should some extent is that when we are seeing like kind of problematic products that have others sorts of chemicals in them, they tend not to be drinks, they tend to be like edible based. All of that said last night, the House dropped a massive overhaul of the Senate's bill. So the Senate had Senate Bill 3 to ban THC, they sent it over to the House, the House passed the bill within 123 page amendment. So I am currently working my way through

21:59that amendment. That's why I've been doing that this morning. So I don't have all of the details of it, but what I kind of say about it is that it does allow for THC in drinks and some other products and it lays out a much stricter regulatory framework for all hemp consumable products that would essentially give control for regulation and oversight to the Texas alcohol and beverage commission. So the same body that currently regulates alcohol. And so, you know, the way that that bill is laid out, I feel like is a relatively reasonable way to go about regulating these products. Whether or not it will have the support, say it passes the House, whether it will have support in the Senate or from the lieutenant governor who have been pretty intent on banning all THC. That sort of remains to be seen. Well, it's interesting. Of course, the reason this comes up, folks, is that about 30 states have legalized some general use, some are wanting to belong beyond medical use. As you mentioned, Texas has legalized only medical use, but the pressure to

23:07allow it in. And since our guest today is in the hood with us, there's actually some banners, some yellow banners at the corner, a nearby corner promoting sale of marijuana. And they're like for five bucks. And it's pretty interesting. And I get tickled when they talk about it in a drink because when I was in college, it was during the time of sex drugs and rock and roll. And one of the things I'm a hardcore lifetime anti drug person, by the way, is a couple of these guys in the dorm took tea bags apart to get the cloth wrapper, stuffed them with marijuana and cooked it into a tea substance. And apparently enjoyed it as marijuana tea. So when I hear this drink thing, I think back to my college days of these clowns doing this and creating the tea bag and sewing it together, I can't make this stuff up, folks. That's the first model. That was the original PhD drink.

24:14Of course, it does raise other issues because one of the fellows actually did that, ended up I'm not sure what the correct term would be, but basically potted himself out of college. I mean, he did enough marijuana over time. He got disconnected from his courses and the rest of us in the real world. The neat news is I was doing some research about a year ago and actually located this fellow. And he did finish college and has a successful life today. So he did get past that. Dr. Catherneal Harris, how can our audience get more information about you in this important work that you're doing? Well, they can visit our website. We have the Baker Institute drug policy program. We have a website that has all access to all of our publications and events that we have going on. I would encourage anyone who's interested in policy more broadly to look at the Baker Institute's website because we have a lot of different centers that are doing really interesting stuff in health and energy policy and immigration policy, all kinds of different

25:16areas. If anyone is interested in looking at the hemp policy issue more, we have a pretty cool interactive map on our website that looks at the hemp policies in all 50 states. So you can check that out as well. Please proceed. Special challenge in Colombia. During my recent visit to Colombia, a country that has done a masterful job to recover from its recent past. There was some sad news. Seven Colombian soldiers were killed in a drone attack at an army base near the border with Venezuela. The attack was credited to the ELN guerrillas. These terrorists used drones and explosives in the night attack that also injured at least 30 other soldiers. The ELN is an older guerrilla group that is actually tied to the commies in Cuba. They try to make money with drugs so the country needs to shut this down to continue to make progress. Others may recall that the government has been following through on the settlement with FARC, the most visible guerrilla group in Colombia over the last few decades. Hopefully the government there will soon achieve a solution since they need a stable community base and to cut off all illegal drug trading.

26:22Sustained. The arms race is on. As I've discussed recently, Russia is clearly out of the long-term deal to stop nuclear weapons testing and eliminate production of new nuclear weapons. The most recent renewal of the deal with Russia was in 2010 and it appears that it will not be renewed. China was never in the deal and is racing to produce large number of nukes in the weapons to deliver them. One recent report is that the CCP has recently loaded another 100 intercontinental missiles into silos around the country. These could be used to attack Taiwan or the USA. It is crucial that USA and its allies win this new arms race which is integral to winning the new Cold War. I refer to it as the Cold War II. I emphasize the way we won the first one and remind everyone that to conserve resources, our allies need to be in on the developments. I know we can count on Israel to work with the USA. Let's get other countries on board. Motion denied. Trump was right about Georgia's 2020 vote count. In a retro story, the truth

27:24finally comes out in Georgia about the problems with the 2020 Georgia presidential vote count. The story appears to vindicate Trump's position which may explain why Georgia recently dropped the effort to charge Trump with falsely claiming there was false claims in that election. The update is that the fame called by Trump to Georgia Secretary of State, Rothenberger was correct. He asked and reviewed those votes, especially given the tight margin. Our Trump was accused of trying to get him to manufacture votes. Recently, Fulton County officials acknowledged that about 315,000 ballots which were cast early for the 2020 election were improperly certified. Recall that Biden only won Georgia by 11,779 votes. Please raise your right hand. Another tragedy in the news. Saving America extends its sympathies and condolences to the families of the victims and the survivors and the tragic New Year's Eve fire at a club at a ski resort in Switzerland. The fire claimed 40 lives and injured over 100 more.

28:28The fire was blamed on sloppy use of sparklers in a crowded club. The tight conditions meant that many could not escape from the rapidly spreading fire. A footnote to that story is that the club in question had not had a thorough safety inspection in over five years. So the Swiss authorities are taking responsibility for not doing their part of the job. Objection, Your Honor. Getting 2026 off to a healthy start. A report from the National Health Service in the UK reminds us that the popular so-called energy drinks can be dangerous to your health. This includes brands like Red Bull, Monster, Celcius, and Rockstar. So the trigger for the story is that a man in his 50s normally healthy had a stroke. He showed up at the hospital with the stroke symptoms in a sky high BP of 254 over 150. The doc stabilized him and he went home. However, his BP remained high. They brought him back in and discovered he was drinking eight cans of energy drinks a day

29:29with each containing about 160 milligrams of caffeine. After he stopped his BP returned to normal. Note that a cup of coffee has similar levels of caffeine but does not contain the various ingredients found in energy drinks that magnify the negative impact on a person's body from their consumption. So let's get 2026 off to a healthy start. I need to take a quick break but stay tuned. When I get back I'm going to have Dr. Mark Clifford with me. He's an expert on the Hong Kong situation and is going to talk about his new book, Troublemaker, How Jimmy Lai became a billionaire, Hong Kong's greatest dissident, and China's most feared critic. You're going to find it a fascinating meeting. Brushwood, Media Network. I like that bone. I got a great price on it. Did you see my tail when that chewy box showed up? Oh, I saw it. Sorry about the vase. Can we just say a vase like normal people? Fine. I always wonder what it would be like to have a tail. Maybe you did one time. Maybe a thousand years from now I'll be tailless using that chewy

30:30app to get you grade prices on treats. Pretty sure it takes more than a thousand years. That's aren't just pets. They're more. Vaz. Save more on what they love. With everyday great prices at Chewy. Welcome back saving America. I'm sitting here with my guest, Dr. Mark Clifford. Author of the new book on Jimmy Lai billionaire. Hong Kong's greatest dissident and China's most feared critic. You're going to enjoy the rest of the interview. Our series interviews for saving America establishes that the world is full of interesting people. Once you hear from our next guest, I'm sure you will agree that he deserves the moniker of interesting person saving America welcomes Dr. Mark Clifford for his first time on saving America. Great to be here David and thank you. Great to have you. You are the president of the Committee for Freedom and Hong Kong Foundation. Previously, your director, the next digital publisher of the pro-democracy, Apple Daily newspaper that was shut down by the Hong Kong government in 2021 holds a PhD in history from the University of

31:37Hong Kong also honors his graduate university, California, Berkeley and a Walter Bagok fellow at Columbia University, lived in Asia from 1987 until 2021. Previously, Clifford was an executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council, Editor-in-Chief of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, publisher and editor-in-chief of the standard also in Hong Kong, held senior editorial positions at Business Week and the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong and Seoul. His author of today, Hong Kong, Tomorrow of the World, what China's crackdown reveals about its plans to end freedom everywhere that St. Martin's Press 2022. He's here today to talk about his new book, The Troublemaker, How Jimmy Lai became a billionaire, Hong Kong's greatest dissident, and China's most feared click critic. We welcome him for his first appearance on Saving America, Dr. Mark Clifford. Thanks so much, David, what a generous introduction, but wonderful to be here with

32:41you. Well, we're glad to see and again, I did get to meet you when you were doing your book tour on the book. We're not going to read the title again because it's so long, but it's if you look at Dr. Mark Clifford, you're going to get to this great book. For the benefit of our audience, please describe the background of how Hong Kong went from being a hugely successful British colony to its current status under red China. Yeah, well, thanks. And my story of Jimmy Lai, the troublemaker, is Jimmy's story is really Hong Kong's story. Hong Kong was a dirt poor war ravaged place after 1945. It suffered under Japanese occupation. By the time of Jimmy got there in 1960, the population, pre-war population of a million and a half people had doubled with refugees fleeing Mao, Maoist, red China. So you had a million and a half people. They were living in huffles if they were lucky. They were sleeping on the streets. And Jimmy's case, he slept through work lived in a factory. And Hong Kong adopted free market principles. It was probably the greatest exponent

33:45of laissez-faire economics that the world's ever going to see. It was that crazy time after World War II when everybody was just trying their best to stay alive. I mean, the whole world was, you know, US accepted. It was pretty flat on its back. And so Hong Kong really had no choice. It was suffering from the privations, the craziness of Maoist China. There was an embargo, trade embargo, sanctions against China, led by the US, but including the United Nations. And so this sleepy little backwater port, this British colony, since the 1840s, had no choice but to start exporting. And they made wigs, they made toys, they made shirts, they made shoes. I mean, Hong Kong, all that kind of cheap stuff that, you know, David, you and I are old enough to probably remember growing up with some of that in the 60s. First, it came from Japan. And then it came from Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the first of the Asian countries or a colony, in this case, really, to adopt this export-led model. There was no minimum wage. In fact,

34:51there wasn't a minimum wage until 2009. There, you know, just really, so less than 20 years ago, it was a doggy dog kind of world. It was tough, but there were opportunities, lots of opportunities for people who wanted to get ahead. And so people like Jimmy Leye, but, you know, thousands, really millions of other people, escaped the craziness, the hunger, the famine in China. When Jimmy left, they used to, it was in the midst of a famine that killed something like 45 million people. Think of this. Mao's Communist Party, its policies, killed 45 million people. A man-made famine. They had grain. They were exporting grain to the Soviet Union, but they wouldn't give it to their own people. And here, little old Hong Kong next door could have been invaded any day by by Maoist China. People just worked hard because they had no choice. There was no safety net. There was no welfare. The government started building housing and provided some basic medical care.

35:51But people like Jimmy Leye and the three million other Hong Kongers were on their own. And it became, today, it's a place with a per capita income. You know, not that different from the United States. And it did that through, yeah, hard work, free trade. I mean, this was, you know, this very live issue today, of course. I mean, the success of Hong Kong, followed by by other Asian countries, you know, really lifted in Hong Kong millions of people out of poverty around Asia, over a billion people. And yeah, that was the Hong Kong story. The British authorities had a very, very light hand. And they kind of let people do their own thing. It really was this classic laissez-faire place. But they had a rule of law. They had, you know, they had a system which meant you didn't have to worry that somebody was going to knock at your door in the middle of the night. And it was going to be the police. They were going to drag you off. Well, in 1997, the lease, the British lease, the 99 year lease on a big swath of Hong Kong territory ran out. Britain agreed to give the

36:56colony back to China. I mean, that's, you know, a way kind of fair. Most Hong Kong people didn't want that. But they were consulted. Britain did a deal with China. China made lots of promises. The existing way of life, the capitalist way of life could continue for 50 more years. There would be not only free enterprise, there'd be free speech, freedom of worship. You could go to any church you wanted, freedom of assembly, freedom to publish a newspaper as we did at Apple Daily. All sounded great. And it kind of was for a few years. But China could not, communist China, and its leaders in Beijing cannot deal with any kind of challenge to its authority. So Hong Kong people took the promises that China had made seriously. And they pushed to be able to elect their own mayor, their own city council. Not a big deal. I mean, we're talking about a place that's the population, you know, not too different from Houston or another major American city,

37:57wanting to elect its mayor and city council. This is in a country of 1.4 billion people, proud place, you know, rising power. The Chinese authorities couldn't, couldn't allow that. And they started a series of crackdowns that culminated. You mentioned the newspaper being shut down in 2021, now culminated in a national security law that came out in 2020. Jimmy Lai, the subject to my biography, was jailed later that year. The following year 2021, our newspaper, his newspaper, Apple Daily, was summarily shut down. A number of my colleagues were withdrawn in jail where they still are today. We've got seven people, including Jimmy who've been in jail for these last five years. So almost five years. So that's the story of the rise in fall of Hong Kong. It was one of the three most remarkable places in the world. And almost overnight, just shattered. I cannot think of another example in modern history where you, in peacetime,

38:59you've had a city that's gone from this, from the freedom and the prosperity of Hong Kong to a place where people get thrown in jail because the authorities don't like a t-shirt they're wearing or they don't think somebody's, you know, reverential enough when the national anthem is played or they insult Xi Jinping, the Chinese leaders. So I mean, it's just a horrific thing to watch David. You just go to the match. We here in Houston, Texas have experienced the flip side of what you've just described. I just want to mention that is one of my dear friends was a fellow named Dan Neb who was originally from Hong Kong. And sadly, he passed away recently for very young man. But he had a lot of connections in Hong Kong. And starting in the mid 1990s, they didn't wait till 1997. But starting the mid 1990s, people like Dan Neb, pipelineed the, some of the wealth that had been accumulated in Hong Kong to Houston and Texas.

40:02And we originally had a Chinatown as it was called in downtown Houston. Most of that has been bulldozed to build a large convention center on the east side of downtown. However, on the west side of Houston, a massive new Chinatown has been constructed over the last 30 years. And much of it got started, maybe not all of it today. But much of it got started with money from Hong Kong as people realized that maybe things that Chinese who were famous for not keeping their word were not going to keep their word. And so ironically, Houston became one of the beneficiaries. And of course, the dance parents, I think, moved to Hawaii. Obviously, they're part of the, you know, the wealthy parents. And I guess in retrospect, it's kind of sad that Jimmy Ly didn't didn't follow that path. We're going to have a pause for a quick break. But Dr. Mark Clifford will be with us again. So don't go anywhere. Uncle Sam, you just turned 18, right? It's time to register at sss.gov.

41:06Excuse me? It only takes a minute. And it makes you eligible for student aid and millions of federal jobs. Plus, well, it's every man's responsibility. What do you say? Okay, I'll do it. Here's my quilt. I'll just use my phone. sss.gov, right? Yeah. Be the man. Register with the Selective Service System today at sss.gov. Welcome back, saving America. I'm sitting here with my guest, Dr. Mark Clifford, author of the new book on Jimmy Ly, billionaire Hong Kong's greatest dissident and China's most feared critic. You're going to enjoy the rest of the interview. It's not quite there, but how is it that you knew you were able to get out of the country? So as long as you did what you were told you were told shut out of the newspaper, you did it. They allowed you to go from your home to the airport and say goodbye. Was they calm like that? At the time, it was a little different. This very draconian national security law came out on June 30, 2020. So we're just coming up on five years. About six weeks later,

42:13they raided the newspaper, sent 250 cops in there, dragged off all this stuff and intimidated the staff, and they arrested Jimmy Ly at his home that morning, very early that morning, talk about the kind of midnight knock on the door. At least they waited till dawn. Han Kufton, this was during COVID. You had only social distancing measures. Couldn't have a demonstration, but somehow you could have dozens of pressed people there and the cops man, Hanela and Jimmy, and they perp walked him through his own newsroom was just trying to humiliate and shame him. Staff was so brave. They were live streaming the interview that all of Hong Kong was watching it as he's being perp walked through the newsroom. So at that point, that kind of really focused my mind. It turned out I was the only member of the board of directors who was not either out of the country or incarcerated at that point. And I had already been thinking it might be time to kind of lighten up my footprint in Hong Kong and had had a range to get, you know, just the books and furniture and just like in case I

43:14need to leave in a hurry. And at the end of October that year, I came back to get all my stuff unpacked and I just bought a ticket to come back and then they threw Jimmy and Jail pretty much for good in December that year and decided that perhaps discretion was the better part of valor. And so, you know, honestly, I'm not proud of this, but I wasn't there when the paper was shut down. It was the following June and I and other directors, you know, we were powerless to stop the government. They froze our bank accounts. No court order, but under the national security law, they could freeze our bank accounts. It's like cutting off oxygen. We had 600,000 paying subscribers. We just made the transition a quick and very successful transition from mostly print revenues to mostly digital. Banks couldn't give us the money from our subscribers. We couldn't pay for the ink. We couldn't pay for the paper. We couldn't be electricity company wanted money. We couldn't pay our staff. And so, you know, it's one of my great, great regrets in life that,

44:16you know, I've got Jimmy and six other colleagues in jail. There's nothing I could do to stop it except to keep fighting from abroad. Well, let's let's switch gears to talk about the committee for the freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. Tell us about that. Yeah. Well, thanks. We around the time Jimmy was put in jail, which was finally for good on December 31, 2020, New Year's Eve. Some of us who knew Hong Kong, it spent some time there. And we just needed to do something from abroad to try to stand up and fight for Hong Kong's freedoms to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its broken promises. And to try to keep shining a spotlight on Hong Kong, preserve what we could from abroad of the, you know, the freedoms and the, you know, what really made Hong Kong so great. Let the seven million Hong Kongers remain. Let them know they weren't alone. That the, well, they were in the end, close to 2000 political prisoners. People have been convicted in jail. It's a little under a thousand now as some people have gotten

45:20out. But there's also a pipeline of people who have been arrested, not yet prosecuted. And we, we kind of thought this was, we're honestly so naive. You know, we thought this would be a pretty short term thing. And the Beijing Olympics in 2022, we're coming up. We thought, you know, a little bit of publicity, surely China won't want the kind of international embarrassment of having a global financial center with political prisoners. Yeah. So we were pretty naive. And we have, was this been going on? Well, we were founded about four years ago as a press hessir organization. And we now have offices in Washington and London. We engage heavily with with Parliament and with the US Congress, also the US and British governments. And through them, and there's the two governments we think have the most leverage, although we will be expanding our activities more into Europe and Canada as well. You know, freedom-loving places that we hope will

46:21hold the Chinese to account. Jimmy Lai, who's the, you know, of the political prisoners, the one I know the best is a British citizen. So it's, and of course Hong Kong was a British colony. So it's, it's very appropriate. In fact, it's imperative that Britain plays a strong role in this. And then Washington is Washington. Washington is the only country that can begin to stand up to China. And so we think engagement there is, is very important. So we're a non-profit, but we do work very closely with legislative efforts, do a lot of media work, and we do a lot of research as well, trying to spotlight how Hong Kong has increasingly become a bad actor on the world stage. So to take just one example, we did a ground-baking, breaking piece of research, my colleague Sam Bickett on Hong Kong's role in sanctions evasion. And to my actually, even I was surprised to find out that Hong Kong has the key role in smuggling high-tech equipment that goes into the Russian war machine, the Russian war effort in Ukraine. So Hong Kong is

47:25taken advantage of the fact that it had this good reputation, British colony, rule of law, etc. It's gone to the dark side now and it's killing Ukrainians. It's quite sad. You told us a little bit about the Jimmy Lai story, but how does this fellow go from living on the floor of a factory where he was working for dirt wages to becoming a billionaire in over what time period, like I don't know how old Jimmy Lai is today for some things like that? Yeah, well, actually, even he doesn't exactly know how old he is because of the chaos. We think he was born in 1947 or 48, certainly. But yeah, great question. I mean, his story as I hinted at before, it's really the story of Hong Kong. He escapes this, you know, just tumultuous chaos. And China, the family's ripped apart, father leaves, mother ends up in an out of kind of prison labor camps. Jimmy and his two young sisters are like six years old and they're left to

48:29defend for themselves. Jimmy's the street hustler. He's picking up half smoked cigarettes and rerolling them and selling them his singles and working as a porter in the railway station. Makes his way first to the Portuguese colony of Macau and then smuggles himself across the pro river Delta to to Hong Kong. Again, he's sleeping on the floor of the factory, worked hard. I mean, he's a primary school dropout, but he's one of the most brilliant people I ever met. I mean, he's self top and he's, you know, he's a quick on his feet, you know, just an incredible mind. 15 years after he's arrived in Hong Kong and he's sleeping on the factory floor, he owns a factory. And in five years later, it's the biggest sweater maker in Hong Kong. If not in Asia, he's selling the places like the limited. He's coming up with ideas that will cut manufacturing cycle times from five months to five weeks, which if you're running a limited, that's gold, right? And it means you can get stuff to market faster. You're not stuck with unwanted inventory.

49:30Bam, bam, bam, you know, somebody told me at the limited told me I built my first house from Jimmy Lies, particular shirt that Jimmy did. He was great at getting around rules and regulations legally, but, you know, he would he would figure out ways around the US textile quotas and, you know, I mean, probably having a field day with a tariff situation now. But, um, and he got bored with making sweater, a story seat set up a retail shop. It was the it was kind of the pace setter for what became the fast fashion movement. I'm sure many, many people watching listening to this program know about Uniclo, the great Japanese clothing company, the founder of Uniclo came down to learn from Jimmy, you know, and gives him a lot of credit for the whole business model. Now, Tadashi Yanai of Uniclo, he's a builder, he's a systematic guy. Jimmy's an entrepreneur, he's just always crackling with another idea, gets bored, goes on to the next thing. So, he set up the most successful Pan Asian retailer in the 1980s. Cheap prices, good quality, colorful clothes, um, and he was actually

50:32about to go into fast food. He wanted to do something similar, but like Chipotle did, you know, later on in the 90s. He wanted to do that for for fat Chinese fast food. And then history intervened, fat intervened. We had the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 when, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of people in China came out in support of democracy against corruption, against the Chinese communist parties, monopoly on power. And Jimmy, who had not been politically involved, had kind of turned his back on China, was so smitten by the, you know, it's just so moved by the students example that he started selling t-shirts with the students faces on them in his Jordano clothing stores sent the money up to Beijing, sent hints and other material up. And after the, after the Tiananmen killings in June 4th, 1989 when hundreds, maybe even thousands of Chinese were killed by their own government, mowed down, cold blood. Jimmy said, I'm going into the media business because

51:32communism, this is before the birth collapse of the Berlin Wall, very interesting, before the fall of the Soviet Union, said communism is finished, new media, things like CNN and satellite television were, were new. It was like in 1989 when we first saw the power of, of TV images to show images in real time. Jimmy's first set up a magazine, then a newspaper. It was, these were all over. They were, they had horse racing, they had paparazzi, they had stock market tips, they had Nobel prize winning economists, but they always had to focus on democracy. Jimmy set the, the magazine up in 1990, set up Apple Daily in, in 1995, the newspaper. Think about it. It's two years before the Chinese are about to take over. All of his fellow publishers are running for cover. Jimmy's like, I've got a business opportunity. Hong Kong people want democracy. They'll buy my paper and they did. And as the years went on, the, the, the paper in Jimmy became more and more closely intertwined with the programocracy movement. So by the time the crackdown came, he was enemy number

52:36one. And he's been in, he's been in prison now for, I guess about 1,600 days since the, the end of 2020. He's mostly in solitary confinement. Think about that 23 plus hours in a windowless cell. He's a devout, devout Catholic who hasn't been able to receive communion for more than two years. This is the, I guess the third history hasn't gotten communion. He's being held in, you know, very, very tough conditions. It's been convicted on multiple sham charges. And now he's, he's, I guess kind of coming to the end of the, the big trial, the national security law trial. It's probably going to see this guy in his late 70s get a minimum of a 10 year sentence, which is basically a life sentence, but they could give him 50 years. They could give him life. It seems the Chinese Communist Party has decided that they've got to have silence to me live. Well, hopefully we will see a surprise, a prisoner swap a lot of times that they, the communist governments, Russia did this recently. They made a big deal out of sentencing in

53:40American to the, the ballerina was sentenced to 10 years because she donated $50 to Ukrainian charity. I don't even know how they knew that is what makes it entertaining for me, but in any event after they sentenced it or made a big deal out of it, of course, they did a very highly publicized prisoner swap just a couple weeks ago. And hopefully we'll keep our fingers crossed that something similar will happen for Jimmy Lai. Dr. Mark Clifford, how can our audience get more information about you, your committee and your books? Well, yeah, thank you, David. The committee for Freedom in Hong Kong. We have a strong website, the cfhk.org, Google us, Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. Google me, I'm at Mark Clifford.org, but God, there's plenty about me on on our website. It's not about me, David. I do appreciate the attention in the book, but it's about the courage that Jimmy Lai, one of the most heroic people I've ever known, I met him in 1993

54:41before the newspaper was started. It's about Jimmy. It's about the seven, seven-and-a-half million people in Hong Kong who really want nothing more than freedom, not the freedom to overthrow China or have independence, but the freedom to go about their lives and be able to say what they want, stand up for whichever national anthem they want, what it will run, wear whatever t-shirt they want. Maybe someday to have China's promises fulfilled, you know, to have be able to elect the city council and the mayor. So, you know, look, freedom is under threat in a lot of places in the world, but I think Hong Kong is a special case given how free it was, given the fact that China promised in binding international treaties, large with the United Nations, with Britain, that it would allow Hong Kong's freedoms to continue for 50 years. I mean, the fact that, you know, China is trying to get away with this, I think, shows the kind of world that China unfortunately wants to live in, and we've got to try to hold China to account, hold it to its promises, and anything

55:44you're listeners or viewers can do to help us and help other Hong Kong people, we would, of course, appreciate. The Defense Restaurant, our Democrats double down on stupid. The sad story is the lunatic Dems who are doing more for MS-13 members who came here legally than for their own constituent in my lifetime. I never thought I would see the Dems go this low. This would be Senator Van Holland from Maryland, of course, he represents the whole state, represented as Robert Garcia from California, Maxwell Frost from Florida, Jasmine Unsari from Arizona, and Maxine Dexter from Oregon have all gone over there. In fact, given that these traders to America are using tax dollars to fly to El Salvador, not only do I encourage voters in those districts to file suit against the politicians to recover those tax dollars, but to start re-kill campaigns and run pro-American candidates in their districts, telling they can use campaign dollars or personal cash, but not our hard-earned

56:49tax dollars. Silence in the court. Oregon, out of step with Americans. This is a source of a special report by the America First Policy Institute, which stated that Oregon's education bureaucracy has made its position clear. Girl sports are no longer for girls. The report continued. AFPI's legal team sent formal letters to US Attorney Pam Bondi and Education Secretary Linda McMahon requesting a federal investigation into Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon School Activity Association for clear violations of Title IX. The policy institute claims that Oregon's aggressive gender expansive policies require gross schools to allow biological males to compete in girls' sports. I agree with the conclusion that these policies are dangerous, demoralizing, and illegal. The report emphasizes that such policies are part of a state-wide policy that undermines the integrity of women's sports and violates the civil rights protections, guaranteed under Title IX. Thanks for joining me for saving America. If you have questions or

57:53comments, please find me on various social media sites. I'm Dr. David Dishine, and I will see you next week. Thanks for joining us today for saving America with your host, Dr. David Dishine. Saving America is brought to you by Claremont Management Group for every Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern time on the Brushwood Media Network. For more information, go to ClaremontNentimentGroup.com or call us at 713-880-4700. We'll see you next time on Saving America with Dr. David Dishine.