Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| It's just, just, just get the show on the road, I guess.
|
Sam:
[0:03]
| Uh, are we just going to alternate again? There was actually a bunch of stuff this week. Like, you know, stuff.
|
Ivan:
[0:10]
| I don't know. Okay. You tell me what was going on. I don't know.
|
Sam:
[0:13]
| I was busy.
|
Ivan:
[0:14]
| My eye, I'm working like a lunatic. I was, I was, I spent, I was working until, you know, I, I like to try to wrap my, it wrap things up earlier on Friday.
I tried to make it that I finish a little bit early. Okay. You know, I, and today I was working until six today at two o'clock.
|
Sam:
[0:37]
| I was like, fuck it. I'm done. And I was done. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:42]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[0:42]
| And some days, you know, if I'm not meeting ended and I was like, I'm done, I'm done. I'm going to do nothing for the rest of the day.
|
Ivan:
[0:51]
| And, and, and, you know it's just, it's. I mean, I'm, I don't, I mean, I was working until six o'clock, six is until I do, I do six by a lot of Friday, no, no, no, on weekdays I'll go for, I mean, yeah, no, I'm talking to Friday.
I mean, Fridays, I, I try, you know, I make it like a rule that unless something is blowing up or something, whatever, I'm just, you know, now, I mean, I'm like finishing, you know, right around the end, not during the weekday during the weekdays.
I mean, geez, sometimes I'll be working until 10, 11 o'clock.
I'm like, whatever. I mean, that's that. That's another thing.
But I try to make it a rule Friday. No, I want to get done as early as possible.
|
Sam:
[1:34]
| So that makes sense. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:35]
| So.
|
Sam:
[1:38]
| So, yeah, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:39]
| What do you want to talk about that?
|
Sam:
[1:40]
| Well, I think we can alternate because it's a bunch of little things.
But I mean, like the list of, yeah, we got we got Apple. We got impeachment.
We got government shutdown. We got McCarthy.
We got Romney. We've got you a W. We've got Hunter, we've got the new gag order stuff from the last, we've got all kinds of crap.
|
Ivan:
[2:00]
| So like, um, Hunter, is that like the, is that the, that was that a TV show back in the, yes, it was a TV show back in the eighties. Hunter.
|
Sam:
[2:09]
| Was it?
|
Ivan:
[2:09]
| I never read Fred Dreier. Yeah. On NBC. I know nothing.
|
Sam:
[2:13]
| I'll add it to my list.
|
Ivan:
[2:15]
| You know, you know, you know, yeah, sure. There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:19]
| Along with like TJ hooker or something.
|
Ivan:
[2:22]
| There you go. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:23]
| Another show I never watched. Never watch.
|
Ivan:
[2:26]
| I now I will say I watched very little TJ Hooker. I did watch some episodes.
I am aware that William Shatner was it in that which but I remember that when I first it's one of these things that when I first saw that William Shatner was a cop on TV.
It's one of those things that was just so bizarre.
I'm like, wait, you're the captain of the Enterprise and you're A cop.
A cop in San Francisco, I think it was.
That that's just really just weird. There are certain people it's like Leonard Nimoy, for example, occasionally would play somebody else in a movie.
And I was always rather like, just, huh? What?
|
Sam:
[3:10]
| Yeah, that's not supposed to happen. You know what? What? What?
Once you are an iconic character, that's all you're.
|
Ivan:
[3:15]
| Spock. That's it. You're fucking Spock. Get away from me. Okay, that's it. I got I got no other use for you.
|
Sam:
[3:25]
| Anyway, so before we start, the only other thing is like, I just ate right before this and I had like a meal, a thing.
And then I was like, Hey, I'm still hungry. I'll have more. And then I ate more and then my body caught up with me and was like, you are absolutely stuffed.
What the hell are you thinking?
|
Ivan:
[3:42]
| Stop. Oh, that's, uh, you know, uh, I will say that I, I get that, um, you know, I've done that.
|
Sam:
[3:51]
| Now I can like barely move. I'm like, I am so dumb.
|
Ivan:
[3:54]
| It is so annoying. It is, it is so annoying when, when you wind up just overeating like that.
And you're like, yeah, because it tasted good at that moment.
Right. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me just, let me just have more.
It's great. It's great. And then you finish. You're like, Oh fuck.
What the hell did I just do?
|
Sam:
[4:15]
| I didn't even finish. I got to halfway through the second round and I was like, I can't do any more.
I, I, I like wrapped it up and put it in the fridge. I almost never eat leftovers, but I'm like, maybe I'll go back to this, but no, I don't know.
But I was done in any case. I'm like, I can't move anymore. I, why am I trying to shove more of this into my face?
So, so that's good. So like, I'm ready to collapse at any moment.
|
Ivan:
[4:43]
| So let's okay. Collapsing is not great.
|
Sam:
[4:46]
| Oh, I'll try not to. I'll try not to do that.
|
Ivan:
[4:49]
| Yeah. So collapsing is not great. So I really am on the anti-collapsing thing.
|
Sam:
[4:59]
| R'gaid. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[5:02]
| Just don't collapse it.
|
Sam:
[5:04]
| So shall we just go? Sure. Okay. Here comes the thingy to start.
|
Ivan:
[5:11]
| Here are some of them. Thanks for watching.
|
Sam:
[5:36]
| Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, September 16th, 2023.
It is 2 38 UTC as we are starting to record, which means for me on the US West coast, it is a still Friday the 15th at 7 38 PM.
And for Yvonne, it is Friday the 15th at 10 38 PM.
Um, uh, and it's, uh, it's time for another exciting show. Welcome Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[6:07]
| I am here. We are exited.
|
Sam:
[6:10]
| We are exited and, and yeah, we're, we're ready to go.
So our plan, yes, yes. Thrilled. Our plan today is just cause we are once again, lazy and stupid and don't want to actually do any prep work.
|
Ivan:
[6:26]
| We're so, so damn, you know, I mean, look at that.
|
Sam:
[6:31]
| Just alternate topics until we're done.
|
Ivan:
[6:33]
| You know, as I was like discussing with Sam, look at this point, I, you know, I will work late on, on certain days, but Fridays, I try to make it a point of trying to finish, um, you know, not past quitting time.
Okay. And sometimes maybe a little bit early. Okay. Now I will say that it depends on the workplace, like at, at HP, uh, you know, we were pretty much done at noon.
Okay. on Fridays, unless it was like, unless it was the fiscal year end or something like that.
You know, something was going on. Most Fridays, you know, right.
When there's a busy planning season or something like that. But, but other times I'm like, Jesus, I get out of here on Friday at noon.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm done now. Now on the flip side, there were many times that I work, you know, late at nights, weekends or whatever.
So I think it was my way of kind of balancing that kind of stuff out, OK?
I'm like, you know, when when we have the time, we will make the time.
And so today I was saying that, you know, at this job, it is a little bit hard for me to.
Well, people don't stop working at that time at HP. It was kind of like collective.
It was it was like normal.
Yeah, we're all going. I'm like, OK, well, let's go. whatever. Okay.
So, you know, it's like, you know, you know, a whole bunch of us would get together in some restaurant and, you know, uh, have something, have some drinks or whatever, hang out the afternoon to go home. So it was like, you know, so that was like a more like a collective thing in our office.
Um, but But over here, people don't do that. So I, I usually work until.
|
Sam:
[8:15]
| Uh, usually until around four, uh, because one thing I told my boss where, where I am on Fridays, things seem to get really quiet after around three.
Like if, if you schedule a meeting for somebody on 4. PM on a Friday, they're going to be pissed at you.
|
Ivan:
[8:32]
| You know, man, you know that, that, that, listen, man, let me tell you something.
There are people I have to say that I I've had more than one customer.
Yeah. Schedule a fricking meeting for Friday at four or five o'clock.
And I'm just like, what in the hell is wrong with you?
|
Sam:
[8:52]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[8:52]
| I'm like, really?
|
Sam:
[8:53]
| Nothing.
|
Ivan:
[8:55]
| I mean, we are on fumes at that moment.
|
Sam:
[8:58]
| Yeah, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[8:59]
| I'm just like, we're, I mean, we're looking at the clock to see what the hell this fucking thing's going to be over. And this is when you want to talk about this?
|
Sam:
[9:07]
| Yeah. Where I am, things tend to get really quiet after three.
I mean, you'll occasionally, you'll occasionally get a three o'clock on a Friday after four o'clock is no.
Um, right before the show started, I was telling Yvonne, like today I cut out at two, like I just, I mentally was not there.
Um, I had, you know, earlier in the week, there were a couple of like annoying things that happened and I was just sort of mentally done and I had nothing pressing, like I had nothing that anybody was expecting, right?
|
Ivan:
[9:39]
| Nobody's waiting for anything.
|
Sam:
[9:42]
| And like I caught up on, I'd already been spending time catching up to like on stupid things like mandatory training and stuff like that.
And, and I was like, there is no way I'm getting any, anything productive done this afternoon.
Um, and you know, I'm just not mentally into it right now. It's not going to happen.
There's nothing really pressing that needs to happen that would change that.
And I wasn't going to mention this, but also, but it's.
Saturday is my birthday. So I'm like, fuck it. I'm out.
|
Ivan:
[10:14]
| All right. That's right. Saturday is your birthday, Sam. So we're actually we're ready. Yes. GMT. So happy birthday, Sam.
|
Sam:
[10:23]
| Well, thank you, Yvonne. I usually do this thing where I calculate the exact time, but, you know, I haven't, I haven't actually bothered this time.
|
Ivan:
[10:30]
| You haven't bothered this time.
|
Sam:
[10:31]
| Cause cause I do this thing where like a year is not an even number of days.
So the exact time that's an anniversary is not at the same time.
Every year and leap years affected and all kinds of other things affected, leap seconds every once in a while, I mean, whatever.
And I usually do that calculation and time zones, of course. Time zones.
I haven't bothered. But anyway, the point was at two o'clock, I am like, I am so done here. I am checking out. I'm closing the laptop.
I am going to go sit down on the couch with my son, watch some TV because they let out, I don't know if they do this where you are, Yvonne, but like Fridays let out early from school here.
|
Ivan:
[11:14]
| Oh, no, no, no, no, yeah, like Fridays.
|
Sam:
[11:18]
| They've let out like 90 minutes early than the rest of the rest of the week.
And it's it's frankly really freaking annoying. Like here the yes.
Monday through Thursday.
|
Ivan:
[11:30]
| I mean, I mean, people don't get out from work early. So therefore that that screws up everybody's schedule. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[11:36]
| Like here a Monday through Thursday is 250 is when things let out.
Um, Friday is one 35 normally, except when they have something special going on it.
When it's even earlier, it's like 12 something and it's, it's, it's not, you, you, yes, it is stupid.
Cause it's not the same every freaking, just make it the same every freaking day, you know, but uh, but anyway, what it meant was by the time I checked out at two o'clock, he was already home and I'm like, I'm just sitting on the couch, hanging out with him, doing watch, watching some stupid stuff.
We watched a couple of his shows. We watched one of mine and I, I, I, I fell asleep for a few minutes.
He fell asleep for a few minutes. We had some food and snacks and I'm like, this is about what my mind was ready to handle on Friday afternoon.
|
Ivan:
[12:27]
| Amen.
|
Sam:
[12:29]
| You know, so, Hey man, I'm with you.
|
Ivan:
[12:32]
| I get that. I agree. But you know what? That wasn't my Friday.
|
Sam:
[12:38]
| I will say, I just, I just want to put it out. out there in case anybody from work is listening, there are certainly days where I do work late, this is not an everyday thing, but you know, Friday, Friday afternoons, tail off early anyway.
And this Friday I was just like, I'm done, you know, and fine. No, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[12:58]
| Today I wound up here. Here's the, one of the things that happened to me, which occasionally happens in my job. So I've got customers that speak multiple different languages.
And sometimes I forget to tell people.
Oh, this offer needs to be in more. More of a problem happens is needs to be in English.
OK, and damn it. I had somebody that was working with me on a on a presentation for a customer for Monday.
And all of a sudden he told me he's showing well, we're reviewing it.
And I'm like, oh, shit, what's wrong in Spanish?
And he was mortified. And I'm like, don't worry, I this has already happened to me.
I. I'll deal with it. Usually I was able.
|
Sam:
[13:46]
| Because you're like you didn't tell him.
|
Ivan:
[13:49]
| Not no, I did tell him, but I said, don't worry, finish it up.
But what I said is, listen, finish it up as fast as you can.
Get it to me so I can translate this thing, review it before it goes out. OK, so I was able to.
One of the things is that Microsoft does have some translation tools now for for stuff that help.
But look, I, I have to, it helps me, but I, I have to, I have to go through it and fix stuff because it will leave certain things.
|
Sam:
[14:18]
| It will do stupid things. Like it'll, it'll get some things right, but it'll be stupid in other areas.
|
Ivan:
[14:23]
| It will, it will get a whole bunch. It will get a whole bunch of things.
It, it, it helps me make it faster. No doubt about it.
But I have to proofread it because otherwise stuff will be in there that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. whatsoever. Okay.
Like, uh, you know, there was a, there's a, there's a term that we use, for example, a whole bunch of times in, in Spanish for like, uh, say, um, I don't even, man, there's no equivalent. That's the problem.
So it's like, Oh, like a bucket, like, uh, well, we have a bucket of, of, uh, of, of hours or a bucket of dollars sometimes, you know, how people say in like inside budget.
So we have, you know, we have a bucket. Well, the thing is, in Spanish, we use the word boils out, which is bag.
And so a lot of times what happens is that if if they put that in there, for example, that was one of the ones that I caught.
Well, we're going to have this bag of engineers.
And I'm like, oh, wait, what? No, we don't have a we're not sending you a bag of engineers, you know, over to your customer.
OK, so it's like that kind of stuff that I have to like, you know, make sure that.
It doesn't do that. And I will tell you that one of my things that is complicated when I'm doing my job between stuff in English and Spanish, and having it...
Be correct because the thing is that sometimes some of these applications will auto detect the language, but then assume that everything is in that that one language, right? And that's not the case.
And so the problem is that then you have an autocorrect.
You know, you have spell checks in one language or grammar check one language and the language change in the middle of the document or certain sections.
And it's always a pain in my ass. Okay. But I have to go through that because I keep getting a whole bunch of red flags for words and I'm like, no, those are correct.
Damn it. No, no, no. And then sometimes it winds up that, and I, I did that and not often.
I did that today. First time done that I didn't double proofread a document, but it was an internal document and I sent it to my boss and then we were reviewing it and I'm like, Oh shit, I didn't review that again.
Damn it. I'm like, look, give me that thing back. It's a mess.
I got, I got to fix it. Okay. Because of those, um, things.
So it's a pain in my pain in my ass, but you know, but I, I got the document translated.
I sent it then the middle of it, I was asked for another document.
I had to send that one. And then I got asked for another one.
And then I'm like, I'm like, what time is it? I'm like, Oh God, it's past six o'clock already today, I thought I was going to.
Maybe get a little rest. Right.
|
Sam:
[17:21]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[17:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:22]
| No. Anyway.
|
Ivan:
[17:23]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:24]
| Like, uh, you know, I, I mentioned, I fell asleep during one of the shows I was watching with my son and actually I only like, cause I woke up when the like credits came on for the show and I'm like, wow.
And then I made them rewind to watch the part I missed. I only missed like 10 minutes. So I had like a 10 minute nap.
|
Ivan:
[17:42]
| I will say I used to be, you know, My wife and I, many times before when I used to have to go to the office, yeah, she would want to watch a Friday night movie before we had, we had a kid.
Okay. And so she would start this movie like a 10 o'clock and almost every time, like clockwork 15 minutes into the movie, you're out.
|
Sam:
[18:03]
| I'm out. I, you know, so my point was I only ended up sleeping like 10 minutes and I was like, okay, I'm going to start your next show and it's going to be one of your shows. And I'm just going to sit here on the couch.
I'm just going to go back to sleep. I got like two hours till the podcast.
I'm going to take a two hour nap. Of course, I did not get back to sleep at all during those two hours now.
And since since we're well into this and talking about schedules and stuff, my but first was actually going to be about schedules as well, but not any of the stuff we've talked about so far. My book. So what is what?
What's my, you know, I know you started a a while ago, school finally started here.
|
Ivan:
[18:44]
| Like last, Oh yes, that's right. Because you guys start like almost after late December, for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[18:50]
| Jesus, we, we start like the Wednesday after labor day. Um, so anyway, we, the school has started.
And I've complained before about, you know, early start times, but this year is worse.
|
Ivan:
[19:05]
| What, and what's the start time now?
|
Sam:
[19:06]
| Well, here's the thing. Alex is still in middle school. He's in eighth grade.
However, he's taking 10th grade math, and there are a bunch of kids from his school that are also taking 10th grade math, but there weren't enough of them to have a class at the middle school.
So he has to go to the high school for his math class, and they put the math class at first period in high school.
School here starts at eight 15 high school school starts at seven, seven 30 same as here.
|
Ivan:
[19:48]
| It's I'm just like, and I'm dreading this show.
|
Sam:
[19:52]
| And look here, let me add to that.
Alex fucking hates school like it is a fight every fucking morning to get him to school, okay?
Now it has gotten better like he was having like major anxiety attacks in the couple weeks coming up to school Like he he was really upset like I've told the story before on the show how like the first time he went on a flight With us he was terrified and we had to drag in kicking and screaming onto the airplane because he was afraid that we were all going to crash and die.
Um, this in the week or two leading up to the beginning of eighth grade, this is the closest I've seen to that airplane thing since then.
Okay. Um, and so the first, the first day, especially it has gotten better, but like, it was, uh, it was, I mean, we were talking like, and, and look, he, he is He is now 14, he turned 14 a few days ago and he is almost as big as I am.
And I was having to like physically manhandle him out of the house and into the car and from the car into the school and all this kind of stuff.
And like, and like, I, yeah, this is tough.
Um, and, uh, exhausting and blah, blah, blah.
But, you know, the first couple of days were the worst.
It has gotten much, much better. He has been very cooperative the last couple of days. But still, in order to make that 7.30 time, my alarm clock is set for 5.30 in the morning.
And, you know, I sort of spend a half hour getting myself together, and then by 6, I'm actively working on getting the kid ready.
And by seven o'clock, we have to be out of the house heading to the school.
And it is just, I know it is a recurring theme on here that I've complained about not being a morning person.
But I guess part of why I was like so done at 2 p.m.
Is I've had two weeks now of getting up at 530 in the morning, going through all of this stuff to try to get him into school by 730.
And then three out of five days a week, You, doing a fucking commute into Seattle. Um, now Friday was not one of those days, but the point is, and then like having less sleep than I would like, because I, you know, still can't manage to get to bed really early.
So therefore, like I've been running on less sleep than normal.
And I know we're going to adjust. And like I said, at the end of week two, which is where we are right now, it is so much better than it was at the beginning of week one, but it's still like crazy, stupid hours that, and especially like, and I apologize.
Cause I know I've bitched about this before study after study, after study, after study has shown that adolescent kids, teenage, you know, preteens and teenagers need to get up later.
Their internal body clock is just set so that they need to get up later.
And getting them up early in the morning and starting fucking school at 630 or even 830 in the morning has negative educational impacts on them.
Well, now I understand for some parents, it's better.
|
Ivan:
[23:30]
| We have to go get the crops.
|
Sam:
[23:33]
| Yes, we have to go get the damn crops.
|
Ivan:
[23:35]
| Right. You have to go get the crops.
|
Sam:
[23:37]
| Now I still, I realized there, you know, some parents who work nine to five jobs that are really strict on nine to five, you have to have the kids to school before nine, or it doesn't work. I understand.
|
Ivan:
[23:48]
| Well, but here's the thing, but we're not consistent about that anyway.
Because for example, like my, my middle school over here, the drop off, I think, uh, you know, you could, the earliest you could drop off the kid, I think is eight 45.
And so I, I'm like, you know, I think 90 or 9 AM.
I can't remember exactly. It's like, and to me, it's like, well, what the hell, man? I mean, if you've got one of these, like, you got to be at the office at 830. Right. I mean, what the hell do you do?
You know, you can't drop off the kid before then. It's crazy.
|
Sam:
[24:21]
| And so, I mean, and then in some cases, the answer is they, you know, the kid has to take the bus and they have to get it, do it themselves, you know, but for some people that That doesn't work.
That's right. I mean, I remember at various ages when I was a kid having to get myself up and to the bus myself, but it works for some people.
It doesn't work for others.
I mean, we have a bus that could pick up Alex in this neighborhood, but frankly, we'd have to get him ready even earlier to make that happen.
|
Ivan:
[24:54]
| Right. You have to get him ready even earlier. Exactly.
|
Sam:
[24:57]
| Right. Fuck that. I mean, I'm sorry. had some...
A few years ago when he did take the bus, he had some issues with bullying, And so we're like, fuck that now.
|
Ivan:
[25:07]
| So, I mean, I don't know, you don't want my bullying solutions that I had when I was younger.
Basically, my bullying solutions involve basically kicking the shit out of anybody who gave me crap. Basically. Yeah. So it worked.
|
Sam:
[25:24]
| I mean, this was years ago in our case, but like, you know, look, it worked.
|
Ivan:
[25:29]
| Okay. Listen, people stopped giving me shit after, you know, after I had, I think that the last time somebody really tried was some guy And this was when I must have been in the seventh or eighth grade or something and this guy was a junior Okay in high school and and he kind of like hated my brother so he decided to pick on me one day and he went and as I was having a snack he freaking Stuffed his hand into it and broke the bag that I had and and spilled this, oh my God, I can't remember.
I think I was, if I, listen to this combination I was eating.
It was Cheetos and Sunkist.
Cheetos with a Sunkist, okay, with orange soda, okay? And he spilled it all over and I was living, okay?
And this guy had ran out. I chased this guy and from behind, I hit him so hard.
I mean, he fricking fell on his face And.
And this guy was way taller than I was. It was like he was over six feet.
And all of a sudden, unexpectedly, he got hit so hard that I mean, he just couldn't believe it.
He got angry. Teachers saw this. They stopped everybody. Nothing else happened.
But let me tell you, you think that son of a bitch ever mess with me again?
|
Sam:
[26:50]
| I'm not once.
|
Ivan:
[26:50]
| No. Oh, man.
|
Sam:
[26:55]
| Anyway, so because so we take him to school. It's easier than trying to deal with the buses and all that kind of stuff.
Uh, and there, and we have variety of reasons, but like, still it's, it is brutal.
Like, and even if he was super cooperative, which he's, like I said, better and better every day, but even if he was super, super cooperative, we still have to get up at like insane O'clock in the morning.
And it just, it just is draining and pisses me off. And it's like, come on, couldn't you like, I don't know, start school at 10 or something reasonable.
|
Ivan:
[27:29]
| Something like that.
|
Sam:
[27:31]
| Yeah. I know. And then they could stay later too. That's fine.
|
Ivan:
[27:35]
| Sure.
|
Sam:
[27:35]
| It could, I, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying five o'clock.
Yeah, exactly. You know, 10 to five.
|
Ivan:
[27:42]
| Does it seem like a bad school schedule to me?
|
Sam:
[27:45]
| No, not at all.
|
Ivan:
[27:46]
| But this is like, and even the teachers, I mean, you know, you get some work, get some pre-work done in the morning.
You go there, they have the school day, they're gone. you're done.
Everybody's happy. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[28:00]
| I don't know. There, there, there gotta be better ways to freaking do this.
It's just, it's obnoxious.
|
Ivan:
[28:06]
| And well, listen, I think here's what we'll do.
We are going to, uh, send a message to our governor, Rhonda Santos over here, because he seems to be very, very versed on solving problems very well.
And we'll get him and his Surgeon General make a scientific recommendation on this. There you go.
|
Sam:
[28:30]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[28:30]
| I think that's the solution.
|
Sam:
[28:32]
| Start the kids at two in the morning.
|
Ivan:
[28:33]
| Yes. Something like that. Yes.
|
Sam:
[28:38]
| Something like that. And anyway, that was my thing.
|
Ivan:
[28:41]
| Well, we're going to give them the information using electrodes at night.
|
Sam:
[28:46]
| Isn't that a legitimate way of learning? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[28:49]
| I mean, you could. It's electronic data transfer. We just transfer.
We instead of like this lecturing stuff, we just plug in a couple of electrodes and then we just transfer everything.
|
Sam:
[28:59]
| Well, wasn't that actually a bad for a while with the headphones where you just listen to tapes of people saying stuff while you supposedly you learned it.
|
Ivan:
[29:08]
| As far as I can tell, that never worked very well.
|
Sam:
[29:10]
| Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[29:13]
| Like, I mean, I wish I could have like, I don't know, learned all my calculus by just playing tapes of it at night. Yes.
That would have been fantastic. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[29:25]
| How I'll get to work on that. I'll get that. That's, you know, that needs to make a comeback. Yvonne, you're always talking about like how, what's the right podcast to do to like make billions.
|
Ivan:
[29:36]
| It's calculus. So we're going to do so.
So our podcast to make millions is we're going to do read very dry calculus textbooks for you to make in your sleep, in your head, your sleep.
|
Sam:
[29:51]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[29:52]
| And, and, and, and look, since we've got Ray Lynch has gracefully given us rights to use his music.
We will play that in the background in order to soothe you as you listen to these complex, you know, how to do differential equations and, and, you know, integrals and that kind of stuff.
|
Sam:
[30:17]
| Now, having said that, of course, there are podcasts that exist that are people reading very, very dry, boring material for the purpose of people falling asleep to it.
|
Ivan:
[30:31]
| I, I can see that. Yes.
|
Sam:
[30:33]
| You know? Yeah. So, uh, that's been done. No.
|
Ivan:
[30:38]
| So, so basically another market that we've missed out on as always.
|
Sam:
[30:43]
| That's us. Okay. So, uh, you, you talked a little bit, a little, you have something else. Should we move on?
|
Ivan:
[30:49]
| No, no, no. We should move on. We should take a break.
|
Sam:
[30:51]
| Okay. Um, here comes the break.
|
Ivan:
[30:58]
| Here comes the break.
|
Sam:
[30:59]
| You know, I, the one that's going to play is this 80s thing.
Music thing that, um, Alex and I put together after last week's podcast, we had an idea for another one because something at the very beginning of the podcast sort of sounded funny.
And I've been talking to Alex about how we should make a song out of it, but we haven't yet.
So I'm sorry, but maybe someday that will show up because we were having, We were Alex was having a blast just playing it over and over and over again and repeating bits of it And it sounded kind of cool and like we should do that someday But, okay.
I was lame. Did not get it done. So, well. So you get this one instead. Here you go.
It didn't come automatically, so I have to do it manually.
Okay, so we're back. So how about some real topics now, Yvonne?
You want to start? We got a whole list of crap. We got a whole list of lots and lots of.
|
Ivan:
[33:00]
| Wow. Sounds great. Look, we've people we've got crump.
|
Sam:
[33:04]
| We've got to talk about the crap. Yeah. Like we have all kinds of stuff. A difference of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[33:10]
| Substantial. Yes. Where do you want to start?
|
Sam:
[33:15]
| I advance you.
|
Ivan:
[33:17]
| You're my turn, supposedly.
Um, um, strike, strike.
|
Sam:
[33:24]
| Oh, the UAW strike on top of, we've already got writer strikes, actor strikes. Stuff. Now we got like, um, car manufacturer strikes.
|
Ivan:
[33:36]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[33:37]
| So what's the story here, Yvonne? Like they're starting out, they're starting out small.
They're not like striking everything all at once. And then they're going to ramp it up over the next few weeks.
I gather, but all, but what's the, what's the fundamental dispute here?
Now I've been hearing about like some of their demands and they seem really, they're demanding a lot. What's going on here?
|
Ivan:
[33:58]
| Well, look, it's money. I mean, let's be clear about this.
Uh, there, uh, but if we talk about, um, the, um, the automakers are offering 20% pay increases over the length of the contract.
The union's asking for 40.
And some people are asking, well, Jesus, you know, 40, What the hell?
|
Sam:
[34:21]
| That's a lot.
|
Ivan:
[34:22]
| It's a lot. But, you know, I think that as happens to.
Um, with a lot of, uh, companies in the U S and certain industries, um, you know, wages have been stagnant for a long, for a long time.
|
Sam:
[34:43]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[34:46]
| And they're like, you know, look, if you look at the purchasing power of what we're getting right now, versus what we used to be able to buy.
|
Sam:
[34:58]
| Um, yeah. 40% just get some backup to where they would be if they've been standard cost of living increases.
|
Ivan:
[35:04]
| It probably gets them somewhat ahead, but still, it's not exactly like they're getting, you know, they, they've been like, you know, living high in the hog and then all of a sudden we're getting an extra 40% on top.
|
Sam:
[35:15]
| And also they keep pointing out the executives that these these companies have all have actually gotten like raises along those lines over the last few years as well.
|
Ivan:
[35:28]
| I'll say like the top executives, you know, probably I'm sure I know that a lot of the, the white collar workers have gotten, um, you know, in the industry haven't, but, but definitely top executives, look, executive pay in the U S we're talking about top leadership, executive pay, you know, has like sword.
Uh, or ever since really, I'd say going back, the, the, the real takeoff point was the Reagan administration.
|
Sam:
[35:57]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[35:59]
| And it has far outpaced, uh, everybody else's earning, which by the way, at this point is a long time ago, it's quite a long time ago. Um...
Well, I mean, it made it that the multipliers between, you know, the average worker and the top executives went from something that was like probably less than 10 times pay, where now it's, you know, normal, like to have 50, 100, 100, you know.
|
Sam:
[36:24]
| I saw a tweet by like UAW or somebody like passed around.
I saw it on Mastodon. So that wasn't actually a tweet, but like where the numbers for the big three were not only like 100, they were like three or four hundred times.
|
Ivan:
[36:40]
| Yeah. Yeah. So that's like normal. Um, you know, I'm reading here, for example, that, uh, uh, somebody was saying that at the four plant, several strikers said a raise of 30% or more was needed to make up for concessions that the union had to make in previous years to help automakers survive the 2007 to 2008 financial crisis. Um, so, so that's like a, a starting point, um, where they're talking about.
|
Sam:
[37:05]
| Um, and for example, um, So look, and they're looking for fewer hours too.
They're looking for a 32 hour workweek. If I remember correctly.
|
Ivan:
[37:18]
| Yeah. Um, I don't recall that was the case, but here's what I, what I understand about how that 32 hour workweek would work, it's not that they would be working 32 hours.
Because, you know, I've seen this happen and I was like recently, um, with a friend that works at American Airlines and they work like, um, uh, uh, they, they dispatch flights. Okay. At the gates.
And you know what, listen, you and I, you know, we're talking about hours at work.
Let me tell you something over the labor day weekend. Um, you know, I saw her, she, she managed to get Sunday off. Okay. But she had to work Saturday and Monday on labor day weekend.
And, um, the shift that she had to do on, on, on Monday, she had to get to the airport at 5.00 AM to start the shift at 5.00 AM and worked until 10.00 PM. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[38:17]
| I, the other thing, the other thing is even now, now here's what here's, but here's one thing.
|
Ivan:
[38:23]
| The reason I brought it up is because the way this works is because if you break out the week at the 32 when your overtime pay kicks in, then is earlier.
So one of the things that with her is that, you know, thankfully she's been, you know, at the company over 20 plus years.
So she has gotten benefits from that. And it is that, you know, look after the eight hours on that day, it's not like overtime from the week.
If on the day you go over eight hours, it's time and a half for the first four hours. Okay. And then the, any hours on top of that, it's double pay. Okay.
The other, but the thing is that they're so short staffed that they have to wind up giving some employees like her many times, those kinds of hours.
So it was like on that week, I know she worked, you know, multiple days where she got to work at 5.
AM and didn't get on the employee shuttle until 10 PM at night.
And she can't work remote. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[39:25]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[39:26]
| We, we, there is no remote work.
|
Sam:
[39:29]
| I was just bitching about hours getting the kid to school, but it, this is an entirely different universe right now.
I was going to say this as well, which is like X number of hours a week, whether it be 32 or 40 or whatever is different for the kind of employee where you were.
Like you and me, where basically it's like, yeah, you know, you, you, you You average out to that number of hours, but you set your own schedule.
You go in when you need to for meetings.
You take breaks when you need to. Nobody's doing that. That is very different than a job where you clock in and clock out and have breaks at regimented times.
|
Ivan:
[40:06]
| And I could go, listen, I went, for example, during that weekend, I went and I took my computer because I did work while I was over there, right?
But I don't have to go be at the fucking airport at five in the morning to do this. Right. I was able to do it at a hotel.
With room service where they brought me food that I ate while I was working.
|
Sam:
[40:26]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[40:26]
| You know, I mean, you know, let's face it. We, you know, yes, we are spoiled assholes.
Okay. Extend from some of this stuff. Okay.
|
Sam:
[40:36]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[40:36]
| You know, so, so these guys with when they're, when they fight for 32 hours, it doesn't mean they're going to work.
|
Sam:
[40:43]
| And just to be clear, like manufacturing jobs where you're going into a fucking factory are most definitely the kind where, A, yeah, you're not working from home.
B, you are clocking in and clocking out and there's scheduled breaks and all this kind of stuff.
This is not a flexibility paradigm.
|
Ivan:
[41:04]
| No.
|
Sam:
[41:04]
| This is very regimented. And it's often hard physical labor too.
|
Ivan:
[41:10]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[41:10]
| People get hurt. Shit happens.
|
Ivan:
[41:14]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[41:16]
| Yeah. This is a very different kind of thing than the cushy jobs Yvonne and I have.
|
Ivan:
[41:20]
| Yes, definitely. Okay. You know, we're spoiled bastards.
Okay. That's fine. Okay. Um, not, I'm not, not ashamed to admit it.
Yes. Um, um, so the one thing is that I, you know what, I, I hear people bitching and I can't remember.
Well, um, you know, some people saying, oh, you better go back there or get there a job.
And I'm just like, you know what, man, and let them fight for their fucking rights. Yeah. You know, let them, you know, they, they need to, you know, let them fight for it.
|
Sam:
[41:55]
| From what I heard, the big, the big three manufacturers that they're going on strike for have basically said, Hey, look, if we gave you everything you wanted, we'd be going out of business in a few years.
|
Ivan:
[42:08]
| That's not really true.
|
Sam:
[42:09]
| Is that bullshit?
|
Ivan:
[42:11]
| That's bullshit. They're all exaggerating. It's like everybody, you know, whatever. Look, with the price inflation, with all the stuff that's going on, that's not true.
You know, when you're talking, You know somebody was talking over here that you know that there's this guy who was a forklift worker to got laid off two thousand seven and two thousand seven he had been making twenty five dollars an hour but he when he was rehired in two thousand twelve okay after a long layoff he started back at seventeen dollars an hour okay.
Now, think about this, okay, so he went, he was making $25 in 2007.
Now with many years, he's at 32, okay? But think about this, it's 20% over that time period, right?
Man, how much has housing prices gone up in the last 10 years?
How much is the price of everything gone up in the last 10 years?
Look, I mean, 20% barely guts it.
You know, especially when you are at this wage level where, you know, for them, we're talking about, it's about the basics, okay?
It's about being able to cover your house, you know, your fuel, your car, all of this shit, you know, at that level. We're not talking about the extras right now, okay?
That money and those people making that kind of money just covers the fucking basics, man.
And so it's not like, you know, I really think that, I was looking at some people complaining that in California they were passing legislation that certain large fast food chains above a certain size needed to pay a minimum of $20 an hour minimum wage.
And I see that these people are getting right now really about already between $15 to $20 and they were saying they're going to go belly up.
But what I said is, you know what? Awesome.
It's what I've said about everybody and this whole damn thing that we're doing in this fucking country, sometimes with with manual labor, you want fucking manual labor, and it's like slave labor. Listen, you want that shit.
They need to earn enough to make a fucking, you know, to to make a life and you need to pay the price that it takes to do that. You can't just get the comforts that you want off the back of their fucking labor.
|
Sam:
[44:57]
| It's like pay the extra buck for the burger.
|
Ivan:
[44:59]
| Yeah. And suck it up, buttercup.
|
Sam:
[45:05]
| And I know like there's some people who that extra buck for the burger is a big deal, too. But if you paid them more, it would be less of a big deal.
|
Ivan:
[45:13]
| Exactly right. But, you know, it's just it's not worth it to make somebody's life miserable to save a buck on a burger.
And that and that's the reality.
And, you know, when corporate profits are at record highs, uh, stock valuations are record highs.
And then you try to tell people, ah, yeah, it's okay. That your income has like stagnated, you know, at or below inflation for the last 20 plus years.
Come on, man, get the fuck out of here.
|
Sam:
[45:42]
| You know, you mentioned corporate profits at record highs and all that kind of stuff.
One of the things I've seen people starting to complain more and more about and tell me if this is full of shit or not, but like, is like a significant part of the inflation that people have felt is specifically companies improving their margins as opposed to underlying.
|
Ivan:
[46:09]
| That's not true completely. Now. One thing is that is it partially true?
No, here's what's happened though. I mean, like everything. Okay.
Okay. Well, you know, a lot of companies for many years in many industries felt they didn't have pricing power.
Okay. And I've seen that a lot. I'll give you an example.
|
Sam:
[46:34]
| Define the term, please, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[46:36]
| Okay. So when I would negotiate, say, with a landscape contract here for my condo, basically, all the bidders used to be just fighting over each other to see...
They felt that they couldn't give me a price increase. They felt that every time in a contract negotiations, I would beat them down to give me the service for less.
Right now, the last couple of years, it's been, oh, you know what?
Minimum 20% pay increase or you're not getting service.
And it's been across the board from all the vendors. And for the previous 10 years, 11 years that I was running the board, that wasn't the case.
So you're talking about 11 years where those companies could not pass on a price increase.
And then all of a sudden, the price of their raw materials rose and they're like, oh yeah, I could justify it.
All of them are like, you're taking a price increase, otherwise I'm going out of business. There's no choice.
Now what's happened is a little bit that some of those price increases and other cost increases to them have abated.
Today, for example, when we're talking about import prices into the U.S.
For goods, we're down 5%. Why? Because the dollar is strong, okay?
So some of the pressures that these companies have received in terms of increasing raw materials, shipping costs have plummeted again, raw material costs in certain cases have started going back down, where, I'll tell you, for example, I had been buying tile for a construction project over here.
The price of the tile a couple of years ago was quoted to me at 490 square foot.
Then when supplies got tight and everything was going crazy, whatever, the price had soared to $6, okay?
Now I need some more material and I started shopping the price.
I got somebody to offer it to me at four 60, 30 cents less than what I originally bought it.
So you see, you had this, you had this rise, but then all of a sudden the pricing pressure started to ease again.
And then, you know, they're like, well, the prices are coming back down.
So now I will say that in a lot of industries, they've been able to maintain a lot of those price increases.
Okay. Which is what I'm like, great. If you kept the price increase and your costs are starting to come back into control, then damn it.
Pay the damn employees.
|
Sam:
[49:09]
| Right. Instead of dropping the price down or just leaving it and pocketing more profit.
|
Ivan:
[49:17]
| Are they not? Exactly, because that's what they're in. In most cases, they're not going to drop the price back down.
Fuck that. No, we got it up.
Hell, unless we have to. I mean.
Look, airlines don't want to drop their prices.
Car manufacturers don't want to go back to $10,000 rebates on every damn car.
You know, shit like that. They're like, you know.
Hotels don't want to drop their rates. I was looking for a hotel in New York for an event that I'm going to go to next month.
And holy shit, our hotels in New York now a lot more expensive than they were like when I used to go for work six, seven years ago, I mean, cheap rates are seven, 800 bucks a night used to be three, 400.
Now it's like, holy shit. I mean, I mean, I'm not, not abnormal to have hotel rates over a thousand dollars a night, you know, when that was like, really more like an elite thing, like at the top.
No, now it's like a whole page of hotels all over a thousand dollars a night.
I'm like, what the hell? I just saw an announcement for grand opening of a hotel and and it said, oh, the price of the room starts at two thousand dollars a night.
And I'm like, that was two thousand a night.
I'm like, yeah, some people are dropping those prices. Yeah, we tell you.
So I think that, look, the case, I think that eventually a compromise will be worked out. Look, the.
|
Sam:
[51:03]
| Do you think that like the the strike literally started like what?
Just under 24 hours ago as we're recording this.
Are we talking about something that's going to last weeks or are they going to?
|
Ivan:
[51:16]
| Oh, it's going to be a couple. I'm going to I'm going to think that this is going to be weeks or maybe months.
|
Sam:
[51:21]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[51:22]
| Yeah, I don't think this is going to go, this is not going to resolve quickly because they've got a big gap.
|
Sam:
[51:27]
| We mentioned the writers and actors. They've been going months now with no sign of significant progress.
|
Ivan:
[51:36]
| So I, you know, I was listening to on a podcast with somebody that's on the strike negotiating team for the Writers Guild the other day.
And the biggest problem that they've got right now on that strike is that there's a lot of new players.
At the negotiating table that were not there when the last strike happened well over a decade ago, because you've got the Netflix's, the apples and all these other companies that are actually there.
None of those companies were there the last time this was around.
And the problem is that the companies amongst themselves aren't in agreement as to what they want to with the writer's guilt.
And so that's part of the problem they've got right now, that that you've got a landscape in that.
But it changed so much and the players all changed so much.
|
Sam:
[52:34]
| Yeah. So the players have changed, but also the whole landscape of how the business is working is entirely different than it was 10 plus years ago as well.
Totally. Um, and, and, and that's part of the reason that they're striking and everything of course is because the way in which it's changed has kind of screwed the actors and the writers.
And so they're trying to unscrew themselves to a degree.
And of course the companies are like, well, this whole model doesn't work if we're not screwing you.
|
Ivan:
[53:09]
| So so they have to figure out, oh, it's talking about your cheap burgers and your coffee. Hey, you can't have your entertainment unless we got slaves, slaves writing your stuff. Like how easy.
|
Sam:
[53:18]
| So at some point you have to say, fucking pay them.
And yes, that means your entertainment might be more expensive and you might make less of it. You know?
That you'll have to live with that. No, figure it out. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[53:33]
| You know, I mean, I think that's I mean, that's that's the key there, too.
So I know this is going to take a while. Look, I mean, one thing is that aside from the 40 to 20% like a gap, you know, the unions that ask for a number of other things and companies have not budged on basically have denied most of the other things that they had asked for, which I, you know, um, so they've got, they're far apart right now.
|
Sam:
[54:03]
| Um, and for all of these, do we feel like, do the companies have big enough pockets that basically they can go a long time like the, for the actors and writers, the studios, like one of the studio heads was quoted as saying, you know, we can outlast them.
They will be fucking starving on the street before we have to like capitulate.
|
Ivan:
[54:26]
| I mean, I think that maybe I, I think that, uh, yeah, that guy that said that basically got ripped to shreds, if I remember correctly over saying that, um, look, I, I think that, um, technically, yes.
Okay. That may be the case, but, uh, I think for, for the auto folks too.
No, here's, here's a difference. I was hearing about on the writer's guild side that some of the studios in the short term are actually making more money. Mmm.
|
Sam:
[54:57]
| Because they're riding on their back catalog and they're not having to pay out to build anything new. Right.
|
Ivan:
[55:02]
| So in the short term, it's not it's not a hit for the audio manufacturers.
It can get to be a hit really quickly because if they cripple production of certain vehicles, usually most auto manufacturers in the U.S.
The vehicles are sold immediately when they're made because the dealers buy their inventory.
They're not like Tesla, where they the inventory. That's one of the beauties of having dealers that you're not. You don't own those cars.
A dealer is taking them off your hands right away. OK.
|
Sam:
[55:36]
| There's a buffer between you and the end customer.
|
Ivan:
[55:38]
| Exactly. And so therefore. But but what that means is that if you can't produce any fucking cars and your revenue goes to zero pretty quick.
|
Sam:
[55:46]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[55:47]
| And you can't sustain that that for that long either. So so, yeah, you know, they can't like just, you know, sustain that.
And today, Donald was saying to the auto unions, Mr.
|
Sam:
[56:06]
| Trump, Donald.
|
Ivan:
[56:08]
| Yeah, that that that idiot.
All those cars are going to be made in China anyway. So you need to stop the strike. Yeah. All the cars, all of them. all of them.
And so you just, you know, ignore your leaders and just go back to work.
|
Sam:
[56:25]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[56:27]
| But, but, but, but be loyal to me because he will protect you.
I'm like, I'm so confused. Wait, but you're telling, you're telling them they're not going to have jobs.
You're telling them fuck their leader, but they should be loyal to you to get them.
|
Sam:
[56:44]
| What? Didn't he bring all those new manufacturing plants to the Midwest while he was president. I re I, didn't I remember hearing something about that?
|
Ivan:
[56:52]
| Millions of jobs, Sam. I, that's the thing, you know, millions, millions.
|
Sam:
[56:57]
| He didn't know. He, he, he promised a few that most of which did not work out. Right.
|
Ivan:
[57:03]
| So that was another lie. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[57:06]
| Like there were a couple of companies, if I remember right, that started up like some little thing to say that they were doing something, but then shut them down again pretty quick.
|
Ivan:
[57:15]
| Yeah, basically, yeah, that's what, you know, standard infrastructure week, say infrastructure week.
|
Sam:
[57:21]
| Yes. Okay. Okay. Moving on. If, are we done with UAW stuff? I think we are. Okay.
So I'm going to, for the sake of continuity and not jumping all over the the place.
Do the one other thing on our list that is somewhat.
Tangential to economic things, which is that we are once again in the run up to a potential government shutdown.
|
Ivan:
[57:50]
| Oh, God. Yeah, I know.
|
Sam:
[57:52]
| It seems like this is like once or twice a year, right?
I mean, like, well, the government shut down. Well, yeah, well, yeah, I know an actual we had the debt ceiling.
It usually these get avoided at the last minute. They actually seem to get shut down every few years at this point. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[58:13]
| And so all I was thinking today is that if we have a shutdown, that no blowjobs occur. That's all I'm asking.
|
Sam:
[58:23]
| Just because you're remembering the Clinton administration and that was the- Yes, I just want, yeah, I want no- The genesis of the whole Clinton impeachment was Monica Lewinsky bringing a pizza to Joe Biden during the shutdown.
|
Ivan:
[58:39]
| Joe Biden. Oh, no, I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[58:46]
| Well, you know, I think Monica Lewinsky is otherwise occupied these days.
|
Ivan:
[58:51]
| I don't think Monica is going to go. Listen, we love, by the way, Monica, we love you. Okay. By the way, I think you're great.
Okay. So don't, don't take it wrong. No, no, you're not. Yeah.
I know you're not going to do that in the last few years since she resurfaced.
|
Sam:
[59:03]
| She's, she's been awesome. She's wonderful. She's been doing, he's been great.
|
Ivan:
[59:07]
| She's wonderful. She's what? Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful lady.
Okay. Can I, can I say, you know, yeah. So, uh, no. Um, no, yeah, I don't. Like I, that's the, yeah, I don't, yeah, that's what I, that's the only thing. I'm not, I don't want something like that.
|
Sam:
[59:23]
| You know, the things surrounding this are like, we we've gotten so that this has happened so many times now that we are all perpetually seemingly in the mood of like, okay, yeah, Yeah, there's all this drama.
But it's either going to get resolved at the last minute before there's any shutdown at all, or worst case scenario, we've seen a couple of government shutdowns.
They're not that bad. They go on for a little bit, maybe a couple of weeks, whatever, and then they'll figure things out and they'll give those people back pay anyway. It'll all be fine.
|
Ivan:
[59:56]
| And so like the level, I will say that, that, that I saw a story today that I don't, I didn't get a chance to read.
|
Sam:
[1:00:04]
| I saw the headline flash by and that's why this podcast is the best We will opine and talk to you about headlines where we have not read the article.
We didn't read anything Yes, we don't know anything.
We will we will talk confidently about it.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:20]
| Anyway, okay Well, well, I'm not gonna talk to confidently But the headline itself what it said was it all it talked about was the disarray right now that the Republicans are in the house related to resolving anything about the shutdown that it's coming up pretty soon.
And look, here's a reality. How many shutdowns have we had with the Democrats in charge of the legislature?
|
Sam:
[1:00:53]
| None. I believe I saw somewhere earlier, it's like 15 out of 15 of these have happened when the Republicans were in charge of Congress or at least the house, at least the house or at least the house.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:04]
| Yeah. I mean, you know, this is all a Republican now.
|
Sam:
[1:01:13]
| It's just a thing they do.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:14]
| Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:01:17]
| And one of the things that we've got going on this time that is a little bit different than the previous times is we have, first of all, we had the whole deal to make McCarthy speaker and then we had the...
|
Ivan:
[1:01:34]
| And somehow he survived this loan.
|
Sam:
[1:01:36]
| Well, and when we had the debt limit thing, a whole...
The group of the most crazy of the crazies on the Republican side were really pissed that he actually resolved that debt limit crisis and worked with the Democrats to get something through and blah, blah, blah.
And we didn't default on our debt and everything.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:58]
| And so, like, by the way, I found the story. I found the story.
The story, the headline was facing a shutdown. Congress melts down.
|
Sam:
[1:02:07]
| Yes. I believe I sent this to the slack.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:11]
| This is a New York Times congressional memo.
That's the headline of the story. Bans of Republicans in the House and the Senate have brought the spending debate to a screeching halt with a shutdown just days away.
|
Sam:
[1:02:25]
| Yeah, so let me get to a couple bits of this. There are this group of the crazy Republicans who were pissed at McCarthy for having compromised at all during the debt limit thing. And they're basically saying, not again.
We are not doing that again. They are demanding spending levels at levels below what was agreed to during the debt limit talks.
They are demanding some things be included about abortion in this thing.
They are demanding some things about Ukraine in here.
And of course, they are demanding the impeachment of Joe Biden go forward as well.
And all of these things are part of that. McCarthy gave them the impeachment investigation.
He was not able to actually officially start that with a vote because they don't have the votes to actually officially start it that way.
So instead he sort of asked a bunch of committees to start looking into it, which to be fair, last time around when Pelosi did it, she started that way first before they were, they took a full house vote. But, um...
Which at the time the Republicans said was invalid. But here's the thing.
So he threw them that bone, but there are a whole bunch of them who are like, we want to shut it down.
They're not even interested.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:55]
| They love shutting it down. That's what they like.
|
Sam:
[1:03:57]
| Yeah. And so as usual, the way these things have to be resolved and have had to be resolved since Boehner, how do you, Bonyer, Boehner, Boehner, Boehner, since Boehner was there, is you get almost all the Democrats with a handful of Republicans and you do what you fucking need to do.
But, but, you know, with McCarthy's deal that any one Republican can call for a vote on the speakership at any time, uh, there's the worry that that'll blow up.
And we have Matt, well, right. And here's the thing. Matt Gates has been going around saying, you got to get in line McCarthy, or we're going to do this.
And earlier today, before we recorded this in a, in like a closed caucus meeting or whatever, uh, McCarthy got like, apparently really pissed. And was like...
I'm going to miss the fucking quote, but he used the F word.
He said, if you're going to do it, fucking do it.
Just do it. If you're going to do the motion, fucking move the motion, whatever. I'm messing up the exact words, but yeah, and they haven't done it yet.
Will they do it? of the reason why, like, okay, let's imagine the scenario where they did.
Is there anybody else who can get 218 votes to be a speaker?
|
Ivan:
[1:05:29]
| Anybody?
|
Sam:
[1:05:31]
| Me!
|
Ivan:
[1:05:31]
| Me!
|
Sam:
[1:05:32]
| Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:33]
| Me, the next speaker in the house!
|
Sam:
[1:05:36]
| It'll be you. Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:38]
| The F word will be used repeatedly. I mean, C-SPAN, the guy with the bleep button to C-SPAN is gonna be this son of a bitch, my finger hurts.
|
Sam:
[1:05:51]
| So, I mean, honestly, it feels like the most likely way for this to play out is that once again you get the most of the Democrats plus a few Republicans thing with the Speaker agreeing to make that happen, to get us past where we need to go.
Maybe once again we'll have a short shut down before it happens, depending on when they get their act together.
But then the question is, at the end of all that, does McCarthy survive or does Gates or somebody push the button and initiate this procedure and and blow up the whole house?
And we get into a scenario where we are once again getting like, I guess that first there would be a no confidence vote, an up or down on keeping McCarthy before they would be voting for another speaker.
So in that scenario, you've got some stuff to game out.
Like do the Democrats actually vote for McCarthy to stay keep things stable or do they say no, and then and then we're back to like voting a hundred times to try to pick a speaker. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:56]
| I'm gonna I'm gonna guess that probably.
Because the Democrats don't have the votes to replay to play on a they don't either.
If it were me, I would just say, look, we're gonna vote to stick with this guy, whatever. You know, right now it is what it is.
We're not gonna, you know, what else, you know, because voting otherwise, and maybe there is some political advantage to getting the Republicans to create their own.
Continuous paralysis as well. Maybe.
You know, my first instinct would be, look, I can't replace them.
So I'm just going to be like, you know, it's what we got.
|
Sam:
[1:07:38]
| Well, even even on just trying to get the budget deals in place so far, the Democrats in the House have said, we're not helping you Republicans.
You have to come up with your your votes on your own to pass something.
Now on the Senate side, what was happening was very interesting.
There was a bipartisan group of senators who was very carefully navigating all of the spending bills through and had already passed a bunch of them.
One of them passed, oh I forget, the number was like 91 to seven or something.
Some insane bipartisan, like we've carefully navigated, avoided all the contentious issues.
Let's just do something reasonable and get it done. And they were chugging along, getting all these things done in the Senate with the hope, essentially, that if the Senate presented the house with, look, here's everything that the house could just be be like, oh, fine, OK, we'll do it.
Listen, it may well happen. It may well happen. But one senator on the Republican side blew all that up late this week and has stopped all further progress by insisting that anything further, whatever the committee had agreed on, we're going to open it up for amendments, and we're going to do this, and we're going to do that, to vote these things this way.
And so basically, it's all been blown up in the Senate as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:12]
| And I see who it is, who is one of these Wisconsin, you know, anti- Was it Johnson? Yeah, Ron Johnson, another, well, basically part of the anti-democracy cadre of Wisconsin, leadership.
Which is what the Republican party in Wisconsin stands for, which is complete, like, yeah, there's all kinds of things going on in Wisconsin right now.
|
Sam:
[1:09:38]
| All kinds, like, yeah, at all levels.
Yeah. So I don't know. I, I, again, it's one of those things where the first few times we were heading to government shutdowns, we were like watching every twist and turn and oh my God, how's this going to work?
And now, and now we're sort of jaded, At least I am. It's like, of course, they'll come to a deal, you know, look, it's just a bunch of drama, but they'll, they'll pull something out of the hat at the last minute and it'll be fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:08]
| Look, read why Romney said he's retiring.
|
Sam:
[1:10:11]
| Yeah. Well, it should be, we take a break and then talk about Romney.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:15]
| Yeah. I mean, he, he needs you need, need we say anything more?
Why the hell, you know? Yeah. Let's go. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:10:22]
| Well, let's take a break and then we'll talk about Romney as the, as Yvonne's next pick Back after this.
Do, do, do!
You know, if he doesn't start posting new videos again, I'm going to have to pull all these, you know, cause I know it's been like months since he posted the last video. I don't know.
You know, monetize, you know, I mean, he's been doing other things.
I, he has been doing other things, but still the, the, the channel has been stagnating lately. Yeah. What can I say? Anyway, so Mitt Romney is retiring.
And I think the most interesting thing is not directly that he's retiring, although there are a few interesting things about that.
But also there were published this week a whole bunch of excerpts from a biography, an authorized biography that he's been working with McKay Coppins on that's coming out in a couple months.
But there were a whole bunch of excerpts released in conjunction with his retirement announcement.
And you were about to tell us about some of the reasons he's leaving. So go for it.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:30]
| Well, I mean, the whole thing, how it's literally impossible to get anything done, especially with the entire Republican Party and where they are at, how they are just beholden to Trump completely and how he just flat out spelled it out that they are totally beholden to this culture war and all this bullshit and whatever and how there is just no working with any of the people on his party on doing a damn thing.
At all.
|
Sam:
[1:13:11]
| Right. Because they're not actually about policy or getting things done.
And, you know, I tweeted, I tweeted, I posted on Mastodon after Romney's announcement. You shitted?
|
Ivan:
[1:13:25]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:13:26]
| No, no. About how, you know, this is, he is one of the last remaining quote unquote reasonable Republicans, um, and they're rhinos.
Yes. Rhinos. They're dying.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:40]
| Rhino.
|
Sam:
[1:13:40]
| They're dying breed and will soon be extinct. And a few people replied to me about like reasonable, what the hell are you talking about?
Romney's awful. And, uh, you know, all kinds of stuff like that.
And I'm like, look, it's all about who you're comparing him to.
Okay. Yes. You know, it's all relative.
And you know, if you're a Bernie Sanders lover, are you ever going to be like, Ooh, Romney's awesome?
No. Okay. You know, Rob, but at the same time, the thing is Romney inhabits the real universe.
Like you may disagree with him on all kinds of policies, but he finds I do. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:23]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:24]
| I like Romney is wrong on so much, so much, but at the same time he believes in democracy.
He believes that government can do good things, that it is part of the responsibility of someone in Congress to govern, to actually take control of government and make sure it's doing good things.
We might disagree on what those good things are, but he fundamentally believes that part of his job...
Is to try to make things better for people, you know, and and to use the powers of government to do that.
Now, he's going to not want to do a lot of things that like the Democrats are going to want to do.
Right. He's got a different agenda in mind. And he most likely thinks of a much more limited role of government than some further on left do. But he's not a nihilist.
You know, like most of what the current Republican party is, certainly the base, and at this point, almost all the elected officials in Congress.
You might find a few exceptions still out there in the country somewhere, but fundamentally, they're there to blow shit up.
If anything, they don't give a crap about what they actually do or what they achieve.
If anything, that's a negative. But yes, there's a whole big part of it that's just about staying in power.
And yeah, Romney was sick of it. He basically said, look, I'm, what was he, 76?
He's 76. And he's like, the oldest person, the oldest male in my family died at 88.
88. maybe I got 12 years left, maybe do I really want to spend eight of those years in this fucking place? Now, of course, he would never say fucking because he's a good Mormon, but you know, right.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:34]
| Yeah. But, uh, yeah, he's, uh, no, he wants to spend, he decided to look, man. I mean, I think he had, um, he had a list of things he wanted to accomplish.
He wanted to accomplish a lot of things and he's looked at the list. He has not been able.
|
Sam:
[1:16:50]
| I can't do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:52]
| I can't do it. And he basically is right now saying, I don't want to waste the rest of my life.
Very little that, you know, he was like a little bit like, I'm not going to say anything because I I'm younger than he is. And I've had those thoughts.
And he was like, what the fuck am I going to do spending the rest of my life like this?
|
Sam:
[1:17:14]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:16]
| No, no, not worth it. No, he loves his family.
I it's very evident from what I've seen from his family.
He definitely loves his family very much, and he'd probably rather to just spend the time with them then.
Than up to his neck and shit. And I've heard that some of his family don't agree with some of his views and have given him some jokes about that stuff that they don't agree with.
I saw, you know, I can't remember exactly which one, but they gave him some gag gift really to whatever.
It's just, you know, but while they disagree, they have a good relationship about it. And I think that's the one thing that I say about Romney is that he is somebody that I can sit down at a dinner table and vehemently disagree about it.
But you know what? He's not going to try to get it by destroying the democracy in order to do so.
|
Sam:
[1:18:11]
| Right. And some of the quotes coming out of this book are additional revelations on what was going on around January 6th.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:22]
| The one good one.
|
Sam:
[1:18:22]
| Go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:24]
| Listen, I mean, look, the the the best one was the text message that he sent to Mitch McConnell.
|
Sam:
[1:18:31]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:32]
| A couple of days before January 6th, they basically called out what the fuck was going to happen. And him saying, are we prepared for this?
Are we sure that we're going to be defended? Because the guy that can set the reinforcements is leading the charge.
I mean, he spelled it out in black and white. They knew it.
|
Sam:
[1:18:52]
| Yeah, he had gotten a call from Angus King, who's an independent senator from Maine who caucuses with the Democrats, talking about this and they were getting this from intelligence, And he passed it on to Mitch, and Mitch didn't answer.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:09]
| Maybe he didn't take it seriously. I'm going to say a thing for Mitch because I don't think he wanted that to happen, but I don't think he just didn't take it seriously.
|
Sam:
[1:19:16]
| Well, or he didn't want to talk to Mitt. I don't know. But the other thing, the other quote after- Maybe.
When they were talking about impeachment, there's a recount of a conversation Mitch McConnell had with a bunch of other Republican senators, including members of leadership.
And he recounts that several of them basically said, look, they made the case completely.
Trump is guilty as fucking hell. Oh, yeah.
And and this included one of the membership, somebody in leadership.
They're not named, but somebody in leadership who was like, I'm leaning towards conviction and a bunch of the other Republican senators.
What they went to is they said, look, you can't do that. What about your family?
What about your safety? Aren't you afraid?
And that particular person in leadership flipped and voted for acquittal after all.
And apparently the basic feedback, and we have heard this before from other sources, but apparently a bunch of Republicans, Both, there was another person that was in the House who was going to vote for impeachment, but basically said, I'm scared for the safety of my family.
The Democrats are gonna impeach him anyway. It won't make any difference for the outcome. So I'm gonna vote against impeachment because that's safer for me and my family.
And apparently a number of senators were also feeling that way about the actual conviction vote later. Um, and, and if you remember, I mean, we weren't at.
We weren't at the number of votes needed to convict Donald Trump in the Senate, but we were closer than any other impeachment in history.
Yeah, we had like what 58 votes for impeachment or something.
Um, and you needed 66, I believe it needs a two thirds. Am I right? It's not 60. It's 66.
So we were a bit short. But from this reporting, there were at least a handful more Republicans who really would have convicted, but they were afraid.
They were afraid physically for their own safety.
Not just afraid for their political career, although there was lots of that too, but afraid for their physical safety if they went against Donald Trump.
I just, I mean, you know, and it was mentioned by the way, for Romney, for Romney specifically, after the first of Donald Trump's two impeachments where he voted to convict Donald Trump, he had so many threats.
Like most members of Congress do not have security like the president and the vice president do.
Leadership, some of the leadership does, but most members of Congress do not.
Mitt Romney's a rich man.
He was able to afford, he was spending, uh, I believe the estimate was a little over 5,000 a day on personal security for him and his family.
Most people in Congress can't do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:35]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:22:36]
| You know, and to this day, he's still doing that because there are people who want to kill him because of that.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:45]
| I look after what we saw happen. To Nancy Pelosi's husband.
|
Sam:
[1:22:51]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:54]
| I mean, shit, I would be too concerned now. I will say that.
Very difficult for me, you know, we.
One of the things that I've heard people, a lot of people being scared of, uh, work in elections.
And so my wife has continued to work elections regardless of that.
|
Sam:
[1:23:16]
| Right. She, she, she's done the election volunteer thing, just like those two women who were, uh, uh, being harassed and are part of the Georgia lawsuit.
Right. That's what you're wondering.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:26]
| Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not, it pays. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:23:30]
| But it's not, it's not, it's a nominal thing, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:23:33]
| It's a nominal fee. Yeah. Uh, but you know, One thing is that we talked about it and we're like, look, we're committed to doing that because it's what you have to do in order to have a healthy democracy.
I mean, it's a risk, but I'm like, we're not, you know, now we haven't gotten those kind of threats and intimidation, but it's one of those things that I know a lot of other people have, like, look, they kept calling her because so many people were refusing to do it.
And so we're like, no, we need to do this.
But a democracy cannot, be properly sustained if people are just going to succumb to that kind of intimidation.
And yeah, that's just the reality.
|
Sam:
[1:24:30]
| So, so anyway, Romney's out. You can understand why he's out, but it's, it's the, that branch of the Republicans who actually represented some sort of some sort of conservative policy ideal, whether you liked it or not.
Like the business conservatives, essentially.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:53]
| The business conservative. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:24:55]
| You know, they're going to be extinct very soon. They're they're they're essentially irrelevant already, but they're going to be extinct.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:02]
| They are totally irrelevant in the Republican Party. Those don't exist.
|
Sam:
[1:25:05]
| Yeah. Yeah. And I guess now Mitch is serving out. I'm not Mitch, Mitt is serving out his term. It's not like he's resigning tomorrow or anything.
Uh, and, uh, it got a couple more years left on his term. Um, and so we'll see. And, you know, apparently I, I I've only started to read about the people who might be running for his spot in Utah.
Um, apparently there is at least one other sort of moderate ish Republican running, but they're crazy MAGA folks running too.
And like, and like, look, it's Utah, but it's not like there's a Democrat going to win, it's a question of which Republican and you know, but Utah also has not been a state that has been very MAGA ish.
Utah's weird. Utah's weird in a number of different ways.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:57]
| Yeah. And Utah is Utah.
|
Sam:
[1:25:59]
| But, but I gotta believe chances are whoever ends up in that spot is going to be worse than it was.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:08]
| I mean, in terms of being...
Because one thing that Mitt definitely did consistently was, uh, stand for stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:26:19]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:23]
| Strongly not be intimidated, you know? Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:26:26]
| I mean, he had a couple of moments. He did have that like dinner where he was trying to get to be Donald secretary of state right during the transition.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:33]
| But, uh, that clearly was not going to work out now, but I do think that, uh, Uh, you know, a lot of reasonable people sat down with them that basically didn't last for that long, you know?
|
Sam:
[1:26:47]
| Yeah. And, and one thing we know is if, you know, if Donald wins again, they're not going to be any reasonable people in the administration at all.
It's going to be 100% crazy.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:00]
| It's going to be Mike Lindell, Mike Flynn, Mike Flynn, you know, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:27:09]
| It's going to be all, the two things that are going to be required for a new Donald Trump administration are one, well actually, I was going to put the second one for the only one that really matters is unquestioning loyalty to do whatever the fuck Donald Trump says to do without question.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:30]
| That's correct.
|
Sam:
[1:27:31]
| That's really it.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:32]
| Basically, that's it.
|
Sam:
[1:27:33]
| I was going to break it down into more like subcategory, but that's it. That's it.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:37]
| No, no, no. What are you? What are we talking about? Yeah, no, no, that's it. That's the only thing. You don't need anything else.
|
Sam:
[1:27:44]
| That's it. That's the whole thing. Yes. Okay. Well, speaking of Donald Trump and ready for the last subject, we can't go without our usual Donald Trump update.
And this time around, I mean, we had some things with the separation of the cases in Georgia and some other crap and doohickey, But the big news of the week is that we got the release, the public release of a motion from from Jack Smith, the special counsel, that was actually submitted a couple weeks ago, but was made public just today.
Because actually the Trump folks had objected to it being private.
There was a whole back and forth about it. But anyway, it was released today.
And it And it turns out what it is is Jack Smith saying, look at all the goddamn crap Trump and his lawyers are saying in public to poison the well of any future trial.
They're talking about how bad the prosecutor is, how bad the judge is.
They're making statements about how Trump would testify if he was going to testify.
They're previewing their defense in public. They're doing all kinds of things.
And basically Jack Smith is like, judge, can you please put some restrictions on this? Because this is going to cause a problem. And.
We don't know how it's going to play out yet. They're probably, it sounds like there's going to be, uh, you know, the Trump's lawyers are going to get a chance to respond to this.
And then there'll probably be a hearing and it'll probably be a, uh, two to three weeks before this plays out.
And the judge makes any sorts of decision on this, but already after this became public, Donald Trump is, is making his wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:46]
| He went online and very calmly and reasonably apologized.
|
Sam:
[1:29:52]
| Oh, right. I'm sorry, judge. I will behave in the future. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:57]
| Right. That's what he did, right? No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:30:04]
| So here is. Here is the actual Donald Trump statement put out a couple hours after this became public.
Biden prosecutor deranged Jack Smith has asked the court to limit 45th president and leading Republican nominee by more than 50 points and beating Dems Donald J.
Trump's public statements. So, I'm campaigning for president against an incompetent person who has weaponized the DOJ and FBI to go after his political opponent, and I am not allowed to comment?
They leak, lie, and sue, and they won't allow me to speak?
How else would I explain that Jack Smith is deranged or Crooked Joe is incompetent?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:49]
| You know, what I love is, what I love is that that is the tone that he uses to explain that the other people are deranged.
I'm just like, if, I mean, if anybody is not seeing the irony in this.
That there must be a MAGA idiot because there's no other reason.
I mean, you have to be that fucking blind.
|
Sam:
[1:31:13]
| Right. Well, and the thing is, if you go through what Jack Smith is actually requesting, it's fairly constrained.
They make it very clear that he can protest his innocence all he wants.
But some of what's in this, I was going to say tweet, but I think he's back on truth social again here.
Um, you know, some of the stuff where you're directly attacking the judge, you're directly attacking the prosecutor.
You're making untrue statements about how the prosecution relates to the justice department and the president without any facts.
You're you've got your lawyers going on television, uh, talking about things in your defense.
I mean, what they're worried about is basically poisoning the jury by blasting out all of this mostly untrue information.
And I mean, a significant part of their strategy here is like, look, the facts are fairly straightforward.
You will probably get convicted on the facts. What they're looking for is to hang the jury.
They want to make sure there's at least one juror who will just say no to convicting Donald Trump, no matter what.
And apparently even in the grand jury, the grand jury in Georgia, when they leaked the individual votes from the special grand jury, sorry, I get this right.
There was one grand juror who voted no on every count that included Donald Trump.
You know, so it's, it's a strategy that can work.
I mean, I've said for years now that, you know, a, a, a, an acquittal is probably unlikely and maybe we'll, maybe we will get a conviction, but I would not be surprised at all by a hung jury because all it takes is the one person who says, I don't care.
I'm not going to convict Donald Trump. That's all you need.
And so that's delay and this are the things that he's counting on.
And so the actual motion from Jack Smith was like 17 pages, something like that.
Went through all kinds of examples, talked about all the concerns that the prosecution has.
And basically asked for some very limited things. Like for instance, one of the things they're worried about is Donald Trump's attorneys have openly said they want to pull the jury pool in DC, like they want to do polls of the DC area, asking what people think about Donald Trump and stuff.
And so the worry is they will essentially do push polls that are pushing a specific opinion and calling like thousands and thousands and thousands of people in the DC area with their poll about like how Donald Trump is greater, or whatever it is.
And so like one of the things that Jack Smith is asking for is if they do any polls at all, A, they need to be done at least 30 days before jury selection starts, and B, any questions on the poll have to be approved by the judge.
You know, reasonable, and I think they are asking him to refrain from the direct attacks on, you know, the prosecutor and the judge and jurors and things like that.
Now, what will the judge do? Who knows?
Like, we've talked before about how anything, Like, yeah, I, one, one person wrote me on Mastodon earlier today.
I was like, I think the judge is just going to be sick of all this.
And it's just going to send him straight to jail.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:01]
| I mean, I would love that, but it's not going to happen.
|
Sam:
[1:35:04]
| I mean, I actually said, frankly, that would probably cause more problems than it solves if they would jump straight to that. No, what you expect, what, what you were talking about?
|
Ivan:
[1:35:14]
| No, he's in jail. Cut off those phones. Yeah, yeah. Cut off everything.
|
Sam:
[1:35:18]
| Perfect. Anyway, but what you actually expect is that any judge dealing with this would slowly escalate.
They would give him a warning, ask him to be better, and then when he's not, they make a louder warning.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:37]
| Warning and Donald, you're being very, very naughty, naughty boy.
|
Sam:
[1:35:42]
| And then maybe they find him. And then if that still continues, maybe they say, okay, these certain things you absolutely can't do.
And then if he does it anyway, then maybe you slowly ramp up and like, and before you send him to jail, you would house arrest him in Mar-a-Lago or something, you know, you would slowly ramp this up and you would make sure at every step, it was crystal clear that he directly violated whatever you told him to do last time.
You know, you don't jump straight to put Donald Trump in jail.
Now the other thing the judge has said, though, is that if this kind of thing proves to be a problem, the solution is to have the trial sooner.
And so, like, the judge explicitly said that in one of the hearings a few weeks ago.
So I'm wondering if they don't get this motion and say, hey, look, there clearly was a lot of problem.
Donald Trump, tsk, tsk, do better. But in the meantime, we said we said trial in what, March? Let's make that February.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:36:53]
| And then and if this is if this comes up again, we'll make it January.
You know? Yeah. And maybe that would get him to shut up. I don't know.
Like, I've seen some commentary like, look.
Don't fall for the trap. Donald Trump and his team desperately want to make this a First Amendment issue. They desperately want to make it, you are shutting up your political rival.
And that's what's going on here and everything else is just a smokescreen.
All you're trying to do is go after me because I'm Biden's biggest opponent, right?
And so, if you slap a highly restrictive gag order on him or even a slightly restricted gag order, it lends life to those accusations.
And so, if you can solve it a different way, you're better off solving it a different way.
On the other hand, like his, just his response to this today that I read you earlier is an indication that, yeah, of course he's not going to fucking not happening.
He's not stopping, right. You know, so you either have to figure out how to deal with that or maybe you do end up with the eventually having to have him in jail. I don't know.
Like I've said before, like that, that to me, that's the biggest chance of him ever spending a day in jail is if judges tell him to shut up and he doesn't, you know, uh, because absent that, like this is going to go on for years of appeals and this and that and blah, blah, blah.
And you know, I know you think he might be put in jail before his appeals run out, but I don't know.
I feel like they're, they've given them all kinds of extra deference so far.
And that's probably going to continue.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:47]
| I think that one thing is giving him deference prior to a trial in a conviction.
I think that turns a lot more complicated if he is convicted.
Usually defendants don't get to stay out during your appeals unless there is proof of some, there's, it's not common.
It happens, but it's not, it's not the norm, right?
And so, um, and it depends on the kind of crime and it depends on some other factors, but you know, don't, don't assume that just because he has appeals, that that means that he stays out of jails until the appeals.
I mean, I just, that's not a given.
|
Sam:
[1:39:50]
| It's not a given, but yeah, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:53]
| I have, I'll believe it when I see it, I'll say this, I'd love to be the judge that, Oh, you think you're staying out until the appeals?
No, go pack your bags.
|
Sam:
[1:40:10]
| Well, even in this before time, like I don't necessarily, like, before you get to the point of the judge saying you're staying in jail until we get to the trial, you could see them saying, saying, we told you not to say this kind of shit and you did anyway, right?
Contempt of court. You're in there for three days, right?
You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:40:35]
| And I don't know how that would go over, but I'm sure Donald handled it with a, with a plum and his usual calm demeanor.
|
Sam:
[1:40:45]
| Oh, yes, that's and contrition contrition, but no judge is going to want to do that.
The judge is going to flip over backwards, trying to do everything they possibly can, to get a good outcome out of this without going there, you know, if they, if Donald Trump forces them to do that, it will be because he's forced them to do that.
They're not going to want to do that. They're going to avoid it with everything they can.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:13]
| No, I totally agree. I mean, yeah, they want to avoid that scenario. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:41:18]
| Yes. So, okay. Uh, are we ready to wrap things up, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:41:24]
| I think so. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:41:26]
| Okay. So before we do like the.
All the stuff at the end, we usually do. I just want to say we did have a long list here. Let me just list a few things that we did not talk about.
There was there was new Apple stuff. We did not talk about the new Apple stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:42]
| No, we did not. But our listeners, we, we, I will make one.
|
Sam:
[1:41:48]
| OK, I was just going to list the things. Make your one comment. You're getting a phone.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:52]
| That well, not the one thing is that I'm considering getting a Max, which I've never wanted to get.
Oh, and, and the reason is, is because the camera is better.
|
Sam:
[1:42:03]
| A lot.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:04]
| Yeah. The camera is a lot better. And I'm like, fuck. Yeah. I want that camera.
|
Sam:
[1:42:11]
| Okay. Moving on. We, we, we mentioned in the context of McCarthy that does a Biden impeachment inquiry going on, but we didn't talk about it at all.
Um, there were new COVID vaccines approved. We didn't talk about that.
We have the whole Tuberville hold on military appointments and promotions and Tuberville.
Tuberville, Tuberville, Tuberville, Tuberville.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:33]
| I mean, he's a fucking moron or whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:42:35]
| Tuberville, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:35]
| Okay, both called Tuberville. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:42:37]
| There was a big earthquake in Morocco. Lots of people dead. There were, there was a big flood in Libya. Lots of people dead.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:43]
| Jesus Christ. You know, look, you want to talk about something, how, how over here, no paying attention.
I, you know, my wife was asking me about that Libya. I mean, what the hell happened in Libya? And I'm like, look, I mean, it's horrific what happened to Olivia. Holy shit. That damn break.
It's just fucking wiped away a whole damn city. Yeah. Well, not a whole damn city, but a big section of it.
|
Sam:
[1:43:06]
| Anyway, we didn't talk about that, uh, other than what we just did.
Um, Hunter, Hunter Biden was indicted for some gun stuff. We haven't talked about that.
Um, and, uh, and he's likely to be indicted for some tax stuff soon too.
So maybe we'll talk about Hunter when that happens as well. Yeah. Um, there was, you know, there's been reporting about this before, but there was a lot more in this last week about like the whole is Musk intentionally interfering with what Starlink does in Ukraine to, you know, keep the Ukrainian military from taking certain actions.
Uh, there was a whole thing about that. And is this, is this level of influence for somebody like Musk appropriate.
Yvonne mentioned in passing the anti-democratic forces in Wisconsin.
There's a whole bunch going on there with a judge, an election official, some other stuff.
Wisconsin is going nuts right now. There was a report on the poverty rate, the child poverty rate, almost doubled.
And that sounds really awful, and the Republicans are going like, oh, child poverty doubled under Biden. But of course, what happened was there was that child tax credit that cut child poverty in half, and then it expired.
And the Democrats wanted to renew it. And what stopped them?
The Republicans plus Joe Manchin.
And so it expired. And as soon as it went away, it popped right back up to where it was.
So we sort of proved that that kind of thing works for reducing poverty.
Uh, but we decided that it was only temporary and we're not going to do it anymore.
Um, and I guess that's the list I've gone through my list.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:58]
| Look, how are you going to get, how are you going to take away the right of people to have poor kids basically at the mercy of their poor parents having to work flipping burgers so they can get their cheap Starbucks cup of coffee.
I mean, you can't deny I'm that inalienable right.
|
Sam:
[1:45:15]
| Yes, the inalienable right to be poor.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:18]
| Yeah, absolutely. No, no, no. The inalienable right to be served by poor people with suffering kids at home. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:45:27]
| Right, right, right. Anyway, so time after time, this is just the latest example, studies have shown that the best way to help people in need is just give them money.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:42]
| Give them money.
It's amazing.
|
Sam:
[1:45:47]
| Just give them money. No fancy programs that actually funnel money to other businesses to try to help them. No, no, no. Just give them money.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:58]
| I think that there are certain programs that do make certain things that the thing is that we don't have like a good comprehensive way of doing that.
Like, for example, like certain countries make housing availability very easy with some programs that don't require lotteries.
Don't put you on a waiting list, something like that. Look, you listen, you're you're a person. You need a home.
Yeah, you can't live on the street. We will make it happen. OK, anyhow.
|
Sam:
[1:46:27]
| Anyway, time after time, these studies are showing that like.
Almost all the time, just give people in need money works better than big bureaucratic programs to try to do needs assessment and help them in other ways.
Just give them fucking money.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:48]
| Well, the thing is that there's a pretty basic formula that was being used to hand out that money to people who were in need. Yeah.
And so therefore it worked pretty effectively.
|
Sam:
[1:46:59]
| And like I've talked about when we've talked about UBI stuff before, you give it to everybody, but then you tax it back from the people who could afford it anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:11]
| You know, well, in Europe, I know that, uh, I was, I was, uh, with, uh, this must've been what?
2018, 2019. I was with a cab driver and was talking about in Spain where he had come from somewhere and immigrated from somewhere in South America.
And he told me that basically the child tax credit that he got over there monthly, okay, that he got a check, was 2,400 euros.
I mean, yeah, he did not live in poverty, right?
|
Sam:
[1:47:45]
| Anyway, yeah, so those are all the things we didn't talk about even though we talked about a few of them for a few seconds so the usual stuff for the end you can go to curmudgeons hyphen corner calm and see all of our archives see transcripts of recent shows see how to contact us and Very importantly see how to give us money me.
Uh, so our Patrion is there, uh, the contact, you know, we've got email, we've got mastodon, we've got Facebook, but if you go to the Patrion, you can give us money.
And 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 and at $2 a month or more.
Or if you just contact us and ask us nicely, uh, we will invite you to our convergence corner Slack where Yvonne and I, And a bunch of other people are chatting through the, throughout the week and sharing links and all that kind of stuff.
So Yvonne, other than the list of things we just rapidly went through, um, was there something fun and interesting and exciting on the curmudgeon's corner slack that we have not talked about here that you would like to share?
|
Ivan:
[1:48:59]
| Uh, there was a story in the Washington post. Uh, I shared the Washington post.
I'd heard it from some other people, but I saw this video, but story in the Washington Post, CEO calls for more unemployment to give companies upper hand over workers, okay?
An Australian multi-millionaire property developer is drawing backlash for calling for more unemployment to give companies more leverage over employees whom he said had become arrogant since the COVID pandemic.
We need to see pain in the economy. Tim Gurner, CEO of the Gurner Group, told the Australian Financial Review's Property Summit Tuesday.
We need to see unemployment rise.
Unemployment has to jump 40 to 50 percent, in my view.
I think the problem that we've had is that people decided they didn't really want to work so much anymore through COVID, and that That has had a massive issue in productivity, he said, tradespeople, he said.
Tradespeople, he said, have been paid a lot to not do much in the last few years, and we need to see that change.
We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around, he continued.
There has been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around, so it's a dynamic that has to change.
|
Sam:
[1:50:25]
| Beautiful.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:26]
| Nice guy, huh?
|
Sam:
[1:50:27]
| Yeah, I, I, I could tell he's someone I would love to work for.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:32]
| Endearing, caring. Yeah. Caring from the heart.
|
Sam:
[1:50:36]
| You know, um, yeah. What, one other thing that I actually did not get shared on the slack, but I must say that I should, I feel like I must mention here. Yeah. Lauren Bobert.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:49]
| Oh, Oh, damn it. I, you know what? I didn't share that either.
She got thrown out of a Beetlejuice, uh, thing.
|
Sam:
[1:50:56]
| And, uh, yeah, she, she was in the audience of, uh, Beetlejuice.
I get the Beetlejuice, the musical, and she was vaping.
Um, she was singing along. She was yelling. She was, she was videoing with her phone.
You know who I am! And she got her ass tossed out of there.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:22]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:51:24]
| You know, and there's video surveillance video of it. It's funny. You go look it up.
Because yeah, it's exactly the do you know who I am? I can do whatever the fuck I want. The rules don't apply to me kind of nonsense.
And yeah, and apparently as with the other things where these are, She was asked politely to stop first as always.
Yes. And she didn't. So the anchor right out of there. The other curious thing about Laura's Bover look Bovert is apparently.
And if you remember, she won her race by like.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:01]
| It was a handful of votes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:03]
| A tiny margin. Yep. It was a handful of votes. She should have fucking lost.
Like if the, if the Democrats had taken that race seriously, she would have.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:12]
| Shit.
|
Sam:
[1:52:12]
| Yeah. You know, like, like we got this five vote margin in the house and every one of the five votes are ones that the Democrats really should have.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:20]
| They could have. Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:52:22]
| If they just paid attention. But anyway, hers is one of them.
And apparently she has been one of these ultra mega folks getting in, in, um, in fights with Marjorie Taylor green about who can impeach Biden the most and stuff like that.
But apparently she has suddenly realized that her district is actually a very purple district So so she is trying To remake herself as a more moderate version of herself What as we come up to the election?
|
Ivan:
[1:52:56]
| Oh Oh, fuck this bitch, I swear to God.
|
Sam:
[1:52:59]
| Jesus Christ.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:01]
| I'm just another fuck, one of these fucking grifting. I grift their assholes.
Oh my god.
|
Sam:
[1:53:11]
| Okay. Well, with that, I think we're done. We're done. Hey, everybody, as usual, have a great week. Stay safe. Do all that kind of stuff.
And yeah, we'll be back here again next week. So goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:33]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:53:34]
| I'm trying to hit the button.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:37]
| Hit the button.
|
Sam:
[1:53:41]
| You can just imagine the Ray Lynch music.
Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Bye, everyone! Bye!
|
Ivan:
[1:54:44]
| Bye! Bye! you.
| |
|
