Curmudgeon's Corner is a weekly current events podcast

imboumastodon.sdf.org curmudgeonscornernewsie.social abulsmemastodon.social

Facebook: Facebook       Subscribe: RSS Podcasts iTunes YouTube       Patreon: Patreon

Email: feedback@curmudgeons-corner.com

Ep 847[Ep 848] Automatic Truth [2:05:08]
Recorded: Sat, 2023-Sep-09 UTC
Published: Sat, 2023-Sep-09 22:09 UTC
Ep 849

On this week's Curmudgeon's Corner, Sam and Ivan give the usual dose of Republican legal drama, with updates on the Proud Boys, that Cheese guy, Meadows, Navarro, and yeah, Trump too. But they also discuss a movie, whale watching, state fairs, and world fairs. Plus some on portable displays, misleading polls, immigration, and even a couple imitation Curmudgeon's Corner shows. Super full. Super fun.

  • (0:00:00-0:02:21) Cold Open
  • (0:02:43-0:44:56) But First
    • Yamazaki Feedback
    • Movie: 97 Minutes (2023)
    • Whale Watching
    • Going to the Fair
  • (0:45:56-1:13:52) Part One
    • Proud Boys Sentences
    • Speedy Trials
    • Meadows Loses
    • The Non-Indicted
    • Navarro Conviction
  • (1:16:32-2:04:30) Part Two
    • Portable Displays
    • Immigration Situation
    • Misleading Polling Hype
    • Election 2024
    • Other Curmudgeons

Automated Transcript


Sam:
[0:01]
Okay, don't, I mean, you're fine. Let's change one thing at a time.

Okay, what do you want to talk about?

Ivan:
[0:06]
I don't know.

Sam:
[0:10]
Shall we just go in and alternate 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 and be done? Uh-huh. Okay. Okay.

Does that mean we should just start?

Ivan:
[0:19]
Yeah.

Sam:
[0:21]
Okay. Now, if you don't hear the intro music this time, tell me.

But I've remembered to like flip the thing. Okay. The mode where you should hear it.

Ivan:
[0:29]
The flip it the thingy.

Sam:
[0:31]
Okay, flip it. We are flipped. Flip it. We are flipped. See, I do have other things like this here.

Ivan:
[0:42]
Well that would be good. Like it sounds like a good drum roll.

I figured I could do a dive like after that drum roll.

It sounds like one of those things is there, you know, before you do like a, like one of those dives of like a big, you know, tall diving board.

Yeah. Which I used to do when I was younger. And now I'm like, oh, no way in hell.

I would just go on those tall, like diving boards. It's just, you know, now I'm like, I have fuck.

Sam:
[1:16]
Yeah, I did like the 20 foot ones, maybe even higher when I was like a kid.

But now they know where most places. Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:25]
And now most places they have like locked down, like for liability reasons. They will.

Sam:
[1:29]
Oh yeah. No, I was, this was like when I went to camp at Duke university and it was like their Olympic pool and stuff.

Ivan:
[1:37]
Right.

Sam:
[1:38]
And they let you, yeah, no way in fucking hell.

Ivan:
[1:42]
No, but they were like, you know, but I remember a hotel pools that I would go to that had like these tall 15, 20 foot diving boards, you know, at the pool.

And I, you know, I'm sure that it was like, you know, what the hell are we doing?

Sam:
[1:57]
You know, what, what, you know, we're just, it's only a matter of time till someone kills themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan:
[2:03]
Basically. Yes. You know? Okay.

Sam:
[2:07]
Shall we go? Okay.

Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, September 9th, 2023.

It's 2.46 UTC as we're starting to record, which means, as I translate into U.S.

Time, for me on the West Coast, it is Friday, September 8th at 7.46 p.m.

And for Yvonne on the East coast, it is 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 46 PM on Friday.

You know, it is difficult for me. I, I must admit, you know, the adding of three requires putting up my hand and looking at my fingers.

I noticed, you know, that's it's, it's what is needed for that kind of complex mental activity.

Interesting. So anyway, uh, agenda wise, uh, Yvonne and I are once again, um, Lazy bear, barren and bereft of effort.

Yes, exactly. So we are just going to alternate.

We'll do three segments. Each of us will pick one second, one topic per segment, and that'll be the show.

Ivan:
[4:00]
Well, can we start on, uh, we got some feedback.

Sam:
[4:03]
Feedback. Yes, we did. We got some feedback, like an hour before we're recording something like, yes. Okay.

Ivan:
[4:13]
Uh, and so can you say who, who gave us the feedback?

Sam:
[4:16]
The feedback was from our loyal listener, Matt, as far as we know, the only person who has been a listener since the very first show of this podcast.

Ivan:
[4:29]
Wow. Wow. Well, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.

OK, yeah, that deserves bells. So, yeah, so apparently, Matt listened to my comments on the.

Oh, God, I always Yamakaze, Japanese whiskey, and he apparently went to a the Yamazaki.

Jesus Christ, the Yamazaki always keeps screwing that that name up.

I don't know one of those that I could never there's a pretty good usually with spelling but there are some that I just always get like, I struggled.

Sam:
[5:08]
And this, by the way, was something Yvonne talked about two shows ago. Two shows.

Ivan:
[5:13]
Yes. And apparently he went to a restaurant and they had on the menu, at the sushi place, they had the Yamazaki.

I will say that they did offer it at a discount from getting it at a place in the Caribbean.

But let me be clear, one thing that I found about going to those small islands, everything is that normally is, you know, I mean, any reasonable price, it's always stupidly expensive at those small islands.

I mean, buying a Coke, buying water, but you know, it's just, yeah, it's just, you have to transport it there.

So it gets more expensive. So yes, that, uh, uh, he, he managed to find it at only at a, at a reasonable $30 per, per shot we're talking just, you know, we're talking just, you know, a small serving. So reasonable.

Sam:
[6:04]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Ivan:
[6:05]
Very reasonable. $30 per shot. Yes. I thought that was, you know, significant. It's cheaper to 50 bucks.

So anyway, yes. Well, thanks, Matt. Yes. I'm hoping that you had one on a, on me. Okay. Because Sam says he's not drinking. and maybe we said we're going to make them like...

His wife's going to give him a couple of drinks to see if he'll sing karaoke again at some point, but oh well. Maybe.

Sam:
[6:32]
I worry what kind of substances she might try to slip into my food or drink without my knowledge.

Ivan:
[6:38]
A roofie you would order to get you up to that karaoke stage. There you go.

Sam:
[6:43]
Exactly. She's out of town right now. She went to Tacoma for a couple of days for something related to her job as a state legislator.

She sent me a picture or from the hotel she was at, they had like this little packet of something that was like a spray for your pillow to help you sleep.

Like you'd spray it on your pillow. And I'm like, I haven't heard of that.

I'm like, what the fuck is it?

Ivan:
[7:08]
Chloroform. But that'd be interesting.

I mean, I don't put you to sleep. Sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm going to say that the latest amenity that I found from any hotel that I, I really, really enjoyed was that at the, when I went to this place that had the $50 glasses of scotch, the one amenity that was really cool is that right beside my electronic devices, they left these really nice, uh, uh, uh, reusable, like display cleaning cloths.

Okay. Um, it, and you know, that also worked for glasses and stuff.

Sam:
[7:46]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[7:47]
Quite a few of those. And they are, I mean, but you know, it's one of those things that I have never gotten at any hotel, any and we're in the world. What are those? Okay.

And I just thought that that was super thoughtful, because I'm like, Oh, look, it was right beside my sunglasses.

Oh, I can clean my glass, I clean my stuff, whatever. This is great.

That was thought that was one of the most thoughtful little things that I've gotten And then I'll...

Sam:
[8:13]
In a hotel. That's cool. I do like my thing with specifically with glasses, but like, I guess this applies to computer screens and stuff too. When I get a brand new.

Ivan:
[8:25]
That works for that too. Yeah.

Sam:
[8:27]
Yeah. But the point is when I get a brand new one, whether it's glasses, a computer, a phone, whatever for the first few weeks, I'm like really good about like, okay, I'm going to keep the sucker clean, you know?

And then I come and then I completely fall out of it. And like, I can't see through my damn I'm complaining that I can't see properly.

And it's really just because my glasses are filthy, you know.

Ivan:
[8:53]
Well, that that never helps to have your glasses filthy. I will say that I repeatedly, you know, will clean my glasses regularly. I have these cloths like in my in my bag, on my desk.

Sam:
[9:05]
I have them, too. I just forget to use them.

Ivan:
[9:09]
No, no, no. I'm like, literally, I think I must clean my glasses at least at least once a day.

I will say that I probably get to, to them at least many times, multiple times, but at least once a day, I, at least once or twice a day, I'll wipe them on my t-shirt, but like to actually clean them properly, maybe once a month, if I'm lucky.

Sam:
[9:30]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[9:33]
I mean, I mean, if it's a, if it's depends on the material of the shirt, I mean, sometimes, you know, I don't have one. I use a shirt and some, some shirts are good at it. Some shirts are not.

Sam:
[9:43]
That is very true. That is very true.

Ivan:
[9:46]
Oh, that that's, that's the one that's really brutal. When all of a sudden I'm like, damn it, I need to clean them and I'm going to use a shirt and then I use a shirt and I'm like, shit, will this shirt work? And then I do it.

I'm like, how? Fuck. I just made it worse.

Sam:
[9:59]
I'm like, God. Oh yeah.

Ivan:
[10:02]
Indeed. Anyway. Well, my, my, my, but first.

Sam:
[10:07]
Your actual but first, all of that was just a prelude.

Ivan:
[10:11]
Yeah, the prelude, prelude. Right.

Sam:
[10:14]
Prelude, prelude, I've heard both!

One of them, but not the Honda.

Ivan:
[10:20]
Yeah, I like that car. I used to like that car very much.

But anyway, um, so thanks, Matt, for the for the feedback.

You know, so so remember to tell us if you didn't have one.

But anyway, I'm going to go completely off on a different direction.

Okay. I was thinking about talking about something totally different before, which I can't remember right now because, um, I, I basically got, uh, sucked in to, okay.

I, I was looking at the TV and, uh, Manu and I are feeling a little bit under the weather.

I'm not sure what, what, what's up, but I've been like this for a couple of weeks. Like right now, um, I, at first I, I had my, I heard my, I was talking about my pain, then I had some coughing, then I'm fine.

Now I haven't felt it sick.

No COVID, no, nothing. I don't know.

Sam:
[11:14]
It's just something you tested negative on anything because that's going around again.

Ivan:
[11:18]
Yeah, it is going around again, but that wasn't quite a bit lately, but that wasn't it.

And it's the, the thing is that the funny thing is that I felt like a little bit like, um, well, for the most part, what I had was a little bit of like a, a scratchy throat and a little bit of a cough, but physically no other symptoms.

It's not like I was tired or anything. I was just occasionally coughing and I'm like, what the hell? I feel like fine.

And anyway, so anyway, but, but so I, Manu, I think may have come down with whatever that was because they called from school said, Hey, he said he wasn't feeling well. He wants to go home.

I'm still, we're still not sure. Okay.

Whether he was just wanting to get home early. Okay. We've been been debating that. Okay, but but anyway, um, you know, because he called it noon on Friday. I'm like, come on.

Anyway, but you know, um, so I was sitting here, we were gonna go originally to dinner, my wife had a dinner, I said, Look, you go, I'm gonna stay here, because I'm still, I'm still a little bit like recovering from this, this cough.

And so I mean, and Manu said, he didn't feel well, so we should get it.

I'm just gonna stay here. And so I'm going through the TV trying to figure out what to watch and, um, a scroll across this movie called 97 minutes on Hulu. OK, with Alec Baldwin.

And it's about some. Airplane hijacking.

Now, I will say that apparently this this genre is getting like beaten to death because they the Apple TV also had one of these like recently with Idris Elba.

I think it was called Hijack specifically, which that one was a miniseries like five or six episodes. It was okay. Okay. All right.

I'll say it was, yeah, it's all right. But, but I'm not going to review that right now.

Sam:
[13:17]
I'm not, I'm not, you know, you know, I, the whole thing is before you continue, I'm going to go on a slight tangent and say one genre that tick talk has figured out. I like sometimes because apparently I stick on it for a few minutes.

Well, not specifically, but there are people who post entire movies on tech talks in three, three minute segments.

Okay. Oh, so those people are, so you will just be scrolling through your talk and you'll get three minutes of a movie and then, and then you sort of get sucked in that on YouTube too, all the time.

Ivan:
[13:53]
And so like one of the ones that hell man, come on, what might as well be the guy at the fucking movie theater with a camera, you know, to put it on a VHS, you know, to go like copies.

Sam:
[14:07]
So what, one of the, uh, one of the ones that has come up for me a lot lately.

Yeah. So I have probably now seen maybe, Twenty to thirty minutes of this movie, in out of order, random three minute segments.

Ivan:
[14:26]
Oh, great. That's really helpful.

Sam:
[14:28]
Over the course of several weeks.

Is the Tom Hanks movie about the guy who landed the plane in the Hudson?

Ivan:
[14:37]
Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Sully. Sully.

Sam:
[14:40]
Yeah, yeah, Sully. So, and probably a couple other movies, too, and several others were also about airplanes.

There was another one where the guy, the guy crashed the airplane and then there was a hearing into it.

And, uh, there were, there were a couple of these. So it apparently determined I like airplane crash movies and has been showing me little clips of that over time.

Anyway, sorry, continue with your.

Ivan:
[15:04]
Well, so I go and I'm like, Alec Baldwin and some guys 97 minutes, it's, you know, it's a hijack movie. And I'm like, and some of the guy that I don't recognize.

And I'm like, well, let's see what this is about.

Sam:
[15:19]
I'm looking at the thing. It's Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Reese Myers, Mianna Burring, Pavan Grover, and Jule Nijam.

Ivan:
[15:31]
Oh, yeah. All those names just rolled off the tip of your tongue.

Anyway, you can see all A-list players there.

So, look, I go and I start watching this. And I'm like, man, it seemed a little bit promising at first.

Sam:
[15:51]
Okay.

Ivan:
[15:53]
I think I'm looking at the, you look at the special effects, and.

Stuff and acting and the plot, which starts quickly, just not much of it doesn't make any sense.

And you're just like struck by, Jesus, this is such a shittily made movie.

How the hell is Alec Baldwin a star on this piece of shit? I mean, this is just not good.

And so I decided to go into online IMDb or whatever to check out, to investigate this movie. When did it come out? What are the reviews?

And so I go to IMDb and holy shit, okay.

I'm like, well, I guess I'm not the only one that thought this.

Look, 97 minutes on IMDb gets right now a rating of 3.5 out of 10.

Okay. All right. I mean, that's got to be what a lowest on IMDB right now, uh, period.

Okay. Um, and I'm like, and then I started just reading the reviews and I look, I, I, I could give spoilers. I'm not going to give you spoilers.

If you want to go watch this, I'll add it to my past.

I shouldn't be laughing with the coughing. No. Yeah. You, Yeah, that that will that will be something and so I start reading these and let's just the reason I brought it up was mostly just to read the reviews because I started reading reviews this this this crystallizes first review one way flight into the garbage bin one star another low budget direct to streaming fake action thriller with a washed up former star Baldwin appearing for glorified cameo and it was more than a cameo he was really in the movie a lot.

And no name Lee doing his best to carry a film weight down by an abysmal script and amateur direction.

Okay, that's the first one.

Three stars as daft as it gets. If you could concoct a film that denied you all facts that could relay a story in disjointed acts, where the edits and acting were cobbled and crude, where the outcomes can be a more distorted and skewed than sit down, buckle up and you're in for a ride.

What's your plane that's been crippled without effort, just glide, listen in behind doors. I could catch all you whisper.

It's not long that you think that you've all had a good snifter.

The writers must have been three sheets, at least be afraid for the money that's been spent on the fences.

It's just anyway. All right. There you go. Did you get the idea?

Uh, four stars, four out of 10, a new low for Alec Baldwin.

I was hopeful at the start and I must admit I was in the same boat.

I was really into an action packed disaster movie, but from the very start, I expect that troubles ahead the bad.

The movie is cheaply made and one can tell everything from the leading credits to the sound to the photography. All these aspects are way below average.

It's like somebody just made it.

They probably used my computer. It's quite cringeworthy to watch these cheap special effects.

It's as if we were watching a 70s disaster movie with lots of ridiculous fake effects. Um.

Oh, I love this one. This one. Four stars. Ninety three minutes of my life. I'll never get back.

The film barely even qualifies the B film more like a C film.

A high school drama class can come up with a better movie.

The writing had plot holes, inconsistencies and technical issues as clearly no research went into any elements of this film. I completely agree with this person from flying, landing a plane, cabin pressure, minute debris, explosive security, et cetera.

Even the dialogue was it was infantile dramatics and boring nonsense filler for the most part.

And by the way, it's two stars, one stars. Absolutely waste of time.

Look, I those guys are right. I don't know what the hell.

Sam:
[20:11]
I mean, I did you actually end up watching the whole thing or did you bail in the middle?

Ivan:
[20:18]
I got to minute 20 something.

Okay. I couldn't stomach just watching more. I kind of fast forward through the rest to figure out what the hell happened. Okay. Um, and the ending was so.

Idiotic. Um, you know, what, what, spoiler. Okay. All right.

Let's throw it a spoiler. One spoiler.

The plane in the plot, the description says that it's a seven 67.

Okay. It's specifically says something about it. A ticking clock scenario unfolds as a hijacked seven 67 airplane face imminent disaster when its fuel supply dwindles with just 97 minutes remaining.

So they show, at one point, a scene of the plane landing, except the scene of the plane landing that they show is very clearly a fucking 737.

And I'm just like, I mean, it doesn't look anything like the fucking plane we've been watching in the whole goddamn movie.

Sam:
[21:24]
A plane is a plane is a plane. You know, it doesn't really make a difference.

Ivan:
[21:30]
I mean, there is there, I mean, clearly inside, you know, they found some, you know, part plane somewhere to do this, which, oh, by the way, wasn't even a fucking 767.

Now that I remember to stay up late on the interior had a two, four, two seating layout, which is 767 and coach doesn't have either.

It's not even that inside.

And, you know, basically the airline is called oceanic airways from lost.

Yeah. You know, so, oh, that's what it's from.

Fuck. I never watched loss. So anyway, look in order for decoration inside, inside the plane, somebody apparently just went and like printed up a sign, like under printer, it seemed like, and then like with tape, you know, put the pages together on, on, on, on the bulkhead wall, so it would say oceanic airways. I'm like, Jesus Christ.

I mean, it's just the the movie was just. It was just shit.

Apparently they got a bunch of the seven million dollars. I really believe I could have done better with seven million dollars.

OK, so let me see all these guys right now.

I don't know if you've seen right right now. There's a whole bunch of guys.

Yeah. I'm doing videos of like stuff similar to air disasters, but they do their own YouTube videos.

And a lot of these guys do like full graphic simulations of the flights and whatnot.

Sam:
[23:04]
Mm hmm.

Ivan:
[23:05]
You know, they they launch these pretty regularly. I'll tell you what, some of these guys have gotten pretty good at doing whatever they're using in order to simulate the flights to make it look pretty good.

And I gotta tell you that some of these youtubers doing a better job that these guys is seven million dollar budget for one fucking movie So anyway, 97 minutes, two thumbs down. It sucks.

Sam:
[23:36]
Right.

Ivan:
[23:36]
It's no, don't waste your time. It's shit. The, but the reviews are funny.

Sam:
[23:42]
Okay. So a couple, a couple of things just to add, uh, from its Wikipedia page.

Oh, Oh, first of all, before that, the flight that crashed at the beginning of the TV show lost was oceanic flight eight 15. Okay. Okay.

So I don't know if that was an intentional accidental on an homage, whatever, or they were just lazy or they were just lazy.

Ivan:
[24:07]
It's like, what do we name this damn airline? Throw me a name. Oh, shit. Todd.

Sam:
[24:12]
Okay. Two other things. One, apparently the entire film, not the post production, but the actual filming was done over 18 days, which is pretty short.

Ivan:
[24:24]
So no shit. Really? Wow. What a surprise.

Sam:
[24:28]
And then the last thing is this was the first movie Baldwin did after he shot that lady on the set of rust.

Ivan:
[24:36]
Oh, well, I guess he needed the money for God's sakes. This is one thing I can think.

Sam:
[24:40]
Well, apparently, apparently he'd been attached to it on contract for a while before the Wikipedia says Grover said Baldwin had been attached for 18 months prior to filming and the part had been tailored for him?

Ivan:
[24:58]
You know, let me see.

I'm going to look something up. The movie Lost in Translation had a budget of about $4 million instead of the seven this one had.

And let's see how long did it take for filming?

Phil principle photography lasted 27 days. OK. All right.

In Japan, which is quite expensive. Let me just say that they made a lot better use of their money. Okay.

Sam:
[25:40]
Okay. Okay, is it my turn yet?

Ivan:
[25:42]
It's your turn.

Sam:
[25:43]
Okay.

Ivan:
[25:43]
I already gave it two thumbs down.

Sam:
[25:46]
Two thumbs down. And I have, I will add it to my list and maybe it'll come up someday.

Ivan:
[25:51]
Someday.

Sam:
[25:52]
Someday. Over the rainbow. Something. Okay. Uh, I, I, I promised an update on a specific thing on last week's show. So that is going to be my topics.

Uh, I went whale watching.

Ivan:
[26:06]
Oh, you watched a whales. And Sam, the other day told me he basically didn't remember.

Sam:
[26:11]
You know, you did remember what the whales, I did not remember that we had gone on a whale watch. It had been completely erased from my memory.

When I thought about that trip, I only remembered that you were sick.

And that's all I remembered. But then last week, last week, most of the damn whales last week, when you were reminded me, I looked at the webpage I put up about the trip, uh, uh, apples may.com, uh, slash trip and then look for the one in Joggins, Nova Scotia, uh, a B U L S M E.

Um, anyway, um, and so we, and I think it's on day two anyway.

Um, so yeah, you reminded me and I sort of remember via the pictures now that we saw whales. It jogged my memory. Cause we went to Joggins, Nova Scotia.

Um, anyway, uh, so this was a, uh, whale watching trip that my mom, uh, took our whole family on as sort of a joint birthday present for me and my son and my daughter who all have, uh, birthdays coming up over the next month and a half or so.

And so, let me start with this.

It was a fun afternoon with the family, you know, we got to ride the boat.

They had like a little place where you could get food and stuff.

And we spent an insane amount on overpriced stupid food because it was what was there and we were hungry.

Ivan:
[27:42]
You know, that happens when you go to places like that.

Sam:
[27:45]
Yeah. I mean, they had they had hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, blah, blah, blah.

You know, the standard, you know, clog every cholesterol A media called clog every artery of your body, refillable souvenir cup for $20 that you could like get as many drinks as it was $20 for the cup, but then infinite refills for life.

You can bring the same cup back. If you go whale watching again in 10 years and use it, you know.

Ivan:
[28:11]
Oh wow. So yeah, so helpful.

Sam:
[28:14]
No, now I made sure that I had enough soda during the trip to pay for the $20.

If I'd gotten the sodas individually. Okay. So, okay.

Ivan:
[28:25]
All right. Yeah.

Sam:
[28:26]
So I just kept drinking and drinking and drinking. Give me a, give me another soda. Okay. This time I want, uh, um, hot chocolate this time.

I want cider or whatever, you know?

Um, anyway, uh, it was a fun time with the family. We spent the whole afternoon, well, almost the whole day. We left like in the morning, cause we had to drive a couple hours to where this was with the thing itself was like four hours long or something like that.

We saw some wildlife and we did see whales, but I will say, in comparison to what you and I did in 1999, That's just a little while ago. Yeah. That's a while.

Our West Coast whales are orcas.

And there are rules about how close you can get to the orcas.

Ivan:
[29:14]
Yeah, you can't get that close.

Sam:
[29:20]
So the net result was you could see that. Yeah, there was something in the distance over there.

Ivan:
[29:26]
Yeah, I've done that. I've done that kind of whale watching.

Sam:
[29:31]
Yeah, it wasn't like the experience that we have pictures of on my website.

Ivan:
[29:37]
Nah, we had them like a few feet away from us.

Sam:
[29:40]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[29:40]
You know, literally.

Sam:
[29:41]
Right there and huge. First of all, I think it was humpbacks that we saw back then and they are much bigger. Yes.

Ivan:
[29:49]
And there were humpbacks. Yes.

Sam:
[29:50]
Yeah. And so those are much bigger than Orca and they were much closer.

And, you know, they were doing their display activities. The ones we saw, you know, there were like four or five boats around at the legally prescribed distance.

And, you know, every once in a while you'd see a fin or something for like a half second, you know, as they did, as they were feeding or whatever they were doing.

And so the whales themselves were actually kind of underwhelming, I have to say.

I mean, it was kind of cool to see them. And they had like, you know...

Inside the binoculars or something, you, you could rent binoculars.

We did not. They also took, they, they have good cameras and inside the boat, they had screens where they would immediately after taking them, they'd be downloading all kinds of pictures and showing you, uh, on the inside TV screens, uh, pictures that were better than we could get with our own.

I mean, I tried getting some pictures with my like iPhone camera and yeah, did I get a couple?

Yeah, were they good pictures? No, it was like, oh, yeah that blurry thing over there.

That's that's an orca but But you know and then they had like the the expert who was talking about it and identifying like, okay By looking at the patterns on the fin we know which whale this is uh, these two whales are brother and sister that were born in such and such a year.

And they usually travel with this pod and they're over here together feeding today, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so they were giving, you know, all kinds of history and information about what we were seeing and the ecosystem and blah, blah, blah, all the educational stuff with the addition that like, you know, again, like all of the, uh, Orca that live around here are like catalogued.

And so they know them as individuals and they know their history and where they've been and when they were born and what family they're a part of and all this kind of stuff. And that was kind of cool because you could listen to the woman tell you all that stuff.

But the actual OK, what did you see of the whales?

Well, you know, like I said, it was a little underwhelming, Um, especially compared to just having looked at what we saw in 1999, but, you know, it was still a fun trip for the day, you know, I, I mean, it was, it was about hanging out with family.

It was going on the, the, the boat itself. Like it was going through the San Juan islands, uh, in the, um, how many hours on the boat?

Ivan:
[32:30]
Was that how many hours on the boat?

Sam:
[32:33]
Uh, you know, I forgot to like track the beginning and I think it was like four or five, somewhere around there.

Ivan:
[32:39]
No, it's pretty much a full day, basically.

Sam:
[32:41]
Yeah. I mean, when we went out and the scenery was gorgeous, it was beautiful weather and we were going in, you know, in a route like zigzagging around the islands and they're like incredibly scenic and, you know, and some of them are mostly wild and some of them have all kinds of like, you know, rich people houses on them, you know, and it was fun and we did see some other wildlife, you know, some porpoises, some seals, some sea lions, you know, a bunch of other stuff.

And so it was still a lot of fun, even though it wasn't, you know, quite the, oh my God, big whale right next to the boat kind of thing.

So, yeah, and that's the summary there and, um, we, we, uh, we, you know, my, my wife and my son and I also went to the state fair the next day, uh, and, uh, for us, well, specifically for me and my son, uh, it's basically like, uh, you know, we're not doing the rides.

We go, we have some junk state fair food and then we leave.

Ivan:
[33:51]
So not even the Ferris wheel.

Sam:
[33:55]
Nah, we didn't do any of that crap. No, my, my, my wife, my wife looks at, looks around at some of the booths where they're selling various things, but, uh, you know, no, like we, in previous years, we have like when, uh, when Alex was a lot littler, uh, we did do some rides, some of the, like the, the kiddie rides that like, you know, a parent will ride with their young children.

Children. Um, but we haven't done that in years, like, you know, neither, neither me or Alex are excited by the rides anymore.

And uh, so, you know, we just, we just hang out, eat some food.

Ivan:
[34:31]
Unlike you guys this last weekend, we did go to Disney for Labor Day weekend and, uh, uh, okay.

So at, at Disney, they opened a ride, uh, a couple of months ago, they opened at Disney in the United States had been in Shanghai for a while.

It's the first place they put it called Tron light cycle run. Okay.

Yep, and And OK, I did get we did ride the Tron light cycle run.

Let me just say that it's, uh, my son was afraid about it, but he did get on it.

And, uh, it's very, very, very intense, but short, he loved it.

Okay. He wants to go back on it again, but, uh, but it's, uh, but yeah, so he, he did get on the, on the, on the right.

And he, he, he did, uh, like it very much. They it's very well made.

Very cool. Like we go in just to be clear, like they make the simulation of like you, like in Tron, you know how the cycles would block the other guy and you know, that's right. They they made it.

It do kind of like that inside the ride.

Nice. It's pretty. I mean, with some, I think the ride costs like $300 million or something like that.

So yeah, it was, let's just say that the graphics were a lot better than in the movie.

97 minutes. Yeah. Just, just to be clear where we were, was a state fair with like 50 year old wheel and a horse, you know, you do the, I haven't, you know, I haven't done that.

Right. Oh, no, I've done it. I did it not that long ago.

Sam:
[36:31]
Yeah No, they you know this these are the ancient rides that have probably been around for 20 or 30 years That of questionable safety and construction and what safety?

Safety and and you know like as my daughter summarized my daughter did not come with this to the fair this time but she's like, dad.

Like, you know, you'll throw up on anything. So yeah, true.

Ivan:
[36:59]
Can't argue that point.

Sam:
[37:01]
Maybe not quite, but close enough that I don't find these things pleasant anymore.

Like when I get off, I'm like, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that.

Ivan:
[37:10]
So, well, I don't do them like, you know, there was a documentary recently and I had heard this being spoken by from, from some people um, in a, in other podcasts, I heard a couple of people talk about it.

And then they made a documentary about it, because I guess I thought, ah, it's just these people are talking about this.

There's a park in New Jersey called Action Park. Okay, that, uh, it quickly earned the infamous nickname of accident park, because the rides were so dangerous.

I mean, and so many people got, got hurt and, and stuff happened and people, I mean, this place, I don't know, this was a park that opened like back in the, in the seventies.

And, you know, back then, I guess it was like, ah, somebody fell off the ride and, you know, it was paralyzed, you know, whatever, you know, we'll, we'll patch them up.

It's fine. Or whatever. Um, I mean, to talk about like, for example, there is the action park was finally close at 96.

By then, the park was responsible for six fatalities, including three drownings in the tidal wave pool and the death of a 27 year old man who was electrocuted on the kayak experience when his book took over and he came into contact with water to add a loose wire touching it.

Sam:
[38:30]
It sounds awesome.

Ivan:
[38:32]
I mean, how the- I mean, how the- I mean, how the- And yes, apparently, uh, you know, that was, you know, um, uh, yeah.

Um, the dead underage visitors remember being able to drink beer freely and run through the park without a care or much in a way of adult supervision.

So, you know, so I guess the state state fair is not like that.

Sam:
[38:53]
No. And, and, and I joke, I'm sure they have the proper, proper expect it, you know, inspections and such, and it's all fine, but yeah, it doesn't, you know, they, They don't just like, somebody died on the Ferris wheel.

Ivan:
[39:08]
They're like, oh, look, we closed that one. We'll just keep riding around. It's fine.

Sam:
[39:14]
You've got to believe it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but the state fair has its own charms, although Washington state isn't.

There's some states in the Midwest that are known for like, oh my God, that's an amazing thing. And you have to see it, blah, blah, blah. As far as I know, Washington state, this was specifically the Evergreen State Fair.

Washington has a couple of different state fairs from what I gather, but, um, it doesn't have that reputation as far as I know, but it's, it was fine. It's a fair, it's worth, we, we go, we go once a year when it's around.

Ivan:
[39:45]
Those kinds of events are just not as big a draw as they used to be.

Right. And I mean, in general, okay. You know, like in Puerto Rico, there used to be these, these, uh, uh, of affairs that were done at each town that were to celebrate the the Peyton Saint of the town.

And there were like rides like at the carnival, like that, whatever, whatnot.

And it ran for a couple of weeks or whatever. And those were really big and in most towns, but those have died down a lot. Think about the world expos, for example.

Sam:
[40:16]
Oh yeah. That the world's fair.

Ivan:
[40:19]
I mean the world's fair i mean you know there have been certain recently world's fairs i mean nobody gives a shit about those anymore but we remember like for example knoxville with the first ball i went to the knoxville world's fair with my mom i wouldn't i went to that one too yeah and like you know i went to 92 we should check our pictures from knoxville in 1982 and see if we're in each other's background i gotta try to find i i should try to see i'm sure that in my parents' house, there's got to be pictures of that World's Fair trip. There has to be.

Sam:
[40:55]
What was that?

Ivan:
[40:55]
1982? I think it had to be 82. Okay. 80. No, it was 80.

80. 80. Okay. 1980. Yeah. 1980. So, yeah.

But those were big back then. I went to the 1D Expo in 92 in Spain, and Seville, that was like, you know, huge people from around the world were going over there. Whatever. We're not, I don't know. I mean, think about Paris, the Eiffel tower.

Here in Seattle, the Space Needle was the Space Needle for one of those two, right?

So now it's like World's Fair Expo.

What is that? Nobody knows. I mean, what, what is the next one?

I mean, I'm going to look up because I know, I know there's, I know there have been more.

Uh, let's see, expo. Let's see. Wouldn't, wouldn't, uh, the, the, the, the list of world expositions.

Here we go. Okay. Going back to 1851.

Let's see recent, um, there was an expo 2020 in, uh, Dubai.

I think I did hear somebody obliquely mentioned it before, before that it was in Kazakhstan.

Great. Um, and then there was one in Milan. I have, and there was one in South Korea.

It was a Shanghai one. Okay. I mean, I don't know. There's been, apparently there's been some, we just haven't paid attention to any of them.

Sam:
[42:30]
I guess so.

Ivan:
[42:31]
Anymore.

Sam:
[42:32]
Well, you know, that's also one of the things, I mean, you went to one in Spain, but I feel like that, that's something where if it comes close to you, maybe you go, but not necessarily something you travel across the world for.

Ivan:
[42:46]
Oh, but I mean, but anymore was what was well, Tennessee, what exactly?

That's what I mean. I mean, back then, we people would travel.

Sam:
[42:53]
We went to the World's Fair one. I think it what we didn't make a trip just to do that. It was on. I think it was.

I could be wrong about this. This was a long fucking time ago, Yvonne.

I was what, nine years old.

Ivan:
[43:09]
Not you're right about the year. It's 82. It's a it was 82.

Sam:
[43:12]
OK, it's 82. So I was right about the year. Yes.

Ivan:
[43:15]
No, I guess you're right about the year.

Sam:
[43:16]
I think it was when we were taking a trip. We were, it's when I was moving from Durham, North Carolina to Indiana for half a year. And I think we stopped on the way from North Carolina to Indiana.

I think, does the timing work out?

Ivan:
[43:32]
Yeah, probably. But, but the thing is that you would stop to go for it.

It was a draw. I mean, hell, you know, people talked about it.

I mean, it was in, It was in, um, hell, they made fun of it in the Simpsons for God's sakes.

Remember that? I mean, it was something that it was in the, um, yep.

Sam:
[43:57]
It was 19. I was right. It was 1982 when we went from Durham to Indianapolis.

So we must've stopped there on the way.

Ivan:
[44:02]
Yeah. So I went to a summer camp and, uh, Asheville, North Carolina, and, uh, we We took a bus and did a visit over to Knoxville to go to the fair.

Excellent. All right.

Sam:
[44:19]
That's it. I think our, but first has long has lasted, but is, but it is, but long enough, but long enough.

Ivan:
[44:27]
Yes.

Sam:
[44:27]
Let let's take a break and then we will alternate other topics and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, the thing with the, but first is always the like fun, frothy stuff. And we'll get into like actual newsy stuff next for anybody who's actually left, right?

Or live plan or alive. Yeah. you know our talking might be just as good as that chloroform I was talking about.

Ivan:
[44:51]
Indeed.

Sam:
[44:55]
Okay here we go.

Break:
[44:57]
You're supposed to say doo-doo-doo. Doo-doo-doo. Alex Samzilla!

Alex Samzilla is awesome. Its videos are fun and today once again we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell you how awesome Alex Zemzala is.

I'd say on a rate from 1 to 10, Alex Zemzala is awesome at, I don't know, 37? 82? He's pretty radical. His videos are phenomenal. They're full of creativity.

And they're so funny and exciting to watch.

Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that Dad pretending to be you?

Because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to?

Yes! Good job on remembering, Dad! Do-do-do!

Sam:
[45:56]
Okay, we are back and it's your turn, Mr. Bo. Wow.

Ivan:
[46:01]
Okay. It's my turn. It is to see what we see.

And go and look at things.

Uh, that good, the proud boy sentences.

Sam:
[46:23]
Oh, okay. Go for it.

Ivan:
[46:25]
So, uh, well, I mean, these guys got thrown into clink for a long time. Didn't they?

Sam:
[46:32]
Um, I mean, yeah, the, the, the, the leaders, uh, I guess, um, well, Tario got 22 years. I think the rest of them got like 17.

Um, so yeah, I mean, the government wanted more, but this was still pretty significant.

Ivan:
[46:46]
These were pretty stiff. I mean, I, you know, w you know, because we had, we talked a lot about how people that had been arrested and had, um, gotten sentences had gotten some pretty light sentences, um, especially, and we're talking a lot of the people who like the people got sort of swapped up in it.

Sam:
[47:08]
They weren't the leaders. They were just the, the, the rabble who came because they were called and were like, let's go.

A lot of those folks got relatively small sentences. Some of them are, some of them are probation only, essentially a few of them are a few months, things like that.

Uh, but these guys were actively involved in organizing the whole damn thing.

And they've got lots of time.

Ivan:
[47:33]
And, um, for, for whatever.

Sam:
[47:36]
Oh, and I'll add, there were people in between, like Like who weren't the people who actually like injured police officers and stuff.

They got stuff measured in years as well, but not as high as these guys who were the, you know, again, they're, they're the ones who are setting it all up and making sure people knew where to go and all this kind of stuff.

Ivan:
[47:56]
So, and by the way, uh, uh, his mom, uh, uh, it's just as stupid as he is.

Um, you know, so she was today at her attorney's office, like saying, Oh, he was just a pawn.

He got, we can get something so bad.

Like, I'm just like, you know.

I, you know, it's the stuff that those text message were a lot of group of guys just talking.

Oh, fuck out of here. Just, you know, I'm so. You know. But.

You know, there is a very substantial.

A group of people in the world in general that truly believe their kids can do no wrong.

Yeah, that and that out, you know, I'm like, you know, doesn't it? Look?

No, that's just bullshit. No. That's a way that you enable these people to get into even bigger fucking trouble.

And that's why I see well, there you go. That's why this guy, you know, one thing that made this guy think, you know, he'd get away with anything his mom would say, Hey, you know, all you think you're doing is good. Okay, good.

If my son, you know, wound up, you know, at this thing, and I saw the evidence, because I sure as hell saw a lot of fucking evidence about this.

I'd be the first one that's slapping him around, telling him you're fucking making a plea. Dumbass.

Sam:
[49:36]
You know it. Yes. I mean, I agree with you and, you know, I've told you before, like, if you get in trouble, Yvonne, I'm, I'm given evidence.

Sorry, dude. But like, at the same time, it's really hard when it's like friend or family and And it's not the kind of way that you have your relationship with them, like, oh, I've never seen them act like this before. Although I don't believe that for a second in this game.

Ivan:
[50:03]
JUSTINE Oh, bullshit.

Sam:
[50:04]
Not for this asshole.

Ivan:
[50:05]
This asshole had a fucking track record of being a scumbag.

Well before this.

Sam:
[50:14]
ALICE I can still understand if it's like, your kid or whatever.

JUSTINE And my scumbag! Well, and at least part of it is also like, maybe he did do it, but he shouldn't be punished, you know, is another attitude you sometimes see.

And yeah, it's pervasive in a lot of places. And it's like, because if, like a lot of these folks in this case specifically, where we're we're talking about January 6th stuff. They're obvious.

There are obviously lots of people who fundamentally don't believe they did anything wrong.

You know, whatever the law is, whatever it's, it's, it's political persecution, you know, and, and if the right thing to have happened would have been if they'd succeeded and made sure Donald Trump got to be president, you know, and all of this is inappropriate, you know?

And there are a lot of people who feel that way about the January 6th people.

I mean, Trump himself, of course, is going around saying if he's president again, And he'll pardon them all.

You know, so, yeah, anyway, you have anything else to say about the Proud Boys?

They got more years than, what was the other one, the O people, the other group of- I'm gonna have to, which other, what are we talking about?

There were like three hate groups that were involved in the January 6th.

Ivan:
[52:01]
Well, I only remember the damn proud boys for some reason. The only reason I said it was so there was a proud boys.

Sam:
[52:05]
There were the three percenters. And then there was another one that my memory is saying has an O somewhere in the name, but I don't know.

Ivan:
[52:12]
Oh, the oath keepers. The oath keepers.

Sam:
[52:14]
There we go.

Ivan:
[52:14]
Yes, that's right. Yes. He jogged my memory.

Sam:
[52:19]
But yeah, so I don't know. I, I, I, I, I'm happy to see them like rot in jail, go to jail.

Ivan:
[52:27]
Oh yeah.

Sam:
[52:29]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[52:30]
Yeah.

Sam:
[52:30]
No. Now in these, in these particular cases, they have, they've actually been sitting around in jail already. Right. They, they weren't loose on their own recognizance. Were they?

Ivan:
[52:39]
I don't remember if I don't remember. I think, uh, I don't remember if, uh, uh, if he was in jail already, I don't know.

Sam:
[52:49]
Okay. Are you looking it up?

Ivan:
[52:52]
I'm looking at... Yes, I am!

Sam:
[52:56]
Because if you weren't, I was going to have to, but you're good at this.

Ivan:
[53:00]
Okay, I'm looking. Let's see.

Uh, ba-ba-ba... That is a sentencing...

Through prison... I looked up exact...

33 years...

Said something about some millions of dollars in bail, but I don't, I think he's out. Okay.

Sam:
[53:29]
He's not. I don't think so.

I think what criminal status incarcerated? Let's see. Was it just now?

Okay. Now, now, now he must have been out on bail before that, but now he's actually in jail.

Ivan:
[53:48]
I don't know.

Uh, we don't know. I can't find a good answer. Okay.

Sam:
[53:57]
Hold on. Oh, no.

Ivan:
[53:59]
He was, uh, yeah, he was jailed.

Sam:
[54:03]
But just jailed. That's not right.

Ivan:
[54:05]
Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. He had been jailed since last year until trial.

Sam:
[54:09]
Okay. Excellent.

Ivan:
[54:13]
Uh, and this one, I did that with a few other people. We'll stay.

You know, Enrique Dario, national chairman of the priorities during the events of of January six, we'll stay in jail pending his trial on charges that led a conspiracy.

Yep. Uh, yeah. So, yeah. So he'd been in jail already since, uh, May of 2022. So we're just extending his stay on our, on our desk and I'm happy to foot the tab.

Sam:
[54:37]
All right. If you are done with this, I will jump in and I will just extend since we're talking about January six and all that kind of stuff.

The last few shows, the second segment has been all about this kind of legal stuff.

The rest of the legal maneuverings and things related to the January 6th stuff, and in this case most of what's been going on has been with the Georgia case still.

So a few things to talk about there.

The two main things that happened this week, I think.

One, the, the two folks, uh, Chesborough and what's her name? The lawyer lady.

Ivan:
[55:22]
Um, yeah, cheese, bro.

Sam:
[55:24]
Chesborough. Apparently it's actually Chesborough, even though a lot of people have been saying cheese burrow for two weeks.

I mean, Chesborough reminds me of like, uh, I don't know, some company named Chesborough ponds, but anyway, he, he had put to, he, He, these are the two that have petitioned to have a speedy trial, uh, and they have an October date.

Um, and they had petitioned to have their cases severed from each other as well as for the people who weren't going early.

Um, so far the judge has said, you cannot be severed from each other.

So they are going to gather, uh, the, the basically Chesborough and Sydney Powell.

Powell, that's her name, right? Powell, right, Yvonne? Yes. They, see, here's what I, I get on a video call from you and I catch your cough.

Ivan:
[56:21]
Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah. That's how that works.

Sam:
[56:23]
Exactly. Anyway, they had petitioned to not share a trial. They're like, we don't know each other.

We've never met. We haven't like done anything.

I'm not involved.

Ivan:
[56:36]
I'm going to say that if we go to trial, I'm getting the case as severed.

Sam:
[56:42]
Um, but they, they both said that basically like they didn't have anything to do with each other's parts of the case. So why should they be tried together?

They have nothing to do with each other.

And, um, the, the, the prosecution said, it's a Rico trial. It's a conspiracy.

You are all part of the same scheme. Right. Yeah, even if your individual components of it did not involve you interacting with each other at all, you both were, you know, it's if, if, if.

Ivan:
[57:17]
You're all part of the enterprise.

Sam:
[57:19]
You're all part of the same conspiracy. So even if you were tried separately, yes, the evidence about what the other one does is still relevant, even though you didn't do that stuff, because it's all part of the same conspiracy.

And the judge agreed and was like, sorry, you guys are going together.

Um, there's one other person who is talking about maybe also asking for a speedy trial. That's Eastman. Uh, if that happens, they'll do, you know, they'll probably be merged in. Although there's a question of timing there.

And, um, uh, you like, if he waits too long before he asked for that, maybe he wouldn't be able to go into same October schedule.

Um, And then pretty much all of the rest of the defendants, including Donald Trump, have asked to be severed from these two because they don't want to start in October.

You know, um, and the, the DA's official position is, yeah, we want to do all 19 in October.

And the judge was like, you gotta be kidding me, right? You can't, you can't really do all 19 of these starting in October and be, and all, and have all of them be ready for it.

Uh, he's, he, he said, I am very skeptical, uh, but he's allowing them to try to make their case for that early next week and we'll see.

But most likely, we will have at least two of these, one trial for all of these people who wanna go early and one trial for all of the people who don't.

At least, it may get broken up even further, but that's where we are today.

Um, and, um, yeah, so, uh, but we're, we're having at least one of these like in, in October, you know, there will be a trial like a month and a half from now, there will be one of these trials started.

Um, it may not be the Donald Trump one, but it will be about this conspiracy and it will be televised.

Um, the other two pieces of news that came out about this, uh, over the last week, one, uh, just a few hours before we started recording today, uh, Mark Meadows officially lost his bid to get this move to federal courts.

Um, now, as we talked about, like, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago.

Um, there are several people, uh, out of these 19 who are asking the same thing to be moved, uh, moved from state to federal courts, uh, including Donald Trump has served notice that he.

He's thinking about it. He hasn't actually filed to do that yet, but he's noticed that he's thinking about it.

But here's the thing from everybody I've heard talk about this, the strongest case to get this moved to federal court was Meadows, everybody else, including president has a weaker case and Meadows just lost his and it would be the same judge making the decision for everybody else.

So basically, if Meadows can't get this...

Nobody else is going to be nobody else can right right now.

Ivan:
[1:00:40]
No way now.

Sam:
[1:00:41]
Meadows is appealing it But also from the chatter I've heard Is that he's very unlikely to succeed on appeal It may take some time to get there But key here is the way the law is structured around the removal and everything else While he's appealing that up and down the chain the Georgia case continues.

Like if, if at some point, you know, some appeals court decides that it should go federal, then, okay, he's not stopping it by, by doing this. Yeah.

Nothing stops or even slows down in the meantime, you know, it just keeps going.

Now, the one thing is when, when the judge was like talking about the severing of the the early trial people or speedy trial people versus the ones that want to take longer.

He did bring up this question. He's like, do we, you know, the whole appeals on the federal court thing may go on for months and months and months.

Do we really want to put all the time and effort into a trial that we may just have to stop at some point and say, okay, well, forget all that.

Going to going to the feds now.

So he is thinking about that at least but I think given this first ruling, yes technically appeals may still be going on but I think he's got a much better case for like let's just let's just go.

We'll see how that happens. Apparently the judge that's handling the Georgia case has been a judge for less than a year.

You know, so, uh, you know, and he seemed okay.

Like I watched that, I watched that first televised hearing, uh, and he seemed confident and like he was well-versed, but we'll see, I guess, like, I mean, a lot of those, a lot of those guys, maybe a judge for a year, but he's been doing other legal stuff for a long time.

Ivan:
[1:02:46]
Exactly. About 30 years, pretty young.

Sam:
[1:02:48]
He's only 38.

Ivan:
[1:02:49]
Still, I mean, you can be at least a decade, you know, plus of being a lawyer.

Sam:
[1:02:57]
So, you know, so anyway, apparently this is going to actually be tried in the Georgia courts. It's not going to go federal, um, unless something really surprising happens.

Um, and then, uh, finally the, the last thing, um, was that, uh, the initial, you know, Georgia did a weird thing, which was, they had a first, a special grand jury during doing the investigation.

And then they handed over a report that was presented to a regular grand jury that actually did the indictments and the D.A. had some involvement in between.

And apparently, that initial report from the first grand jury was released.

And apparently, the actual indictment ended up indicting 19 people.

The report from the special grand jury recommended indicting those 19 people plus 21 more, including Lindsey Graham, two other ex-senators, the sitting lieutenant governor of Georgia, and a bunch of other people.

And so the question that's been brought up is, well, OK, what about all those other people? Why weren't they indicted? What's going on?

And I think there's several things at play.

One is almost certainly some of those additional 21 people are cooperating.

You know, probably, probably we don't have direct evidence of that, but probably some of those 21 people are cooperating.

And so they were not indicted. Um, then another factor is going to be simply, I mean, people were already talking about how big this was with 19 people.

Can you imagine if it was 40 and maybe I remember the number quite not quite right, but it's close to that. It's close to that.

Ivan:
[1:05:05]
It doesn't matter.

Sam:
[1:05:06]
So many more people. If they had inverted 30 some people, right?

Right now with 19, we're talking about how complicated the case is going to be and how how massive and sprawling and how with 19 different lawyers, all trying their own like, ways to defend their clients that this is going to be a mess.

And maybe maybe these two or three are going to do the speedy trial thing.

But for the rest, I'm hearing more and more people saying like, I don't see how this can possibly happen before the November 2024 election.

Because you got all these other trials going on, you're going to have all these people maneuvering, blah, blah, blah. We'll see.

I'm not sure yet, but you certainly have that narrative going on.

Of, it is complicated and big and massive, and it would have been even bigger and even massiver.

And from what I hear, this DA office is actually really tightly stretched right now. They've got a couple other major cases going on that are completely unrelated to this as well.

And so there was undoubtedly a desire to just simplify.

I mean, frankly, if you look at part of what was released in the report is, you know, the individual votes by that first grand jury about which ones they recommended and to they didn't need a they didn't need unanimous and Most of the recommendations were not unanimous Some were closer to unanimous and some were just barely over the line right and so the smart thing for Fonny Willis to do is Take the sure things pull this this, pull this down to the ones that she is most confident on, right.

And leave the rest alone. So like people were like, Oh man, you mean you could have gone after Lindsey Graham? I know that would have been cool, but you know, here's the thing.

Ivan:
[1:07:03]
I'm sure that whatever that, that weasel did was he was one of those that was on the line, because that's the way he is probably, but here's the thing.

Sam:
[1:07:13]
Like, even when we were talking about the Meadows thing, the whole question of, you know, was he doing something that was part of his duty, right?

Part of that whole discussion was the executive branch has absolutely no part in managing presidential elections.

That is a state effort, but also the U.S. Congress has the ability to set guidelines for the states and how they do it.

So there is an actual legal defense that if if Graham was in there like asking questions of Georgia officials and stuff, he could say that's actually part of my congressional duties because I'm investigating.

Do we need to change the laws? Do we need to adjust things?

Blah, blah, blah. So he's got a more plausible defense on that.

And I'm not saying it would or would not win if it It was brought to trial, but the point is it's, he's got a, he's got a stronger defense than some of these other people.

And so if you're funny, Willis, and you go through this, you're like, okay, let me go for the ones that I feel really sure about the ones that are like, eh, you leave those on the table, you know?

Ivan:
[1:08:25]
No, I know they had to, I mean, I think that it was smart. I mean, she had to pick and choose.

You've got this case, probably, you know, Wade, what makes more sense.

We've got what we've got right now. And so we're going to have a trial soon, Sam.

Sam:
[1:08:42]
Like yes, at least at least for Mr. Cheese. Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:08:47]
Yeah.

Sam:
[1:08:47]
Yeah. You know, and, and we've got the federal case that is trying to be more streamlined.

And I think it's actually really good that we have both of these, the, the, the federal case on January 6th indicted Donald Trump only on a very narrow set of things specifically designed to go as fast as possible through this.

And meanwhile, you got funny Willis saying, here's the big picture.

Here's everybody who is involved.

Here's all this stuff that was going on. And maybe that means her case will take a lot longer before we get to the end, but it's an important part of the picture too.

And we'll see it on TV. Um, maybe we'll see it more than once cause we got cheese going first and then the others going later?

Um, we'll see. Anyway, I think, I think those are the big updates.

Ivan:
[1:09:39]
I was going to, well, I was going to mention that Pete Navarro got convicted as well.

Sam:
[1:09:44]
Oh yeah. Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:09:46]
And he's also like, uh, broke another guy that's broke. And, obviously, Trump is not paying his stupid bills.

Um, Navarro, so he's out there, so he's crying for money. Yeah.

He's, he's always been a fucking loser. Yeah.

Sam:
[1:10:04]
You know, there was, um, you know, I saw a thing that apparently like decades ago, he was a Democrat and like, yes, ran for Congress.

And his ads were like, I'll be new Gingrich's like worst nightmare or something like that.

Ivan:
[1:10:23]
Uh, but anyway, like as, as a lot of these people are. Yeah.

Sam:
[1:10:27]
I, yes. And, and he's also just like, I mean, first of all, he made all these executive privilege claims in saying, I, I, I'm not going to talk to them because Donald Trump doesn't want me to.

And there's several layers of wrong with that. Uh, one, he could not provide any evidence whatsoever of Donald Trump claiming that privilege.

Number two, this happened when Donald Trump wasn't president anymore.

So Biden would have to claim the privilege anyway, not Trump.

Ivan:
[1:10:59]
So, right. So, so- And number three- On all case, wrong on all counts at this point.

Sam:
[1:11:05]
And number three, the things he was being asked questions about, he wrote about in his book, and he went on TV interviews talking about them as well.

And if they are privileged communications- Then what the fuck are you doing?

Ivan:
[1:11:19]
Right.

Sam:
[1:11:20]
You lose the privilege once you talk publicly about it anyway.

So on three different modes, and the judge was like, the judge right up front said, you can't even claim the privilege at trial.

You can't even bring that up. And so his defense lawyer basically didn't even put on a defense.

They didn't call any witnesses. They just said, the prosecution didn't prove their case. we rest ours.

Ivan:
[1:11:48]
How the fuck did this guy go to Harvard? How the fuck could this guy have graduated from Harvard? And yes, I just looked it up. Legacy.

Sam:
[1:11:59]
Was he legacy?

Ivan:
[1:12:00]
Yeah.

Sam:
[1:12:02]
That's the way a lot of unqualified people get into places.

Ivan:
[1:12:05]
He even got a PhD. How? He was a Democrat before he was a Democrat.

It says here he was. It says here that he was Democrat. He was registered as a Democrat until 2018. 2018. I mean, okay.

I mean, that just boggles the mind.

He's an asshole. I mean, I never liked him. I just, you know.

Sam:
[1:12:38]
I'm actually surprised he didn't make an appearance in some of these other indictments too, you know, given his description of his own role that again, he was bragging about on TV, you know?

Anyway. Okay. I think we're done with that. Ready for a break?

Ivan:
[1:12:59]
Yep.

Sam:
[1:13:00]
Yep. Okay. Now the break is going to be another Apple dream.

Ivan:
[1:13:05]
I mean, actually, by the way, just to be clear, I see here specifically that Navarro was on a call right along with Rudy and Mark Meadows with Georgia election officials.

I mean, how come he's not on this, on this gravy train?

Sam:
[1:13:20]
Yeah. I don't know.

Ivan:
[1:13:25]
Well, he's going to jail anyway. So whatever.

Sam:
[1:13:26]
And there, there, there's still investigations to come. There may be more indictments on both on all levels.

And there, as we've talked about before, there are other States considering what they're going to do here too. You know? So whatever. Okay.

Uh, time for a break. Uh, this is another Apple dream.

This is Apple dream 51.

It's just under three minutes long. So here we go.

Break:
[1:13:53]
Okay, so for some reason I had been putting my iMac, except it wasn't my iMac, it was one of the new iMacs, but one of the new small screen iMacs that I've been refusing to get.

It was a light blue one. But I was putting it in a case.

But not like a big heavy, like, I'm gonna carry my iMac around case, but like what looked like a sized up phone case. It was a clear case, so you could see the blue inside the iMac case.

I was setting up my desk.

And, um, yeah, so, and it was a nice desk, I was setting it up, and I was noting how, you know, I wasn't, I was like, it's weird that this thing doesn't come with a built-in monitor, but I was obviously putting it down into, there was like this stand, like when you put an iPad onto a stand that holds it up so that the iPad acts as a monitor with the little keyboard, except I was doing this with the iMac, and I was saying it didn't come with a built-in monitor, but obviously it was coming in with a built-in monitor, and it was sitting into the stand that put it somewhere, but that didn't make no sense because it had a stand, so that didn't make any sense.

But it was a nice desk setup otherwise, and I was saying to myself I might need another external monitor to go with this and somehow a local state senator who is known for walking was also there watching my setup and saying well this is a nice setup and asking if I could help him with his setup and I'm like okay and he's like but of course.

The way I, you know, like earn for like buying something like this case for your iMac is by earning points from walking. How?

And I think he showed me his Apple Watch or something at that point.

And I'm like, okay. And it felt like we were going to an Apple store to look at the things they had available or something.

But I don't think we ever left where it was because the place that I was setting up my office kind of looked like an Apple Store and then I woke up Okay, there we go.

Ivan:
[1:16:35]
So so basically I have heard you Speak like it's at some point.

I think you've spoken about how could you like You wanted to use like an iPad as a phone If, you could, so, so now you've taken it quite a many notches up in which you're putting a case around an actual iMac now, not the 27 inch because they're not making that anymore, but the one that you hate, the 24 inch, you know, iMac, you're putting up a phone case.

Sam:
[1:17:16]
Yes.

Ivan:
[1:17:17]
And that's what your subconscious wants, is to be able to carry that thing around.

Sam:
[1:17:24]
I guess so. Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:17:26]
Pretty interesting. Send a note to Tim Cook and say, hey, you make this happen?

Look, just put a big lithium ion battery on it. I mean, this thing will probably weigh about...

Oh, five, six pounds.

Sam:
[1:17:40]
Well, I did. I did see a rumor within the last week about them working on, you know, a even larger iPad.

Like they've got the 11 inch and the 12 inch. They're talking about a 14 inch iPad.

And to me, even the 12 inch is a little bit big.

You know, I think the 10 or 11 inch is like a nice sweet spot.

The mini is too small, but the 12 inch is too big. I like the one in between.

But a 14 inch that that's, that's like huge.

Ivan:
[1:18:09]
You know, I usually use the my large iPad basically to watch TV while traveling to stream video.

So to me, if I got like a 14 inch iPad, that would be bad because that's basically what I do with it.

Sam:
[1:18:26]
Speaking of this, did you see the thing LG put out this week?

Ivan:
[1:18:29]
Nope.

Sam:
[1:18:31]
What did they put out?

Ivan:
[1:18:33]
They put out a suitcase.

Sam:
[1:18:36]
Yeah, with a 27 inch monitor inside, that's all built in. So you carry around the suitcase and when you're ready to watch, you just pop it open and boom, there's your 27 inch screen.

It's a built in smart TV that you like can like hook up to the Internet and watch streaming stuff and all that kind of stuff.

Ivan:
[1:18:54]
I just saw it.

Sam:
[1:18:56]
So there you go.

Ivan:
[1:18:57]
This is not bad.

This is this is interesting. Okay. Entertainment on the go.

Sam:
[1:19:06]
Yeah. So like it's, it's kind of like the thing I was dreaming about.

Yeah. It's not colorful, but you know, I mean, it wasn't light blue, but I could spray paint it or something.

Ivan:
[1:19:19]
Looks interesting. Yeah.

Sam:
[1:19:20]
Yeah, it's not that expensive either.

Ivan:
[1:19:26]
Yeah, I think this is that right? $999. So bad. Yeah. Nine 99, 90.

Sam:
[1:19:28]
You just carry it around in your little suitcase. It's apparently not that heavy either. You just, and you'd pop it open and you're ready to go watch your TV, wherever you are.

Ivan:
[1:19:41]
This is not bad. Okay.

Sam:
[1:19:43]
All right.

Ivan:
[1:19:46]
Very interesting.

Sam:
[1:19:46]
Okay. So Yvonne, it's your turn.

Ivan:
[1:19:49]
Oh, fuck again.

Sam:
[1:19:53]
It happens.

Ivan:
[1:19:59]
All right, well, okay. So I'm going to talk a little bit about I put this down.

Eric Adams was now I didn't know anything about this.

Sam:
[1:20:07]
What, what the hell is this? I, and I meant to look it up before the show.

Cause you'd added it to our potential topics list, but I didn't get a chance. What is this?

Ivan:
[1:20:15]
Okay. Let me see. I thought I shared the story.

Sam:
[1:20:18]
Let me go back since you didn't read it to you probably did, but I was busy and I'm, you know, whatever.

Ivan:
[1:20:24]
This work stuff I know is a real inconvenience. I get it. Um, um, let me see where this is. Let me find the story now. Okay. Here it is.

GOP gets the democratic border crisis it wanted.

And so Eric Adams, uh, said the other day related to not getting as much money as he wants for helping with migrants coming into the city.

Sam:
[1:20:53]
Oh, right. Okay.

Ivan:
[1:20:55]
Yeah. This is without a federal bailout mayor of New York, that without a federal bailout and clamped down at the border, swelling migration will destroy New York City.

You know, so I what I will say is that, first of all, Eric Adams has been.

He's not good.

Sam:
[1:21:17]
No, I, I, I, even when he had a race, even when the race was going on for the New York mayor's race, I wondered what people really saw in him.

And I, as far as I can tell, it was an anti-crime panic thing where, you know, let let's get the police chief guy because we're all scared right now. And that was it.

Ivan:
[1:21:43]
Um, and he's, he's done a lot of crummy, scummy things, uh, so far.

And I, I mean, I'd been like, not, not on his, you know, I, I, I did not look very well on his tenure at all in a lot of parts, then him saying this, where there has been a big back and forth between him and the state where apparently the state has offered him significant resources that he hasn't like actually.

Taken any of them. like he doesn't want to deal with it?

Um, and I'm like, you know, one of the things to me, he's saying migration will destroy New York City.

Sam:
[1:22:26]
I mean, what the fuck kind of, uh, it, for, uh, of any place on the freaking planet, New York City was built by immigrants from all over the, all over the world.

Ivan:
[1:22:39]
And then the thing is that his.

Grossly exaggerated costs that he said of helping these people.

You know, I actually donated recently to an organization, um, you know, helping to house, uh, Venice, some of these Venezuelan migrants that have been arriving.

I, I, I donate to a couple of organizations that help new arrivals. Okay.

You know, um, you know, one specifically in Miami, um, it doesn't cost that much money to help these people get at first, you know, some place to live, whatever situated until they can get their cases done and whatever whatnot, the costs are not great.

And so when I see Eric Adams basically say that the number of people coming in is going to cost about $200,000 per head, that's the number that he gave out.

And I'm like, what the fuck is he smoking? I mean, where is he coming up with?

It's going to cost 200 grand per head.

And it just seems like he's not trying.

Now, on the other end, one thing that was in that article and that I agree is that- Give the full reference to the article so people- This article was, GOP gets the democratic border crisis it wanted.

The strains of migrants in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and those cities that has taxed resources, divided Democrats and put pressure on President Biden to act.

Now, the one thing is that President Biden has not come out and publicly spoken on what the strategy is to deal and help with the influx of people.

Oh, and by the way, that was in the New York Times.

In the New York Times, yes. Let me give the example. Here is the part.

New York City is sheltering 59,000 migrants each night and projects that caring for them could eat up 12 billion over over the next two next few years.

Now, Chicago has taken in 13,500 migrants and spent at least 250 million.

And you're like, wait, what?

So the numbers just don't add up. It's not as expensive as he is saying.

Now they do need help in terms of setting up people, whatnot.

You know, the United States for, they're saying, well, we need to clamp down to board or close. I don't understand. You know, we've been dealing with this for ever.

I mean, what, what, you know, I don't understand what, what is the magic.

That they expect where we will get no more legal immigrants.

We've got them through our forever.

Sam:
[1:25:26]
Well, as I've said, like numerous times, and we've talked about this, the way to have fewer illegal immigrants is to make it easier to do it legally.

Well, yeah, but that's, but that's not what the people who have a problem with this don't really, it's not just illegal immigration.

They have a problem with it's It's immigration in general from the wrong people.

Ivan:
[1:25:51]
Well, right. That's the problem, yeah.

Sam:
[1:25:54]
It's like, they would have no problem if we were getting flooded with Swedes, you know?

It's... Yeah. So, yeah.

And this is one of the reasons why comprehensive immigration reform never has gotten traction in decades now is because fundamentally it's not about quote unquote fixing the immigration system to get rid of bottlenecks and make it more efficient and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You've got one group of people who are fine with the idea of immigration and want to let more people in.

And you've got another group that's just fundamentally like, no brown people, please.

Ivan:
[1:26:40]
And I think that the one thing is that...

I mean, the Biden administration has not come out publicly saying what they are trying to do in order to help with the situation or a plan.

Now, we know that there, listen, there is no legislation that's going through Congress for this.

That's not happening. I mean, that's not, not.

And that's, that's, you know, we know that's not happening.

But, but certain things need to happen. There are groups of people that need to make sure that they get temporary protected status, you know, from certain countries that are that that we know that they they needed, like Venezuela, for example, where they're going through a brutal situation in that country.

You know, there are from other countries where, you know, if we're, if we're going to welcome them, then we need to give them the help they need to get on their feet.

And if they're not going to be here, then they need to be sent home.

But, but you can't, you know, I think that this entire thing, when they're where it's a blame game of this, and then they're just, you know, I, I don't like when, um, I don't care if it's a Democrat or Republican, uh, when they're, you know, they, they treat the, these people like, yeah, this way, it's just, they talk about it in this way.

Like it's a problem that I don't want to deal with. I mean, it's, it's a problem that we all need to deal with, unfortunately.

Sam:
[1:28:27]
Um, And this, and this kind of thing is going to get worse, like with, with the climate change stuff and everything else, you know, the natural response to different areas becoming more or less habitable is for people to move.

No, uh, it it's happened throughout history. It's going to continue to, and these pressures will continue.

And whenever, and whenever you have massive economic disparity, which we do right now, also is a driver of this.

Right. And, and so, and I think the, the, again, the sort of notion that the way to solve that is to wall off your country and say, nobody can come in or only very select people can come in.

Um, it's not a workable solution at all.

Ivan:
[1:29:25]
No, you know, we're having labor shortages and a lot of different industries still. It's a day and these people keep going on this shit and it's like, well, you know, and then, but we've got, And we seriously have shortages. You know, one of the one of the crazy things is that.

You know, keep talking about the Democrats not controlling the border or whatever.

I mean, the biggest surge that we've had of people coming at the border recently from in the last decade was during the fucking Trump administration.

And so I, I'm just like, you know, I don't, it's just so stupid when, when, you know, they talk about it, it's like, I mean, you guys don't realize that this is, you know, I mean, we're at, we've got to control the border.

We've got to control the border right now.

Now apprehensions and FYI, 22 are an all time high.

I mean, right. You know, they literally are bursting at the seams doing what the fuck they can.

Sam:
[1:30:39]
Yeah. And that's one thing when, when people are hitting this issue, like you hear about, about like catching drugs as well, like, uh, it's like, oh my God, the problem is so awful.

They're catching more than they ever have before.

Did you listen to what you just said? They're catching more, more. Now of course the implication is the fact that you're catching more means you're also missing more. And so the total number is greater, but that's not an automatic truth.

You know that that's a separate thing you have to look at separately.

Catching more might mean you're doing a better job at stopping it.

Ivan:
[1:31:17]
Correct.

Sam:
[1:31:18]
You know, and, and so you really have to look into that deeper, but of course most people don't.

Ivan:
[1:31:24]
I mean, this is the one thing like Trump is it.

Trump really is. I've said this before, is the absolute master of saying one thing and doing something completely, you know, different from what he is saying, because, you know, he he's blaming Democrats for border, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

When the Biden administration was doing more apprehensions, they never did as many as the Biden, as the Trump administration, as many as the Biden administration did in a fucking year.

Sam:
[1:32:02]
But you know, Yvonne, I can guarantee you.

In October, 2024, Fox news is going to be flooded with the stories of the migrant caravan coming up from the South far, far from law.

Ivan:
[1:32:21]
And, uh, that, that, that was the mythical town that Lou Dobbs said, uh, quite a lot of immigrants were, uh, are coming from.

And yeah, he was trying to say Guadalajara. That's what I found.

Sam:
[1:32:35]
Oh, is that what he was was trying to say.

Ivan:
[1:32:37]
Okay. And he said, and he said far from law.

Sam:
[1:32:40]
Anyway, there will be a massive caravan of immigrants coming up and there will be a rash of innocent people killed by immigrants and all of that kind of stuff will magically happen in October, 2024. Ah, ah, you know, we should mark that.

At least the news stories about them will be The, the truth is of course, is a, a constant background noise of all of that. That happens all the time.

Ivan:
[1:33:09]
This has happened. Listen, this has happened as long as I know that, you know, that I have been at this country.

I mean, I remember nonstop.

I mean, Jesus, people forget. I mean, you remember the fucking Marielle boat lift. I mean, Holy shit. You want to talk about a migrant crisis?

I mean, fuck. I mean, we had, I mean, it's a number of people that arrived in Miami during that time is insane.

So, which is another thing that I keep saying to people when they want to build a wall, listen, people, there is this thing called the ocean.

Sam:
[1:33:46]
My mother for a time, uh, I think like around when I was in seventh grade or something like that, um, was involved in a, a, a coordination problem.

She was involved in coordinating Vietnamese refugees and getting them settled.

Yeah, this stuff has been going on forever. It's always going on.

The problem with the way the coverage works, especially running up to an election, is of course they're cherry picking things to make them look like right now is worse than ever before.

And it's not, it's, you know, you know, the, the problem, it, it, it ebbs and flows, but you know, we're not in, it's, it's not like.

I don't know. The way it's presented is always very selectively presented to make it seem like the worst crisis ever and make it a big issue right before elections.

Okay, my turn? Last item?

Ivan:
[1:34:51]
Last item.

Sam:
[1:34:54]
Okay. I just wanted to complain, and I have complained about this in previous years, previous election cycles, but it was really bugging me the last couple days.

Specifically, I think Thursday, CNN released a poll that they had done, along with, let's see, who was the pollster? I'll tell you real quick.

Ivan:
[1:35:19]
Breaking information.

Sam:
[1:35:22]
Breaking information, but here's the thing. Okay. It was a poll by SSRS done for CNN.

So CNN paid for the poll to make sure it it happened.

Uh, and CNN had like breaking coverage, like all day long about the results of this poll and the things that they were basically done with the whole breaking news thing.

Ivan:
[1:35:48]
So, but that was like under the old guy.

Sam:
[1:35:51]
Well, yeah, maybe I forget. Maybe they didn't use the term as much as they used to.

I don't know. But anyway, like I I've been really happy, like, cause, um, YouTube TV added this four up thing.

So like while I'm working, I just have the TV on mute and I have the four up thing so I can see Fox, CNN, MSNBC and BBC World all at the same time.

And so the way it started is CNN announced their poll results.

And the way CNN is spinning their own poll results is oh my fucking God, Biden is in trouble, okay?

And what they show is they did some national polls against, of Biden versus the basically the whole damn Republican field.

And almost all of the polls basically show...

Biden within margin of error of the Republican. Um, and with the Republicans with a slight lead, okay?

Um, and then they have other internals that they were showing too, like they were polling and like, Democrats are really super concerned about Biden's age, and Democrats would really rather have somebody else, and all of this kind of stuff.

And so they were all day, they were talking about, Oh my God, Biden's in trouble, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And okay, fine.

That this particular poll was not a great set of polls for Biden.

But I will add that there are multiple problems with what they were doing.

One is the usual that says, you know, they're looking at an individual poll instead of averages and trends.

Okay, that's a continuous problem. You understand a little bit why, like, they paid for the damn poll.

They probably spent a few, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on this poll.

Sure. And, and so they want to get their use out of it. They want to like, you know, have something to talk about because they paid.

For this any time in the last six months.

Most of them show an incredibly tight race, and often with the Republican a little bit ahead.

Probably even more, but all very, very tight, all essentially too close to call, and it's been that way for a long fucking time. The other things they're talking about, like people are concerned about Biden's age.

That's been in polls for ever.

Ivan:
[1:38:38]
Ever?

Sam:
[1:38:40]
That was in polls for 2020. That has never changed.

Like this is not new news. The fact that it is the fact that Democrats would prefer somebody other than Biden also not new news.

There's been polls showing this forever, you know, and and this is just like, and I know I I'm like a poll not I pay attention to him.

I have election graphs.com where I put in the state polls and I pay close attention to this stuff, but like it really infuriates me when and by the way like Fox was gleeful about this because Fox started covering CNN's poll and Started showing clips of all the CNN people freaking out about Biden being in trouble.

And so it was all over there as well, but the whole thing is like and if this goes all the way back to 2016, like polls can give you useful information.

If you use it thoughtfully, if you know what the limitations of the polls are, if you understand a little bit about statistics and sampling and margin of error and blah, blah, blah.

But if you have like people going ballistic on cable news about like in the, In the Trump-Biden matchup, the poll was Trump 47, Biden 46.

It's it's a one point lead by trump the margin of error on the pole on polls like this are usually.

Ivan:
[1:40:18]
Are you are usually like three or four percent by the way which is ninety one percent of the vote and we just had this discussion how about what happens with the the undecideds and how right exactly what yeah and how we have and how that has gone down.

A lot in the latest election cycles where people are not doing this bullshit third-party crap as much anymore.

So, so, you know, that poll in and of itself as a lot of people where they're not nudging people to say, Hey, asshole, make up your mind. Okay.

Sam:
[1:40:48]
You know, which I hate those, but you know, but that's, I'm not sure if they nudge people on this one or a lot, a lot of them actually do some, but they don't nudge all the way to everybody.

They accept the undecided. Right, right, right.

But the point is, and yes, typically, most of the time, the undecideds end up basically like the rest of the population. But there are key exceptions.

And you can argue about which way are the undecideds going to flip this time.

And they could go either way. And that's why on election graphs, I've looked at the last few years of history and why you really have not just the sampling margin of error, but additional margin of error, especially if you're looking at margins, because you really don't know how those undecideds are gonna flip.

There are all kinds of factors in there. There's modeling error, there's all kinds of stuff. You just have to be aware of the limitations.

But the key element though, is that when you get this news hype about polls.

It is almost always a misrepresentation of what is actually fucking going on because they, you know, they're, they're, it's cherry picking.

It's getting excited about outliers.

It's giving over emphasis to the poll that that particular media outlet paid for, you know, they're, they're trying to make content to sell some ads.

I know that's the thing. They're trying to make content. they're not trying to actually do a decent analysis of the situation.

And especially when the poll comes out and says, Hey, this looks pretty much like it's looked like for the last six months.

Basically, you know, cause that's not exciting.

That's not news, but that's the reality of what this poll says nationally.

Now I will say, I think that that it actually has been somewhat undercovered how well Trump is actually doing in polling right now.

I mean, I know you mentioned the undecideds, but the comparison I do, and my comparison is all on state level, which is different from national, but Trump is still doing better in state level polling than he did either four years ago or eight years ago.

They had lots of undecideds four years ago as well.

And so there is something going on there where, and we can debate all the reasons why it might be and why it might not last and blah, blah, blah.

And I agree with all of that. But the point is he's actually doing as strong or stronger than he was in both of his last two races.

And so that is worth paying attention to. But the key, but it's, especially on the, this isn't this one poll.

It just drove me crazy because it was practically all CNN was talking about all freaking day and it was nothing new. It was nothing new at all.

Ivan:
[1:43:54]
Listen, here, here is one thing that I've seen in both, that I'm, I'm remembering about election cycles.

Uh, Mitt, you know, the second term elections, the last couple that we've had.

In Barack Obama's case in 2012, his polling was very weak.

Sam:
[1:44:21]
Um, up until like the last few months of the election and even that polling leading into the election, man showed a very tight, tight race, but the result wasn't anywhere nearly as tight as, as the Obama's Obama's second race was the, of the four that I've got data on for election graphs, Obama's second race is the only one where the polls underestimated the Democrats instead of the other way around.

Ivan:
[1:44:57]
Well, but the one thing is that the incumbent president, you know, always said it usually has a certain advantage and it showed very strongly there.

Sam:
[1:45:11]
And the one One thing is that I think the pattern you were saying is one that's important that several recent incumbent presidents, going back even further than the last two, they looked a year to two years out, they looked like they were in really bad shape and then they start to recover.

Seems to be a, a recurring pattern now past performance or not a guarantee of future.

Ivan:
[1:45:44]
But even Trump, but even Trump who, who lost, okay.

Did, did his performance was stronger than then what a lot of the polls said yeah he still lost but it showed that, I mean, that incumbent really has power and it's been shown over and over again.

And so I get a little bit with this polling out a year and a half before the election- Everything will change five times, six times before we get to the election.

Sam:
[1:46:24]
And so what I say in my FAQ on election graphs, and I've repeated a bunch of times on the show, No, polls this far out are not predictive of the final election results.

They don't actually get product really predictive until a few weeks out from the election.

And things can change even in those last couple of weeks in 2016, Hillary Clinton collapsed in the last 14 days.

Ivan:
[1:46:49]
That's right.

Sam:
[1:46:50]
You know, um, but the polls still tell you something about where the race is today and how much work the candidates have to do in what places and that kind of nonsense.

Ivan:
[1:47:02]
What I will tell you about democratic strength is from a different, it's from a different poll that I, the different polls that I, that I was looking at.

And what I was looking at is that the generic congressional ballot polling recently.

Sam:
[1:47:16]
I haven't looked at that in a while. What's that like?

Ivan:
[1:47:18]
I pulled that up and I don't have the average, but I'm looking at, I pulled up a list of polling data from, let's see, this, is from June through September, over here, there were about, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, about 20, about 21 polls done.

And of those, about two, about two thirds shows the Democrats ahead.

Okay. Now, you know, so I really think that Um, the fact that even at this point.

The democrats are still showing significant strength in that on on that side of the ballot after over performing.

What was expected to be by most people the red red tide whatever bullshit.

It's still showing that there's the republicans have backed themselves into.

A corner in a lot of places where I think that what I see a lot is a lot of discontent in certain things.

And that translates into the same thing that happened with Obama back in the third year of his first term.

Ah, we still haven't recovered. Ah, he hasn't fixed everything.

Saying that where I'm just like, dude, look at everything he's done like up until now.

You're bitching and moaning. And I mean, what do you want? You want the fucking Republicans back? Okay. I mean, every time, honestly, right now, I'm scared of Republicans taking the wheel.

Every fucking time they've grabbed at the last 25, 20 plus fucking years, they've made disasters.

Disasters, I mean, massive ones, wars, economic crises.

I mean, shit. I mean, so, yeah, just.

You know, I was hearing somebody the other day talking about once again, the same thing.

Oh, my God, these two old white guys, is this the only choice that we have?

And I'm like, yes, look, I, yes.

And I don't fucking care, but I like my, my, my old white guy. I love him. Actually.

I love Joe. If I had him right here, I'll give him a hug and a kiss.

Sam:
[1:50:06]
I mean, I think Joe's been doing fine. You know? Yeah, I do.

I, we talked about this last week. I would prefer to pass the torch to a younger generation too, but right now this is what we got right now.

Ivan:
[1:50:19]
This is what I got. I don't want Trump again, I want, you know, you know, I, I, I, I'll feel a lot more comfortable after we're rid of this clout.

Sam:
[1:50:31]
Right. So anyway, my, my point was not actually about how the polls are actually going right now, but it's just, the hyperventilating of look at this.

Ivan:
[1:50:43]
Look at this one data point, look, it's a one point Trump blade. Oh my goodness.

What is Biden going to do? Is he going to like turn it over to Kamala?

Sam:
[1:50:55]
Yeah. And just the routine misinterpretation of the polling data and the emphasis on single polls and the lack of context about what other polls have been doing, even what other polls have been doing recently, let alone trends over time.

It's just infuriating every time it happens.

Yeah, anyway. And oh, and I wanted to say, cause I looked it up after saying, and it's for anybody who wants more details, they can go to the blog post I made on election graphs on January 1st of this year, prepping the math stuff for 2024.

But I looked at the final polling before the election versus the actual election results.

Basically, in 2008, the polls were almost exactly spot on.

In 2012, they underestimated Obama.

And in 2016 and 2020, they underestimated Trump.

Ivan:
[1:52:06]
Trump.

Sam:
[1:52:07]
So we've had two cycles in a row where the polls have underestimated Trump.

The question is, which way will they be wrong next time?

And we don't know, which is why you also have to look at sort of margin of error and probabilities and all that kind of stuff, because Yvonne here might be right.

We might be underestimating the Democrats this time, or we might still be underestimating Trump. We don't know. So you sort of take the whole envelope of possibilities.

And when you say, OK, the polls could be off in this direction or they could be off in this direction, we don't know, you end up with a result that says where we are right now is still too fucking close to call.

And now we've got more than a year until the actual election and things will change eight times before then, like I said.

But still it's like, you can't be like, Oh my God, one point in one direction and feel like that tells you anything about anything in isolation.

It's just, anyway, pisses me off. Okay, I think we're done.

Ivan:
[1:53:12]
We're done.

Sam:
[1:53:13]
Okay, so the usual stuff for the end, go to electiongraphs.com.

You can find our archives, which for the last few months includes transcripts as well. So you must read those. You should not consider that you have listened to the show unless you have also read the transcript, every freaking word.

Ivan:
[1:53:36]
And here's the thing you have to not just read the transcript word for word, but you have to print them out.

Okay. And you print them out and then you will highlight in yellow the most important sections of it and send it. And well, I can't get by fax anymore.

So I guess you'll have to scan it.

Yeah.

Sam:
[1:53:57]
Scan it.

Ivan:
[1:53:58]
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam:
[1:54:00]
And, and then, and then there'll be a quiz.

Ivan:
[1:54:02]
Yes.

Sam:
[1:54:04]
Anyway, also on there, you can find all the ways to contact us, uh, Mastodon, Facebook email. We would love to hear from you, please. We'd love, you know, we got the feedback from Matt today.

Yes. He was at a restaurant and thought of us.

Ivan:
[1:54:18]
Yes. Thanks Matt.

Sam:
[1:54:22]
Uh, and, uh, uh, and of course, we also have a link to our Patreon, uh, where you can give us cash money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug.

There's the bell, all that fun stuff. And very importantly at $2 a month, or if you ask us, we will invite you to our curmudgeon's corner Slack where Yvonne and I, and a few others are just chatting throughout the week and sharing links and all of that.

And, you know, ever since we've had the Slack, we actually get less comments sent to us through other ways.

Hold on battery on my stupid headphones died.

Oh, so I go to my backup spare wired ones that I have pre-set up.

Anyway. Um, we've actually gotten less people sending us feedback through email and stuff because most of the people who used to talk to us are on the Slack now.

So while we still get email, we still do, but you know, I know, but we, a lot, we have a lot of conversation going on, on the Slack.

So you, those of you who aren't on there, you need to join, come on.

And you know, and those of you who are already on there, but only pop in like once a month or something, show up a little more often. Come on.

Um, anyway, uh, so Yvonne, is there something that we talked about on the curmudgeon's corner Slack that we have not talked about on the show?

Ivan:
[1:55:58]
That's worth saying one thing, one thing we had shared quite a lot.

I mean, I, I think, you know, there's quite a lot of cool stuff that, that I, I, I, I, I, I, I shared a list, a couple of things that there was a guy who was arrested, tried to cross the Atlantic and a hamster wheel.

Sam:
[1:56:15]
Oh, beautiful. Wait, that wasn't you.

Ivan:
[1:56:18]
That was, it was, it was a Florida man, but not me. Um, there was, uh, you know, there was Spotify's $1 billion podcast deal, which I don't understand why we can't get a billion dollar pot.

I mean, I mean, These people are getting paid $250,000 per episode.

I mean, we can watch this.

Sam:
[1:56:36]
Is it this?

Ivan:
[1:56:38]
Who's got Spotify was paying people like to Meghan Markle, like Barack Obama.

I mean, we could look, we could listen for Ivan. I've found that an episode.

Sam:
[1:56:51]
Look, Yvonne, Yvonne, all you have to do is marry one of the princes of England.

Ivan:
[1:57:02]
I'll get working on that. Okay. All right. So, so, you know, so they got that deal up.

So but the one that I really liked is somebody on Macedon posted for PC Magazine, February 2000.

OK, a little thing called the Web Popularity Club. They had it was it was it was a section on a page somewhere in the back of of the magazine.

It was like stuck on page. I don't know.

I'm looking at this page like 80. Okay. All right. Of the, uh, of it and in it, it had web popularity club and Alta Vista and Alta Vista last year, Alta Vista for God's sakes.

Okay. You know, that, that was the search engine back then for any of you who are not aware of.

Sam:
[1:57:51]
I remember it.

Ivan:
[1:57:52]
It wasn't, I don't use Delta Vista.

Sam:
[1:57:54]
I mean, I used it, but like, it wasn't like the only, for a while, it was the number one search.

Ivan:
[1:58:00]
Oh, but, but, but as a search engine, I mean, because unlike Yahoo, which is a list of whatever for during the year 2000, it was the most popular search engine. Okay.

Sam:
[1:58:11]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:58:12]
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, so it's, so, um, and it's now part of Yahoo.

Sam:
[1:58:16]
Like if you go to altavista.com.

Ivan:
[1:58:17]
You get, yeah, it will, it used to be owned by each by HP digital, yeah, it moved around a few times.

Sam:
[1:58:27]
And I mean, even the fact that it goes to Yahoo, it's like, yeah, well, who goes, who the fuck goes to Yahoo anyway?

Ivan:
[1:58:32]
Yeah. Well, anyway, exactly. But at AltaVista last year, over 90% of the top 20 search terms were entertainment related.

A Jupiter communication survey reports that 42% of consumers spend less time watching TV because it's time spent online.

I mean, you could have predicted that. Here are the most frequent entertainment search requests of 1999.

Number one, MP3.

Number two, AOL Instant Messenger. Number three, Pokemon.

Number four, Pamela Anderson. Number five, South Park. Number six, games.

Number seven, Britney Spears, who apparently fuck 20 plus years later.

She's still, you know, you know, still in the news.

Sam:
[1:59:24]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:59:24]
Number eight, Star Wars. still relevant. Number nine, J-Lo.

Talk about longevity. Number 10, Ricky Martin, two Puerto Ricans on the list.

Sam:
[1:59:36]
So I will tell you that's very nice, Yvonne. But since you had me go to Alta Vista, which went to Yahoo, I tested out the Yahoo search by searching for curmudgeon's corner. And I have found out something alarming.

Ivan:
[1:59:49]
Oh shit. What? We don't show up?

Sam:
[1:59:51]
Well, no, So the very first result is the Curmudgeons Corner Facebook page, which is fine. The second result is the actual website for the show.

I wish that was the first instead of Facebook.

Number three is Curmudgeons Corner on Apple Podcasts, fine.

Number four is also us. It's part of our archive. Okay.

So that's why we're doing good. But then the next thing on the list is a video block, and apparently someone is doing a YouTube series called curmudgeon's corner right now, they are new episodes within the last month.

Uh, and so like curmudgeon's corner 14, Stephanie divine with divine detailing is like the August episode.

Ivan:
[2:00:39]
So should we claim our copyright?

Sam:
[2:00:42]
And, and so like, and their episodes are like, um, the three I see here are, uh, They're, they're all over an hour.

The longest one is almost three and a half hours. That was curmudgeon's corner 11, Eric trainwreck, Birkett on internally compelled.

I'm not going to click on these and play them here. Like, but there's, there's another curmudgeon's corner competing with us. That's apparently now going on on YouTube.

Ivan:
[2:01:08]
So, so we should go claim our copyright.

Sam:
[2:01:11]
Sue them bastards.

Ivan:
[2:01:13]
I'll sue the fuckers.

Sam:
[2:01:20]
Oh yeah. And then there's somebody on brookingsregister.com who did an article called curmudgeon's corner in September as well. Well, Donald and Joe, it's time to go.

Ivan:
[2:01:30]
So also about politics, you know, Donald and Joe's time to go anyway.

Sam:
[2:01:34]
Okay.

Ivan:
[2:01:38]
So I found.

Well, it's the comic book syndicate that is posting these videos.

The one that says curmudgeon's corner the page sent me to.

Yeah curmudgeon's corner letters dc comic syndicate something these are old you know what that they don't show up in youtube.

Huh i'm gonna click through the one on youtube i couldn't open them up in youtube they wouldn't open up.

Okay hold on i got the video search let me look okay i got to the page yeah we're able to open any of them because. Weird.

Sam:
[2:02:21]
I, I, I'm stuck in like Yahoo search results. How do I get to the actual damn video?

Ivan:
[2:02:28]
It doesn't work.

Sam:
[2:02:29]
That's stupid. You know, this is why AltaVista died, clearly.

Ivan:
[2:02:34]
Yes. Now, I think I found, finally...

Sam:
[2:02:37]
Yes? Did you search directly on YouTube, maybe?

Ivan:
[2:02:42]
That's what I did, but I still...

I don't, I don't know what the deal is, but it's, um, curmudgeon's corner 11.

They don't have a, it is a, it is a, uh, Oh, this, this comic book one is a different curmudgeon's corner. Yeah.

Sam:
[2:03:01]
Okay.

Ivan:
[2:03:02]
So I found the curmudgeon's Phoenix EOD. Yeah. So some kind of microbrewery of detailing products for cars and, uh, They have, uh, 169 subscribers.

Sam:
[2:03:17]
And we also have a, the curmudgeon's corner with five subscribers.

Ivan:
[2:03:21]
Well, apparently it's not a very popular name.

Sam:
[2:03:24]
And we've got another curmudgeon's corner by Sarah Davis.

And so we, we, we're, we got a bunch of curmudgeon's corners now.

They're, they're all coming after us.

Ivan:
[2:03:37]
We're going to sue all these people out of existence. I'm going to sue them all out of existence, get our, but our profits back.

Sam:
[2:03:45]
But, you know, we've been around since the 1950s, you know, so we, we own this.

Ivan:
[2:03:51]
We own, we've been around for, you know, 80 years, maybe not the fifties, but, but, but 30 years. Yes.

Sam:
[2:04:00]
Yeah. So, all right.

Ivan:
[2:04:02]
Okay. We're done.

Sam:
[2:04:04]
We are out. We are done. We are by we are whatever.

Thanks, everybody, for listening. Have a great week. Stay safe.

All of that kind of nonsense. I guess it's not nonsense. We really do want you to stay safe.

Ivan:
[2:04:16]
Yeah, we want you to stay safe. That part's not the nonsense.

Sam:
[2:04:22]
We'll be back next week, if all goes well. And we'll do our usual thing.

So thanks, everybody. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.

Okay, here we go. I'm actually going to hit the stop button first instead of the leave button first like last time. Here we go. Bye! Of course, now it's going to sit there saying stopping for like 10 minutes or something.

Full Archive

200720082009
20102011201220132014
20152016201720182019
20202021202220232024

Most Recent Episodes

Credits

The Curmudgeon's Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
Our intro is "The Oh of Pleasure" (Amazon MP3 link)
Our outro is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon MP3 link)
Both are from the album "Deep Breakfast" (iTunes link)
Please buy his music!

These podcasts are produced by Abulsme Productions.
They are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons License

Abulsme Productions also produces the Wiki of the Day family of podcasts.
Check those out too!


Page cached at 2024-11-09 19:24:08 UTC
Original calculation time was 1.2957 seconds

Page displayed at 2024-11-11 14:04:35 UTC
Page generated in 0.0122 seconds