Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| All right, there we go.
|
Sam:
[0:02]
| Okay.
So just go back and forth again, like we have been doing lately and not playing anything.
I'll be with the first two being lighter and then get darker after that.
|
Ivan:
[0:13]
| We, we get darker. I mean, it's like, I don't know. We're not going to talk about, I mean, are we, are we at the end? Are we going to be like, you know, doing live executions on the podcast or something?
So that's how we're turning darker.
Maybe not quite going to torture animals or something. I don't know. I don't know.
|
Sam:
[0:30]
| Yes. I will grab an animal, bite its head off.
|
Ivan:
[0:37]
| Well, you, well, you have the damn guy who also beats us, you know, in broadcasting, you know, by, by, you know, being nice to the squirrels, maybe our, maybe our niche is to kill them.
|
Sam:
[0:51]
| I I'm not sure that would be the best dish in the world, but you don't think that that might, you think, well, we might be, That might be problematic.
|
Ivan:
[1:00]
| We might get clicks. We got, we might get clicks, but we might also get a lot of, well, here's the one thing, you know, I don't know, everybody gets death threats right now anyway, for anything.
|
Sam:
[1:10]
| So therefore, I mean, if we get, we get threats, I mean, I'm pretty sure in, in some localities, probably ones we are in, it's not legal.
|
Ivan:
[1:20]
| Oh, that's right. Oh, I forgot.
|
Sam:
[1:22]
| It might, it might be legal in Florida. I mean, you're in Florida.
|
Ivan:
[1:27]
| I mean, what the hell? I mean, you know, right, exactly. I mean, as a matter of fact, well, there is one thing, for example, if we actually, uh, execute iguanas live, they're actually, um, it's encouraged.
Those we are, It's encouraged. Those are so we could we could do a whole cast of us just.
murdering iguanas and I think iguanas and pythons.
|
Sam:
[1:50]
| I do not want to be involved in murdering either.
|
Ivan:
[1:53]
| Really? Sounds like very dangerous that I think about this.
|
Sam:
[2:00]
| If our can you, can you just have the pythons fight the iguanas?
|
Ivan:
[2:04]
| That would be great. You know, if somehow.
|
Sam:
[2:09]
| Except for the pythons and iguanas.
|
Ivan:
[2:11]
| Yeah, that would be nice. I can't stand the fucking Iguanas.
Thanks. Yeah, well, at least look, I did have look, I did put out a contract on killing the Iguanas that were near our entrance.
|
Sam:
[2:27]
| I think you mentioned that like on the show a while back. No, no. Or is this.
|
Ivan:
[2:32]
| Well, here's the good news. It worked. OK. And so the leaves are growing back on my my trees.
|
Sam:
[2:37]
| Congratulations.
|
Ivan:
[2:40]
| Thank you. I think, you know.
|
Sam:
[2:43]
| Although I'm sure the iguanas weren't happy about this.
|
Ivan:
[2:46]
| I'm sure they weren't. But I'm sure the trees are happy that, you know, the fucking iguanas aren't like, just, you know, tearing them to shreds anymore. Right.
|
Sam:
[2:54]
| Right. OK, so. And so just alternate crap and do thing and cram things.
Some for one thing. Why not? Yes.
Okay, I guess here we go!
Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Friday, September 22nd.
It's just a 2023 it's just after two UTC, which means for Yvonne, it's February 21st, just after 10 PM.
And for me, it's just after 7 PM.
Very exciting. I'm Sam mentor Yvonne bow is here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[3:56]
| Hello. How are all of you?
|
Sam:
[4:02]
| It's just you, but it's just me. It's just me.
|
Ivan:
[4:04]
| Well, I don't know if, if anybody listened to the podcast, once you should send us a note saying how they are.
|
Sam:
[4:11]
| Yeah, that's true. Well, you know, I was going to say, since we've been recording with Riverside, it is actually possible to invite additional people as audience.
So they don't show up in the podcast, but they could like tune in live as we can say, Oh, so they can see this live and like they could do stuff in the chat or whatever, without actually talking, or we could invite them them and they could just talk too, but you know, whatever.
But I don't think...
do that right now.
|
Ivan:
[4:41]
| Yeah, let's stick with it.
|
Sam:
[4:43]
| Stick. Yeah. So our agenda once again is nothing.
We're ill-informed and unplanned, and we will just alternate talking about stuff.
This first segment will be a little bit on the lighter and not serious, not newsy stuff.
|
Ivan:
[5:05]
| And then I don't know about being a little form. So I'm wondering, here's a, well, you know, yeah, here's the bit I'm wondering.
No, no, no. I'm wondering how many news articles the average person reads a day versus us that are junkies that are just, you know, devouring content on a daily basis.
|
Sam:
[5:25]
| Well, let me tell you on the way home from work today, I was listening to Chris Hayes on MSNBC.
I know, I know. MSNBC, it's rotting my mind. Whatever.
But he was talking about the, and we might talk about this later in the day as well, but he was talking about all the stuff about, you know, what the Republicans are doing in the House and getting to the, whether or not there'll be a government shutdown and stuff like that.
And he was mentioning that, you know, how things work in terms of in the House, you have to pass a rule before you can He didn't even pass on the vote, and he's like, but look, here's the thing.
I'm going into the weeds on this, but this is like way beyond what most people comprehend.
He threw out a stat that there was a poll a while ago, and he couldn't even remember the exact number, but it was on the order of 50% of the general public couldn't even tell you which party controls the House.
|
Ivan:
[6:26]
| I don't doubt it, you know?
|
Sam:
[6:28]
| And so.
You know, when people like us, and like, assume, I'm going to assume one of our topics today is going to be the whole government shutdown, spending, blah, blah, blah thing.
But like, we can start talking about it and start talking about the particular maneuvers that are going on, and like, this person and this person and this faction and this faction and they're doing this and they're doing that.
And here are the potential implications and blah, blah. And we'll get into all of this level of detail.
Then you go ask a random person on the street and they'll like, what are you even talking about?
|
Ivan:
[7:01]
| What are you even talking about? Look, I just went and I did a quick I did a quick count.
This doesn't include everything I've read, but just I do read a lot of news, but it's not the only place I read news. I read lose a lot of places.
But this is one place where I do read a decent amount of it.
I tried to take a take a seat. how many articles I read last week, just in Apple News. Okay. Okay. In one week, it's about 200. Right.
News articles, but that, and that's just Apple News. Okay. I read articles from Bloomberg and the New York Times and WAPO and the local press and the other.
So if I probably add all those sources up.
for one week, you're probably talking close to that. I probably read between 800 to 1000 articles.
And for the most part, I don't just glance at the headlines.
I check that, you know, there was this thing where they do the test or whatever.
See, well, how far do you get in articles? I usually will get to the end of an article in about at least 80% of the cases.
|
Sam:
[8:08]
| Yeah, I try to do that as well. The only the ones that hang me up sometimes are like Like sometimes they're really awesome articles that are like super long.
|
Ivan:
[8:19]
| They're like basically like a book. They'll take you 40, 45 minutes to read.
Read one. Yes. There are those that I do get in there, which is almost like some people like some of those I will skim like the ones that are really, really good.
|
Sam:
[8:32]
| I will make time and I will read 10 minutes and then I will come back later and blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[8:38]
| Right. I'll save it and I'll go back. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[8:42]
| In a couple of minutes, you know, maybe five for a longish one for a longish one.
|
Ivan:
[8:50]
| But usually like a lot of these stories are relatively long, less than two minutes per story.
|
Sam:
[8:56]
| Well, and, and even, even though even the longer regular stories, not the big investigative articles that we're talking about, but even if you get to the longer regular articles, you realize pretty quickly the journalistic standard is they, they do do, they do do the pyramid writing where the most important stuff is up front, but also they tend to recap everything.
So like, they'll have the new stuff in the first few paragraphs, and then they'll reprise the entire history of whatever was happening with that story.
So if you've been following along the whole time, you're like, oh, okay, they've gotten to the part where I already knew this. You know, right.
It's not new anymore. Yeah, no, just in general, and this is one thing that.
News junkies like us, I mean, for God's sake, we've got a current events podcast that we've been doing for like, what, since a log enough, and, and we are currently being beaten by other things that I've found that beat us in audience.
|
Ivan:
[9:57]
| I mean, we should be, I should be probably be more frustrated, angry, but I find it hilarious.
Okay. To be honest, more than that, the fact that, you know, we've done this for a long time, but when we do this, probably even if we had like no listeners, We'd still might do it anyway, because it's just a way for us to catch up.
|
Sam:
[10:15]
| We did it for like 10 years, never getting above 20 downloads a week.
Right. You know, and then, and then we got a little higher. We're, we're running around 60 in the last few weeks.
|
Ivan:
[10:27]
| So, and we've gotten streaks where we've gotten a lot more, a lot less.
Usually it's been historically that around, whatever reason around elections.
We get, you know, when it's the four, you know, the, the, the, But the 2020 election, we get bumps for whatever reason.
|
Sam:
[10:45]
| Anyway, I don't know why, but our biggest bump was when we actually spent money advertising for a few months. That actually worked.
|
Ivan:
[10:52]
| No. You know what? We had that big bump also when you were linked in a Huffington Post.
|
Sam:
[10:57]
| Did I? I don't even remember.
|
Ivan:
[10:59]
| Oh, God. Why doesn't any of you remember anything?
Well, you know, yes, we one time you got linked in the Huffington Post story about election graphs, and we got a big ass bump out of that, too. OK, OK.
|
Sam:
[11:14]
| Yeah, I will trust you on that. I don't remember.
|
Ivan:
[11:17]
| So we got like, for example, the two guys that are beating us right now, which are hilarious.
The headlight of the story on this one.
Why are 500000 people watching paint dry? The main demand behind YouTube's do it yourself sensation or literally getting beaten Like, people watching paint dry, okay? I win.
|
Sam:
[11:42]
| Well, that's exciting, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[11:45]
| Oh, yes, very. And then there's the other guy that apparently Sam confessed that what he watches is he gently parents the squirrels on his back balcony.
|
Sam:
[11:54]
| I don't watch him regularly. It's tick tock. He comes up in my feed periodically.
|
Ivan:
[11:59]
| Well, and probably you watch it once. So I'll remind you of what's her name that used to live in in our building, our apartment building that was let the squirrels into her apartment.
I can't remember. But we had we had somebody in this apartment building.
We lived in Pittsburgh that apparently let the window open and it was close to a tree and squirrels would come in and she would let them into her place.
Oh, that's I remember this.
|
Sam:
[12:23]
| No, I don't.
|
Ivan:
[12:24]
| You remember that. You know, why didn't I take advantage of this to commit some serious crime before?
I mean, seriously, what the hell is like, you know, Sam, do you recall the events that day? No, sir, I do not.
Would you go to a polygraph? Yes, I would.
Yes, he doesn't remember shit.
|
Sam:
[12:43]
| Yeah. Although, although, you know, I'm liking the idea of having the squirrel in my house.
|
Ivan:
[12:52]
| I, you know, I please, please don't.
|
Sam:
[12:56]
| Although my dog would probably.
|
Ivan:
[12:59]
| Ah, that that would that could be a problem. Yes, I can see how the dogs and the squirrels would not mix. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[13:06]
| Yeah, that's a shame.
|
Ivan:
[13:07]
| It could be problematic, indeed.
|
Sam:
[13:13]
| So we were talking about ignorance.
|
Ivan:
[13:15]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[13:15]
| So let me let me go back there for just a minute.
|
Ivan:
[13:19]
| Profiles in ignorance.
|
Sam:
[13:22]
| I was saying, we've done this podcast forever.
We are current events junkies. We are news junkies. I have news either in my headphones or on the TV with mute on, or I'm flipping through like Mastodon or other news sources almost nonstop while I'm awake.
if I'm like, you know, if I'm doing work, yeah, I'll still have it on in the background or whatever, unless I'm in an actual meeting or whatever.
And so like, I'm constantly getting an inflow of news and discussion about news and blah, blah, blah.
And cause it's, it's like one of my special interests. I'm like really excited about it. I get into it.
Uh, most people do not.
|
Ivan:
[14:13]
| And it's sort of really hard to remember sometimes for people like us when we're talking about like, oh my god, X Y or Z did this thing listen, I Remember listen, I don't talk to people about this shit because it's just it's frustrating because you're the only person I talked to about This I mean literally I mean, you know No, but listen, I occasionally will get into some discussion with somebody and it's just really just, just so, um, I mean, it just churns my stomach to hear a couple of sentences of just complete ignorance.
Yes. And, and I'm just like, you know, if I start explaining shit, I'm going to come down as a condescending asshole. And by the way, I could be a very good condescending asshole if I want to be.
And so, therefore, you know, I try to avoid the conversation.
|
Sam:
[15:08]
| Yeah, I mean, I remember, I think I've mentioned this on the show once before, that, um, There was someone, I'm not going to mention who they were or what they were.
|
Ivan:
[15:19]
| No, no, no, no names.
|
Sam:
[15:19]
| Yeah. No names, no identifying information, but there was somebody who I, you know, I was having a conversation with.
And as I was saying that there was TV on in the background and it was news in the background and Donald Trump comes up on the screen. This was only a few months ago and they look up at the screen and like, Oh, is he still around?
|
Ivan:
[15:42]
| You know what, actually, I envy that person. I mean, I really do.
Because if they are, you know, if they are at this point, just blissfully oblivious to the existence of that man, their life is actually just so much better. It really is.
So, well, kudos to them. Managed to completely avoid everything.
|
Sam:
[16:08]
| But I guess, I mean, and a lot of these people start tuning in before presidential elections and such, like they just don't pay attention and be a little bit, a little bit.
|
Ivan:
[16:19]
| Look, here's the thing. I'm not, listen, I want to be clear about this.
I am not, I am not ripping. I'm not ripping these people. Okay.
I, I, I'm saying I don't like to have the conversation with them about this, but it's not because I think that the, you know, I, I have some negative view of these people.
Look, it's not their thing. They're busy with a lot of other things.
Um, you know, we, I also, I'm able to read, um, you know, massive amounts of stuff quickly.
Uh, you and I are able to read at way above a rate that most people do.
|
Sam:
[17:00]
| That's just, you know, that's just Well, and completely aside from like, you know, how long it takes you to read a page, we've got more time to do that than lots of people do.
|
Ivan:
[17:09]
| Yes. You know, I was talking about last week about like my friends, for example, like working at the fucking airport, you know, on their feet, you know, I was, you know, 18 hours in a fricking day.
What the hell time they got the fucking, like, read the news for God's sakes, you know, or you're teaching at a school, but you're, you know, doing a whole bunch of other fucking work.
Now, we, on the other hand, I'm like, you know...
quoting a thing, doing whatever newsflash comes in, read one minute, go back to do it, blah, blah, blah.
Then another one comes in, read it, read the next one. Boom.
Go back to what I'm doing. It's like, it's enough.
|
Sam:
[17:45]
| I mean, this isn't, you know, I mean, those of you, not those of you, not on our commercials corner Slack, first of all, you should be contact us as we will mention at the end of the show.
But one of the things we we do on there is when this big, when this new big breaking news, it's kind of like an informal competition, who can, who can get the notice that that thing, yeah, exactly.
You know, like, and that's between Yvonne and I and several of our, you know, the listeners who are on there all the time, it's like, who can get the news flash into the curmudgeon's quarter slack fast first? Yes, exactly.
I would feel bad if there was breaking news and I didn't know about it for a few hours. Hell, I'd be upset if I didn't know about it for a few minutes.
|
Ivan:
[18:38]
| You're upset for 20 minutes!
|
Sam:
[18:40]
| Five minutes! Five minutes!
|
Ivan:
[18:42]
| You know what he's talking about! If I put the thing up there and you noticed it five minutes later, you're like, oh, what the hell?
|
Sam:
[18:48]
| Exactly. Even aside from the curmudgeon's corner thing, I would be so bothered if a major, major news event happened and I went a few minutes before I knew about it.
And I know that's like, does it make a real difference if I find out about it a few minutes?
No, it's not like, it's not like I'm going to be the person who does something about it, but sometimes I am, I am breaking certain stories by the time Sam wakes up because, well, he's sleeping.
Yeah. Cause I'm on the West coast and you know, you have a three hour head start on me.
|
Ivan:
[19:26]
| Right. And so all of a sudden he's like, he wakes up, looks at the slack. Damn it!
|
Sam:
[19:31]
| Although this morning, like this morning, there was the Rupert Mood, Moodark, the Rupert Murdoch news that he was retiring from Fox News and such.
I remember seeing it when I first woke up and I was like, I should share this on the curmudgeon's corner slack.
And I was like, you know, not yet. I'm not like fully awake yet all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then like two minutes later, Yvonne posts it on the slack and I'm like, damn it. I should have done it when I first saw it.
Anyway, the whole point of all this is just, I don't know, like there's, you have to remember, like when we're evaluating, like, well, what will be the potential impact of such and such thing that happened?
You got to put into that consideration.
A lot of people are not going to have the slightest clue that it even happened of those that do have the slightest clue, a lot of them are not going to understand the details or who is really responsible or whatever, blah, blah, blah.
And so like the, what you think would be the natural effect of something is going to be very different than reality.
If you're expecting people to actually know and understand what happened.
I mean, and especially with us government stuff, I know we've talked about this before.
don't understand like even middle school civics, right?
|
Ivan:
[20:59]
| Like the whole guy, I, uh, you know, um, I, I got really, there was this podcast.
I like that. It's on general stuff. It's not on news.
And I listened to this because it's funny, a lot of entertaining stuff on whatever, more than more than getting anything on news is actually just because just to, to, to, just to, you know, know, something else. Okay. Just for entertainment.
And, you know, the host is actually, uh, he's, He's not a dummy, but he is not up to...
And he admits now that he realizes more than than anything that especially the last few years they had interviewed Trump repeatedly like about before, just right up to his announcement.
And that he now realizes.
|
Sam:
[21:48]
| Because he was funny.
|
Ivan:
[21:50]
| Yes, that he did not realize how naive he was about the whole thing.
I'm not sure I understand.
|
Sam:
[21:55]
| Back.
|
Ivan:
[21:56]
| Thanks, Siri. You know, he did not realize how naive he was about the whole thing and how naive he has. He had been about things going on because he just wasn't, you know, he just wasn't really paying attention to it.
And how dangerous it was that he was so with his head in the sand about this stuff, OK, about some of it, because how the hell that I bring this asshole on that, by the way, that somebody went through the tapes to embarrass them very much.
They hired somebody that's very good about the news and some of the lies and shit that they just let him throw out there without any question whatsoever. OK. Right.
And, you know, he was just appalled by it now.
But, you know, it's one of those things that I had heard him in years past, for example, you know, talking about.
well, why haven't the Democrats in the last 20 years passed the legislation to make abortion illegal? I'm like, oh, fuck me.
And I'm like, you know, it's one of those where, okay, you know, so few people know that really Congress with a majority that was like a majority to pass any legislation, that the Democrats only had that for a brief number of months in the Obama administration up until Kennedy died.
|
Sam:
[23:21]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[23:23]
| And that's the only fucking beer, by the way, and that's the only reason we have the Affordable Care Act.
Otherwise, we wouldn't have it. And I'm like, people are talking about all this other stuff. And I'm just like...
|
Sam:
[23:40]
| Yeah, well, I mean, the whole, the whole fundamentals of how the house and the Senate work and, you know, it's not even as simple as like the, you know, I'm just a bill song, right? Like, because that doesn't explain the filibuster.
That doesn't explain all of the procedures here that doesn't, yeah.
The whole process is very esoteric.
|
Ivan:
[24:02]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[24:05]
| Whereas most people's assumptions, like most people who are not into this stuff have no idea they have no, or they, they quite simply think whoever's president is in charge, right?
|
Ivan:
[24:18]
| And like, whatever happened, Oh, you got the house and the Senate, you can do whatever you want or not even there.
|
Sam:
[24:25]
| They don't even think that far. Sometimes it's just like, Ooh, whoever's president, everything that happens, good or bad, it's them.
|
Ivan:
[24:31]
| It's that end of story. story.
|
Sam:
[24:34]
| You know, and, and so that's, that's why politics is hard. Well, one of the reasons why politics is hard. Well, there are many reasons.
|
Ivan:
[24:41]
| And I'm not, but even like the one thing is that even when you get the fact that even if you get 60 votes, yeah.
The fact that those coalitions are so fragile on an issue like that specifically, because for example, you had certain Democrats that were not for abortion rights or under state.
It was problematic to go like just be, you know. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[25:05]
| I mean, you don't even have to go back that far. I mean, just last year or whatever, there were a lot of things the Democrats wanted to do, and it's like they had 51 votes.
Why didn't they do them? Well, you had Manchin and Sinema who didn't want to.
|
Ivan:
[25:20]
| Exactly. That's right. That's not enough. 51 votes is not enough. It's just not enough.
|
Sam:
[25:29]
| Or it was it was it was 50 plus Kamala at that time. And now now they're now they've got 52. But yeah, fleece before.
|
Ivan:
[25:38]
| Yeah. Well, 50 plus. Well, yes. Right. But it's not enough. It's not enough.
|
Sam:
[25:45]
| But even with. Yeah. Even with 52 now, they still have not enough. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[25:48]
| Still not enough.
|
Sam:
[25:49]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[25:50]
| I mean, you really need like 65 votes, basically.
|
Sam:
[25:55]
| Or you need the 50 votes in favor of getting rid of the filibuster, changing the rules and getting rid of the filibuster.
|
Ivan:
[26:00]
| Right, which that hasn't happened either.
|
Sam:
[26:02]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[26:02]
| Because, you know, yeah. Yeah. I remember. But yeah, and I guess that's the thing, you know, I don't know. So yeah, so we've been doing this now for 20 years. I don't know. So we started off on some tangent.
|
Sam:
[26:18]
| Well, that was your topic, I'll say. I'll say I and because we spent so much time on that topic and because I don't have a really light and fluffy thing other Than I will mention one thing.
I was gonna mention one light and go ahead you first Well, I don't know if you've noticed what I'm wearing.
I did not. And of course, our listeners can't see it.
|
Ivan:
[26:38]
| Well, our listeners can't, but you can see. So I I'm wearing AirPods now again.
|
Sam:
[26:44]
| Oh, OK. Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[26:47]
| So I got my new OK, so I did purchase my new phone. The AirPods arrived first, as usual. So that's one of the things. So I decided I, you know, my phone is three years old. It still works.
But I I decided that.
I wanted to get a new one. And I and I the new camera on the new iPhone is way, way, way, way better than the one from years ago, certainly.
Yes. Then the one from three years ago. But but even like the one the one thing is that the one in the pro max, which I have avoided getting the burger phone, what's yours? Oh, my.
|
Sam:
[27:18]
| Here's a 12.
|
Ivan:
[27:19]
| I got a 12 pro.
|
Sam:
[27:21]
| OK, I have a 12 pro max in my hands right now. That's what I'm using on.
|
Ivan:
[27:25]
| So so the camera on the on the pro max has something that I have been really wanting to have on a portable camera up back again for years, but not yes, that bigger optical zoom.
It's just such I mean, that not having that now, Yvonne is Yvonne.
|
Sam:
[27:46]
| Android people will tell you that they've had that for years and they've had and better ones than the one that's in this phone.
|
Ivan:
[27:52]
| Yeah, sure. Whatever the whole telescoping lens And ask them what version of Android their phone is running.
And is their phone already out of date? Because what I found out, I didn't know this until recently that most Android phones after three years cannot update to the latest version of Android.
Yeah, it's three years. They've been trying to stretch it to four or five, you know.
|
Sam:
[28:21]
| Well, all of that also depends. And like even the thing I was saying about the better camera and stuff.
This, there's a huge difference between sort of the flagship Android phones versus like the low end Android phone.
|
Ivan:
[28:36]
| Oh, most of them have shit. Can't have shit. But my thing is that, you know, but.
It, I find that in most of those, it's all fucking, it's all a fucking gimmick anyway, because, oh, we'll give you this thing with great specs.
But I want something that.
I don't watch just the optical zoom. I want a better picture. OK, right.
And in most comparisons, those phones, the color quality and the stuff doesn't stack up. There are some that are very good.
|
Sam:
[29:09]
| But wait, what about that one that we talked about, like on the show, like a year ago or whatever, the Samsung one that would like paste in the AI version of the moon.
|
Ivan:
[29:18]
| Well, that'll make it look perfect. Yes. Yes. If you just yes, if you just reproduce, you know, fake, you know, add in a fake image of what I'm looking at that, yes, it's going to look fantastic. Exactly.
|
Sam:
[29:32]
| So maybe anyway, so we will look forward to your review of your phone once you actually receive it.
Um, I'm, I'm still of the, I I'm in the mode of like this, the phone I have in my hand for love.
|
Ivan:
[29:47]
| What? No, no.
|
Sam:
[29:49]
| The 12 pro max is working fine for me. I have no issues with it. I'm waiting.
So we'll see.
|
Ivan:
[29:59]
| I, you know, like, cause I, I probably, this is the one thing my current phone is actually in very good three years, three years is a good number.
|
Sam:
[30:06]
| It used to be like I would, I would like clockwork replace my phone every two years. It used to be, but now I'm just like, I'm just not feeling the need.
|
Ivan:
[30:17]
| I, I will say that one, that one of the things that I, that I, the reason I also I'm doing it is because usually this phone is in very good shape I usually wind up gifting my, a phone to somebody that needs one.
And so, you know, this phone is still in very good shape and working.
And I do want the new one. So I'm going to be able to give it to the last time I gave I gave one of these to my friend, one of my friends in Brazil that, you know, right now with the exchange rates, the phones are just crazy expensive.
And so I was like, no, here, I'll take it, whatever, you know.
So so I'll gift it to somebody that that, you know, We'll get some good use out of it. So I figured that that's, I'm basically giving myself a gift so I could give somebody else a gift.
|
Sam:
[31:04]
| That makes sense. That makes sense. Of course, like I keep all my old phones there.
The one my my right now, though, Alex does have a hand me down phone that I used to use because he didn't want a phone and didn't want a phone and insisted he did not want one.
And we eventually just made him have one. But since he didn't want it, we didn't buy him a new one. We repurposed one of my old ones.
It's, it's my, my 10 X S uh, is the one he's using right now.
And it's, it's working kind of fine.
|
Ivan:
[31:34]
| That's one of the ones I gave away.
|
Sam:
[31:36]
| It's, it's decent and it's still working and it's doing what he needs.
And even still to this day, we're like, you know, we could get them a new one.
We could get him the 15 right now.
But, here, but he, he, he is, uh, he still breaks his screen regularly enough.
Like he's done this multiple times and we're like, you know, I'm not, I'm not buying you, you know, a brand new top of the line phone while you are not taking care of the one you have.
|
Ivan:
[32:10]
| Like, I mean, like, you know, so like, like father, like son.
|
Sam:
[32:14]
| Yeah. Well, worse, like his, some, some of his situations have not been accidental.
|
Ivan:
[32:21]
| It's like, well, he's not intending to break the phone, but like, but he's using it in a say, in a, in a, in a way that it's very likely that that will happen.
|
Sam:
[32:33]
| The typical scenario is he gets mad and throws it.
|
Ivan:
[32:37]
| Well, you see, I, I, that's the difference between your son and my son. My son did that once.
And he was so upset that he never, he's never done that again.
Yeah. He actually put a band, he actually was crying.
He put a bandaid on the device.
He was like, let's go get it fixed. And I'm like, you know, he's like, and it, and never done that, never done that again.
|
Sam:
[33:02]
| Every time it's happened, Alex has been traumatized and very, very upset about it, but it didn't stop him from doing it.
|
Ivan:
[33:08]
| It didn't deter him. Well, he's got your memory. So.
|
Sam:
[33:11]
| Yes. So, okay. I want to say one really quick thing. This will not one really quick because we've gone on a long enough.
I made a major mistake when I started this podcast today, which is something I have never done before in what is it? 15 years of this music.
No, we did the intro music. It wasn't that Oh, we didn't? Yeah. No.
|
Ivan:
[33:39]
| We did?
|
Sam:
[33:40]
| It is, in addition to bringing myself some water.
|
Ivan:
[33:43]
| Well, now you're amnesia.
|
Sam:
[33:45]
| Like, I always bring myself, you know, a glass or two of water to drink while I do this.
But this time, when I came upstairs.
I also brought a bowl of popcorn.
|
Ivan:
[33:59]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[34:01]
| And here is why that is a mistake. Like in the 20 minutes or so, when I was preparing for the podcast before, like Yvonne came on and we started recording a show, like I was, I was munching down on this popcorn.
And now it is sitting here in front of me. And I can't eat it.
I can't eat it because it would make loud crunching noises.
|
Ivan:
[34:25]
| See, yeah, that's not, that's not, that's no bueno.
|
Sam:
[34:27]
| And so I can't just grab, I know my mouth is full, so I can't just be grabbing popcorn.
No, you can't while we record, but it is right in front of me.
It smells good. It tastes good. It's tempting me at every moment.
And so I'm here. Talk.
|
Ivan:
[34:46]
| Oh, Sammy, call me.
Come and take a bite, I'm talking to you.
|
Sam:
[34:56]
| And this isn't even like, this isn't microwave popcorn. This is like my wife, because she was doing all these like political events, bought one of these like large popcorn makers on a cart with wheels that you like, you can, the kind And you see people selling popcorn out of it, the fair and stuff like that.
And so it's one of those. So this is yummy. This is actually, it's actually popcorn from yesterday and I thought it wouldn't be any good cause it's been out a day or whatever, but it's still salty. It's still buttery.
It's still okay. It's not as good as fresh, but I I'm tempted by this damn popcorn and it's right in front of me and I guess I could just put it behind me or something. Nah, it's right there.
|
Ivan:
[35:48]
| You know, I will say that, uh, uh, speaking of popcorn, you know, so, uh, when we had, we, we had our business, we had the pharmacy, we actually had like a popcorn machine to make fresh popcorn there for sale. Okay.
And look, Jesus, this thing, you know, I would work the front register and, you know, we just make popcorn and then we run, then we run out.
It wasn't when it was the problem was when we, you made it and then you smell it, it smells so damn good.
And then you're getting this freshly popped kettle pop popcorn right there.
And it's just, damn it. It's impossible to fucking just not, you know, I know what I would do is instead of grabbing a bag of, you know, we were bagging or whatever, and some containers, I would, we had some smaller cups, I would just, you know, take a smaller cup and, you know, and, and, and, you know, you know, bunch on those, they get a little bit more, whatever.
And then, you know, we'd have to make it every couple of hours because, you know, I, I was, you know, I'm not, I don't want to sell people, you know, stale popcorn or, you know, we'd sell it, you know, it's sell through.
And so, you know, I'd make more, but it was just, Oh my God, that was just the worst. I mean, me making that damn popcorn all the fucking time. And then I'm like, Oh shit, man, I can't, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[37:09]
| Yeah. Don't, don't get me wrong. Like I mentioned, this is like yesterday's popcorn.
Cause yeah, we were watching a movie and we made some popcorn and I prefer the fresh stuff.
And I thought I actually was like, you know, I, when there's old popcorn leftover, I'm sort of like, ah, toss it out. We'll make some new stuff.
But I was walking by it and I'm like, I'm hungry.
I'll just scoop up a little bit of this stuff. And I tried a couple and I'm like, This is still kind of good. I want to eat this. So, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[37:41]
| Anyway. All right.
|
Sam:
[37:43]
| OK, OK, we're going to take our first break.
|
Ivan:
[37:45]
| And then as we have chased everybody to be watching paint dry at this point.
|
Sam:
[37:51]
| Or or have a guy like talking to squirrels, petting the squirrels and petting the squirrels, or at this point, they may be running to their kitchens to make popcorn.
|
Ivan:
[38:01]
| Probably.
|
Sam:
[38:02]
| Probably.
|
Ivan:
[38:03]
| Can the squirrels make popcorn?
|
Sam:
[38:06]
| I bet squirrels like popcorn, but the salt and butter is probably really bad.
|
Ivan:
[38:10]
| Five are making it.
|
Sam:
[38:11]
| Well, it's bad for us too. I mean, you know, a lot of people, you know, say things like, you know, don't, don't give your, your pets like this thing.
Cause it's really bad for them because of the salt and the fat or whatever.
And you're like, well, that's really bad for me too, actually.
But you know, it tastes good.
|
Ivan:
[38:28]
| You know, remember that one of the things is that, uh, they, you know, more studies show now that added, you know, salt that you just add like that is not really bad.
The problem is sodium, not, not so much salt from a shaker, which they find is very little of the, when we, when we do popcorn like this, this is like extremely salty.
|
Sam:
[38:48]
| This is not lightly salted.
|
Ivan:
[38:49]
| Okay. Well that's, then that's no good.
|
Sam:
[38:52]
| This is like half a shaker of salt on this damn.
|
Ivan:
[38:55]
| Now that's, that's terrible.
|
Sam:
[38:57]
| No, that's so good. Okay. It's, it's time for a break.
|
Ivan:
[39:01]
| Do we have anybody left here or if they're all gone, okay.
|
Sam:
[39:05]
| If you're still here, wave. Wave. Okay. Yeah, okay.
And we're back.
|
Ivan:
[40:15]
| It sounded like we should be on a safari.
|
Sam:
[40:17]
| We should be on a safari.
|
Ivan:
[40:18]
| Like sure.
|
Sam:
[40:21]
| You know, you see those videos every once in a while about that.
Like there's one safari place where like the lion like comes and climbs on to the little car they have and is like climbing.
|
Ivan:
[40:32]
| Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[40:35]
| That's the kind of we want.
|
Ivan:
[40:37]
| Oh, yeah, it's always, you know, the lion country safari thing.
They got one of those around here. I think that you could do that still.
|
Sam:
[40:44]
| Well, yeah, but the video I'm thinking about, it's not just you're driving through and the lions are out there. It's the line gets in the car.
|
Ivan:
[40:50]
| It gets on the, yeah. I, you know, I want to try to avoid doing that.
|
Sam:
[40:55]
| Yeah. In the car climbs on you. You can Pat it. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[41:00]
| I know. No, thank you.
|
Sam:
[41:02]
| Do you want to pick our first more serious topic?
|
Ivan:
[41:05]
| You've got, do I want to pick the first more serious topic?
Uh, let's talk about Rupert retiring.
|
Sam:
[41:16]
| Okay. You know, he is like what it's 92, 92, 92.
|
Ivan:
[41:21]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[41:24]
| I mean, at some point you gotta let go, I guess. Yeah. You know, I, I kind of wondered like, given his age is like, was he just going to stick around until he dropped dead?
You know, but I guess he's, he's stepping back a little bit.
He has a confidence in how do you say the kid's name? LaChante, La La La Laughlin.
|
Ivan:
[41:44]
| I believe it's Laughlin Laughlin Murdoch.
|
Sam:
[41:48]
| Anyway, apparently Laughlin basically shares the politics and priorities of his dad. So not a lot will change, probably.
|
Ivan:
[41:57]
| I mean, yeah, I don't know from what I've heard, right, because there was a fight between Laughlin and his other brother.
I can't remember his name right now who do not share politics.
and over this, and it's a reason why his brother left the company.
He just couldn't stomach it anymore.
The one thing I was I saw on a note today that he said something to his newsroom to the when he's retired to the effect of.
something about keeping making the continue making the world better, make the world better or something.
And all I could think of, you douchebag, you've done, what have you done of the sort to make the world better in any way, shape or form?
|
Sam:
[42:52]
| As far as I can tell, he's contributed significantly to at least three countries getting significantly worse.
You know, like Australia, the UK, and the US.
In all three places he has been meddling with politics in a way that seems, at least to me, to be negative for decades and decades and decades now.
You know, between newspaper, television, radio, the whole media empire that he had.
You know, now, maybe the pure entertainment parts of Fox, eh, okay, fine.
But the news stuff he does, he's been like a toxic drag on several countries.
Yeah. You know? It's bad. And his role has been significant, significant.
|
Ivan:
[43:57]
| Yeah. It's not some small, small, I mean, I would say that hell, I mean, I, I say, and I'm in the United States, I mean, he has been the primary driver of this kind of radicalization in the United States.
|
Sam:
[44:13]
| Yeah. I mean, after 2016, you remember everyone was including us spent a lot of time talking about the impact of social media and things like that.
But the impact of Fox eclipses those.
|
Ivan:
[44:27]
| A hundred percent. And I and I and it goes a lot longer.
We're talking back to the 90s. Yeah. I mean, you know, they were the ones that really empowered and enabled things like, you know, Newt Gingrich really to have the pulpit that that he had, you know, and a lot of the.
|
Sam:
[44:46]
| I mean, Rush had a lot to do with that, too. But yes, Fox was definitely part of it.
|
Ivan:
[44:50]
| But Fox was more. I mean, Rush Rush Limbaugh, you know, for all his reach, Rush Limbaugh was on the radio and as much as influence as AM radio has, it pales in comparison to the influence that the Fox News had.
It just does. I mean, television is just that way. I mean, you know, like. But on radio, you may have had.
For decades larry king doing shit on radio right but it you really only became famous more because of the mtv show.
On cnn right and so i i i you know i mean who the hell remembers i mean other than you and me who the hell succeeded larry king for god sakes.
Take a poll is like a who's the guy that was on larry king on the radio like for i don't know how long.
I don't know how long, you know who it was, right?
|
Sam:
[45:49]
| I don't remember anymore.
|
Ivan:
[45:51]
| I don't remember anymore.
|
Sam:
[45:52]
| I think I would recognize if you said it, but could I bring it to mind?
No, I was just trying. I think I have a picture in my head.
You probably if it's if it's the one that I think of, okay, try to take it.
Rebecca and I met him at the White House when we went at WRC.
He was sitting next to us when Bill Clinton was giving us his little speech.
Maybe who is who was it?
|
Ivan:
[46:14]
| Jim Bohannon.
|
Sam:
[46:15]
| Yes, that was him. He was sitting right next to Rebecca and I.
|
Ivan:
[46:18]
| And you met him, but you don't remember him? I didn't even get to meet him.
|
Sam:
[46:23]
| Yeah, we met him. He was in the same row with us right next to us while we were getting like a little briefing on...
|
Ivan:
[46:29]
| Well, my point is that you struggle to come up with that damn name.
Imagine, let's say, let's take an average American out there.
Let's ask them that question, okay?
You know, fat chance of that. that. I would have anybody, anybody succeed like, uh, uh, uh, Rush Limbaugh on, on the radio. I have no idea.
|
Sam:
[46:45]
| I I'm sure someone got his show.
|
Ivan:
[46:49]
| Not nowhere nearly as popular. I mean, especially with AM radio, the declining, the way, the way it has, it just doesn't have the impact anymore.
Well, Alex Jones, you can say, there you go.
|
Sam:
[46:58]
| Yeah. I mean, Limbaugh was on the decline anyway, which is one of the things I was going to say about, like, since we're talking about Fox and changing the guard.
One thing is, like, even with him stepping back, he may still be involved in in some way Rupert might be, but.
Fox News in general, and to some degree, this applies to all like traditional media, but especially to Fox News, the listeners are aging rapidly.
|
Ivan:
[47:26]
| Oh, very much so. Yeah, absolutely.
|
Sam:
[47:28]
| You know, and so one of the problems that they have is, well, I guess there are a couple things that, and I've heard a number of people talk about this today because Rupert retired, But because everybody is aging, and they really aren't, they have not found a way to appeal to younger people.
|
Ivan:
[47:51]
| Their viewers are dying on G, you know, telling, you know, younger audience that, you know, for the most part, you know, that we are against, you know, your bodies, that we are against, you know, your sexual, you know, rights that we are.
We think climate change is bogus.
What else, you know? Well, the other thing- On all sorts of things, is it really catchy with a majority of the younger people? Jesus Christ, who knew?
|
Sam:
[48:24]
| Yeah, the other thing is just as they have gotten further and further into like conspiracy land, you know, they are alienating like people left and right.
I mean, they've got their core group, who love them and will always watch till the day they die.
But for a lot of other people, I've heard it described as, They are creating a group of people.
who can't even talk to people outside of that little ecosystem.
Right. Like, there are some examples where, on the presidential debates, or on the last conventions, or whatever, when you listen to some of the speech, or even congressional speeches and things like that, you listen to some of the speeches, and unless you've been watching a bunch of Fox News, or have read Explainers or something, You don't know what the fuck they're even talking about, because they start bringing up weirdo conspiracies, and, oh, well, you know about Ray Epps, don't you? Stuff like that.
|
Ivan:
[49:31]
| Ray Epps, Ray Epps, Ray Epps, Ray Epps, Ray Epps.
|
Sam:
[49:36]
| Ray Epps is the January 6th guy who they accused of being a plant by the FBI.
|
Ivan:
[49:42]
| The guy that was the plant, the white, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[49:47]
| He was the star.
|
Ivan:
[49:48]
| I remember.
|
Sam:
[49:49]
| He instigated all this, but it was really the FBI setting it up.
|
Ivan:
[49:52]
| Right, he was really a false flag for the FBI, right?
|
Sam:
[49:54]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of stuff. Like, and like people like they'll bring up, oh my God, Ray Epps or whatever. And unless you're indoctrinated into that ecosystem, you're like Yvonne just did. Who? You know?
|
Ivan:
[50:06]
| Now, I did remember eventually who he was. I was like.
|
Sam:
[50:10]
| And the only reason I remember it is like there was some something happened.
There was a recent article or something. Something happened in his case.
|
Ivan:
[50:18]
| There was a recent New York Times article. Yeah, that's why that's even why I the only reason I know the name, too. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[50:25]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[50:25]
| So there was a recent article because he, you know, he was out there.
I mean, just talking about how he sued.
|
Sam:
[50:32]
| He's suing Fox News for for promoting this story.
|
Ivan:
[50:37]
| Yeah, because his life is hell over it right now.
|
Sam:
[50:40]
| Yes. Yeah. And, you know.
|
Ivan:
[50:44]
| And the worst thing is that he is like, I was all for all the shit They're talking about it. They're saying, you know, the bad, you know, with the FBI. Right.
|
Sam:
[50:52]
| Anyway. Yeah. So I feel like.
And maybe this is wishful thinking, but I feel like the Fox News phenomena has to have peaked.
|
Ivan:
[51:09]
| Well, I think, look, anything that was linear TV for the most part has peaked, except the one thing exception that we found is live sports.
It recently there was just a game that happened recently that we're just stunned that it was just the highest, the most watched thing on TV in 20 years.
And everybody's like, oh, there was there was it was a it was a college football game on Saturday night that started at 10 p.m.
that was the most watched college football game on a Saturday in 20 years.
And so those are the only events like that that are live that get that kind of response.
Everything else is shit. Nobody you know, it's like, I mean, watching the news, you know, I think a lot of people like, lol, the problem is, I don't know, they don't get the news from anywhere else.
So I don't know what the hell they do now, but now they'll just sit down and watch a 30 minutes because it used to be that was a lead in for primetime entertainment.
|
Sam:
[52:21]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[52:21]
| So that's the thing that happened was because the only way you could get entertainment back then was because you'd watch a six, six, six, six, you know, 630 p.m.
News and then at seven, there were a couple of like first syndicated shows, the game shows, and then at eight o'clock was the first run primetime, you know, TV.
So you would go and, you know, you, you, you, you would want to, um, you'd sit your ass down, sit your ass down to watch that and get at least some news now because it's streaming.
They don't give a fuck. They don't, they're not even getting, they're not even getting that.
|
Sam:
[53:01]
| When I was a little kid, like, and my parents were still together, they hadn't been divorced yet and blah, blah, blah. And I, I w I was like seven, eight, nine years old.
I remember part of the evening routine was getting around the TV and watching Walter Cronkite.
|
Ivan:
[53:19]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[53:20]
| You know, and it may not have been the, you know, we we've got so much more in variety and blah, blah, blah, but this was a part of life.
And I think that what you, when you get to sort of the aging Fox news demographic, you've got a bunch of people who are already retired and they sit in front of the TV and watch it, you know, but the, the number of people who do that is shrinking every week.
|
Ivan:
[53:50]
| Very much so.
|
Sam:
[53:50]
| You know, um, and, and, and the, even the people, you know, I mentioned how I'm like addicted to it and watching it all the time. We are a tiny, tiny minority.
|
Ivan:
[54:00]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[54:00]
| And in even I, like the live TV stuff, like I will have it on muted in the background, like sometimes, but like most of my consumption is not that.
I will listen to the recorded podcasts of news shows at one and a half speed, like after the fact I will, you know, I will be doing the social media stuff like we said looking for articles but the amount of time I'm actually, have live news on and I'm paying attention to it, not just having it on in the background is relatively small.
Even for a news junkie like me, it's sort of there so that if something big breaks, boom, now I'm paying attention, right?
You know, because like and if you do have it on in the background all day, you'll realize pretty damn quick how repetitive it is. Yeah.
You know, because if there's nothing new to talk about, They're going to be talking about the same damn thing over and over and over again.
|
Ivan:
[55:05]
| Yeah, well, listen, it's a lot better now than it used to be.
Look, I remember, you know, because back when we didn't have the Internet or whatever that I would have on the TV at our office back in Puerto Rico, CNN headline news.
|
Sam:
[55:19]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[55:21]
| Constantly. OK. And remember, CNN headline news was only 30 minutes.
|
Sam:
[55:26]
| And and it was the whole newscast every time. and almost the whole thing would be repeated the next 30 minutes.
|
Ivan:
[55:32]
| Unless you get it.
|
Sam:
[55:33]
| But it would maybe one news story.
|
Ivan:
[55:35]
| Then you get one new story, something else, whatever. But it was barely for the most part. 80% of it was the same shit that happened the last half hour.
|
Sam:
[55:44]
| Whereas at the very least, if you put on MSNBC, CNN or Fox and watch all day, you'll have different talking heads every hour or two talking about the same shit.
But still but it's different people giving slightly different opinions and slightly different takes on it anyway, but I Don't know to wrap up Fox.
|
Ivan:
[56:08]
| I Guess by the way, what one thing about yeah before we wrap up Fox to go I was looking at that, you know, so James Murdoch, you know The other brothers whose name you could put out some say yeah, they'd remember it's James James, you put out a statement based.
I mean, he's put out a series of statements, just basically ripping Fox to shreds.
OK, he is on his own with his own company, whatever. But apparently he's still a significant shareholder.
rumor that has been going around.
of something possible, because I know that he he had been at the company because he wanted to.
Change Fox News, right? Okay.
|
Sam:
[56:50]
| He was to be what? More straight news or something?
|
Ivan:
[56:52]
| Yes, absolutely. Okay. He was not down with this shit.
And apparently neither are his. So there was four siblings or, you know, they're the one who is like that is this Loughlin, the one who's remaining in charge. But I do think that apparently they all will have shares in the company.
So somebody was rumoring whether Lockhart was going to rally his sisters and basically sees it away from Loughlin in the future.
|
Sam:
[57:24]
| Interesting. Well, the other factor, and this is part of what I was going to say in wrapping up, is of course Fox still, you know, They had the one big settlement amount for however many millions of dollars.
|
Ivan:
[57:37]
| They've still got a whole bunch of lawsuits behind that.
|
Sam:
[57:40]
| They've got a bunch of other lawsuits coming. We mentioned the Ray Epps one, but there's the other voting firm, Beyond Dominion.
There's all kinds of individuals who are involved.
They've got a whole crapload of lawsuits all around the same election denial shit that got them in trouble with dominion, but from slightly different angles of different people, they've defamed.
|
Ivan:
[58:07]
| They're going to have to be still make a hell of a lot more payments than the ones that they have made so far. That's for sure.
|
Sam:
[58:14]
| And all the same evidence that came in for the dominion one is going to be relevant to most of these others.
So they're, they have some headwinds against them. Now, I don't know that, you know, these headwinds are enough to like.
kill them or anything, but they're good. They're going to have some rough times ahead, I think, between all of this stuff and their main viewer base just dying off.
They're they're going to have to figure they're going to have to reinvent themselves.
|
Ivan:
[58:46]
| Well, so the same issue that is afflicting Disney is a similar issue that that has it has to hit any of these networks.
You know, Disney with sports, Their biggest cash cow was ESPN and each cable subscriber that at them, you know, close to $10 a month, OK, for the right to carry ESPN at the cable networks. Now, that number has shrunk significantly.
And the cable companies are like, we can't we don't want to keep bundling this.
Now, Fox is one of the few other channels that was also able to charge.
a a decent buck for carriage, OK? But like I like, I will say this people complaining about sports.
Look, I have been like, why the fuck can't I unbundle this goddamn cable bundle?
I don't want to be I don't want Fox on my feet.
|
Sam:
[59:47]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[59:49]
| I don't want to pay. I mean, if I'm telling you, Sam, hey, you're you're picking out your You could you could break out your your TV package.
Would you pay five bucks a month for Fox?
|
Sam:
[1:00:00]
| No, hell no.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:01]
| Exactly. And I'm like, I don't want to fucking pay five bucks a month for fucking Fox.
I mean, I'm sick of it. The fact that, you know, that's the and they started with ESPN because there were two more expensive one. But look, it's going to come for the others.
OK, in these fights, I mean, there's just no way because because of what's happening with this whole damn thing.
Okay, so there, you know, aside from the you've got the pain from the lawsuits and that's also coming and their viewership is getting older and so it's not he's not inheriting an empire sitting pretty right now.
It's got a lot of very difficult issues coming up as all of these media companies are facing right now that haven't figured out a way to really make a bucket streaming. streaming.
|
Sam:
[1:00:52]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:54]
| And which they're trying. Apparently there's this Fox plus Fox.
I don't know. Everybody's a plus.
|
Sam:
[1:01:01]
| Well, in the end, the answer might be all of these companies are going to end up a lot smaller than they are now.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:09]
| You know, and or listen, or one thing I do think is that I think that there are certain content where certain people are getting subsidized to watch that content. Okay. Yeah.
And I'm like, you know what? Oh, you want ESPN? You're probably going to have to pay 30 bucks a month to watch ESPN alone.
Right. And I will say that, you know, probably me, I'm going to say, fuck.
Yeah. Okay. You got me. I mean, you know, it and I'm not gonna get all these other channels but I'm gonna wind up picking a number of them that I'm willing to pay for and it's gonna be a higher cost and there are others that you'll be like I don't need Hallmark Channel I don't need the Hallmark Channel or Lifetime Movie Network.
|
Sam:
[1:02:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:03]
| Ready or not, shit.
Not at those prices.
|
Sam:
[1:02:07]
| Well, or they're morphed versions that are the streaming platform.
We're not even necessarily talking about the live version of all of these.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:15]
| Oh, God, you know, let's. Yeah, yeah. So, so, yeah, I mean, I, you know, if if they told me, hey, can I save ten dollars a month by not fucking paying Fox? I'm like, where the fuck do I sign up for this damn pack package?
|
Sam:
[1:02:30]
| Right. Well, and of course all of these companies are fighting that with everything they can. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:39]
| It's for the same pie. It's not a growing pie. It's the same fucking pie. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:44]
| Okay. Do we have anything else to say about Fox? Nope. You want me to jump into a topic? Should we take another break?
|
Ivan:
[1:02:52]
| We should take a break. Yeah. We're at it. You know, we've been going a while.
We should probably have a break.
|
Sam:
[1:02:59]
| Yeah, you know, one, we used to be disciplined one topic, one topic break, one topic, one topic break, but you know, discipline. Discipline.
It's a, it's out the window. Like, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:12]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:03:15]
| So here's another thing.
Okay, so it's confusing, but I think it's my turn, even though we just took a break and Yvonne's usually the first one after every break.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:18]
| I am.
|
Sam:
[1:04:19]
| Yeah, that's the way we usually do it every once while we switch, but usually it's you, me, you, me, you, me.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:27]
| We're doing a deep fake, head fake.
|
Sam:
[1:04:30]
| A deep fake. You know, when you get your new phone, well, and I guess, is this only on the 15s or is is it everything on iOS 17, they've got that thing where you can record 150 phrases and then it will be able to read things in your voice.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:46]
| Oh shit.
|
Sam:
[1:04:47]
| They, they, they have it as like, it's an accessibility tool.
So like, if you are, if you have a condition where you know, you're no longer going to be able to talk after a while, you can create this, but anybody can create it.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:02]
| So I, you know, I, I will say that I might have to use it in order to have it. Help me in the show.
I'll go and I'll have it like, you know, say certain stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:05:15]
| We can do an entire show once I have it too.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:19]
| Right. Are we just talking to each other? The phones are the ones talking to each other. There you go. We can try that. Yes. I'm sure. Thrilled.
|
Sam:
[1:05:28]
| It would be wonderful anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:29]
| God, okay. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:05:33]
| My turn.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:34]
| No, that'll get more downloads. Sure. You'd have to tell us talking to each other. You know what? Maybe.
|
Sam:
[1:05:42]
| No, I have seen videos of people who put like, you know, Alexa and Siri next to each other and just have them have conversations and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:51]
| I don't know how many downloads they got.
|
Sam:
[1:05:53]
| I don't know. Anyway, Yvonne.
So, I am going to pick, as I previewed in our first segment, the whole, the Republican house is like in complete and total disarray right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:12]
| Um
|
Sam:
[1:06:15]
| You know, I mentioned that thing about in the House, they have to vote on the rule before they can vote on the actual thing.
Because for every bill they bring up, practically, they vote a rule that defines what the debate is going to be like, and how they're going to vote, and all that kind of stuff.
Apparently, according to the show I was listening to on MSNBC, who was talking about this earlier today that I mentioned, The last time like, okay, voting on the rule is something that whatever party is in charge of the house does in order to define the agenda and define what, what legislation actually gets a vote.
Right. Apparently before this week, the last time any rule had failed to pass was 28 years ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:12]
| I mean, and it makes sense because it's, it's just, it's, it's just basically setting up the rules for the debate and the vote.
|
Sam:
[1:07:22]
| Yes. And it's the party in charge defining what they want to do.
want to do and the party votes, it's almost always a party line vote and the party in charge wins and they define the rules and then you debate whatever underlying bill it is that vote had not failed in 28 years.
It failed three times this week.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:42]
| So, uh, well, okay. The 28 year ago vote, what was it that failed? Now I'm curious.
|
Sam:
[1:07:47]
| I have no idea. Yeah, no, I mean, you, you will have to go look it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:52]
| I'll have to look it up. Okay. I, I, I knew that you see now today, you see, I was not paying attention to that. I didn't realize the vote failed three times. I knew the vote failed.
|
Sam:
[1:08:04]
| Well, it, it failed like it wasn't all three times today. It was three times this week.
They they've been trying to pass the defense authorization.
Bill or whatever from, and it's failed three times in a row.
Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, this is supposed to be an easy vote. And McCarthy has been on TV actively frustrated at this point.
Because also the stuff they're also looking at trying to do, they're trying to pass a bill to send to the Senate to show that, hey, we're serious.
Here's our plan for not shutting down the government, whether it be a continuing resolution or whatever. But what they're they're putting together is a messaging bill that everybody knows won't pass the Senate anyway, and they can't even pass that.
Fundamentally, their their issue right now is they can't find anything.
Like the Democrats are right now sitting back and being like, Okay, we're gonna watch the fun.
Um, but they can't find anything, anything that is passing the house with Republican only votes.
Because remember, they only have four votes to spare.
And so like the last compromise version that like some, some house members had worked out and they were like, this is the compromise. This is what we're going to send to the Senate.
17 Republicans said, hell no. They can only afford to lose three.
And this is the House Freedom Caucus and those folks who are basically saying the deal that you made with the president earlier in this year is no good, that has to be thrown out the window, and we want big cuts in everything, blah, blah, blah.
The proposal that did not get enough Republicans to go forward was holding the defense budget constant and cutting everything else the federal government does by 8%.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:13]
| So by the way, the last time this happened was to Newt Gingrich, and it was related to another government shutdown.
|
Sam:
[1:10:19]
| Of course it was, okay.
And here's fundamental, like we talked about this last week, in the end, in the end, the The only way out of this is...
a deal with the Democrats, because completely aside, even leaving the House apart, the Democrats control the Senate. The Democrats control the presidency.
And even the Senate Republicans, by the way, think these House Republicans are nuts.
The kinds of things that are being discussed in the House are non-starters in the Senate.
Senate with the Senate Republicans, not just with the Democrats.
They're nowhere near anything real. The Marjorie Taylor Greene's and those folks are saying, for instance, any budget they pass has to explicitly defund the Jack Smith's special counsel office.
That's not going anywhere.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:31]
| Exactly. These things are just dumb. It's put enough toxic shit in there that it's just not getting anywhere, you know, and all kinds of other shit.
|
Sam:
[1:11:43]
| That's just one example. They've got, you know, there's abortion stuff in there.
There's other culture war stuff.
They're demanding everything in the kitchen sink. And again, they can't even get a majority of the house with Republican only votes for this crap, let alone anything that would go through the Senate, let alone anything that wouldn't be vetoed by Joe Biden.
So in the end, the only way out of this impasse is you pass something with most of the Democrats and a few Republicans.
That's the way every single fucking one of these has been solved, going back all the way to Newt Gingrich, right.
And, and so at some point, they have to do that. But the, the House Freedom Caucus and Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and all of those folks have said over and over and over again.
that happens, they're pulling the plug on McCarthy.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:41]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:12:42]
| And a lot of people are saying right now what their actual.
Agenda is, is they're trying to actually maneuver McCarthy.
So his only choice is to make a deal with the Democrats so that they then have the excuse to do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:58]
| Okay. Well, yeah, but then, you know, but here it comes down back to, okay, great. So we do it, then who exactly?
And that's that's the thing that I don't understand about their brilliant game plan, because they have no end game. And yes, that has been made.
Listen, we have heard that repeatedly being said by various people, various Republicans, various Republicans.
I mean, Boehner said it repeatedly. You know, I mean, what's his name that just retired Romney just said it.
|
Sam:
[1:13:39]
| Well, I'm talking right now, people in the house right now of especially the ones who are Republicans in districts that Biden won, those folks are apoplectic.
They, they have no idea what to do with this stuff. and they've been going on TV saying, calling.
calling the whole thing dysfunctional, saying that these guys are idiots, they don't know how to take yes for an answer, they have no plan, they're messing everything up.
One of them was like, you know, how does this possibly end up with something that helps us? This is just, you know, it's counterproductive from beginning to end.
And, and they're frustrated. And one of the things I saw just before we started to record is a handful of those Republicans are proposing that they will work with Democrats to get a discharge petition to force a vote on something over McConnell's objections, not McConnell, McCarthy, McCarthy, McConnell, McCarthy, whatever.
Yeah. Cause this, this could actually provide a potential way out for McCarthy where you end up getting the most of the Democrats plus a few Republican solution, but without McCarthy ever agreeing to it.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:10]
| You will probably be thrilled about that right now.
|
Sam:
[1:15:14]
| It's like, is there any other way for him to survive? Maybe we'll see.
He, he somehow survived the debt ceiling thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:22]
| Look, he survived this far. He's, listen, he has definitely, definitely exceeded my expectations on survivability.
|
Sam:
[1:15:30]
| Yes. And one explanation I heard from this is the Freedom Caucus folks who could have pulled the plug on McCarthy at the debt ceiling conversation actually did understand the warnings about how serious that would be if we defaulted on our debt and everything people were talking about.
And so they're like, okay, we'll let this one go.
But Then, when we get to the government shutdown time...
That's okay. We don't mind. We've had government shutdowns before and we can live with it. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:07]
| Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I get it. I get their thinking.
|
Sam:
[1:16:12]
| And do we set a new record? Last time was like 30-some days.
We could do that again. We could do more.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:19]
| Sure. Why not? I'm sure.
|
Sam:
[1:16:25]
| And both Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, by the way, have been saying things on social media, whereas part of their – I mentioned they want to defund Jack Smith, but they seem to be implying that a government shutdown would be a good thing because it would stop the special prosecutor?
|
Ivan:
[1:16:47]
| Well, that would be, but yeah, but that's only DC that doesn't impact the Georgia case.
|
Sam:
[1:16:51]
| Well, no, but even there apparently, and I should have looked this up to double check it. But from what I heard earlier today, active investigations are part of the essential government that continues going even in a shutdown.
So they wouldn't actually, it's not like Jack Smith would be like, okay, well, we're going home for until the government opens again.
You know, like the courts are one of the things that continue. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:18]
| So, and so that doesn't help them.
|
Sam:
[1:17:20]
| Yes. Um, so this will be interesting to watch.
Like if McCarthy does manage to pull it out, it will be some of the slickest maneuvering we've seen since what got him elected in the first fucking place to the house, which was, well, I'll say this.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:44]
| Look, I mean, he managed to pull, you know, get the damn dead ceiling done.
|
Sam:
[1:17:50]
| He managed to a get elected in the first place, which looked, which looked hard and took like however many days and however many votes.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:58]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:17:59]
| Then he managed to get the debt ceiling done. So we'll see. Maybe, maybe he'll pull this out.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:04]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:18:05]
| Um, now my gut right now, and I said this last week, but we weren't getting a shutdown, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:18:11]
| I mean, we're getting a shutdown.
|
Sam:
[1:18:13]
| I don't think there's any way that we avoid a shutdown entirely.
The question is just how long is the shutdown right now?
Maybe I'll pull a rabbit out of the hat, but like nobody, nobody right now is thinking we're going to avoid a shot.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:26]
| Maybe it's a squirrel.
|
Sam:
[1:18:28]
| Maybe it's a squirrel, but like the question is how long is the shutdown? How does it exactly end?
and does McCarthy survive whatever gets us out of the shutdown. Now.
If he survives, however he does it, is going to be very interesting.
If he does get kicked out, the whole process of like, okay, well, then who is also going to be incredibly interesting. I feel like it would be, we, we would repeat what we saw in January plus more.
At least that's my gut on it. Like, I don't see like, cause last time around, he finally got to the deal by by getting Matt Gaetz to like, not vote, right?
Matt Gaetz isn't going to do that again.
You know, and who knows where everybody else is going to be?
|
Ivan:
[1:19:19]
| I don't know what they've got offered. I heard something about.
Matt Gaetz. Yeah, running for governor of Florida.
|
Sam:
[1:19:28]
| Yes, yes, that that is what is rumored.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:33]
| Oh, fuck me.
|
Sam:
[1:19:36]
| Now he's got a little bit more time until that governor's race, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:40]
| Oh, come on, man. I mean, the hell it's fucking sure I get, you know, look, I want you know, this is I can't I get like my my own Mitt Romney?
|
Sam:
[1:20:01]
| You know, the thing is with Florida, It looks like it's not just shifting in the Republican direction.
It's really shifting in the MAGA direction. You're fucked. Look, I know that we say that, but look, I know it's still close.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:16]
| Like, I'm looking at the last, the last election, you know, was a big outcome disaster.
And, you know, I mean, turnout disaster, not outcome, right?
Right. You know, I will tell you one thing that Biden did today that fucking helped here. What was that?
He fucking gave temporary status to those five half million fucking Venezuelans.
I'll tell you what, listen, that shit had been killing him down here.
Okay. Not, you know, showing that he was helping those people.
That you know, they're saying, well, you know, I love people, good ammunition, listen, I tell you what, that that's helpful here in Florida because the Democrats will be able to stand up, you know, now at the next fucking house elections and stuff and whatever and go and say, you know what, who gave him fucking status?
You know, Trump talked a good talk. He didn't do shit.
Biden came out and helped him.
So, but Gates, Gates, Gates, oh, I don't know. Oh, you know, go fund me and send them. I don't know.
where can we send them? Maybe we could try one of those Mars rockets.
|
Sam:
[1:21:48]
| Yeah. So I was going to say, also, election graphs, you heard the thing earlier.
My current average for Florida, from polling in Florida for the 2024 election, is Trump by 3.3%. 3%. Now that is a Trump lead.
That is a non-trivial Trump lead, especially when you take into account that historically polls have underestimated the Republicans a little bit, but it ain't like a, by eight Trump by 10 Trump by 12. It's no 10 eight. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:22]
| Yeah. It's not a blowout.
|
Sam:
[1:22:28]
| Trump by three is still close. Trump by three. Like I, I hear people all the time saying it's a waste of time to think about Florida. No, no, it's not.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:41]
| This is stupid. It's stupid thinking. Look, uh, but, but also you, you, did we share a story today on the slack about this or did I see it somewhere about, uh, special elections?
|
Sam:
[1:22:57]
| So, yes, I shared that. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:01]
| And how it's still happening consistently.
|
Sam:
[1:23:04]
| The Democrats keep over-performing, over and over again.
There were two special elections this week, one in Pennsylvania and one in New Hampshire, if I remember correctly.
In both cases, the Democrats significantly over-performed the quote-unquote partisan lean of that district.
Right. And that's been happening over and over and over and over again.
And that's like one of the things that makes you think, you know, and we've kind of moved on from the government down.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:38]
| So politics, whatever, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:23:41]
| Now we're talking election 2024 and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:42]
| Um, but the new topic I chose election 2024. There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:23:48]
| There you go. And so what you're seeing in these cases is the Democrats consistently overperforming, and that's one of the things that makes you think, okay, well, okay, maybe this time around, the polls will be more like 2008, or no, 2016.
Wait, which, yeah, 8, 8, 12. No, 2012. Twelve.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:19]
| Eight and twelve. 8 and 12.
|
Sam:
[1:24:23]
| Yes. In eight, they were spot on. In 12, they underestimated the Democrat.
So maybe it's more like 2012 than 2016 and 2020.
And this time, the polls will underestimate the Democrat. And this kind of thing is one of the things that leads credence to thinking that may be what happens this time around.
And we'll have another wave of things. There are a bunch of elections that happened this November as well, local elections in various places.
And so we'll have more chance to see whether that's happening.
One thing that is also, I don't know if it sticks or not, but I think you mentioned this pattern a week or two ago, Yvonne, that even Republicans Republicans are sick of the crazy.
And so what's been happening is that when Republicans nominate in the primaries, the crazy wackadoodle Republicans, that's when they lose.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:30]
| I mean, I have to believe that's gotta be the case. I mean, anybody who is not a MAGA, because not all the people voting Republican even now are MAGA.
And so when you, you know, when you, when you nominate these crackpots, it's gotta be at some point that listen, and like we've said, you don't need all of them, but if 15% of them are like, okay, I'm not showing up to vote. I can't do this.
I can't vote for this, for the psychopath because they are psychopaths, a whole bunch of them.
|
Sam:
[1:26:01]
| Yeah. Whereas meanwhile, like when, when the Republicans actually have nominated quote unquote normal Republicans, like it, and we're talking in the close States right now, obviously super, super red States are going to be red. No matter what you do, super blue States are going to be blue.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:22]
| No matter what, well like say the Virginia governor guy that, or, or, or Kemp in Georgia, like, right, right, right.
|
Sam:
[1:26:30]
| We had the, we had the, We had the special elections for Senate, both of versus normal Democrats and the Democrats won at the exact same time.
You had Kemp running as a normal Republican against a fairly normal Democrat, and he won.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:47]
| Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all you need. I mean, basically, what they what those guys peeled off is all you need.
You know, and that's the difference between what the hell, the fucking NFL, Hershel Walker.
versus Kemp. Yeah, vote, put in an incompetent buffoon, idiot, rapist.
I don't know how many other things that he did, you know, MAGA idiot, because the guy was an idiot.
|
Sam:
[1:27:23]
| And this is where, you know, frankly, given all of the negatives that people are attributing to Joe Biden, whether it's fair or not, If the Republicans just put up somebody normal, the Democrats would be fucked.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:39]
| I don't know about fucked. It would just be a much tighter race, I think.
|
Sam:
[1:27:44]
| Yeah. Fine. Fine. Well, well, it's tight as it is even against Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:49]
| And actually, here's the problem. The Democrat, I think the Republicans are kind of screwed in the national stage when you're talking about the overall.
|
Sam:
[1:27:56]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:56]
| Yeah. I think that that actually, they're kind of fucked because if they do that, then they're going to have problems with their MAGA turnout.
|
Sam:
[1:28:08]
| Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this is why the Republicans have been acting scared.
And this is why even the people running against Donald Trump don't want to say anything really negative against him, except Christy and Hutchinson, because they essentially know they're fucked either way.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:29]
| You know, no, listen, Chris Christie, I guess Biden is not winning the national election.
|
Sam:
[1:28:38]
| It's just because he loses all the Republicans, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:42]
| It's just that simple.
|
Sam:
[1:28:45]
| He loses all he loses all the mega Republicans and they're not going to go over to Biden.
And so he, right. Yeah. And by the way, we have almost no polling of Biden versus Christie. It's just because I don't know why that is, but I think you're right. Like what?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:02]
| If what about Nikki Haley?
|
Sam:
[1:29:05]
| Same thing. And this is why they're not winning the damn nomination either.
You know, um, which by the way, I've been meaning to mention for a while since we're talking 2024 stuff right now, um, after the first Republican debate, and I guess we're having another one next week, huh? Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:22]
| Oh yeah. Right, because this is the one where Trump is going to do. He is.
|
Sam:
[1:29:27]
| He's going to like Detroit or something, you know, he's going.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:31]
| He's going to go talk to some auto workers, which he's already told.
I don't know how well this is. Listen, let me be clear. Let me chase it.
I expect this to go very badly because he's basically already told them to drop dead and take the deal that the companies are offering.
And they're on strike, and I don't know, this can't go well.
This is kind of going to go like what happened with the Santas trying to go To this place where this murder happened up in Jacksonville and basically what he got is he got booed booed Yeah You know So what I was gonna say is the debate was I guess what a month ago I don't even remember exactly when it was but it is several, you know several weeks ago I guess.
|
Sam:
[1:30:27]
| Yeah. Anyway, about a month, maybe. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:31]
| I think it is close to a month. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:30:33]
| So we had talked about, well, what are the probable, like how will this affect polling?
And I predicted, you know, Trump would stay about where he always is.
DeSantis would fall a bit.
I thought Ramaswamy would get a bump, but it wouldn't last. I thought Haley might get a small bump, but stay in single digits.
Here's what actually happened. I'm looking at the polling. I'm no, not quite.
I'm looking at the polling average on 538. I had been saying, like, Trump has been essentially in the 50 to 55 range ever since April, and it's just, it's bounced around inside that.
Trump hit a new all time high going above 55 for the now it may not last, but he was he was at like I think he was I think he yeah he went above 56 briefly in the 538 average he's down a little bit from that now so he may end up back in the 50 to 55 zone but he was upward trending throughout the last month um DeSantis dropped a little tiny bit but basically he's been flat for Since July, Ramaswamy peaked around the time of the debate and has been heading down since then.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:57]
| Oh, poor thing.
|
Sam:
[1:31:58]
| Yeah. So I was wrong about him getting a bump from the debate.
He was at the top of his bump already.
And Haley has been slightly up, but she's still in single digits.
She's like at five and a half percent right now. And everybody else.
I mean, what about Christy?
Where's Chris 3% Christie's at 3%. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:20]
| So actually they, Haley and Christie are pretty close. Five, 3%. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:32:25]
| Haley's. Okay. Here, here are the numbers. Five 38 hours.
The numbers at five 38 averages as of September 20th, Trump 55.3%.
Running away with it. The Santa's 14.2. Wow. Ramaswamy seven.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:40]
| Thank you.
|
Sam:
[1:32:47]
| Point Oh Haley 5.5 pence 4.7.
Nice Christy 3.0 Scott 2.4 Out Tim Scott, right?
Burgum 0.5.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:59]
| Oh god that yeah, I saw that he's running a national National ads He is literally is running national ads to get try to get on the ballot now Here's the, here's the thing about, yeah, go ahead.
|
Sam:
[1:33:22]
| Oh yeah. Finish up. But yeah, sorry. No, go ahead. I'll add about Burgum later.
Heard 0.4%, Hutchinson 0.4% and Suarez dropped out.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:27]
| Oh, yeah. Our mayor dropped out. This was, we have another scandal with another person in this. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:33:35]
| So tell your, tell your story.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:37]
| Okay. So I, I was watching a football game the other day and they get this This commercial for Bergam came up and I'm like, who the fuck is this?
I was like, why is he running national ad? I mean, is this a local ad?
It's a national, it's a national ad.
The hell nobody's running national ads right now. Right. So I go to his website.
The one thing is that if you look at his website and his positions, I mean, you think that he must've pulled the, he must've found a whole bunch of campaign materials from Jack Kemp.
|
Sam:
[1:34:12]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:14]
| Okay. Back in the nineties and went and created a website based on that.
|
Sam:
[1:34:19]
| Nice.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:19]
| Good job. Okay. And, and, and, and, and it took me a little bit to figure out is this guy Republican because any of the issues that are the MAGA strong issues, no mention them whatsoever on his site at all.
And so, um, it took me a while to chase it down and figure out that he's a Republican governor, I think for South Dakota, I think, or North Dakota, somewhere around there, one of the Dakotas, whatever, you know, no difference anyway, you know, sorry to all of you South Dakota, North Dakota, whatever.
Yeah. I mean, there should be one, just one Dakota really.
Oh, here, here's the thing with the national thing as well, while he's doing it in in order to get on because he had not been allowed on the, uh, at the debate.
And he's doing this in order to try to get the, the, try to meet the requirements for the debate.
|
Sam:
[1:35:18]
| And, and this is despite him paying.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:21]
| Yes. He's paid. He was, he was offering. Yeah. He was offering people payments for, for donations, right?
|
Sam:
[1:35:29]
| Yeah, basically. Cause one of the debate criteria was you had to have a certain amount of money, a certain number of donors.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:35]
| Donors.
|
Sam:
[1:35:36]
| So he was offering people, if you donate $1, I'll send you five, that kind of thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:42]
| You know what?
What the hell, why didn't we do this? I said this guy a thousand dollars.
|
Sam:
[1:35:50]
| I think there were limits. But yeah, like he would only match up to a certain amount of funds.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:55]
| Damn it. I mean, I'm like, look, I'll set a thousand. Give me back five thousand.
OK, we go back. Have a deal.
|
Sam:
[1:36:04]
| But apparently, like you said, it didn't really work for him.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:07]
| Oh, it didn't work at all. No, he did not get under the.
|
Sam:
[1:36:11]
| And he's sitting at half a percent support nationwide. But the thing is, like the whole national advertising and everything else, like if anybody is going to have any fucking chance against Donald Trump, they are going to have to make a break in the early states, you know?
Yeah. That Trump has to show vulnerability in the first few states.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:36]
| Well, now, but that's where people have.
|
Sam:
[1:36:40]
| Unless, unless the trial goes really south of a couple of months later, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:45]
| The one thing is that, uh, full front of, from what I've been reading, you know, I know you're talking about the national polls overall. Yeah.
But I believe that his poll numbers in Iowa are a lot softer than that right now. I think he I understood.
|
Sam:
[1:37:01]
| I thought he was like, I'm looking, I'm looking at them right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
He's not, he's not at 55%, but, and, uh, five 38 doesn't have an actual average.
So I'm just scrolling down and eyeballing things, but he's in the forties. He's in the forties.
Instead of, instead of leading, yo by 50%, he's leading by 30 something percent.
It's still a massive lead, but it is less than the nationally.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:28]
| Right. And I think that that's what a lot of people are putting their eggs in that basket it in order to try to, you know, since that, that lead a smaller and Iowa has been tricky, you know, I mean, for, I was tripped up many of other, a front runner.
Before. Okay. Um, uh, by the way, uh, the Santas and, uh, and Trump went to, uh, they were trying to be men of the people.
So they went to some football games over at, uh, at Iowa. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:38:01]
| And they did some state fairs earlier as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:03]
| Well, well, the, the, the state fairs are a problem. You gotta remember that the college crowd specifically isn't exactly like, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:38:10]
| The young people are not the big fans.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:12]
| Yeah, no, the, the, the, the college crowd, but, but even like, even like the, the, the, the other, you know, you know, college educated people in general are not their forte.
And so, you know, and so, oh my God, you know, they were in there and all that was happening is them getting the finger and like, you know, it was just, you know, it was, it, this is, bad. That's not the place to gather support.
|
Sam:
[1:38:40]
| Yeah. So I next, I going back to a recurring theme next year is going to be crazy.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:54]
| Oh God, it's going to be so fucked up. How can I go? We're working at work.
|
Sam:
[1:38:58]
| Where can I, we got the primaries and then we've got trials and then we got this this and we get that.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:05]
| And like, and meanwhile, like, let's see what, what peaceful country can I move to? Like nearby, it's like a dollar economy, you know, I can get paid.
Like I, you know, I could go, um, you know, it wasn't too bad over in the British Virgin islands.
|
Sam:
[1:39:25]
| Let me tell you, you know, okay, take me moving, moving on up.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:32]
| Well, here, the one thing that was interesting is that it's a tax haven.
There's no income taxes, of course.
I mean, you know, so I could, but of course, you know, being an American, I'm have to be taxed on my global income.
|
Sam:
[1:39:49]
| Now I will, I will mention, you know, and then we'll wrap this up.
You know, we've talked about several of the reasons why we think maybe polls might be underestimating the Democrats this time, or they're all of these headwinds.
You've mentioned repeatedly how incumbents always have an advantage.
And at this time, like a year and a half out, or a year and a quarter out, I guess, at this point. Um, the incumbents often are at their weakest spot and then they start strengthening from here and all this kind of stuff.
Uh, nevertheless, I want to give like, right, right now on election graphs, if you take all of the state polls at face value, like the polling averages at face value.
So not taking into the account that on average, they've underestimated Republicans, all that kind of stuff, you get Biden winning by 14.
That's incredibly fucking close.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:52]
| Oh God, another one of these.
|
Sam:
[1:40:54]
| And in order for him to win by 14, that includes him winning Nevada, where he's a holes by 0.3% and Pennsylvania, where he's ahead by 0.9% at the moment. it.
and then loses Nevada, and then loses Pennsylvania, he's done.
We got a long way to go. Polls will move a lot. If you take into account the 1.3% average underestimation of Republicans, Trump wins by a very slight amount.
If the election was today. The election is not fucking today.
As we were just saying, All kinds of things will happen.
But this is one of the things where, you know, bottom line, like I was saying, if all the polls happen exactly as they do, they never do a bottom line.
It's right now the position with current polling is the race is too close to call, but Donald Trump has a slight advantage.
Um, and so yeah, anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:23]
| And that's your, are you putting us on a positive note though?
|
Sam:
[1:42:27]
| Yeah, sure. Well, again, in less, the polls are underestimating the Democrat.
If the polls are underestimating the Democrat instead of the Republican this time, then Biden may be in a pretty healthy spot. But the best way to look at this is it's still too fucking.
It's still too fucking close to call. Um, and, uh, and, and, and, and for, and this goes back to the beginning of the show to bring things full circle, where we were talking about how some things are hard for us, like news junkies to understand.
We look at everything that's happening and are being like, How is this even fucking close?
You know, you know, like this should be a wipeout.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:17]
| I mean, I don't know why this should be a wipeout.
|
Sam:
[1:43:19]
| I know people have problems with Joe Biden. I know there are people who are more socially conservative and scared of liberals. But I mean, by God, it's fucking Donald Trump.
And look at all this stuff. And it's hard, especially in our liberal bubble.
It's, it's hard to remember that a lot of the things that make us upset about Trump are exactly why a lot of people like him.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:45]
| No, I, I, I, I get that, but I, I, I really think that, look, it all boils down to one thing they like about him. It's something about just.
Yeah, there is. It's a thing of like them sticking it to it.
Do you remember how it was in high school that, uh, guys like us would be like made fun of?
|
Sam:
[1:44:10]
| What? I don't know what you're talking about. I was, I was never made fun of.
What the hell are you talking about? I was, uh, I was the most popular kid in school.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:22]
| And there, and there were these guys of label us as these dweebs, these nerds. I hate these bastards, blah, blah, blah. Are you so fucking smug and smart? Blah, blah, blah.
I mean, this guy channels their inner Biff.
|
Sam:
[1:44:35]
| Yeah. Well, Biff was based on Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:41]
| I mean, well, Biff, well, yeah, Biff in the second movie. That's right. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:44:47]
| In the back to the future. Yes. Back to back to the future too.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:51]
| But I'm talking about Biff too, but not in the first movie. The first movie. He was the high school.
I hate all these know-it-alls, you know, right, right, you know, and that and that that's what he's channeling that that's what he channels and You know all these smug You know Starbucks drinking computer expert You know blah blah blah talking with too many words that I don't fucking understand And, you know, blah, blah, blah, people.
And I just want to stick it to them. Yeah. And I'm like, you're going to stick it to them.
And you're doing, and basically what you're doing is fucking your own self because you have no idea what the hell you're actually voting against.
Because, you know, this has been found out to be true.
When you take out the politics from a whole bunch of the issues that the Democrats are trying to achieve, All these people say, hey, we like all of them.
And you're like, hey, asshole, that's what you're voting against.
|
Sam:
[1:46:00]
| Yes. Time after time, if you pull people on actual issues with a description of do you want government to do X, Y, Z?
They very often strongly support the democratic position.
But if you instead word it with describing it as a democratic Or you say, hey, oh, you know, Obama is for this.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:28]
| Oh, fuck those people.
|
Sam:
[1:46:29]
| Exactly. Like, if you put an RRD next to it, it changes everything.
Or even, it depends which words you use to describe the situation.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:40]
| Oh, god, yes. The words also make a difference.
|
Sam:
[1:46:43]
| Well, and specifically, I'm not just talking about slight differences in the wording of poll questions. I'm talking about if there are Republican ways of talking about things And there are Democrat ways of talking about it.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:55]
| No, no, no. I totally get what you're saying. It's like the one thing that I talked about here in Florida, for example, where DeSantis went and like wasn't doing stuff, funded a billion dollars worth of projects that were to fight climate change, but he didn't call it climate change.
|
Sam:
[1:47:11]
| Right, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:12]
| Resilience. Exactly. And they're all like, yes, that's great. You're like, you idiot.
|
Sam:
[1:47:22]
| Well, and this is the thing that Democrats have to learn, too, is to use that language.
Avoid the words that piss people off.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:35]
| Yeah, I mean, let's not, you know, let's, okay, fine. Let's roll with the wave. Let's not fight it.
I'm with you. I'm with you. I agree that that is a sensible strategy.
if all it takes to turn these morons around is to fucking just change the damn words that you're using because the other guys have made them sound like, uh, you know, socialism would, well, well, okay, because they already, they turned socialism into a bad word itself.
Not even like, you know, because they label socialism shit, you know, that isn't socialism.
And so, so by putting all those words in that category.
Hey, let's change the words. Fuck it.
|
Sam:
[1:48:17]
| Now. Now, of course, they'll start going after the new words you use, but this is.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:23]
| But if you start using their words that you start, you start putting them into really complicated positions. That's what you start doing. You start making it more difficult.
|
Sam:
[1:48:31]
| You just start framing the issues. Well, I'm not saying accept their frame, but use some of their language. Right.
Yeah, I think there's a lot to say there. There's still some tribal stuff.
Like as long as it's, you know, like as long as you mentioned about as long as it's Obama or Biden saying it, it doesn't matter what the fuck.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:51]
| Look, it's like the whole thing with the Affordable Care Act.
I hate Obamacare. I hate Obamacare. I despise it. Whatever evil, evil, whatever.
And like you surveyed everybody. Hey, would you would you vote against this?
No. Would you vote against this? No. Would you go to bed? No, no, no. You're like, you fucking moron.
He just said you love the Affordable Care Act!
|
Sam:
[1:49:11]
| Yeah, once it's Kentucky Care or whatever, then they're fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:14]
| Yes! Fucking hurt these fucking people.
Fucking kill them.
|
Sam:
[1:49:22]
| Not really. Not really. He is not- He is not making a violent threat of any sort.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:27]
| Not really! That's just a saying. Making it in the- No. No. Just saying in the.
Figurative term.
|
Sam:
[1:49:35]
| I think we should wrap it up, Yvonne.
OK, with all of that done and go look at electiongraphs.com for more data.
I'm overdue for a blog post on there again. It's just other things keep come out.
You know, I'm I'm also thinking of flipping it so that the like right now, if you just go to electiongraphs.com, you get the blog first.
I'm thinking of flipping it and you get where you get the maps and stats first instead, and you have to click on the, like who really wants to read what I'm writing anyway, you just look at the maps and the numbers and anyway, uh, and it takes too much damn time to write the damn blog posts. So maybe, I don't know.
Um, I'm, I'm considering what I do there, but I'm overdue for a blog post, but I'm not going to promise one this weekend. Cause whatever, anyway, go to election graphs.com.
Look at the 2024 section. You can see all, all the stuff. Okay.
And otherwise, go to curmudgeons-corner.com.
In order to find out all the ways to contact us.
Facebook, Mastodon, email, etc. We would love to hear from you.
You can also look at all of our old shows. The archives all the way back to 2007 are on there.
And for the last couple months, there have been computer-generated transcripts too. You should read all of them.
And if you want to give us money, you can go to our Patreon.
There's also, you know, a link to that there, you know, I'm not going to give you the Patreon URL. Just go to curmudgeon-corner.com, click through to the Patreon.
You can give us a little money or a lot of money, whatever you feel like.
And if you give us enough, we too will go out, catch some squirrels and pet them. Who's we?
Hey, I have learned over the years, Yvonne, that you are very financially motivated.
I am sure for the right number, you would go pet a squirrel.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:29]
| For the right number.
|
Sam:
[1:51:31]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:32]
| Okay. That's fair.
|
Sam:
[1:51:33]
| You know, yeah. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:39]
| That's fair.
|
Sam:
[1:51:40]
| I mean, and squirrels are cute. Doesn't even, it probably doesn't even have to be that high.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:44]
| They're tough to chase. You know, they're, they're very fast.
|
Sam:
[1:51:48]
| They are fast. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:50]
| You know, not a very easy task.
|
Sam:
[1:51:53]
| I mean, I suppose you could use a trap, but it would definitely be more entertaining.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:57]
| That would be inhumane.
|
Sam:
[1:51:58]
| Well, it depends on the trap. You get it. You don't get one that like chops it in half or something. You get to catch it alive trap.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:06]
| Oh, okay. Yeah, that kind of trap. Okay. That would probably be better. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:10]
| I mean, it would be less fun petting the squirrel after it's dead.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:16]
| Yes, I chopped. I basically made a guillotine trap and I chopped a squirrel in half. Oh yes. Now let me pet you. Yes. That would be, that would be terrible. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:27]
| I can see how that would not sell well, but it would be much more entertaining and we could probably like get money, more viewers to actually have video of you running around somewhere chasing squirrels.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:40]
| Now you see now that might get a whole bunch of views. Yes.
If I'm actually out there and we do a, you know, like a, you know, a clip of me basically chasing squirrels that might get views. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:53]
| With Benny Hill music.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:54]
| Yes. Basically. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:56]
| It has to be the Benny Hill music.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:57]
| That's that's that sounds that sounds brilliant. Actually not.
And you're mentioning it.
|
Sam:
[1:53:02]
| Okay. Well, anyway, if you donate to our Patreon at various levels, we will, uh, we'll mention you on the show. We'll ring a bell. Ring the bell, Yvonne.
There we go, or we'll send you a postcard, we'll send you a mug, all that kind of stuff.
And importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us in any of the other ways we mentioned that you can contact us, we will invite you to the Commudgeons Corner Slack where you can participate in our race to break news and hear all the other stuff we're talking about throughout the week.
So Yvonne, what is something that we talked about under curmudgeon's corner slack, that we have not even mentioned on the show that people would be thrilled and interested by and would want to join the slack because of, well, I'll, I'll mention two things.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:53]
| I think, because I don't think we mentioned last week, Bulbert getting her, we did getting herself felt up at what, what did we mention that she was getting felt?
|
Sam:
[1:54:01]
| Oh, not the felt up part.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:02]
| We, we, we mentioned her getting thrown out, but we didn't mention the, the, that, that Bobert was getting, you know, giving a hand job to the guy beside her and getting her boobs massaged.
Apparently they're not going on a second at the theater so that was one thing that she was doing at the family venue of course.
|
Sam:
[1:54:26]
| And she did it now like you said she is breaking up with him cuz also is a democrat is a democrat who's a co owner of a bar that does drag shows.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:37]
| Amongst other things, so that's, that's, that was one, but the other one is, okay.
Just a quick thing. Uh, the $2 billion Powerball winner is making the worst financial planners, most mistakes, financial planners, warn, warn when people, uh, uh, warn people of after they come into a ton of money.
Okay. So apparently the guy is named Edwin Castro. Not sure where he's from.
Uh, he is buying up California real estate since winning the lottery, including a three story, $25.5 million mansion in the Hollywood Hills.
Um, and he also had purchased another one. Um, he, he also bought a $47 million mega mansion. Okay.
As well earlier. So two LA mansions. I don't know why you want.
|
Sam:
[1:55:31]
| Like, even if you were going to buy two mansions, why buy them near each other?
Like, buy one on the east coast and one on the west coast, or whatever, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:55:40]
| Right! Exactly! Yeah, I mean... bought some very expensive uh...
Uh, Porsche's, uh, you know, as well, um, Lucy, where is the classic ones?
|
Sam:
[1:55:56]
| Not like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:57]
| Um, which I, I, I mean, I, you know, but maybe that sounds good.
|
Sam:
[1:56:02]
| I mean, um, as we, as, as we discussed on the curmudgeon score Slack, yeah, he's making these stupid mistakes, but starting where he is, he, he, he can afford to float, he can afford to blow a couple hundred million before he has to really worry about it.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:18]
| And to be fair, also, these are he's not buying things that aren't don't have any inherent value.
OK, it's not like he went and he didn't put it all into NFTs.
Exactly. OK, or something like that.
So, yeah, OK. Yeah. I mean, you know, so so, you know, you know, he's got that. But yeah, but he's he's he's yeah, because I just noticed the car that he bought actually is not that expensive.
I just saw, you know, Castro also purchased a vintage 9-11 costing 250 grand. And it's not like that.
|
Sam:
[1:56:50]
| That's nothing compared to the houses. But he bought like three of the multimillion.
Like the main point they were making is that like people who come into windfalls like this very often just go on massive sprending sprees, and before they know it, they've blown it all.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:06]
| This guy is doing. I mean, I will say two houses like spending like close to 100 million dollars on houses is to me is insane.
I don't care how much buddy I, I, you come into, I mean, I just, I can't like, I mean, what, what, what, what, what, I mean, what am I going to do with a house? It's that big.
|
Sam:
[1:57:25]
| I don't, I mean, what, I mean, I actually saw Anderson Cooper talking the other day about like, and of course he's like, he's the son of Gloria Vanderbilt, a very wealthy family.
Uh, and he apparently has a new book out on the Astors, another very wealthy family.
And he was talking about how these mega rich families built these mega mansions and then discovered as you know, the, the, the high days didn't last forever.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:53]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:57:55]
| And they were saddled with these huge properties that required staffs of 50, 60, 70 people just to keep them up, you know, And, and these things be, you know, became, uh, you know, weights that look, my experience is, comes a little bit from that, not that size of house, but, you know, you went to visit where our place was in Puerto Rico and it was, it was huge.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:22]
| Okay. and we had about 15 acres, and it required...
About look, I normally kept, you know, people like on a daily basis, about three to four full time staff to fucking keep that place up.
Okay, because there was just no way of taking care of that much, you know, without that. And it's one of the things that soured me on having and the problems.
I mean, everything just, you know, there were, you know, you could never keep the place in full working order.
Anything you fix, something else broke and all the repairs were expensive income and whatever or whatnot. Nothing was, nothing was cheap. Okay.
In any way, shape, or form.
|
Sam:
[1:59:09]
| And I was just, and it was more than you actually needed for your family.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:13]
| Way, way, way, way, way more. We downsized to a house that was, you know, 25% of the size of that place.
not even for God's sake said this has been perfectly comfortable.
My parents have been perfectly comfortable and fine. And I was just like, I, I said, I've never, ever buy anything this big. This is ridiculous.
It's such a pain in my ass.
You know, it's just, I just got soured on, on that idea for the rest of my life.
|
Sam:
[1:59:39]
| Now, of course, like theoretically these like, you know, when you're, when you win the, I mean, he won $2 billion, But after like the lump sum and taxes and whatever, it was like 700 or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:52]
| And, but no, no, no. They said that the lump sum afterwards, it was a $2 billion award. The lump sum was $1 billion. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:59:58]
| And I said, then subtract taxes. Once you subtract taxes.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:02]
| Oh, I thought that was after. No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[2:00:04]
| I thought that was, it went from two to one based on the lump sum.
And then from one to like 700 or something after taxes, if I remember.
Okay. So he's, well, then he's, he's burning through that stuff pretty fast.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:18]
| It hasn't even been a year yet.
|
Sam:
[2:00:21]
| Yeah. So, so what they were saying is, is making all the mistakes that people make in terms of just rapidly spending a whole bunch of money, which came out roughly to be only 628 million after taxes.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:31]
| Yeah. So terrible anyway.
|
Sam:
[2:00:38]
| So if you win that kind of money, be more careful.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:42]
| I will.
|
Sam:
[2:00:44]
| Now, having said that, I will say, Powerball's up to $725 million again, so...
|
Ivan:
[2:00:51]
| Well, I'm going to avoid the taxes.
|
Sam:
[2:00:57]
| There are ways to be smarter.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:59]
| Well, well, the main reason is not because I'm not going to keep all the money I got. Like I said, I said that my first act, I probably go to your charitable foundation instead of to you.
The bulk of it. Yes. We'll go straight into the foundation. So at least we'll get the money without the most of the money without the taxes.
|
Sam:
[2:01:17]
| Therefore, anyway, I've sort of said to myself, like I, people have called lotteries like this, a tax on the mathematically illiterate.
I sort of let myself have fun with one ticket when it gets high enough.
It used to be 500 million, but that happens too often now. So now I think like 750 maybe.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:40]
| 750 is a good number.
|
Sam:
[2:01:41]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:42]
| 750 is a good number.
|
Sam:
[2:01:45]
| So it's slightly under that right now. If nobody wins this weekend, then maybe next week I'll buy it.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:50]
| You get a couple of hundred million at least after taxes and whatnot, you know, I'd be okay with that. I mean, we can figure it out.
|
Sam:
[2:01:57]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:59]
| So after my, after my 5%, I mean, your, your management fee.
|
Sam:
[2:02:04]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:08]
| It's going to manage it. Yes, absolutely. You know, somebody's got to, somebody's got to manage this shit.
|
Sam:
[2:02:14]
| I figure I would just take the lump fee and then, you know, Bitcoin, dogecoin.
Yeah, I don't. No, those are those are too popular. I'd pick some like shit coin that you've never heard of. Put the whole thing on it.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:29]
| I think there is a shit. Wait, is there a shit coin? I thought there was shit.
|
Sam:
[2:02:32]
| There is a shit coin that's actually shit coin.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:35]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:02:36]
| But yeah, yes. Like I put the whole whatever I want.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:39]
| Everything is just a shit coin.
|
Sam:
[2:02:41]
| Exactly. And yeah, you know, I dare you.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:46]
| I think we're done.
|
Sam:
[2:02:48]
| OK, thanks everybody for tuning in yet again. Have a great weekend.
Stay safe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And we'll talk to you next time. Goodbye. Bye. [♪ Music ♪ to end of video ♪, Hey, it worked this time without you having to sing it.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:36]
| I didn't sing it. There you go. Great. Alright. Okay. Alright. Okay, later, bye.
| |
|
