Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:01]
| Hey, for the second week in the row, Sam from the future is here for a little introduction because just a few hours after Yvonne and I finished recording the show, Hamas invaded Israel like major attack with on the ground troops, people using hang gliders, lots and lots of rockets, the whole thing.
And then of course, Israel starts retaliating and going in the other direction and it's blown up to the biggest one of these conflicts in quite a few years.
And as I am starting to sit down to edit, the situation is still incredibly fluid.
Things are still ongoing. Um, uh, no signs of it being over any time soon.
Uh, so anyway, we did not talk about this on this show because it happened after we finished recording.
I am sure this will be a topic of conversation, uh, next week.
I mean, I guess unless something even bigger blows up somewhere in the world, which could always occur.
But, um, anyway, just placing you in time.
That is why we did not talk about this on the show because it hadn't happened yet.
Anyway, on with the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:41]
| Talk again. Hello. Okay. There we go. Matter.
|
Sam:
[1:43]
| Yeah. and you can put that a little further from you why oh I don't know just just a hunch ah she's I mean nothing happened this week I mean, you know, it was a boring week.
|
Ivan:
[2:07]
| Uh-huh.
|
Sam:
[2:09]
| Very. Nothing. Yep. Yep. Nothing.
|
Ivan:
[2:11]
| We're going to, you cut your hair like you shaved. I mean, what the, I mean, you look, wow, you look very clean.
|
Sam:
[2:21]
| Dup is my, uh, once every six months haircut.
Although usually lately I've been waiting one or two years, but I did this one after six months.
|
Ivan:
[2:33]
| Well, I'm like, I mean, geez, I'm like, it's noticeable the difference.
|
Sam:
[2:37]
| Cause cause I have an app now that tells me how long it's been since my last haircut.
|
Ivan:
[2:42]
| Oh, okay. Well, you know, okay. Well that, that, that also helps.
Yeah. I mean, of course now you're actually having to go into the office, so, you know, it probably helps a little bit, you know, even if, even if you don't see anybody, yeah, right.
|
Sam:
[2:59]
| I mean, you know, it just depends, you know, what kind of look I'm going for, like, sometimes I'm looking for, you know, the hermit who's been alone in the mountains for 20 years, you know, and look, let's, let's be clear about this as the company has about what 1 million employees, like basically are close to that at this point as employee number, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[3:22]
| Take your number. What, like what is the number at right now?
|
Sam:
[3:25]
| Uh, I am watching anxiously checking every once in a while to see if I go from 99.88, I'm waiting for it to get to 99.9 and just a few more people have to leave or we have to hire a few more people and I'll get that third nine worldwide.
|
Ivan:
[3:47]
| We have to bump, bump off a couple of people.
|
Sam:
[3:49]
| Okay. This is going to be a problem.
|
Ivan:
[3:52]
| Yes. Bumping off.
|
Sam:
[3:53]
| Right now at all, by the way, because I heard this has been happening since I rebooted.
|
Ivan:
[4:01]
| Can I make, I heard a ding and then, well, no, what's happening.
|
Sam:
[4:04]
| Well, when I first rebooted, I had to keep fighting because, well, they don't call it. I go away, go away. They don't call it iTunes anymore.
ITunes kept just starting.
Like it w it would just start up and then start playing a song and I'd quit it. And like a few seconds later it would do it again.
Now I tune and it did this like four or five times in a row. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[4:28]
| Is there something on my keyboard? Yes.
|
Sam:
[4:30]
| I, I, I don't think so, you know, but, um, now how I've done it.
|
Ivan:
[4:38]
| Like, yeah.
|
Sam:
[4:40]
| And so iTunes is no longer coming up, but now Siri is Siri on the computer, not on my phone.
And when Siri comes up to listen to you, it turns off. off the other side.
|
Ivan:
[4:51]
| No, I can't. Ah, I think, uh, is your keyboard like a battery operated?
|
Sam:
[5:00]
| No, it's a plug in USB wired, no batteries. Oh, there's Siri again.
Can I just turn off Siri? Let's see. Cause I never use Siri on the freaking computer.
|
Ivan:
[5:14]
| You know, I've never used Siri on the computer. I've come on.
|
Sam:
[5:18]
| As say, okay, I'm going to go into settings and see if I can just turn off Siri entirely.
|
Ivan:
[5:25]
| I mean, it's gotta be the keyboard.
|
Sam:
[5:31]
| As far as I know, I don't even have a Siri key set on this thing, but maybe.
|
Ivan:
[5:36]
| OK, Siri and. Well, I don't know. You don't have a Siri key, but I think one of them doesn't one of them do it. I mean, I've.
|
Sam:
[5:42]
| Turned out.
|
Ivan:
[5:43]
| That's not it. No, that's not it. No, that's that does.
|
Sam:
[5:45]
| I've turned off.
|
Ivan:
[5:46]
| Asks you things. Ah, what? What the hell? No, just trying keys at random. See what they do.
|
Sam:
[5:55]
| Turn Siri on and off. OK, well, I turned off Siri.
|
Ivan:
[6:00]
| And so hopefully right, exactly. I just hit a key and I just started music.
Wait, which one? No.
|
Sam:
[6:09]
| OK, well, he turned off Siri, so I turned off Siri, so hopefully it won't happen again.
|
Ivan:
[6:12]
| OK. Sounds great. Very clean, as always.
|
Sam:
[6:23]
| It's because of the hair.
|
Ivan:
[6:24]
| Oh, yes. The hairballs.
|
Sam:
[6:26]
| Yes, exactly. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do after they cut it off, right? You eat it.
|
Ivan:
[6:32]
| Part of the strategy. Yes. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[6:34]
| Have them sweep it off off the floor, put it in a bowl.
|
Ivan:
[6:37]
| Munch sounds.
|
Sam:
[6:42]
| Awful, but anyway, you know, we just add a little salt.
|
Ivan:
[6:45]
| OK, I went to listen. All I'm going to say is that I went to get my vaccine and the guy I asked for, you know, the shingles one, the guy was like, how old are you?
I'm 52. Oh, you don't look old enough for it. I'm like, oh, yes, it's like, you know, it's all I'm saying.
I was like, yeah. I so but anyway.
|
Sam:
[7:08]
| Yeah. Yeah. I expect you'll be carded any moment now.
|
Ivan:
[7:13]
| Doubt it. Now that's not happening. That's not.
Not even, you know, fuck. Not not. No.
|
Sam:
[7:22]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[7:24]
| OK.
|
Sam:
[7:25]
| OK. Do we, do we have a plan now? Can we proceed?
Proceed. Proceed. Precede, prosude, whatever. Oh, what did I do there?
Oh, okay. Nevermind. Here we go. If it works.
Come on. Come on.
The one thing that's been spotty on this Riverside thing is the soundboard.
I realize that I've had I've had to manually insert the soundboard for several episodes Not all the time, but like...
And now iTunes is starting, it's going to play a song. Why is iTunes?
Why is it's not called iTunes anymore. It's just called music, but music.
|
Ivan:
[8:14]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[8:15]
| Okay. Stop. Why? Why is this happening?
Why is this happening?
|
Ivan:
[8:24]
| Ah, try it on plugging the keyboard and plug it. Do you have another keyboard by any chance?
|
Sam:
[8:30]
| Not handy. Well, I could steal one from another computer, but...
I mean, this is the button that would do it.
Stop it!
My computer is haunted! Because it's October or something.
|
Ivan:
[8:56]
| All right, it's the right month for it, yes, indeed.
|
Sam:
[8:59]
| It's like somebody else was using a remote control on it somewhere just to prank.
|
Ivan:
[9:03]
| You know, I, I once pranked some people that I didn't like with a, with a, with a, with a second remote that it, that didn't look like the remote for the TV that I was like, actually it wasn't turbo for the TV I was using.
What happened was that I had a remote that for some reason controlled.
I, one remote control, the TV, the other remote controlled that TV and the other TV randomly for some reason.
|
Sam:
[9:31]
| Okay. Well, I'm going to try to hit, I'm going to try to start it again. Here we go. All right.
|
Ivan:
[9:38]
| All right, let's try again.
|
Sam:
[9:56]
| Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, October 7th, 2023. It is just before 3 UTC.
You can translate that to your own damn time zones. I don't care. There you go.
|
Ivan:
[10:10]
| You don't care.
|
Sam:
[10:11]
| I don't care anymore. Fuck them all.
|
Ivan:
[10:16]
| That's how we're starting to show.
|
Sam:
[10:18]
| Oh, oh, is that bad?
|
Ivan:
[10:19]
| Yeah. Just screw all of you listening. Bye. I see you.
|
Sam:
[10:24]
| Uh, yes.
|
Ivan:
[10:27]
| So any budget is quarter model.
|
Sam:
[10:29]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[10:31]
| Screw all of you. Yes.
|
Sam:
[10:33]
| There we go.
|
Ivan:
[10:36]
| Uh, so the plan, we're going to be building an audience really, you know, I mean, you know what the hell it's like the GOP plan anyway, you know?
|
Sam:
[10:44]
| Okay. The plan we're going to do a, but first, uh, then we are going to do talk about all of the developments in the U S house of representatives.
And then we're going to do one last segment where we each pick a topic and heads up, I'm going to do Trump stuff and Yvonne's going to do something else.
I don't know. So. Uh, b b before we get proper, but first I just wanted to say we did get a feedback this week that was not just people talking on our Slack, right?
|
Ivan:
[11:15]
| Right. Right.
|
Sam:
[11:16]
| This was from our long time listener, Matt. Hi curmudgeons, just listened to two recent episodes. Number one, yes, I've listened to all episodes since you restarted in 2007.
|
Ivan:
[11:32]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[11:33]
| Beautiful handy. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was like, that's this number two.
Unlike Sam, I have brought my coffee mug from the show to work.
Albeit I work at home in my office, but still ended up talking about the show when coworkers asked me about the mug when they saw it in a meeting Um, and three, um, oh, and yeah, I'm thinking maybe, you know, when I have meetings, I should just make sure it's strategically placed in the background.
|
Ivan:
[12:09]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[12:09]
| You know, I hadn't thought of that. Cause my, my, my actual original curmudgeon's corner mug got a little crack in the handle.
So I, I decommissioned it's like off on a shelf somewhere. It's not like being used actively anymore. Um, and I should, I should order myself a replacement, but in the meantime, I I could just like, put it behind me.
|
Ivan:
[12:30]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[12:30]
| I mean, of course, like when I'm working from home, I like, I have several different places.
Well, I really have two main places I do the calls from either from my home office or from my living room.
And, you know, but I could pick one of those and put it behind me and, you know, not that anyone would necessarily ask, but they could, I could get a giant poster of it and put it behind me.
|
Ivan:
[12:55]
| People ask me about, uh, I have a chair behind me and people are, I've had, I've had people ask me about it.
So, um, you know, there, there is this, I mean, there is, well, you know, you, you got, you guys can't listen, but Sam is, uh, uh, uh, yeah, we can't listen.
We guys listening. You can't see, but, uh, you know, we're sharing video right now. And so maybe someday we'll do maybe podcasts, maybe, maybe someday.
|
Sam:
[13:20]
| Yeah. You know, I could, I could just put the unedited versions of these videos on YouTube already, like I, you know, we could, but we could, but there's this, there's that chair that's right behind me.
|
Ivan:
[13:31]
| As you see over there, our listeners. Okay.
|
Sam:
[13:34]
| Our listeners, it's a black chair. Looks like wooden. Looks like it.
Is it a rocking chair? It looks like it's not a rocking chair.
|
Ivan:
[13:41]
| Okay. It, it, it kind of shaped like a rocking chair, but it isn't.
But that chair was purchased either by my grandfather or my father at Purdue University back in 1960 size. Nice.
And so that chair is, you know, and so I wound up going to Purdue and I have that chair and so that chair I purchased was bought by my grandfather, you know, and he because he also went to Purdue.
And so that chair has been around in the family. And, uh...
I've just always kept it there. I don't sit on it that that often.
It's actually a very hard chair. It's very solid wood, I must say. Not the most.
Not the most soft material.
|
Sam:
[14:29]
| I am looking at my background right now, and I can say I have a roll of paper towels behind me.
Oh, so, you know, that's cute. People could ask about the roll of paper towels and stuff, you know.
|
Ivan:
[14:40]
| And so I've got that. So, yeah, I've had it. So so yeah, so that chair, you know.
And so people have asked me about it of a couple of people.
Actually, I wound up look, let me get really, you know, even better.
There was a customer that asked about it, and I mentioned to Purdue and it's a customer based in I think it's Honduras, I'm pretty sure.
|
Sam:
[15:06]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[15:07]
| Told me that he's just had sent this year her his daughter to start University at Purdue University in West Lafayette of all places.
He was like, you gotta be kidding me. I'm like, I just sent my daughter to start studying at Purdue in Indiana.
So that was like very, you know, that was very cool. The fact that, you know, we figured out that, you know, we shared that. So, so there you go. So, so that chair has been somewhat of a talking piece.
So, yes, I mean, that could work if you put them up.
|
Sam:
[15:37]
| Well, I was going to mention that just like, I think it was yesterday.
Maybe it was Wednesday. I don't know earlier this week. Whatever. I lose track of time.
I was working from home and A something that has been a topic of conversation on this show came up Because I usually tilt the camera so it's not visible because I know it would generate questions perhaps Perhaps, but.
Someone on the call on a work call asked about my upside down Christmas tree.
|
Ivan:
[16:09]
| Oh, shit.
|
Sam:
[16:11]
| And I'm like, Yep, that's an upside down Christmas tree.
|
Ivan:
[16:15]
| And what time of the year was it?
|
Sam:
[16:17]
| It was yesterday or the day before.
|
Ivan:
[16:19]
| Right. And it's like, so it's October.
|
Sam:
[16:21]
| It's October.
|
Ivan:
[16:21]
| So so they say, Wait, you've got the upside down Christmas tree.
|
Sam:
[16:26]
| And no, they just said, Oh, OK.
|
Ivan:
[16:30]
| Yeah, they were wise enough to say, okay, let me stop this right now.
|
Sam:
[16:36]
| They're like, is that a Christmas tree? And I'm like, yep, it's an upside down Christmas tree.
Because I had the lights on as well. Like it wasn't for God's sake.
|
Ivan:
[16:48]
| You know, I'm getting angry with people, you know, about, you know, I mean, I already got like pissed off and somebody was like fucking putting Christmas lights in September, like at the entrance of one of them.
You know, you know, hope, you know, communities around here.
And I'm like, Jesus Christ, it's September.
|
Sam:
[17:07]
| Well, see, I just have all the lights on in the living room, including the tree hooked up to Alexa. So when I say turn on the living room lights, the tree turns on the tree.
|
Ivan:
[17:16]
| Yes, yes, yes.
So I okay.
|
Sam:
[17:25]
| All right Anyway, so Oh, oh, we were still in the middle of Matt's email.
Um, yeah, sorry We had we had briefly mentioned as well Action Park in New Jersey, and he said yes He says number three Action Park was a place I went to lots of times as a kid even got hurt there on the Alpine slide in a memorable accident I saw the documentary to everything in the dock was absolutely true. That place was insane.
|
Ivan:
[17:52]
| Yes. Yes. Everything that I've heard about that place, I've not watched a documentary.
What I did was there were a bunch of people in a podcast talking about it.
They had talked about they had talked about the place before the documentary.
And, you know, he said they watched documentary and said, Oh, yeah, that's just the place was just there.
|
Sam:
[18:12]
| There have actually been several documentaries over the years.
Like there's one on YouTube from like at least 15 years ago, but there was a new one that came out like last year or something, but this one, I, yeah, this one was one that was like on HBO max or something. Yeah.
That's the new one. That, that one was from 2022.
|
Ivan:
[18:29]
| Maybe, um, I'm looking it up or as they called it a class action park.
|
Sam:
[18:34]
| Yes. Yes. Um, uh, class action park, uh, was from 20. Wait, no.
Streaming now on HBO Max. When was this from?
|
Ivan:
[18:51]
| It had to be 2021 2022. Yeah. No, August 2020. I was 20.
|
Sam:
[18:53]
| Okay. Was was class.
|
Ivan:
[18:56]
| I saw was I get even better. What do we were, you know, we were in covid.
We were locked out of like, well, what the hell are we going to watch? Oh, you know?
|
Sam:
[19:06]
| Yeah, but there's like one. There have been other documentaries going back years and years and years.
Like, um, you know, back to when it was still freaking open, I think, you know, Jesus.
Um, yeah, here's the 70.
I don't know. I can't tell, but there have been multiple. This is just the newest ones. And I think this new one was the most comprehensive of them.
|
Ivan:
[19:32]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[19:32]
| But anyway, that's all I got. You got it.
|
Ivan:
[19:37]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[19:39]
| Thanks, Matt. Matt, uh, we love hearing from you whenever you pop in.
Um, okay. So Yvonne, you got, uh, you got a, but first that's something that people would actually care about.
|
Ivan:
[19:49]
| I mean, all I was going to probably talk about was that I, and I mentioned this to you on the, on the Slack was about getting all these, uh, boosters and vaccines like right now. So, uh, right.
|
Sam:
[20:03]
| I did.
|
Ivan:
[20:08]
| I went and i got it first just because of a scheduling thing i was going to ask my my wife see she wanted to go but i was like i dropped off.
Man with school and i knew that i had some time during the day to go.
And the pharmacy is like right right by the house like a mile you know not even so i was like let me just go over there and like.
Get it, uh, get it done. And I actually had a question because I tried to schedule one for Manu online, but it wouldn't let me schedule his.
|
Sam:
[20:40]
| Cause he was too young.
|
Ivan:
[20:42]
| Well, he's not as a problem.
|
Sam:
[20:44]
| Well, he's not too young for the vaccine, but they have like a different set of rules for like, if you're under 18 and you have to have your parent co-sign and blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[20:54]
| Well, I'm the one scheduling it for him. So I was scheduling, well, they let me schedule the flu one.
Okay. And so I was like, OK, so they told me, look, just schedule the flu.
One of you mentioned that what the covid one we can get both done at the same time. And so, I mean, I went first.
The thing is that I had I the past couple of years, I've been meaning to get the shingles vaccine, but I kept I'm like, ah, I don't want to do it at the same time as a covid or flu, whatever.
So I put it off and I'm like, fuck it. Look, I'm going to have to just bite the hell with this. OK, you know, I'm just going to get all three.
Get this over with because I keep putting off the damn shingles vaccine.
And look, I've I've met people that have gotten shingles.
|
Sam:
[21:35]
| I've gotten shingles. I had a few years back. we've talked about, but yes, but, but.
|
Ivan:
[21:42]
| I mean, you were under 50 at the time. I don't know how bad it was for you.
|
Sam:
[21:49]
| It it was it was not as bad as it could be, but it had me pretty badly out of commission for like a week or something.
|
Ivan:
[21:56]
| Well, I met this guy that got it after he was 50. OK, which is the one thing that they say, and it was debilitating for months.
OK, it was bad. It was bad, bad, bad. I mean, it was just. I mean, he told me the story, how bad it was. This is brutal.
OK, this wasn't just a week thing. It was a month, multi month thing where he was like debilitated like that.
He you know, he had to get a leave of absence from work. It was so bad.
Yeah. And so I'm like, you know what? I'm like, I don't want to.
But yeah, there's a vaccine. I don't want to do this. So I but I kept putting it off. And so finally I went and I got the the the the shingles one together with both.
I mean, I felt some effort.
I mean, I felt some discomfort, I'd say mostly yesterday.
Later in the afternoon, because I got it in the morning.
But it was OK, so I scheduled today to go back and get my son's vaccine and and my wife's and.
Well, one was more scared than I expected. Hmm, but but his coping mechanism was to sing okay out loud Gosh it was It was a song that I didn't even know he knew Okay Gosh, I can't remember what the heck it was But but man, he was singing it clear as a bell.
And so what he did is he sat down and started singing it loud and you know, that called himself down and he got the shots.
So I'm like, OK, we'll sing it. I mean, that's new, but I believe it works.
You know, if that's a way to relax and, you know, I've got, you know, I have a brother, my oldest one, who as far as I know, I don't know if I haven't asked again if lately, but I remember that at least until he was 18. Thank you.
If he ever had a, uh, uh, a needle or drew blood, he would pass out.
|
Sam:
[24:05]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[24:06]
| I mean, but hard. Okay.
|
Sam:
[24:08]
| My daughter does that. They have to, we have to warn the, the medical people like, okay, yeah, she's going to pass out, just be prepared.
|
Ivan:
[24:17]
| And so, yeah, so my, my oldest brother is the same damn thing.
I look, I still remember that.
Well, my oldest brother, well, yeah, he's, he's close to 300 pounds.
Okay, all right, so he's not light. Okay, so I remember that.
|
Sam:
[24:32]
| Oh, yeah, so you want him sitting down, right?
|
Ivan:
[24:34]
| Okay, because this happened. I remember when we were like went to he was like 20 The first time I remember like seeing this because it happened when he was little but then he was getting Hi, he was getting his booster shots to go to college Okay, and so he goes to the pediatrician to go do this who was who was who was related to us So his family is like cousin of my, my parents would go there and, uh, he mentioned something, but wasn't clear about it.
And I think we were in a waiting room. And so he gives him the shot and all of a sudden this massive.
80 year old, the way he's about 280 pounds just collapses on the floor.
And she's like, and of course, you know, and remember, she's kind of like a distant nephew. So she's opening the door and saying, Help, help.
It was a complete mess. But fortunately, none of that happened.
We got everything. I, you know, this week, you know, I mean, a lot of people have been getting it.
I mean, there were I mean, it was busy. I, you know, because I've been to the pharmacy recently. I haven't seen a lot of people getting vaccines, but definitely the campaign to raise awareness and to get people to go, uh, definitely had gotten a lot of people to be present.
|
Sam:
[25:53]
| There, there was definitely, I was like surprised that I was like, I mean, there was like, I've heard it in some places, people have had trouble getting it because they've run out of stock.
And so they've had to go to multiple pharmacies and stuff like that.
I think that's easing up a little bit now, but like for a while, people were like having to like call a whole bunch of places and find who was in stock.
|
Ivan:
[26:13]
| Well, that's why I didn't go at first, because I was going to make sure there was stock or whatever.
I waited a little bit, but yeah, I mean, there was, they didn't didn't run out, but there's a lot of people, there's a lot of people getting it.
And then I'm still like, just surprised by the stupid, I mean, it's just every time it happens, the stupidity that surrounds some of this, you know, that this week, a couple of sports figures, one that was famously a couple of years ago, lied about his vaccination status in a press conference where he said, uh, he coyly said, have you been vaccinated?
And he said that I'd been immunized. Oh God.
|
Sam:
[26:46]
| To be.
So he drank bleach or something, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[26:51]
| Yeah, some bullshit, whatever. And by the way, I mean, he he was one of the guys that was.
|
Sam:
[26:58]
| By the way, anybody listening? Do not do not drink bleach.
|
Ivan:
[27:02]
| It's poised, clarified. OK, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[27:05]
| That will not work out well for you.
|
Ivan:
[27:08]
| So this is this was Aaron Rogers, who was one of the guys that was actually up for replacing Alex Trebek as host for.
|
Sam:
[27:16]
| He was one of the guest hosts. They did like a lot of those people didn't have a serious shot.
|
Ivan:
[27:20]
| But yeah, but he was but he was actually he was one of the ones.
He was one of the ones. OK, that was that seriously.
And, you know, it turns out he's a moron, OK?
You know, it turns out he's a complete fucking conspiracy. Gook, moron, whatever.
Yeah, it's just, you know. And yeah, he said he was immunized as bullshit.
That he just did some I, you know, prepared my immune system and whatever.
And, you know, it was all bullshit.
And so, um, one of the other, uh, players, it's gotten a lot of publicity lately because, I mean, look, I, I, I'm going to full disclaimer the other day, there was a Taylor Swift, uh, themed workout where I work out.
I knew one song. Okay. And I have heard more of Taylor Swift lately because she has been dating this very famous football player.
|
Sam:
[28:17]
| This whole thing.
|
Ivan:
[28:18]
| Okay. Go ahead. So you see, so you even you've heard this. Okay. It's all over the place.
|
Sam:
[28:23]
| I guess I know about Taylor sweet Swift Taylor Swift. And what is it?
Kelsey Kelsey grammar. No, no, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[28:31]
| Travis Kelsey. Not that looks way, but a lot, a lot, a lot better.
Look at the Kelsey grammar. Let me tell you. Okay. And so, you know what, look, he got paid as a, you know, he was doing ads for Pfizer, you know, you know, showing, you know, him getting vaccinated and, you know, he was he was doing ads.
And this guy went on TV and started mocking the other guy as Mr. Pfizer.
And it was a mock. It was it was Mr. Mr. I'm going to be nice.
He was mocking him, you know, for it. And, you know, I he was asked about it in a press conference today. And I will say that.
Considering my disdain for this other guy, I'm I don't think I could have been as polite as he was about it. OK, but, you know, he said that, you know, and he's sincere. Look, I look, it was hilarious. It's a good it's a good shot.
And given how smart he is, he says, well, you know, I mean, I don't know why he's you know, talking about me.
I know I'm with Pfizer. You know, he's over there with Johnson and Johnson.
And I'm like, I didn't catch it for one second. What do you mean?
I didn't realize that Woody Johnson, who is the owner of the New York Jets, is of Johnson and Johnson family.
|
Sam:
[29:52]
| Money. OK, OK. OK.
|
Ivan:
[29:55]
| I, I, I, man, I don't know how that, which is went over.
I am like, and he knew, I mean, and so everybody, a few people said, man, and he definitely just went and like, just flicked it back out out of Mr.
Hey, Mr. Tim. Well, you know, I'm with Pfizer. He's with Johnson and Johnson, you know, whatever. So he threw it back at him. But but the one thing that it's just to make sure is like he said, look, and which I think was the better, more important part was how he clearly articulated.
You know, that I did this not just for myself, but for those around me, for my family, it's important to get vaccinated.
And I stand by my decision 1000% and encourage everybody to do it, which, by the way, a lot of famous people just won't stand up and say flat out, yeah.
You know, and, you know, one thing he said is like, damn it, I didn't realize I was going to get myself to the Vax Wars. But you know, here I am here. I'm taking a stand. don't like it, you know what?
So, so yeah, so I, I was just very appreciative that he decided that, uh, he very definitely had handled it. He, you know, he didn't call the guy a fucking moron or something or whatever, but was actually.
Had far had a way better slam against them than I could have ever come up with him and made the case for people to get vaccinated. So, oh, there you go.
Go get your vaccines. Go get your flu shot.
|
Sam:
[31:21]
| Yes, absolutely. I am scheduled for Monday and my son is scheduled for Tuesday.
We had done the thing like at first when it first became available.
Um, you know, we were trying to coordinate for like the whole family to go in together and we were like, should we just try to do a walk-in on someplace that has a walk-in, you know, and all this.
And the just coordinating for all of us to go at the same time just was not happy. It just was not happening.
|
Ivan:
[31:53]
| Like, so that's why, that's why we had to go. Yeah. That's why I got them one day.
|
Sam:
[31:59]
| And yeah, so like a couple, a couple of weeks passed And eventually I'm just like, screw it. I'm going to make an appointment for me.
I'm going to make an appointment for Alex. I'll let my wife do her own.
Let my daughter do her own. Right. Um, but basically say, cause, cause like just getting it on the calendar. Yeah. Like it's going to happen now.
Like I I'm going to make sure like Friday we have an appointment. I'm not Friday, Monday.
I have an appointment. There's a specific time I'm supposed to be there Tuesday.
My son is supposed to be there at a specific time. We did it.
We made the appointments at a drugstore that's like half a mile from our house on that we pass like multiple times a day, every day.
And so, you know, we will make it happen as long as it was a, hey, let's just all go in together and drop in and see if we can do a drop in.
It just wasn't happening.
|
Ivan:
[32:49]
| And by the way, the one thing is that the reason why I look, I mean, sure, I was glad that I did do the the appointment because I'll tell you, I mean, like I said, there was it was busy.
It was busy, busy, busy, big time, OK? It was definitely quite a lot of people to it. So, so I encourage everybody to go and, uh...
And get vaccinated, not immunized. Yes.
|
Sam:
[33:14]
| Well, I mean, it does. It's the same, you know. But yeah, yeah.
But the fact that they were using the different word meant that they were trying to like weasel out of.
Yes. You know, actually saying that they did it because they probably did not.
But they did. Because they probably did some bullshit woo thing that has no medical value.
|
Ivan:
[33:36]
| But yeah, yeah. Basically, yeah, it was some. Yeah, but yes, that's exactly what he did.
|
Sam:
[33:42]
| Right. Yes. I mean, I joked about the bleach, but you know what the hell?
He's taking the horse dewormer or something. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[33:49]
| Like for for all we know.
|
Sam:
[33:51]
| Or or he's just like, I took my vitamins today, so I'm good.
|
Ivan:
[33:55]
| If I remember correctly, it was some kind of combination of some vitamins and some Middle Eastern bullshit, whatever that he claimed, you know, whatever.
And by the way, the reason why he found out he wasn't vaccinated is because he wound up getting covid. And then it came out that the reason he was like under some protocols and separately was because he would never, never got vaccinated. But not that I mean, a lot of a lot of people got COVID, including me.
|
Sam:
[34:18]
| But but the one thing is that even if you're vaccinated, it doesn't stop you from getting it. It doesn't stop you from transmitting.
|
Ivan:
[34:25]
| Yes. Even if you're vaccinated. But but he was but he was sick for you.
He was sick for quite a while. Let's put it to you that right. Okay. What he got it.
|
Sam:
[34:33]
| So yeah, what we've learned about this generation of vaccines is it doesn't stop you from getting sickness.
It doesn't stop you from catching it. It doesn't even stop you from transmitting it. But it means that if you get it, it will be much less severe than it would be otherwise in most cases.
|
Ivan:
[34:51]
| And even like I said, it's not like somebody what you called.
It's like the Swiss cheese model of yes.
Yes, it may not. It's not it's not it's not perfect protection, but it's it's better than it's definitely better than going without it and it's definitely makes it that.
Even if you transmit it, you're not going to transmit it for as long or as powerful because the yeah, what should we call it? The concentration of the viral load makes a big difference as well.
|
Sam:
[35:18]
| Yes, it does. And so and one of the reasons to talk about this now, let me shift to mine. And I was going to just say we talked about everything.
Let's move on. But I'll talk about a little bit more COVID stuff, because what the hell?
|
Ivan:
[35:30]
| Oh, I forgot to mention, which I was. What? And I don't want to skip this one.
|
Sam:
[35:34]
| OK, go. And then I'll do mine.
|
Ivan:
[35:37]
| Look i don't i don't think i mentioned it but about a month ago a few weeks ago in columbia one is cousins father died from covid.
Now he was. Use older i mean it is late sixty seven ease and if i remember correctly he had been a very heavy smoker.
Most of his life and you know that wasn't.
Now now he was not having any.
He wasn't sick at that time but but the smoking at the end of the things is that this is the kind of stuff that.
Leaves you more exposed to it's a it's a risk factor if you've been a heavy smoker all of your life right and so yeah we keep it we act like well this is overlooked yeah so he passed away a few weeks ago from well and this is what I was gonna start talking about is that we deaths are nowhere near where they have have been, but we are in another wave right now in the U S there.
|
Sam:
[36:52]
| The cases have been increasing, uh, across the country.
Uh, people that have been hospitalized is increasing quite a bit.
There are some, there are some hospitals are under a little bit of strain.
|
Ivan:
[37:03]
| I had nobody that I was meeting that just told me that they can't go to the meeting because they're there, they're there, they got COVID. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[37:09]
| So the, you know, again, nowhere near the waves we had before, at least right now, but there's definitely another wave happening.
There are a lot of people getting it. So the question of like, you know, like some hospitals are once again, mandating masks.
Now, hospitals is one of the weird ones. Like I can understand other places, but like, it seems like if anything, we should have learned that the hospital should have always been masked all the time, but they drop it.
They dropped the requirements even in healthcare settings. And I'm like, of all places to keep a mask mandate.
|
Ivan:
[37:46]
| A hospital!
|
Sam:
[37:48]
| Or even just a doctor's office where you got people who are sick coming in.
|
Ivan:
[37:52]
| I agree. I mean, yeah, I agree. I'm like, look, you're coming in.
I mean, yeah, I mean, yes, that, that, that is a hundred percent.
|
Sam:
[38:03]
| Um, now I'll tell you like, you know, I probably held on longer than a lot of people to masking, but even me, I, I rarely mask these days.
I'll tell you where I am. Like what I did when I first went back to the office, when they started coming, I took one of those little portable CO2 monitors and I carried it with me everywhere I went for like the first month I went there and I sort of learned the patterns because you know, and the reason they do co2 is it's not like a COVID detector or anything like that.
But it tells you where the air gets stale.
And the places where the air gets stale are places where if somebody there had COVID, then it's very likely that COVID would be accumulating and linger there.
And you probably don't want to be breathing that air unmasked.
And so what I found out, at least in the office building that I'm in, is most of the common areas are very, very well ventilated.
You know, like all of the big spaces, the places in between rooms where, you know, sort of the, you know, but all of that is almost always really good, well ventilated, whatever HVAC system they have is doing a really good job turning around the air.
But the one place that isn't is.
A conference room with the door shut.
|
Ivan:
[39:34]
| Yes, I can imagine. Yes.
|
Sam:
[39:36]
| And basically, if you go into a conference room that it might be okay, if you've got like one or two people, it'll be okay for a little while.
But if you have a conference room with a bunch of people in it and they close the door, those CO2 rates start going through the roof really quick.
I mean, um, not, and there are certain rooms that were worse than others that I noticed. Uh, but even the best rooms sort of start, start getting to the area where they're like, yeah, this CO2 is no good. Like after about 15 minutes.
Um, and so basically where I started going, like at first I was, you know, at first I was wearing the mask all the time anyway.
I sort of said, okay, like all of these common areas are pretty good.
I'm not getting near people because it's, it's not like it's now, despite this return to work mandate, it's never been crowded at my place of employment.
So I'm like, if I'm in these common areas and I'm not near anybody, I'm fine. I'll, I'll go on mass.
|
Ivan:
[40:43]
| Well, let me ask you a question prior to COVID, was it crowded?
|
Sam:
[40:47]
| A lot more than it is now. It's still, I'd say compare. I mean, it varies by day of week, But compared to, like I had worked in the same building, not right before COVID, but I'd been in the same building a few years earlier.
And I'd say compared to its pre-COVID occupancy, on the most crowded days, when somebody has scheduled an event and asked everybody to come in, maybe it gets to 50% of what it was.
Normally it's a lot less than that.
That's even with, okay, well, yeah, so, but anyway, the point is, so I, the common areas I would go without a mask and then I would, I would mask in the conference rooms, but honestly, more recently, I just avoid the conference rooms unless I really have to be there or it's like, um, uh, yeah, or it's not very many people and we can leave the door open and that kind of stuff.
So like, I'm not usually masking there anymore, but I try to avoid the situation.
And I guess my basic, at this point, I mask if I'm in a crowded space, that's when I mask.
Like, and that includes like, you know, I got looser on like grocery stores and I've gone to in-person restaurants more than I did and blah, blah, blah. Cause you know, it is much, much, much lower prevalence than it used to be. It just is.
Uh, and so it seems, it seems like that's fine, but I will still like if I get someplace that is crowded, I'm putting that mask on.
That's where I am at this point. But now that we're, everyone's talking about, well, we're in another spike. I'm, I'm wondering, you know, I'm, I'm seriously thinking about wearing it more than I have been the last few months.
|
Ivan:
[42:39]
| And I've seen a lot more people wear a mask lately.
|
Sam:
[42:41]
| I'll tell you, you know, interestingly enough, you're seeing that in Florida.
I'm, I'm not seeing that very much here. And, and during the big part of the pandemic, it was the reverse, right? Like here, we masked for a lot longer than you guys did in Florida.
But right now I I'd say like, it's very rare for me to see a mask in public.
|
Ivan:
[43:01]
| I mean, I saw people at the pharmacy today that were masked.
|
Sam:
[43:03]
| Yeah. Well, and that that's that's another one of those places where you expect six sick people to be.
So, yeah, I will probably mask if I when I go get my shots.
|
Ivan:
[43:13]
| I saw, you know, I saw I've seen a few people like lately. So. All right.
|
Sam:
[43:19]
| So I will say, I will say, and then wrap up. My son is still absolutely religious about this. He will not go out in public without a mask.
He is insistent on that. He wears it to school. He's probably the only kid in school wearing a mask, but he will not consider taking that thing.
|
Ivan:
[43:37]
| Listen, I don't think that what he's doing is crazy.
|
Sam:
[43:40]
| Look, I mean, I'm not telling him. No, I'm not encouraging him not to. No, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[43:44]
| The one thing is that, look, Look, as I've mentioned before, when I traveled to Asia, I mean, you know, at least a third of the people that I went by in public were masked up. Yeah.
Man, I remember boarding a flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai and half the people were masked up. And this was way before, no COVID at all. Right.
I mean, this is, we had no idea. So.
|
Sam:
[44:10]
| I mean, it's just, it changed the culture there permanently.
|
Ivan:
[44:14]
| And frankly, like, I don't think it would hurt, you know, they, that, that was from SARS and it changed the culture there permanently.
And over here, all we do is like beat each other up about it.
|
Sam:
[44:26]
| Yeah. I wish it had changed the culture more permanently here.
Like I think the, the, the, what should just be standard is.
Crowded places, healthcare settings.
And if you personally are sick in those three scenarios, you should be masking always like COVID or not.
It's something we should have learned and internalized from this, but instead it became a big deal where even like I was going to say for a while it was the big politicization, but at the end of the day, like even Joe Biden and everybody was like so anxious to, okay, everybody's back to normal now, you know? So, well, yeah.
So anyway, okay. I think we're done with the, but first, but I, we're, so we will take a quick break and then we will come back for the, but second and third and, but third, I sometimes call them that I sometimes make up other names.
It all depends. Um, so let's see if the breakie thing works. Here we go.
|
Ivan:
[45:30]
| Breaky breaky.
And there you go.
|
Sam:
[46:17]
| You know, I, I still have, there's some, some phrases that we used in an episode a few weeks back that I really still want to make a song out of.
I was going to do it with Alex, but he doesn't, he doesn't appear to be interested in doing that anymore. So I might just have to do it myself one of these weeks to get that ready.
It's just like some things that we said to each other and it sounded a little weird, even on the podcast, but like, if you, if you take clips of that and do some stuff with it, it sounds cool.
|
Ivan:
[46:47]
| So I was like, it should do that, but, you know, this is, you know, I, I, you know, there, there's still that, I mean, how long is that super cut of me swearing?
|
Sam:
[46:56]
| It's like eight minutes long.
|
Ivan:
[46:57]
| Now we could chop it down to like a minute. It just put that as a break.
|
Sam:
[47:04]
| There, there you go. Yeah. The original was way too long. That was for anybody who hasn't heard it.
Um, it's in episode four Oh five, we originally thought it was episode 400, but I miscounted it's an episode four Oh five.
If you want to go look at it. And it is a super cut of all the swearing from the previous episode, episode four.
|
Ivan:
[47:28]
| Um, you know, it turns out if you guys have noticed that I can get, you know, I haven't measured it lately.
|
Sam:
[47:36]
| But at least for that episode, I mean, it was happening very frequently between the two of us, there was at least one swear word every 45 seconds.
If I remember my statistics, right. Some something like I did all the counting.
I like, you know, took the whole episode, counted every occurrence of every swear word, did the math, blah, blah, blah, made the supercut.
It was exciting. But yeah, exiting, exiting.
|
Ivan:
[48:02]
| Yes. Woo.
|
Sam:
[48:05]
| Yeah. So, anyway, I don't want to do that again. And you know what, people?
I will add that to the end of this episode.
|
Ivan:
[48:16]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[48:18]
| After the theme song and everything, we will put like the super cut clip, including the little intro and outro I did from it like way back when.
That was years ago. Now it's a long time ago, but I'll put it at the very end of this episode when I put the episode together. So stay tuned after the outro for that.
And on the other thing, like, you know, I want to make another song, but the problem with all this stuff is like, Or just more breaks in general to like swap out some of them.
But the problem is it takes time. It takes sitting down and doing stuff.
|
Ivan:
[48:50]
| I mean, this damn job. I mean, I know I get it. Look, like we've said before, look, where is the power ball right now? Jesus, I got it.
|
Sam:
[48:59]
| It's at like one point four billion, something like that.
|
Ivan:
[49:02]
| Look, either you get right.
|
Sam:
[49:04]
| You know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I won.
I bought like the ticket the other day. I got I spent $40.
I won 16 that's not bad well of course that was I actually have bought it like the last three times in a row and that's the only one I won so it's more like I I spent more than that to win the $16 actually because you know we talked a few weeks ago like my new rule is if it's above 750 I'll buy a damn ticket and of course I max out what you can buy in And one, listen, you're, you're, you're almost like this.
|
Ivan:
[49:39]
| I was hearing some guy talking about this NFT thing.
They were talking about one of them about the about the NBA, NBA top shot one, and they were mentioning how, well, I wound up with like, you know, nine, nine figures. I'm like, wow, millions.
I mean, holy shit. It's like, well, I started with ten figures.
|
Sam:
[50:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[50:02]
| So, you know, yeah. Anyway, I don't like that kind of address.
But anyway, so we're all right with the house the house which house your house my house, What happened at the house, Sam? What happened at the what happened in Congress?
|
Sam:
[50:18]
| Oh, not not my house.
|
Ivan:
[50:20]
| Not your house, not your house. We got a dog barking. Or as I can tell.
|
Sam:
[50:28]
| Yeah, there is.
Anyway, no. Well, I put a little note at the beginning of last week's show that after we recorded before I edited and put together, we funded the government.
There's no government shutdown.
That's what happened, right? Massive success. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[50:49]
| Briefly, briefly.
So basically, well, wait, what am I saying? Well, no massive success and massive success. If you think about it from one perspective.
|
Sam:
[51:01]
| Yeah. Well, look, here's the deal. And I said I said this in the part I inserted last week.
McCarthy did. I almost said Paul Ryan there. McCarthy, because deja vu of all these other guys.
He did what was the inevitable end point of this all along. We said this on the show weeks and weeks ago.
These things always end with almost all the Democrats plus a few Republicans agreeing to, at the very least, kick it down the road a little bit, which is what they did this time.
They kicked it- 45 days, 45, not exactly like, not a lot of time, not a lot of time, but, uh, but they, they pushed it out a month and a half or whatever. And, Um.
But this is how it always had to end. The only question was when.
Everybody was thinking that they would go ahead and do the shutdown, and then McCarthy would use that to prove, hey, look, I have no other choice, I've tried everything else, and so I'm going to do the Democrats and we'll do this thing.
But he got to that point where he was like, fuck it, I'm done, I don't want to shut it down at all, even for a little while, and this is all the way out there. And one important thing, though, he did not talk to the Democrats before he did it.
Normally, when this has played out before, there have been conversations and they do something and it worked.
He just, boom, put it on the table, no warnings to the Democrats, said, here's your clean continuing resolution, we're voting on it now.
And of course, the Democrats were like, okay, well, here's the thing.
They, at first, they were like, ho, ho, ho, we got to read it.
|
Ivan:
[52:58]
| We got to read it. We got to read it.
|
Sam:
[52:59]
| We got to read it. Give us a couple hours. And, um, Hakeem Jeffries actually did something where apparently the opposition leader or whatever has more freedom to talk or whatever. So he, he, he gave like an hour-long speech.
The whole purpose of which was to give other people on the Democratic side time to read the damn bill.
Because like they didn't want to take McCarthy at his word that this was a clean continuing resolution.
And by the way, for anyone who doesn't know what they mean by clean continuing resolution, is that it really is just saying continue at current funding levels, and we're not doing anything else here.
|
Ivan:
[53:42]
| We're not, we're not slipping in, you know, we're not slipping in like a poison pill.
|
Sam:
[53:49]
| They call poison pills like if they had slipped in something that said, um, we're immediately like making abortion illegal across the entire country.
|
Ivan:
[53:58]
| Exactly. Shit like that. Whatever.
|
Sam:
[54:00]
| So, you know, which sometimes people do, they try to slip in the poison pills and blah, blah, blah. So they wanted to make sure there was nothing like that in there.
As soon as they verified that there wasn't, then it passed overwhelmingly.
I think there was one Democrat who didn't vote for it.
Meanwhile, a bunch of Republicans did vote for it as well.
|
Ivan:
[54:19]
| A lot of Republicans did.
|
Sam:
[54:21]
| There were 90.
|
Ivan:
[54:21]
| I think it was like 90 something. Yeah. So it's like.
|
Sam:
[54:24]
| No, there were 90 who did not. There were 90 who did not. No, but there were like a hundred.
|
Ivan:
[54:28]
| I mean, half their caucus voted. Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[54:31]
| The majority of Republicans wanted this thing.
|
Ivan:
[54:34]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[54:35]
| Um, but, uh, and there it went.
And so, um, then before we get to the rest of the drama from McCarthy went on the Sunday shows though, and tried to blame the Democrats for the shutdown drama and, and it was like, well, look, they didn't, they were, they were dicking around with this and they did everything they could not to do this and the host, I think it was on face the nation.
I think it was on face the nation. The host was just laughed in his face and was like, they all voted for it.
|
Ivan:
[55:16]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[55:18]
| What are you even talking about?
|
Ivan:
[55:20]
| I mean, then I heard some say, well, the Senate hasn't like done their stuff or whatever.
If I remember correctly, all these funding and appropriate, all these funding bills Have to start at the damn house.
They do have to start at the house And also the senate has made had made a lot of progress But they hadn't actually gotten to the final passage of any right, but they but they need to start at the damn house Yes, so it's not like you know, I heard I mean, well the house the house did pass a handful of these that were over at the senate But yeah, yeah, but but but but you know trying to blame the senate for it You know, as I heard some Republican House members going, I'm like, are you, you know, I guess, you know what, I realize I'm thinking, yes, of course, they, you know, they're telling this to people that have no idea that this has to start at the fucking house.
|
Sam:
[56:13]
| It's Obama's fault.
|
Ivan:
[56:16]
| Yes, it is, of course.
|
Sam:
[56:17]
| It's all about, it's all about, right?
|
Ivan:
[56:19]
| The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.
|
Sam:
[56:25]
| Yeah, it's, yes. Anyway, so of course, as soon as this passed, Matt Gaetz tried to do his promise of doing the motion to vacate the chair.
Chair when when it initially passed on Saturday.
He tried to get the attention of the chair in order to do this, and they were like, nope, we're recessed recess till Monday, and so they should.
They delayed him for at least a couple of days, but they came back and I think it was on Tuesday where he actually did it.
And then there were there were a couple of procedural things like that.
You know, the first thing was an attempt to table it, and then you had the actual vote.
Regardless of the specifics, in the end, he's out.
And there was some question about would the Democrats save him?
Because, you know, he could have stayed on as Speaker as long as there there was a majority, which means even if he had, I think, in the end, there were 9 or 10 Republicans who voted against him, and that's all. That was eight. Maybe it was eight.
OK, eight. Let's call it eight. Doesn't really matter. Whatever.
It was a number around there. Ivan's probably right. It's probably eight to 10.
|
Ivan:
[57:50]
| You know, whatever.
|
Sam:
[57:51]
| Whatever. Anyway, so theoretically, if you had replaced those Republicans with even just a handful of Democrats supporting him, or you wouldn't even have to say supporting him. They could do it by not voting. Correct.
Because it's a percentage of the people who vote, not out of everybody.
So like if a whole bunch of Democrats or even just the eight or nine or 10 just didn't vote, that would potentially be enough to have them kept there.
And there was a lot of talk about like, will the Democrats save him just out of the notion that they wanted stability and the person you know is better than the person you don't know is better than total chaos.
And there were a few Democrats indicating that they were open to those kinds of things.
But here's the thing. First of all, the Democrats all agreed right off the bat, like all of them, that they would do this all or nothing.
You had even the people who were entertaining the idea were saying, yeah, but we're going to discuss this internally, we're going to make a decision and then we're going to be unified.
And, um, and the people who wanted to make some sort of deal or thought that would be better for them were in the clear minority, um, there was.
|
Ivan:
[59:24]
| But, but here's the thing about making a deal.
|
Sam:
[59:26]
| Well, there's a very important thing about you have to actually make a deal.
The other person has to participate.
|
Ivan:
[59:32]
| That, that, that's the problem. That that's the problem.
And given McCarthy's situation, he really couldn't offer anything.
|
Sam:
[59:45]
| Well, here's the things that happened. First of all, he went around bad-mouthing the Democrats that weekend, leaving— Yeah, not exactly helpful.
Yeah, leaving a bad taste in a lot of their mouths. Like, even the ones that were willing to potentially consider it were turned off by that.
Second, from all reports, he never actually asked.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:05]
| Right. He never asked. Exactly. He never asked.
|
Sam:
[1:00:10]
| And in fact, he very specifically said he was not interested in making any sort of deal with the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:17]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:00:17]
| And so therefore, it's like, but now, now what happened at the last minute, what happened in the last minute is some other congressmen who supported McCarthy started desperately calling Democrats And, but you couldn't know, but according to, according to the Democrats who were called, they were like, they were begging us, they were begging, they were begging, but they couldn't offer anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:45]
| And that's the problem. And that's the problem.
|
Sam:
[1:00:48]
| And even if they did offer anything, how could you have any confidence whatsoever that they could deliver?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:55]
| Listen, the thing is that there was no way that McCarthy could cut a deal.
That wasn't thermonuclear, okay?
Because the guys, the group that Gates is, you know...
Basically, you know, I don't know if he's heading, you know, he's a part of.
|
Sam:
[1:01:20]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:22]
| There is no negotiating with that group. They don't care about governance.
Right. And so this has been said to us over and over.
|
Sam:
[1:01:30]
| Their explicit goal was to shut down the government.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:33]
| Down the government.
|
Sam:
[1:01:34]
| And they were upset that we didn't. And apparently also they were also on the phone with Donald Trump, who was telling them shut down the damn government because he thought it would help him in various ways.
And so when they didn't, Trump was really pissed because he wanted the government shut down. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:53]
| But so so the thing is that even if, say, McCarthy had picked up the phone.
|
Sam:
[1:01:58]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:58]
| And tried to make a deal.
That any deal like that would peel off so many people from his party that there was no way to make that a winner in any way, shape, or form.
There was just, there was just no, the only way that he could get, I'm like, because you would have to, I mean, I'm sorry, if I'm the Democrats, I'm like, Oh, you want us to help dumb ass.
What the fuck? I mean, because I, I'm not going to be held hostage to Matt Gaetz anymore.
|
Sam:
[1:02:32]
| Right. You, you would flat out and we're even like, well, this option is coming up in in the future things, so we'll talk about that too, but you would have to do some sort of power sharing arrangement.
It would not be just, oh, okay, we'll vote for you for Speaker.
No, it would have to be that you make equal Republican and Democrats on every committee, you agree to bring up Democratic proposals, you change the rules to limit the influence of these jackasses on the right, you would have to make significant changes to the rules to basically set up something where it's not a majority-minority scenario in the same way.
I mean, the Republicans would still have the majority.
They still have a five-seat majority no matter what you do here.
But you would have to give the Democrats a significant say in what was happening and restrict things so that, you know, this, this fringe couldn't screw things up. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:42]
| Exactly, exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:03:43]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:44]
| And so in the end.
|
Sam:
[1:03:48]
| Now he's out, he's out, he's out and he and he has said he is not running third shortest tenure, third shortest.
And just for reference, the two ahead of him, one of them was one day only.
It was the very last day of the term and whoever was the speaker before him resigned and was just just like, I'm the fuck out of here.
And so he had one day as speaker before the new term started and they voted in somebody new.
So that, that was the shortest, the one day we're probably never going to beat that.
And, uh, I believe number two died in office.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:28]
| Okay. So, um, you know, somebody, uh, mentioned today that out of all the recent GOP speakers that McCarthy.
|
Sam:
[1:04:45]
| They've got they've had such a good history.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:47]
| They've you know that actually he wasn't the worst. And you know why he wasn't the worst?
|
Sam:
[1:04:54]
| Well, because Hastert's in jail for fucking molesting kids.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:57]
| That's exactly. That's right, because the guy that was worse, okay, was basically a convicted child molester.
Yes, that is the only guy that's worse. And as far as we know, McCarthy is none of those things, not on that part. Yes.
So, you know, when basically you are the worst simply because the guy that's worse than you is a convicted child molester, Jesus, that's pretty bad.
|
Sam:
[1:05:32]
| Well, yeah, the last five GOP speakers, which basically because now before Gingrich, the Democrats had the house for like 40 years and Gingrich was what, what that's almost, that's a long time ago now.
It was like in the mid nineties and he was only like a few years ago, so all of the Republican speakers in the last 80 years have left under scandal or failure like this or failure or failure scandal or failure we had we had gingrich leave after he he lost a big midterm and he had a bunch of marital scandals going on at the time uh we mentioned hastert fuck um then we had am i Am I missing one?
Was there one between? I've got a half of it. Go look it up.
But then we had, of course, Bonior.
Bonior, Bonior, Bonior. I can never say his name right. He left in almost exactly these same scenarios where he was about to have something like this happen because there was a revolt after he made a deal with the Democrats to avoid one of these things.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:46]
| Exactly the same thing, yep.
|
Sam:
[1:06:47]
| And Ryan was pretty close to the same, right? Right. Yo, and I think we're missing one.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:56]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're not. We're not. We got it. It was it was Newt.
|
Sam:
[1:07:00]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:01]
| All right. And Newt, you know, because of that mess, then it was, you know, we went with a good old boy, Hester. OK. And then it was Nancy.
OK. And then it was Boehner. And then it was Ryan.
And then it was McCarthy.
|
Sam:
[1:07:16]
| With Nancy again in between. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:18]
| Yeah, with Nancy again in between. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:07:21]
| Um, so anyway, um, McCarthy decided not to run again. Like I was actually surprised.
I thought he would just throw his hat right back into the ring and, uh, and, and we'd have another.
Attempted this. But no, he's he's like, I'm out.
There was a rumor that he was going to be leaving the house as well.
But but he has denied that.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:48]
| So, you know, I'm surprised because I figured maybe maybe he he denied it now is a leak because look for these guys, Republicans, all these clowns.
|
Sam:
[1:08:00]
| It's all about cashing in.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:01]
| Exactly. I mean, this is your I mean, you are in the prime time now to go and cash in your chips.
The hell? I mean, look, which one was the guy that cashed in like this?
Oh, that other moron from from California. What's her what's his name?
Oh, God. The guy with the memo.
You know, the guy who.
|
Sam:
[1:08:29]
| What are you talking about now?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:32]
| The guy that was like pro-Trump, that was releasing this memo about the whole Russia thing, whatever, a few years back and before even determined that he resigned because he was cash in, he was the CEO of Trump's social media stuff.
What the hell? Oh, my God. What the hell is his damn name? Is he his ugly face?
And I can't remember his damn name. Mom, oh, oh, God, just well, that idiot, whatever his fucking name is, so come to me at some point.
Some point he went and he didn't even wait to finish a term.
He wanted we resigned because I was like, wait, why am I going to wait to cash in and cash in now?
|
Sam:
[1:09:12]
| Right. Anyway, so we've got we had a brief spike of talk about.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:19]
| Devin Nunez, for God's sake.
|
Sam:
[1:09:21]
| There there you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:22]
| OK, Devin Nunez. Yeah, my memory right now is I'm getting older.
It's like the retrieval speed is like, I don't know, It's just all of a sudden, it's like, it's way, it's like, it's buffering.
It's like buffering, you know, until it gets the files.
|
Sam:
[1:09:37]
| Yeah. You know, I have the thing where like, I will, I will, I will blank on words as well, more and more frequently.
Um, just random words, but I kind of lean into it and insert other random words.
Especially when I'm at home and just goofing around with, with Alex or whatever, like if I'm better at work, but like when I'm just goofing around, I'm like, if the The right word isn't coming to me.
I'll just say something else random. You'll figure it out and he'll laugh.
And, you know, that's cool. You know, so that's, well, that's a, that's a strategy, but anyway, I'm sure it's a early sign of dementia as well, but we'll deal with that when we get there. You know, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:13]
| Anyway, you know, we'll get that neural implant Elon Musk is selling.
|
Sam:
[1:10:16]
| Oh, yes. The one that killed all the monkeys and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:20]
| I'm sure. I'm sure that that was just, you know, that's just, you know, bad publicity.
|
Sam:
[1:10:24]
| Anyway. So I was going to say we had a brief flurry of conversation about the possibility of Donald Trump as speaker.
Several people were talking about how they were going to nominate him and they were going to vote for him. And he was like, sure. I'm in like, sounds good. I'll do that.
Um, and then apparently a bunch of his aides came around to him and we're like, you are throwing the fucking out.
They are, you are throwing the entire Republican caucus into a panic.
And why don't you just concentrate on running for president, please? And he ended up backing off and he has endorsed one of the other people running. So I guess we're not going to see that level of fun.
But... Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:12]
| So the two are is that yes. Well, here's the one thing about any of the candidates, because anybody, whoever the hell it is, you know, whatever.
It's fucking irrelevant at this point because they're screwed.
Whoever they may, whoever the hell it is, is screwed.
Look, it was bad enough how to get McCarthy voted in in the first place.
OK, it had never been that hard. OK. And so where the hell is walking in?
|
Sam:
[1:11:39]
| Well, it was, it wasn't the record there, there were more than 15 historically, but yes, it was, it was bad.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:45]
| It was bad.
|
Sam:
[1:11:48]
| And he had to give up all this stuff, including changing the rule that allowed this to happen with only one person calling for it.
Right. Uh, which, which again, the only real surprise here is that he lasted as long as he did.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:03]
| That's right. That that's right. Yes. That's the only real surprise.
|
Sam:
[1:12:08]
| Now, the one thing that I'm hearing is different, is because they have this speaker pro tem right now, who's this McHenry guy, who was handpicked by McCarthy.
Apparently after 9-11, new rules were put in place that there would be a secret envelope that the speaker would produce that had a list of people in order that would be speaker pro tem in the case that something happened to the speaker.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:40]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:12:43]
| Now this was intended as a continuity of government thing for like, what happens if somebody nukes the capital?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:50]
| Well, yeah, we didn't expect, I mean, I don't think that 20 years ago we expected that the entire GOP was going to go insane. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:12:59]
| So this was intended for like, what happens if the speaker dies or is shot or this capital explodes.
So it's just like the line of succession for the president where there's not just one name, there's a whole list in order.
So if a whole bunch of people die at once, there's still a speaker, right? That's how this is set up. And the list is kept secret until there is a vacancy, at which time the clerk opens it and says, oh, it's this guy.
So in this case, it's McHenry.
But, and there's some controversy apparently about just how much this speaker pro-tem can do. you, the consensus seems to be.
That the only thing he's allowed to do is manage having an election for the real speaker.
Now, there's some people disputing that and saying, hey, he could actually exercise all of the powers of the speaker if he wanted to.
And he has, in fact, kicked some Democrats out of their offices.
He kicked Pelosi and one other person out of their offices and put them somewhere else.
So he is doing other stuff other than arranging the election.
But what I've heard is, because they've got this temporary speaker, they don't have to do what they did in January, where they immediately start voting and have rounds and rounds and rounds.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:22]
| Wow, I see.
|
Sam:
[1:14:23]
| So that what they could do is he could wait to call the vote until such time that the Republican caucus has decided on somebody internally that they all agree to vote for.
Now, good luck with that. Right. But like, so we might not see like a long series of votes, like if he was forced to to just, hey, the first vote's Wednesday.
Let's just start voting and see what happens. Then we would probably be in for many rounds of voting once again.
The reason that that might not happen is he might like just force the Republicans in private, out of the glare of the lights to just keep having conversations about this until they can come up with a candidate that they can all agree with.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:16]
| Dude, here's a problem though. As far as I could tell.
|
Sam:
[1:15:19]
| There is no such person.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:20]
| Yeah, exactly. And not just that. This guy doesn't have the gravitas to fucking corral anything. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:15:28]
| Well, and also he was a flat out McCarthy person. Like he's not considered neutral or anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:35]
| No. I mean, so I'm just like, you know, this guy is just, you know, it's just some dumb ass with a fucking, you know, gavel, like right now that has that nobody respects at all.
|
Sam:
[1:15:47]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:48]
| And so, I mean, something I think he said to some people like that maybe he wanted to be speaker and I think they laughed in his face.
|
Sam:
[1:15:56]
| I heard he said he didn't want it, but it might be he said he didn't because people laughed in his face.
Exactly. You know, there was some talk of like, hey, maybe we just interpret the rules as he can actually just act as speaker.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:12]
| So we don't even exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:16:14]
| We don't even have to have a vote. We'll just like go on as if nothing happened.
He's like the vice speaker.
There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:19]
| It's all good. Everything's fixed. Everything. We're all fine.
|
Sam:
[1:16:23]
| But I think what's actually like, they, they immediately went in recess for a week after they vacated the chair.
And so officially they're coming back Tuesday, but you know, there's all kinds of jockeying and behind the scenes conversations happening.
Finally we have Jim Jordan and Scalise have officially put their names in the ring as of when we're recording. By the time you listen to this, there might be more.
And they're officially coming back. The next meeting is the Republican caucus is going to have a little session, a private session.
TV or anything where all the all of the candidates like try to they give their little speeches and then they'll have internal votes. The earliest that an actual vote on the floor could happen is Wednesday.
But like I said, that may or may not happen.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:20]
| It's I think that the one thing like right now is that.
Um, what I had, um, I said earlier in the year, and I have said again, and I'm just like, look, if I'm the Democrats, I'm working over a few people that are in districts that are.
|
Sam:
[1:17:45]
| You're trying to actually flip people to be Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:48]
| Fuck, yeah. Fuck, yeah, I am. I mean, I'm listen, it may not work, but I'm fucking trying because you don't need that many. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:17:57]
| Okay. You need five.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:58]
| You need five. You you get five from vulnerable districts. You basically look.
Those guys are not going to be Matt gets like terrorists.
Okay. But you are going to have to give them something. Oh, yeah. For this. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:18:13]
| Well, because there's there's a very good chance like that, even though they're in purple districts and they're vulnerable and they have to compromise with Democrats to win the general election.
There's a very good chance that if they did this, their career would be over because they might not win a Democratic primary and the Republicans wouldn't have them anymore because they're now caucusing with the Democrats.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:41]
| But I mean, in some districts, man, you know, there's people that have changed parties before. It has never been different.
|
Sam:
[1:18:47]
| They usually don't win. I mean, sometimes they do, but they usually don't.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:52]
| Yeah, you know, sometimes they do. I mean, we've seen this before and the thing is that we're we're Well, yeah, we are in Completely uncharted territory with this right now.
Okay. We've never had this happen before Okay in the middle of the year, okay and so Look, I'm trying to cut some kind of a fucking deal Yeah, um, I at least I'm trying because here's the other problem Look!
You said they're going to come back next week and they're going to talk about this. Look, man, those hundred people that voted for that continuum realist resolution, you think they want fucking psychopath Jim Jordan at that?
It'll be a speaker at a house.
Not enough fucking billion years. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:41]
| And well, let's talk about this for a sec. Let's talk about the possibility.
So before we talk about more of the sort of off the wall possible solutions, like the one you started to talk about, The, the two candidates that are in the ring, this basically Scalise, who is the closest we're going to get to a Republican who actually believes in getting things done.
And we got Jim Jordan, who's right there aligned with Gates and the other folks who are like blow it all up. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:11]
| You know, now the thing is that Scalise is probably the guy that has the most support.
|
Sam:
[1:20:16]
| Yes. I mean, I'm, we're going to be in the, he's got the same base of support that McCarthy had. Exactly. The question is, can he get to the number that he needs? Cause he needs like everybody.
Cause once again, it only takes a handful of.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:34]
| It's just that my, my, but here's the fucking problem.
The Gates's of these guys, what were they pissed about in this continuing resolution, they wanted draconian cuts across government.
They basically wanted, uh, 30% spending cuts across the board. Insane shit.
|
Sam:
[1:20:55]
| Not only that, they had as one of their red lines that if you cooperate with the Democrats at all, we're done.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:03]
| Exactly. It's like it creates a situation that you're like, that's not a way to govern.
|
Sam:
[1:21:10]
| Well, you can't by definition, when you only control the house and the Democrats have the Senate and the presidency.
You can't do anything without making it bipartisan. Nothing. Nothing.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:28]
| And so it's just I this is the reason why I am like questioning if look if they just threw him out for just putting a 45-day CR not exactly really a great gift just kick the can for 45 days I mean how are, we gonna get any how are any of these guys our Scalise gonna tell him okay I'm gonna be house speaker what are they gonna demand from him well and this is why there's some talk of like, do they change the rule back?
|
Sam:
[1:22:00]
| Do they make it so that in order to do this again, you need ten people, not one, you know, in order to vacate the chair again?
|
Ivan:
[1:22:08]
| Because otherwise, I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't. I completely agree.
I'm like, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. You know, if I'm going up there to be this, I'm not.
I'm not standing up there with a shit show again, which is one person could just you just bring everything down.
10 sounds reasonable number, but not fucking one.
|
Sam:
[1:22:27]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:29]
| And the reason why it's just stupid is because, look, I mean, the Democrats are not going to vote to keep the person in.
There is no reason to do that when you're getting nothing in return. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:22:43]
| Now, the things are, here's the thing with these two candidates.
Scalise is not going to get the most radical of the Freedom Caucus to vote for him.
And meanwhile, Jordan is not going to get the more moderate side.
Neither of them are going to have the votes they need in order to get here.
And the way that McCarthy got through in the end is he gave them a lot of shit, including the ability to take him out at any point.
So what else are they going to demand?
Yeah, you know, and how can they believe it anyway?
Just like how would the Democrats believe any deal that McCarthy had offered?
How can anybody on the Republican side believe any deal that comes up internally either for either direction, right?
So you, I, it seems like the most likely outcome is somehow Scalise manages to do this, but It's just like in January, it's hard. It's hard. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:53]
| And that's, I mean, yes, that that's like, I agree. That's the most likely outcome.
I mean, that, you know, but it's, man, it's not going to be easy.
Like it wasn't easy for McCarthy either, right?
|
Sam:
[1:24:09]
| It's good. Scalise is going to have to come up with some sort of deal.
And of course, and now there are a whole bunch of Republicans saying that they want to, uh, to kick Gates out of the caucus as well, because they hate him now.
All of the Republicans, except maybe the eight people who actually voted to kick out McCarthy, are so pissed, because there is no universe where this looks good for the Republicans.
They have just thrown everything into utter chaos. is no clear path out.
I mean, obviously there some path out will happen. It has to. But at the same time.
Nobody involved in this had a plan for what to do after.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:01]
| Well, here's one news story that I'm seeing right now that they're looking to make it that they're looking to make it even worse.
As far as I can tell, this is a story in the New York Times the night days before a vote Republicans feud over how to choose a new speaker.
Okay, and I'm seeing here that there was a letter there was a letter that was sent to uh, Mr.
McHenry from Elise Stefanik, okay.
Asking for certain changes to the, to the rules. Okay.
And I'll read here the interim, the interim speaker and representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the conference chair, the group requested a special organizational meeting to consider the change.
The New York times obtained a copy of the letter in the letter.
They asked for an amendment to temporarily raise the threshold to become a nominee, raise it.
Okay. Proponents have been pushing to require a unanimous vote of the Republican conference instead of the current bar of a majority.
I'm like, how the fuck are they going to go and do something unanimously between these fucking clowns?
They haven't shown themselves to be able to do that.
As far as I've seen.
|
Sam:
[1:26:15]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:17]
| Because the other thing is, it would, in theory, avoid replay of the public chaos that unfolded in January. Right. Okay. And so, so that's what they're trying to do.
|
Sam:
[1:26:25]
| Well, and this is what I was saying in terms of delaying the actual speaker vote until the Republican caucus had someone that they were ready to go with.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:35]
| Okay. But but Sam, again, unanimous.
Well, yeah, unanimity.
|
Sam:
[1:26:41]
| I understand. I understand. Like, but it's just basic. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah!
|
Ivan:
[1:26:52]
| What, what can you say, look, but I, I, I wish by the way, supporters of representative Steve Scalise, Louisiana, the majority leader who was running from super quickly cried foul arguing that the change would only make it more difficult for him to be elected. Yeah. Yeah.
No shit.
This is the shit that they're still playing with now.
|
Sam:
[1:27:19]
| Right. Um, and so, okay.
So people, I, I, I, both Scalise and Jordan are gonna, either one of those would have a really hard time.
The other possibilities out there just to list them and we'll go from, we'll go from least crazy to most crazy as, okay. All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:45]
| So we're not, we're, we're the least crazy.
|
Sam:
[1:27:46]
| So first we got Scalise and Jordan are obviously the two that are actually running and whatever.
The next possible thing is they pick some random other, low-profile Republican who has not very publicly positioned themselves with either of these two groups.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:12]
| And either play.
|
Sam:
[1:28:13]
| And so they try to get somebody, like some Republican that none of us have ever fucking heard of, because they're basically an unknown and haven't spent a lot of time directly associating themselves with either half of this internal Republican dispute.
And maybe they get, and they get some sort of, he makes some sort of assurances to be fair and blah, blah, blah, and they go with that for a while.
That's one possibility.
And then we start going to the crazy stuff. One was what you mentioned before, you actually get Republican defectors deciding to become Democrats. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:52]
| Because they would have to. There's no other right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:28:55]
| Well, as we go down the road, we'll get to the other possibility.
But like, they would have, in this scenario, they would actually say, fuck it, I'm not a Republican anymore. I'm going with the Democrats.
Not only am I voting for Jeffries for Speaker, but I'm going to caucus with them, and I'm going to support their initiatives, and I'm going to play that team.
I'm switching teams. You Republicans are crazy. I'm switching teams. Okay.
The next thing down the road is you get some Republicans who vote for Jeffries.
But stay Republicans. So you basically continue having a Republican majority, but they vote in a Democratic speaker anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:40]
| Which by the way, I mean, the reality is that they would still, you know, they have the votes to block whatever the hell they want.
|
Sam:
[1:29:46]
| Exactly. Like Jeffries might control some agenda most of the time, but they could, they, they still have the votes to, it's not like the Democrats could get anything done.
And then also, if the Republicans wanted to put something on the table, they could use the whole discharge petition mechanism to do it over the speaker's objections.
So you would basically still have a Republican majority, but you have a speaker there who would not have much power.
And so you could potentially have a scenario there where the Republicans would really still be in charge, but it would look like Jeffries is in charge and they could blame him for anything that happened that was unpopular.
And then the last one, and the next thing is sort of the power sharing arrangement.
Actually had an editorial saying, let's do something creative, let's do this.
And that's basically the scenario that doesn't even require the Republicans becoming Democrats, but where you basically do what other countries do all the time and you generate some sort of coalition government, where you make some sort of deal with a power sharing arrangement, you have some Republicans and some Democrats together vote for a compromise candidate that's probably not Jeffrey's, but is somebody who will, and I've also called this a nonpartisan speaker, although that's maybe slightly different.
The power sharing arrangement basically says, we're going to split as much as we can down the middle.
The Senate has done this a few times when when they've had actual 50-50 ties, where they say, OK, every committee is going to be evenly split.
And we'll have co-chairs or something, or we'll alternate who has chairs of what.
And we will have a process where anything with sufficient support can get to the floor.
I've always said sort of a non-partisan speaker that is not operating to try to advantage either party, but just says, Hey, anything with, a minimum of some number of co-sponsors automatically gets a vote on the floor. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:22]
| Yep. Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:32:23]
| You know, that might be something it's, it's, it's a good way to run things anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:29]
| I mean, I, I, it sounds good to me.
|
Sam:
[1:32:31]
| Like if anything, like our system as it's developed, the leadership in Congress has too much power, devolve it down this way so that, you know, you can have more, basically we're in a scenario where in order to pass, it has to be bipartisan anyway.
So generate a mechanism that lets those bipartisan things through, you know, because right now you have a lot of scenarios, especially on the Republican side, that but it exists on the Democratic side, too, is we don't want to compromise, we don't want to cooperate, we don't want to find some thing that we can both support because we don't want to let the other side win.
Some scenario like this would force the sides to like, you know, okay, what can we agree on?
And it's a nonzero set. We've talked about on the show before how there's actually a lot of quote unquote, quiet legislation that gets through each session, where it's uncontroversial things that haven't become politicized.
So the two sides can sort of work on it in quiet, out of the public glare, and then just pass shit.
And so maybe you'd get more of that. But I think all of these, the further you get down this line of more and more improbable things, the longer we would have to be at a a stalemate before anybody would even consider it.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:58]
| Oh, I totally agree. I mean, I really think that that we're not at that stage yet. I mean, I think that it's going to take it's going to take a while.
|
Sam:
[1:34:10]
| Do you think we're going to hit right up against that 45 day deadline and then something's going to happen?
|
Ivan:
[1:34:15]
| I think we're going to have a government shutdown on day 45.
I really put the odds of that like high right now at over 50% right now, given the situation where it is.
|
Sam:
[1:34:26]
| I mean, like, maybe that's the kind of scenario that forces one of these really oddball options is we're in a government shutdown because the house has been unable to operate for a month and a half at all, like it's, it's not even the kind of scenario we've been in where they haven't been able to pass anything, but it's a scenario where they can't even work at all.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:49]
| Right. Right. Totally agree.
|
Sam:
[1:34:52]
| So, or, or they'll come up with some secret deal in private, in the Republican caucus.
And like, before we do our next show, we'll have a new speaker that the Republicans decided on amongst themselves.
Yeah. I don't know, but it's, it's going to be fun. Well, fun, interesting.
Let's say, let's say interesting. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:21]
| By the way, one, one stat that's like a pretty, uh, uh, interesting is that, um, you know, um, Jesus Christ.
Um, the number of enacted bills of this Congress.
Has been holy shit.
|
Sam:
[1:35:39]
| You know, I used to do graphs of this, and then I stopped a few years back.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:44]
| There used to be 30. Yeah, 30, 30, 30.
You know how many bills in two years the previous Congress, 117 had?
|
Sam:
[1:35:52]
| How many by the important part is how many did they have by this time?
|
Ivan:
[1:35:58]
| Because I don't have by this time, but still the stat. Look, remember, we're like, what, almost halfway through.
|
Sam:
[1:36:05]
| Yeah, but here's the thing, like, like I said, I used to do graphs of these.
Almost every bill that every Congress does is in the last month is in the lame duck after the election.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:19]
| Like more than 50. Okay. More than 50% of the legislation, you think?
|
Sam:
[1:36:21]
| Usually. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:22]
| Well, we're not even close to that, like right now, because the last last last one was one thousand two hundred and thirty four. We've only got 30.
Okay, well, we got 30. OK, yeah, 30. Hey, what the fuck are these people doing all day?
Well, actually, I heard this from from Mitt Romney. He said they're trying to get on Fox.
They're out on social media. They're looking for clicks.
That's all they're doing. Rip not Mitt. Mitt said it flat out.
These motherfuckers are not interested in governing at all. Right. At all. No.
|
Sam:
[1:37:05]
| I mean, and not, and it's not even a secret. Like that's what they run on.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:11]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:13]
| You know, this is not like a mistake or they don't know what they're doing.
Their entire point is they don't want, they want to blow things up.
They want to burn it down.
They want the government not to be doing stuff, and like you said, they want to get on TV, they want to make money, they want to do all those things.
But fundamentally, they are here to blow shit up.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:41]
| They are here to blow shit up.
|
Sam:
[1:37:43]
| So it's not like a defect. It's not like they're just incompetent.
No, this is exactly what they want.
So, okay, let's take a break and I will suggest, Yvonne, given the amount of time we've already taken that we just do, you know, Trump legal shit for the next segment, unless there's something you're really hot on to also add to that.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:06]
| Not really.
|
Sam:
[1:38:08]
| We are going to come back with Alex. No, not Alex.
We're going to have a break that's related to Alex. That's why it's one of the Alex breaks.
We will come back with Trump legal shit. There you go. Yeah. After this.
And there you go. And he has not published something new on that channel in a long time now. Maybe he will sometime. I don't know.
But what he did earlier today is I mentioned in passing that I hate card games.
So he went looking for a card game first and then didn't find what he was looking for. So then he went off and like.
While I was watching the news and then I fell asleep and took a short nap, he woke me up.
He hand made a deck of Uno cards and made me pay, play a goddamn game of Uno.
I didn't even remember the rules. He was sort of like, I was asking him, is this what I do? And he was saying stuff. I don't even know if he was making it up, but yeah. So it's probably making it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:20]
| That's what my wife does when she grabs me into these damn card games and she makes up and I'm like, you know, all of a sudden I'm like doing something.
Oh, no, no, no, that's not allowed. I'm like, what do you mean it's not allowed?
|
Sam:
[1:40:30]
| Yeah, I mean, it's been so long since I've played, you know, I I think I remembered some of it, but not all of it. And like I'd ask him, is this card do this?
|
Ivan:
[1:40:38]
| And he's like, Oh, man, who's like you? He's not big in the card games.
What? And I will play occasionally like some games.
I mean, I will admit it the other day I went to this concert.
Yeah, she's the other day Sunday. We went to a concert Sunday night at Hard Rock Live, and I hadn't been to the casino in a while.
Uh, dammit, I was so tempted to go into blackjack tables, but it was a Sunday night and it was like late and I'm like, I, because I, I always played, I love to play blackjack, uh, back in Puerto Rico.
And I was like, In high school, which I was under age, but I don't know.
They never actually carded us. So we went to, I went to the casino and I always played blackjack over there.
Well, the good things we had $2 tables, man. So I'm like, you know, what the hell? Bring 20 bucks and I could play, you know, a good, good, good bit. I mean, either I lose or I make a nice decent chunk of change.
|
Sam:
[1:41:31]
| You know, yeah, no, like card games stress me out because I can never remember the rules.
Like, I just cannot keep that shit in my head. I have a mental block, even on the simplest card games, like keeping track of that, like just stresses me out.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:46]
| And so I played a rain man from like the boo boo.
|
Sam:
[1:41:50]
| Can't have no, no, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:52]
| Well, you're not our I have to get rid. I got our ticket. You're not our ticket to riches. Damn it.
No Vegas is going to have you count cards. You motherfucker.
Now I'm like, no, no, no, not even close. I got to witness damn power ball thing for God.
|
Sam:
[1:42:07]
| I can't even remember the fucking rules of the game.
Like not at all. Like even for the goddamn simplest children's card games, like I cannot remember what the fuck I'm supposed to do from one minute to the next.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:21]
| What do you want? What do you want? Yeah, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:42:22]
| I, you know, I, I can sort of sometimes get it together.
Like for a single game, like I read all the rules, I try to figure it out and then I'll play like one or two games.
And then it all is immediately erased from my mind as soon as I'm done.
So I don't know again the second time I'm there. And just I do not like that shit. Like, I don't know. It's just I have a mental block, like I said.
It's it's it's not. All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:51]
| Well, anyway, let's talk Trump legal stuff. So Trump went on a legal barrage this week.
|
Sam:
[1:43:00]
| We've had all kinds of Trump legal news. So we had the civil fraud trial actually started. We talked last week about how the judge had essentially already decided that.
He's guilty.
So at least on one of the charges, there are apparently five other minor charges that are still in play or whatever, but he was guilty of the big one.
And the main thing that's going on in the trial is just deciding how much money he owes.
The judge had also already said, you're out of business in New York, we're going to liquidate everything.
Okay. Right. Um, one of the things that happened this week is Trump appealed, appealed that obviously that he was going to do that.
And he did get a stay on the liquidation, right?
You know, he, he still has to proceed to like, so I can't, I can't go, I can't go by Trump tower yet. Not yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:03]
| I'm with them. So my winnings. I can hear it right there.
There's my billion dollar ticket.
|
Sam:
[1:44:12]
| There you go.
Anyway, the liquidation is on pause until the appeal happens.
But he'd also asked to pause the entire New York trial until the appeal, and he did not get that. So he doesn't have to liquidate until the appeal goes through. But while the appeal is pending, the rest of the trial can continue still.
And Donald Trump showed up to the first few days of the trial.
And basically, there's not live coverage inside the courtroom, but there were cameras allowed at the beginning each day. So we got some pictures of Trump pouting and looking mad and stuff like that.
And we had reporters talking about how inside he was getting animated and upset and his his face was turning red and he was talking to his lawyers and blah, blah, blah.
Um, but also whenever there was a break, he would just come out into the hallway outside the courtroom and rant.
I you just rant and rant and rant about how unfair this was, how the judge was bad, how whatever was bad.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:22]
| You know, I look, I have been at trials.
You know, trials involving matters, not somebody else's trials, trials involving matters that were related to our business or related to family and stuff, OK?
I have to say that I I never was sitting. I was more like I was there listening attentively and we would go out or talk with the attorney. We're concerned.
But, you know, ranting, raving like that, just just that there was never, you know, it's just not the thought that crossed my mind.
It's just it takes, you know, especially because courtrooms are usually places where there is an expected level of decorum.
|
Sam:
[1:46:12]
| Right. Okay. Well, and he did wait to go out into the hall, like in the courtroom, he was whispering angrily at his lawyers and making faces and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:25]
| But like the judges don't like the faces either. Tell you that you don't like the fuck. They don't want you making fucking faces. I don't want, you know, yeah, this is so.
|
Sam:
[1:46:39]
| So now I'll get to some other stuff inside the courtroom. But first, with his antics outside.
What at one point he went over this judge's line and it was not part of his rants, but during this time period, he or his social media team. Oh, but it was him.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:00]
| Come on.
|
Sam:
[1:47:02]
| Well, you know, well, he would he would direct it at the very least.
I don't know if he was sitting there on his phone, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:09]
| Look, I have this entire vision of Trump sitting in the crapper, probably doing this all morning, and I'm pretty sure it's accurate.
|
Sam:
[1:47:19]
| Anyway, he posted a picture of one of the court clerks when they had a photo op with Senator Schumer. Um, and just to, just as a background thing, politicians take pictures with anybody.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:38]
| No, no, get out of here. No, no, they do.
|
Sam:
[1:47:42]
| This is a whole thing where if you go to an event with a politician, they're going around shaking everybody's hands. They're taking selfies with picture with people.
They're letting you take pictures with them.
The fact that you have a picture with a politician does not mean you have some sort of in-depth relationship with them.
I like my wife is a state rep, but when she goes to events, people ask to take their pictures with her, you know, and she's, she's not like, you know, a Senator or president or anything like that.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:21]
| You know, I must've been, nobody asked to take their picture with me.
You know, well, okay. No, I'll take that back. What I used to go to, you know, when I was managing offices in like different countries, sometimes I actually have a couple of pictures.
They were like, oh no, no, let's get a picture of you or whatever.
So yeah, I got, I do have some. Okay. So I'll take that back.
|
Sam:
[1:48:47]
| In any case, my point is she had a picture with Senator Schumer that she had posted on her Instagram or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:54]
| Donald Trump posts this. That's, that's, I mean, isn't that like outright like a treason right there or something?
|
Sam:
[1:48:59]
| Donald Trump posted first of all, that she was running the entire case, that she was really in charge of the case. It wasn't the judge.
She was the one that was running it.
And she was Schumer's girlfriend and that she's a Democratic operative, Schumer's girlfriend.
And she was in charge of the entire case. And this was unfair, blah, blah, blah.
And with her name and a link to her social media and all that kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:29]
| Which, apparently, that was later quickly deleted. Just as quickly as that.
|
Sam:
[1:49:32]
| Well, yes. Well, the judge specifically, there was a flurry of activity after that. And the judge came back and said, consider this a gag order.
Nobody, not you, Donald Trump, or anybody associated with you, is allowed to post anything related to my staff.
Or the, you know, the court employees.
And so we have our first actual gag order on Donald Trump, and he has abided by it since then.
Now, to be clear, the judge did not prohibit him from criticizing him, the actual judge, just his staff.
And he also did not prohibit them from criticizing or disparaging the prosecutors.
It was just the court staff, leave them the fuck alone, leave them out of this.
And not just criticizing, but like the kind of stuff that he was doing.
And so this is sort of like, we've talked before about how, he's pushing all of these limits and the judges, they want to leave this alone as much as possible because they don't want to bring all the First Amendment disputes and stuff into this.
But in this case, he can't claim that it's a necessary part of his campaign to slander the court clerk and lie about the court clerk.
He might be able to say that about certain other people and he has a real First Amendment right to say, this is an unfair prosecution, I'm not guilty.
Of course he can say that.
But, you know, so this is very narrowly tailored and so far Trump has obeyed it.
And it potentially gives a map, like there's the whole thing going on in the DC case where the special counsel has asked for a gag order.
They've got a hearing on that coming up next week, I think, in this coming week, I think they've got a hearing on that. And then we'll see what happens there.
But this sort of shows how it can be done and shows that in fact, when Donald Trump got this kind of gag order, he's like, yes, okay, sir, I'll shut up.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:57]
| Listen, the one thing about this whole thing and why it's important not to do that is because it's intimidating people.
It's intimidating to people that are working around this.
We've heard, hell, we've heard from Republicans in Congress, how they were petrified, for example, to even like vote to impeach Donald Trump, uh, because they were getting constant threats and attacks.
And every time that he goes out to one of these people that it was just working in the court because it's their damn job.
And then he goes and he calls them out by name, then starts accusing them of all of this shit. I mean, this, this is threatening to these people's lives. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:52:36]
| There was a report this week as well, that every single one of these cases that Donald Trump is is involved in.
This New York civil case, the New York criminal case, the DC federal case, the Florida federal case and the Georgia case, every single person involved in the prosecution on those cases has security now because they have.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:02]
| No, the, I'm sure that the number of threats are out of control.
|
Sam:
[1:53:06]
| And so the, and not only that, the, the investigate, there is a whole division that has now been set up in the FBI to protect these people.
You know, and so, yeah, absolutely. This is, and this, you know, it's about intimidating the people that are directly involved.
It's about intimidating potential jurors.
It's about influencing those potential jurors. And that's why this is all coming up. And so, So we'll see what they do in the DC case.
But in this case, they gave him very narrowly tailored gag order.
And apparently, this was not in public, but it was reported that behind closed doors, the judge told Trump and his lawyers that he was serious about this shit.
And if this was violated, there would be serious repercussions up to and including 30 days in jail, you know, and Donald Trump does not want 30 days in jail.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:16]
| No, he doesn't want to.
|
Sam:
[1:54:17]
| I mean, he wants to play the victim, but he doesn't want to actually be in jail.
Right. You know, so we'll see.
Meanwhile, I did want to say one of the things that Donald Trump has been complaining about is that this is a bench trial, not a jury trial.
Now there was a lot of reporting when this first became clear on Monday, that with people saying that Trump's lawyers just forgot to check a box that said they wanted a jury trial.
Okay? There's apparently some form that they fill out that if they wanted a jury trial, they just had to put a little X in the thing to request it.
And the judge came on the first day, we don't have a jury here because no one requested one and then started moving on.
However, I've heard people after, and there was some controversy, like a lot of people were saying, well, did they just make a mistake or is this a strategic decision that they actually thought it would be better to have the judge rather than a jury in this particular case?
But I've heard subsequent commentary saying, Good luck.
For these particular set of crimes, because of some of the details of New York State law, they might not have been entitled to a jury trial.
Now, they still could have asked for one and litigated that, but it's unclear that they would have won anyway, even if they did that.
But regardless, Trump has been going, and one of the things he's been pounding his fist about is, is we don't even get a jury.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:57]
| So well, but aside from that, yeah, been dismissed trying to get everything against them dismissed.
|
Sam:
[1:56:04]
| Yeah. What? New York civil trial aside. Well, he's trying to get that one dismissed, too, of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:10]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:56:10]
| But there was a flurry of these today. He's he's not today. This week, he asked.
He's asking for the D.C. trial to be dismissed because he says he's had presidential immunity, basically, that since he was president, anything he was doing, there is such a thing as presidential immunity.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:31]
| I didn't know there was presidential immunity.
|
Sam:
[1:56:33]
| Well, he claims that like because he was apparently all of his electorate election interference was done as part of being president.
Also, a subsidiary claim, he says, because he was acquitted by the Senate, But trying him again would be double jeopardy.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:03]
| Goal to put this down in writing I Mean because like are you fucking kidding me?
Well, here's Another thing in this country. Yes, I'm like in other countries.
Okay None of I don't know of any elected official that has any immunity for prosecution whatsoever Now this is common in other countries where if you're a senator or like whatever in certain elected post Because there is immunity, okay?
But the United States has never had immunity.
|
Sam:
[1:57:41]
| There are some things on the civil side where if something is done in the act of your job as an official, you can't be sued for it.
But there's no criminal- That's different. There's no criminal immunity.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:54]
| There's no criminal immunity.
|
Sam:
[1:57:56]
| Right. The only thing that has been sort of litigated is the whole, you can't charge them while they're president. You have to wait till they're out.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:05]
| I mean, and that's it. But it's still not immunity either.
|
Sam:
[1:58:08]
| And even that, by the way, that's never actually gone to court or anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:13]
| Right. But there is no damn immunity.
|
Sam:
[1:58:17]
| Some cases, like for state cases and some other stuff, there have been some cases.
But the whole thing of you can't do a federal indictment of a sitting president hasn't actually been litigated, but it's sort of the president could always fire the prosecutors because they work for him. So it's weird.
But yes, there's no outright immunity. And in fact, even after he was acquitted in the Senate for the second impeachment, this is one of the things that like several of the senators were like, and what's his name?
McConnell as number one, said specifically, we have not voted to convict him because he's no longer president.
It's fine, but he can still.
Have he can still have criminal consequences if it's appropriate.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:08]
| Exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:59:10]
| He specifically gave that as one of his arguments for not convicting Donald Trump. Right. So, yeah, the whole thing of the whole thing of double jeopardy based on the impeachment is complete and utter nonsense.
The presidential immunity is nonsense, too.
Um, I mean, I guess the only, the only two things here are one, like his standard mo of delay, you know, just delay, delay, delay, every frivolous appeal potentially gets you a little bit more time.
And then also I think he's got at least some thought that he can somehow hail Mary one of these up to the Supreme Court and the six conservative justices will back him just because he is his guys.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:01]
| But look, here's it. But he also withdrew a suit against Cohen.
|
Sam:
[2:00:07]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:08]
| So so I was going to say, well, the reason I'm jumping to that, it's just overall in terms of the attorneys, OK?
Because it seems that.
He is narrowing his scope. Okay. To a certain extent.
|
Sam:
[2:00:26]
| And I will say he was doing aggressive lawsuits against people who were going after him on long shot thing. Like he was suing fucking Hillary Clinton for right.
And all this and all of these things like he was consistently losing them because they'd made no sense.
And he was just doing them to get back at people who were suing him or who were he thought were his enemies. He was just throwing these lawsuits out left to right, whether they had any merit or not.
And like you said, I think he's getting rid of the ones that aren't going anywhere.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:05]
| To save money i think you're right i mean it look this is has to listen we saw some numbers in terms of.
How much is ratchet racket racking up and legal expenses like right now it's got to be in the couple of hundred million dollars okay but with all the things going on at the same time that he's got right now.
And look, and I guess he's paying for, you know, he's because he is also paying for defense of a number of other people as well.
Yes. Not all of them, but not all of them, but there's a number of people that he's paying for, for, for, for their defense.
Okay. Which is why this bill is so big. Now, obviously prominently, he's also not paying for the defense of some other people.
Which are right now basically going belly up because they Rudy, like the pillow guy.
|
Sam:
[2:02:00]
| Yeah. Uh, they, they, you know, Rudy just had a lean tax lien on his place here at Palm beach.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:09]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:02:09]
| He, he, you know, there are a lot of these folks who are screwed because Trump isn't supporting them. Um, but yeah, so he's coming back on these.
He also, like, like you said, he, he basically this week motioned out everything.
In every single fricking case involved in dismissed a whole several of them.
The judges have already said no. Oh yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:30]
| They're already like, they were like an hour. They're like denied.
|
Sam:
[2:02:34]
| Yeah, exactly.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:35]
| Because these are like, there was also the one for federal court or something, whatever.
Was it, there wasn't related in Georgia. What do you, what he was trying to, uh, well, he decided not to not to try to move at the federal court. That's right.
|
Sam:
[2:02:51]
| Because all of the other attempts had failed. So he knew he was going to fail too.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:55]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[2:02:55]
| And so, and the one place where he's had some success is the Florida case where he's got Judge Cannon.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:06]
| Well, that's because we've got judge judge, you know, uh, you know, she just Trump bootlickers.
|
Sam:
[2:03:13]
| He motioned there like here and we'll, we'll get to the new thing about him blabbing about submarines in a second, but he, he has said that he, his lawyers have not yet been able to look at all the classified documents, because the prosecution hasn't moved fast enough to set up an appropriate location in Florida for him to do so.
Now, what's in dispute here is apparently the feds have said there.
I think the number is like six.
There are six documents that they say are so sensitive.
That there is no facility in the entire state of Florida that is good enough for them to show him the documents there and they want him to come to DC to view the documents if he needs to view those documents.
And basically his team is being like, no, not has to be in Florida.
We can't come to DC, you know, and so you got to set something up.
And so they, they petitioned to the judge that said, because this hasn't been set up up yet, they want some additional delay in the deadlines for them submitting a whole bunch of stuff related to their motions, related to this stuff, and blah, blah, blah.
And she basically said, sure, you can have your delay.
And the trial date has still not moved. It's still in May or something.
But she's allowing lots of time for this. And so far, this time around, if you remember.
Early phases of this, she made some decisions about the special master and all this bullshit before this even hit the indictment, when it was still in the investigation phase, that she got slapped down by the appeals court really hard because there was absolutely no legal basis for what she was doing.
Since then, she has yet to do anything that's anywhere near that blatant, but she seems to be completely willing to let things take a long time.
Like there was one ruling that everybody expected to be completely like routine standard, the kind of thing that every courtroom takes in, takes care of in a few days or a week or two maximum, that she took almost two months to do.
For a routine thing that in the end, she came out with the routine thing.
It wasn't even anything special.
And when there have been requests for these kinds of delays, she's given them.
So we've got that so far. So and I've seen a bunch of people sort of respond to this with, well, the chances of this trial actually getting off in May are slipping really, really hard.
This one, this, this potentially is the easiest slam dunk case, given the evidence of all of these.
But it's also the one that is most likely to slip past the election next year.
You know, just because you've got a judge that seems to have no problem letting it take a while as compared to the DC case where the judge seems to be like, no, no, no, we're moving fast. Oh, OK.
Well, um, I, I know we we want to wrap up and we're over time.
The one thing I want to say is the other thing that came out first by ABC and then confirmed by the New York Times as a report of Donald Trump.
Talking to this Australian billionaire who apparently has a business, cardboard related business of some sort, I guess he makes this cardboard, he like makes cardboard boxes or something. He's a billionaire in the cardboard box industry.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:07]
| Man, I, you know, I, yeah, I mean, people make money in a lot of weird ways.
|
Sam:
[2:07:11]
| Yes. Somebody has to make the damn boxes.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:14]
| I know. I don't look, I met this guy, big, you know, worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. made bread.
|
Sam:
[2:07:20]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:21]
| Somebody's got to make the bread.
|
Sam:
[2:07:22]
| Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, uh, but Donald Trump apparently decided to just randomly talk to him about the specific nuclear capabilities of our submarine fleet, uh, specifically in terms of how many missiles they carry and how close they can get to other enemy submarines without being detected.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:43]
| Oh, shit.
|
Sam:
[2:07:44]
| Yes. And so he was just blabbing to this guy, like at the patio at Mar-a-Lago with other people around.
|
Ivan:
[2:07:54]
| Oh, my God.
|
Sam:
[2:07:55]
| And this guy, apparently the special counsel has questioned this guy and has talked to him.
And they have so far confirmed at least 45 other people that the Australian billionaire went and talked to about this stuff after he talked to Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:12]
| Oh, get out of here!
|
Sam:
[2:08:14]
| Yes, so the billionaire, I forget his name, but he talked to a bunch of his co-workers, he talked to a bunch of people in the Australian government, he talked to former Australian Prime Ministers, he just went around like basically after Donald Trump told him this stuff, he was like, hey, guess what Donald Trump told me?
To like everybody he could get on the phone.
Um, and the, the thing is like, first of all, of course, this isn't surprising given everything we know about how Donald Trump has taken classified material seriously, you know, which he hasn't at all, you know, I mean, last week we got the news that he was using classified documents and writing to do lists on the back of them and handing them out to his staff.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:05]
| Well that's what I normally do here. I mean, that's that's that stack of papers back there. That's my confident. You know, that's the top secret stuff, I guess.
I mean, that's I mean, is that what they're for? It's a to do list. Yes. Yes. So yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:09:20]
| So but anyway, this is this is like the most blatant thing.
This is even like we knew months ago about this whole thing where he was, you know, waving around the Iranian war plans to to various people.
And now we've got this, him talking about nuclear submarine secrets to some random Australian businessman, just apparently just because he wanted to show off, you know, like, and, and this is the kind of stuff that we've talked before about that, that stupid.
Guy who was sharing the secrets with his gaming buddies.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:00]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:10:01]
| That that guy is sitting in jail right now.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:04]
| And this asshole should pay toe.
|
Sam:
[2:10:07]
| They found that guy in a week, and he was in jail the next freaking day, and he did less than this.
They keep talking about these two systems of justice, one for everybody else and one for Donald Trump.
Damn right, he's getting so much special treatment.
Any other person who did even a fraction of this would be in jail, would be rotting in jail waiting for all these trials. He would not be.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:40]
| He would not be free.
|
Sam:
[2:10:41]
| No, he would not be free at all. And you know, I've heard people like people are talking like, well, why aren't they charging him with this?
Like you know, this this stuff related to this may come in as evidence in in the Florida trial.
They charging him specifically with distributing this information?
Like all of the charges we have are him having the information when he's not supposed to. But what about distributing it?
And the answers I've heard people say are one, especially in this case where it was verbal, If there's no recording, just proving it is a lot harder, but also an important part of that is.
To prove that case, you'd also have to prove that Trump wasn't just bullshitting and just talking numbers out of his ass and that he was actually telling the truth.
But in order to prove that he was telling the truth, you have to like provide the classified information and you may not want to. You may not, you may want to keep that secret and not bring it up in court.
And so they're going after him for all this other stuff.
Uh, but this may be something where they're just like, you can't bring this one to trial, but it's leaked out that this has happened. And it's just like, unbelievable. The, the, yeah, unbelievable.
I mean, at this point, there's nothing that would be unbelievable, but it would be stuff that before the Donald Trump presidency, the notion of a president of the United States or ex president of the United States is doing kind of this kind of stuff.
Like if you even brought it up, you'd be like, that's too wild.
Even for like a, you know, crazy spy novel or whatever, you know? So anyway, there you go.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:31]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:12:32]
| And with that, we're done. So. You know, the deal go to curmudgeon-corner.com.
You can find all the ways to contact us, email, Facebook, mastodon, all that.
You can find our archives and listen to all of our old shows you can, uh, and by the way, the reason I had the, the, the, the date of the whole thing with the, um, thing, the thing, the, the, the super cut of swearing, the reason that was in my mind was that this week there was an article about Apple watches where they're they're no longer giving any sort of repair or support for the gold Apple watches.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:19]
| That's correct.
|
Sam:
[2:13:21]
| And that was one of the topics that Yvonne was swearing about on this particular thing. So I looked up the episode.
|
Ivan:
[2:13:27]
| Because it was ridiculous. I mean, the whole day of the, I, I, I'm pretty sure that I was railing about the fact that, you know, I'm sure some people buy it, but unfortunately a fucking gold watch that has a digital thing, it's going to become obsolete.
They're never going to fix them. And then what are you going to do?
You got to have the stupid gold watch doesn't fucking work.
|
Sam:
[2:13:45]
| Exactly. Anyway, so you know what happened?
|
Ivan:
[2:13:50]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:13:51]
| You can find our archives, including transcripts for the most recent ones.
And of course, you can go to our Patreon where you can give us money.
If you win the Powerball and you are a listener of the show, we expect our cut.
I'm just saying, you know, we are an important part of your life, obviously. So...
Go to our Patreon. Um, and, uh, at various levels, we will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug, all that kind of fun stuff at $2 a month or more.
Or if you just ask nicely, we will invite you to our commerciants corner slack where Yvonne and I, and a variety of our listeners are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, all of that kind of thing, aside from the Apple watch one, Yvonne.
Uh, is there another one that you would like to highlight of something that was mentioned on the commercials for slack that we have not meant she's in the men.
|
Ivan:
[2:14:43]
| She's in the what's what men she's and oh, men, she's mentions a high school teacher put on leave after school officials discover only fans pay only fans page, a high school English teacher.
Only fans page was exposed this week, which prompted school officials to place the woman on leave.
|
Sam:
[2:15:02]
| She was exposed, you say?
|
Ivan:
[2:15:03]
| Yes, indeed. She has seemingly accepted that she will never teach again.
From what I can tell, she resigned.
But, but my question was.
How did they discover the only fence?
|
Sam:
[2:15:19]
| Someone was looking, someone was looking.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:22]
| I, I, I think it's ridiculous.
It really pisses me off, you know, with the shit wages that they pay at schools. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:15:32]
| She was, she was making more from the only fans than she was at school.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:35]
| Well, not, not at first. From what I learned now is that definitely her income has surged.
|
Sam:
[2:15:41]
| Well, since the article, this is basically public.
|
Ivan:
[2:15:44]
| Yes. And so, um, so, um, yeah, but, but, you know, you don't make that much money trying to make ends meet and they're, they're giving a shit for this.
|
Sam:
[2:15:53]
| I mean, and look, a lot of schools have these morality clauses in the contracts that, you know, you have to be an upstanding citizen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, there there's, there are various levels of how well they can be enforced.
|
Ivan:
[2:16:10]
| Morality. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:16:11]
| You know, it's like, I mean, yeah, I mean, there are a lot of jobs that have those in there and then, you know, sometimes they can be legally disputed, but often like the people, they don't have the resources to dispute them.
And so that doesn't happen. I mean, some of them are enforceable.
Some of them aren't, it depends on the specifics and, but you know, a lot of these, the, the, they rely on the fact that like, if they fire you for this, most people don't have the resources to fight back and, and yeah, there you go.
And so, but I, I, I, I have, I think morality clauses are problematic in general, like sure, a company should be able to tell you to some degree what you do on company time, but when you're not on the clock, it's none of their fucking business. I'm sorry.
And with this kind of thing, specifically, I mean...
People just have to get over themselves. I mean, sex is a thing, you know, and, and this is a way that people make money and people choose to do it.
People choose to partake in it and not a small number of people.
No, this is not like some fringe group. This is mainstream. Okay.
And so the people who have issues with it, you really need to just step back and get the fuck over it. Stop being Puritans.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:47]
| By the way, I'm trying, I'm trying to find a, a used gold edition to watch for sale. I cannot find one online.
|
Sam:
[2:17:54]
| Interesting.
|
Ivan:
[2:17:56]
| Very heavy. So I cannot find a single one for sale. I find a whole bunch of knockoffs where people gold plated.
|
Sam:
[2:18:04]
| Yeah, no, I suspect these still will become collectibles. I mean, like in box, original iPhones are selling for insane amounts of money and they're useless.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:13]
| Yeah, no, no, no, yeah, I know, I know, so.
|
Sam:
[2:18:15]
| So, anyway, I think we're done, Ivan.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:21]
| All right, we're out of here.
|
Sam:
[2:18:24]
| Yep, thanks everybody.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:25]
| Sayonara.
|
Sam:
[2:18:29]
| Yeah, we'll do the talking to you next week thing and...
|
Ivan:
[2:18:32]
| Adios. Até logo.
|
Sam:
[2:18:35]
| We'll do that and yeah.
|
Ivan:
[2:18:38]
| Bon voyage.
|
Sam:
[2:18:40]
| Yeah, any any more languages you want to hit real quick?
|
Ivan:
[2:18:42]
| Oh fuck. a boat, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
|
Supercut:
[2:19:36]
| Okay, and if you guys followed instructions and are still listening Here comes that supercut enjoy Shortly after we released the March 12 2015 episode of the curmudgeon's corner podcast we got feedback that said Sam and Yvonne you swear too much on your show We listened to the show We counted it turns out we swear about every forty six and a half seconds And we agree that's way too much But in the meantime, it's kind of funny.
So here's a supercut of just the swearing from that show Sun doesn't actually give a shit.
Well crap random crap, right? Not all of its crap Well, I was fucking pissed off about it that too or they send a fucking communication to another government It's fucking idiotic.
Give me a fucking break. That would have been a fucking nuclear bomb.
And any other way, it's just a fucking moron.
I think that's bullshit. No. First of all. Oh my God, Jesus Christ.
Can we fucking like, what? Do we have enough time? The United States is well known for not actually giving a shit about international law.
The Montreal Aviation Protocols, I have no idea what the fuck that treaty is about.
So, ah, fuck. I mean, damn. That's uh, um.
Well that's exciting. Fuck. Oh wait, I finally found the fucking page with the approved treaties.
Oh Jesus, come on ya motherfucking Unis- United States Treaties Proclamation during the curr- Well.
It's funny. You guys have no idea what the fuck a gold watch is priced for.
Ever we're going to sell it, maybe you'll get 15 grand. What the fuck are you going to get for a fucking digital watch? But Jesus Christ, I'm not fucking paying that kind of money for that high end one. You're going after the people who just have so much money, they don't give a shit.
I have it on all the time. If I got to be fucking taken off my watch, there was a whole if it's like, fuck you. I'm like, geez, I'm right about how the watch is a piece of shit because it doesn't make it through the day.
Tech geeks who are buying these as devices as opposed to jewelry are going to use the hell out of them and are going to kill the battery, especially, by the way, in the first week they have the damn things because they're going to fucking like annihilate them.
Look, it's not the fucking chips inside that are worth the money.
It's a fucking gold case. Fine. Give me a fucking way to fucking like replace.
Listen, Rolex has replaced all the parts of this fucking watch.
Anyway, the title of the article was the gold Apple watch is perfect for douchebags to make up for the battery being crap I put it in an external battery case the massive idiocy of fucking Hillary Clinton The server wasn't breached.
How the fuck do you know? So how could she say that with any fucking certainty and I saw this and I'm like you fucking kidding me How the fuck could she say that with any certainty those fucking people are idiots?
Yeah, I know. And we're not those people. I know. Fuck. You and me are looking.
Then you're all about, what the hell is she hiding?
She's an idiot. I was pretty close to that, because honestly, like right now, I mean, I was like.
And meanwhile, on the other side, you've got all the Clinton supporters going, oh, this is bullshit. This is all trumped up. What the hell do they care about email for no fucking reason?
The only fucking secretary of state. Who the fuck was it after Colin fucking used the. Well, I don't remember the email address either.
Oh, well, I'll turn over what I think is relevant. Well, on the one hand, and no one knows what we've done, it means that any third party Auditor that you give the server to now can't tell you shit.
You can recover deleted shit You can but like I mean hell it's probably not even the same physical server You know they probably upgraded the damn thing several times.
That's how it was it was legal. Go fuck yourself I had some people like give me shit about it. You know why the fuck are you bothering me about this go away?
Basically it's on the BBC. Are you fucking kidding me?
You know for God's sake if you found if you came to an island with living dinosaurs right now You do not fucking shoot the dinosaurs.
I think the people jump to racial conclusions over shit that happens when it's not racial I think that we've made it to a point where people Fucking getting racial when it shouldn't be all that's not I hated frats all the time any Fuckin fire them all.
Yeah, actually got recruited by their fraternity and I fucking shot him down the token Puerto Rican No, that's not what the fucking thing is, you idiot.
They had some kind of like a drinking thing or whatever at the fucking school.
They were all like fucking recruiting me and I was like, I just thought they were a bunch of losers.
I think that they should be taken out and fucking gotten. Listen, if I had one in front of me, I'd beat the shit out of the motherfucker that started yelling it. I don't think it was enough.
I would like to fucking like take him out and beat the shit out of them.
I'm against saving time. No, fuck, Jesus Christ.
We're still fucking like having to fucking like dealing with the fucking like aftermath of that.
But at the very least, get rid of this damn time change twice a year.
Obviously, my son can't tell the fucking difference. Well, shit, I'm sorry. My son does not recognizing fucking the time change.
It's 12 fucking 30, Jesus, really? 12 28?
Wait, wait. No. I mean... Fuck.
Did I have such wrong- It's stupid, it's idiotic, um... Ah, fucking fuck.
It disrupts everything, and there's- I don't care, I'll stay down!
But yeah, look, I mean, here's the thing. You don't have to change everybody's fucking clocks if you really want to change that. Change what time you do things.
Let's stick with standard time. Fuck savings, fuck this shit.
If you're a government official, I don't give a shit.
Everything. Oh, no, I don't want to watch it.
Every moment. No! Not every fucking minute, no!
Yes. You want to record every fucking like burp? No. Yes. I'm sorry.
Yes. Absolutely. No. Dammit. Facebook Messenger thing really sucks.
I'm still not quite there. Dammit. You know, there were a lot of people listening to this thing and paying attention.
S-E-I. What the fuck? What the fuck? Mainly because the damn thing kept crashing, but the damn things just didn't work reliably.
Like I would have exactly what I wanted, and then it would suddenly autocorrect to something else. And I'm like, what the hell? I keep getting irritated with a fucking keyboard.
Every time I try to keep typing to somebody fucking, it keeps changing it into ducking.
I don't type ducking. I type fucking.
There you go. What the hell have I done to anybody that I'm ducking?
You don't you don't tell people like a text message that not usually, not usually. But what really pisses me off and you're fucking ducking example is just one example of this.
And I find it in the damn message after I've sent it.
I look like a complete fucking illiterate moron. Even if they were involved, you can be damn sure they weren't the ones who planned it out.
What are a whole bunch of fucking racist bigots? Are there ways you can address the problem that don't do that? I get fucking called a fucking racist and I'm like fucking like for some people about it is a Latino or somebody whatever I'm like, I gotta turn around listen you motherfucker. I'm a Puerto Rican you sack of shit.
Shut the fuck up Okay, really that really pisses me off can I be honest they think I'm Jewish or like great I'm like what the fuck you asshole Okay, and Shit, I mean increase in the dollar is fucking killing them.
Okay. So that's the problem, but we import so much shit.
And that's it. Please listen to curmudgeon's corner. We promise we're trying to do better. We won't swear quite as much. Maybe.
| |
|
